Alison Rapp was a member of Nintendo of America’s Treehouse localization team. Her day-to-day duties were more to do with marketing and promotion than they were actual translation and in-game content, but that didn’t stop groups like GamerGate and Kotaku-in-Action from singling her out as responsible for certain changes being made for the western versions of Xenoblade Chronicles X and Fire Emblem Fates . Rapp is an outspoken feminist, which made her an easy target for those who were angry over these games being altered in small ways, omitting certain sexually suggestive content.
These groups initiated an intense smear campaign against Rapp (which sadly reached its climax while she was trying to enjoy her honeymoon) to discredit her and ruin her reputation. Disgruntled, entitled man-children (and probably several women as well) with too much time on their hands took it upon themselves to dig through Rapp’s past tweets, internet shopping wishlists, and past academic publications to find any dirt that might be used against her. Their holy grail was an old college paper wherein Rapp discouraged Western pressure on Japan to proactively condemn and change its cultural leniency concerning the sexualization of young people. Of course, the paper was cherry-picked and used as “proof” that Rapp condoned pedophilia, which GamerGate sympathizers were urged to report to Nintendo executives while pretending to be concerned parents.
Yesterday we learned that Rapp had been fired from Nintendo, which will probably go down as a big victory for the smear campaign. Nintendo issued a statement, however, claiming that Rapp’s termination had nothing to do with these groups.
“Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo’s corporate culture. Though Ms. Rapp’s termination follows her being the subject of criticism from certain groups via social media several weeks ago, the two are absolutely not related. Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race, or personal beliefs. We wish Ms. Rapp well in her future endeavors.”
Though that may be true, it was an anonymous enemy who tipped Nintendo off to Rapp’s second job. Well done, internet, you’ve proven yet again that you truly can be the world’s hate machine. We wish Alison peace and luck as she moves on from this fiasco and seeks employment elsewhere.