We Are Watching Eliza Bright
Page 11
On 4chan, we laugh at the timing. The timing is for us. We pledge allegiance to Fancy Dog. Subscriptions skyrocket in support of the company. We say the girl who got fired got what she deserved—it’s right there in the paperwork. Nondisclosure means you can’t disclose. We tweet to each other. We tweet at Eliza.
Not all of us see the third headline. Mostly it is for women, and there are few in this collective who haven’t been driven away.
The third article is entitled “#NotAllMen At Fancy Dog Are Jerks.” Its tagline is “And Some Of Them Are Eye Candy.” It is super problematic, but we, the very few women, are good at compartmentalizing—it is necessary when your hobby hates you. The article is posted on PopSugar and it cites Delphine Stewart as its source. It is populated with photos from Jean-Pascale’s Facebook. It starts with “Finally, a Not All Men statement we can get behind—” (vapid fluff) and continues on about Jean-Pascale’s innocence as told by Delphine. And Jean-Pascale isn’t the only one featured—so many men! So many to pick from! Developer Andy, who is funny and has no problem shooting his shot. Or maybe this one—is this one Leaky Joe? Or are they all Leaky Joe? Devonte Aleba is featured too, making Eliza choke on her breakfast-cereal-for-lunch and cackle. “Eye candy!” she shouts aloud, in her apartment, to no one. It features a photo where Devonte isn’t smiling. He looks rugged. Brooding. Desirable.
We think this article is the reason Lewis takes the action he takes, because it identifies both Jean-Pascale and Lewis by name: “‘This was all sparked by something his buddy Lewis typed out. JP’s been iffy about it from the start. Not all the guys at Fancy Dog are jerks. It’s like anywhere else, you know? Any other group of people, you’re going to get some jerks and the grand majority of people are going to be perfectly fine. And not all the jerks are going to be men.’ Sure, not all men at Fancy Dog are jerks. But #YesAllWomen have experienced sexism at work…” and it continues on and on, quotes from the other articles, unfocused and rambling in a way that can’t make up its mind (we could’ve written it so much better), and drops a mention at the very end: “Programmer Eliza Bright is slated to appear on Last Week Tonight this Sunday. We reached out to Fancy Dog for a comment and they have not contacted us at the time of this publication.” So perhaps that’s why. Perhaps that’s why he does it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
SDSte: before you say anything, they left stuff out
JPDes: no one is supposed to talk to the media right now
SDSte: they left out a whole part about it being a joke
JPDes: i’ve been called into a meeting with preston
SDSte: they took it out of context.
SDSte: i had no idea they were going to use facebook photos, my god
JPDes: i told you we weren’t supposed to talk to anyone
SDSte: you said ~you~ weren’t supposed to talk to anyone
SDSte: you didn’t say anything about me
JPDes: i thought it was implied.
SDSte: how was that implied??
JPDes: it just was
SDSte: look, if they weren’t going to let you say anything
SDSte: SOMEONE had to come in and clear your name
JPDes: you confirmed our identities
JPDes: up until you confirmed our names, it was only her word that we had anything to do with it
JPDes: you fueled the flames
JPDes: without another one, this was going to die
JPDes: now i have to wait more time for this to fucking stop
JPDes: i had to make my instagram private
JPDes: people messaging me, women asking me for dates, was that your intention?
JPDes: people telling me i’m horrible for not stopping lewis.
JPDes: lewis had to make his twitter private too
JPDes: christ, i forgot about my twitter
JPDes: i have like 600 notifications
JPDes: Delphine?
JPDes: delphine, i swaer to god.
SDSte: sorry, I just got a phone call
JPDes: DO NOT ANSWER ANY MORE MEDIA THINGS
SDSte: no, no, it was for me. i got an audition?
SDSte: babe, it wasn’t going to die. she’s going to be on john oliver’s thing for christs sake
SDSte: you think shes not gonna talk about you two?
SDSte: anyway, tell lewis that they took a bunch of that out of context
SDSte: i really wasn’t as mean to him as they made it sound
JPDes: lewis isnt even talking to me right now
JPDes: he hasnt said one word since like four people sent him that article
JPDes: you know i came up with the joke, right? i said it first. lewis typed it out, but it was my joke.
SDSte: look, i’m sorry
JPDes: its time for my meeting with preston. we’ll talk about this later.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Forty
DAleb: dude. i had no idea, the press and legal people didn’t tell me NOTHING
EBrig: hahahahahahahahaha
DAleb: what, you think it’s funny??
EBrig: hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa
DAleb: apparently they got contacted and decided the best thing to do was just not acknowledge it
EBrig: lolololol
EBrig: you’re eye candy
EBrig: EYE CANDY
DAleb: dude, not funny. i got mad twitter notifications. and they got from that girl that i’m friends with you
DAleb: what, that like guarantees im not a jerk?
EBrig: dont like the attention?
DAleb: no, like, if it was for something different
DAleb: like, if id done something cool. made something cool or something
DAleb: but this eye candy business
EBrig: my twitter notifications are no picnic either
DAleb: ???
EBrig: im actually not sure what to do about this?
EBrig: like, you being eyecandy was the funniest thing i heard all day
EBrig: the rest is like
EBrig: here, i’ll copy and paste
EBrig: @BrightEliza u cunt imma rape you
EBrig: or here
EBrig: @BrightEliza fu u tryna ruin shit #gamergate
EBrig: @Bright Eliza u should kill yrslf
DAleb: what? h/o
DAleb: that first one’s a threat
DAleb: have you told someone about this?
EBrig: yeah, you. Suzanne.
EBrig: all Suzanne’s said so far is “fuckin neckbeards” though
DAleb: customer service is pretty busy today
EBrig: do i wanna know?
DAleb: no. lots of questions
DAleb: we expected it. preston went public with vive last night and some of the calls and chats and emails are about that
DAleb: but it’s also lots of weird people emailing just to say they love us no matter what
DAleb: its weird
DAleb: but i mean like police, have you told the police?
DAleb: youre a white woman, the police were, like, made for you
EBrig: lol, and say what exactly?
EBrig: some anonymous guy named GamezMcGee threatened me
DAleb: that’s his twitter handle?
EBrig: yup.
DAleb:
EBrig: exactly
EBrig: besides. its not like they know where i live
EBrig: New York is a big place
DAleb: i guess. just watch yourself?
EBrig: i will
DAleb: maybe get out of the house?
DAleb: stop reading the notifications?
EBrig: some are good
EBrig: here
EBrig: .@BrightEliza we stand with you! *raises shield*
EBrig: or here
EBrig: .@BrightEliza just cancelled my Guilds subscrp. until they rehire #raisetheshield
EBrig: there’s actually lots of calls to rehire me
DAleb: i guess that’s okay
DAleb: but still
DAleb: come out for drinks or something? get out of the house?
Chapter Forty-One
SChoy: ive been reading your twitter notifications
SChoy: i have a tab set up and im keeping track
SChoy: looking at them while on all the cs bullshit phone calls
EBrig: well good afternoon to you too
SChoy: are you okay?
EBrig: mostly i think?
EBrig: most of them are actually fine
EBrig: either theyre normal internet rage
EBrig: or theyre in support of me
EBrig: but some of them are just so creepy
SChoy: yeah, i see
SChoy: on the bright side though
SChoy: theyre just internet people
SChoy: def not the worst thing that could happen
EBrig: i dunno, it’s definitely the creepiest thing that ever happened to me
SChoy: this is the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to you?
SChoy: what about, like, getting followed into the subway by men shouting about your pussy
EBrig: that happens to you often?
SChoy: literally everywhere
SChoy: like once a week
SChoy: that doesn’t happen to you?
EBrig: clearly not on the scale that you experience it
SChoy: what about when you were little?
SChoy: no bad birthday clowns?
SChoy: you know there’s now a clown you can hire to follow your kid around and it’s on purpose scary as hell? that’s a thing now
SChoy: childhood is creepy
SChoy: my mother used to scare me with a story about an aunt who got stoned to death for losing her virginity before marriage, though
SChoy: so maybe my childhood was creepier than most
EBrig: the creepiest thing about my childhood was one of my mother’s 60’s hits tapes
SChoy: what?
EBrig: you know that song? they’re coming to take me away? how the voice gets higher like it’s on helium or something?
EBrig: once my mother was playing it in the kitchen while i was trying to go to bed and i legit didn’t sleep right for a week
SChoy: that’s it?
SChoy: that’s the creepiest thing besides the twitter molesters?
EBrig: it just creeps me out, okay? look you asked, that’s the creepiest memory from my childhood.
SChoy: you had a fucking perfect childhood didnt you?
EBrig: not perfect. other kids were really mean, but not scary scary. but pretty much, i guess. at least as far as horrors are concerned. i accidentally watched a freddy kreuger movie once and that gave me nightmares, i guess, but not like the goddamn funny farm thing.
SChoy: i can only imagine how you would have faired with my mother
SChoy: im still watching the notifications, okay? if it gets bad we’ll
SChoy: well i don’t know what we’ll do but we’ll figure it out
Chapter Forty-Two
We think it also might be this that drives Lewis to do it:
“There are calls to rehire her,” Preston says to Brandon in his office. “And frankly, I’m not sure we shouldn’t. It’s not like she was bad at her job, and the optics—”
“She broke her NDA,” Brandon points out. “Protocol dictates—”
“Pardon my French, Brandon, but fuck protocol.”
“Preston, there’s no need to—”
“There’s no anger behind that, Brandon, there isn’t. It’s just my game. That has to count for something. Overriding protocol has to be something that we can do if we feel like it.”
“You didn’t ask the rest of us if we wanted to consider hiring her back, which by the way I don’t, and I was in that computer lab with you too, so it’s just as much my game as it is yours. We’ll never be sure if we can trust her again. I mean Christ, Preston, Last Week Tonight. She’s trying to make the talk show circuit now, she’s getting her fifteen minutes—”
“Trust me when I tell you that she doesn’t want her fifteen minutes like this. It’s going to be as much of a pain in the ass for her as it is for us.”
“Even if we hired her back, she certainly doesn’t love the game anymore, and we really need our employees to love it here, love what we make, otherwise why do it? You’d have to be crazy to do this without the love. We lost the worker that she was, the second she blabbed to that crazy Smith woman.”
“Brandon. Did you just call one of the best, most trusted technology reporters in the industry ‘that crazy Smith woman’?”
“Yes, I did! She’s out to destr
oy us, the media is the opposition party here, both of them are—”
“Look, I don’t think anyone is out to destroy us. She was hurt, her team insulted her—”
“My team insults me all the time!”
“Brandon!” Preston comes the closest to yelling that he’s come throughout this entire conversation, maybe the closest he’s come to raising his voice the entire year. “You keep talking over me. If you’re going to obsess about protocol, then follow the guidelines we set up so we wouldn’t become one of those violently competitive work environments we hate and shut the hell up.” Silence.
“Okay,” Preston continues. “So here’s how I think we should proceed. We put the guys in training right away, we keep advertising that fact like crazy. And we call Eliza in for a meeting as fast as we can—tonight or tomorrow morning. We see if we can rehire her before she makes any television appearances. We promise to change the protocol, set up something about teaching girls to code, I dunno. I can talk to her and see what she wants.”
Brandon makes a move to talk here, but Preston plows forward: “Shut the hell up, Brandon. Yes, I know that’s giving her an awful lot of power but we look like idiots right now. This will stop us from looking like idiots. Then we capitalize on her Last Week Tonight appearance, and whatever else she may have booked since that insane post came out—” Preston shakes his head here, embarrassed. He’d been featured as well, called “eye candy,” and Brandon hadn’t. We wonder if perhaps that’s why Brandon is so ornery. Some of us believe that Brandon did the firing, not Preston at all. But when it’s Preston who does it, it makes for a better story. Better drama. “—and her and I go on together. We talk about our commitment to combating gender inequality in the tech industry, and we actually mean it. We actually take all those initiatives we say we’re going to take, earnestly and with all of our effort, because people will be able to tell if we don’t mean it. If we do it right, if we mean it, if we commit hard enough, we get her, as a worker, back tenfold because we’ll put her in charge of those initiatives, whatever we decide they are. And that’s how I want to handle this from here on out.”