"We're the people that decided posting toxic bullcrap is activism" (Something Awful vs Jessica Price)

From this

Remember Cozy?

Bad nerds have been arguing over cozy things again.

To review, the cozy story is a story of comfort, without alarming, disturbing or controversial elements. The game Ryuutama is supposed to be cozy. There's a lot of meal breaks, I hear. If art is suppose to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, it supposedly does the first thing.

That is all well and good. They heyday of cozy games was in the early days of the pandemic when Animal Crossing was like the second-most discussed topic after Tiger King. Undeniably, the players were afflicted and in need of comfort--we all were.

Like most purportedly wholesome things, cozy has an extremely online fandom bent on making it the most catastrophically toxic subject possible, and they have extended the Theory of Cozy far beyond simply sustainable statements like "Some people like it". Our story begins there.

The Worst Theory of Cozy 

For most of history, cozy was untheorized. People enjoyed cozy mysteries in drawing rooms by Agatha Christie, they watched cozy sitcoms where people slightly richer than them had low-stakes adventures with people they wish they knew, they put put cozy pictures of children with big eyes swinging on swings on the fake-wood-panelled walls of their trailers.

The closest thing to a theory of cozy at that time was more just outraged, Christian and openly conservative opposition to non-cozy things like horror and violence in movies. In other words, cozy only approached intellectual heft when wielded against something and then only barely. Nobody argued for the superiority of cozy--their entertainment was so cozy all the time they didn't realize it until Stephen King or Elvis or John Waters came along and made something Not Cozy.

Then came the Internet. Cozy wasn't just for lazy Sundays or Reagan moms anymore. Cozy was rebranded as a revolutionary aesthetic pitting femme-coded softness and reasonableness against boycoded grit and propensity for violence. This theory wasn't articulated by intelligent people (there'd been no new social science backing up any connection between games and violence in the intervening years), but it was articulated.

In our neck of the woods, in role-playing games, a Theory of Cozy was used by most of the worst nerds against the OSR and all other interesting games. Lots of that played out around the least cozy games, like LotFP. The idea was: the extremely online worst nerds liked wholesome things, not things that referred to any kind of harsh reality or imaginative reflection thereof.

The actual objective truth is even if we view art as there to Comfort The Afflicted, the Afflicted deal with bad stuff in a variety of ways. Elizabeth Sandifer has described this as "hugboxing vs scab-picking". In other words, every marginalized artist from Kenneth Anger to 50 Cent and whatever the latest trans catgirl making harsh-noise metal is on your social media timeline right now has as much reason to make or like  painful, not-comforting art as anyone else. There is (again) no research in social science suggesting otherwise.

Also, for what its worth, everyone I'm aware of who advocated a Theory of Cozy in the RPG space also lied about rape. Seems uncozy.

for example, Ken Russel's deeply uncozy 'The Devils' was recently re-released to basically universal acclaim from everyone smart because nobody really believes cozy theory

Cozy Theory Isn't Real

So all this has put worst nerds, despite the fact that they love games with swords in them, in the position of having to be pro-cozy, because to be otherwise would be to go back on attacks that they've been making since at least 2009.

Here's UK-based harasser Zach Cox (aka Jellymuppet, of the really ugly-looking Greek-themed game Atrapos*) and RPGnet moderator/Something Awful goon Kai Tave, who did a Lancer thing*  rapping some game I never heard of over the knuckles with the Theory of Cozy just this past week:

The point is thousands of Internet-hours have been expended by cozy nerds attacking creators for daring to suggest to consumers they'll be attacked by cozy nerds for what they created.

Of course all this hullabaloo and all these attempts at social superiority are, yes, caused by people who, repeat, play games where you kill things with swords. There are various verbal gymnastics where someone tries to show how their killing things with swords is less toxic than your killing things with swords, but ask any difficult questions and they all disintegrate into a pool of tears and Steven Universe DVDs.

(Doubt me? If you are a cozy theorist named here I will pay you 1000$ right now to show up in the comments and answer all the questions put to you about why liking cozy games shows you're better in some way than the rest of us. If you're so afflicted, you're gonna want that 1000$.)

But really: none of these ideas are real, people don't say them because they thought them through, they say them to socially signal to each other that they are on the same team and whatever.

A good example is Kingdom Death. Both the Something Awful goons* and Fred Hicks* of cozy-favorite RPG Fate attacked Kingdom Death as the worst then the cozy-even-more-favorite Matt Mercer* was like "Oh Kindom Death is cool!" and visited the Kingdom Death factory and that created so much cognitive dissonance everyone just shut up and pretended it didn't happen.

Point being: aside from a few genuine sacred crackpots, this advocacy for cozy was all an elaborate social signalling mechanism that was bound to fall apart eventually, just like the "boobs in games are bad" rhetoric fell apart the second Lady Dimitrescu showed up.

So This Week

Someone wrote an essay expressing skepticism of the concept of Cozy Horror. This was attacked by bad nerd, former Paizo employee, and cryptoconservative Jessica Price* (aka Delafina777). Her response to this essay was classic Cozy Theory:

...and then something wild happened that has rarely happened before: the other bad nerds* from Something Awful actually disagreed. Tuxedo Catfish* for example:

Now the reason they dared to disagree with a fellow scold (and a well-known woman, no less) was not a good one--it was because this time the target of their attack was on Team Something Awful.

What's remarkable is that it features the Something Awful goons basically deconstructing all of the tactics they've been using on everyone else for years:

Like, goons admitting someone's using social justice language dishonestly AND that the only reason they had sympathy for someone was tribal allegiance? Could this be...self-awareness? 

"...we're the people that decided posting toxic bullcrap is activism"

I would write something here but this sociopathic goon just said it for me. Yes, Travis, you're the people that decided posting toxic bullcrap is activism. 

"We're the problem."

Yes, you fucking are.

"There's got to be a better way to live than reading EVERYTHING as uncharitably as possible". 

And, to top it all off--here's a whole articulate theory of why these people act like this--from one of the chuds who acts like this. It's so reasonable I have nothing to add. Click to enlarge:

Now, I know this is naïve to even ask but, if they understand that they're the problem and they've been attacking artists for stupid reasons for over a decade: when are they going to apologize to us?

Full documentation of this internet fight here.

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*who helped all the other asterisked people here lie about rape . Here's the audio.

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Internationally Acclaimed Author Lydia Davis Discussing The RPG Community Specifically

Lydia Davis may be a name unfamiliar to gamers but she is no slouch. She got a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit medal and a Booker Prize.

Here is the story, in its entirety:

Fear

Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, “Emergency, emergency,” and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has not been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families too, to quiet us.

Imagine my surprise at finding here, specifically, in short story form, writing about RPGnet, StoryGames.com, the Forge, etc. and the many other hugbox communities that caused trouble online because of their desire to comfort their local lunatic.

I have written these things many times myself, but nobody really took it to heart.

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Frequently Asked Questions About The Compendium

So lots of people have questions about the Compendium! Here's a newer flip-thru video:

 Here's the details of its contents.

Apparently many people are thrown by the fact this 400+ page book is free! And still available--but only until the end of the year.

Basically all you have to do is join a bunch of social media sites I describe and be active on them. You are under no obligation to talk about me or the book, just be there. (This detail seems often missed.) This helps there be a lower proportion of psychotic trash internet people in RPG spaces. Or, if you don't wanna, pay 1000$. (Some people did that.)

Email me for details: zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm

Many people (including some in charge of internet platforms named) had the appropriate response:

Many were shocked and alarmed that people wanted this book.

Adam Muszkiewicz asks:

No, Adam, if you don't wanna get on social media, the Compendium is 1000$, not 100$.

That's my VenMo, Adam

Also Adam, what does "subverting social media" mean? 

Will aka "Rivetgeek" asks:

Uh, Rivetgeek, California--where I live and have successfully sued--is noted for having particularly strong Anti-Slapp laws. It's the first state that comes up when you Google "strong anti-Slapp laws". Anti-Slapps have been brought against me and they lost because I am not Exxon and some gamer who lies about abuse in my field to my potential allies, business contacts and customers is not a random member of the public, they're committing textbook defamaton. Or, as they call it in the UK trade libel.

I've been a defamation plaintiff longer than I went to art school at this point. Don't play internet lawyer with me.

On Something Awful, Malcolm Sheppard asks his fellow goons:

They're....not getting paid Malcolm. And they don't have instructions to post anything other than whatever they want.

I am not sure you understand the concept of "obedience". You're such a rebel.

On the same site, Dwarf74 asks:

It says "I am very sure nobody is going to do Zak's posting obstacle course, because it's a whole lot of work, and it's all stupid".

Actually so far lots of people have. Enough that: 

After
(click to enlarge)

The folks who want The Compendium helped take this blank map and turn it into a crowdsourced dungeon on our discord. 

Before

Email me if you want it: zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm. We're working on a hexmap now.

And it's weird you call it an "obstacle course" because we all know guys like you are on this many sites and you post all the time.

Over at RPGGeek John Whyte asks:

He feels it is "highly unlikely 7 people paid 1000$ for a book". You're right, it is highly unlikely because it's now 10 people. Well, one is in the middle of Western Unioning and one is on the fence, so 8 officially.

John: if you want proof--please do ask! I am happy to provide it.

John Whyte also wanted the Case Number of the case where this happened to his fellow New Zealander:

It's Civ-2021-044-169 District Court North Shore Registry, John! Thanks for asking!

The other sleuths over at RPGGeek are also shocked to hear one of my friends who helped me check misinformation on their thread has the same IP address as me. I guess they don't know that in big cities lots of people have the same IP address and also: my players who hang out with me know about your smear campaign. You've been doing this for six years, John. They go to court and talk, under oath, about how you guys lie.  Of course they're gonna defend me online.

Claytonian asks:

Clay, I think you made a mistake, the Terrible Take contest was a contest--contests aren't mandatory! If you thought you had to enter, then I'm super sorry. Please contact the office for a free fruitcake.

As usual, the OSR Discord is an endless source of fascinating questions!

mtb asks:

"I am not sure why if you have non-psychotic trash internet people as fans you need to worry about other communities filled with psychotic trash internet people who are not your fans?"

mtb, the reason is just because you are not in a community doesn't mean they can't... I don't know, say, smear people outside their community on the Internet for example?

I would've thought that would be a pretty obvious reason to worry about said communities.

TDF Asks:

So TDF from the OSR Discord thinks Miss A is fake?

Dear TDF, it's Zak!

Hi! I can see you! You read my blog!

If you think she's fake: email me (zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm) and ask for proof! I can introduce you--I can, in fact, show you all our messages going back for years! I can show you pictures of her!

Please see a therapist.

Carson Asks:

Carson, what are you smoking? Cases? There's only one case where you cold have "read" anything in the public record about my personal life--and I won that one--the other two have no public documentation except:

and (most recently):

Bearer of a Demented Ass Asks:

Click to enlarge--its kinda long

and then asks...

So, this is your theory of what should happen:

1. When someone in your community lies on the internet, we should let that go

2. We keep letting it go so they eventually lie about something real important, like rape

3. You spread that lie all over the internet

4. Their victim loses everything because of the lie

5. The victim meekly accepts this, then begins a new life as a right-wing pundit 

6. If they don’t do that and instead point out that you lied and try to get their life back, you call them a narcissist

Go fuck yourself.

Hey everybody else: get a book.

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This Is Why This Has Lasted Six Years

I just got this last week.

It's from a friend who saw my ex- and I every week. As usual, we stayed friends after and she didn't believe any of the bullshit, but she moved upstate a few years back.

You can't make this shit up:

 

Everyone who wanted to spread this bullshit took spreading it very seriously. Everyone who knew it was bullshit, well, the nicest way to say this is: they're somewhat less dialed-in.

I would say I don't know whether to laugh or cry but I don't do either any more.

There's no lesson here, we're all fucked. Happy Holidays.

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The Zak Conspiracy Theorists Admitted They Lied

If you read his blog, this is the most important thing that's ever been on it:

I started this blog in 2009 to document my mostly-porn-stars' game group's D&D game and my game ideas.

A little while later, I started getting asked to make my own game stuff, and I did.

As is typical for someone a little internet-famous, lots of conspiracy theories about me started spreading.

Most of these didn't affect much until 2019, when basically they destroyed my life

An Oxford-educated psychotherapist and researcher wrote a story about all this, documenting the conspiracy theorists harassing me, doing extensive interviews with the harassers where they openly admit they know they weren't telling the truth:

http://archive.is/0Nv3c

The researcher got harassed as soon as she published and got scared and took it down. However the audio clips of the folks admitting they lied are here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GJAJNbF2Tg

Interviewees confirmed they talked to her here:

and here:

https://x.com/pjamesstuart/status/1751884833867890952

https://x.com/machineiv/status/1752010444712128749

Goatmansgoblet/Brian Yaksha/Brian Richmond deleted his twitter after he was exposed.

Others apologized spontaneously:

...others had to be sued before they apologized:

Because Mike Mearls (formerly of offical WOTC D&D and someone else targeted by the conspiracy theory described in the article) was recently hired by Chaosium, the conspiracy theorists are having a field day again, lying all over again, and being believed all over again.  

I've successfully sued three times over this. The research is done, it's public. People involved directly admitted into an audio recorder that they lied, didn't check sources, spread things they didn't confirm.

This should matter. This should end. 

Claims like this are basically attempted murder--and they will succeed unless the people who don't want me dead take this as seriously as the people who do.

I am at the limit of my ability to communicate the seriousness of the situation. I don't know what to do.

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Idiots With Benefits

Before I go into real news, legal update/rumor control: In 2021 a judge tried to dismiss my defamation case against Gen Con—this was much celebrated by right wing douchenozzles on twitter. I appealed to a higher court, won, & the case was back on. Oddly, the douchenozzles didn’t spread the word about that. Well the same judge just tried it again. The right wing douchenozzles are celebrating again, like they forgot this already happened. Obviously I’ll just appeal again to the same higher court.

So, anyway something else that happened last week was interesting.

• A couple of Gen Con's fellow right-wing hatemob members named (on Twitter anyway) panny_lines and aledlawlor have a little company called Leyline Press.
• They hired someone to edit one of their RPGs.
• They then fired them when they found out that they'd once worked for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, the company that published most of my game stuff. They also erased his name from the credits.
• They then made a very vague announcement about their very vague right-wing problems they had with LotFP. They made the word "problematic" do a lot of work.
• Now here's the strange thing, something that hasn't happened during the last 4 years of hatemobbing: people noticed--and did something about it.
• Lamentations then announced a big sale.
• Lamentations then sold a phenomenal amount of product:

And keeps selling a phenomenal amount:

Now this was just a pdf sale, that ends tomorrow.

A sale on printed stuff starts today.

Action is good.

Fix things.

Ask Them Why.

I sued again. It worked. Again.

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In 2019, by taking advantage of my estranged and mentally-ill ex, basically the entire tabletop RPG industry decided to start harassing me.

It worked. They destroyed my entire life. I had a career inside RPGs, I had a (much larger) career outside RPGs selling paintings. I had a social life. All that was annihilated.

This is my eviction notice--because I couldn't pay the rent because of this:

This is my food stamp card--because I can't afford food because of this::

This is where my 5 missing teeth used to be--because I couldn't afford to get them fixed because of this:

This is what happened when I sued Ettin / Paul Matijevic, a Something Awful troll and RPGnet moderator in Australia, where he lives, for claiming I abused and harassed people:

This is what happened when I sued the game streamer Vivka Grey, in Los Angeles, where she lives, for claiming I abused and harassed people:

This is what happened when Vivka Grey sued me back, claiming I was lying when I defended myself:

And, now, if you were on the internet yesterday, you might've seen this:

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I haven't lost a case yet.

For years everyone has been telling me how hard it is to win a defamation case in the US.

Fewer than 5% of civil cases go to trial.

Viv, for one, admits to having spent over half a million dollars on her cases, yet I won while evicted, on food stamps, and missing five teeth.

You may have heard about my case against GenCon being dismissed. It was. Then I appealed. Only about 20% of appeals are successful. I appealed, it worked.

And then everybody was telling me how hard it was to sue overseas--how would you collect? You collect the same way people overseas pay for anything else, with the internet. It's 2023.

Everyone who was screaming at you about me was wrong. Again.

How long can hundreds of nerds be wrong before just admitting it?

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Both in court and on the internet, when anyone anywhere is asked to produce any proof I did anything bad they come up empty. 

This is especially significant considering how many people are claiming I did bad online things--things that should be able to be proved with a fucking screenshot. Nobody has been able to come up with thing one.

Basically, every single thing a person could possibly do to prove they're innocent, I did. In person, on video, via tweet, in court, out of court, you name it--I have been subjected to every kind of scrutiny from every direction for longer than it'd take to earn a Bachelor's.

If you still think I did something wrong, I'm not asking "provide proof" (there isn't any), I'm just asking, for the millionth time: Why? What makes you personally believe any of this shit? 

-When at least a dozen of the people who spread this bullshit have been, themselves, cancelled?

-When the original beef that all the Something Awful goons (like Ettin) had was fake allegations of transphobia against someone whose main online defenders are trans, who repeatedly got trans people hired, and gave up a 5-figure contract to protest transphobia?

-When the original beef that all the story game designers had was a bunch of shit nobody now believes about the supposed objective inferiority of Old School games or people who played them?

-When there's video evidence that the people who started this particular round of harassment turned out to be lying out their asses?

-When the excuse that I have a trust fund turns out to be bullshit because I don't?

-When the excuse that "well the laws are different there" turns out to be bullshit because I won in the US, too?

-When the excuse that I was "obnoxious" has to be put side by side with but you lied about rape?

What the fuck reason do they have left?

Ask them. Ask for the receipts that justify their hate.

Ask WOTC and Hasbro what's left of their reasons for doing this..

Ask GenCon what's left.

Ask Matt Mercer what's left.

Ask the folks at Green Ronin Games what's left.

Ask the guys at Mothership what's left.

Ask Patrick Stuart and Gus L and Arnold K and Noisms over at Monsters and Manuals and all the other OSR people what's left.

Ask Chris McDowall and the OSR discord what's left.

Ask Sandy Pug Games and Tin Star Games what's left.

Ask the Troika folks what's left.

Ask all the sacred crackpots what's left.

Ask Ramanan and Grey Wizard working on BREAK! what's left.

Ask Crystal Frasier and Jessica Price --formerly of Paizo--what's left.

Ask Andy Kitkowski--the founder of Story-Games.com--and Ron Edwards--leading light of the Forge--what's left.

Ask RPGnet and reddit/RPG and reddit/OSR what's left.

Ask OneBookShelf what's left.

When every single reason for hurting someone has been proven by time and by inquiry and by the law to be bullshit, what claim are they hanging on to?

Ask for the receipts. Ask why they ever believed any of it. Ask if they think their reasons were good. Ask if they're even capable of changing their minds.

Please ask them for me.

Ask because I can't do it because I'm busy moving because I can't live in my apartment any more, and my friends here can't because they're busy helping me. 

And when you ask these people, remind them: I will never give up. So if they've got reasons, they'd better be real sure what they are.

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