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Interviews: Ask Brianna Wu a Question
Brianna Wu is the head of development at Giant Spacekat, a company specializing in cinematic experiences using the Unreal engine. She’s also a frequent speaker on women-in-tech issues and was one of several women subjected to a campaign of attacks in Gamergate. Wu has worked as a journalist and politico. She currently has a patreon campaign which helps to offset the costs of doing speaking engagements and work to further the goals of feminism and women in tech. Brianna has agreed to give us some of her time and answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
You recently tweeted that no one who isn't transgender should voice opinions on transgender issues yet you regularly voice your own opinion on these issues. Is this a tacit "coming out" of your own transgender past, and if so, what does it mean for your own position as a representative and "megaphone" for women's issues and how you speak to the personal history of growing up as a woman?
Hi Brianna. Gamergate kicked a major wasp nest of assholes but it also brought the issue of women in tech into focus for a lot of people that didn't understand the depth of the problem. Have you noticed any improvements for women in the industry since GG?
Are you ever going to stop criticizing other developers for having character design that is in fact less "hypersexualized" and "misogynistic" than yours is?
I'm interested in what development languages you excel in and how you mastered them - as head of development for a gaming company, I think that's my first question. Follow-up side-points would be when you transitioned from journalist to game developer, and why game development? Was it related to some of the 'sparks' and 'movements' by some other females 'in the gaming community' - and seen as an easy way to jump on a bandwagon that was clearly going to make waves? Journalist to developer just seems like a very strange transition to me, so I'm curious about the particulars.
Do you have a github account where you publish some of your code?
I have no problem with asking a women in tech (even one that experienced an abnormal amount of ill will or perhaps even overt sexism) about their experiences and how being a woman has affected their career and how they look at the world of tech. Having a less masculine perspective is fine, I want women to feel welcome and their ideas represented... But my number one question in this case would have to be why THIS person?
Did Wu contact Slashdot first for some reason? If so, why? Was this meant to go well or did Wu intend on this going badly?
In the case that Slashdot contacted her, the same questions apply.
Of ALL the women, they chose one of the very few that would get the most adverse reaction possible at this time. If that isn't fishy, I don't know what would be.
Also, not posting as AC because I legitimately feel like these are important questions to ask. I don't know if this is malicious, or simply not thought through well.
Ms Wu, you've been accused of exaggerating the scale of the harassment against you. For example, you've stated that you were so scared that you moved out of your home, but a number of people were able to reconstruct the location of your various online broadcasts and establish rather conclusively that they were all made from your home.
How do you respond to this? Were you actually scared out of your home or not? When?
I am a 30 year old white male teaching CS in a public US university. Is there anything you think I can do to help the issues related to "women in tech" in the broad sense?
How did you secure the capital to start Giant Spacekat? How did you do it in 3 months, and what obstacles did you face?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Serious question: How do women and minorities get selectively harassed online when it is usually impossible to know their gender or race?
Blind auditions for orchestra positions are now standard. Can we not have the same for gaming and technology?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Regardless of what you believe Ms. Wu experienced, do you truly not know any women in software or gaming who've experienced the kind of awful "boy's only club" attitudes and sometimes downright literal sexual harassment?
regardless of which, supporting a scam artist is not helping your cause and will only serve to de-legitimize it.
Or mabey the body size shaming, ableism about mental health, and even classist attacks on the typical software engineer through the "neckbeard" stereotype don't help much. 10-15 years ago, this would most likely include some underhanded homophobic attack(i.e. 'question' their sexuality), and 5 years ago, some form of genderphobia would also be present.
Brianna, you alleged that you are the the target of an online harassment campaign, and that law enforcement has done nothing about it, and yet it has come to light that you never contacted the police in the first place.
Would you explain why you made those allegations? Is there anything you wish to say in defense of your article?
I am a "neutral" in the Gamergate debacle, preferring to observe more than directly interact, but in one case I watched the somewhat-infamous interview between Wu and Reddit KotakuInAction mod TheHat2. In it, they discussed the points of her iOS game "Revolution 60" and game design in general. One of the questions asked there was why she decided to work with iOS first versus the popular PC platform Steam. I don't remember the exact answer, but I think it revolved around developing for a platform that more women were likely to use, being the mobile market, and maybe some development-specific answers.
My question is this: Given what you've learned about programming in iOS, would you have developed for a PC platform like Steam first and ported to mobile later? Given female trends towards mobile platforms like the Nintendo DS/3DS, would it make more sense for your studio to explore developing games there? Or was your goal all along to produce a more 3D-visual action title for mobile phones?
For context, my wife is not as big of a gamer as myself, but I find she enjoys playing a lot of mobile puzzle games. I think the mobile market has a lot of potential for bigger things, and I think having the input of the majority player base on that platform makes sense, but I often don't understand why, as a mobile developer, you would be overly concerned with "the core gamer" demographic in the console platform. It seems to me that they aren't likely to crossover into the mobile market often, so there is little reason to "attack" that demographic as we've seen a few people, including Brianna, do through the last year.
Why are you a feminist instead of a egalitarian?
Hi Brianna,
No idea if this will bubble near enough to the surface for you to see it, but I'm curious how much, if any, work you and your team had to do in the "guts" of the Unreal Engine to get your game out the door, or if all of your work was done at the Unreal Script / editor level.
Great point. Let's look at actions.
In 2010, a number of fellow UMiss alums recalled their impression of the person now calling themselves Brianna Wu. This is over 4 years before Brianna Wu was publicized in public media. They didn't even know about the existence of a person named "Brianna Wu".
In it, several recount the actions of John Flynt (who now goes by Brianna Wu). John Flynt at one point came into the student paper office, and when his comic strip was rejected, blew his lid. He called one woman a "fat dyke" and screamed the epithets "raghead" and "sand n****r" at a journalism professor. The student paper took legal action against Mr. Flynt with a restraining order.
For someone who tweets 24/7 about harassment, bullying, hate, prejudice, etc, and profits handsomely from it, these actions are highly germane. Ms. Wu née Mr. Flynt has yet to apologize, explain, or atone for these actions, and it's pretty certain that if the supporters knew about these actions, people would have a significantly different impression about Ms. Wu née Mr. Flynt.
Wu, how do you justify your claim of being a feminist when your game has females depicted as an adolescent boy might draw them, play the victim card all the time, have been caught exaggerating and outright lying so often and then hiding behind claims of sexism, etc.
Follow-up question: your male past is easily found by anyone doing a cursory search. Do you refuse to talk about it because you are afraid that others won't see you as a "real woman?" Wouldn't a real feminist embrace their trans experience to provide a more inclusive view of, and insight into, the female experience from the viewpoint of a transsexual?
note ... I was outed on Slashdot a decade ago, and overall the experience was very positive. Being open about it has presented opportunities to help others reach a better understanding of who we are.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Was it tough going from being a journalist and politico to becoming a hard-working developer at a legendary game and media studio like Giant Spacekat?
What engine do you develop on? DO you have an on-site rendering farm that you work directly with, or do you outsource it?
How do you find the time for public speaking with all the 60+ hour weeks that you must put into developing Giant Spacekat's massive games and interactive media library?
Are you tired of ignorant people saying your "developer" title is just a joke and that your game company is just a sad front for your real job of gender hustling?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
https://encyclopediadramatica....
Yes, it's a bit slanted, but that's the tone of Encyclopedia Dramatica posts. But it's about far slanted the otherway as Brianna's story is slanted towards her.
She's a self proclaimed victim http://selfproclaimedvictim.bl...
Just as an aside everyone, either this article got brigaded by Ghazi or some other SJW hugbox, or some specific user with 6+ accounts is running through hitting things repeatedly with -1 Flamebaits. Two of my questions that were critical of Wu that were +5 are suddenly -1 Flamebait.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
As you can see, it's very obviously someone abusing multiple accounts, as both comments were -1ed into oblivion before moving on to the next one:
http://i.imgur.com/jK54m0Z.png
In addition every other question that was critical of Wu has been docked down to -1 or 0 Flamebait as well:
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
Granted, this doesn't surprise me as having happened, as sockpuppet abuse is a very common tactic of these Social Justice Warrior Trolls, but it's still amusing to see in action.