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
Steele, did you read what I said about feelings as opposed to societal structures? Were the words too big? I can change the writing around if you want. ^_^
Whoops, my thing above should read “good or bad.”
Has that happened ever in the history of ever? Men have been attacked for being gay, for being trans, for more personal things like owing someone money or cheating on a lover. When has a man ever been attacked just for being a man?
It’s not even happening in the Hey Baby game. The men are being attacked for catcalling. Not for being male.
LOL MISREPRESENTATION.
By the way, I strongly disagree with your assertion that puppies should be burned alive! That was very terrible of you to say!
You always know that anything that comes after this sentence is going to be rhetorical gold.
Yeah, no one here hates men as a group. Steele, my charming self doesn’t even hate you. I just think you’re a ginormous tool.
Haha, way to lie about something that anyone can scroll up this same page and read for themselves.
Cliff, I have previously condemned the Sarkeesian game:
Johnny’s comparison fails.
If that wasn’t clear enough, I do condemn in, and furthermore, would consider it worse than the street harassment game, because it’s targeting a specific person.
Has that happened ever in the history of ever? Men have been attacked for being gay, for being trans, for more personal things like owing someone money or cheating on a lover. When has a man ever been attacked just for being a man?
Are you actually serious here? When you can point me to a case in which a woman was attacked specifically for “being female”, I’ll reciprocate.
I have known a male nurse who faced quite a bit of harassment and even some violence (that is, hazing) from his female colleagues. I’ve known many men who were verbally harassed and treated poorly by feminists and even some non-feminist women in ways that they would not have been, in my opinion, if they were not male.
No matter if no other anti-male sentiment has ever existed “in the history of ever” (that’s a laugh), I’ve just disproved your assertion. Are those instances okay?
Okay, then, um… what are we arguing about?
Yo, like, just about every stranger rape ever?
Nurses? Physically hazing? FOR SERIOUS? I’m in nursing school, I work in a hospital, and I’m calling “Did. Not. Happen.”
The worst thing that happens to our male nurses is that they get called “Doctor” an awful lot.
Steele, did you read what I said about feelings as opposed to societal structures? Were the words too big? I can change the writing around if you want.
Since we have fundamentally difference worldviews in that respect, I really don’t see the point of engaging on that level. Which I’ve already said, if you’d bothered to read. I’m merely trying to determine the logical, real-world consequences of those abstract views, because fact is, people aren’t machines. Hating men “as a group” will eventually, in most cases, result in hating individual men, which will likewise, in a much smaller number of cases, result in violence toward men. This is not rocket science.
I’m also confused as to why “having feelings” is supposed to be an insult.
Steele, before you move the goalposts yet again, can you please substantiate or withdraw this claim?
We seem to be getting this a lot lately. It’s really rather baffling. Between the “how dare you call me a pussy in my imagination” troll and the “how dare you say hating men as a group is okay in my imagination” troll, I’m starting to wonder if the MRAs have some sort of contest going to see how many straw-feminists they can beat up this week.
I know it has been explained why misandry is not a real thing and not the same as some people hating, but I’d like to offer a little illustration.
I have a little brother, S. When S. was in high school, he had a female sport teacher who was notorious for her dislike of boys, often putting them down and giving unfair advantages to girls. She particularly disliked my brother, for some reason. (he can be a smart ass)
Do you think it made S. want to do sport less, discourage him, made him anxious or whatever? No, it made him (and most people) smile. Because when you’re told by frigging every person, every fiction and tv that boys are the best at sport, one person telling you you’re bad has zero effect.
Just like somebody yelling racist slur at me (I’m white) won’t do much.
Yo, like, just about every stranger rape ever?
No, that happens because a straight rapist wants to rape someone. By that logic, men were conscripted because they’re male. Now that’s institutionalized violence!
I can no longer read the word “misandry” without a cartoonishly high-pitched voice shouting it in my head, making me laugh.
Gender roles can definitely hurt me as well, but uh….men are the ones who defined and are enforcing those roles. There’s no “hatred of men” running amok, meaning hating one simply because one is male if both parties in question are men. But then, there are those that think feminists run the world, I suppose because they had some female authority figures in their life and that’s just awful bad bad.
And for all those losers who think the Anita beat-up game is just a harmless even whimsical game to play, please engage this topic to women face-to-face and see what real live humans look like when they discover that the person they’re talking to is a misogynist.
“The worst thing that happens to our male nurses is that they get called “Doctor” an awful lot.”
And then they have to say they’re not, and they’re humiliated. MISANDRY!
“By that logic, men were conscripted because they’re male”
Dude, they were also conscripted by men. Maybe every government is made up of misandrist manginas?
What I said, if you’d bothered to read it, is that there’s a difference between specific people having specific feelings and large societal patterns or cultural norms. Look at what Kyrie said.
Christ, you people are so thin-skinned. If you were less hysterical, maybe you could be better at reading comprehension.
Except that feminist utopia called Israel.
Steele, have you heard of a man called George Sodini? I’ll be surprised if you haven’t; he’s considered a hero among certain elements of your movement.
Do you think it made S. want to do sport less, discourage him, made him anxious or whatever? No, it made him (and most people) smile. Because when you’re told by frigging every person, every fiction and tv that boys are the best at sport, one person telling you you’re bad has zero effect.
I can tell you very confidently (and from personal experience) that this is not going to be the reaction of many boys- especially when told such by an authority figure. You either have a very interesting little brother, or your story is crap. I’m betting on the latter.
If I’m wrong, I can say that there were boys who were probably seriously hurt by that coach’s words. You may not have noticed it because of your own blinders.
Also- do you think her behavior was okay?
When universal conscription was instituted, it was viewed as noble sacrifice. Women weren’t worthy of something so glorious. It was also seen as the flip-side of citizenship, and women weren’t citizens.
THE FEMINISM IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE TANK
Steele has definitely heard of George Sodini, because in another thread he was explicitly denying your second claim. People then produced lots of evidence to support it, and he dropped the subject.
Much as I suspect he’s going to try to drop the subject of Manboobz being full of extremist man-haters.
@Steele:
I had a history teacher in middle school who was a rather hard-core old-school feminist. She joked nearly every day of the year about how girls were better than boys. Did it bother me? Nope. Did it bother any guy in the class? Far as I know, nope.
And it was an authority figure no less! Soooo… My anectdata beats your anectdata?
Well, here’s one spectacularly horrifying example:
Dude, they were also conscripted by men. Maybe every government is made up of misandrist manginas?
My point, if you’d bothered to read critically, was not that conscription was actually an example of specifically misandrist violence. Merely that, as is the case with “stranger rapes”, it’s an example of ignoratio elenchi, or a red herring of sorts.