I don’t usually post raw videos from the insufferable assholes I write about on this site because, well, they’re insufferable assholes, and listening to them smugly opine about shit they’re completely ignorant about is generally about as entertaining as, you know, GirlWritesWhat videos. (I know, that’s a bit circular, but I really couldn’t come up with anything more insufferable than that.)
Anyhoo, I’ve broken my rule and posted this video because the two guys who made this video — the would-be filmmaking duo of jordanowen42 and Davis Aurini — are so over-the-top in their insufferable assholism that it’s actually kind of perversely charming.
You see, these two woman-hating YouTube blabbers — the first a belligerent doofus whose apartment is nearly as unkempt as mine, the other a sort of PUA version of Anton LaVey — are pitching what they claim will be an important new documentary exposing the evil “Social Justice Warrior” agenda of evil women and traitor men like Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, and, well, I can’t remember the names of any of the men. It’s called The Sarkeesian Effect. And they want your money to fund it.
Their promised “feature-length documentary” will be a powerful work of investigative journalism that will give a voice to the voiceless — to the “silent majority” of, well, angry white dudes who spend whatever time they don’t spend playing video games posting obnoxious and abusive comments about Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn to YouTube and Reddit and eleven zillion other websites that cater to them.
In other words, this is the loudest “silent majority” I’ve ever run across.
But these are guys who love to pretend that their bold thoughts are being silenced, and PUA Anton LaVey Davis Aurini happily panders to their persecution complex:
Don’t let these people silence us. Your contribution will be a defiant strike against the degeneration and corruption that is going on in this world.
The word “degeneration” helps remind us that Aurini considers himself a part of the neo-Nazi-lite “Dark Enlightenment.”
Anyway, they argue that you should send them lots of money, because PUA Anton LaVey’s suits can’t be cheap you’ll be striking a blow for every dude who’s ever called Anita Sarkeesian a “whore” in a YouTube comment. Well, they don’t literally put it that way, but, you know, come on. That’s what they mean.
And hey, who wouldn’t trust this dude with their hard-earned cash?
I found this video hilarious from start to finish. Stick with it at least until, a little after 6 minutes in, PUA Anton LaVey Aurini lights up his second cigarette, showing what a devil-may-care attitude he has by mumbling his lines with a cigarette in his mouth as he fiddles with his lighter.
Yep, that’s the kind of quality investigative journalism you can expect from these two.
Whiskers Gregory is a good name for anything… I imagine it would be the name of one of those crooks-for-hire in an old ’50s crime caper film. They call him whiskers, because of the way his mouth twitches around while he cracks a safe, making his never thoroughly shaven aspect resemble that of an intensely confused cat.
“Oi, Whiskers, giz up the barney, an’ we’ll switch yer a coupla cobblers by noon, aye?”
But yeah, I find it weird how some of these guys react to anything even remotely related to sexism. A few days ago, I responded to a comment – I know, engaging with comments… unwise – on one of the webcomics I occasionally read that was asking why people were pissed off with Samus’ new sexualised outfit for Smash Bros, and asking if they hadn’t seen her design in a different game where it was also sexualised. I explained that it was because games are, among other things, escapism, and being reminded of the ways that women are often treated like sex objects can bring people out of that escapist mindset. (I also mentioned that it’s possible that they were pissed off about the other design as well.) I’m pretty sure I managed to make my comment pretty neutral, merely explaining why people might take issue with it, not really openly taking a side… and yet…
… dude… what? I completely fail to even. I think some of them are just too far down the rabbit hole of feminism = nazi to be able to respond to what’s actually being said… or think about what they’re saying. I mean, seriously dude, you need women to be sexualised in your games in order to maintain your own escapism? I mean… that’s kind of just the real world, isn’t it? It’s not like you have to look far to find sexualised women… go on the internet, search anything at all in image search, turn safe search off, bingo. When I think escapism, I think starships, I think bars of elemental flame lancing out from my outstretched palms… I don’t think looking at the adverts on the side of the bus that passes my home. Maybe I’m just weird?
Ah, just so nobody thinks I’m steelmanning myself to make him look ridiculous, this is the comment that got that response:
I remember our first console was a sega mega drive we picked up at a car boot sale, and all the games were disney except for robocod. When you look back at old games you can see that many if not most of them were androgynous in style and theme. Some were stereotypically “boys games” like doom and goldeneye, but the 8 bit classics like final fantasy, zelda and mario? Apart from the damsel in distress trope how are they “not intended for girls” exactly? I don’t believe gaming has always been for the lads, not originally. It’s a new generation of dudebros spawned by series like gta and cod that want to lay claim to All The Games. Except cooking mama of course, that one’s for wimminfolk to teach them how to make sandwiches.
Or they could have a pig who, ironically, is very anti-sexist and subtly undermines their plans.
And Athywren: Good point; some of these guys fly off the handle if you mention anything about how women are portrayed in games. It doesn’t matter how small the criticism is! They immediately jump to how us meanie feminists don’t want them to have any fun. Trust me, when I say I’d rather play as Zelda than Link, it’s my least political statement and it really is just me wanting to have fun too.
It’s still immensely superior to the Melee version, where the moment she loses her armor, she starts swinging around a whip and twirling like a stripper, as if she became a completely different character.
You have all the right to have greater expectations, mind you. I’m saying as a long time fan of Smash Bros. who was deeply disappointed with ZZS’s original iteration. I didn’t expect Nintendo to change things at all, let alone positively.
*not Melee, Brawl.
I actually have no expectations at all… my experience with nintendo is limited to a wii at my parents’ house, which is mostly limited to wii sports, a snowboarding game, and a thing where you paint things with a thing, and an emulator for the good ol’ 8 bit games. Otherwise I’m a PC player to the core… unless you count trivia games on the ps2? So, other than wishing games companies in general would be more reasonable about their depictions of women, and also that they’d make a greater variety of games with playable female characters (because I really like Splinter Cell type games, but there’s only one of those that I’m aware of that has a female character, and it kind of sucks…) nothing nintendo does in the present really means anything to me.
I was just explaining why others might be pissed to a person who was asking the question.
He also referenced her Brawl outfit, but I suspect, and suggested, that people were also pissed off about that one, too.
ai tweet about this post for some opinions from “followers” and ai get nonsense from a stranger named “who da fuck is this guy?”.
wtf did ai do wrong now?
and did ai break anything?
and sorry in advance…
is it common to get “who da fuck is this guy?” when u tweet about a post here?
thanx
or in all seriousness… should ai be concerned?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w&w=480&h=360%5D
This is simply disgusting. You trully show your level when all you can come up with is profanity and insults with some cheap strawmen about “hey, they actually mean they are misoginists”.
uh… what?
Are misoginists some sort of gin/miso soup cocktail? That sounds awful.
Wait, didn’t Davis Aurini say that women shouldn’t be educated?
Why am I *shocked* absolutely *shocked* he has a problem with Anita Sarkeesian saying something as controversial like, and I’m paraphrasing here, “just because there’s problematic content doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy media.”
What horror!
It’s the… best, ever, that video. (Mildly awed.) Let them parody themselves…
Cry more, Michal.
I think I’ve seen these guys at every bar ever.
if anyone is offended at the video ai posted, ai apologize but ai hope it was helpful.
Thanx for watching and hope ai didn’t do anything “wrong”.
Oh come on michal. They described vile abusive messages as “questioning or opposing the social justice warriors”. Then whined about people being called cyber bullies and trolls for it when that’s exactly what they doing – trolling and cyber bullying.
Scabz, nothing wrong that I can see so far.
It is helpful though, to give a little bit of a summary for what the video is about. Not a long summary, mind, just a phrase. For example:
Cute, cuddly lemur who really wants some fruit, because we need the cuddles on this site:
http://youtu.be/OF3Qlkin–0
it sums up gamer outrage on the interwebz and how it’s way worse if you’re anything else but a white guy. References Anita Sarkeesian as a comparison on the gamer outrage.
hope that works… ai’ll get better at this maybe…thanx for ur patience and for watching…
But what is up with the “dudebro gamers”? Why they haz so much hate?
They’re reactionary in the full sense of the word. I think we can draw a parallel to anti-gays – when it was “normal” that homosexuals were simply thought of as perverse deviants, you didn’t get so much fuss about them – they were smashed whenever they poked their heads up, and otherwise “normal” people didn’t bother much. It’s only when they asserted themselves and won their own space that the hatred really started getting publicly loud and intense.
In my extremely limited perception, gaming has evolved to the point where women have won their own space in the market and interact routinely outside any pink-collar ghetto. So the loud and intense misogyny is a reaction to this change – before, woman gamers were weird, rare creatures who people (*) could ignore, and now they’re gamers who incidentally happen to be women.
(*) You know, *real* people. The kind with penises.
now they’re gamers who incidentally happen to be women.
There are also game developers to “who incidentally happen to be women” too.
Feminism wouldn’t even have to be a “thing” if there wasn’t so much fucken misogyny.
Stahp. Ur embarrassing urself.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/13/5996261/one-reason-to-be-gdc-europe
Mystery solved…
You seem to be misinterpreting my point, Scabz. I am drawing a distinction between perceptions THEN (“OMG – a WOMAN gamer/game designer”) and NOW (“A gamer/game designer. She also happens to be a woman – ho-hum”). The loudness of the misogyny from the usual suspects, I suggest, is a reactionary response to this shift.
ai know ur “trying to be funny” and “sarcastic” but it ends up so fucken patronizing u become obvious.
trying too hard… ur doing it right…
u mad scrub? (totally rhetorical question…)