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
Steele, you should have been able to overcome that obstacle, which was one whole teacher, not an entire culture.
So if the opposite was true- that is, one misogynist teacher- would you say the same? What if she specifically pointed to this teacher- not “the culture”? Because frankly, when speaking of dreamcrushings, people in my experience- women and men- point to one asshole, or a few assholes. One teacher, one coach. Because most don’t find “the culture” to be sufficient.
That’s a lot of people who should just “get over it”.
Not. The. Point. You made a claim about “costliness”, not about total number of draftees — proving more people were drafted, and survived, actually disproves your point.
Given the context, I would have thought it was obvious I was talking about “costliness” in terms of human (that is, MAN) life. Otherwise it would have been nonsensical- what does the financial cost matter in the context?
“…would you feminists tell other women that “It’s not the system, bucko, it’s you”?”
If she were terrible at it? Yes, for her own sake. You got shot down by one person and decided you couldn’t hack it, try imagining getting that from everyone you attempt to trade your craft with.
How does that make any sense, at all, ever? How in the world could I be projecting that you confused pecunium and I? Wtf I think I’m pecunium now or something? Or were you trying to say I’m paranoid about being confused with pecunium? (More like annoyed that that’s already happen at least twice, and hint regarding your writing skills, can you tell why I just said “annoyed that that’s”? Or do you find the double “that” to be repetitive?)
“You’re guilty of a very strange pseudo-Orwellian reductionism- the word CAN ONLY EVER BE USED!!!! if the concept is systematic. Bizarre.”
I’m sure someone somewhere has irrationally hated people with yellow hair, people with hats, people without hats…do we need to do this again? One person hating someone, over whom they have no power, is really just one of those annoying facts of life.
And Orwellian? Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Wtf it actually means — “It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the “unperson” — a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practiced by modern repressive governments.”
Oh wow!!! I feel so terribly oppressed knowing that I’m walking around completely unoppressed by the maybe three gay people in the world who hate me for being straight!!!
Oh woe is me!!!
Quick, I need to find one instance where a gay person said something mean to me and then find somewhere to blather on and on about it!!!
This is why I wasn’t engaging you Steele. I literally just said that proving more people were drafted, and survived, disproves your claim, to which you replied about financial costs, like I’d mentioned them at all.
given the frequency and manner in which he deploys it, steele seems to believe ‘projection’ means ‘disagreeing with him’
@Steele:
Sorry this took a little bit to compile. Note, these quotes may not be in order.
Let’s look at examples of what you’ve said about my story in the past, shall we?
Joking! Ha, you said it was joking! No, no wait… you’re actually saying that in surprise, you actually mean it of course wasn’t joking.
Not much wiggle room to call misandrist comments a joke. What you do call it is…
Bullying, abuse and bigotry. Still not calling it joking, you’re specifically calling it bullying and abuse.
Again, refusing to use the terminology I myself described it with. This is called interpreting my experience.
Even when you borrow other words, like “harmless” or “light-hearted,” you do not go on to say it was joking, but that it was more “bigotry” and “bullying” and “abuse” and now “harassment.” And before you complain that jokes can be bigotry and bullying and abuse and harassment, note that it isn’t until
here that you actually seriously describe it the way I did, as jokes. Even then, you can’t help but throw in scare-quotes. Steele, there is no point at which you didn’t “not question” my account. You do not think my teacher was joking around, and it is blatantly obvious in your writing.
I can take your constant erasure of my experience (erasure as in trying to interpret my experience to suit your own purposes), but for the love of all that is holy don’t try to pull a “I never once said that” again.
that’s projection
probably straw manning too
and tu quoque
because why the fuck not
*sigh*
Of course that should read “there is no point at which you didn’t “question” my account.”
Maybe if I keep making different mistakes, I’ll run out of types of mistakes to make and I’ll be done!
Amazing though… Literally Steele’s first response to my story was that I’m a feminist, so of course I must have brushed off the actual huge amount of misandry and only remembered it as “joking.”
Sharculese — “because why the fuck not” — thank you for that, I am yet again laughing at this thread, except this time it really is funny.
I’m sure someone somewhere has irrationally hated people with yellow hair, people with hats, people without hats…do we need to do this again? One person hating someone, over whom they have no power, is really just one of those annoying facts of life.
One– It’s ridiculous to claim misandry- or even heterophobia- is as rare or random as the examples you cite, and I think you know that. This is due to the politicized nature of gender- and race, and sexual orientation, and etc.- which ironically ensures that hatred of all genders, races, and sexual orientations will be something that exists, in some form.
Misandry isn’t random as “hating people with hats” is random. Feminists have politicized gender on a macro scale and painted women as the victims. MRAs have responded, and a fuckload of others have weighed in over the past hundred-odd years. Regardless, gender is a charged topic and hatred in both directions is a response to a legitimate political phenomenon, and thus rational if not justifiable in a way “hating people with hats” is not.
There are groups that include hating men as part of their ideology. There have been videos that celebrated killing men.
As soon as you can point to any of that for “people with hats”, you’ll have a point. Until then, fuck off.
Two– A word referring to hatred of people with yellow hair would in fact be a legitimate word, if rarely used.
Vile idiots.
considering how often he uses that one the chances it would be the first thing he said to you were actually pretty good
wait is this mikey?
i havent been reading this thread because that sounds boring. how many times has he melted down so far?
Kirbywarp: Two things.
1. You seem to be under the impression that “jokes” and “bullying/abuse/harassment” are mutually exclusive. They are not. Jokes can be used to bully, abuse and harass.
2. When I put quotes around “jokes” I wasn’t attempting to say that they weren’t jokes. I was attempting to say that they weren’t funny- they were, well, bullying and abusive.
I have never questioned that your teacher was, in fact, joking. The very nature of the jokes- that is, misandrist and bigoted- as described by you, are bullying and abusive. This is not “interpreting your experience”. This is reporting on the reality as you’ve described it.
@Steele:
Believe it or not, you’ve finally touched upon the reason why all this bullshit about terminology matters. Misogyny is not just a collection of random individuals hating on women for being women, it’s a system that makes those types of individuals both common and protected. Whether you want to admit it or not, trying to reduce words like “misogyny” and “homophobia” down to just random events completely erases the notion that they don’t occur in vaccuums. It makes them no more notable than hating people with certain types of hats. And that makes misogyny and homophobia much more common and much more accepted.
You yourself insist that misandry is one of these big concepts, where individual actions are generated by and supported by a broader system. So stop fucking masturbating over how misandry could only refer to single occasions, therefore it’s a real thing, and defend the one thing that matters and the one thing that would validate MRAs as a whole: the notion that there exists a system of misandry that is oppressive towards men.
Don’t forget Orwellian he seems to really like that word too.
But, you unbelievable dunderhead, the opposite IS NOT TRUE. It IS the culture. As many, many people have said, over and over again, in a multitude of ways.
Misogyny is a real, systemic thing that continues to negatively affect billions of women AND men in the world today. Misandry is technically a word. They are not equivalent concepts.
This is what keeps cracking me up. He goes on and on and on, as if he’s trying to make a valid argument, and he includes in his very statement the acknowledgement that his case isn’t justified.
He knows he’s full of shit, and he keeps going as if that shouldn’t stand in the way of anyone taking him seriously.
Poor white hetero dudes just have it so hard, feminists made it so women and queer people hate them!!
It’s like steele missed the whole part where I predicted his response would be “jokes can be bullying and harrassment and abuse and etc.” And the part where I said that doesn’t matter, because the way he wrote basically showed without him needing to say it outright that he didn’t think my teacher was just joking.
Steele, if I described a situation where one person light-heartedly joked about how another person couldn’t wake up in the mornings (going so far to say that a third person was a better human being because that third person woke up easily), is the second person being harrassed, bullied, and abused? YOU ARE INJECTING THOSE WORDS INTO THE DESCRIPTION! Again, as I’ve said before, that is interpreting my experience for me.
Even just the fact that Steele is focused so fucking hard on kirbywarp’s story (sorry, dearest kirby, I’m not mad at you) WHILE COMPLETELY IGNORING/DISMISSING THE STORIES OF Sarkeesian getting online abuse and death threats, AND pillowinhell telling you about both she and her daughter being sexually harassed AND polliwog describing what happened when a girl (surprise!) won the science fair, AND basically any of the bad shit that happens to women every day BECAUSE they are women, KIND OF PROVES OUR FUCKING POINT HERE. Sorry, listening to this championship derailer is getting me a little irritated. I’m cracking open the wine. Kirby, want some?
Even pre-wine, I am pretty sure I will have borked the HTML in this comment. My apologies in advance if I bring down the entire internet. Misandry! However will the MRA’s get their anti-feminist GOR-porn?
Steele: Admittedly, the exact numbers become a bit fuzzy here, but we can safely argue that conscription was certainly more heavily practiced during Vietnam.
Oh! Boyo… this is one of my fields of particular interest.
Casualties in the Korean War: 36,000/1,529,539 = .02*3=.06
Vietnam: 58,000/8,744,000 = 0.007
The increase in the numbers is to norm the numbers, if Korea had continued for as long as Vietnam, that’s what that rate would give you. It’s a pretty close rate. That, of course is ignoring all the other nationalities (UK, Canada, Australia, France, Korea, all of whom were using a draft, which means the actual numbers are going to be higher).
But…. you’ve argued the issue is the rate of draftees (though what you said was Vietnam was the costliest war to use the draft… which is why WW2 comes into it).
And in Vietnam, from 1968 on, draftees were sent to Europe/kept stateside, to try to reduce the anti-war movement, by being able to argue that only volunteers were being sent to Vietnam.
Which means that the casualties from 1968-1972 have to be excluded*†. I’ll be generous and limit my exclusion to 1969, so you get a freebie for the 16,000 who died in 1968.
1969 11,616
1970 6,081
1971 2,357
1972 641
So we take the 58,000 (which includes deaths attributed to post war deaths of war related causes, such as mine will be if my health problems from Iraq kill me in twenty years), and we subtract the total in that column (20875). We thus get a total of conscript heavy (not exclusive) deaths totaling 37,125.
37,125/8,744,000 = .004
That means the conscript heavy totals for 10 years in Vietnam are roughly equal, in absolute terms, of those in Korea, which lasted 3 years. That means the number of fatalities in Korea was more than three times the absolute rate, as it was in Vietnam.
As a combat vet, Vietnam was the conflict I rather have been in, at least in terms of the odds of getting killed. There are other aspects which made Korea better; though the weather isn’t one of the, but I digress. As a conscript my odds, for the entire conflict, would have been pretty good too. After 1968 I’d have to insist on being sent to Vietnam, as a conscript, to be sent.
*I’d exclude these deaths
Non-Hostile, Died from Other Causes 7,458
Non-Hostile, Died of Illness or Injury 1,978
Non-Hostile, Died While Missing 1,351
Because those are the sorts of deaths which occur in any Army, but I can’t find the equivalent numbers for Korea, so I have to leave them in. If we assume they are at equivalent rate, then they don’t make much of a difference.
† It’s not helping your cause that you are using numbers to 1975, when the draft ended in 1973. As a sign of your exacting scholarship it’s not inspiring.
@Snowy and others:
It wasn’t until I compiled that list of quotes that hit me how repetitive his descriptions were. Bullying, abuse, harassment, like fucking clockwork and even in the same order each time.
Believe it or not, you’ve finally touched upon the reason why all this bullshit about terminology matters.
I’ve touched on the tip of the iceberg for my position that misandry is in fact institutional, there.
But if you’ll read to the end, you’ll note that I said that a word for “hatred of people with hats” would be entirely valid. Such hatred really… has never been claimed, to my knowledge, so there’s not in fact a word for it. But if one was coined, it would be an entirely legitimate term. It wouldn’t be an institutional phenomenon. But it would accurately refer to isolated instances of hat-people-hatred.
Your “vacuum” argument is why we have the critical theory approach. It is not the only approach.
You’re a vile, disingenuous scumbag.
Steele — how about if I say hatred of people in hoodies instead of hats?
Sharculese — he’s at 2+ meltdowns so far, depending how you count the long one that was first calling kirbywarp an enabler, and then the rest of us vile. (Vile is apparently his favorite insult)
Well, and Snowy’s point here — “Don’t forget Orwellian he seems to really like that word too.”