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
Like, is there a person named Misandry who you want to tell us about? Is there a Misandry that’s the state capital of Feminiowa?
Let’s see…..
Mean female teacher bullies male student, so that covers the misandry portion. Teacher works at a school, which is an institution, so that covers the institutional portion….
EUREKA!!! PROOF of institutional misandry!!!
Well, it shows that Misandry is a thing, and much more Important than bigotry or prejudice. Lack of capitalization is MISANDRY!
@Steele:
I’d love to see which comments of mine you’re referencing here.
*sigh* What a weird spin you keep putting on this. I personally used the word “joking,” and you’ve consistently interpreted that as “bullying” because my experience must have been bad exactly like yours. Couldn’t be any other way! And then you have the nerve to tell me to stop interpreting my classmate’s experience of the teacher that only existed in your own head, and call me a “lying, arrogant, presumptious sack of shit” for what… the third time now?
I said nothing of your experience, I’ve only ever described my own experience and that of those who were around me (those who I would actually be familiar with, having known them for a couple years). You are the one who is interpreting my experience, and then calling me a sack of shit for not being outraged at the straw-teacher you’ve built up in your head.
Just stop it, will you? Go back to refusing to talk about the one worthwhile subject in your entire shtick.
Seriously? You haven’t convinced anyone here about anything. What would make the institutional misandry argument different from any of your other arguments since you got here?
Also, if we’re going by dictionary definitions, my SOED doesn’t have the word at all, so I guess it’s not a real thing at all.
He hasn’t got any anecdotes about it.
What a weird spin you keep putting on this. I personally used the word “joking,” and you’ve consistently interpreted that as “bullying” because my experience must have been bad exactly like yours.
“Joking”? Just like “ironic” racism and rape jokes? Like kids in middle school who “joke” about making other kids eat worms?
Hypocritical asshole. My point stands.
I have no idea what your teacher was like. I’m merely disputing that all your classmates had your reaction. And I think that, this uncertainty being so, we should be condemning bullying. Even if they’re “only” targeting men. And even if it’s “joking”.
This whole conversation is utterly bizarre. It’s like… I’m being called a liar and my experience is being dismissed because I’m not describing it as being extreme enough. O_O Isn’t it usually the other way around, when women are called liars when talking about their run-ins with misogyny?
Just goes to show the whole thing is about hard-core cofirmation bias.
@ Dracula – LOL.
I heard that an experience airline pilot totally saw an institutional misandry one time, but the Air Force leaned on him until he changed his story.
@Steele:
I never would have guessed, judging by your description of her behavior as:
It is making my head hurt.
Steele, do you seriously not get how weird it is that you are yelling at Kirby for not agreeing with your interpretation of something you only know about because he told you about it? It makes as much sense as if you said, “I am currently wearing a bright red shirt,” and I replied by saying, “Liar! Your shirt is much more of a deep crimson!” despite not having actually seen your shirt and only knowing of its existence because you TOLD me it was red.
Steele, I’ll gladly say that I think that abuse, bullying, and harassment are bad no matter what the reason given is.
Dude, we’ve been trying to engage you in dialogue for the past day. I don’t think we’re the ones unwilling to engage in dialogue here.
And I’m still waiting for your evidence that institutional misandry exists.
@Polliwog:
Then I say that other people around me probably see it as a red shirt as well, and he blows at me and calls me a “presumptious sack of shit” because I dare to speak for other people who might look at my shirt. I might look at my shirt and see red, but I’m probably color blind and anyway he in the past has worn a crimson shirt and blah blah blah blah blah.
blows up at me
Like I said in another thread, words are not with me today.
“Liar! Your shirt is much more of a deep crimson!” despite not having actually seen your shirt and only knowing of its existence because you TOLD me it was red.
He specifically said that his teacher frequently made misandrist comments. There’s not that much wiggle room there, in my opinion. He then said that the misandry didn’t bother him- fine. However, he further went on to presumptuously assert- not in so many words- that it wasn’t such a big deal, that it was actually a good thing because it “set him on the path toward women’s issues”, and that all of the other boys probably has his reaction, and so it’s okay.
This is not fine. Kirbywarp is a scumbag and a bully enabler.
And Steele said both of those things in the same comment no less.
Hey, Steele, would you consider reading your comments before you post them? It might help you avoid this sort of blatant, whiplash-inducing self-contradiction in the future.
I feel comfortable assuming things that Kirbywarp himself references- for example, the misandrist “jokes” he himself refers to. I would challenge him to consider that even in jest, jokes can be hurtful, especially if solely targeted at one group for an extended period of time.
Like, you see how you’re not convincing anybody with your arguments about Kirbywarp? How would not convincing anybody with your arguments about institutional misandry differ from that?
“even in jest, jokes can be hurtful,”
As opposed to those jokes that aren’t in jest. Huh?
That teacher who told you not to be a writer? You are so wrong to resent her. She did you a huge favour, man.
My writing is bad because of misandry- take note.
Right, it couldn’t possibly be that you were discouraged because you were a shit writer to begin with.
Steele:
I just want to clarify, here, that you’re aware that “I have evidence, but I’m not going to show it to you” doesn’t constitute winning the argument.
It could be viewed as ceding it, really.
Again, I can think of an argument (though not a dispositive one) for your side, but I don’t feel like scoring an own goal tonight. But I’m curious if our thinking runs along similar tracks, and if so, where the nearest switch is.
For the record, I have provided the things I have actually said below.
So basically this is what Steele considers to be “misandrist jokes”: light-hearted joking about how girls are so much better, explicitely described as being used for the purpose of countering harmful messages towards girls. If that’s what counts as institutional misandry? Color me uninterested.
The silliest thing is that in actual fact the teacher didn’t only ever make jokes about girls being better than boys. There was a whole class to teach! There were fun days and boring days! There were days where half the class was pitted against the other half (not by gender) to see who could remember history better! Myself and another boy generally did the best in those contests, and we weren’t belittled as a result! Steele, when you try to speak for someone else based on a couple paragraphs that span a couple of years, you make yourself the asshole you keep wishing I am.
We’re not asking for your writing to be great. Just meeting the minimum standards of consistency and comprehensibility would be a good start.
I think that your comments would be much more consistent and understandable if you took the time to read through them before you posted.
How is misandry preventing you from reading your work and doing some basic editing?