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
sometimes people are assholes for no good reason and sometimes the victims of that assholery are men (or boys)
Sometimes people are misandrist. Again with the minimization and dismissal of a very specific kind of bullying, abuse and bigotry. To be attacked for something you are is more than just “being an asshole”, it is hatred and extremely potentially damaging. Your language is designed around minimizing the “okay” type of bullying, in this case misandry.
Nobody has said any sort of bullying or abuse is okay.
Nobody has said that bad things never happen to men.
Nobody has ever said that nobody is ever prejudiced against men.
Many people have said that for the word misandry to be a legitimate term in social criticism, it has to be shown that prejudice against men is systemic.
All you have to do to win this argument is show that this is the case.
There are your goalposts. Take your shot.
Well, then, if you’re tired go get some rest. I am commanding you to do this as a misandrist, because I don’t want you to have any fun. Surely you as an obedient mangina wouldn’t think of defying me?
Steele, clearly you are just here because you are bored. Why don’t you go play video games or something? That way a new troll can come and be entertaining. Why bother saying anything if you’re just going to refuse to explain or defend any of the ridiculous claims you make? It’s lame. You’re lame. And boring. And a big fat liar with his pants on fire.
Don’t deny it buddy, you’re not fooling anyone.
Seriously. I thought NWO was getting boring. At least he has the courtesy to PRETEND he’s trying. It’s no fun arguing (or watching people argue, in my case XD ) with someone who clearly couldn’t give a shit. It’s like if Ruby made more than one or two posts a thread.
Sometimes people are racist. Again with the minimization and dismissal of a very specific kind of bullying, abuse and bigotry. To be attacked for something you are is more than just “being an asshole”, it is hatred and extremely potentially damaging. Your language is designed around minimizing the “okay” type of bullying, in this case racism.
WHITE FOLKS ARE SO DISCRIMINATED AGAINST. IT IS REALLY THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD.
Sir Bodsworth, that no one has said those things does not matter. Steele has been busily making up all kinds of shit out of whole cloth and essentially saying he doesn’t have to prove any of it because all us feminists will just ignore it anyway. What gives you the impression that he’s going to pick now to start being honest?
MertvayaRuka said
“Says the man who pretended his MRA buddies haven’t erected virtual monuments to murderers and bullies.”
I would like to echo this so he has to ignore it at least twice.
If a single upper class Guatemalan was killed during the 1980s, it was A MASSACRE just like what was done to farmers and the indigenous people of the country. Totally the same thing.
Hey Steele, I’ve asked you before and I’ll ask you again: Show us the MRA equivalent of what happened to Sarkeesian, or get the fuck out.
You’re right, cloudiah- I am angry. Toysoldier was raped and abused by his aunt and the primary concern of the feminists here is to rationalize about how it’s sort of bad, but more importantly it’s not misandry. I was bullied and tormented by a misandrist female authority and the same rationalization goes on. I am not the only one I know to fall victim to misandrist bullshit, and come here to be told that it
makes no more difference in the real world than heterophobia does, or a hatred of pretty little sticky-stemmed pink flowers.
Going back a bit, I’m really not happy that Steele chose to disclose the specific details of Toy Soldier’s abuse, given that Toy Soldier himself has always made it clear that he prefers not to have that level of detail out there in feminist spaces. Could one of the mods maybe redact that part? It’s not fair to Toy Soldier to have his wish to keep that information private ignored just because Steele wanted to use it to make a point.
@Steele:
You know what? I’ll bite.
(Episodic) Misandry is not special.
It may be specific, and it may be harmful to a group you belong to, but its not special. There’s people who hate women, people who hate jews, people who hate blacks, people who hate whites, people who hate grammar pedants, people who hate sloppy writers, people who hate people who use cliches, people who hate people who don’t conform to gender binaries, and people who don’t conform to specific versions of gender.
There are many many things for which you could find specific examples of irrational hatred. Some are more common than others, and like it or not – just in terms of gender – hatred of women is much more common than hatred of men.
Some are reinforced by institutional structures, and some are just random permutations of irrational humans. The ones that are more pervasive are the ones that are worth talking about specifically, and one of the more pervasive ones is the insitution of misogyny. That is the thing that feminists are concerned with fundamentally.
People who hate men for being men exist. No one denies that. What we do deny is that it happens in any appreciable quantity. And what we get eternally frustrated with is people like you who try to elevate people who hatred of men over the far more pervasive insitution of people who hate women.
This is not ignoring, minimizing, or erasing any individual examples of hatred against men any more than not talking about bank robbers erases their existence. But there are more significant things to talk about than individual shittiness that happens all the damn time. And it is the height of privilage to expect that your particular version of individual shittiness should take precidence over all else.
/rant
@Cassandra- Perhaps you’re right, although I haven’t disclosed any more than TS has on his blog. It’s the mods’ call.
@Cassandra:
All that goes to show that Steele couldn’t give less of a damn about Toysoldier except to use him as a weapon when convenient.
He’s chosen not to disclose that level of detail here in the past. It’s not appropriate for you to dislose information like that in what the person concerned considers a hostile environment unless you have his explicit permission to do so.
Anyway, I seem to have exhausted my rhetoric. Of course, misandry is in fact- as Kirbywarp puts it- systemic, but that’s a conversation I don’t want to have here. Thanks for the discussion, all.
@Steele:
It’s not “sort of bad,” it’s fucking terrible. Like we keep saying. But there’s nothing to be done about it! There’s no root cause except human shittiness here, no social progression to be made that can’t be made elsewhere. And (at the risk of being repetative) you are trying to elevate this one tragedy over all other issues, especially over issues that affect vast swaths of the population. Even more, you are trying to elevate this one tragedy over all of the tragic experiences women on this very blog have gone through.
You want to help Toy Soldier? Do it. But don’t expect Feminism as a whole to drop what its doing and only pay attention to men who go through shitty things at the cost of affecting social change to eliminate widespread misogyny. This is a privileged request, and if you don’t like it, get out.
Sorry, I quoted the bit that probably should be redacted, didn’t notice your comment Cassandra. oi… This is exausting, and I really really shouldn’t be the one that says all this given that I run the risk of getting it wrong.
Steele isn’t revealing any details that Toysoldier has not himself already revealed here. (I went back to check his comments here to be sure.)
kirby, Steele’s not interested in helping Toysoldier. Toysoldier is nothing to him but a blunt instrument to be swung at feminists while screaming “MISANDRY EXISTS!”.
Once again, feminists are more concerned about MRAs than MRAs.
@MertvayaRuka:
Yeah, I got that eventually. It’s no coincidence that people routinely use individual cases as a beat-stick to highlight their cause. “Oh, you don’t want to combat X? Well, obviously you don’t care about this person right here then!”
Kinda obvious when you consider the closing line of “I seem to have exhausted my rhetoric.” -_-
Has he disclosed the specific form the rape took before? I don’t recall him ever doing so. If he did then I guess it’s OK for Steele to repeat it, but I do remember him being reluctant to share details in the past.
Here’s the thing, Steele.
People being attacked by sharks is bad. Hell, it’s not even just bad, it’s terrible. People die because of it, and the ones who don’t die may lose limbs, experience horrible pain, and suffer quite a lot. Shark attacks are serious, and I have no problem with people choosing to focus their energy on drawing attention to the seriousness of shark attacks, supporting shark attack survivors, and generally caring deeply about shark attacks.
What I have a problem with is when one of those people comes into space devoted to discussing cancer and starts shrieking, “WHY AREN’T YOU TALKING ABOUT SHARK ATTACKS?”
It gets even more annoying if, when the people discussing cancer have the nerve to say, “Hey, shark attacks are serious and it’s cool that they’re your area of focus, but we are talking about cancer, and honestly, given that cancer affects vastly more people than shark attacks, cancer is going to continue to be our primary concern here,” the SAA (shark attack activist, natch) decides to yell at them even more: “HOW DARE YOU NOT FOCUS ON SHARK ATTACKS WHEN I DEMANDED IT? CLEARLY NONE OF YOU CARE ABOUT SHARK ATTACKS. I BET YOU ALL HATE PEOPLE WHOSE LEGS WERE BITTEN OFF BY SHARKS, YOU MONSTERS. WHY DO YOU INSIST ON DENYING THAT SHARK ATTACKS ARE A THING?”
And if every damn discussion of cancer or anything related to cancer promptly attracted SAAs, all demanding that you stop talking about cancer right now because SHARK ATTACKS, then it transcends “annoying” and heads straight for “completely ridiculous, and also insanely nasty to everyone effected by cancer.”
See if you can figure out how this analogy applies to you! (I know it might be tricky, since, as previously established, you reject the evil feminist notion that words have meanings, but maybe if you try really hard you can manage it. I believe in you!)
Ya know after reading this it looks like the guy was very fair with his points, and his steam profile is actually an inside joke of somewhat in the video game community. I decided to search the topic on twitter and it seems like way to many people were offended by this and decided instead of making clear and coherent argument with the dude most just kinda sperged on the topic and flipped out on him like it was their mother or something. I personally think that it was just a man making a joke, I don’t really think he was trying to do anything offensive but because it was about an already hot topic this blew completely out of proportion. If this had happened around 2 months ago or maybe a year or two in the future most people wouldn’t even know who this woman was or would care enough to do anything about it.
Dammit, typing while sleepy makes me hit myself with one of my own pet peeves. AFFected. Hmph.