In early 2014, a group called "The Fine Young Capitalists" started a kickstarter to get women into the gaming industry. Several women would pitch game concepts and the backers would vote for one. The money would be used to pay a team of devs to develop the winner's game. The profits would go to the winner, TFYC, and a charity of the backers' choice.
The policy on transwomen was that "anyone who had identified as a woman before the start of the project" would be allowed to participate. For some reason, this was not enough for Zoe Quinn, who started a smear campaign, calling the project transphobic. Several major backers withdrew, and TFYC was basically put under a media embargo.
Fast-forward to August 2014, when Zoe Quinn became the internet's enemy number one, and the whole mess that would later be called Gamergate began. Someone from TFYC took the oppoturnity to make a post about the project's history with Zoe. The anti-Zoe factions on 4chan and Reddit started to support TFYC, and donate large amounts of money to the project. The sentiment was that they'd show they don't hate women or feminism in general, just Zoe and her allies in particular, and they would spite Zoe by supporting something she tried to ruin.
4chan's /v/ managed to donate enough money under their name to reach the reward for putting their own character in the game. The board started brainstorming for ideas. Ultimately, to further fight against the stereotype that they're all sexist, they decided to make a plain, non-sexualised gamer girl. Out of collaboration, Vivian James (vidya games) was born. Of course, /v/ would not miss an oppoturnity for a daily dose meme, hence the green and purple shirt. I'm surprised it was striped instead of a loss shape.
Vivian was originally treated as "/v/'s daughter", but as the Gamergate controversy progressed, she became the mascot of the "pro-Gamergate" side.
