Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate
by Zoe QuinnGenres: Nonfiction, Personal Memoirs
Length: 7:09
Published on September 5th 2017
Pages: 256
Format: Audiobook, eBook Source: Playster
You've heard the stories about the dark side of the internet-hackers, anonymous hoards attacking an unlucky target, and revenge porn-but they remain just that: stories. Surely these things would never happen to you.
Zoe Quinn used to feel the same way. Zoe is a video game developer whose ex-boyfriend published a crazed blog post cobbled together from private information, half-truths, and outright fictions, along with a rallying cry to the online hordes to go after her. The hordes answered in the form of a so-called movement known as #gamergate--they hacked her accounts, stole nude photos of her, harassed her family, friends and colleagues, and threatened to rape and murder her. But instead of shrinking into silence as the online mobs wanted her to, she has raised her voice and speaks out against this vicious online culture and for making the internet a safer place for everyone.
If you’ve been on Twitter any time at all you’re familiar with Gamergate. (Side note – Can we please stop naming everything -gate? It is so annoying.)
This is Zoe Quinn’s story from the day that she found out that her ex boyfriend had written a manifesto against her and the death threats started. They escalated and quickly included threatening items like pictures taken outside her apartment. Out of her frustration at not being better able to protect herself, she founded Crash Override to help others who have found themselves in similar situations.
This book is part memoir and part primer on how to better protect yourself online. It would benefit people who worry about online security and those who think that women are overreacting to online threats. It is a reminder of the lengths that people will go to to hurt strangers online. She also talks to former trolls to see what the mindset is behind that behavior.
Have you ever had your mother reminisce about spending time with your friends’/teammates’ moms while waiting for you to get done doing sports or plays or whatever you were into? Imagine instead of talking about what she did on the sidelines of your soccer game, she was talking about what she got up to with Kurt Cobain’s mom on the Nevermind tour. That’s the spirit of this book.
She interviews moms of musicians from all genres and at all stages of their careers. Some are still performing. Some have retired or moved into other aspects of the business. Others are moms of musicians who didn’t survive their fame. She asks what they remember, how they nurtured their kids, and what they wished they had done differently.
The book is fun because she still is enthusiastic about her son’s career and always talks about it like a proud mom. She talks about the kids getting back together when Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She always refers to her son as “David.” She still gets starstruck like when she got to meet Paul McCartney and her friends couldn’t get her to shut up about it.Â
