The Worst People I HAVE Met

Late to the party, but I only indirectly became aware of an article via Twitter several days ago, where a fat lesbian pretending to be a scientist wasted four years of her overly abundant free time interviewing incompetent, greedy, untalented, unimaginative, unmotivated, moronic, malicious, manipulative, misanthropic sociopaths--aka people just like her--and is somehow surprised to discover that they are incompetent, greedy, untalented, unimaginative, unmotivated, moronic, malicious, manipulative, misanthropic sociopaths.

The original was deleted pretty quickly for unknown reasons, but in case you want to read it yourself there's a backup of it here and someone also had the foresight to record the audio clips.

It opens with a quote from Maria Fanning, a mentally ill man poorly cosplaying as a woman--one of many trends, you'll notice--who was likely looking for an excuse to quit a hobby that either didn't know who he was or was happy to see him go, pretending that by merely walking away from an industry that he didn't even meaningfully participate in is somehow the equivalent to not only taking responsibility for his deliberately terrible behavior, but also assumes it's sufficient for everyone he wronged. 

Clio plays up what she considers to be qualifications and credentials, which in her words "needs" to include that she is gay (I'm sure she hoped would suffice as a shield from well-deserved criticism). Besides the absence of more than a few names, this was the only part of the article that surprised me, that Clio was able to restrain herself until the very end of the very first paragraph before bringing up her predictable and wholly irrelevant sexuality, and it was at this point I largely checked out and just began skimming the article, assuming it would offer nothing of value.

I was correct because nothing Clio states is new or even exactly obscure information. Did you interact with any of the people she mentions, and/or their supporters, for any amount of time? Then you already knew all of this, or are hopelessly naïve and/or monumentally retarded.

I suppose it might be useful for people just getting into the hobby and/or industry, just be warned that the article is ridiculously long, partially because Clio spends far too many words trying to depict herself as some determined, brave, and even somewhat competent woman who is somehow risking her life or what could generously be termed a career. And I'm not kidding, the second paragraph starts with:

"For the last year I was afraid to publish this article, for fear of retaliation."

Like what, mean tweets? I don't think Clio is actively or even consistently employed, and I'm sure her parents are already well aware of what a disappointment she is so, exactly what sort of retaliation could she possibly fear? Well, the next paragraph offers some insight:

"I am a psychotherapist and social research scientist who has worked in maximum security prisons with violent offenders and with at-risk youth, I have interviewed, studied, and interacted with a very wide variety of multiple-felons close-up for years, and right now I am studying Dungeons and Dragons drama and what studying it tells me about people frightens me more than any of that work ever has."

Yes, Clio is honestly claiming to be more terrified of unemployed and delusional losers, some of whom may, gasp, churn out the occasional incomplete vapidware trash game in between bouts of posting envious tweets and begging for rent money on social media because their parents stopped paying their bills, than she is of actual criminals. Of course, she isn't in any actual danger, and I'm not sure who she is trying to convince otherwise: herself, or her meager audience.

As with her "credentials", she misrepresents the history of the hobby, depicting it as "not always welcoming to outsiders", a place mostly for "boys, teenagers, and eventually men". An odd choice of words, as teenagers can mean boys or girls, but she also follows it up with "...played with as many people as they could find." So, which is it Clio? A place not welcoming to outsiders or a place where boys, girls, men and women played with as many people as they could find?

Those of us that game know it's the latter. Groups that play instead of sitting around staring at smart phones and occasionally engaging in thinly-veiled fetish narration don't care as long as you are there to play, and are even tolerant and/or desperate enough to accept an obnoxious asshole or two, so long as you don't disrupt the game too much, which says a lot about people like Clio who can't keep or even find a group willing to put up with their shit.

And this trend of deliberate misrepresentation doesn't stop there: in the section titled Ringing the Bell, Clio ignores any and all evidence and nuance so she can attempt to chalk up "incels" writing "shitty messages on Twitter" being solely due to a new Star Wars character being black, and ends by disingenuously declaring that she knows "...why right-wingers want to hurt diverse groups of creative people". What evidence or explanation does she provide, you ask? Why, none whatsoever, because there isn't any (though there is evidence for the reverse).

She also feigns ignorance as to why "...diverse groups of creative people hurt each other". First off, they aren't creative. Second, their so-called "diversity" is occasionally skin-deep at best. Third, the "why" is obvious: as I said at the start they are all. without exception, very simply put, misanthropic sociopaths. They despise everyone that they even perceive as happier, smarter, more attractive, and/or more successful than they are. And I say perceive because while I suppose it is technically possible that a potential target fails to meet any of the above criteria, unless he also happens to waste his time wallowing in the same virtual cesspools they do it's pretty much a guarantee that he's better and/or better off.

She eventually gets around to posting a clip from one of the people she interviewed, who unlike so many of the others opted to remain anonymous (you can listen via the YouTube link, but there's a transcript in the linked article). Probably for the best given his unhinged justification for harassing people:

"It’s so easy and, like, you know; it feels good. Like, the horrible thing that people don’t like to admit is that fuckin’ being justified and getting stuck in, it feels good. You know, like, it’s like you’re some sort of, like, you’re charged with some sort of, uh, duty to, like, remove the bad person or whatever. And like, you know, anyone who says that doesn’t feel good’s fucking lying."

"Or they’ve got something else on their mind. Like, it’s the same reason like, you know, young men like fighting or whatever, like, it feels good to get stuck in. And, like, if you’re doing it, and you’ve — you’re justified, so many dudes are just waiting for that, you know?"

He not only feels good about harassing people (shocking, I'm sure), but likens it to some sort of calling or duty. The bit about anyone saying that they don't experience some sort of pleasure for doing so is lying is also telling: it's like he knows it's wrong on some level, but is trying to convince himself that it's fine because "everyone else would also do it and enjoy it". He's of course wrong: people that aren't misanthropic sociopaths don't experience some sort of high, merely because they managed to ruin someone's life over made-up and/or trivial bullshit.

And then we start getting some names, most of which are familiar to me from back when G+ was still around. I've never heard of Brian Yaksha, or at least the name doesn't ring any bells, but given his behavior I'm not surprised that he worked on Mork Borg (so did Patrick Stuart, which does a lot to explain its shortcomings). Fiona Maeve Geist is a name I do recall, and would you be surprised to find that he's yet another man pretending to be a woman. What about if I told you he worked on Troika?

He's of course not the only member of the troon squad: you've got the aforementioned Maria Fanning, then there's Olivia Hill, Emmy Allen, and Erika Muse (he took a bit of effort to confirm, somehow less known than the others). I don't know if Shoe Skogen is a guy pretending to be a girl, or vice versa, but he certainly seems to "present" a certain way and is also a they/themming pronouner. In either case whoo boy if he's actually a woman he got utterly clobbered by a ranger dual-wielding +5 ugly clubs.

I'm sensing a pattern here, of mentally ill degenerate losers producing at best incomplete vapidware trash games, and then backstabbing and shit-talking each other because they are for some reason envious of some other loser's incomplete vapidware trash game, as well as their grossly exaggerated fame and fortune. And this isn't a theory, as if you hung around these people on G+ you saw it firsthand, but it doesn't matter because another anonymous guy outright admits it:

"…conflict is common because, um, right, like, on some level, and we all don’t like admitting to this, a lot of our ideological conflicts are over resources. And we don’t like talking about that because really, the reason that a lot of us think that certain people are bad is that they make money that we think should be in our pocket. It’s not the most noble reason."

What makes his fucked up mentality even more fucked up is that it's not even over a meaningful amount of money. These people would make far more merely working a part-time job, but they don't want to work. They mooch off their parents, beg for money on social media, throw the occasional low-effort turd-party offering up on DriveThru and obviously aren't even content with this lifestyle given their perpetual sadness and anger, which is only exacerbated when they see other people actually doing something with their lives, creating even halfway decent content, and being self-sufficient and happy.

But this requires a modicum of effort, dedication, and discipline so, instead, they blame their myriad failures and shortcomings on self-diagnosed mental illnesses, imaginary problems, and even other people who might not even be aware of their existence (which to them is some sort of transgression, I'm sure). It's not their fault, you see. They would totally make the next Dungeons & Dragons and be rich, which they believe would make them happy (it won't), if only it weren't for their (entirely self-inflicted) depression, anxiety, a lack of time, whatever.

There's always something, some excuse, but the most important thing you must know is that it's never their fault. And this is why I don't feel sorry for them, not in the slightest: not only are they utterly insufferable, but they are also the architects of their own misery.

The second part, Lesson One: Trust No-One, opens with:

"The first problem here is that if the most influential voices in tabletop RPGs are to be believed then, well…the most influential voices in tabletop RPGs are all charlatans or harassers who cannot be believed."

Not that I consider any of them to be influential in the slightest, but have you seen the pretentious vapidware trash they try to pass off as even partially complete and slightly interesting games? This isn't exactly a shocker. Neither is the fact that they all despise each other:

"While in A’s interview he says only that Patrick Stuart is “a bit of a prick”, Stuart says Olivia Hill (formerly at the company that did popular ’90s goth horror game Vampire: The Masquerade) “sounds insane”, while when Olivia Hill’s girlfriend (and employee) Francita Soto claimed Hill was an abuser and that Hill’s game-designer wife Filamena Young was as well, Robert Bohl (author of punk-teen simulator RPG Misspent Youth) sympathized with Soto saying he had secretly had issues with Hill for years, Shoe Skogen (former moderator of the largest and most influential OSR Discord forum) accuses Hill of sketchy sexual behavior in role-play chat and sending mentally-ill people to harass her, while Skogen’s ex-, Emmy Allen, also known as “Cavegirl” and “Emily Allen” (author of the game Dungeon Bitches), claims Skogen abused her (Cavegirl ) during their relationship — though Skogen and Cavegirl have never physically met, Skogen in turn says Erika Muse (currently a moderator at the OSR Discord that Skogen used to moderate) outed Cavegirl as trans, while Fiona Maeve Geist (who is also trans) claims that Cavegirl falsely accused her, Geist, of outing Cavegirl as trans, while Brian Yaksha concurs in his interview that Cavegirl is a “a piece of work” and “racist”, Yaksha also says Chris McDowall (founder of the OSR Discord forum, as well as author of indie games Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland) is an “egotistical jackass”, and further says that two of early indie darling PH Lee’s games (Bliss Stage and Hot Guy’s Making Out) promote child abuse, but Ash Kreider (author of Our Traveling Home “A Ghibli-inspired fantasy tabletop RPG about queer romance, found family, and finding healing through belonging”), in their interview (in addition to attacking two creators behind the ten million dollar Avatar: Legends Kickstarter respectively as “soulless and toxic” and a “tenderqueer” who made a name for herself by being “nice” but not “kind”), claims PH Lee’s enemies used “GamerGate-level harassment tactics” against Lee including contacting mutuals on Twitter and asking them to unfollow Lee, which, however, is a tactic PH Lee’s ally Whitney Beltrán (who formerly worked on official D&D’s recent Ravenloft supplement with her partner Ajit George and who, last I checked was working on an official triple-A Dungeons and Dragons video game) definitely did to yet another designer."

Not only are they emotionally and intellectually on par with children, but they hate each other almost as much as they hate themselves, and it's even more pathetic when you realize that it's because they are jealous of the piddling amounts of money and attention that each thinks the other is receiving.

"Morally, politically, even emotionally, these game designers have almost everything in common, but there are no spaces in the RPG community with rules that encourage them to talk to each other like healthy adults or with social norms that suggest they should."

Even if the "RPG community" existed, it's not anyone's responsibility to impose rules in order to force adults to behave like adults. This will likely come as a shock to Clio, but normal people don't behave in the manner described above, and don't need to be encouraged or instructed to do otherwise. Everyone you've interviewed needs professional help for a myriad of reasons. But of course they won't go, partially because they are broke, and partially because they would never admit that they need help: in their diseased and underdeveloped minds, every woe that befalls them is because of someone else, or circumstances beyond their control, which somehow means they shouldn't have to do anything to improve themselves.

The article then devolves into a "study" and defense Zak Smith, and given how much is devoted to him more than one person has wondered if he had a part to play in its publication. I don't really care one way or another, though it always confused me as to why, if people understandably hated Zak so much, didn't they simply criticize all of the terrible material he's pinched out? Sounds a lot more straightforward than perhaps lying or even exaggerating his behavior and actions. Yeah, he's a disingenuous, dishonest asshole: so what? Everyone already knows that. Instead, review his crap and point out why it's grossly overhyped postmodern crap.

And that goes for everyone mentioned in the article, really, because by almost every metric they're all just as bad as he is (maybe even worse), and are equally incapable of producing anything of merit. Don't want to stoop to their level? Don't want to boycott them? Not that I think merely presenting evidence of their misconduct or refusing to spend money on people that demonstrably despise you is "bad" but, okay, just point out why none of them even have anything worth boycotting in the first place.