SAN FRANCISCO — Game developer Brianna Wu’s life became the inspiration for an episode of the hit cop show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
While she was kinda flattered, she wasn’t entirely pleased. To get Law & Order: SVU‘s attention, your life has to be messed up one way or the other.
“There’s no good way to be on Law and Order,” she joked.
Wu’s life got messed up by the Gamergate controversy, in which misogynistic online harassers targeted her and other females developers who spoke up about sexism in the toxic culture of the game industry, of which she is very much a part.
Now Wu, co-founder of iOS gaming company Giant Spacekat, is back — changing the industry that attacked her.
Speaking at AltConf, the free alternative developers conference running in conjunction with Apple’s WWDC, Wu described what she’s been through.
She received 106 death threats; had to flee her home and go into hiding; has traveled with a security detail; and canceled conference appearances over security concerns. She is the target of constant online harassment, including, at one point, a special Twitter account named @DeathtoBrianna.
“It’s truly been a horrendous year,” she said.
She’s been traveling constantly, speaking at conferences focused on women in tech. To top it off, she’s caught in limbo with the FBI, which still has’t brought cases against her harassers, despite a ton of evidence, she said.
Asked why, she replied: “It’s just not a priority.” She’s hopeful the FBI is still gathering evidence and will one day bring prosecutions, and isn’t just stonewalling her.
She wryly noted that it was quicker to get a TV show made about her case than to bring an actual case. Plus, there was resolution at the end of the hour-long show.
Nonetheless, the ordeal isn’t getting her down. She’s a tall, lithe, energetic woman; an enthusiastic runner and fanatical gamer. She is dying to get back to coding and making games — her company has’t released a title this year.
“I’m just trying to keep alive physically and emotionally,” she said, and the controversy has proven distracting.
“I get so exhausted coming up here and spending all my professional time talking about women in tech issues,” she told the audience at AltConf. She would much rather talk about Metal for Mac.
“I’m an engineer,” she said.
At least her ordeal is having a positive outcome, she said: Instead of silencing her and other female critics, Gamergate thrust them into the spotlight. It’s given her an unprecedented opportunity to travel the world spreading her message.
She never could have down it without an army of misogynistic haters behind her.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
39 responses to “My awful life inspired Law & Order, Gamergate dev says”
Great story Leander! With these continuing stories of women being sent threats by men and religious women being sent threats by gay marriage activists, it’s no wonder this country is in such chaos. I will pray for Brianna Wu and fight for all the people who have experienced vile threats online.
Wu is a man.
Trans actually. I respect her choice, I think it’s kind of an asshole thing to do to purposely misgender someone.
That said it does irk me that she uses being a women as an excuse to go around calling eveyone sexist. It’s not a shield for being an ashole. Espically since she hasn’t actually been a women all that long.
I once saw someone, very respectful, question her numbers on GamerGate only being 300 people and her response was immediately to call him sexist. Gender wasn’t even a factor of his criticism, which he was entirely right about.
Sexist is assuming a man is sexist for pointing out flaws in an argument.
His choice is his choice, even if it is the choice of a mentally disturbed individual. Calling him a woman is incorrect. He is and always will be a man. Nothing known to science will change his chromosomes.
yeah I totally believe all this happened with all the evidence you’ve provided
I posted a link to the screen cap I have, I doubt Cult of Mac will let it through.
You can twitter search “12k users subscribed to KiA alone.” to find the tweet. She deleted the one calling him sexists, but his response “”Sexist?” Are you insecure or something?” is still there.
edit: scratch that, her comment “But thanks for the sexist insinuation.” is still there.
Why can’t we all just get along?
Oh, right. People are a bunch of bastards.
Hey Leander,
Is this the same Briana Wu who claimed she was chased from her home and then proceeded to go on a pre-planned trip to Europe? Or the same one that lied about calling the DA in Ohio about harassment? I mean, it’s hard to keep track but since you guys literally did not provide one word of critical context I’m not sure.
Also, can we get some disclosure here? For example that Renee and Georgia are friends with Briana? Might be nice to know especially with a fluff-piece like this one.
Oh and while you’re at it how about a paragraph or two about how the mediocre game she made won game of the year at the hands of one of those friends? That would be kinda cool too.
Vinny, you’re a little confused. The trip to Europe was someone else. But I understand your frustration.
Yeah you’re right. I get my liars and BS stories mixed up sometimes.
Hi, Leander. I know Brianna talks a good game and it sounds really convincing, but unless you’ve done actual research and seen and counted these 48, no, 56, no, 45, no, 104, no 106 death threats, you can’t report that Brianna received them, but just that Brianna said Brianna received them. Similarly, you can’t say anyone is a misogynist or a harasser or speak about their motives, but you can report that is what Brianna says about them.
There is some pretty damning evidence out there that several of these ever-growing threats have been faked. For example, an image whose EXIF data showed it was created days before anybody knew who Brianna was. Brianna also was doing interviews from home while claiming to have been on the run. One word: verify. And if you can’t, attribute it, but don’t proclaim it as fact.
Even Brianna’s friend told Inc magazine that Brianna baited gamergate relentlessly until they reacted, coinciding with the release of Brianna’s game, which would not have generated much press otherwise.
And consider the fact that in all Brianna’s travels and all Brianna’s appearances, the closest anyone has come to confronting Brianna was taking a picture at a public event. Don’t believe everything you read, and don’t perpetuate the lies that some people spout to keep themselves in the limelight.
They haven’t done any research, otherwise they’d know that the main character of the L+O episode was obviously based on Anita Sarkeesian, not Brianna Wu.
Oh god why did cult of Mac have to get involved in this.. You may as well bring up the presidents latest policies Leander since your want to poke the bees nest.
Can we talk about actual apple news or at least you can dig a lot deeper and find out what really started this mess. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t Wu but that doesn’t stop Wu from trying to take the spotlight
Great article, is Briana a Transgender Woman?
Yes.
Brianna is now a “Gamergate dev”. My siiiiiides…
For the love of God stop giving her attention. She feeds off it.
People should probably stop harassing her then.
Quick reminder that Brianna Wu’s terrible crime was retweeting a meme that mocked Gamergate.
Actually she made an account called BROLOLZ to troll GamerGate, when she was ignored she created the meme. What she got mad about was someone ran with the meme she created, but still no one talked about her. Then all the sudden she got threats and became a media sensation over night.
Her crime was repeatedly kicking a bee’s nest to try and get a reaction then called for the extermination of bees when she got stung by a wasp.
Look up Dave Pacman’s Brianna Wu interview where she admits it.
Hmm, why did she get into the GG incident in the first place? Oh yeah, because she tweeted that crap just to ruffle people’s feathers. She knew she’d sit on the hot seat for it, and did it for attention. I had no idea who she was until GamerGate started. So, no, GamerGate never attacked her out in the blue, she forced herself into it for attention and press. If she really does want it to stop, then maybe she shouldn’t have compared every single gamer to the KKK, Nazis, Hitler, ISIS, ETC., just to name a few.
BTW, no surprise that she’s trying to say that SVU tried to make HER look bad, as Anita did that. #FullMcintosh here we come!
Yeah they did attack her out of the blue actually. She retweeted a meme that mocked Gamergate and a million GG fuckboys shat themselves and sent her death threats. Now you’re all crying about how much attention she’s getting. Should’ve just shut up and played videogames like your made-up girl who agrees with you says.
It’s a million death threats now?
Damn, reading this article alone suggests that GG is correct and needs to happen. And the comments show how popularity has become
Wow, it sure sucks to be you right now, Leander. Every one of your commenters are calling you out on your misrepresentations, omissions and outright lies (myself included). What on earth possessed you to write this garbage? Have you ever heard of journalistic integrity? It doesn’t look like it, but then again you don’t look like a journalist, judging by the propaganda you have spewed here. Do yourself a favour in future and refrain from writing about subjects you clearly know nothing about. This article is a farce and you are in cloud cuckoo land. Time to come back to earth and join the rest of us methinks.
This is Wu harassing himself on the Steam Revolution 60 page. He just forgot to log out of his developer account first.
What in the ever loving fuck does this have to do with Apple or Macs?
Well, she is a developer and she’s friends with Renee and Georgia and she developed the “game of the year” according to this site (which is totally a coincidence you guys)…
From what I’ve heard, her game takes up half the space on your iphone, so I guess it is pretty significant.
Wu really is crazy. Seeing as the media says Zoe Quinn was the catalyst for GamerGate it is obvious that the Law and Order SVU episode was inspired by Quinn. Not to mention the episode pulled headlines from Kotaku and Polygon (which all focused mostly on Quinn). Wu is just delusional and Leander is playing into it for clicks.
Wu only made a shitty game and only got into GamerGate’s radar by attacking them in way of memes that made fun of the gamers making up GamerGate. Remember the ‘attacker’ that flipped his car turned out to be some guy from a group of trolling actors. This is also the woman who compared her life to Batman on twitter, talks about games being more diverse while having a game of all albino white women who are currently in uniform redesign after GamerGate pointed out that her rants about unrealistic women mirrored her own characters.
Wu also threw a lawyer under the bus claiming she talked to him and nothing was being done. The lawyer revealed she not only had not talked to him, but that the FBI nor local police had any files from Wu. When faced with this evidence, Wu’s response was “Oh well, there must have been a miscommunication.”.
Quinn has an ex-lover outing her affairs with men that were in spots to further her career (which Quinn was shown admitting to in his screen captured conversations between the two of them). Quinn is now dating a guy whose father is known to be rich and have connections in congress.
Last thing, Wu, she continually claims she had to flee from her home and that she is scared of GamerGate finding her. Yet she goes to conventions and tweets where she will be at during what times. Screen captures of different interviews during the time she was allegedly fleeing her home shows different landmarks from her home office proving she had not fled. Screen captures of some of her “harassers” have time stamps of 2 to 3 seconds (my twitter feed doesn’t update that fast to where the quickest I see is 30+ seconds for a new tweet). Which for a screen cap would add to that depending on the background processes that would slow the screen capture from snapping a picture of the screen. The Steam goof of her posting the forum posting asking what GamerGate thought of her (which she then used critical remarks about her game to claim harassment again) before removing it.
No, Wu is a victim of her own design. An almost obsessive craving for attention through any means. She has been quoted as saying she wants to mentor girls to get them into game development, but on twitter (which was archived) she states “A student asked to connect with me on LinkedIn, I’m like, ‘I barely use it. You know, because I already have a job… Sorry.'” [ http://archive.is/DIGWw ]
Lastly, with that said, what does Brianna Wu, her delusions, or this entire clickbait article have to do with Macs or Apple?!
Forgot to mention that Wu was hated before Gamergate, was playing victim before Gamergate, and has nothing to do with Gamergate.
She simply saw a conflict and threw herself into it, claiming to be the biggest victim (to which Zoe Quinn took offense) despite being entirely not involved in it in any way.
tldr: She’s looking for attention.
I’m used to the total BS spouted by Wu, the only thing that is really shocking me is how his Patreon didn’t get thrown in here somehow. Those Victim Fun Bux (or hipster welfare, your choice) aren’t going to just magically appear, ya know?
At least use the right pronouns. I’m no fan of Wu, but comments like this do nothing to help in calling her out for what she is (a troll, liar, and attention seeker)
Not that I agree with this article at all, but some of the commenters aren’t doing themselves any better by calling Brianna a eunuch and purposely using the wrong pronouns.
Holy crap. I missed that one.
First of all, you shouldn’t call Brianna Wu “she” because he is not a “she”, plain and simple. It’s not borne out of a sense of meanness, it’s a simple refusal to lie in order to coddle the mental delusions of others. Gender Dysphoria is a mental disorder as per the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and no amount of warm fuzzy feelings will ever change that reality.
Secondly, totally apart from the gender thing and really the only matter of consequence, is that Brianna Wu is a really noxious, attention-seeking, duplicitous and spiteful personality. He represents just about everything wrong with the current crop of Social Justice zealots infecting the tech and gaming scenes. Why Cult of Mac would give this person press, let alone apparently glowing accolades, baffles me. If I had previously known that Cult of Mac was run by radical progressive elements, I would have seriously thought twice about devoting so many years of readership here. This article was a major misstep.
It’s about ethics in circle jerking!
HAHAHAHAHA SO NEUTRAL EVERYONE
SO NEUTRAL
I’m loving all the gomblrgokers swarming in here to prove Wu is making up her harassment for attention by calling her a man and a tranny and a liar. I count seventeen so far. Well done gomblrgok. Well done. I totally believe this is all about ethics in video game journaliahahahahahaa like that’s even a thing