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Man who joined in cyberterrorizing Arlington game developer now says it was all just a joke

BuzzFeed introduces us to Jan Rankowski, a Maine man who posted a YouTube video that showed him with the car he claimed he wrecked while on the way to terrorize Arlington game developer Brianna Wu - forced to flee her home last year under a deluge of horrible and specific threats from GamerGate manboys.

Turns out Rankowski is a member of a sketch-comedy group and says, ha ha, he was just trying to satirize GamerGate. And now that his secret is out and GamerGate is doing the same sort of harassment against him that they did against Wu, he says, oops, he has newfound sympathy for Wu and other women game developers.

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Comments

really adam? *smile*

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Buzzfeed's actually doing some legitimate journalism these days.

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I know I read the article and it only had one picture, and it wasn't an animated GIF or a picture of a cat. And the article was longer than three sentences!

WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO?

Next you'll tell me Boston.com will start having real journalism too!

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Boston.com and real journalism? Maybe next millennium ...

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I want to be like "good on you for trying to satirize them, sucks you're getting harassed now" but at the same time he was adding to the deluge that Wu et al were experiencing.

I guess the only appropriate reaction is my usual: F$%K GAMERGATE.

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In addition to the public and youtube stuff this moron sent direct private threats to Wu -- pretty much incinerating his claim that it was a performance/satire/joke being done on a public stage.

As Wu was quoted as saying recently the best thing he can do now is "lawyer up"

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Wasn't this around the same time as "Massachusetts"?

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ethics in stand up comedy

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We were just joking with her!

It may have worked for them in junior high with the gym teacher, but it won't in the grownup world.

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... then it sucks to be him, but having just watched a handful of MDE youtube films-- actually, I exaggerate, I couldn't make it through more than a few minutes of any of them-- he's on thin ice claiming this is comedy.

Hipster racist/sexist pseudohumor, punctuated with mocking random people and unfunny practical jokes. These are three of the Five Pillars of YouTube but anyone with a sense of humor, or just sense, would have a hard time believing any of the crap I saw was satire or art.

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I like this story. So many insightful and articulate people here but space savers and Boston Common beach volleyball can take them only so far.

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OK, I honestly had absolutely no idea what "Gamergate" was/is, so I googled "what is gamergate?" and this article pretty much answered my ?s:
http://gawker.com/what-is-gamergate-and-why-an-explainer-for-non-geeks-1...
It was just as silly and childish as I thought it would be.

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Hmm, I'd not characterize threats against individual women as "silly and childish", it's a quite serious crime.

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Not to dismiss the seriousness of the threats, but there are often children involved.

http://jezebel.com/video-game-reviewer-is-contacting-the-mothers-of-her-...

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The threats against individual women are evil and sickening. I am just having a hard time understanding the mentality of these people. I just now read another article about how one of these Gamergate people who was also a recent winner on Jeopardy started harassing a rape victim online. These people are really disgusting & I can't grasp where they are coming from at all.

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Arthur Chu won Jeopardy, he is decidedly against gamergate. Is that who you are referencing?

I can't comment to his purported harassment of rape victims because I just haven't looked into it. Part of me believes that if it is gamergaters accusing him of this, it's probably wrong. I believe this because these same 'winners' accused him of approving of Hitler. You know, just because both he and Ian Miles are Asian doesn't mean they believe the same things. Besides which, Ian has realized his mistake and grown up a bit.

GGers tend to change the argument when they're losing - and they dig up and/or make up reprehensible things about the people they attack. Then groupthink jumps on and the whole situation becomes muddied.

Do remember, GGers started this about ethics in gaming journalism and here is where we stand as a result.

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When it's not.

I'll be a PAX East ... I'll be curious to see how things go.

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"It was just a psychology experiment" will be next.

I heard all of that way back in 1980s Usenet days, and I doubt the police are going to believe it.

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This is terrible.

According to the photo in yesterday's Globe story, Brianna Wu is reduced to wearing threadbare dungarees.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/02/24/pax-east-withdrawal-revea...

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Infantile and stupid boys club bullshit. These losers need to seriously grow the fuck up.

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