Zoe Quinn > Quotes

“The Easiest Way to Fuck Everything Up Is to Ignore Black Women”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate

“Sometimes you need to burn a bridge while you're still standing on it so they know you mean business.”
― Zoe Quinn

“The problem is that you fundamentally cannot shame someone who is proud of what they are doing.”
― Zoe Quinn

“When so much of online abuse is driven by a failure to empathize with someone on the other side of the screen, turning those who are abusive online into some unknowable, unstoppable force of nature is a damaging mind-set. If we don’t try to understand them on a human, personal level, then we are moving forward in the dark. By dubbing them “those people,” we are also explicitly setting ourselves apart as if we aren’t one of them and thus can’t be part of the problem. Therein lies the most common trap we fall into when trying to make the internet a safer place: framing it as a war of good people versus bad people instead of looking at acceptable and unacceptable ways to treat each other. “Good people” get off the hook for doing bad things, while “bad people” aren’t considered worth understanding or empathizing with and aren’t encouraged to progress, evolve, and do better.”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life

“I thought I was the good guy. It might sound unbelievable, but most people in mobs believe this, even while they’re doing horrible things. In all my time as an activist, I’ve never seen a single instance where the people instigating abuse, even in the worst possible cases, thought they were the “bad guys.” There is always a righteous undertone. Dehumanization works its mental magic, and turning the target into a “villain” provides the attacker with the chance to be a “hero.” You can rationalize doing all kinds of things to a symbol that you would never do to a human. The campaign becomes a false battle between good and evil, and tormenting someone is seen as a struggle over something much larger than either of you.”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life

“So do you go to the police or not? Well, if you don't, people will claim that the abuse wasn't real because theres no police report about it. If you do enter the system, you have to accept that all of what I've detailed in this chapter is what you're facing; be willing to sign up for the years-long process in the event that case actually goes to trial; know you have little chance of seeing justice because legislation and law enforcement have not yet caught up with the pace of online crime; and, even if you re successful, accept that a court order may not do much to stop an obsessive abuser.”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate

“In some situations, the attempts to "do something about this" can directly stress the person being targeted or make their situation worse. One example from my own experience is that people frequently screenshot and send me something horrible someone has said about me to give me a "heads-up" when I have purposefully reorganized my life to keep that stuff as far away from me as possible.”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate