Invisible Predators and Sad Boys, Finale

Originally shared by Anna Kreider

Invisible Predators and Sad Boys, Finale

This is part three of three. Previous posts also public, modding will be heavy.

Fourth: We can’t speak out, because you can’t even believe us about the obvious predators

The thing that Sad Abusive Boys and serial sexual predators have in common is that they are given permission and plausible deniability by the myth of the socially awkward predator and by the Geek Social Fallacies. And because these serial emotional and sexual abusers are so charming, performatively woke, and socially adept, the odds that they themselves will have high status within the community are high. So the consequences of speaking out against predators who inflict lasting damage are often too high to be borne, because victims know that they will never be believed or supported in any real way.

And how do we know this? We know this because dudes can’t even get it right when women speak out AND HAVE PROOF. Jessica Schmidt had SCREENSHOTS of her interactions with Frank Mentzer, and was accused of faking the accusations for attention - despite the fact that she’s no longer even working in the games industry.

And we know this because women who have tried to speak up in the wake of #metoo about serial emotional abusers have been similarly stonewalled, disbelieved, and blamed for their own abuse. When other female developers have tried to speak out against serial emotional believers like John Morke, some of them (like Jacqueline Bryk) have been lucky enough to be believed. But others haven’t.

So this is why women and femmes don’t speak out about abuse. Because dudes, you can’t even get it right when you’re playing on the lowest difficulty setting. If you can’t get the response right when you are presented with OBVIOUS MONSTER HERE ARE SCREENSHOTS AND OTHER PROOF, women sure as shit aren’t going to trust you to get it right on a higher difficulty like “your best friend groped me” or “your business partner is a serial emotional abuser”.

This is it, because I don’t have the energy for a conclusion that ties it all together and makes it sound less angry