In this post, we want to address something that the bullies have been preaching ever since we started this blog and that’s that we are against negative, critical reviews. Back in mid-2012, when STGRB first went live, the bullies did their best to get us shut down. When they couldn’t, they did everything they could to discredit our site with accusations of bullying, threatening, or harming others. We were accused of doxxing – of publishing people’s address, phone numbers, etc. And we were also accused of being a group of authors who were getting revenge on reviewers who wrote critical reviews of our books. Here is a post we wrote that explains in more detail what happened when we first started our blog.
None of this nonsense was true. It still isn’t.
An example of what we mean is clear as day in an article (a very ill-informed article) written by John Scalzi back in 2012. Without doing any research of our blog or who we really are and what we’re about, John wrote this masterpiece. Here are some screenshots of it.
So, let’s see exactly what John considers to be negative reviews or criticism of books. These are just a few of the many examples we’ve published on our blog
You see, this is what John and the bullies would have you believe – that all of this is criticism of BOOKS, when it is something else, something much worse. These examples we’ve shown are, in fact, deliberate, premeditated, vicious attacks on people. Not books.
John doesn’t just stop at drinking and preaching the bully Kool-Aid, he is probably one of the bigger bullies we know, whose rants have lead to vicious attacks on authors.
If you want to see what happened to Laurell, just check our her books on and .
John’s abuse doesn’t stop there. We’ve heard from several big name authors that it is truly bad form (as an author) to attack or criticize another author, and yet John, just like Jenny Trout, does this quite often:
You will note here that Larry declined the Hugo nomination. So that should tell you how well John researches subjects before he goes off on his ill-informed, pious diatribes.
But he doesn’t stop at authors either. He’s been known to be a bully to people in other arenas, outside of the book world:
We don’t want to get involved in the Sad Puppies or GamerGate fight. We simply want to show how John treats other authors and other people. And when you read his words, you have to ask yourself these questions:
Do they contribute anything to the literary community or any community for that matter?
No.
Are they productive?
No.
Do they help anyone?
No.
All they are are cruel jabs at other authors and other people, and yet John sits there in his ivory tower and preaches on his blog about how righteous he is.
Shame on you, John!
People like John and the rest of the bullies are described very well in the words of one of our loyal blog readers:
“These people…[the bullies]… they contribute nothing to the literary community, to the book world, to the world of those of us who love to read and write books. They’re just in it, parasites, treating it all like a video game! Heaping vulgarity, ugliness and meanness on authors and saying “Take it, or we’ll blacklist and libel you!””
John writes at the end of his article (he is talking to us here, implying that we are going to attack someone on his behalf):
“When I need your help with a negative review, I will ask for it.
If I don’t ask for it, I don’t need your help.
If I do ask for it, you should consider me temporarily out of my head and ignore me.
If you decide to attack someone in my name without consulting me, you make me look bad. That will annoy me, and I may take it out on you, possibly publicly.”
Well, guess what. You don’t have to worry about us trying to help you, because that will never happen. You are a bully, my friend. We would never attack people like you do, especially not on your behalf. And as far as anyone making you look bad, well, that’s already been done.
YOU make you look bad.
And that’s all we’re going to say.
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This was a fantastic and informative piece you’ve written, and yes, John Scalzi is quite the unnerving bully.
The word I believe that describes this behavior is SJW: Social Justice Warrior.
They make war in the name of social justice, rather than advocate peacefully on its behalf. Everything you’ve shown in this post is an example of what follows when authoritarianism is allowed to run rampant.
Larry has been bullied terribly from what I can see, and most of it is due to John Scalzi.
A lot of it is from Scalzi, although he’s definitely not alone.
You’d think a fellow writer would behave better than this. I can’t understand it, but it’s the way Scalzi & co are.
This is sad. Scalzi’s books are doing pretty well, so why is he stooping to the level of so many desperate loser authors like Jenny Trout, or Looneytunes, or Stacia Kane, or many who are so obscure I’m forgetting their names, who attack other authors in a desperate bid for attention and the sad sad hope of selling a few more books? Because nobody cares about this. Nobody cares that a few delicate reviewers can’t handle someone criticizing their reviews and go crying to their mommies, wanting Big Bad Authors (BBAs) to be silenced so they won’t hurt the delicate sensibilities of reviewers.
Why do they do it? Isn’t that the eternal question? I think it’s because they can and because they enjoy spewing hatred and getting a reaction from it. One of these days, they’re going to target the wrong person, and it could end very badly, either career-wise or physically. Not everyone they mess with is going to run away like a little mouse. Someone out there might be unstable enough to do some real damage.
So, honestly, it’s really naive on their part. The internet is not a safe haven for anyone, even bullies.
I really appreciate your stance on this. You guys report good, “just the facts” kind of news and it boils my blood when I see people jumping all over you guys for doing the right thing.
As a pro gger, I appreciate your integrity. Keep up the good fight and never let GG or aGG push you into a side in this battle.
Thank you! We appreciate it.
Excellent work as per usual. This is a great place. As an aspiring writer, these people infuriate me. What happened to basic respect?
This is a man I deeply deeply dislike. I have for sometime and I’m delighted others have noticed what a hypocritical, vindictive little man he really is. All of these people share the same ideology and they all bully. They project and accuse those that dare to stand up to their appalling actions of harassment. It’s transparent. The sheer audacity of these people used to shock me. Not anymore and enough people have noticed thankfully. They will no longer be able to do this unchecked.
Not sure what’s worse, how little this actually gets right or how a blog/site claiming to be against bullying could possibly claim credibility when mentioning GamerGate (a hate group based on doxxing and bullying from the start) and then pointing at someone else as a bully and sidestepping it entirely.
While I’m all for prevention and awareness of bullying, after this article there’s really no way I can take this site or contributor seriously with a first impression like this.
Thank you for your opinion, but I suppose that’s your problem. John Scalzi blatantly lied about us (saying that we were doxxing and bullying), then he made misleading comments about Larry Corriea. We can only assume he is doing the same thing to GamerGate. John is famous for blabbing his mouth before doing any research or knowing what he is talking about. We know this to be a fact. We’ve shown it here on our blog.
Quit lying. GG has denounced doxxing since the beginning and we are treated as harassers because that’s what their narrative against us is. We don’t have people on our side who publically say doxxing is a good tactic.
It’s strange you call GG a ‘hate group’ when people like Randi, Zoe, Wu, Alexander and so on have harassed, doxed, and bullied people for having a different opinion. Especially when there are people on the anti-GG side who openly endorse harassment, and openly say that “there are no bad tactics, only bad targets.” That’s bob chipman by the way.
To quote Randi Harper, as she set her horde upon another woman on the anti-#GG side for not being anti-#GG enough: “You made your bed, now go get fucked in it.”
Harper has openly acknowledged that she “calls out” people specifically to get her followers to harass those people. The fact that anti-#GG treats her as any sort of “anti-harassment” resource is nothing short of absolutely pathetic, and demonstrates exactly how much they care about harassment—ESPECIALLY harassment of women—that happens to people who don’t agree with them.
One of the bases of operations, maybe the biggest one for GG is the Kotakuinaction subreddit
And what does rule 2 say?
“2 Posting personal information on anybody (“doxing”) is not allowed.”
What a very odd thing for a ‘hate group based on doxing’ to have as a rule.
You’re not scared of GG. You know you’re safe. You’re a coward and a bully.
gamergate is an open hashtag.
The reddit board alone is like 36k people strong.
If you really think 36k people discuss journalism, gaming and social-media culture all day as a front to harrass people you are pretty darn paranoid.
Even if(!) you’d assume a genuine conspiracy to harrass people and make the public face of it about ethics just as a cover to lure more people in: We’ve had atleast 2 full blown Streisand-effects in play very early on. (Topic ban on multiple sites, reddit 24k-post mega thread nuke, then shortly after the gamers are dead articles.) I’m sorry but if you think a “hate group” forms and grows like that your worldview is seriously warped.
I’d not say gamergate is all sunshine and muffintops either but calling it a hate group as a whole or even majority or even large minority has no basis in reality.
I can tell by the way you wrote your comment you are one of their kind likely. Again another person trying to de-rail a thread and also trying negatively paint something you disagree with. You may make any claim you like, but it doesn’t make things true. Facts are facts and truth is truth. AT the end of the day the majority will agree with the concrete evidence not an blatant attempt to carry a narrative that ahs been proven false again and again. Just look recently how quick the narrative has suddenly changed fro GG is woman haters to now GG is racist and how fast that ahs been shot down.
You need to get a new narrative. Yours is an outright lie. An easily disproven one.
“Only 0.66% of gamergate accounts were harassers”
That’s from a peer reviewed study done by a feminist organization who’s mandate is to look at and oppose women being harassed on the Internet.
Do you know who does support doxxing and threats? The people who oppose gamergate.
You don’t need to be part of GG or Sad Puppies to show the world that these people are nothing but bullies who then hide behind mask of victimhood when called out on it.
If you want to stay neutral and not get bogged that’s great, I know gamergate supporters can understand and support that kind of decision.
However just to give you fair warning in my experience openly stating neutrality on gamergate makes you part of the issue because anti-gg see no distinction between neutrality and support of gamergate.
To them you’ll just be another “goobergobber” fighting for the right to oppress, bully and terrorize women for your own misogynistic amusement.
This is an eye opener. Thanks for your work.
I can’t believe those people. A hate group that pretends to be the victim…
“just killed another career”
Disgusting.
Scalzi’s response.
STGRB publishes evidence of Scalzi douchebaggery and he says, “You’re stupid.”
Ooh, good comeback! You couldn’t think of anything more original?
See all? This is the kind of juvenile mentality we’re dealing with here. Ad hominem attacks…I know you are, but what am I? :p
Grow up, Scalzi!
Lol! Yeah, well, we didn’t expect anything too mature, or informed, to come back from him.
It’s fairly typical of his responses. He never addresses the facts. He just relies on his fans to not bother doing any of their own research to see if he’s telling the truth or not.
It’s how these people operate.
They will accuse you of doing anything terrible they want to accuse you of, in the drop of a hat, with no evidence, but you tell them they’re harming people, while showing them how, and explaining why, and they dismiss it like you and the people they harmed are trash.
What amazes us is that he doesn’t research anything before he blabs his mouth, thus making all kinds of ignorant statements, making himself look dumb in the process. Then he has the audacity to call everyone else, who are informed of the facts, stupid. It’s laughable.
Wonder if you know about this case: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/457741/GamerGatethe_free_ride_is_over
“Case in point: fun little fantasy book reported as being “racist”
Lest you think I’m exaggerating on how petty yet dedicated they can be…
In 2010 I wrote a book.
I always wanted to write a book and I did. It’s a fantasy novel. I.e. Humans, Orcs, Elves, etc. type stuff. Random House even published it. Pretty cool eh? WRONG: My book was nothing but a thinly disguised racist screed on the need for building a border fence to keep the darkies out. At least, that’s what I’m told.
What? How the hell did a light fantasy book become a political book?
Enter the SJW clique: self-described SJWs on a particular forum I participated in decided that my non-progressive views (I’m socially liberal, fiscally conservative, generally believe that people should be free to do what they want as long as they’re not hurting other people) were unacceptable and harassed me to the point that the moderators banned them.
And to be as fair as I can be: I wasn’t posting in some political thread. I was posting on a game forum in a thread about a game I was working on. They had followed me to this thread and were being abusive and off-topic and they got banned for it.
So the wife of one of the people who got banned (who was, btw, the original editor-in-chief of Kotaku – I must have missed the article with the headline “Former Kotaku editor banned for stalking, harassing game developer”), wrote a fake review of my book which claimed that it was a racist book in which the heroes were building a fence to keep dark-skinned people out.
Only one problem: My book has no fence and there are no dark-skinned people in the book. They made it up. Completely.
Having labeled my little fantasy book a racist screed, they immediately created forum posts and Reddits (like this one)
So our “fair minded” SJWs proceeded to assume I was a monster and of course ripped my book apart and then jumped onto Amazon.com (note that not one of the 1-star reviews is by a verified purchaser – and if you look at the reviews, M.J. Gallant was the person banned from the forum for harassment and, again, was once the EIC of Kotaku and his wife was the one who wrote the fake review claiming my book was racist – that’s the level of dedication. Note the dates of the 1-star reviews too, clumped together).
Now mind you, I’m not going to argue that my book was some sort of literary masterpiece. I’m a game developer. I had the chance to write a book and I did and you know what? It’s not a bad book. It was a fun, interesting learning experience that didn’t hurt anyone.
Look, I’m a game developer. Having my creative endeavors criticized goes with the territory. After 20 years, my skin is so thick that I barely notice death threats anymore.
But this isn’t about having a thick skin. Imagine you had always wanted to write a book. You spend a year writing it and it even gets published – to book stores and everything — only to have a bunch of assholes misrepresent the book and send their friends to trash and ridicule it? Imagine going to a family get together and having relatives say “Is your book really racist?”
Remember, the abuse I received had nothing to do with the quality of the book. If books based on a video game were regularly pilloried we’d have a never ending stream of Reddits.
No, the reason I was targeted is because SJWs, the people who now represent the bulk of the “anti-#GamerGate” crowd, are perfectly comfortable with harassment and abuse as long as it’s the right people doing the harassment and abuse: Themselves.”
I been noticing a lot of detractors coming in these comments to try and sway people to believe GG is a hate group as usual. Well I posted this before and I will re-post if I must to prove GG is not a hate group
” I have been in GG since the day it started. These sites that we contacted and advertiser pulled from all ran the exact same article within 12 hours of each other claiming all gamers are white entitled racist sexist people, see link below.
List of Gamers are Dead Articles
The site Gawker we were campagining against advocated to bring back bullying by their own staff:
http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/gawker_bullying.php
Arthur Chu the old Jeopardy fame contestant has consistently attacked us and even incited a Bomb Threat to be called on a GG Meet up in DC, which FBI had responded to, mind you keep in mind that ANti-GG was deemed a credible threat over all the claims made about GG:
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2015/05/03/gamergate-dc-gathering-targeted-bomb-threat#.VXMWq89Vikp
http://kotaku.com/gamergate-meetup-evacuated-after-apparent-threat-1701761645
http://nichegamer.com/2015/05/peaceful-gamergate-in-d-c-meetup-receives-false-bomb-threats/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/663.874793-Bomb-threat-tweeted-at-GG-supporters-meeting-at-DC-bar
Also please not Arthur Chu attepmted to stop a charity drive for a victim of rape, just b/c the woman was a former pornstar and b/c the charity was started by a GG supporter:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/18/brave-jeopardy-man-arthur-chu-takes-a-stand-against-helping-abused-porn-star-and-family/
We have thousands to multiple charities to help people:
http://gamergate.me/charity/
Former Journalist Geordi Tait advocated for a mass murdering of GG Supporters:
http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2014/11/19/the-ballad-of-geordie-tait/
This still isn’t everything these people have done to bad mouth our names they have even gotten people fired from their jobs:
http://imgur.com/gallery/FzbfIRp
Ben Kuchera has tried his best to ruin careers of journalists:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/23/how-sloppy-biased-video-games-reporting-almost-destroyed-a-ceo/
Lest we also forget about Arthur Giess who owns a Suicide Girls Account yet discredits games as sexist and racist:
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/bayonetta-2-given-7-5-10-by-polygon-but-31636812/
Perhaps above all else all these people had been colluding with each other since year before GG started:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/17/exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite/
Even the FTC has noticed this insanity and stepped up on policies due to us:
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/04/gamergate-scores-again-ftc-updates-disclosure-guidelines/
Not to mention if GG is such a hate group and totally wrong, why did all the sites update their ethics policies on disclosure:
http://gamergate.me/
Don’t even get me started on Briana Wu. If you still think that GamerGate is some bullying movement fine, but don’t try to discredit us just b/c without displaying any facts to back your claims.
This isn’t even tapping the barrel, so before discrediting a Consumer Revolt against the very media you might want to look outside the media itself!”
My opinion of Brianna Wu is based on her interview appearances.
For example, on MSNBC she declared that she had picked an online fight with GamerGate people by sending them a mocking meme. She, by her own admission, got a bunch of similar memes back… and that was all. Wu characterized all of this as “funny pictures with words, like lolcats”. Then, she says, she left her house for several hours “thinking nothing of it” only to find horrible threats from a Twitter burner account waiting for her once she got back.
The tweets were minutes old, according to the screenshots shown on MSNBC. This is important later. They also said nothing about GamerGate or the memewar Wu had engaged in — indeed, they barely even mention a knowledge that she is a games designer, and then in passing. Wu never explained how these were supposed to be from GamerGate, except by implying their proximity to a minor online kerfuffle. Yet on the basis of these seven tweets alone, she claims to have been forced to flee her home.
Sound like someone maybe overreacting and leaping to conclusions? Perhaps that’s why, on the David Pakman Show, her story changed dramatically.
In the newer version, she never left the house at all, but was constantly engaged for “hours and hours and hours” in an ever-escalating war of words. She drops the idea of the memes being harmless fun (her MSNBC claim) and also fails to mention instigating them. Finally, she declares, the offensive tweets started arriving “seconds” after she broke off the engagement.
This is a prime example of realizing the holes in your story and changing it to suit, like a politician caught in a scandal.
Nor was this a one-off: in many printed interviews, Wu likes to toss off the number of death threats she’s allegedly gotten since “coming under attack”. One would expect the number to increase as time goes on, but it’s actually gone DOWN as well as up over the course of these interviews. In point of fact, she’s only ever revealed the existence of seven — all of which were the original tweets from the MSNBC interview.
All of which is above and beyond the indications that every interview she did by webcam with the press, after allegedly fleeing her home, appear to have been done… from her home.
Wu was also caught sending threats to herself and she consistently in the beginning tried to antagonize GG into things. She has been a liar since day 1 and still continues to lie. You should have seen how non-GG people reacted to her Steam Greenlight page for her game Rev. 60 as well how she tried to even bribe moderators on there.
Just a note, anyone should be suspicious of anybody that trashes people like card, and then engages in tactics like these Scalzi does. I already have him blocked on twitter, cause I’d rather just not engage with people that do this.
People crap on the other outspoken sf author who shall not be named, and yet give Scalzi basically a free ride. I’m liberal, and I still find that hypocritical.
And my thing is, I really don’t know how much the stuff is true about that other author. It might be true, it might not be.
Do I honestly care? Not as much as some of the liberal authors seem to trash other authors. I’m liberal, and I’m disgusted by liberals on twitter at times.
Added to qualify, I apologies if they came across as lumping all liberals as the same. That’s not really what I meant.
The twittlib seems to be a particular strain.