A little realization hit me while I was watching videos about #GamerGate recently. MRAs and #GamerGaters really seem to enjoy depicting themselves as cartoon villains. Above, the skull-in-a-Koolaid-pitcher mascot of MRA videoblogger Bane666au.
Below, a screencap from a video by Mundane Matt, one of the movers and shakers behind the whole #GamerGate thing.
Once the smokey skull intro is over, here’s what you look at the rest of the time when you watch one of his videos:
And while we’re at it, the logo for his channel:
When they’re not depicting themselves as evil skulls with creepy eyes, MRAs and other antifeminists like to identify themselves with fictional villains:
That is, when they’re not posing as supervillains themselves:
Oh, hey, it’s our friend Davis Aurini, from earlier today, in an unphotoshopped screenshot from a video of his.
Oh, and here’s a screenshot from a more recent video of his. Note the skull. That’s right: he owns a freaking skull.
I hate to tell you guys, but I think YOU’RE THE BADDIES.
Yes, I know I’ve posted this video before, but once again it seemed very very apt.
So fitting! I’ve been posting that video a lot too. So has Gamer Lex Luthor, although I hear he’s on the side of evil: https://twitter.com/GamerLexLuthor
Yes, my guess is that their “meat space” lives are so dull and empty that they adopt an “edgy” online persona, in the way some middle-aged guys used to buy sports cars.
Anything to avoid the realization that they’re pathetic little weasels in real life. Educational failures, professional failures, failures at being real friends to real people in the real world, failures to create even a hint of a normal relationship with someone of their preferred gender/orientation.
Little. Not small. Little.
There was a time when I and a lot of my friends wore skulls on our T-shirts and had skulls on rings and earrings and whatnot. Then I graduated from high school.
On the photo with the skull, well, now we know why he’s so fond of mood lighting and odd camera angles. It’s the only way he can even attempt to intimidate anyone.
As someone who wears a lot of skulls and suchlike, and owns way more than one, I find this post pretty flimsy. I do love Mitchell & Webb tho.
If dude is going to dress and act like a magician he could at least do some tricks or something to justify the existence of his sad David Copperfield meets Anton LaVey ass.
Skulls can be a fun motif and, as a part time punk chick, I own more than one article of clothing festooned in them.
But this… yeah. There’s a difference between liking skulls in a fun rock and roll sort of way and making videos of yourself mimicking Dr. Evil with your lights off.
(only one of them comes off as “trying way too hard to be menacing” for one)
http://38.media.tumblr.com/f5a6281ef289f8933c1774baefecd852/tumblr_mvcvhcvbZk1sl6kemo1_500.gif
Oh shit! Pickles is an MRA!
Remember kids, nickels is money too.
@cassandrakitty
Did you just go IT Crowd on us?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPXvAM9blow&w=560&h=315%5D
Gamergate is specifically not anti-feminist. Just because there are a few feminists that the majority dislikes, does not mean all gamergate users hate all feminists. There are many feminists, for example, that support gamergate, including celebrated author and philosophy professor, C.H. Sommers – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Hoff_Sommers. We are simply trying to free our entertainment medium from being used as a platform for ideologies.
With or without the skulls, it’s pretty clear just how focused they are on being the bad guys. “Dark enlightenment” is totally something I can see Bane touching on in a speech about ridding the world of the Batman. They’re pro-abuse, pro-rape, pro-victim blaming, pro-just-about-anything-truly-horrifying-in-the-human-race. They want women to be property because supposedly we’re just too stupid to control our own lives. They’re not afraid to stoop to rape and death threats to silence women whose opinions they dislike.
They are seriously pure fucking evil, and they revel in that.
Whoah, Ryeash. Those are some pretty harsh accusations. I’ve never met anyone who’s pro-any-of-those-things-you-mentioned. Not on gamergate, not anywhere. And as for the rape and death threats, again, no-one on gamergate is okay with any of those things. We’re just as against those guilty of the harassment as you guys are.
Mia, the joke is based on a skit. The skit is shown above. I don’t have anything against the occasional skull motif. I have sugar skull earrings and I lurve them. But, this level of affinity for the aesthetics of cartoon villainy is hilarious, especially coming from these guys.
MRAs,
You aren’t Lex Luther, the Joker or Doctor doom. You’re angry,creepy dudes harassing women and whining about how much you hate equality for women because you think it makes you a victim. You punch down because it’s easy and you don’t do things that are hard, like actually help male abuse and rape victims, undeserved veterans, LGBTQ men or men oppressed by a racist police force and judicial system. That would mean punching up and it’s harder than just sending anonymous rape threats to whatever woman you are rage bonering at today. You’re too selfish, scared and lazy to handle that. You aren’t alpha. You’re bratty Alfalfas, complete with your he man woman hater’s club. Putting a skull in your tree house does not make you a bad-ass.
Taitaisanchez,
I was thinking that these guys reminded me of Richmond
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2226
“You are a strange, sad little man.”
“Yeah but I have a skull! And sinister facial hair! Are you intimidated yet?”
Not sure why owning a skull is ‘freaky’, unless in his vids he spends an inordinate amount of time holding it while talking to it. *not going to watch vids to find out* All the nope.
Oops. Huge ctrl + c fail. Try again!
So it’s not about anti-feminism, it’s about the low expectations #Gamergate types have for the future of video games. You don’t think video games should be considered a serious art form, they’re just fun toys you want to protect from outsiders who have new ideas and/or artistic ambitions. Good to know.
We know who Christina Hoff Sommers is, she doesn’t help.
Except the 4chan logs have proven that the entire thing explicitly started as a harassment campaign and “journalistic integrity” is a smokescreen. Quit trying to sell this line of bullshit. It was debunked several days ago.
Translation: Video games are for straight white men only and anyone who asks for more inclusivity or speaks out against problematic elements in games must be shut down. Who are you referring to when you say “our entertainment medium?” You don’t get to claim ownership over an entire form of media. What an entitled asshole you are.
MRAs: The “activist” wing of the Injustice League.
As an aside, I have to say that I have a great deal of respect for this site allowing persons of dissenting opinion to argue their points. Thank you very much for that!
I have five bucks on that skull on the shelf being a bong.
Anything to avoid the realization that they’re pathetic little weasels in real life. Educational failures, professional failures, failures at being real friends to real people in the real world, failures to create even a hint of a normal relationship with someone of their preferred gender/orientation.
Really? Is his speculation or can you back this assertion up?
@Tyler Owen
Translation: I have no idea what I’m talking about, have never read any of the posts on this site, and just got here two minutes ago and will expect the regulars to explain things they have been talking about for week already.
Come on, show some damn effort, trolls. BORING.
I’m not trying to say that having day of the dead stuff, or punk rock stuff with skull motifs, or even owning a skull is itself bad or creepy or risible. It’s their tryhard cartoon villain aesthetic that’s the problem. It’s sort of like when Garth Brook turned himself into Chris Gaines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Gaines
https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+gaines&num=100&client=firefox-a&hs=5AI&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=CDAXVKWvJIakyATcs4GgAQ&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1442&bih=555&dpr=0.9