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
FYI Steele, your pompous pronouncements and baseless conclusions ensure that no one but your fellow misogynists will take you seriously.
@2-D Man:
“Dieting books make better novels than the Left Behind series.” Thank you for reminding me of the existence of that rapture pr0n for fundies. I had forgotten it’s existence. Now I have to bleach my brain to forget it all over again. *grumbles*
The guy in the OP is amazing though… He disagrees with everything Anita has brought up, when she hasn’t even made the videos yet. He blames her for scamming people out of 160,000 when that money came after so many god-damn misogynists crawled out the woodwork and basically proved her point before she made it.
And as an act of protest about Anita’s concerns over how women are treated in video games, he makes a video game about beating up a woman. You cannot make this shit up.
Johnny, it has nothing to do with being a rabid feminist (and if if it does, so what), but not many people would want someone on their team with those kind of conflict-resolution skills.
I’m so glad you’ve come for attention and to let us know how above it all you are.
Or they might be concerned that he’ll create a hostile working environment, undermine camaraderie among employees, get convicted of violent crime and be rendered unable to work, or disregard authority figures who happen to be women, to name a few potential problems.
@themisanthropicmuse:
True story… I actually really loved the Left Behind series as a kid. All of the subtle religious parts completely went over my head (same with The Chronicles of Narnia), and I was in it for the biblical-style apocalypse. So much fun!
Then I got to about book 11 or so, when Jesus came down to earth… and suddenly everything was completely boring. Seriously… a whole book about how wonderful and happy everything is and how Jesus is like a big santa clause that simultaneously talks to everyone in a crowd individually. Really killed the buzz.
Oh hey, I found Johnny_M80
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6f8pnFXq91rwb52ho1_1280.jpg
The “women don’t write” charge always sounds really weird to me, because writers’ communities are heavily female. Because it’s a career that’s often compatible with being a stay-at-home mother (and a bit just because that’s how the business is), most people in the writing/publishing business are women. Women aren’t just represented, they dominate most genre and nonfiction writing. The only big exception is that just as “women are cooks, men are chefs,” men do dominate the top level of pretentious “literary fiction.”
I’m not even going to name female authors here, because seriously, once you get beyond the Designated Great Books, if you don’t have a female author on your shelf you don’t have a very big shelf.
(Oh no, now the MRAs can turn around and say the book business is misandrist. There’s no winning…)
Oh yeah, there’s also that he’s… well… not very smart when it comes right down to it.
2-D Man: Interesting. Should employees exercise the same caution with feminists found to be writing violent rhetoric against men online?
“Mr. Fecke, your extremist feminism, as well as your belief that women are martyrs, has cost you the right to be taken seriously.”
LMAO. Says the man who refuses to respond to any of the criticism he has received from commenters on this blog. Hey, Steely, where are those links I asked for? Or are you going to just ignore me or call me infantile since you can’t find any?
Or let’s even leave feminism out of it. This is a guy who thinks the proper thing to do when you’re angry at someone is to make a game about punching them in the face. Would you want to be his boss? And see what he does when he gets angry at you?
This shit goes beyond “PC.”
Find me one (preferably one who’s alive and not an actor in a fictional production), and then we’ll talk. Any feminists out there making games about punching MRAs in the face?
Johnny_M80: EmployERS should exercise caution with any potential employee who publishes violent rhetoric against anyone. That type of person is likely to be, at the very least, a time-suck for their management.
Is this new Johnny a tired iteration of our past Johnny trolls with their faux-reasonableness and straw feminists?
“And as an act of protest about Anita’s concerns over how women are treated in video games, he makes a video game about beating up a woman. You cannot make this shit up.”
Those games are an old tradition. There was a Beat Up Britney Spears game way back, Beat Up The Backstreet Boys, Beat Up Usher, Beat Up Justin Bieber, and too many others to list. Why is such a big deal being made over this one? Seems like some people are just eager to cry misogyny at the drop of a hat, when most people dislike her simply for being an annoying person who essentially says “Hey guys, I need some money to make a web series where I tell you how you’re all misogynistic dickheads and everything you enjoy is wrong!” and people wonder why she’s disliked?
@Johnny
“…feminists found to be writing violent rhetoric against men online?”
Citation needed.
“Find me one (preferably one who’s alive and not an actor in a fictional production), and then we’ll talk. Any feminists out there making games about punching MRAs in the face?”
http://www.heybabygame.com/info.php
why is video games the subject that always brings out the cowardly passive aggressive children?
@thebionicmommy
“I look forward to watching Sarkeesian’s video on tropes vs. women in videogames. I am in awe of her for being so brave and continuing with her project, despite all the abuse hurled at her. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to endure what she has.”
Spoiled princess whose never had the slightest inconvenience in her entire life and is rewarded with 160K because for once in her life cinderella was dispondant??? And she’s brave? She didn’t pull anyone from a burning building. Talk to me about privilege when a woman’s precious feelings aren’t worth 160K. Nice resource she’s got there. Give it a little shake, shed a few tears and out pops 160K.
Shrieking Migosynist Brigade = drummed up by Sarkeesian’s spies to go viral and get much more money than she was asking for.
Shrieking PC Brigade = will track some nobody’s employment so they can keep him out of a job.
Gotcha.
@Johnny_M80:
I know you have some difficulties, Johnny, so I’ll try to be easy to understand. You know how you read “he makes a video game about beating up a woman?” Well, there was actually a whole other part of that sentence! And if you read both of them together, the sentence takes on a whole new meaning!
The more you know(tm).
If you need any other assitance with parsing a complicated sentence, don’t hesitate to ask. 🙂
@Johnny – I wouldn’t hire him because he couldn’t think of anything better to do with his time. I don’t want pedestrian employees, I want outstanding ones and he isn’t it.
In fairness, that HeyBaby video game is about targeting sexual harassers and stalkers, not random men in general, not even MRAs in general.
kirbywarp: your username and avatar are certainly fitting as it seems a smug paragraph of puffed-up nothing is all you can muster. Get back to me when you actually have something to say.