The wit and wisdom of the guy who created that “beat up Anita Sarkeesian” game
Yesterday I wrote about a vile online game in which players were invited to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian,” the feminist cultural critic who’s faced endless harassment because she had the temerity to ask for donations to fund a video project looking at sexist tropes in video games.
The game, which (happily) has been removed from Newgrounds.com, where it was originally posted, was put together by a young Canadian gamer named Bendilin Spurr. On the game’s page, he offered this explanation as to why he created the game:
Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labelled to be sexist against her.
She claims to want gender equality in video games, but in reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.
That doesn’t really explain much, as asking people for voluntary donations to a video project is a far cry from “scamming,” especially since she’d asked for far less, and that the misogynist backlash to her project began long before she’d collected anywhere near this amount.
It also doesn’t quite explain why Bendilin felt that a Sarkessian-punching game was the best format to make this, er, critique.
Last night, after learning from the comments here that young Bendilin had a profile on Steam and a Twitter account, I decided to peruse both to see if I could find more clues that might explain his foul game.
On his Steam profile, he’s set forth his basic philosophy of life, video games, and how much women suck:
I think it’s just adorable how absolutely no girls are any good at video games, just like how no woman has ever written a good novel. They are nothing but talk and no action, probably because girls are such emotional creatures and base everything they do on their current feelings and then try to rationalize their actions later. How pathetic.
You know what’s priceless? When a gamer girl posts a pic of herself looking as slutty as possible and then throws a fake fit when people talk to her like she’s a whore. What did you think was going to happen, you dumb broad? Lose thirty pounds.
Sadly, these aren’t terribly rare or original opinions for a young male gamer.
Over on Twitter, Bendilin has offered a number of conflicting explanations for why he felt so much hostility for Sarkeesian and her video project that he felt justified in creating a video game devoted to punching her in the face.
There’s the fiscal argument:
There’s the laziness argument:
There’s the rather strange argument that Sarkeesian is not taking the proper time to research the subject, although she has not yet started the project. (Also, one of the reasons she was asking for money was so that she could take the time to research the subject properly.)
The “nuh-uh you’re wrong” argument:
The “she won’t listen to me argument.” Part one: The Lego Incident
And Part 2, in which our hero explains that making a video game about punching someone in the face is a great way to open a dialogue with them:
Naturally, Bendilin, like most misogynists, fervently denies that he’s a misogynist:
Yep, that’s right. The guy whose Steam profile claims that “absolutely no girls are any good at video games” and that “no woman has ever written a good novel,” and who decided to express his criticism for a video project that hasn’t even started by making a video game in which players punch the woman behind it in the face, is angry that anyone might conclude that he hates women.
Well, Bendilin, if you wanted to defend video games and the gaming community at large from charges of sexism, you’ve done a bang-up job of it.
UPDATE: Bendilin is also an artist! Here, Virgil Texas takes a look at Bendilin’s erotically charged Sonic the Hedgehog art.
That last paragraph and the update contained
Posted on July 8, 2012, in antifeminism, bullying, harassment, irony alert, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, narcissism, oppressed men, pussy pass, vaginas, violence. Bookmark the permalink. 1,286 Comments.
Even the sidebar is bolded.
I am honestly tempted to leave a strike tag unclosed…
Seeing it my html worked!
Mr. Boring Troll has never denied the existence of misogyny, but when the topic is a “beat-up-the-feminist” game, the most important issue is obviously mythandry.
Obviously.
KIRBY WHAT HAVE YOU DOOOOOONE
Either the page break stopped the bolding, or my last html worked!
Probably the page break.
No doubt, it’s misandry too.
I’d like to thank Steele for making my first blockquote fail possible. Couldn’t have done it without you.
First step: hold MRAs to the same standard as feminists (or shit, just women) on the internet.
Find me one death threat a feminist made against an MRA blog or you are full of shit.
@kirbywarp
“SHOW ME ONE EXAMPLE OF A MAN ATTACKING A WOMAN FOR BEING A WOMAN!”
How about the scum manifesto girl. The feminist heroine. How about the cutting off the mans dick/garbage disposal girl. That was quite a hoot. There’s loads more but ya get the point. All the gals get quite a belly laugh out of it. Of course they say how bad it is while they wipe the tears of laughter from their eyes.
And calm down, kirbywarp. Today’s lack of worship has been distressing but tommorow the prayers will begin anew.
@Steele:
Do you even see what you did there: Sodoni and Lepine are misogyny!
That teacher is misandry (you acknowledge it’s LESS, but c’mon!).
I shall now start calling you False Equivalency Troll!
Because that was one heaping steaming pile of shit example of false equivalency.
WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ? *yawns*
@GingerSnaps:
I am not a gamer, but the only thing I can recall male gamers facing are being called “faggot” (because being gay is almost like being a woman!), being called “pussy” (because being a woman is almost like… wait), or some other non-gendered slur. I have yet to hear of a huge problem of women sexually harassing men, probably because
a) They’ll be harrassed first
b) There are far to many guys who say stuff like “Oh yeah, I’d love a woman to harass me”
One amazing thing about Anita’s harassment is that she’s analyzing misogynistic “tropes,” not misogynistic “people.” You couldn’t tell that by the harassment…
Given all the cultural and institutional support boys get
Is this why boys are lagging behind girls in almost every conceivable measurement?
If you want to deny insitutional misandry exists, go right ahead. You’re wrong, but sure. However, even under that feminist definition, misandrist people can still exist in isolation. One of these would be Kirbywarp’s teacher. And given that boys are systematically lagging behind girls, the teacher is especially disgusting.
Aww… comment in moderation, probably for some bad language. Sad.
At least the bolding is fixed on this new page. ^_^;;;
Honestly, if it was one of those MRA blogs that’s all “rape should be de facto legal, women are subhuman monsters, etc.”, that wouldn’t exactly be proof that someone hates them just for being men.
They say rape should be de facto legal and they still don’t get the kind of threats Sarkeesian is getting for saying video games are kinda sexist.
@Steele:
You obviously didn’t read my little expansion on my story, did you?
Here’s a question. Do you think what happened to Anita is epically disgusting, since you think my teacher was “especially” disgusting? Is your disgust just amplified beyond average, and that’s why everyone’s having such a hard time with you?
They say rape should be legal and they still don’t get the kind of death threats you do for refusing to date some dude.
@Steele: can you give me evidence of FEMINSTS as some monolithic group not treating men fairly?
Women who are not feminists can on an individual level treat men badly–as C. noted, there are assholes in every demographic group.
But srs: where do you come by this “treat men fairly” — (now that you seem to have given up the feminists will take to the streets and violently attach men)?????????????
Dang, that was @Clff
Another thing to consider: You all laugh and joke about the ubiquity of the term “misandry”, but the fact is you’ve all chosen to associate with the one place it’s actually used- that is, the manosphere. Sure, I’ll admit, “misandry” is overused in the MRM, just as cries of “misogyny!” and “privilege!” are in the feminist movement. But beyond this infinitesimal online movement that you’ve all chosen to obsess over, “misandry” is almost completely unrecognized. Barely anybody even knows the word, much less the concept.
So continue to roll your eyes at the word. You could escape it by going literally anywhere else. That’s the problem.
Man, if Steele has a fucking blog I am so going over there to post kitten videos, recipes, etc. and making the conversation ALL ABOUT ME.
Ignore the KKK and I won’t hear n*****? That doesn’t solve the bit where they’re wrong.
Hey steele, where are the violent threats directed at MRA bloggers? Where’s a game where you can beat up an MRA figurehead?
And I’m waiting for the death threats, Mr. Vietnam.
I’ve got an idea! Women are so helpless and childlike let’s pay them if they decide their feelings are hurt. That way they can get men to write code for a game on how men treat women as if they’re helpless and childlike. Stupid stereotypes.
Do you think what happened to Anita is epically disgusting, since you think my teacher was “especially” disgusting?
Of course I do. Online harassment is never okay.
You obviously didn’t read my little expansion on my story, did you?
You’re gonna have to repost it. I don’t even know, this forum moves too damn quick.
Steele:
Um…honey…can you read? Like, I know the learnings is girl-stuff.
like military history lol
@Steele:
Here you go.
We enjoy making fun of it. This is what normal people call a hobby. You guys are terrible, but also hilarious.
WHAT ABOUT THE MOOOOONZ!?!!?!?!??!1
“…”misandry” is almost completely unrecognized. Barely anybody even knows the word, much less the concept.”
Maybe because it’s total bullshit, and the average man doesn’t care to devote his life to whining about bullshit on the internet.
Ignore the KKK and I won’t hear n*****? That doesn’t solve the bit where they’re wrong.
Well, obviously I’m not going to change your feminist worldview. But we don’t see it that way. The lack of acknowledgement of “misandry”- the word and the concept- in mainstream society is evidence of how far we have to go. Now, I understand, if you’re hyper-obsessed with hating the MRM for whatever weird reason, that you might consider yourself a misandry hipster. But for most people, men’s issues remain unconsidered.
If you don’t want to hear the word, don’t fucking read men’s rights blogs. I wish I had such an easy option when it comes to feminism.
Casting my vote for WHAT ABOUT TEH MOONZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as one of the best comments evah.
That poor man in the moon, faced by the misandry of Gaia!
*sobs*
“But we don’t see it that way.”
We know the MRM is full of racist assholes, too.
We enjoy making fun of it.
Fine, but then you look pretty moronic when you’re groaning about how ubiquitous it is. It’s not, in general. You choose to obsess over the one place it is.
One death threat. One.
and evidence that you have picked up and read an introductory military history text
or touched it, poked it really, that would expose you to more knowledge that you’ve shown evidence of here
“I wish I had such an easy option when it comes to feminism.”
Don’t read feminist blogs?
Then he couldn’t share his opinions with women, and then where would we be?
we’d probably know more abt the vietnam war, for starters
We know the MRM is full of racist assholes, too.
Much like the feminist movement, then.
One death threat.
Misandry: a bit more widespeard discoursively than Steele recognizes. Of course, he didn’t realize that MRA sites celebrate International Marc LePine day (his google fu is clearly fubared).
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&sugexp=chrome,mod=8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=misandry
And although the term may not be known that widely, the idea that straight white men are suffering more because WOMEN! or FEMINISM! or AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, is all over the mainstream media.
As usual, Steele Troll, you are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!
@Steele:
Your very first comment on this thread was calling someone an extremist that makes women martyrs. Your next was complaining how feminists think misandry was not comparable to misogyny. You continue to complain about how terrible misandry is and how non-ubiquitous misogyny is.
If you really thought what happened to Anita was much much worse than what happens in normal “misandry” cases, you would not have brought misandry up. You would have talked about how terrible Anita’s harassment was.
There is, however, a portion of the feminist movement that recognizes intersectionality.
Unlike your guys.
Hey Steele, can you respond to Kirby now? He was nice enough to link and everything, since you can’t be arsed to hit ctrl f.
Where’s the feminist equivalent of register-her.com? Where’s the feminist equivalent of “the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection” huh Steele? Where’s the feminist equivalent of this? (Note: Site endorsed by the oh-so-moderate-and-reasonable A Voice for Men.)
You can’t deny that yours is a “movement” (loosely defined, since you don’t actually do anything but troll the internet) with a hell of a lot of violent, anti-women rhetoric.
@Steele: yes, the feminist movement is full of racists.
So is every single fucking group in the US (I cannot speak of other countries, although a number of British sf fans talk about racism in the UK too).
So what?
INTERSECTIONALITY dude.
White men as a group have male and white privilege; white women have white privilege, but not gender privilege (straight white women have straight and white privilege).
NOT NEWS to anybody who’s read/thought/done feminisms for a while.
Go read bell hooks and we’ll talk.
BUT as VOIP said: One death threat. One.
VoIP, I’m not doing your research for you. Email a prominent MRA blogger. They likely keep quiet about it.
@Ginger Snaps: HIGH FIVES!
Oh, speaking of false equivalencies: did you see NWO claiming that every man who loses custody of children is the equivalent of the attacks on Sarkeesian????????????????///
This isn’t my research, moron, you brought it up so the burden of proof is on you.
And considering all the whining they do about a single tiny Swedish theater group, they probably wouldn’t shut up about it.
@Steele:
You made the claim dude, it’s your responsibility to back it up. Pick up after yourself like an adult, alright?
No one here is saying that MRAs and their whining about misandry are ubiquitous. Misogyny is ubiquitous. MRAs seem to exist only on the interwebz.
This is a great standard of proof, though. I haven’t heard about a thing so it must be EVEN WORSE THAN I SUPPOSED OH NO THE HORROR
hey Steele, do they teach logic in those schools that boys can’t be bothered to do well in?
I’m going to make baseless claims with NO evidence whatsoever, and then refuse to DO YOUR RESEARCH FOR YOU.
Steele, if not for us, then do your research for yourself.
@Steele: What makes you think they’d keep quiet about something that they could smear feminists with?
Why do they have to make do with Solanis (Solanas? sorry, tired, lazy, spelling blah), and the THEATRICAL production of the SCUM Manfesto, if they had real true actual death threats from feminists?
Why would they keep quiet when they cannot keep their flapping mouths shut about anything else on the planet?
WHY?????????????????????????????/
Or, let me guess, you’re a member of the “if there’s absolutely no evidence, that proves CONSPIRACY!”
let me introduce you to NWO–you dudes could conspiracy share!
Don’t worry. I’m sure that expecting Steele to actually back up the claims that he makes is misandry too.
because that is the reason they are failing, it’s not misandry, it’s a combination of two things, (1) buckling down and following orders is coded female so young white men no longer do shit in high school and (2) the real problem, which is that young black men are discriminated against in high school, which the MRM, thanks to its happy happy handshake with Internet Racists, refuses to recognise as a thing
Hell, the death stats from the Vietnam war are apparently misandry now
How many feminists have assassinated men qua men, Steele? And don’t say Solanas, since (a) Warhol didn’t die, and (b) her dispute with him was not over his gender.
What is the feminist equivalent to Lepine and Sodinie? Hell, what is the feminist equivalent to what men did to Sarkeesian?
Can I just say, commenters that you have made my morning? This stuff about the ongoing harassment of Skarseesian is just pure unmitigated awful, but seeing you guys knock idiots like Johnny and Steele around makes me feel a little better about the world.
@Steele:
“@MertvayaRuka: Lepine and Sodini are noted. Good points. However, they are isolated incidents.”
I apologize, sir. When I made my earlier comment about you moving the goalposts, I had no idea they were so heavy it would take you this long to move them.
@Cloudiah: There are no equivalents except, one female teachers being mean to male students.
And all the death threats sent by lurkers to MRA sites which are never talked about by MRA sites which proves FEMINISTS EVIL!
In other words, it’s all in his pointy little head.
I can’t even tell stories about how I was awarded things because I was a guy over other people, because that stuff was either invisible to me or just didn’t happen. I don’t have compelling stories with regards to gender because I simply wasn’t treated shitty for being a guy.
That’s your experience. Mine has been different.
Steele was right; I described my teacher as not doing very bad stuff. Honestly, the “every day a joke” was a bit of an exaggeration. Sure there was plenty of joking about how girls are so much better, but I (and probably everyone else) knew she was doing this to counter girls being told that they were stupider. She was actually rather explicit about that, and everything was light hearted. I’m sure she did the girls in class a world of good, and it probably did set me on the path towards being aware of women’s issues.
If you were affected positively by bullying, that’s great for you. You do not get to make that claim for anyone else. If you have a block about the word “misandry” for whatever bizarre reason, just think of it as bullying and cruelty from an authority figure.
I do not deny your experience. I’d ask that you extend to me the same courtesy, when I tell you I was emotionally damaged by a verbally abusive, misandrist female authority figure in similar (albeit probably more extreme) circumstances.
Also, I ask again- for all this “unfairness” directed toward girls, it’s interesting that boys are lagging behind in every single area except perhaps mathematics. As a boy who was inclined toward the humanities- such as writing- I faced a lot of skepticism and borderline ridicule. Humanities are for girls, dontcha know. Boys can’t cut it.
But the reason the story wasn’t all that compelling was because it wasn’t! It wasn’t a heavy hitting, rage inducing story about how everything was pretty much normal. Honestly, the fact that you (Polliwog) could tell your story and your daughters, and that there are so many tragic stories about women being harrassed, and the lack of anything nearly as substantial on the other side, is good supporting evidence that only one side has a legitimate claim.
You arrogantly dismiss other men’s experiences. You ignore my own anecdata, which do not fit your own predetermined worldview. You have presumed to decide, based on nothing but your own experiences, that certain bigotries are okay and certain others are not.
Finally, even if you were right, NONE of what you’ve said would invalidate the existence of episodic misandry.
Even if you’re right, you’re still wrong! Steele can’t lose this argument! (I also love this gif and srsly never get tired of it)
THE HELL?
oh well
Trigger warning for wikipedia articles on serial and rampage killers:
Isolated, eh, Steele?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_number_of_victims
Top fifteen. Majority killing women and girls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers
rampage — and there are more entries (workplace, family, etc)
Like: familicide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_familicides_in_the_United_States
Men, men, men, men, men.
Women do murder, and kill (and there’s some indication that women serial murderers operate differently than men), but still–overwhelmingly men.
Mostly targeting women and children (which includes boys).
So, yeah, I think your concerns of widespread violence BY WOMEN against men are sort of……..hyperbolically unrealistically over the top.
@cloudiah:
“What is the feminist equivalent to Lepine and Sodinie? Hell, what is the feminist equivalent to what men did to Sarkeesian?”
We all ready know what the answer is though, don’t we? It’s like asking for the left-wing equivalent of Eric Robert Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh (and no, the answer is not Ted Kaczynski). There are no equivalents except in the fevered imaginations of the MRAs.
I wonder if the extremist feminists here can bear to admit that a man (even maybe a white man?!) can ever have a hard time, ever, or be treated unfairly.
Such a feminist bubble.
@Ithiliana: The first sentence – and the last par — was more belligerent (and out of order personal) than intended, which is all on me. My irritation should have been squarely directed at Steele where it belonged, and I hope you’ll accept my apology.
Because, of course, all teachers should make their classroom zero tolerance zones for bullying with the genders involved on either side being totally irrelevant. I don’t know who’s saying any different apart from Steele’s misandrist feminist straw woman — who has been knocked down so much it should press charges.
“As a boy who was inclined toward the humanities- such as writing- I faced a lot of skepticism and borderline ridicule. Humanities are for girls, dontcha know. Boys can’t cut it.”
I would like to take a moment to remind you all about those HORRIBLE people on this blog who keep talking about how humanities are hack degrees compared to science.
They’re all IN THE MRM.
One death threat, moron.
“The lurkers death-threat me in email!”
At this point I’m just waiting for a sockpuppet to come in and threaten Steele.