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: Nope, not difficult at all.
My job as a teacher is to not allow students to bully other students (it’s gotten easier now I teach mostly online because they have to post their discussions and everybody can see them), whether it’s Christian students telling other that they will go to hell if they don’t believe X, or (the very small and not representative) older women making younger men feel ill at ease (in that context, when there are only 3-4 men in a class of 20, it could happen), or the male students hassling the female students (it may be college, but I could make them sit in alphabetized rows if need be), or the white students making cracks about black students (when there is only one in class).
I had to recognize the problem–and that was one of my earliest introductions to intersectionality (I have some very good articles on problems of racism and classism and homophobia in feminist classes, written by feminist teachers), a concept that breaks the idea that oppression/marginalization is only on one axis.
Which is why I point to the MRA sites that seem to ignore the very real problems of black men (they call them “thug lovers”), and gay men, trans* men, and poor men, and consist mostly of straight white cis men bemoaning their terrible oppression at the hands of women/feminists.
Hell, Futrelle can get their IP.
Is Futrelle an illuminati feminist jew???
Hell, not only are you not getting death threats, I bet you’re not even afraid of getting death threats. I bet you know, deep down in a place you can’t admit to us, you know you don’t have to worry about death threats for talking about “misandry.”
I’m sorry, have you received a death threat in the past few hours for denying misandry? I had no idea! Such an epidemic!
Why, I’ll bet not one person on the forum has received a death threat for engaging in presumptuous denial of men’s experiences.
Now, if I started a major blog focused on men’s issues, you’re damn right I would expect a lot of bile. Death threats, and the like. From feminists.
Hey Sharculese, scroll up to what Steele said about the Vietnam war. I know you’re a politics-and-culture sort of dude, and I think you’ll love it in exactly the same way that people like lookatthisfuckinghipster.com.
seriously, how do you think that harumphing around about how everyone who doesnt obsess over the specific problems you obsess over is ‘indoctrinated’ or ‘delusional’ in your middle-school english tucker carlson faux-reasonable tone is anything other than bullying behavior?
are you high?
@Cranapia: Just saw this–I don’t want a fucking cookie. I wanted to point out that feminist teachers don’t just pick on boys in their classes, DOH.
Steele, keep moving those goalposts. You’ll tire out eventually.
@voip
i saw and im trying not to think about it because jfc
Steele:
Find one. Go to any single MRA website in the English-speaking world (or whatever languages you speak) and find one death threat from feminists. (*Actors making a fiction do not count.)
I dare you.
“I would expect a lot of bile. Death threats, and the like. From feminists.”
You would be sorely disappointed.
@Steele:
If it’s bullies and assholes that you’re against, great! There’s plenty of anti-bullying campaigning and related stuff that you can be a part of! That does not make misandry a thing that exists.
@Steele: Do you think Cranapia’s teacher should also be stripped of their job and severely disciplined?
Or, is this like the double standard you have for games?
Now, if I started a major blog focused on men’s issues, you’re damn right I would expect a lot of bile. Death threats, and the like. From feminists.
wait wait wait wait wait
this isnt even about real things? this is all about things you imagine would happen under other circumstances? that is what you’re pretending to be a victim about?
what is wrong with you?
thanks kirby!
in this conversation, you are the bully and the asshole. the fact that you dont realize that is the problem.
Nope. If this were, say, Feministing, you might have a point. However, this is a blog devoted to attacking MRAs and ridiculing what we say. It is therefore not out of line for MRAs, such as myself, to enter the conversation and state our own case.
@ithiliana
there is no question that video games are more important than real life for this dude
@Sharculese:
It is the ‘MURCA-iest thing I have ever fucking seen. Not only does he thing the US=the world, but just the US in the past 40 years.
The Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg killed as many people as America lost in the entirety of Vietnam in exactly 12 hours.
Actually, I have. I have a feminist blog and I’ve gotten multiple death threats through it. I’ve also been threatened for turning men down on dating sites, for not responding to men who cat-called me, and for dating another girl in high school.
And obviously Sarkeesian is getting death threats by the bucketload.
Really? Have you heard of this happening, anywhere?
I mean, you know Paul Elam and W.F. Price and the like would parade around any death threat they got for weeks, it would be the talk of the manosphere, so this isn’t a guessing game. Because that’s never happened, I’m pretty sure that even the vilest misogynist blogs actually aren’t getting any death threats.
…I think Ozy gets threats for running a blog about men’s issues, but they’re all from misogynists who thinks ze is too sympathetic to those dirty feminists.
Steele. I can’t count the number of death threats, rape threats or threats of beatings I’ve had in my life for just being a woman. Let alone a feminist one.
I could handle the sexual street harrassment better if it only happened to actual grownup women. But it always seems to start way earlier than that.
Steele, it’s a blog that mocks misogyny, but if you need to think MRAs are being attacked to satisfy your persecution complex; well, we’ve all got our kinks, I suppose.
Steele:
I’m waiting. If you don’t take me up, I might be forced to assume you are, in fact, a coward and a liar who makes shit up on a daily basis.
OH WAIT NEVER MIND SORRY TO TROUBLE YOU
I think I made an oops… O_O
nuh-uh plus some copypasta? that’s all you can come up with? no wonder you have to blame feminism for your problems!
FTFY
If it’s bullies and assholes that you’re against, great! There’s plenty of anti-bullying campaigning and related stuff that you can be a part of! That does not make misandry a thing that exists.
So your teacher saying that boys are inferior to girls is not misandry?
Idiot.