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
@cliff
in all fairness, you didn’t get those death threats for ‘engaging in presumptuous denial of mens experiences’ because that is some dumb made up bullshit
IS anyone else seeing everything in bold? I might have messed up a closing tag…
Also, I noticed on the previous page that NWO has just figured out that he didn’t have a vagina! Hooray for him I guess.
Oh, god, did we just spend another 300 posts trying to explain to a misogynist why misogyny is misogynistic?
Since Steele hasn’t even acknowledged the many posts giving him exactly what he was asking for earlier with “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.”, it would be nice if he went home. Pretty much shows exactly what kind of person he is. He hasn’t even bothered to attempt a move-the-goalposts statement where he claims that Sodini and Lepine don’t fit the bill.
What “Hey Baby” and “Punch Anita” have in common is that they’re revenge fantasies.
The difference: “Hey Baby” is about revenge for real problems that women face in the real world. For women, being harassed is not a game, and they can’t close it when they’re tired of playing (whereas men are privileged to do so at will)… and when people have the nerve to complain about it or even bring it to light, people who benefit from the status quo make games like “Punch Anita”.
“Hey Baby” is revenge against those who cause problems. “Punch Anita” is revenge against those who try to solve problems.
Both involve revenge, but the motivations are different.
@ Kirby:
Everything’s in bold for me too. It’s not just you.
Steele: here’s the link for you!
http://manboobz.com/2012/07/08/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-the-guy-who-created-that-beat-up-anita-sarkeesian-game/comment-page-5/#comment-171076
Hahah kirby broke the bold tags xD
Actually, trolling feminists is an epidemic.
I know you’re thick, but it’s the TOPIC OF THIS POST.
And here’s a brand new /mensrights post about a tumblr user who commited the GRAVE CRIME of denying misandry. The OP is breaking Reddit’s rules by not removing the tumblrer’s username, so I’m sure she’ll be hearingsomething from beardhurt MRAs soon enough.
yeah kirby you broke everything
OH GOD! OH GOD! REDDIT! I CLICKED A LINK AND ACCIDENTALLY ALMOST READ IT! D:
My mannish hands have ruined everything! Oh I am so ashamed for me and my gender! Men are so stupid, as exemplified by my honest mistake! Oh woe, woe is me and everyone in the same demographic as myself!
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’m not convinced. I think they might keep quiet about it, in an attempt to avoid feeding the trolls, or some such. That, and they might not want to appear a victim. You could always ask them personally, if you’re so inclined. You might be surprised.
@Ithiliana: Of course I do. Bullies in administrative positions should never be tolerated.
bold tags are misandry!
Nope! We spend 300 posts debating “misandry” so that we wouldn’t remember that this thread is originally about a woman being harassed and threatened for saying misogyny exists!
@Steele:
I expand on my experience in a long post on the previous page. Don’t worry, you don’t have to read it if you don’t care. But short answer is no. It was not misandry.
MRAs love to make veiled death threats and other intimidatins of violence against feminists. Paul Elam in particular loves to talk about “inflicting pain” and making us “suffer” and “solving the problem of feminism” forever by means that would “go against everything we claim to stand for” (Hm, what could he mean by that?). It`s like a daily occurence with him. Of course he`s too much of a coward to come out and say “I wish they were dead” but the message is there for anyone who possesses reading comprehension.
I make a motion to vote that Steele should henceforth be ignored, based solely on the suspicion that he is not arguing in good faith.
Steele’s fundamental problem here seems to be that when he sees a woman not liking a man he assumes that it’s because the man is a man, whereas if he sees a man not liking a woman he assumes that it’s because the woman did something to piss the man off, ie there’s a specific reason he dislikes that particular woman.
On the idea that women are never hated and attacked just because they’re women? Tell that to the relatives of all the women who Sodini and Lepine killed. There was also a recent case at a college in Oakland, CA where a shooter specifically targeted female staff and students. (In fact he went in there looking for a particular staff member, and would have killed her too, but she wasn’t there.)
paul elam doesnt want to pretend to be a victim? this is how i know youre just making shit up.
Right, Steele. That denies Paul Elam’s entire perpetual victim shtick.
@MertvayaRuka: Lepine and Sodini are noted. Good points. However, they are isolated incidents.
LET ME TEST SOMETHING…. Does this fix it?
it’s like he’s some sort of woman-hater or something… if only we had a word for that…
I always thought that the hey baby game was about showing men just how ubiqitous, pervasive and unrelenting male come ons are. Okay, I wasn’t paying much attention to the guns…I was watching the frustration of certain male friends as they realized just how pointless shooting down the hey babies was. Kinda hit them over the head with a clue by four.