When\u00a0Anita Sarkeesian\u00a0began raising money via Kickstarter last year for a project analyzing gender in video games, she received support from almost 7,000 backers — raising over $150,000.<\/p>
She also got death threats.<\/p>
In starting the Tropes vs. Women In Video Games<\/i><\/a> project, Sarkeesian, founder of the Feminist Frequency video blog, committed the crime of looking to produce and research a series of YouTube videos\u00a0questioning why the roles female characters play in mainstream gaming are problematic at best and insulting at worst.<\/p> Everything would have been fine, if 4Chan hadn’t found out about it<\/a>, and declared troll war upon her. The New York Times summarized the abuse she received as a result of the campaign<\/a>:<\/p> Angry fumers\u00a0tried to hack her Twitter and Google accounts; they e-mailed her drawings of her being raped by video game characters; one even created a Flash game where you clicked the mouse and bruises and welts appeared on her face.<\/p><\/blockquote>