Gamergate, the online movement started last year as a protest against supposed corruption in video game journalism, but which quickly descended into a series of increasingly misogynistic threats against female game developers and journalists, has lost one of its biggest villains.
Outspoken online personality “Jace Connors,” who threatened to kill a female game developer in January, now claims to be an innocent jokester after he was outed as Jan Rankowski, a 20-year-old from Maine who is part of a rogue comedy group specializing in over-the-top stunts that straddle the line between comedy and trolling, according to Buzzfeed.
And those death threats he made against the female game developer? They were all part of a big satirical joke, according to Rankowski.
Posing as Connors, Rankowski made headlines when he posted a terrifying video on YouTube in which he apparently crashed his mother’s Prius while he was on his way to confront Brianna Wu, a female game developer and Gamergate target.
Warning: Graphic language
The disturbing video wasn’t Rankowski’s first threat against Wu. In December, Rankowski’s “character” Connors, who claimed to be both an ex-Marine and Navy SEAL, sent Wu a video of a man holding a knife and threatening to stab her “Assassin’s Creed”-style, according to Jezebel.
Recently, however, Rankowski’s cohorts in Gamergate figured out his true identify and turned the tables on the supposed comedian by starting an online harassment campaign against him.
“They realized I was making fun of them with those videos,” Rankowski told Buzzfeed. “I started it as a joke, but it’s become far too real and I wish I could take it all back.”
“People have been calling my old high school, calling my work,” Rankowski said, explaining a change of heart about Wu. “Some kid stood outside my window throwing pebbles. And someone knocked on my door — it’s a closed apartment, you shouldn’t be able to get in. And then there was no one there.”
“I didn’t take this situation seriously, but I see what it means now to be in the other person’s shoes. What [Brianna Wu’s] life must feel like.”
Rankowski’s about-face is ironic, given that his threats against Wu became the nadir in a series of online threats against female game developers.
Gamergate’s first target was an indie game developer named Zoe Quinn who was falsely accused of having sex with a reporter in exchange for positive press coverage. It didn’t matter that the accusation was posted by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend; Gamergate was so outraged by Quinn’s alleged corruption that they posted her personal information online, including her home address. She was eventually forced to flee after a series of threats against her, according to the Guardian.
Next, Gamergate targeted feminist video game and pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian, who was forced to cancel a talk at Utah State University after a Gamergate supporter threatened her in an email with “the deadliest school shooting in American history.”
Wu became a target after she made a seemingly innocuous joke about the group on Twitter.
Almost immediately afterward, a torrent of online abuse was directed at Wu, with one Twitter user saying, “I’ve got a K-Bar [knife] and I’m coming to your house so I can shove it up your ugly feminist c–t,” according to online gaming site Kotaku.
Rankowski took it to another level with his crashed-Prius video.
Wu, of course, doesn’t think the video “joke” was even remotely funny.
“This has had an extreme level of emotional stress for me, my husband, and my team,” Wu told The Verge.
“My initial reaction with this was this is someone who is mentally ill,” Wu continued.
“Now I find out it’s just a game for this person, that’s worse.”