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The Gamer internet has been on the war path lately, weeding out what it perceives to be corruption in games. Just after venting their "anger at feminists and SJWs trying to dictate what's in games and screeching when things don't meet a 'diversity' quota," gamers voice their rage at journalists who "get a lot of freebies from game companies to do their job." And how gaming news sites are "gossip magazines at best." To approach gaming as someone who writes for the internet means getting tarred with that brush, and to be a woman intensifies it.One relatively meek voice in the chorus of screams, however, had a more specific, and less shrill goal: Don't vilify Eron Gjoni. Gjoni was instrumental in the Vivian James story in ways I won't rehash here, but suffice it to say while he had wanted to warn the internet about a woman, his ex-girlfriend, Zoe Quinn, he says he in no way wanted to attack women in general, and if forced to pick a side (and it seems like he'd rather not), he allies himself with the social justice side of things ("I very much align with SJ," he later clarified over email). In Allegra's piece, he was a nastier character than he wanted to be considered.
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Eron Gjoni: I think she's like a politically correct version of 4chan. And yeah, I kinda like her. But I may be biased, because she probably wouldn't exist were it not for the blog.Is she basically a mascot for female gamers born out of spite for a female gamer?
Well, The Fine Young Capitalists [are] making a t-shirt with a tagline along the lines of "I don't care if you're queer fat ugly or gay, if you play video games, you're alright with me,” which, is at face value kind of a collection of words 4chan might be inclined to use as pejoratives. But upon further inspection [it] is a message of acceptance, and denounces things like body negativity or homophobia.They would say "land whale" and "unfuckable" and "a faggot.”
Right, but, they don't limit themselves when it comes to slurs.

In my mind, she uses terms which might be offensive in some contexts, in naively non-offensive ways, but she'd probably say something like "that's gay" to say "that's undesirable" without meaning any offense to gay people.Would she say the n-word?
I don't think she'd say that, no. But she is a fictional character, and [The Fine Young Capitalists] is very progressive; so basically, absolutely not. She wouldn't say anything which is unequivocally offensive, or else TFYC wouldn't allow it. I imagine they'd allow some character quirks though. Things which are socially speaking, not okay, but they can, like, make other characters that correct her or shun her for the naive offenses. […] She strikes me as the type of person who means no offense, but has the contextual caution of a high schooler or something.
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Yeah, basically. […] Not sure as to the point of this line of questioning though. I don't have any creative control over her character design.Not to get psychoanalytical, but I can't help feeling like Vivian James' tendency toward hate speech that comes from a place of naïveté is being projected onto her by someone with a guilty conscience.Gjoni wanted to steer the conversation away from misogyny and toward the aforementioned nepotism and corruption in gaming and games journalism. At the heart of the issue for those who insist that Quinn is the villain is the idea that she traded sex for positive press, or maybe just screwed her way into positions of influence. "There are people who are legitimately concerned about games journalism, who don't fall into either camp, and they also get brushed away," he said.I alluded to the severity of the constant harassment and his reply circled around on itself. "Yes, that's happening, but it's not the only thing happening, and it should be the thing most discouraged in terms of coverage. One side will point to the publication and say, 'Look, these MRAs are attacking us,' and form into groups and make it worse," he said.It seemed like he wasn't seeing the forest for the trees, so I gave him my unsolicited opinion: "While there are these issues, corruption with journalism, and all that, there's this huge mountain of misogyny," I told him. "So, when we non-gamers look at gaming culture, we have a tendency to point at the huge mountain.""There is yeah. I'm just personally of the opinion that continuing to frame it as just that, is going to make it more about just that," he said, "but you likely have more experience with these things, so I should probably defer to your judgment."I didn't tell him the rest of my opinion: I think some of this belief in corruption and nepotism is misogyny. Gaming is a business, and in any business, people don't all get to the top, win influence, or get their project greenlit because their work is the best. They get there by hook or by crook. Men can commodify representations of female sexuality to sell inferior games, and that's making an honest buck, but if some women get to the top by commodifying their own sexuality, that's corruption? Fuck that.Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter(At Gjoni's request, a parenthetical was added to paragraph 10, in order to clarify his stance on social justice.)
