Since college, American conservative transgender activist Brianna Wu has been accused of creating sockpuppets, including alleged collaborators and employees.
One such case is Natalie “Nat” O’Brien, described by Wu as an administrator and Twitter manager for Giant Spacekat Productions. In February 2015, Wu posted, “A PR person doesn’t run my Twitter account, I do.” Soon after, Wu began claiming to have hired “Natalie O’Brien” as the company’s administrator and listing “O’Brien” on the company website as the person hired to deal with reported Gamergate harassment.
Overview
- In 2014, Wu launched a Patreon to hire someone for “dealing with my attackers”
- In March 2015. Wu began mentioning an assistant named “Natalie”:
- Wu told reporter Krystle Wong that Natalie O’Brien “was six months pregnant when she was hired”
- Wu later claimed Natalie O’Brien was a pseudonym
Background
In 2014, at the height of the GamerGate coverage, Wu launched a Patreon:
I have to be honest, I need some help or I’m not going to last. If I quit, that would signal a victory to those harrasing me. […] Here’s where you come in: If you appreciate what I do, please chip in so I can hire some help with the Women in Tech advocacy I do. I need someone to help me with the medial parts of dealing with my attackers so I can focus on my work, making and shipping games. I imagine we’ll also have them work on women in tech advocacy.
In March 2015. Wu began mentioning an assistant named “Natalie”:
By April 2015 the Patreon was earning $3,406 per month from 669 patrons.
In a May 2015 article for A MAZE, Krystle Wong wrote that Wu had hired Natalie O’Brien in April:
And the Giant Spacekat family is growing. Natalie O’Brien was six months pregnant when she was hired. “I wasn’t even going to send over my resume,” the company’s administrator, told me over email. “But Bri and Amanda didn’t blink an eye. They interviewed and hired me knowing my situation, and have been extremely supportive over the first month of my employment.”
“I think we’ve got to have more honest conversations like that,” said Wu. “Something that I prize very much at Giant Spacekat is that we really do have a very open culture. There’ve been days when Amanda’s been up all night with her child and I’ve been like: just take the day off.”
Patrons started to question whether the Patreon money was being used as claimed. On July 24, 2015, Wu tweeted: REALLY tired of this lie. I don’t make a dime off my Patreon. It funds a dedicated employee for handling harassment.”
On Aug 14th, 2015, the Giant Spacekat Tumblr posted, “This is Natalie here, GSX’s administrator, checking in with some great news!” The post goes on to say Revolution 60 will be launched in October 2015.
In March 2016, “InformUs,” reportedly a contributor to Wu’s Patreon, posted on Medium with questions about Natalie O’Brien. “I now believe that Natalie O’Brien may not exist and that Brianna Wu has simply pocketed the money for herself.”
LOLcow https://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Brianna_Wu’s_Harassment
Brianna Wu has, on multiple occasions, claimed to have a full-time employee at Giant SpaceKat Studios specifically to handle the huge amount of harassment, death threats, and emails she (allegedly) receives on a full-time basis, and that this employee is where the bulk of her Patreon money goes. That she claims this, however, is a relatively new development, and started specifically to address concerns over what Wu was doing with all that Patreon cash. Prior to this, Wu has never been consistent with whether or not she even has such an employee, let alone what this employee does her Twitter for her, and on several occasions, has denied that such a position at Giant SpaceKat exists entirely.[3] Brianna Wu first claimed Natalie O’Brien as an employee of hers on May 6th, 2015.
Ample evidence shows that this individual, who Brianna Wu claims is one Natalie O’Brien, is either partially or completely fabricated.
No information about her exists whatsoever, she has no profile on any website of note, and no photographic evidence of her has ever been seen. In a vacuum, this would hardly be damning evidence, but it comes into focus when one realizes that every single other employee of Giant SpaceKat has a noted social media presence, Linkedin profile, and multiple photographs of themselves posing together at the office (Wu’s home). This individual tends to appear to post for Brianna Wu in a fashion not entirely unlike one of Vade‘s Headmates, only even less convincing since Natalie O’Brien has an identical posting style to Wu herself.
In 2017, Brad Glasgow wrote:
Wu has stated publicly that her Patreon donations would be used solely for the purpose of hiring an administrator whose responsibilities included maintaining Wu’s Twitter account so that she didn’t have to directly deal with harassing tweets. This administrator was Natalie O’Brien, we were told. When exchanging emails with Brianna throughout my research on the book, beginning in July of 2015, I received emails from someone responding as Natalie O’Brien using Wu’s email account. She signed her messages “Nat”.
Natalie O’Brien does not exist – at least, not as Natalie O’Brien.
In March of 2016, an anonymous person claiming to be among Wu’s Patreon donors wrote a Medium post casting doubt at the existence of Natalie O’Brien. The post cited Emma Clarkson, who worked for Giant Spacekat for about 10 weeks managing their social media account. In Clarkson’s tweet, she doubted the veracity of the claim that Wu hired someone to manage her Twitter account. Others looked into the matter and noted the lack of a social media presence or any record of Natalie O’Brien.
I sent an email to Wu and asked for proof of Natalie O’Brien. Wu replied, “I do have those records. I would probably produce redacted versions of them to any reputable news organization. But with respect, I’m not going to get into the practice of opening up our company records to indie bloggers. It’s a black hole that will be a huge waste of time.”
She continued, “Another problem is Natalie O’Brien is a pseudonym. The woman working for us had children and didn’t want them targeted by Gamergate. In providing you those employment records, I would be breaking her trust. Compounding this, because you’re not part of a credible news organization, you aren’t held to the same journalistic standards with an editor as say, the AP.”
Wu concluded: “As a public figure, and especially as a congressional candidate – I try to be open and honest with people. With 99 percent of journalists, it’s the right call.”
References
“O’Brien, Natalie” (August 14, 2015). Hey there, Sunshine! Giant Spacekat Tumblr https://giantspacekat.tumblr.com/post/126678406058/hey-there-sunshine crossposted to Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacekat/bring-revolution-60-to-pc-and-mac/posts/1324177
Glasgow, Brad (January 16, 2017). The Incredible Fundraising Tale of Gamergate’s “Literally Who’s.” Game Objective http://www.gameobjective.com/2017/01/16/incredible-fundraising-gamergates-literally-whos/ [archive]
“HoskStation” (July 27, 2016). Additional Evidence That Giant Spacekat is a Scam Artist. Medium https://medium.com/@HoskStation/additional-evidence-that-giant-spacekat-is-a-scam-artist-7e238c3399cb
“InformUs” (March 9, 2016). Who is Natalie O’Brien and does she exist? Medium https://medium.com/@InformativeBot/does-natalie-o-brien-exist-7e2942f2433d
Wong, Krystle (May 6, 2015). On Our Own Terms. pp. 20-21. A MAZE Issue 1. https://unepetitepeu.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/on-our-own-terms/ magazine version: https://issuu.com/independenceamazing/docs/a-maze-mag-de-online
Wu, Brianna (Dec 22, 2014). Special Twitter List. Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/special-twitter-1396688?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=web_share
Resources
Giant Spacekat (giantspacekat.com)
- Team
- giantspacekat.com/team [archive]
Patreon (patreon.com)
- Brianna Wu
- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=439829 (updated 2014–2016)
() https://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Natalie_O’Brien
() https://twitter.com/spacekatgal/status/566290435316805632 A MAZE. Magazine Issue #1: WOMEN.
un(e) petit(e) peu https://unepetitepeu.wordpress.com/tag/giant-spacekat/