Yeah, yeah, success is a ladder, a marathon instead of a sprint and all that crap. Everyone can TELL you stuff like that, but you really have to understand advice in relation to YOURSELF, or it’s all just nice intellectual theory.
Weathering the rough times requires a lot of self-confidence outside the things you can’t control, like career and what other people think of you. You need to be able to feel proud of yourself even if you were living in a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, taking care of goats. You are unique and good enough JUST AS YOU ARE. As a theoretical goat herder.
It was the toughest lesson of my life, learning how to let The Guild go. And how to manage a business bigger than a one-garage web show. Even tougher than the forty-man raids in World of Warcraft. I have many new projects with my company and outside it that I care about now, but none of them will ever be all of me. I learned better than to let that crap happen again.
In the end, I’m able to look back without shame or regretful nostalgia, and think, You made something great. And something new will come around. Or not. Either way, do the work you love. And love yourself. That’s all you can do in this world in order to be happy.
-?11?-
#GamerGate and Meeeeee!
That one time when having a vagina and a love of video games was not such a great combo.
I have a folder labeled “Hate Folder” that sits in the middle of my desktop. It’s where I save screenshots of the worst things people have said to me online. (“Fifty Shades of Felicia!”) For some reason, it takes the sting away to herd all the toxic comments into a corner of my hard drive, aggregating the losers I’d like to hunt down in real life and run over with a dump truck.
Then back up, and run over again! (Too far?)
If it’s too disgusting to say to another human being, I guarantee someone has said it to me online. The internet is amazing because it connects us with one another. But it’s also horrific because . . . it connects us with one another. Whether we want the connection or not. The only real-life analogy I can think of is if a random person were allowed to walk into your home, punch you in the face while you’re eating your oatmeal, then walk out again with no fear of consequences. After one incident you’d be looking for a new zip code, huh?
Here are some fun examples of the human awfulness I’ve collected over the years.
Once someone posts that you’re “So ugly I wouldn’t have sex with your corpse,” that’s when you know you’ve arrived online!
And sure, everyone says the best approach to negative comments is “Don’t feed the trolls,” that ignoring negativity is the best policy. This approach is great in theory, but emotionally, it’s HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Biology backs me up. It’s proven that our brains give more attention to negative experiences than positive ones. (I read it in a study. Reference: internet.) Every online creator jokes about how you can read a thousand great comments about your work, but it’s always a single terrible one that makes you think, They’re right. I should be ejected into the vacuum of space. It would be a public service. REASON: One of the brain’s main jobs is to alert us to environmental threats. That’s probably why I have a “Hate Folder” rather than a “You’re Awesome” folder. (Note from inner therapist: start one of those.) Over the years, I thought I’d seen it all. I thought I’d experienced every rotten thing the internet could fling at people.
And then #GamerGate happened. A perfect, hateful, digital gumbo that gave the gaming world, and me, a black eye not soon to be healed.
I’ll summarize the history briefly for anyone out of the loop. From my point of view. Because it’s my book. If you illegally downloaded this chapter just to parse and argue with my interpretation of events line by line (and I know it will happen, yay!), well, you’re probably the kind of person I’m not very nice to in this section anyway.
Hello! Not a pleasure to meet you!
The whole #GamerGate thing started in August 2014, with a guy getting revenge over a really bad breakup by publishing every excruciatingly and maniacally specific detail online.