In my previous thread on this matter, I explained how a Slashdot editor was trying to link Rudy Ferretti - an established weirdo from the retrogaming community who recently murdered his ex-girlfriend before committing suicide - to our little movement about ethics in video game journalism by describing him as a "'GamerGate' proponent". This allegation is a very generous interpretation of a claim made by Kotaku contributor (and established member of the anti-GamerGate brigade) Cecilia D'Anastasio in a recent "Wired" article of hers (boldfaced emphasis mine):
The rise of the GamerGate campaign in 2014 gave Ferretti new fodder to fuel his idea that women—specifically "radical feminists," as he wrote in multiple blog posts and said in YouTube videos—were out to destroy the purity of the arcade gaming scene. Around that time, he referred to several women as "feminazis," and, in one post, explained that GamerGate existed for people like Catherine DeSpira.
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"Retro Gaming's Misogyny Is Brought to Light After a Violent Tragedy" by Cecilia D'Anastasio (August 19, 2020)
While I was unable to track down Ferretti's blog due to a complete lack of leads, GamerGate supporter Lyde15 had more luck in that department and linked me to his Blogspot profile:
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Rudy "retrojustice" Feretti's Blogspot Profile: http://draft.blogger.com/profile/11974878644360761775
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Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824203619/https://draft.blogger.com/profile/11974878644360761775
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Archive.today: http://archive.is/RTTy2
After skimming through just a few of his posts, I came to the conclusion that Ferretti was indeed a complete and utter fruitcake who oscillated between bragging about his retrogaming skills and incoherently rambling and ranting about his enemies. How off his rocker was he, exactly? Well, instead of having one single blog with dozens of entries like a normal person, he had 97(!) separate blogs with between 0 to 6 entries each.
At this point, I decided to go for broke and spent a good chunk of this afternoon going through all 97 blogs and more than 100 hundred posts to see if I could find the smoking gun that D'Anastasio mentioned. What I found was:
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three(!) blog posts mentioning GamerGate
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which were copypastes of each other
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that were made between March 30 and March 31, 2016 (18 months after the movement started)
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where GamerGate was incorrectly spelled as two words ("gamer gate")
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Blog Post #1: http://catdespirablackmale.blogspot.com/ (March 31, 2016)
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Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824204914/http://catdespirablackmale.blogspot.com/
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Archive.today: http://archive.is/iGBjC
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Blog Post #2: http://catdesperiadoxx.blogspot.com/ (March 30, 2016)
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Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824205545/http://catdesperiadoxx.blogspot.com/
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Archive.today: http://archive.is/slv07
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Blog Post #3: http://catdesprialegal.blogspot.com/ (March 30, 2016)
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Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824225049/http://catdesprialegal.blogspot.com/
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Archive.today: http://archive.vn/ud8cY
But that's not the real kicker here. Oh, no. Because, if you actually look at those blog posts, Ferretti not only doesn't claim that he was inspired by GamerGate or praise it, but he actually uses it to insult his female victim, Cat DeSpira, by accusing her of only mentioning the movement in order to boost her own profile. Ouch.
[Catherine DeSpira] claims to hate doxx and harassment and gamer gate yet posts about it because it is popular, might as well join it or has even though she lies and says she hates them due to woman harassment shows her hypocrisy to doxx a woman by ILLEGALLY contacting her job to get her fired and advertise it on her page after...
Is D'Anastasio lying? I have no idea. Given her history with GamerGate and SJW status, I'd say yes. However, all I can say with absolutely certainty right now is that I can't find any blog post made by him whose wording or content comes close to matching her statement. Maybe he has other blogs out there that I don't know about, maybe he said it on Facebook, I don't know. What I can tell you is that all this hasn't stopped other aGGros like Nick Farrell of "Fudzilla" from making the outlandish claim that Rudy Ferretti was "a key GamerGate advocate" and trying to further solidify the links by completely making stuff up.
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"Key Gamergate advocate kills ex-girlfriend" by Nick Farrell (August 24, 2020)
In my previous thread on this matter, I explained how a Slashdot editor was trying to link Rudy Ferretti - an established weirdo from the retrogaming community who recently murdered his ex-girlfriend before committing suicide - to our little movement about ethics in video game journalism by describing him as a "'GamerGate' proponent". This allegation is a very generous interpretation of a claim made by Kotaku contributor (and established member of the anti-GamerGate brigade) Cecilia D'Anastasio in a recent "Wired" article of hers (boldfaced emphasis mine):
The rise of the GamerGate campaign in 2014 gave Ferretti new fodder to fuel his idea that women—specifically "radical feminists," as he wrote in multiple blog posts and said in YouTube videos—were out to destroy the purity of the arcade gaming scene. Around that time, he referred to several women as "feminazis," and, in one post, explained that GamerGate existed for people like Catherine DeSpira.
-
"Retro Gaming's Misogyny Is Brought to Light After a Violent Tragedy" by Cecilia D'Anastasio (August 19, 2020)
While I was unable to track down Ferretti's blog due to a complete lack of leads, GamerGate supporter Lyde15 had more luck in that department and linked me to his Blogspot profile:
-
Rudy "retrojustice" Feretti's Blogspot Profile: http://draft.blogger.com/profile/11974878644360761775
-
Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824203619/https://draft.blogger.com/profile/11974878644360761775
-
Archive.today: http://archive.is/RTTy2
After skimming through just a few of his posts, I came to the conclusion that Ferretti was indeed a complete and utter fruitcake who oscillated between bragging about his retrogaming skills and incoherently rambling and ranting about his enemies. How off his rocker was he, exactly? Well, instead of having one single blog with dozens of entries like a normal person, he had 97(!) separate blogs with between 0 to 6 entries each.
At this point, I decided to go for broke and spent a good chunk of this afternoon going through all 97 blogs and more than 100 hundred posts to see if I could find the smoking gun that D'Anastasio mentioned. What I found was:
-
three(!) blog posts mentioning GamerGate
-
which were copypastes of each other
-
that were made between March 30 and March 31, 2016 (18 months after the movement started)
-
where GamerGate was incorrectly spelled as two words ("gamer gate")
-
Blog Post #1: http://catdespirablackmale.blogspot.com/ (March 31, 2016)
-
Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824204914/http://catdespirablackmale.blogspot.com/
-
Archive.today: http://archive.is/iGBjC
-
Blog Post #2: http://catdesperiadoxx.blogspot.com/ (March 30, 2016)
-
Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824205545/http://catdesperiadoxx.blogspot.com/
-
Archive.today: http://archive.is/slv07
-
Blog Post #3: http://catdesprialegal.blogspot.com/ (March 30, 2016)
-
Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824225049/http://catdesprialegal.blogspot.com/
-
Archive.today: http://archive.vn/ud8cY
But that's not the real kicker here. Oh, no. Because, if you actually look at those blog posts, Ferretti not only doesn't claim that he was inspired by GamerGate or praise it, but he actually uses it to insult his female victim, Cat DeSpira, by accusing her of only mentioning the movement in order to boost her own profile. Ouch.
[Catherine DeSpira] claims to hate doxx and harassment and gamer gate yet posts about it because it is popular, might as well join it or has even though she lies and says she hates them due to woman harassment shows her hypocrisy to doxx a woman by ILLEGALLY contacting her job to get her fired and advertise it on her page after...
Is D'Anastasio lying? I have no idea. Given her history with GamerGate and SJW status, I'd say yes. However, all I can say with absolutely certainty right now is that I can't find any blog post made by him whose wording or content comes close to matching her statement. Maybe he has other blogs out there that I don't know about, maybe he said it on Facebook, I don't know. What I can tell you is that all this hasn't stopped other aGGros like Nick Farrell of "Fudzilla" from making the outlandish claim that Rudy Ferretti was "a key GamerGate advocate" and trying to further solidify the links by completely making stuff up.
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"Key Gamergate advocate kills ex-girlfriend" by Nick Farrell (August 24, 2020)