Playing on the hardest setting
The sky above the house was dark with candid dick pics, the pavement littered with slut shaming memes and rape threats lurked in the bushes. Just one look outside told Melanie Stopwell- former semi pro strategy gamer and current target of Dudebro ire - that it was not going to be an easy day. Quickly she left her house with a digital umbrella over her head, essential to stop the jerks pissing down invective from their anonymous online ivory towers. Some days the downpour was so heavy that she had to blanket ban all communications and reset her e-glasses. All because she had the temerity to talk back to a bunch of Dudebro dickheads online whilst in possession of a pair of X chromosomes.
As she walked unmanned cam drones zipped past tagging her to Russian Milf sites. Others automatically generated screeds calling her either too slutty or too uptight, too skinny or too fat that were instantly shitted out in a dozen digital platforms, spreading out to pollute the online ether. Melanie nodded and smiled, serenely raising her middle digit as an all purpose salute. Welcome to the world of the mid 21st century, she thought to herself, where the internet is everywhere and nowhere is safe from its judgement.
Melanie could still remember when the internet was something that could be switched off. When it was a place you went to away from the rest of the world and could be whoever you wanted to be. She remembered Livejournals and Geocities, places that were outside the mainstream and didn't care about who was behind the screen or what was in their trousers. She remembers that you could turn it off and walk away when you were tired of it, with the knowledge that it wouldn't follow you around.
It wasn't meant to be this way, she felt. The internet was supposed to set people free. Meant to rapture the nerds up and erase their differences so that all that mattered was their individuality. Not so. Not when the meat heads and the fucktards and the tittering teenage misogynists got on board. Not when they realised that the internet was one big playground and like any playground it could be dominated by bullies prepared to shout the loudest. The abuse had started on chatrooms and message boards. Then it was comment threads on Youtube and Reddit. Then it was on the street and at places of work and everywhere she had looked there were digital glasses staring back uploading everything they saw to the web for later dissection.
“The internet isn't a separate world anymore” she had explained in a youtube rant some two decades earlier “That's the problem. Those Gibsonian visions of a place that was no place got it wrong. The division between real life and online life has vanished, and the world online is the only world” she had gestured at the web cam “A million online identities that I owned have been reduced down to just one that follows me wherever I go. Job interviews where my potential employers can not only see where I've been on holiday but who can peruse a drop down menu of my past sexual partners. Meetings with clients who already knew I spent a year in rehab getting over my WoW addiction. Random Police checks that root through my deepest privacy settings looking for scandal”
she had sighed “That I could have coped with. I'm not ashamed of what I like. Not ashamed of my collection of Jane Austen slash fiction and my record for the longest continious online game of Command and Conquer – two weeks without stopping folks” she had grinned at the camera, then the grin had fallen away “I can handle the look people give me when they realise my first two weddings took place in gaming arcades and we all cosplayed our favourite game characters as zombies. I could handle that if I wasn't just treated differently because I'm a woman who dares to stand up for herself”
The youtube video had enjoyed half a million hits, and almost every comment on it had accused her of a variety of crimes, from emasculating men to supporting some Femi-illumi-nazi conspiracy. Her only thought at the time was that the ad revenue generated had paid for a nice two week vacation in Miami.
As she walked she replied to all the aggressive dudebro comments with her standard boilerplate response. A firm but polite reminder of how people should treat each other with respect and dignity. It gets another thousand replies. They all say that if she's so sensitive she should be more modest. That she should have a digital scrambler so only men known to her can communicate and to everyone else she is just a sea of dots. Screw that, she says to herself, she's not wearing a digital burka for anyone. She won't hide herself away like some kind of digital Rapunzel. That would mean letting the Dudebros win. That would mean admitting that she didn't have a right to walk the streets in the way she chose.
“I refuse to have my identity dictated to me” she had explained to her mother “I refuse to have anonymous assholes – not to be confused with Anonymous who are mostly assholes infiltrated with so many feds they may as well move to Langley – tell me how to live my life”
“But Melanie” her mother had responded “Underneath your scrambler you can wear anything you like. Or nothing, for that matter”
Melanie hadn't wanted advice from an eighty four year old nudist so had grimaced
“Well, the way I look it is like this” she had replied “basically the world will see my ugly face and six decade old non cosmetically enhanced body whether it likes it or not. That's the price of freedom” she had added. What she didn't say was that the world would get to see and judge her for it. To feel that somehow it had some kind of inalienable right to tell her how she should be living.
The bus arrived to take Melanie to work, calling her a whore when she waved it down. She sighed, another simple hack from the Dudebros, about as simple as the one that had corrupted the bus's ad stream. Melanie stepped on board to notice all the other passengers were watching a poorly 'shopped GIF of her fellating an elderly man while comic sans subtitles called out encouragement in badly spelled English. The passengers wrinkled their faces in disgust, though whether it was because of Melanie or the meme was so old and so overused that it was even used during car commercials, she can't tell.
“Dudebros” she said out loud, keeping her head up high “What do you expect from little boys with little toys?”
For that she got a few nods, nothing more though because no one wants to antagonise the angry mass of male frathood that makes up the Dudebros.
The Dudebros were the Tea Party of the mid twenty first century, if the Tea Party had only watched porn, played FPS shooters and hated women who refused to sleep with them. Only like the Tea Party they had enough numbers and access through their heavy IT nerd base to almost every lever of power in the country. When you live in the world of the internet of things then the guys that keep those things connected have the power to call the shots. Or at least to switch things off that people need, like electricity or water.
Mexican narco cartels would envy the influence the Dudebros freely wielded. Lobbyists had spent billions corrupting the political process to achieve less in terms of active political power. The only reason the Dudebros weren't currently owning the White House, Downing Street and Red Square was because they didn't have the imagination. Too busy hunting down middle aged ladies like Melanie for some imagined slight to their manly honour
“You might go to the cops, sugar” said an ancient lady to Melanie, her digital glasses so old they were probably an Apple product “I'm sure this sort of thing is illegal”
“Yeah, you'd think” replied Melanie “you'd really think”
The police had been very supportive until she told them what had happened.
“You mean to say you provoked the Dudebro's?” said the lead cop, his face suitably haggard.
“I didn't provoke anything” Melanie had insisted “they were giving shit to Anneka B, saying she was only voted top gamer of the year cause she was supposed to have fucked one of the judges” Melanie sighed “the fact that half the judges have the same sponsors as their favourite gamers don't seem to matter. Nor that its public knowledge you can buy the award for, like, dogecoin. Bunch of fucking hypocrites”
“Gamers eh?” said the lead cop “Its a guy thing I guess..”
“No it fucking isn't” Melanie replied “I'm a gamer, I know my shit. I've been gaming online since dialup. I pwned before it was a fucking meme” she said angrily, having had this conversation any number of times “I know gamers. They aren't all assholes. These guys are just assholes who also happen to be gamers”
“So you accused the most powerful gaming consumer rights groups in the country of being hypocrites?” interrupts the obligatory lady cop “A group with a known history of going after women online, especially woman gamers?” she pauses “Did you think this was wise?”
“Don't matter if it was wise” Melanie replied sharply “it was the right thing to do...”
“Well, I don't know” said the male cop “You know, if you followed basic online safety...”
“Like what?” she replied “I can still remember the days when you didn't even need a firewall. When malware sounded like a shitty clothing brand”
“Like walking round with a digital scrambler on” suggest the lead cop “I mean, you've got your profile set to public. You don't take even elementary precautions” He shakes his head “Lady, you're crazy, in this day and age....”
“Hey, I thought we were meant to be living in the safest society since records began” Melanie shot back “And I thought that everyone had the right to live free from harassment”
The cops looked at her like she was some naive schoolgirl who's surprised the playground bullies took her lunch money.
“Its also your job” she added. “To protect me”
The two officers looked at each other, their expressions saying more than their words would.
“Basic safety, miss” the lady cop says. The fact that the cop is a woman is meant to make Melanie feel better. The fact that she's hidden behind scramble software doesn't reassure Melanie even a little bit. If even a lady cop in the police force feels the need to keep modest then it doesn't bode well for them facing down the Dudebros
“I mean” adds the ladycop, her face a mask of sincerity “You wouldn't go walking the streets in a t-shirt that says 'please fuck me', then complain when people try to take you up on the offer”
“That is so not right” Melanie says, feeling old argument in her rising. This is one she has had before across message boards and in the middle of MMORG battles. “Number one, why the fuck not? I still got my first amendment rights. I see dudes wearing T-shirts with anime dickwolves on them molesting un-copyrighted pics of A-list celebs” she ticks off points on her fingers. The cops may be about to zone out but she won't stop now “Seen guys wearing shirts calling for the president to be ass raped by clones of the founding fathers– supreme court says that is a-ok 'cause of the first amendment” she grins through gritted teeth “Number two, my criticisms of the Dudebros are not the same as inciting their behaviour towards me. Shit, just cause people fear these neckbearded fuckos doesn't mean they have a right to do anything to me”
Melanie squints at the cops. The expressions on their faces when she mentions people being scared of the Dudebros. She's seen that expression before. On employers who suddenly have to terminate her contract. On landlords who realise that actually their need their apartment back. Suddenly it's all clear “Wait, are you not helping me 'cause you're scared of these men's rights assholes?”
“Of course not” says the mancop, shifting uncomfortably “we're the police, we're scared of no one...”
“Right, so the fact a Dudebro faction shut down an entire Police precinct for lulz after one of their frats got caught roofying a girl doesn't scare you?” Melanie screws up her fists on the plastic of the desk.
“Miss, we're here to help you” says the lady cop, the quality of her poker face being such that she should never set foot in a casino “now, why don't you fill in these forms” she hands Melanie a heavily scratched police issue tablet “and we'll take it from there”
“That's when I knew” said Melanie to the old Lady on the bus “That I'd have to take matters into my own hands”
“Well, good for you honey” said the old lady, adjusting her antique glasses “only I don't think there's much you can do” she gestured out onto the rain flecked streets where boarded up shops were painted over with digital posters that could be rented by sponsors for a small fee. Currently they were all showing Melanie's digitally enhanced self offering sex for single digit dollars.
The old lady gave Melanie's hand a sympathetic pat “I mean if the police can't do squat and all those privatised ex-CIA startups can't even find out who's doing it then, well, I wouldn't get your hopes up”
“Oh, I don't need hopes” said Melanie with a savage grin “you see what those security asswipes don't realise is that the Dudebros have got an Achilles heel a mile wide. They're weak as milk and they don't even know it”
“Oh really?” said the old lady “and how do you figure that? From what I can see it seems those boys are the ones been harassing you...”
“Yeah, they have” said Melanie “each and every one of them has sent me beautifully hand crafted insults, loving bespoke dick pics and whoregrams and the rest” her face set hard “you know what click bait is?”
“Sure” said the old lady “cut my teeth way back when writing listicles for buzzfeed on ten things that will make you want to cry...”
“Well that's me” said Melanie “I'm their clickbait. Because every time I send them back a message about peace and love it isn't some weak assed liberal response. Its a goddamn honeypot. Nectar for the assholes to come swarming in. They're too busy thinking up lame ass threats to realise that all my messages are weaponised with an NSA signifier code” Melanie grins viciously the old lady looks mildly terrified “Oh it's not anything that causes system crashes. Nothing that would get their firewalls foaming. Just a little something that cuts through their anonymity. That finds e-glass IP addresses and movement metadata to geo-locate the Dudebro in question. By the time they've finished penning their hate screeds and rape fantasies I've already got copies of their entire internet history- which is the history of everything in their lives. An interconnected world works both ways, and I see them clear as they see me. I know what baseball teams they play on and what sensitive poetry they craft and hide on old ignored blogsites. I know everything they love as they are letting me know that I'm everything they hate”
“Well that's nice honey” said the old lady “but how exactly does that help you stop a rampaging army of childish man-boys from wrecking your life?”
“Well, about” she looked at an antique imitation apple watch “Ten minutes ago the inboxes of all those Dudebros wives and mothers and grandmothers and bosses started pinging with a detailed list of everything they have sent me” Melanie gestured expansively “everything. From dick pics to rape jokes to their sensitive poetry. See how they like all their darkest secrets out in the world. Let them explain and justify that to the people around them. Let them explain to their moms why they're calling women whores for having an opinion”
And Melanie sees with her minds eye - and through the real digital eyes of her e-glasses - the hundreds of Dudebros as they realise that their prized anonymity has been revoked. She watches as social media fills with webcam images pulled and posted showing Dudebros trying to explain their actions to their nearest and dearest.
“You see, the lesson these mouthbreathers are learning is twofold” Melanie explained for the benefit of social media “First, that not everyone has to be a victim of bullying assholes. Bullies only succeed so long as no one stands up to them” her grin widened “and second, you do not fuck with a retired semi pro strategy gamer. I play the long game, and I play to win”
