It's a story as old as, well, the Internet. A woman is a video game journalist. She receives rape and death threats. The end. But in a delightful new take on the old story, said video game journalist has reached out to the mothers of her harassers, just to let them know what their sons are up to.
Alanah Pearce reviews video games for Australian radio stations and television. She also has her own YouTube channel. She has received a number of threats on Twitter and Facebook simply because (this is a well-informed assumption) she's a woman, though Gamergate probably has something to do with it, so she took matters into her own hands, telling the Guardian:
"A while ago, I realised that a lot of the people who send disgusting or overly sexual comments to me over the internet aren't adult males…It turns out that mostly they're young boys and the problem is they don't know any better, so responding to them rationally didn't resolve the situation. And it got to the point where their comments were starting to make me feel really uncomfortable."
Fair enough. Pearce was easily able to find the families of her harassers and got in touch with their mothers. She has reached out to four mothers, sending them screenshots of their son's handiwork. So far, one of the mothers has responded:
