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
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.
At least a humanities degree will tell you how many Americans died in the Vietnam war, which is apparently a datum that isn’t taught in MRM-academy.
Of course men can have a hard time! No one here would ever deny this!
What we’re saying is that men do not face systematic oppression because they are men.
Pay attention.
@Steele:
Hold up, you were inclined towards writing? When did you incline away from it?
They’re all IN THE MRM.
The people who ridiculed me weren’t.
They were feminists.
Meh, he’s not even trying any more. Bored now.
Steele: I believe you were damaged by a FEMALE AUTHORITY figure.
(The first time a man made a pass at me, I was 14. It was at my father, the Dean’s, faculty party, He was a faculty member. People laughed it off, oh so cute. That sort of thing didn’t stop until I was in my forties). I cannot even be bothered to count/remember any but the most extreme cases of male authority figures behaving in sexist ways (like the English prof who gave all the women in his classes B grades and all the men A grades–we tracked it for two years, and got evidence, but the dept. head couldn’t do anything).
What happened to you was wrong.
BUT, that does not excuse YOUR behavior here in claiming a false equivalency, and doing all the denying you are doing about misogyny and, like most MRAs, blaming FEMINISTS.
It just doesn’t.
Block quote fail… Further proof that men are inferior!
Either that or further proof that misandry exists…
Hmmm, yase, high schools are indeed hotbeds of feminist theory.
Prove it.
“I wonder if the extremist feminists here can bear to admit that a man (even maybe a white man?!)…”
Yes in addition to hating all men we’re all horrible anti-white racists as well. You got us.
“…can ever have a hard time, ever, or be treated unfairly.”
I can admit you’re certainly having a hard time here.