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Of all the loopy manifestos that this whole #GamerGate fiasco has inspired, I think this loopy manifesto, posted several days ago to the Men’s Rights subreddit to a smattering of upvotes, is probably my favorite.
Take it away, trudatness:
Think about what really went down in gaming journalism – not on the micro level, but on the macro level.
The most left-wing journalism companies happily filled the gaming journalism void. Think about it…
The most virulent lavender menace feminist laced industry on the planet began covering an industry whose target audience was comprised of somewhat socially awkward young men.
Hey what could go wrong?
Answer: Everything.
Woah, hate to be a stickler for stuff that actually makes sense, but if you’re going to use a homophobic slur to describe your opponents, make sure you pick the correct homophobic slur. The phrase “lavender menace” originated as an insult aimed at lesbians in the feminist movement; the term was later reclaimed by lesbian feminists. Whether as as a slur or as an honorific, I’m pretty sure the term is not a terribly apt description of the dude-dominated world of video game journalism, as dudes cannot actually be lesbians.
The video game online journalism industry hates gamers. They made no bones about that fact when they coordinated a drop of nearly a dozen articles eulogizing the gamer.
Er, a eulogy is “a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially a set oration in honor of a deceased person.” I think what you meant to say is that there were a bunch of articles proclaiming the death of the traditional self-described “gamer.” Most of these articles were not full of hate for games, or for people who play games, but only for self-proclaimed “gamers” who want gaming to be a preserve of adolescent (and overgrown adolescent) dudes.
If you hate gamers, then why cover gaming?
Answer: There’s only so much money you can make covering gay pride parades.
Not true. It’s a little known historical fact that John D. Rockefeller Sr. made his fortune covering gay pride parades.
Wait, I am being told that John D. Rockefeller Sr. actually made his fortune by founding Standard Oil, and that there weren’t actually any gay pride parades anywhere until decades after he died.
I need to stop getting all my information from IncorrectGayOPedia.
So these twisted totalitarianists decided they were going to take an industry – a humble hobbyist collective that had grown into a billion dollar industry – and simply evict the current tenants with bullying, shaming and sexual coercion. They were going to move in, via takeover, bringing all their talentless cronies in with them.
THE LAVENDER TOTALITARIANISTS ARE COMING FOR YOUR GAMES!!
What better way to deal with the gamers you hate, by shaming them into subservience? These 3rd wavers wanted to co-opt gaming and turn it into their vehicle of propaganda, dictating to designers what is to be produced.
Apparently mentioning that many games contain sexist elements is the same as ordering designers to replace Call of Duty: Black Ops with Call of Duty: Kill All Men.
Who the fuck do these people think they are? They truly intended to force gaming hobbyists into kowtowing and accepting their dogmas.
This is what feminism does.
It’s true. Feminism has always been about fucking with hobbyists. Who can forget Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous A Vindication of the Rights of Women to Force Dudes to Play Sissy Facebook Games Like,You Know, Farmville or Some Shit?
Egalitarianism? Hardly? More like Machiavellianism. They want to control the masses and superimpose their value system onto people by force.
That’s right: Anita Sarkeesian has actually been using her Kickstarter money to fund the training of an elite core of feminist commandos who will soon be dispatched to mother’s basements across the nation to pry copies of Grand Theft Auto V from the hands of true gaming heroes.
They cannot let the truth of their message speak for itself.
Hard to do when all you do is front out lies. …
Look at the so-called game reviews… They aren’t game reviews. They are social justice critiques. Does the game get the feminist lavender menace seal of SJW approval?
I would actually love to see a Feminist Lavender Menace Seal of SJW Approval. Could someone draw me one?
Tsk, tsk, tsk… Those women have too big of boobs… Not enough “realistic woman” protagonists… That’s Sexist!
Pretty soon all games are going to require that all game characters are lesbian or trans-gendered and run around fighting the patriarchy or some dumb shit like that.
Yep. Soon all red-blooded young men will be forced to play all games as Lesbian Lara Croft.
Do you want to kill some zombies or get lost in an RPG fantasy? Play a little PvP? I hope you like tumblr-style fat-acceptance friendly avatars.
Make that FAT Lesbian Lara Croft.
This is the twisted fucking world they live in – and they want to make every single gamer out there accept their worldview.
It’s time for the tail to stop wagging the dog.
It’s time to full on evict SJWs from the gaming world.
Not if we sit on you first.
EDIT: Ok, ok, I fixed the terrible typo in the headline. But speaking of LAVENDER menaces, Leocigale has provided us with this wonderful Feminist Lavender Menace Seal of SJW Approval, which will now go in the sidebar. (There were several other excel
lent Seals of Approval submitted, but this one has an actual adorable seal it it!)
Whoever created the “fat” Lara does not have much familiarity with women, or reality, for that matter. This Lara looks pregnant and not fat.
Either that, or she’s exhibiting the male pattern of fat distribution, which inexplicably, for a woman, is concentrated only in her belly.
Ah flashbacks to browsing devientart with the filter off! And video games somehow altering themselves when sexists play them so they must play as marginalised groups would be kind of awesome. The middle finger subroutine.
He is even funnier in the comments below ‘the manifesto’. “Gamers have created a virtual world to explore their fantasies. You hate their fantasies. You hate gamers.” Infallible logic.
What’s that jug Fat Lara is holding? If it’s supposed to be some sort of fattening beverage, it doesn’t look like it. It looks like either laundry detergent or cat litter. I guess you get a “lol fat ugly feminist alone with her cats” joke out of the latter, but it seems like a long way to go for a joke when they could have just made it an obvious three-liter soda bottle.
@AuntEdna, I thought the same thing. Fat Lara looks like she is pregnant with octuplets, not fat. Either that, or her normal head was put on the body of a very overweight man. It’s pretty clear that these dudes have no clue about women’s bodies or anatomy in general. I suppose that’s hardly surprising, though, considering the source.
@DavidFutrelle
You and you ilk can throw all the temper tantrums disguised as “mocking” us and stomp and drag your feet as much as you want. The fact of the matter is that you are not stopping #gamergate. The demands of the legions of gamers angry at the corruption of games journalism will be met. The games industry is changing for the better, and we don’t care if we have to drag you assholes kicking and screaming to make it happen. We all know the smug arrogance and “ridiculing” is nothing more than a bullshit facade to disguise the fact that you and the game journalists are not only losers, but are LOSING. And no amount of bullying, redirection or intellectual dishonesty from your side is going to change that.
“Lavender menace” just reminded me I need to cut back the lavender on the allotment. This time of year it gets a bit leggy and starts preventing dudes from playing misogynist games… or do I mean sprawls over the potato patch?
One thing that I found particularly fascinating is their admission of incompetence. They say “The most left-wing journalism companies happily filled the gaming journalism void.” Now, let’s think about that: why was there a void? Because the likes of them are totally incapable of doing anything even remotely close to “journalism”.
They accuse the feminists to do what exactly? Write articles, books, blogs, and make games, and in general talk about their ideas about gaming. Why on earth couldn’t the self-appointed “gamers” do the same? Why don’t they write their own articles on newspapers and magazines?
Oh, right, because there is a world-wide conspiracy against them and nobody will publish them, silly me, I forgot.
You know what’s telling? In a lot of these guy’s ‘worst case scenarios,’ the worst case is actually no worse than what the non-pandered-to demographics have to put up with already. I mean, if you’re a lesbian WOC gamer, for instance, you’d have to play as a straight white male in most of the games.
Soooo funny, David!
I have one question?
Do you think it is too late to put together a Lavender Menace superhero costume for Halloween?
@Amnesia
Right??? It’s true what they say: A bigot’s worst fear is being treated the way they currently treat the targets of their bigotry.
Hope the following doesn’t sound mansplainy, but I’m not really on board with the idea that all women have a set pattern by which they gain weight. My SO (cis woman, fairly short and stocky build) collects fat around the belly easier than anywhere else.
Not saying that the pic above is anatomically correct by a long shot, but still.
@Lea: Heck no.
@dorabella: After all, the worldwide conspiracy is their only hope. You can, at least in your heroic fantasies, expose and fight an evil conspiracy. Things you can’t fight? The market. The inexorable forces of social change.
Because that is what’s really going on here. It’s not that EA or Deep Silver or any other gaming company is being infiltrated by lavender Zind. It’s that these companies have figured out a few things:
1) There are a lot of ladies who have money which they would like to spend on games. (Also, dudes who are pro-lady, ditto.)
2) There are a lot of games out there, yo. Ladies therefore have choices on where their money go.
3) When your games do not suggest they were designed and developed by dudes who think “No Fat Chicks” bumper stickers are the height of funny, ladies are much more likely to buy your game.
4) Your competitors are aware of this, also, and if their games are more appealing to ladies, guess where that money goes.
5) Also, your supply of dudes who will buy any old games as long as it has big guns and a jubbly engine is limited.
6) You will probably end up with a better game if you spend resources on squashing bugs and developing exciting gameplay than on making sure all the female NPCs have nice asses.
I mean, yes, the gaming industry is still infested with brogrammers and has a long way to go. But we’re now in an era were EA and Bioware can tell bigots to fuck off and play somebody else’s games if they don’t like the fact that there are homosexual characters; you can play a crazy blockbuster game like Saints Row with your President of the United States as a fat black lesbian and be no less badass than if you were playing Generic White Dude.
If that makes people like this dude ragequit gaming forever – DARN.
My god! PLAYING A FAT LESBIAN CHARACTER!
The horror! The horror! Truly, it’s like the straight male holocaust! The entire game industry will completely refuse to ever make a stubbly dark-haired white guy a protagonist ever again! All games will involve feelings instead of weapons! You will shoot love beams and rainbows instead of bullets!
AAAAAAAAAAAH!
(Also I will totally draw a Lavender Menace seal of SJW approval in a bit. When I finish what I’m doing. It can go with my trophy for winner of the thread.)
What I could do in a couple of minutes. ^^;
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/250/4/4/lavender_menace_by_mali_chan-d7yapuf.jpg
OMG, I have a vision in my head of Hawkeye Initiative heroes shooting love beams. I wish I could art.
http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com
I am also wondering about what the heck the jug is supposed to be. Seriously confused. It looks like maybe there’s a picture of a cow on it? Is it supposed to be milk? I don’t think that’s what milk jugs usually look like. What??
Basically, my response to guys who complain about diversity:
(To any poor unfortunate souls that haven’t seen A:TLA, Toph is blind)
“It looks like either laundry detergent or cat litter.”
I noticed the same thing and decided to interpret it as laundry detergent. High-energy laundry detergent. Maybe she uses it for mindwash; the coin’s still up in the air about whether she needs it for herself or for the dwerps who made her.
OK. Take two:
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/250/4/b/lavender_menace___seal_v2_by_mali_chan-d7yat1k.jpg
If someone thinks I suck at graphic design… that’s probably because I do. ^^;
Hmm… It looks like the Feminist High Council: Lavender Menace Video Game Ops Division hasn’t even filled you in on the whole plan yet, David. We’re also going to make gamebros choose between death and wearing the mark of the Beast. Contrary to popular belief, the mark of the Beast isn’t “666” it’s actually the symbol for Venus/women and of course it will be lavender colored. Only gamebros sporting the mark will be able to buy or play video games and then only the games with the Lavender Menace Feminist SJW Seal of Approval. Soon after, the four fat black lesbian horsewomen of the apocalypse will appear. I’m not authorized to tell you what happens next. I’d need Anita’s permission to say any more.
I come bearing my own seal of approval!
http://i.imgur.com/mi5WG53.png
She’s SO FAT she’s eating the cat litter now!
@weirwoodtreehugger
Shhh! We’re not in Phase Three yet! Do not disclose The Crucial Elements of the Plan!
Commence memory erasion protocol. Repeat, commence memory erasion protocol. Code: three seven alpha nine zero zero foxtrot
It looks like Reddit finally banned the fappening. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-fappening-has-been-banned-from-reddit-2014-9
Of course, they waited more than a week to do it, aren’t changing their policies and put out a mealy mouthed statement about it.
Yep, government never makes laws compelling virtuous behavior. That’s why the US government has just politely asked employers to not discriminate against employees instead of making discrimination against federal law.