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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.
Are y'all doing anything aimed at dome projectors for a planetarium?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I never heard much about game developers, but it seems like GamerGate has put many of them in the spotlight, specially women.
Has the Gamergate movement somehow boosted your popularity and of other game developers and benefited you in any way? Do you regret that a big part your popularity didn't stem from the work you've made all these years in your professional life and rather from a political counter-movement?
Sorry for my lousy english.
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?
Are you ever going to stop criticizing other developers for having character design that is in fact less "hypersexualized" and "misogynistic" than yours is?
Not directly no. I don't and I haven't. My direct experience has been just the opposite with folks bending over backwards to give them a shot. If you are female and have even a basic aptitude you can write your own ticket at most places I've worked. I'm not saying women don't suffer negative experiences but disproportionately? I don't think so.
On your Patreon, it says you're the Godzilla of Feminists. Do you have any concept/fan art of this? Because that would be incredibly awesome.
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?
You misunderstand, Im sure Wu has had plenty of horrific experiences, I just think most of them have been brought upon herself for the purpose of garnering attention, sympathy and money. I know plenty of women in male dominated industries, specifically 3D illustration and programming (>80% male in my experience), none of them have experienced anything even remotely akin to a 'boys club'. Yes it's a sausage-fest, but they're generally perfectly accepting of any women that they get to work with. My main objection is that somebody with a reputation of milking every penny of sympathy they possibly can from those gullible enough to believe everything she says, has somehow obtained a Slashdot frontpage entry *with a link to her donation page*. Regardless of what you or I think of her, it beggars belief that even for a Q&A promotion the "Im a victim, give me money" link still gets through.
she was caught faking her own harassment.
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.
And I'll bet real hard cash that she ignores every single question of any merit. Wu has been asked many many many questions over the months, she has pretty much refused to answer a single one, instead resorting to calling people sealions for having the audacity to question her official line. All we will see here is a puff piece, the answered questions will all be about how she's a victim, how people should send her money and how she's completely innocent of any wrong doing. Can't wait to see the hug box in action.
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?
How did you secure the capital to start Giant Spacekat? How did you do it in 3 months, and what obstacles did you face?
What you originally said and what you said in this post are two different things. Once you figure that out you'll understand the downmod.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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
Well at least the mods will have an easy time filtering out the questions as the usual drivel is, unsurprisingly, posted by anon cowards.
I don't have a question, but jesus christ people grow the fuck up.
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.
Its "offtopic". thats why. How she was born has nothing to do with unethical activity. Its a personal attack on a very hotbutton topic which will do nothing but legitimize her.
GG has not been around since the 90s...it refers to a specific event. While it's true that gamers have gotten a lot of flack, myself being a gamer since the 80s I've got to say the amount of hate shot at women by the GG community is unacceptable. Just look at the posts here. Half are misogynist and hateful trolling, a good portion attack Brianna being transgendered, another portion accuse her of lying...if you can't see how poisoned a fruit GG is you're willfully turning a blind eye to abuse and it makes you as complicit as those people who demonized gamers when we were growing up. Female programmers did not demonize you growing up, gaming industry insiders did not demonize you. People outside of all those who you claim demonized you are the target of these attacks by GG. It's wrong.
Yea, they're called Goons. They really want you to think that certain people are a hate movement.
She's been caught several times posting harassment to herself. For example, on her steam greenlight page she forgot to log out of her developer account and posted a message attacking herself.
She's probably here, seeding this right now.
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?
Dear Samzenpus, how to you justify click-bait crap like this when you have the discovery of new sub-atomic articles being announced? I know that this will probably get 500+ comments, but do you realize that you are driving away the really interesting people that will make slashdot sustainable in the long run?
Nobody who matters cares about Brianna Wu or GamerGate. I come here to read opinions of people who matter. Do you care about readers like me?
in light of your recent behavior on reddit that had you removed from a subreddit aligned with your own cause...
Have you ever been diagnosed with a personality disorder, and if so, which one?
Not that I really want to take the GG side, but how is it about misogyny (hatred of ALL women) when the accusations were leveled at exactly ONE woman?
And while there were other very, very specific women targeted by people using the hashtag (note here that I am being very careful here not to blame an entire group for the actions of a few), if there were more women, where are they? The media is in the tank for women and stories of harassment (rightly or wrongly - as we learned from the UVA case, and the case against Bill Cosby, but a woman with a true story to tell will no doubt be taken seriously regardless), so if the problem is so widespread and entrenched in the industry, how come there aren't more women coming forward to tell their stories? There must surely be women that are encouraged to come forward and tell their stories if things are just so terrible and need to be changed.
Why is it we hear about the same women, over and over again? Who's pushing that narrative?
Like I said, I really, really, really don't want to take the GG side (since I find that both sides are off their rockers), but I find the side that's against more deplorable for turning the word "misogyny" into something that means virtually nothing anymore.
Why is it a problem that whites enjoy privileges (read: don't face problems that people of color do)?
Why is it a problem that men enjoy privileges (read: don't face problems that women do)?
Why is it a problem that the rich enjoy privileges (read: don't face problems that the poor do)?
The answer is... nobody is claiming any of those things are a problem. It's not a problem that men don't face problems, it's not a problem that whites don't face problems, and it's not a problem that rich people (including children of rich parents like Brianna here) don't face problems.
It's only a problem that the opposite groups (women, minorities, the poor) do face problems.
And it's a problem when the people who don't face those same problems blow off the problems as being non-problems, just because to them, in their privileged positions, they aren't problems. It's not a problem that anyone is in a privileged position; it's a problem that other people aren't, and it's a problem for the people who are to blow off the problems of the people who aren't.
And to get back to GP's point: the problems that the non-rich face are probably more important and influential than the problems that the problems that non-men and non-whites face. I would much rather be a rich black woman and deal with the disadvantages of being black and a woman (that'd mostly amount to people saying and thinking things that would hurt me emotionally) than be a poor white man and deal with the disadvantages of being poor (that mostly amount to constant material threats to my continued health and safety).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Why are you a feminist instead of a egalitarian?
Just curious, Why did you Slander Brad Wardell? StarDock
And call for a Boycott of His efforts?
I suppose this is a troll because, the unstated purpose,, is to only ask questions that let Wu promote their agenda.
They might as well just give us the list of questions they have decided will be answered, instead of playing this game of guess the questions on the list.
one of the aspects of gamergate that really bothers me is the immediate dismissal of anyone that suggests corruption is a problem is just using it as a cover for misogyny. It has led to an attitude that corruption is only a problem among liberals. Do you think that corporate sponsored politicians undermining women's health is a bigger problem than depictions of women in art? And what would you propose could be done to disassociate arguments against corruption from gamergate?
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.
The problem with what you're saying is that it makes accusations tantamount to guilt. Someone says something bad about you, or worse still, starts some kind of smear campaign to get something bad about you widely believed? With your attitude the possible responses are (1) deny the accusation, thereby "proving" the accuser right, or (2) lie down and accept that the world now believes something bad about you and there's nothing you can possibly do about it because anything you try will only make you look more guilty.
The good news is, now you can say bad things about people who want to hurt or discredit and there's nothing they can do to defend themselves, either!
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
For the record, I had never heard the claim that Brianna Wu is a transwoman before today, and I have no idea if it's true or not. I have followed GamerGate only minimally and can't say I understand all the issues.
BUT, if it's true that Brianna is a transwoman, that is certainly not off-topic. It's the same as Rachel Dolezal claiming to be black, and to have suffered her whole life for being black, when she is white and grew up in a racially accepting family. If Dolezal wants to make herself look black and claim to be black, that's fine with me, but it stinks of hypocrisy for her to lie about her past, her experiences, and her identity while at the same time claiming to be a spokesperson for people with that identity!
Likewise, if Brianna Wu is a transwoman but also claims to speak towards a personal history of suffering gender prejudice and so forth, it doesn't exactly look kosher.
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.
Or because she was a hateful, sociopathic, gaslighting asshole before being a woman?
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
That's not why we change gender. Anyone seeking approval for a sex change on that basis would be denied. This is not to say that I approve of ms Wu's antics - to the contrary, she's been an attention whore and drama queen with dubious motives. Most of us are not like her.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I've been reading daily since 1997, but I can't condone pandering to a professional victims and hatemonger and giving out a patreon link to fund more of this crap
Reddit was destroyed by SJWs in a matter of weeks, if Slashdot wants to follow the same route and promote safespaces after almost 20 years of being a respected destination, fine.
Any good suggestions?
No kidding. When I read the summary of her wonderful achievements all I could think was DUH. Is this stuff that matters? Really Slashdot?
I am sure there are plenty of other women you could interview who actually did something that matters in the tech world.
No need, Ralph already explained it himself:
I surreptitiously took few pictures, and decided to tweet one of them out. Now, Iâ(TM)m not a stupid man when not blind drunk, so I knew there was a chance someone would see this on Twitter. But, I did that shit anyway. Why? Well, I knew that they would look terrible for kicking me out over taking a picture of a panel speaker at a public convention. How big of a fucking baby do you have to be to kick out an adversary?
(from his blog at http://theralphretort.com/full...)
Note that the organizers asked people not to take photos. It was clearly stated, and in the events leading up to this they tweeted the rules to him twice during their conversation. It appears that's where he got the idea from, in fact.
His goal was to get kicked out by breaking the rules. That's why he "surreptitiously" took the photos, because he knew that the organizers had asked him not to. His scheme, which some people apparently fell for, was to make out he was the victim when he in fact went out of his way to be booted out.
It's their convention, they make the rules, he knew them and broke them deliberately.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have a suggestion of a transsexual I would actually like reading an interview about in Slashdot. Sophie Wilson (ARM chip designer). I respect that work.
What I do not respect is reading about people who make their career around politically correct bullshit and produce nothing of value. This isn't news for nerds and it isn't stuff that matters.
Disagreeing with Ms. Wu is not harassment.
Asking Ms. Wu hard questions is not harassment.
Informing people about Ms. Wu's potentially criminal fraud in regards to her business, her online ventures, and her faked harassment, as well as her history of using racial and homophobic epithets before her latest persona as a Third Wave Faux Feminist, is not harassment.
Criticism of Ms. Wu is not harassment.
Debate with Ms. Wu's supporters is not harassment.
NONE of the discussion here has been harassment. This is a public forum and if bringing up Ms. Wu's name causes an outcry of disgust, that is the price of being a professional victim and a "polarizing" personality on social media.
Harassment is not a catch all word meaning "someone was mean on the Internet." It is not a shield against any debate, criticism, or disagreement. Don't play into the professional victims like Ms. Wu trying to use it as such.
No harm, no foul. It's only by (sometimes vigorous) debate that we can come to a better understanding on controversial topics.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Oh boy probably one of my favorite tweets and was quoted directly to her feed...by her. Funny how there was never any investigation about it right? Never mind they've been caught attempting to victimize themselves, or lie about pretty much anything. Not even hitting the tip of the iceberg here.
Om, nomnomnom...
What are your own thoughts about the sexist manner in which you were banned from /r/gamerghazi? Is the misogynistic toxicity of that community reflective of the anti-gamergate faction?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Have you ever produced anything of note, notability commensurate with your celebrity status? Have you ever demonstrated any technical ability?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Who's taking about harassment? I'm clearly talking exclusively about the wacky claim made by the AC inexplicably modded +5, which seems to only be supported by a few crazy fringe sites.
By analogy, the AC is claiming we faked the moon landings, and you're talking about monuments on Mars.
And I was pointing out that your being skeptical of her faking her harassment is doubtful due to the comments in here doesn't mesh, as I haven't seen any harassment going on. Perhaps I jumped the gun.
It might also to have a bit of background: Ms. Wu specializes in antagonizing people, especially over social media, and then crying harassment whenever anyone takes the bait. She has been doing this for as long as I've been aware of her.
Given that this is the internet and it's trivial to make a twitter account, this usually invariably results in Ms. Wu getting some troll upset with her who will attempt to hurt her feelings based on any number of perceived weaknesses - doing so is not sexism. Indeed it would be the very definition of sexism to put on kid gloves just because of Wu's gender.
Ms. Wu has also admitted to creating twitter accounts to troll herself with, and some of the screenshots she has taken of this harassment are suspect -- for example, taking a screenshot within seconds of a tweet being posted, which is unlikely unless you are aware the tweet is about to be posted.
She then complains about this harassment publicly, links to her patreon page, and goes back to antagonizing people online. Pity farming or professional victimhood in a nuthsell. Granted, Ms. Wu is hardly alone, several of these fake feminist trolls have infested the Third Wave Feminism movement as of late, and are pushing a narrative of women being poor widdle fragile things that must be coddled and protected at all times because they're just so fragile.
To be absolutely clear, the convention place is not a public place. It is a private establishment, hired out to the conference organizers. The organizers can set whatever rules they like within their private conference hall, unless those limits are discriminatory.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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...
How is the criminal investigation into harassment going?
Last I heard, that Mass. prosecutors office isn't too happy with Wu lying about filing court documents about the people harassing her. I always find it funny that people lie about things that are public records.
Do you find law enforcement generally believes you, or do they accept the other side's claims that you ran an elaborate false flag operation against yourself? What kind of evidence is most effective, most likely to be understood and accepted? Can you recommend the best way to report criminal harassment?
Oh, this stuff. The best way to report harassment? Actually go down to a court house and file paperwork. The only problem is that you can't file harassment reports when you are harassing yourself or when people disagree with you on the internet.
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.