Brianna Wu / John Flynt - Original Thread

[Cuck Norris]

Ok, that is one unflattering picture of Wu

Does this guy ever check his press? He looks terrible in 99% of the images I see posted.

Have you considered that maybe he just looks terrible?

 

[Cynical]

I'm going to have to side with @Jaimas here to a degree. We all know Zoe Quinn wouldn't have been half as infamous had she not been both figuratively and literally in bed with so many potential signal boosters, and given how GG has unraveled so many anti-GG as being behind the scenes of trying to subvert gamer culture, journalism, and popular opinion, I too think it's plausible Wu was tapped to be the main face of movement since, let's face it, Wu is the closest thing they had to an actual game developer that could be used after Quinn was utterly discredited.

I don't buy it was all a totally concerted effort with that express intention, but I do think it's possible the anti-GG have been trying to groom themselves a good spokesman, and Wu happens to be one of their better backup choices.

Which, as @Jaimas put it, makes his fail even more hilarious.

 

[Chan the Wizard]

Yeah, pretty sure it's not some giant conspiracy. John Flynt is just an opportunistic narcissist that saw an opportunity to get people to listen to him and get his Sonichu published after failing as a comic and animation. He came from an upper class family, so he already had good connections or had the money to make them and Frank provided more thanks to his Hugo fan art awards.

Flynt is to GamerGate what Palin is to the Republican Party. A failure that no one in the establishment takes seriously anymore, but they get paid to speak and get their mouth breathing base riled up, so they serve their purpose.

 

[Francis York Morgan]

Ok, that is one unflattering picture of Wu

Does this guy ever check his press? He looks terrible in 99% of the images I see posted.

Any picture of Brianna that she has no control over looks really unflattering. The pics she takes of herself make heavy use of MySpace camera angling, lighting tricks, standing in weird positions, and simple stuff like wearing sunglasses that cover most of her face. With all that in mind, it seems Wu is at least somewhat aware that she still looks like a dude in a wig. What's kind of amazing is that she puts so little effort into trying to get press images of herself to look right. It's almost like she is too blinded by the idea of people talking about her to go through that extra work.

 

[MrCKMongler had cybersex with ADF lol]

Brea Anatamata
Bre Anatamata
Breana Tamata

Jesus christ. Brianna Tomato.
It really is a Mary Sue.

EDIT: This ultimately proves Mr. Flynt really is just acting out a fantasy of being a woman he started years ago, with the aid of cisscum parent's money as well as some very gullible and mediocre programmers.

How have I not noticed this before??

Edit 2: grammar fuck up resolved.

 

[koeeoaddi]

6. UHOH
[MEDIA=twitter]607017776906149888[/MEDIA][MEDIA=twitter]607018461915713536[/MEDIA]

None of the language in that article implies that crossdressers are the same thing as trans people. It should be pretty fucking obvious to someone who claims to care as much as Brianna that the prejudice against both types of people stems from the same attitudes about gender, which is why the guy in the article had a change of heart.

But of course Brianna is willing to throw all other kinds of people with gender-related issues under the bus, as long as she can get everyone to pay more attention to her particular problems. Fuck you, Brianna.

 

[Peace and Harmony]

6. UHOH
[MEDIA=twitter]607017776906149888[/MEDIA][MEDIA=twitter]607018461915713536[/MEDIA]

But John is a crossdressing dude who refers to himself as trans tho????????

 

[Smutley]

For what it's worth @Jaimas, a cursory search in a range from January 1st 2013 to May 2014 doesn't turn up anything where Brianna Wu is mentioned by Leigh Alexander anywhere, nor does Brianna Wu get listed on Gamasutra outside of a Revolution 60 press release.

edit: though it looks like NegaCWC made me look like a cut rate chump lol

Unrelated, but Brianna did write a piece talking about Tomb Raider 2013 being a shining example of feminism in gaming, and a blow against sexism. So much so that she tried begging Squeenix on twitter to give her the sequel for free since she said something nice about it in public.

 

[NegaCWC]

For what it's worth @Jaimas, a cursory search in a range from January 1st 2013 to May 2014 doesn't turn up anything where Brianna Wu is mentioned by Leigh Alexander anywhere, nor does Brianna Wu get listed on Gamasutra outside of a Revolution 60 press release.

Actually she was mentioned in three Gamasutra articles that predate GG (including one by Leigh), they can be seen below:

Spoiler

Article by Leigh Alexander, 15 January 2014
Article by Kris Ligman, 28 April 2014
Article by Alex Wawro, 24 June 2014

Polygon also appear to like Brianna, I've found six pre-GG articles in which she is mentioned:

Spoiler

Article by Ben "rape is funny" Kuchera, 25 February 2014
Article by Samit Sarker, 14 April 2014
Article by Megan Farokhmanesh, 16 April 2014
Guest article by Brianna from 22 July 2014. Notice that she used harassment to draw attention to herself even before GamerGate.
Article by Danielle Riendeau, 23 July 2014
Article by Leigh Alexander, 24 July 2014

I did a search in Kotaku as well and found two pre-GG article involving Wu, one by Mike Fahey and another by Grayson. Brianna also wrote in October of last year about Samantha Allen being a friend of her, although I don't know how much are they really friends and for how long. Regarding Brianna appearing on MSNBC... It has been suggested on KiA that Eric Johnston of Re/Code had a hand in it, but one person in the same thread argued against this idea. As for the idea that Brianna deliberately tried to draw GG's attention towards her, a friend of Wu has actually said that this is the case.

I have this theory that Frank may have used his connections to help Brianna get into the gaming journo/indie dev clique. It's long so I'm going to spoiler it:

Spoiler: Wall of text

There should be no doubt that Frank Wu had a pivotal role in his wife's rise to fame. Not only did he burn his life savings on R60, but also did some work on the game itself. But did he help his wife establish the connections needed in order to get in the gaming journos/indie devs clique?

Brianna tells us that she married Frank 11 months after meeting him. Frank's Facebook account shows that he married Brianna in October 2008, implying that they first met on December 2007. Frank was first nominated for a Hugo Award in 2002 (see his wiki article), meaning that he was active in the sci-fi and fantasy scenes (and more specifically, in the World Science Fiction Society, the literary society behind the Hugo Awards) for at least five years prior to meeting Brianna. It is not unlikely to assume that both before and after his marriage Frank has gotten to know and befriend several noted authors and artists.

SJW have a siginificant presesnce inside the WSCFS, and many Hugo Awards winners from past years share the same ideological orientation with members of the gaming journos/indie devs clique. Seeing how fantasy and sci-fi genres tie with vidoe games, it would not be surprising if it was found out that SJWs from the literary fantasy and sci-fi scene share significant ties with SJWs involved in gaming. If this is indeed the case, I would not be shocked if it was shown that Brianna was introduced to the gaming SJW clique through prominent figures Frank knows from his own professional and social circles. This posibility becomes even more likely once it is taken into account that Frank is a member of the Bay Area Science Fiction Association. This association is loacted in San Francisco, home of the gaming journos clique.

So far I've found two cases of relatively important authors being linked to Frank. Some of you probably already know of Neil Gaiman. As wikipedia tells us, Gaiman won Hugo Awards in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2012, and was likewise nominated (but did not win) for a Hugo in 2006. Those nominations/wins happen to overlap with Frank's nominations/wins; Frank was nomiated for Hugo Awards (some of which he won) from every year between 2002-2009. Not only did Frank and Gaiman probably met each other during most of these award ceremonies, flickr and twitter definitely show they're acquainted with each other.

Can we connect Brianna to Gaiman? We can at least establish that at one point they were present at the same place, that is EasterCon 2008. During this convention, a weird looking toy called "MonQee" was presented to various convention paricipants for them to sign it. Here's Gaiman signing the MonQee, this is Frank signing the thing and here's Brianna doing it as well.

It is curious that in October of last year Amanda Palmer, Gaiman's wife, posted on her Facebook page an article about the allaged harassment of Brianna. Did Palmer's decision to bring attention to this issue might have had something to do with her husband knowing Frank and Brianna?

The connection between fantasy writer and Hugo Award winner Jim C. Hines and Frank Wu is even more clear. The two have been Facebook friends since January 2011, and in this post Hines mentions that he knows Frank for more than a decade.

Here's Frank friends list on Facebook, and here an archived version of it (I just hope archive.is managed to capture all of Frank's 804 FB friends). Anyone who wants to go through that list and see which other authors/artists are there and whether or not the're linked to SJWs in gaming is welcomed.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

I know this is way off topic , but it's of interest to me. Do we have anything that would link these people to Brandon Sanderson? He won a Hugo for a novella, but he teaches writing at BYU. He's a favorite of mine and it would be a shame if he was involved in this.

 

[NegaCWC]

he teaches writing at BYU.

This should have already answered your question. BYU is a place where a sane liberal/leftist might feel a little uncomfortable, so I find it hard to think that a wacko SJW will be associated with that place. It explicity says on wikipedia that he's a Mormon, and as expected he is somewhat conservative when it comes to gay marriage (though hes's far from being Rick Santorum), so I doubt SJWs are fond of him.

****

Back to the topic, I've found two more sci-fi/fantasy writers with ties to Brianna; Hugo Award winners John Scalzi and Elizabeth Bear (she is also seen in a photograph with Frank and Gaiman that I linked to in my previous post).

 

[MiloWuCollusion]

The big difference is that Gaiman has been outspoken about "Free Speech" to a degree that would make any regular SJW unconfortable. I can believe Gaiman wife taking pity of Brianna, many people do at the beginning . Gaiman is also pretty savvy on keeping most of his connections private (has a relative in scienthology )

Drawing conspiracies about literary figures is tricky because, in fact, many writter know each other as is compromised of smalls circles. That doesn't mean that everyone is friendly with each other or there something deeper than mere acquaintance. Frank was married with female writter than he (and later she) accused of domestic abuse

No doubt Wu abused many of her and his husband connections, but how big they were involved is not that easy to figure out.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

This should have already answered your question. BYU is a place where a sane liberal/leftist might feel a little uncomfortable, so I find it hard to think that a wacko SJW will be associated with that place. It explicity says on wikipedia that he's a Mormon,
and as expected he is somewhat conservative when it comes to gay
marriage (though hes's far from being Rick Santorum), so I doubt SJWs are fond of him.
.

I actually think he comes off as completely reasonable in the update to that, minus the 2 sentances about privelige.

 

[TyrannoNinja]

I know this is way off topic , but it's of interest to me. Do we have anything that would link these people to Brandon Sanderson? He won a Hugo for a novella, but he teaches writing at BYU. He's a favorite of mine and it would be a shame if he was involved in this.

What do we mean by "involved" here? The insidious thing about SJWs like Wu is their ability to manipulate even well-meaning people into sympathizing with their agenda. Just because certain highly respected authors have contact with Wu that isn't negative doesn't mean these authors are privy to everything she and her confederates have done. If anything, I'd expect someone like Wu to seek out high-profile authors to milk their pity for all to see. This by itself wouldn't reflect badly on the authors themselves.

For that matter, it wouldn't surprise me if the same trend underlay a significant part of the "corruption on gaming journalism" that has GG up in arms. It could be that websites like Kotaku or Polygon are endorsing the SJW perspective because they don't want to be seen as discriminating against women, non-European races, LGBTs, or whomever the SJWs claim to represent. Mind you, I'm not claiming there isn't some more insidious stuff happening behind the scenes with these publications, but I can easily see even well-meaning editorial boards jumping onto the SJW bandwagon after being honestly duped.

 

[NegaCWC]

The big difference is that Gaiman has been outspoken about "Free Speech" to a degree that would make any regular SJW unconfortable. I can believe Gaiman wife taking pity of Brianna, many people do at the beginning . Gaiman is also pretty savvy on keeping most of his connections private (has a relative in scienthology )

Drawing conspiracies about literary figures is tricky because, in fact, many writter know each other as is compromised of smalls circles. That doesn't mean that everyone is friendly with each other or there something deeper than mere acquaintance. Frank was married with female writter than he (and later she) accused of domestic abuse

No doubt Wu abused many of her and his husband connections, but how big they were involved is not that easy to figure out.

I should point out that the "Frank used his connections to help Brianna" theory is merely a line of inquiry I'm proposing, and as of now I do not see it as proven. As for the relationship between the various authors I mentioned and Frank/Brianna... I think it's fair to conclude that Frank and Hines are pretty close, and the same can be said for Brianna and Scalzi seeing that she invited him for dinner. Are they friends of each other? Maybe not, but they're no longer just acquaintances. Ditto for Briana and Elizabeth Bear, who are friendly with each other. The real question is how much any of Frank's connections have a sway within the gaming press. I can definitely see a situation in which their shared ideology has brought them together, but this is far from the only possible option.

 

[MiloWuCollusion]

I should point out that the "Frank used his connections to help Brianna" theory is merely a line of inquiry I'm proposing, and as of now I do not see it as proven. As for the relationship between the various authors I mentioned and Frank/Brianna... I think it's fair to conclude that Frank and Hines are pretty close, and the same can be said for Brianna and Scalzi seeing that she invited him for dinner. Are they friends of each other? Maybe not, but they're no longer just acquaintances. Ditto for Briana and Elizabeth Bear, who are friendly with each other. The real question is how much any of Frank's connections have a sway within the gaming press. I can definitely see a situation in which their shared ideology has brought them together, but this is far from the only possible option.

I also think is worth pointing out, as I didn't knew that Brianna being pals with Leigh was not common knowledge. And I also think there was a coordinated effort to antagonize 'gamers' and GG and paint themselves as victims. But I also see many people acting in goodwill failing for it. That is the shitty thing about this stuff, as truly malicius people get behind other people that wouldn't know otherwise.

 

[Jaimas]

Actually she was mentioned in three Gamasutra articles that predate GG (including one by Leigh), they can be seen below:

Spoiler

Article by Leigh Alexander, 15 January 2014
Article by Kris Ligman, 28 April 2014
Article by Alex Wawro, 24 June 2014

Polygon also appear to like Brianna, I've found six pre-GG articles in which she is mentioned:

Spoiler

Article by Ben "rape is funny" Kuchera, 25 February 2014
Article by Samit Sarker, 14 April 2014
Article by Megan Farokhmanesh, 16 April 2014
Guest article by Brianna from 22 July 2014. Notice that she used harassment to draw attention to herself even before GamerGate.
Article by Danielle Riendeau, 23 July 2014
Article by Leigh Alexander, 24 July 2014

I did a search in Kotaku as well and found two pre-GG article involving Wu, one by Mike Fahey and another by Grayson. Brianna also wrote in October of last year about Samantha Allen being a friend of her, although I don't know how much are they really friends and for how long. Regarding Brianna appearing on MSNBC... It has been suggested on KiA that Eric Johnston of Re/Code had a hand in it, but one person in the same thread argued against this idea. As for the idea that Brianna deliberately tried to draw GG's attention towards her, A friend of Wu has actually said that this is the case.

I have this theory that Frank may have used his connections to help Brianna get into the gaming journo/indie dev clique. It's long so I'm going to spoiler it:

Spoiler: Wall of text

There should be no doubt that Frank Wu had a pivotal role in his wife's rise to fame. Not only did he burn his life savings on R60, but also did some work on the game itself. But did he help his wife establish the connections needed in order to get in the gaming journos/indie devs clique?

Brianna tells us that she married Frank 11 months after meeting him. Frank's Facebook account shows that he married Brianna in October 2008, implying that they first met on December 2007. Frank was first nominated for a Hugo Award in 2002 (see his wiki article), meaning that he was active in the sci-fi and fantasy scenes (and more specifically, in the World Science Fiction Society, the literary society behind the Hugo Awards) for at least five years prior to meeting Brianna. It is not unlikely to assume that both before and after his marriage Frank has gotten to know and befriend several noted authors and artists.

SJW have a siginificant presesnce inside the WSCFS, and many Hugo Awards winners from past years share the same ideological orientation with members of the gaming journos/indie devs clique. Seeing how fantasy and sci-fi genres tie with vidoe games, it would not be surprising if it was found out that SJWs from the literary fantasy and sci-fi scene share significant ties with SJWs involved in gaming. If this is indeed the case, I would not be shocked if it was shown that Brianna was introduced to the gaming SJW clique through prominent figures Frank knows from his own professional and social circles. This posibility becomes even more likely once it is taken into account that Frank is a member of the Bay Area Science Fiction Association. This association is loacted in San Francisco, home of the gaming journos clique.

So far I've found two cases of relatively important authors being linked to Frank. Some of you probably already know of Neil Gaiman. As wikipedia tells us, Gaiman won Hugo Awards in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2012, and was likewise nominated (but did not win) for a Hugo in 2006. Those nominations/wins happen to overlap with Frank's nominations/wins; Frank was nomiated for Hugo Awards (some of which he won) from every year between 2002-2009. Not only did Frank and Gaiman probably met each other during most of these award ceremonies, flickr and twitter definitely show they're acquainted with each other.

Can we connect Brianna to Gaiman? We can at least establish that at one point they were present at the same place, that is EasterCon 2008. During this convention, a weird looking toy called "MonQee" was presented to various convention paricipants for them to sign it. Here's Gaiman signing the MonQee, this is Frank signing the thing and here's Brianna doing it as well.

It is curious that in October of last year Amanda Palmer, Gaiman's wife, posted on her Facebook page an article about the allaged harassment of Brianna. Did Palmer's decision to bring attention to this issue might have had something to do with her husband knowing Frank and Brianna?

The connection between fantasy writer and Hugo Award winner Jim C. Hines and Frank Wu is even more clear. The two have been Facebook friends since January 2011, and in this post Hines mentions that he knows Frank for more than a decade.

Here's Frank friends list on Facebook, and here an archived version of it (I just hope archive.is managed to capture all of Frank's 804 FB friends). Anyone who wants to go through that list and see which other authors/artists are there and whether or not the're linked to SJWs in gaming is welcomed.

Just what we needed. Thank you, NegaCWC. You do the lord's work. I'll be sure to use this information accordingly in the article.

 

[wheat pasta]

2. My favorite part of gaming journalism is that Wu influenced the critics to get some obscure awards
[MEDIA=twitter]606875892317454336[/MEDIA]

Wu, you fucking moron. Why did you put on those pants for your picture? You knew there would be an interview on that day, and those are the best you could do?
You say you speak for women, but I don't think any self-respecting woman in any profession wants her picture taken looking like that. Change your pants, then we'll talk.

 

[Butta Face Lopez]

Yeah well MOST women aren't busy dismantling the patriarchy by any means necessary, which includes bucking your binary, heterocisnormative standards of feminine beauty and appropriate attire

 

[CrispyBacon]

Brianna Wu dislikes Destiny. Like, a lot.

[MEDIA=twitter]603791849271119872[/MEDIA]

If she dislikes it so much, why is she still playing it?

One of my good friends is part of FWC and tweeted about playing with Wu last night too.