humanity. “I’d like to stay on the project and see it to completion. I’ve met every internal milestone deadline and earned the trust of the team. I respectfully ask that you keep me on as production lead. Also, if you don’t, I agree with Joe that this could turn into a media nightmare, making you look like an antifemale company.” I didn’t say, Oh, and by the way I would totally sue your asses, which was what I was thinking.
“Fine.” Ian glanced down at his watch. “Joe, we need to send a press statement out ASAP. I’m having a conference call with the board of directors to let them know we’re working on defusing this situation. Oh, and Melody? I asked the IT guys to help you sort your inbox so you don’t see all the garbage and hate mail. We don’t want you to get distracted by all that during crunch time. It’ll get forwarded straight to legal for them to deal with legally and criminally.”
He looked at his watch again. “Since we’re on a tight schedule, we want you to be productive and not spend a single minute sorting through pictures of torsos and hairy balls. Plus, as you said, it would look bad if we replaced you. The risk of crazy female activists beating down our door is a more real threat than some loser teenage asshole trolling you and blowing off steam on some message boards.” Damon, the IT guy, appeared at my office doorway and set up email folders on my computer while the discussions continued. Thank goodness the legal team was handling all these emails.
AN HOUR LATER, the PR team released the Official Statement of Seventeen Studios on our website and emailed it to our entire company:
To our friends in the gaming community:
Unfortunately, a small group of people have been saying awful things online about our company and our games, games we will continue to release because we won’t be bullied into canceling them. They have been harassing one of our female employees, and they have been tarnishing our reputation as gamers with their unacceptable behavior.
Gaming should be a fun experience, both positive and uplifting for everyone, whether you’re a gaming newbie or a veteran. We aren’t trying to quash freedom of speech. We just ask that everyone try to be respectful.
Remember, there is another person on the receiving end of your communications. They’re part of your community.
(And next is where Ian must’ve veered off-script . . .)
You don’t shit where you eat.
Seventeen Studios stands against hate and harassment.
Thank you,
Ian MacKenzie and Melanie Joo
Damn it. He didn’t even get my name right.
Within minutes of sending out the press release, email responses poured in from female employees at our company, nearly twenty total, letting me know they stood by me in solidarity. Knowing I had allies at work supporting me lifted my spirits and helped keep me focused on my work. I wasn’t in this alone.
Because my launch date didn’t magically get pushed out due to the BetaGank incident, I still needed to get a ton of work done that day. I messaged one of the lead developers, who was also one of Asher’s buddies, to see why Asher hadn’t shown up at work yet. He wrote back, Out sick brah, says he’s gonna work from home. Right. He’s “sick.” More like he was too terrified to come into work and deal with the spiraling vortex of racist and sexist shit he’d instigated with his BetaGank leak.
Against Ian’s wishes, I peeked into the “DO NOT READ: HARASSMENT” temporary folder Damon had created in my inbox. The messages directed to this folder would auto-send to legal after five minutes. There were sixty-two new messages in the five-minute harassment repository.
@nastymasta82 Us REAL gamers are sick and tired of you stupid feminists ruining everything. Not everything is sexist. Attention whore
@BigSky22 Feminism has taken over our society and people like you want to punish men for just being men. You want more girls in games? More games should have neh-kid girls characters
@fellasquad It’s pretty clear to me that this Melody person got special treatment just for having a vagina. Affirmative action at its worst. Dumb bitches
@GoBackToIndia Go back to China. Never mind. Just die
Some idiots had sent pictures of other random Asian women (named Melody Joong, Melody Jung, and Melody Joon), mistaking them for me. Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to read those messages during work hours, but shit, I couldn’t help it. That got me worked up, with people