Pro g*mer move: 'I got death threats when men thought I put feminist gesture in video game'

It was late at night, and Darim's animation studio had just finished designing a new look for a character in one of South Korea's most popular video games, MapleStory.

Darim was proud of her work. So, sitting alone on the floor of her small studio apartment, she posted the trailer on social media. Almost immediately, she was flooded with thousands of abusive messages, including death and r*pe threats.

Young male g*mers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men's peepeees.

"There were insults I'd never heard before, they were disgusting and inhumane," said Darim, which is not her real name. One read: "You've just sabotaged your job."

Messages then started piling into Darim's studio and the game developer claiming she was a feminist and demanding she be fired. Within hours, the company pulled the promotional video.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

!moidmoment Black lives matter !feminists