The guns were fake, The car accident was definitely real.
Last Saturday I wrote about the unstable Youtuber Jace Connors, who wrecked his mother's car while en route to game developer and #gamergate bete noire Brianna Wu's house. Since then, Jace has appeared on livestream with prominent Gamergate personalities The Ralph Retort and King of Pol, as well as written his own "Operation Wu-pocalypse manifesto", describing the incident in his own words.
First, a correction: Connors did not have a weapon in his car when he wrecked it on Friday. During his Monday interview with prominent #gamergaters The Ralph Retort and King of Pol, Jace Connors clarified that he's not even allowed to own a gun in Massachusetts due to his mental health issues. The weapons he plasters all over his web site and brandishes in his Youtube videos are Airsoft replicas, with the orange caps popped off for maximum realism.
However my headline was not totally incorrect: Connors tried to enlist the help of an internet acquaintance who had a real gun via Skype. Thankfully, the fellow refused, and posted what he says was their chat on a forum devoted to trolling Connors.
See for yourselves:
[2:52:07 PM] Jace Connors: SHE IS WORKING WIth the National Social Justice Party to stop gamers!!!!
[2:52:35 PM] Jace Connors: I SENT ELI UP TO DISABLE HER COMMS WE DONT HAVE MUCH TIME BEFORE SHE ASKS FOR REINFORCEMENTS THOUGH AND I NEED YOU FOR BACK UP!!
[2:52:52 PM] FlyAwayNow - Matthew.N: What? You want me to bring my rifle or what?
[2:53:05 PM] Jace Connors: YEA JUST LIKE IN PAYDAY 2 DUDE ITLL BE SICK
[2:53:36 PM] Jace Connors: IN CASE SHE SHOOTS AT MY CAR I CANT GET BULLET HOLES IN MY MOMS CAR SHE ILL KILL ME ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I STOLE IT
[2:54:10 PM] Jace Connors: WERE GONNA STREET RACE HER SHE WONT BE ABLE TO DRIVE IN THE STORM SO WE WILL BE ABLE TO WIN EASY AND TAKE YOUR RIFLE IN CASE SHE SHOOTS US TOO
[2:54:32 PM] FlyAwayNow - Matthew.N: You're not laying a hand on my gun.
[2:54:42 PM] Jace Connors: ILL DRIVE YOU SHOOT
In Connors's "Wu-pocalypse" manifesto, he states he was contacted multiple times by people claiming to be Brianna Wu, challenging him to a race. The Brianna Wu who contacted Connors even gave him an address and a time to meet "her". Connors believed at the time that Wu was out to kill him or was somehow responsible for his car accident. He still sort of does.
On the air, King of Pol pandered to that delusion, guessing that someone "might have put sugar in your gas tank" after Connors said Wu could have sent snipers after him. Ralph Retort downplayed the idea that Wu had tampered with the car, and repeated twice that this was about ethics in games journalism, Not Brianna Wu at all. Yet much of the discussion was about Brianna Wu, mocking her fright, minimizing the threats, and attempting to portray Connors as "not dangerous" because he only has Airsoft.
Not dangerous? You could shoot your eye out with that thing, Ralphie. And he has plenty of very real-looking knives, as seen in this psuedocommando-style bedroom mirror shot.
This guy: not dangerous according to Ralph Retort
Ralph Retort and King of Pol repeatedly asked where Wu got the impression that Connors was after her with a gun; as if they hadn't seen the same Friday chatlog of Connors which I posted above, where he explicitly requested one. The link to it was available on Kotaku in Action, 8ch.net's gamergate, and cow, also on 8chan. Ralphie et Pol would had to have been asleep to miss this story. But they didn't, because they did this timely interview with the person involved.
Connors obviously suffers from some kind of mental health issue. He's also been trolled for years by people fixated on him, in the style of Chris Chan's troll "fanbase". There's a whole wiki devoted to Jace's crazy exploits and over-the-top videos. Although these are the 'nice trolls' (they don't hate him, they think he's funny) ] It sounds like a really dysfunctional relationship.
Connors and Wu have one thing in common: both have been victimized by a persistent, anonymous hate mob gathered for the express purpose of making their private lives hell and laughing about it. As so-called "lolcows", their misery is made into packets of mean-spirited entertainment. They've been victimized by the same people.
Some may speculate Jace Connors isn't willfully violent, but I'm not sure if it matters. The crashed Prius is a case in point; regardless of his intentions, Connors still got himself a concussion. He's a danger to himself first, yet his troll friends eat it up as performance art.