Threatening to kick this whole “the internet” thing over a cliff and into the eternal, everlasting garbage fire we always knew it might become, film producer and former Sony co-chair Amy Pascal has optioned the rights to Zoe Quinn’s upcoming memoir Crash Override. Subtitled How To Save The Internet From Itself, the book details Quinn’s experiences as Patient Zero for the attentions of the amorophous blob of free-floating rage that’s congealed over the last year or so under the title “Gamergate”.
The developer of a small-scale, text-based game called Depression Quest, Quinn rose to prominence/notoriety/becoming an actor on the stage of her own private hell (take your pick) after an ex-boyfriend’s blogpost accusing her of the things ex-boyfriends usually accuse ex-girlfriends of doing—cheating, fighting, attempting to mastermind a conspiracy to bend the gaming press to her whims—went viral. Once kicked, that particular hornet’s nest Africanized fast, though, splitting vast swathes of nerd culture into various opposed factions, complete with traditions, mascots, and acronym-heavy nicknames for each other.
Attempting to capitalize on all this pent-up insanity—like a war profiteer targeting history’s most keyboard-intensive war—Pascal emerged victorious in the bidding fight for the rights to Quinn’s book, which is expected to come out in September of next year. Scarlett Johansson has apparently expressed interest in starring, helpfully adding an element of pent-up nerd lust to the firestorm of hurt feelings, hurled accusations, and bad intent this was already threatening to become, and ensuring that when this thing finally kills the internet, it stays dead for good, God willing.