On Dickwolves from a longtime fan of Penny Arcade (worth reading):

"I was a huge fan of the comic Penny Arcade for about 12 years. And by huge fan, let me be clear: Before there was PAX, there was Necrowombicon, and I played a tiny, tiny part in the original Necrowombicon. Two guys from Washington who made funny internet cartoons drove up to Vancouver so we could throw them a fan conference, and they were mostly just astounded that anyone cared enough to do that, and a little weirded out by it. Jerry unloaded some deeply creepy furry CCG cards on us in a hotel room very late at night. We played the BF1942 Wake Island demo until we literally melted the power cord feeding the LAN party. I was a little drunk and a lot starstruck. There was DDR. There was 8-player Daytona USA. I guess what I'm saying is, it was completely awesome.

I met people who are still good friends today through Penny Arcade fandom. My career was deeply advanced by it. It was a very important part of my life.

And then, in 2010, they made a tasteless rape joke about "Dick Wolves" in a middlin' funny comic about MMORPG tropes. A rape survivor got offended, and wrote a reaction blog to it, calling out that tastelessness. Here's a refresher link: http://www.shakesville.com/2010/08/rape-is-hilarious-part-53-in-ongoing.html

One of the strip's authors, Mike "Gabe" Krahulik, reacted to that post and a little Twitter shaming by declaring nerd-war. He stoked a huge controversy, up to and including creating and selling T-shirts specifically designed to bait rape survivors. Let me say this again, and be very, very clear about it: Mike could have made all of this go away so easily, just by letting it slide by without comment. He could even have said "Yeah, the joke was tasteless, what's for dinner?" and it still would have gone away. Instead he poured lighter fluid on people who were already raw and burning, then kerosene, then drank until his urine was flammable, and then pissed on the blaze. As a result, thousands of people (almost all men), outraged that someone would try to censor their internet idol, followed suit. People threatened to rape this woman to death, and harassed her by the thousands. Waves of backlash and counter-backlash followed, rolling on for months. And all of this escalation is a direct result of Mike's trolling.

I want that clear in everyone's head if we continue to discuss this, because it seems like something that gets deflected or ignored when people talk about the Dickwolves Incident. It wasn't the DickWolves joke or the post calling their joke out as tasteless that created the controversy. Mike's reaction to it is what created the problem, and his business partners' Jerry "tycho" Holkins & Robert Khoo's largely-silent defense and support of him through the whole thing made it worse.

It wasn't about me in the slightest, but I took it personally. Even knowing that intimacy between fan and creator is a falsehood that lives solely in the mind of the fan, Mike & Jerry were people with whom I had once literally broken bread. I was heartbroken, and it didn't matter much to me that the heartbreak was solely one-sided. But the result was that Penny Arcade went from a daily read for me to something I looked at every once in a while when somebody posted a link. Attending their gaming conference went from "something I'd like to do" to "something I probably wouldn't like to do," because every new person I met there, I'd be wondering if they were part of the Dick Wolf Hate Squad. I stopped playing online games as much, because I didn't want to deal with people like that. My love affair with that particular fandom had been broken, and it took some of my love affair with videogames along with it.

But the thing is, people grow and change, and in June of this year, Mike made some more deeply offensive comments, this time about trans people. It seemed like this whole cycle would repeat itself, when out of nowhere Mike apologized. And it was pretty good! He ended his mea culpa with this: "My reaction when I feel backed into corner is to be an asshole. It’s essentially how I defend myself. It’s been that way since was in elementary school. I’m 36 now. Maybe it’s finally time to try and let some of that shit go."

Now, on a personal note: Those of you reading this that have known me for a while will probably easily remember how long it took me to let go of Angrily Being Right On The Internet. I made a fulltime job of it, and was a huge asshole to many because I didn't understand the difference between being right, and being righteous. I'm grateful that so many who knew me then still talk to me today after all of that bad behavior. But you know what? I (largely) grew out of it. These days I have little patience for those my age who haven't.

So when I read Mike's apology I was really pleased, because I saw someone on the same painful journey that I have undertaken. Hey, maybe he can be a grownup after all! Maybe he understands that on the internet, people tend to see things in black & white, and sometimes that's more about them than it is about you. Maybe he understands that art, even pop art, is a conversation between artist and audience, and when artists say provocative things there will be a backlash if they are not respectful of the responses they get from the people they provoke.

Maybe, in short, Mike can change, and as a figurehead for the gaming community, maybe he can lead that community can change with him. Maybe he can be an example showing young men that they can lead with compassion instead of with anger. I know that when I was 21, or 25, or even 30, I could have used that role model. I'm excited that he has the opportunity to become one. Even a little jealous. Because art, even pop art, is a conversation between artist and audience, and as the audience this is the lens through which I am viewing him. I know that I am not the only one with this perspective.

(I'm a starry-eyed idealist sometimes. So shoot me.)

So when Mike got on stage last weekend and said "oh man, I totally caved to the rape victims when I stopped selling products that were specifically designed to bully them, that was a mistake," that is a deeply disappointing event. It shows his audience that his apology to the trans community wasn't the beginnings of an epiphany; it was just false enlightenment. It shows that he hasn't really changed or learned anything at all. It shows that he still, after all of this, thinks that he is right, and always was. It shows that he still thinks that it's important that he be right.

I tell you what. Disappointed doesn't even begin to cover it."