This is really just an extension of this post: http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/abusing-you-was-by-the-book-documenting-two-years-of-abuse-from-game-journalism-after-sharing-my-metoo-the-whole-painful-story-all-in-one-place
If you are not aware of the situation, read that instead. I’m posting this because I need to scream. It’s better than silence.
Today I had another grieving outburst about game journalist and the game crit space.
It’s been years of dealing with the fallout that they had on my life. The way your perception changes when you keep getting dogpiled on by people using progressive terminology to justify what they did to you…
It’s hard to move on and not see it everywhere. How can you trust the space you are in when it so readily lets this happen to people?
I can’t understand how people don’t seem to care that this was about a sexual assault. Even typing this I can hear the patented sarcasm about it normalized by their social media hot takes.
Today I noticed another influx of blocks. When I looked into them they point to the usual sphere of people… People that follow the former kotaku-waypoint-now-aftermath crowd. The group that came down hardest on ridiculing me, or discouraging any help from happening.
It’s hard to see them when all you remember is heartless vague posts about your mental health or how you are a threat to survivors everywhere.
I asked if I got put on a block list again somewhere, wrote a long vent, and then left because I spiral and want to die.
I asked because there was a point, when all this was still ongoing, where they were just blocking ANYONE that ever said anything supportive of me. It was awful to see.
I’m tired of the excuses. I’m tired of how normal hearing excuses has become that I can hear them as I type this.
Nobody got held accountable. Nobody even got a shred of inconvenience for what they did. Not even an apology happened.
I keep remembering all their jokes about my mental health, suicidal ideation (wow it feels good to say that here without worrying if their following will report my account, like what happened often when I talked about it on Twitter when this was still ongoing)…
All because I wanted an article removed that was putting me in danger. An article that exploited my sexual assault. It protected him. I will never get back the chance at justice that it took from me.
Do people forget that this was about a rape? …or they just don’t care because their favorite online progressive personality had something to do with abusing this, and people built their own sense of identity around following these people? …Because of all that it’s ok to occasionally dunk on me?
I’m venting with bad grammar. I don’t care about proof reading this more than it needs to be. I have nothing left to lose so I feel like I can do that here.
It’s my blog. My one safe space where nobody can report me for talking about wanting to die sometimes because of that crowd of journalists.
Yeah… “My desire to heal does not entitle me to, blah blah blah” remember sharing that far and wide? How smart and snarky it is to make fun of that. You must be proud of yourselves. You’re so important!
Game journalism and game crit is notorious for not being able to take criticism. Everything gets lumped together with gamergate. I can see why, but at the same time that very inclination gets leveraged against their victims too.
When I made daily please asking Kotaku to remove the article I was met with sarcasm, defensiveness, and regular vague posts about how useless that is. Yes, I understood fully that the person running their social media can’t do anything. No, I don’t care if it was ineffective. That Twitter account got worst abuse than my “Please give me accountability” ever did, so you can stop acting like victims of my dangerous daily cries for help.
It was better than doing nothing. Contacting anyone there wasn’t doing anything. Then again, I also got dunked on for reaching out to the wrong people so… Hey, I guess I should have just rolled over and gracefully died.
All the above amounted at one point to one of them writing a long thread equating me to the “I invented email” guy and saying how articles just don’t get removed. They can’t. What I’m asking for is impossible, so I should stop.
It wasn’t the first time that same person subtweeted about me, but it was the first time I directly responded because it was sending more harassment than usual my way.
I called it heartless. That’s it. I deeply regret ever being put on this person’s radar. I spent so much time wondering whatever I did to them to deserve being attacked by them this way… But yes, I also hear the excuses.
After that, I spent months being dunked on by their following for being a white woman crying white woman tears. It’s the pattern here. You need to make sure the people you hurt are buried. The strongly paraphrased follow up is “I’m a survivor too, and this person is bad for us.”
It is the most alienating thing. I spent all day today fantasizing about how I want to die. On a brighter note, how long these ideation periods last is getting shorter. There are points where I actually see the appeal in living… then I get reminded of all this. Rinse and repeat.
My mom had to sleep in my room after that person targeted me because I wanted to die so bad. I know. I’m being “manipulative” by saying that. Either way, it just never stopped after that.
It’s just never wrong enough.
I’m at a loss of what to do. Nothing I put out there changed my situation or gave me credibility. No amount of proof was enough. All I can do is vent. This blog post will get ignored, like any of my pleas for accountability.
“What is accountability even” the most pronounced harasser in that group of journalists posted at one time. The cruelty of these people is unparalleled. Only my rapist was this horrible.
Whenever I am confronted by the fallout of this, I wonder how much more proof should I have shared about the danger it put me in. It’s a crowd of people that seem allergic to the mere concept of accountability, let alone apologizing.
The fact that I get reminded of how they lied to me to publish the details of my sexual assault, and that I had to fight so hard for a very shred of mercy, just isn’t enough for any of this to be wrong.
The journalists responsible all moved on to bigger things. They were rewarded for this type of journalism.
Aftermath site is a new place now where the same people that dunked on me, drug me through the mud, and readily ridiculed me, are acting like they are the new righteous thing. Exciting alternatives run by the same mess.
The show goes on. I’m left in their aftermath.
The name is ironic.
I lost everything because of the narrative they enforced. I can’t count the number of threads talking about how I’m unhinged. Anonymous accounts from people in that group joking about how I should be committed to an asylum. If this happened in any other context, or was done TO any of them, they’d have all the progressivist arguments about how this should not be done to someone… But because this abuse is happening because of them, it’s OK or was even necessary.
They convinced people that I’m like gamer gate, and any support for me was a threat.
There were too many threads from them saying that the article is never coming down, should not come down, or that it’s a threat to them that I even ask… that their following started to make anonymous accounts discouraging anyone from posting support.
I have so many screenshots of people saying they support me, the few that actually helped, and then some anonymous account responding to that support by saying that the article isn’t coming down and that I’m responsible for “epic organized harassment”.
If my “harassment” was so epic and organized, then why did I get so little support? You can’t say in one breath that I’m a huge danger, while similarly ridiculing because nobody cared.
I can’t understand how any group of people can be so absolutely cruel. Anyone that worked for Kotaku, Waypoint, and especially Aftermath are people that I hold responsible for this bullying. It’s their peers. Too many of them joined in with hot takes. How do you think it feels to get raped, live with it for so long, and then get treated like this by the progressive voices that created a platform supposedly caring?
It’s all a joke. If they actually read this (they would never see this), it would be a joke to them again. When I wanted to die, they retweeted posts making fun of that.
What really burns is that some of them also claim to be survivors WHILE having done this.
I wonder often if I should have posted the fan art of my sexual assault that that article made possible? Should I have shared more harassment screenshots? Would the death threats have helped? If I just posted enough would that have made the difference?
When would it have been convincing enough for any of them to understand that it was wrong to treat me like this?
What should I have said when Gita Jackson posted that thread dunking on the situation? Was me saying it is “heartless” such a racist sin? What should I have said? What would have been the appropriate response? Disappearing?
Their following still dunks on me for that.
Everyday I hope and pray that something will happen to get it all to stop. To just undo all the harm that crowd of game journalists collectively did. Everyday I’m reminded that I’m either not human enough for any of this to be wrong, or that this is just going to be the forever reality now. Either of those things is really hard to reconcile with.
I’m often told that nobody will write about my work anymore because I’m blacklisted. I heard that so often from games media people…
Fine. I came to grips with that.
For the last game I released, an article about it went up, but was quickly deleted. Ok. I have to accept that I’m banned by the people that think it’s ok to do this to a survivor.
I had to move to another country because of all this. I lived in constant fear of being swatted. I lost everything.
In that post that I keep sharing, where I documented (just a fraction of) their abusive ridiculing behavior toward me, I only published a small amount of their horrible treatment. It’s not even everything. I keep thinking maybe I should put out another post where I show more, but somehow it’s never enough.
The only thing I can do is to end myself, but I know that’s also been a joke among them. I’ve read posts from that crowd about that too.
They destroyed everything I worked so hard to build. It was funny to them that it hurt me.
The last post I put up on BlueSky broke me today…
hey sincere question why do i have an influx of them blocking me again? did i get put in a list somewhere again?torturing the survivor you all exploited, posted memes about my mental health, ridiculed my ideation… because i wanted an article that was putting me in danger removed isn’t enough? 1/-
— Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon.bsky.social) Sep 6, 2024 at 8:03 AM
It will never end. It’s always going to be justifiable to them. I will always live under the shadow of what they did. The jokes. The indifference. The punchy sarcastic posts ridiculing this. The way it seemed so righteously funny to them… That tangible superiority complex when they did take the time to almost address this…
Even this post will never “do numbers” the way their bullying did. All I can do is hit publish, screaming into the void again, and move on again. Until this happens next time and I have to suck it up. Fantasize about dying, but not…
If you want to help, please read this
and just please, don’t believe what they normalized about all this.
