#1reasonwhy #1reasontobe #1reasonmentors
On November 27, 2012 Luke Crane tweeted, "Why are there so few lady game creators?"
The hashtag #1ReasonWhy was instantly born and received considerable attention. In response to the overall negative tone of #1ReasonWhy, women in the games industry started the hashtags #1ReasonToBe and #1ReasonMentors as places to list the reasons why women should be and love being in the game industry and to build a network of women for mentorship.
Using Storify we captured many of these tweets in raw form:
'mcdaldno' also created a more thematically arranged account using Storify: 1 Reason Why
The episode was covered widely in the media:
- TIME.com: Nov 27, 2012: #1ReasonWhy: Women Take to Twitter to Talk about Sexism in Video Game Industry
- PC Gamer: Nov 27, 2012: #1ReasonWhy highlights sexism in the games industry
- Gamasutra: Nov 27, 2012: Twitter hashtag '#1ReasonWhy' exposes sexism in game industry
- Kotaku: Nov 27, 2012: Here's a Devastating Account of the Crap Women in the Games Business Have to Deal With. In 2012
- Kotaku: Nov 27, 2012: And Here's Why Women In The Games Business Put Up With So Much Crap
- Games Beat: Nov 27, 2012: Sexism is alive and well in the game industry, #1reasonwhy tweets show us
- GamesIndustryInternational: Nov 27, 2012: #1ReasonWhy - The night Twitter took on the industry's sexism
- Slate: Nov 27, 2012: Video Game Industry Has Twitter Powwow On Sexism With #1ReasonWhy
- Forbes: Nov 28, 2012: '#1ReasonWhy' Hashtag Explains Why There Are Few Female Games Developers
- Guardian.co.uk: Nov 28, 2012: #1reasonwhy: the hashtag that exposed games industry sexism
- CNN: Nov 28, 2012: 'Lady game creators' meet up on Twitter
- Polygon: Nov 28, 2012: Tackling sexism in gaming, 140 characters at a time
- FMV Magazine: Nov 28, 2012: Valve Dev “Calling Games Industry Sexist Is A Major Disservice To Developers”
- The California Aggie: Dec 5. 2012: Column: Discontented tweets
On blog sites:
- Alex on The Border House, theorizing that it's not just the sexism that keeps people away from working in the games industry, but the poor quality of life that often comes with the job: Nov 27, 2012: #1ReasonWhy: Female Game Devs Speak About Marginalization in the Industry
- Angela on Fandible, summarizing the movement: Nov 29, 2012: #1reasonwhy – Women Talk about Sexism in Gaming Industries
- Nathan Grayson on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, responding to the claim that males can't do anything to change these industry problems: Nov 29, 2012: #1Reason Why We Are All Responsible
- Jonathan Lavallee on Gamish Designer, with tips for how to be an ally to the movement and gender equality in general: Nov 29, 2012: #1reasonwhy - Comment for Allies and such things
- Regina Buenaobra on Acid for Blood, rounding up much of the discussion around the hashtag: Dec 3, 2012: #1ReasonWhy: Thoughts and Link Round-Up
And prompted many personal stories to be shared outside of Twitter:
- Alive Tiny World: Nov. 27, 2012: Too many reasons why
- Ashelia: Nov. 27, 2012: I’m starting to suspect she likes abuse
- The Border House: Nov. 27, 2012: My More-Than-#1ReasonWhy
- Zedrick Cayne's EvE Blog: Nov. 28, 2012: I used to be #1reasonwhy
- CNET: Nov. 29, 2012: The games industry is sexist: here's more than #1reasonwhy
- Amanda Valentine: Nov. 29, 2012: #1reasonwhy
One thing to come out of this Twitter storm is the website www.1reasonwhy.net established by Filamena Young (who is attributed as the first person to start using that hashtag on Twitter). There is too much material to manually archive this whole site, but it contains coverage of some major news stories as well as personal essays by people in the industry. Unfortunately, as of December 17th, 2014, the website appears to be defunct; as such, an archived version from the Wayback Machine dated February 9, 2013 has been included in the link above.