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
Argenti: No bomb, he didn’t ask us to save the boy. He was willing to leave him to his fate at the hands of the misandrist, just to prove a point.
/sarcasm /black humor
You want an outpouring of sympathy for an imaginary boY, all whist ignoring the pain of several very real women who’ve shared their actual experiences with you.
Narcisist.
Not any more than a man who rapes a girl/woman, because she’s female is a misogynist.
Well, I certainly here, and I can assure you the mainstream press would as well. I also think it makes you a bit of a monumental idiot.
I don’t agree that the sociological definition is the only one. Most here, in their limitations neuroses, disagree. There’s nothing more to argue.
You know, I’m pretty sure “sick fucker” works in both cases here.
Deflection. Would you object to this individual being referred to as a misandrist?
Goddamnit, I have got to type faster today!
Wait so raping a boy is automatically a hate crime? But not one of the examples of misogyny given so far is A Thing? Just isolated incidents? And we’re the “Disgusting. Vile. Sickening. Evil.” ones?
*hed esplodes*
Please stay gone.
Steele: “Why won’t you submit to my argument at the hands of my rehtorical, hypothetical beat-stick? You monster for not immediately agreeing with everything I’ve said because I can make up something twisted and evil! Shame on you all!”
That was a particularly large glob o’ shit right there…
Oh, for fuck sake. 1050 comments and 3 days of blah de fucking blah, obfuscate, evade, lie, minimize violence against women, create out of whole cloth violence against men, etc. etc. etc. and in the end he comes up with a completely disgusting hypothetical situation (because he couldn’t find any examples of real men being attacked for being male) to use as a launch pad for stomping off in a huff.
What a waste of electrons he is.
Excuse me. I would certainly disagree with you there.
High five, Pecunium.
Pfft! Six minutes? I don’t know if that’s worst flounce ever, but it must be close.
Flounce fail at 0022 EDT.
Well, I certainly here, and I can assure you the mainstream press would as well. I also think it makes you a bit of a monumental idiot.
I shall presume you mean you care.
I ‘d care too, but I wouldn’t call it misogynist/misandrist.
I’d call it disgusting, foul, loathesome, repellant, twisted, sick, aberrant, nasty, evil and any number of other expressions of disdain/wrath/disgust.
Nowhere did I say I wouldn’t. Because you didn’t ask that. You asked if it was “misandry”.
That’s what has your knickers in a twist, that I wouldn’t bend the knee to your oveblown attempt to squeeze a use of your pet word.
That, or you’re upset about being so fucking wrong on Vietnam.
in the end he comes up with a completely disgusting hypothetical situation
Deflection. Would you or would you not object to this individual being referred to as a misandrist?
I’m just carrying your position to its logical conclusion. If you can’t ride shotgun, maybe you’re an intellectually dishonest scumbag.
i am stunned, absolutely stunned that professor obsesso couldnt stick the flounce
I ‘d care too, but I wouldn’t call it misogynist/misandrist.
Fine. You consider the critical theory approach the only valid use of either word. That’s fine; that’s your opinion. I think it’s a stupid opinion, but you’re entitled to it.
I fail to see how laypeople using a term incorrectly is an argument for anything.
Steele, if you really think that there is nothing here left to argue, then why are you still arguing?
No one is forcing you to argue with us. You can go away any time you like.
*snert*
“If you can’t ride shotgun,” Humpty Dumpty said, rather scornfully, “maybe you’re an intellectually dishonest scumbag — neither more nor less.”
“I think it’s a stupid opinion, but you’re entitled to it.”
You know, you could have pulled the old “let’s agree to disagree” any time, right?
misandry is worse than misogyny
just like
58,000 is more than ten million
Ah yes, this isn’t whether torturing her to find the boy’s location might be justified, just whether she’s a misandrist…I never thought I’d say this, but I think I prefer the “ticking bomb” people. (Before Steele misreads this, wtf I am saying is I think you are worse than people who support torture through highly strained hypotheticals)
That depends, if someone does all that because ze didn’t like the victims hat, is it hatred of people with hats? (Dude, I’m from smack between Boston and NY, Red Socks vs Yankees, I am pretty sure people have gotten into some serious shit over hats…)
http://youtu.be/uz2jbCJXkpA
And congrats Steele, you are now the first person I’ve given a 1/10 for the flounce.
I fail to see how laypeople using a term incorrectly is an argument for anything.
You’re accusing the dictionary of being explicitly incorrect?
You know this is going up on Toy Soldier’s blog as an example of Manboobzers denying the rape of an imaginary boy. Sigh.
Vile, disgusting individuals, sickening in your arrogance and superciliousness.
Hey, Steele, people commonly use the phrase “the immaculate conception” to refer to the conception of Jesus Christ, when it actually refers to the conception of his mother Mary.
Are you going to argue that because so many people use the phrase to the former, that this means that both uses of the phrase are equally valid and correct?
Because that’s what your sociology vs. layman’s terms argument with regards to misogyny and misandry ultimately boils down to.
Nope, no more than a white man who kills a black man in a car crash is guilty of a hate crime. Even though car crashes are horrible.
Because there is no such thing as misandry, unless you definition of that is “bad things still happen to the privileged class.”
Don’t forget history and statistics
we stew in those too, at least longer than you have
^_^
@cloudiah:
Exactly what I was thinking.
The more cynical part of me is thinking that the whole three days was an effort to wear us out with disingenuos bullshit, at which point Steele lobs a real shit-ball, and people are too jaded at that point to dignify it with a proper response (like Sharculese).
Then Steele runs off and posts it on a blog as a prime example of how morally bankrupt feminits are.