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Brianna Wu
Part of a series on GamerGate. [View Related Entries]
About
Brianna Wu is a video game developer, computer programmer, and politician, as well as the cofounder of independent video game development studio Giant Spacekat. She entered the public eye following the harassment she received during GamerGate. Following the 2016 United States Presidential Election, she announced that she would run for a seat in the United States Congress against Massachusetts Rep. Stephen F. Lynch.
History
Wu cofounded Giant Spacekat in 2010 with Amanda Stenquist Warner, adding Maria Enderton as lead programmer.[1] Wu was the developer of the studio's first iOS game, Revolution 60, released in July 2014. The game featured female protagonists and was critically acclaimed, listed as one of the ten best indie games when it was demoed at Pax East 2013. Wu also was the cohost of the podcast Isometric, which ran from 2014 to 2016 before it ended, and is now cohost of the podcast Disruption.
GamerGate-related Harassment
In October of 2014, Wu posted tweets critical of pro-GamerGate advocates, mocking their fight against "an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3 percent." On October 10th, an anonymous user on 8chan posted Wu's address, phone number and email to the /gg/ (GamerGate) board. Several users responded denouncing the post and raising suspicions that it was part of a false flag attack (shown below, left). That evening, Wu tweeted that she was contacting the police after receiving threats from a Twitter account named "Death to Brianna" (shown below, right).
On October 13th, MSNBC covered #Gamergate with Eric Johnson and Brianna wu during which Wu claimed the death threats she received came from #Gamergate and 8chan.co (shown below, left). On October 14th, Frederick Brennan and Brianna Wu were featured on a Huffpost live segment in which Wu blamed Brennan and #Gamergate for her doxing, after which Brennan refuted the mistakes of Brianna's explanation (shown below, right).
On March 17th, 2016, Syfy channel aired episode 102 of "The internet ruined my life". It featured an interview with Brianna Wu about the death threats she received.
Wu set up a legal fund for families affected by GamerGate and offered an $11,000 reward for anyone who provided information that led to the prosecution of those who sent her death threats.
Oppressed GamerGater
On October 9th, 2014, Brianna Wu tweeted an image macro series titled "Oppressed GamerGater" to criticize the GamerGate community.[32] In reply to this, on the online imageboard 8chan, users started to create new image macros of the character with messages that disagree with the contra-gamergate community. This development was subsequently shared the next day on the /r/KotakuInAction subreddit.
Samus is a Transgender Woman
On September 1st, 2015, Wu and Ellen McGrody published an article titled "Metroid’s Samus Aran is a Transgender Woman. Deal With It." on the feminist pop culture news website The Mary Sue.[1] Both authors claimed that Samus Aran from the Metroid series is a male-to-female transgendered woman, using developer comments and instruction booklet excerpts as sources.
Within 24 hours, the article had 2000+ comments and made Samus trend on Twitter with almost 4,000 tweets in one day.[13] Criticism of the article focused on the author's lack of sources and mistranslations. An anonymous user on Wikipedia began editing the Wikipedia article for Samus Aran to include references to transgenderism, and claiming those who were reverting the edits were "Gamergators" and "transmisogynists." This user was quickly blocked and the article locked.
![Discussion on whether Samus is transgender [edit] I tried adding the proper info on Samus being a transwoman, but apparently some reactionaries probably found out and now are not only vandalizing the article, but creating an edit war. Please revert the vandalism caused by them and then lock the article. Thank you!12602:304 CFE0:FA09 E036:C835:6DE5:C (talk) 01:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC) "reactionaries"-are you serious? The only article that came out about this gives political reasons as the primary reasoning behind this, the first paragraph is "there's been a lot of talk lately about the lack of women protagonists in videogames. But our problems with diversity don't stop there. As one article recently noted, shockingly, there have only been 14 playable black women in videogame history. Gamers who aren't cisgender white men often find themselves lacking characters they can rally behind." Are you seriously considering this a legitimate source without biases? The mairn reasoning for writing this article is to stick it to a strawman of a industry entirely dominated by "cisgender white men." TussilagoFanfara (talk) 11:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC) Samus as a transwoman? Where did you get that from? GamerPro64 01:23, 2 September 2015 (UTC) There were no sources on the page about it either. Shouldn't that be a priority? -Aldude999 (talk) 01:26, 2 September 2015 (UTC) Yes. Unless you have a source, a reliable source, I would consider these edits vandalism and unproductive. GamerPro64 01:27, 2 September 2015 TC http://www.themarysue.com/metroids-samus-aran-transgender-woman/ It should work. _ Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:CFE0:FA09:E036:C835:6DE5:C (talk) 01:29, 2 September 2015 (UTC) Reads like poorly researched fanfiction, is a blog post (contributors) on a non-reputable biased source, and is directly counter to official sources. Samus is not a transwoman, no matter what some demagogue's fanfiction says. Also, "Transmisogynist" is not a real word. KITA (talk) 01:43, 2 September 2015 (UTC) Transmisogynist is, in fact, a word: see this Wiktionary entry. It derives from a relatively newly-coined but well established term Transmisogyny. (This doesn't in any way contradict your primary assertion, of course.) 208.85.32.249 (talk) 02:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC) (edit conflict) Thank you for providing a source but The Mary Sue is considered a situation source in the Video Game projects. And I'm not really seeing any evidence of Samus being trans. Unless an actual member of Nintendo trans. GamerPro64 01:35, 2 September 2015 (UTC) nfirms this we shouldn't use this source or say she is A newly written article is the furthest from a reliable source. Until this is verified by the original creator it should not be considered reliable. Evanx11 (talk) 01:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC) The page has no references from anyone it quotes, no official word, no videos, or written statements. Just curious if there's anything like that out there? It just doesn't seem sufficient to me is all. -Aldude999 (talk) 01:35, 2 September 2015 (UTC) It will never have any official word. The developers haven't said anything conclusive, and the MarySue article is pure speculation based on a conclusion that had little evidence and only biased thinking. Until the devs give a definitive answer to the question, it should be assumed that Samus is female You reactionary MRA gamergators have nothing reliable to disprove the article. The Mary Sue falls under Wiki's list of sourceable websites. If Brianna Wu states that Samus is a transwoman, which she has WITH evidence, then that's what the article will include. The only way I'll stop is if the creator himself will step up and say that no she isn't. Until then, your reactionary dogpiling won't help this time.2602:304 CFE0:FA09 E036:C835:6DE5:C (talk) 01:39, 2 September 2015 (UTC) Your vandalism has been reverted and the article is locked. Have a nice day. 69.115.224.183 (talk) 01:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC) Your lack of faith in other editors and assuming they are all "reactionary MRA gamergators" will get you nowhere but assumptions from everyone else that you are either here to troll or here to push an agenda and not collaborate. That source is considered unreliable for video game articles, from an author who is not a full time writer at the publication. I don't think the 'evidence' of the article is sufficient but that doesn't affect whethe game characters being t Even if this argument was made from a reliable source, unless that source directly quoted the the Weedwacker (talk) 01:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC) siders it reliable to use. On cle fromm on-reliable source about f the most recognized female video s is not something that is accepted as fact requiresC tersourcing from the creat reven inc ors saying "yes this was always the case" t would t be a small blurb somewhere in the cle saying "x speculated that Samus is trans", not inserting it all over the article as fact Go t You won't be laugh afte ntact the sysops to revert andalism. Have you transmisogynist f-- 2602:304:CFE0:FA09 E036:C835:6DE5:C (talk) 01:43, 2 September 2015 (UTC)](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/012/824/6af.png "\"Go to Hell. You won't be laughing after I contact the sysops to revert your vandalism((returning article to default state)).")
Run for Congress
Following the 2016 Presidential Election, Wu announced that she would be running for a seat in the United States as a Democrat against representative Stephen F. Lynch of Massachusetts. Wu cited her fight against the alt-right as evidence she could fight conservative forces in the United States government. On January 17th, 2017, she officially announced her run and posted a video supporting her campaign (shown below).
Brianna Wu for Congress 2018 from Brianna Wu on Vimeo.
Proposed Campaign Logo
On April 12th, 2017, Brianna Wu tweeted a potential logo for her campaign. The tweet, shown below, has since been deleted.
Instantly, Twitter users began mocking the design as being more suited for purposes other than a political campaign as well as its general poor design.
One user, @jimpjorps,[3] tweeted several jokes about the logo. The most popular, with 175 retweets, read "that Brianna Wu logo looks like it belongs on a steampunk burlesque lounge that gets shut down by a health inspector." The Daily Dot[2] covered the story the following day.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Wikipedia – Brianna Wu
[2] Daily Dot – Weird Twitter is mercilessly roasting Brianna Wu’s potential campaign logo
Top Comments
RemChi
Feb 24, 2017 at 01:32PM EST in reply to
RemChi
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