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
[cloudiah wearily heads down to the wine cellar*] This is going to be a long night.
*Quite a trick, since she lives in a small apartment.
Oh, look at that. A word with two meanings. MISANDRY!
we boast of our country in flagazines
my fish-hooks get caught up in snagazines
it’s hard to read straight in zig-zagazines
i store my supplies in bookbagazines
and misandry just don’t real in dagazines
When I get it on I read shagazines,
but when I fall behind then they’re lagazines.
@Unimaginative:
Transvestites like to dress up in dragazines
Three meanings! SUPER-MISANDRY!
Jonathan was looking forward to his wedding to Michael. Frankly, he had no idea he could be this happy. It was good enough to get the hell out of his small Midwestern town for a place where people didn’t assume that for him, love was a vice, “just a sin like the sins everyone has to struggle with,” as though X’s shoplifting and Y’s venality were the functional equivalent of the first time he caught sight of a man across a crowded room and tears started in his eyes at the fact that God’s vast and shining earth could be so fantastic sometimes.
You know, leaving the fuckers who would deny him that kind of joy was awesome enough, but as for falling in love? Get out of here! But, his first week in Manhattan he met a computer programmer in a Starbucks, and one thing led to another, and things were going well, and then they were going great, and then..The Question.
His only lingering doubt? What to read.
[David, feel free to delete this if you think it’s bigoted. I have friends who refer to themselves as that, but the word is not mine to use and govern, and if I was out of line, please get rid of it as soon as possible.]
@VoIP:
erm… *stab in the dark* congratulations?
WOW, Undead Kirby has, like, superpowers!
Ah. This was not in fact a sort of self-biography then. I see.
…
Still rather confused. Perhaps it is bed time.
What do the happy couple read?
VoIP, I’d been wondering how to frame that one myself without being over the line. I enjoyed your story.
@VoIP:
Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid?
A periodical about tattered clothing is a ragazine.
A military lawyer reads a jagazine.
Maybe the computer programmer does, but Jonathan’s a fan of the really pulpy sci-fi. Like, from the 70s where everything’s probably a metaphor for drugs.
@VoIP:
Ah, I see. Hmm… That’s much more interesting that what the smokers from England are reading. 😉
MORE misandry! My god, your powers keep growing!!!
Strike me down, and I shall become more misandric than you could possibly imagine!
HooziewhatsisthefuckNINE HUNDRED POSTS?! There’s got to be some weapons-grade assholery in there somewhere. Like this guy Steele.
Help us, Kirby-Wan Kenobi. You’re our only hope.
@teirisias:
Weapons-grade tedium, really. 900 posts to clarify that he’s talking about one thing that everyone agrees happens, while complaining that we don’t use the same word he’s using (one which also refers to a thing that we don’t agree happens) and furthermore resolutely refusing to talk about the thing we actually disagree on.
And calling me a sack of shit. That too.
Hey, we’ve topped a thousand before.
@Steele
Captain Bathrobe- Personally, I condemn instances of bullying, abuse, and harassment equally, wherever I see it. I don’t consider some people (and I’m expressing the implication here) as “more deserving” of bullying, abuse, and harassment. Likewise, I don’t think that bullying, abuse, and harassment is “less bad” depending on the source of the bullying, abuse and harassment.
You’re expressing what implication? My implication? I wasn’t talking about bullying, abuse, or harassment, but rather…oh, I don’t know…unpleasantness, perhaps? Some young men met with unpleasantness from women when they tried to take women’s studies classes. Essentially, they were given the cold shoulder by maybe a few women out of a lecture class of about 100; perhaps these men also overheard the occasional snarky comment or unfair generalization directed at men. Unfortunate, but still not a tragedy. Besides, the professors were fairly welcoming of men. How does any of that remotely constitute bullying, abuse, or harassment? It’s unfortunate that some female students were less than welcoming, but I can assure you, as one of those men who were occasionally made to feel less than welcome, I got over it. Rather quickly, in fact. Now, if a professor had been less than welcoming, that would have been another matter, but that didn’t happen. Interpersonal unpleasantness is unpleasant, but it’s hardly something worth whining about on the internet. Your mileage may vary.
And, besides, the source of bullying and harassment (which isn’t really what I was talking about, but let’s assume for a moment that it was) has everything to do with how it’s experienced. Being harassed or bullied by a random person of no particular stature or authority is bad enough; being harassed or bullied by a person in authority, such as a professor or police officer, would be infinitely worse, since such a person is more likely to be able to bully and harass with impunity. On the other hand, a person in authority who attempts to quash bullying or harassment can greatly minimize the damage it does to the bullied and harassed. Of course, I wasn’t really talking about bullying and harassment, so the point is moot. If you feel that being given the occasional cold shoulder by classmates who otherwise have no power over our lives is a proper rallying point for a social movement, then be my guest. The rest of us will occupy ourselves elsewhere.
@captainbathrobe:
Oh, did he decide to read horrible things into your anecdote as well? Surprise, surprise.
And the Vietnam thing.