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.
@Tyler Owens
My “accusations” are peanuts compared to what I read every day on what the MRM has to say about my gender. If you don’t want to be associated with that way of thinking, maybe you should reconsider your association with a movement tied into it. An incredibly corrupt movement which has used intimidation and threats to try to force particular women out of the gaming world and that is supposedly against corruption. Don’t play innocent like you have no clue.
Also I’m a “gamer”, and your people damn well don’t speak for me. Your “movement” is centered around an aspect of a woman’s personal life being aired and people feeling the need to punish her to avenge some guy they don’t know. It’s pathetic, deceitful, and gut-wrenchingly awful. It’s grasping at straws because you’re uncomfortable with women having control over your games. If you’re that worried about corruption in gaming and gaming journalism, a quick Google search reveals many other examples to choose from. One author even claims there is no such thing as real video game journalism it’s such a corrupt world. If one woman gets your pants all atwist because she made some bad choices, I have news for you: corruption in the gaming world is not your primary concern.
There are tens of thousands of stories out there that do just fine without a woman in need of rescue. The very foundation of the modern fantasy genre was about a small man trying to throw a ring into a volcano, for christ’s sake.
In fact, one of the most popular movie genre of recent decades – horror movies – were mainly about people trying to save their own asses. How come nobody used one of those slasher movies about that puppet guy as a basis for a Roberta Williams-style adventure puzzle game? Viewers always feel that they could do better than the folks in those movies, so outsmarting the slasher seems to be something they’d see as a challenging and engaging experience.
And it’s not like Zombie Survival games that usually did just fine without any specific woman in need of rescue were popular or anything, nope, sir. Zombie Survival games weren’t popular AT ALL.
And yet, what you’ll get is Abducted Size 0 Lady With Cleavage Displayed #1498209
Nope. They’re encouraging game designers to break the self-established limits they’ve put on their stories.
As a very simple example–the most clear-cut game to use the Damsel in Distress trope is arguably the Mario Bros. line. Now, once upon a time, every pixel counted. You had to pare down your game’s program requirements to the bare bone to be able to make it work. We don’t live in that era anymore.
Instead, why not now have the option, at the start of the game, to select any of a host of characters, rescuing any of that same host? Reskinning the story animation would be a brief bit of fluff, generally. So you can have Mario rescue Peach, or Peach rescue Luigi, or pretty much whatever you like. This would actually let the players have their part in telling the story–and that, frankly, is the promise of video games, the promise of a truly interactive art form.
In more complex games, well, again–if you can reskin your character anyway, why not include female options? And if you’re doing a deep-story game, with optional love-interests, why not let the player decide which romantic plots they choose to follow (and thus, what their character’s sexuality is)?
The decision to NOT put something in a game is as much a decision as the decision to include it–letting the ‘not include’ become a default is nothing less than lazy storytelling.
QFT
Who ordered the random word salad?
Oh, you need to fuel those abuse fantasies. And you just have to be evil somewhere. Poor, poor, special snowflake.
Also, why is it always women who get abused? Revenge on helicopter mummy, or what other pseudo-psych theory do you have for us, oh wise one?
So, according to tigerjockey, the guys that like the skulls and evil supervillain personas do so because they lived uptight suburbanite childhoods and want a little safe edginess to offset it?
Also, the 1970s called; they want their “limousine liberals” argument back.
It astonishes me the way people come here bursting with ignorance and eager to share it. Criminy!
That’s why horror movies and thrillers are Millennial inventions, and didn’t exist prior to the year 2000.
Shorter tigerjockey: “People who refuse to associate with racists are the real intolerant bigots! And helicopter parents cause children to like skulls.”
Almost a good argument, ‘cept, you know, Sarkeesian never actually says developers should stop using this trope (just that it’s overdone, with wooden characters who enforce negative stereotypes about women). But nice try; glad to know you’re arguments are based on… not watching the videos or reading the transcripts (I prefer the transcripts, myself).
Also, could you please include a two-dot ellipse in your next post? I’m going for blackout bingo and I need it. Thanks!
I used to always play as Princess Peach while playing Mario 2. There were a couple of levels where you needed to jump high and Luigi was the best choice. There were a couple of levels where you needed to dig sand quickly and the Toadstool was the best choice. But generally I always played as PP.
I miss those games.
@Tiger:
Baaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa fucking pull the other one.
I grew up and went to school in such a shitty neighborhood that when the rich kids I work with now find out where I went to high school they all get all shifty or immediately ask if I’ve ever seen anyone get stabbed.
Oh my god, this guy talks like there is NO innovation in gaming storytelling and any pressure to innovate should be punished. Give me a fucking break. If it inspires developers to work a little harder than “Urgh. Him save woman. We have video game!” GOOD. FFVII isn’t one of my favorite games of all time because of the graphics. Fallout 3 wasn’t rife with distressed damsels. Rockstar games are known for their brilliant storytelling, if not always for their decent treatment of women. Why is pressuring for better storytelling a bad thing?
Isn’t it odd that confident and secure people never have need for such lame posturing as the MRAs? This isn’t even the bluff and bluster of the new barbarians. It’s just boys posturing for each other. Sad and pathetic.
I assumed he was trying to say that we think this garbage is a bad aesthetic choice for a movement because we grew up coddled.
You can do dark stories without resting on tired sexist clichés. See The Descent or American Mary. You could make games similar to these stories but it would require female main characters that have agency but aren’t Mary Sues and we can’t have that!
The gentrification of poor and working class neighborhoods are the result of the real estate bubble. This occurred because of deregulation that made credit easy to get and allowed predatory lending. This drove housing prices and squeezed people out of their neighborhoods. But sure, blame liberals for the policies pushed by conservative oligarchs.
I always wanted to play girl characters, but I feared it would reveal I was trans, so I buried the thoughts.
It really didn’t strike me that there weren’t many girl characters, but I didn’t keep count, just subconscious internalization.
It’s more complicated than that. There is strong pressure on city government to allow/facilitate gentrification. Gentrifying a neighborhood, for instance, raises the tax base. It makes downtown/inner suburbs look nicer, because wealthier people come in and can fix up the houses, which in turn helps to attract more wealthy residents. Businesses want to move nearby to serve the now-more-wealthy residents, which improves the tax base further and generates some (generally low paid retail) jobs. There’s really no down side for the city, no down side for anyone except the less-wealthy, probably black people who used to live there. People who have no power, in other words.
I am not exactly what is all the fault of helicopter parents and gentrification, according to tigerjockey, but I’m guessing trying to raise the minimum wage is somehow at fault too. And the Affordable Care Act, probably.
@grumpycatisagirl:
Don’t forget BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI is super relevant and very important.
Oh, of course BENGHAZI. Feminism gets all its power from that.
Don’t forget immigration! And Sharia Law! And Sandra Fluke!
“They’re limiting the developers ability to tell a story”
@Tyler Owen
And how is she doing that? Is she passing laws against the use of certain stories? No. Does she have magical powers that block the use of those stories? No. She’s just presenting her point of view and asking people to consider it. That’s all. Just consider it.
If people honestly believe that telling the same stories over, and over, and over again is good for the future of games, then by all means they should produce their own videos explaining why. Instead she’s getting attacked, harassed, and accused of ruining games. Why? For expressing her point of view? Do developers’ delicate sensibilities have to be shielded from other people’s opinions?
Sorry if this turns out to be a double post.