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.
@contrapangloss: Okay; Phoenician, if you are around, feel free to do a victory dance.
Let me re-post what I said on that anti-Sarkeesian video’s comments panel:
“If people really want to explore whether women and minorities really have a difficult time fitting into the current gaming culture, why not actually talk to actual women and minorities about their experiences with gaming culture? Of course not all of them will give you the exact same opinions, but marginalized people should get to speak for themselves since they are the ones most affected by this issue.”
Seriously, if women and minorities really do feel ostracized by contemporary gaming culture (and I have definitely seen more than my fair share of racism and sexism in that culture, despite being a white male myself), there is no justification for privileging the opinions of defensive white males over the groups actually hurt by this.
I liked this project better when it was an Indiegogo campaign called Tropes vs. Men, had a Google document full of 4chan bullshit, and raised around 3000 dollars that only produced a few defensive “we’re working on it!” updates before both the money and all traces of the project’s existence vanished. These guys will probably deliver the promised videos, but to repurpose an Anita Sarkeesian quote, they’re going to produce three hours of rambling video that took three hours to make.
On Twitter, Moviebob and Samantha Allen are urging people to report this project to the Patreon admins under the terms of service prohibiting hate speech and harassment. What does everyone think about doing that? I’m tentatively for it because at this point, any legal, on-topic way to shut up and financially bleed abusive assholes to prevent them from further harming others is worth it, but I don’t think it’s quite that clear cut. They’re already whining about “censorship”, but they’d be doing that anyway, so why not get something good out of it?
I forgot to mention: fake Anton LaVey actually says “on paper, I have nothing against white nationalism. I am a huge white nationalist on paper.” in one of his videos.
The purpose of the film is to address the demographic that you refuse to acknowledge exists: we, the people who are NOT hateful of women in gaming but who disagree with the arguments being made by social justice warriors. Your seething, raging inability to understand that reveals how narrow-minded and ideologically blinded you are.
And Alex- please, have some intellectual honesty. The purpose of that video was to explain why he IS NOT a white nationalist.
See, you’re confusing a couple of different demographics here.
1) People who are not hateful of women in gaming.
2) People who are hateful of women in gaming, and use ridiculous labels like “social justice warrior” and intellectually empty strawmen in order to discredit a generally rational movement.
3) People who may or may not be hateful of women in gaming, but get their understanding of feminist arguments from people who call feminists social justice warriors, and so find themselves disagreeing with a strawman.
I’m going to assume that you mean the third group here… but then I don’t see why you’d bother wasting your time? Surely it’s better to address real arguments than strawmen? Why do you want to emulate creationists?
I don’t think the Sarkeesian Effect fundraiser can or should be shut down; I think that’s a bad idea in principle and a bad move tactically. Sarkeesian is a public figure so they have every right to make videos and/or films about her. That is not in itself harassment.
Fact is, there is plenty out there that IS quite plainly hate speech and harassment directed at Sarkeesian. Going after this fundraiser would 1) allow them to claim censorship and give them more attention and 2) undermine efforts to shut down real hate speech against her by conflating criticism (however dumb and mean-spirited it might be) with harassment and hate speech — and thus allow Sarkeesian’s real harassers to also hide behind the “free speech” defense.
Yeah, men who get defensive whenever women call them out on anything sure are an underrepresented group. You never hear their opinions anywhere. *pats head*
Comment that makes no sense here:
Here I thought that your film will argue against the points that Anita has raised in her films, otherwise I don’t know why you would bother using her name in association with your proposal. Are you doing a bait-and-switch approach?
Video game content is not the be-all and end-all of the fronts where feminism is fightiing.
We’re not the “seething, raging” folks, you can stop with the projection. We’re not the ones doxxing, sending rape threats, sending death threats, or calling people gendered slurs. Those people are the ones more accurately termed narrow-minded and ideologically biased.
“Social justice warriors” have academic analyses and research supporting our contentions. We draw our conclusions from firm premises, that are modified as required if new data is found.
I’m still waiting on peer reviewed articles to support the positions of anti-social justice warriors. You don’t seem to understand that it’s the quality of the argument – as demonstrated by the evidence – that holds sway. You seem to be under the misguided impression that repetition of anti-social justice warrior “gotchas” is equivalent. One side here is science-based, and it’s not yours.
Further evidence of how this project isn’t science based, from the words of Aurini:
@Policy of Madness
“My Buddy, My Buddy, where ever he goes, I go!”
I know this isn’t a very productive post, but I’m super excited that someone made a My Buddy reference. That’s a quality 80s childhood flashback for me.
I was a lil’ proto-feminist kid and thought making a male doll marketed to boys was a positive thing at the time, all things considered.
How very Rush Limbaugh of him. I guess it’s helpful that they are being so upfront about their intellectual dishonesty.
I suppose it’s easier to “expose the disingenuous motives” than to critique arguments. Disingenuous motives are easy to cook up.
“You’re calling for fairer adoption protocols? WHY ARE YOU SUPPORTING PEDOPHILES?!?!??!”
See? Easy. Just run to the worst possible interpretation, even if it would need several following steps and a vast cultural shift, and that’s the real motivation of the sinister forces of the one world government anti-christ machine!!
Finally watched the video. Can confirm it’s hilarious.
(Note: I’m paraphrasing because I don’t want to watch these pompous doofuses again.)
“We expect this film to have a theatrical release as well as DVD and Blu-Ray” (Good luck with that gents.)
“Taking a seat at the round table of discussion” (With King Arthur’s blessing no doubt.)
“Five month filming period” (Way to aim low for the amount of work required for a full length doc.)
“Go down I’m the annals of history as a high quality documentary that will hopefully change the world” (No doubt.)
All the LOLS for these two hand gesture enthusiasts.
I’ve gotten to the point that I regard people who use the phrase “social justice warriors” the same way as people who use the word “sheeple” – I jut cannot take them seriously anymore.
<Jordan Owen (@jordanowen42) | August 27, 2014 at 2:51 am
And Alex- please, have some intellectual honesty. The purpose of that video was to explain why he IS NOT a white nationalist.
Yeah, cause the way to show you don’t believe in an ideology is to agree with every principle of that ideology but refuse to accept the label.
brooked:
They think their documentary they’re making as a counter-response to a commentary about video games is going to change the world? I…they do know they’re talking about video game commentary, right?
Either a truly epic lack of self-awareness, or the most brilliant parody of all time.
Bald guy with the smokes. I have no words.
@David Futrelle
The issue is that this is much more than yet another “criticism” of Anita Sarkeesian. Their premise is specifically about every “social justice warrior” and I’m not entirely confident this won’t turn into a hit list of private, obscure people for the masses to harass into silence in the same way that MRAs dox people for merely showing up to protests.
If it was just another “but being a straight white man in the (former) British Empire is so hard!”, yeah, sure, they may as well steal 15 grand a month from their fellow misogynists, but I can’t give them the benefit of the doubt here.
Note that I’m not saying to file fake copyright claims or anything. I just figure since it is breaking Patreon’s terms of service, why not report it? Letting them break the rules because they might shout “censorship!” is counterintuitive. It probably doesn’t even matter at this point since Patreon’s admins have to be aware of it and further reports aren’t likely to affect their decision.
I just hope whatever the outcome, nobody gets hurt.
Augh, augh! Anton LaVey suit/Smokey is from Hamilton! Why so many in Canada? Why?
We know that you exist – but we also know that you are wrong and you’re supporting people that DO hate women. Stop walking with the pigs and maybe their shit won’t stick to your face.
“I’m still waiting on peer reviewed articles to support the positions of anti-social justice warriors. You don’t seem to understand that it’s the quality of the argument – as demonstrated by the evidence – that holds sway. You seem to be under the misguided impression that repetition of anti-social justice warrior “gotchas” is equivalent. One side here is science-based, and it’s not yours.”
I just wanted to say that this comment of Pallygirl’s had me cheering deep down in my bitter, disingenuous Social Justice Warrior soul. 😀
Also, can I just state how much I hate (sorry for that rhyme) the way people act like academic writings and scientific studies are corrupt when they don’t agree with them? Those are debates that just never go anywhere. I’ve even asked those people exactly how they expect to find common ground when they don’t believe any form of evidence that can be held accountable for it’s methods or truthfulness. I generally don’t get a clear answer. Just…stay away from anyone who types about SJW, Sheeple, and libtards I guess. ( liberals who use the terms teabagger and sheeple aren’t trying to be reasonable either, though I admit they annoy me less because they’re still on my side of the debate. I’m no saint. :P)
Jordan,
Privileged white guys aren’t an underrepresented and voiceless demographic. Seriously. What are you whining about?
#notallprivilegedwhiteguys “disagree with” the arguments made by “social justice warriors.”
Relevant: http://www.dailydot.com/geek/adult-women-largest-gaming-demographic/
Speaking of Anita Sarkeesian and gaming, she got such bad threats and harassment she and her family actually had to leave their house and contact the police for their safety. I don’t know if you heard about it yet.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/27/6075679/sarkeesian-driven-out-of-home-by-online-abuse-and-death-threats
(Don’t worry David. The link is good. It’s a journalist’s article.)