What a surreal life Anita Sarkeesian must lead, in which virtually everything she says and does becomes grist for the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine, Sarkeesian Division.
Take the latest blowup, which followed a few comments Sarkeesian made in the wake of Friday’s school shooting in Marysville, which may have been triggered by the shooter’s angry response to a romantic breakup. On Friday, Sarkeesian posted a few thoughts on the matter on Twitter:
We need to seriously address connections between violence, sexism and toxic ideas of manhood before boys and men commit more mass shootings.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 24, 2014
Not a coincidence it’s always men and boys committing mass shootings. The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity in our culture.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 24, 2014
While it it not literally true that every single mass shooter in history has been male, we are talking about an almost exclusively male club: one recent attempt at crunching the numbers found that 97% of school shooters have been male, and 79% of them white. (The Maryville shooter was Native American.)
In any case, the notion that a crime so heavily associated with men might have something to do with our society’s notions of masculinity isn’t exactly a radical notion. Indeed, it seems rather obvious.
But to Sarkeesian’s many haters, on Twitter and elsewhere, it was as if Sarkeesian had just posted a video of herself drowning puppies. Cue the twitterstorm.
Here are just a selection of the literally hundreds of lovely comments that Sarkeesian had Tweeted at her on Friday and Saturday after making her original comments.
[Giant TRIGGER WARNING for violent, explicit threats, harassment]
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There were, of course, the explicit threats:
And the implicit threats:
And the sexual harassment:
And those who merely expressed their hope that Sarkeesian would kill herself:
Or die a horrible death:
Or simply die :
But not everyone wished violence on her. Some just told her that the threats and/or harassment she’s already getting is totally justified:
(Apparently by “fishing” Mr. de Alba means “expressing an opinion or making an observation.” Also note that the tweets that set off this latest wave of harassment didn’t contain the #GamerGate hashtag. )
Speaking of harassment, we’re just getting started in our chronicle of the latest wave.
Let’s continue with an assortment of Tweets using the c-word, a favorite slur amongst Sarkeesian’s detractors.
Why, yes, that is Suzanne McCarley, A Voice for Men’s “Assistant Managing Editor” happily adding her voice to the harassment.
Others pulled out the f-word:
She was called a “bitch.”
She was called a “whore.”
She was called a “terrorist.”
And a Nazi:
One fellow said that he thought Sarkeesian’s tweets were actually worse than the shooting itself:
And one even declared her “officially worse than Wil Wheaton,” the former Star Trek:TNG actor who has won mass opprobrium from internet dicks for publicly expressing his belief that people should not be dicks.
To add insult to injury, a few reported Sarkeesian herself to Twitter for various imaginary infractions:
Another asked why she wasn’t in jail for her, er, crimes:
Just to remind you: these tweets are all from TWO DAYS’ worth of harassment and threats on Twitter. And this isn’t all of them.
At this point anyone who claims that Sarkeesian is “making up” the harassment she gets, or writing it herself, or just the work of a “few trolls,” is either disingenuous or delusional.
I’ll leave the last word to Sarkeesian herself.
Our culture is deeply sick when simply asking questions about how toxic forms of masculinity may harm men leads to hours of hate on Twitter.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 25, 2014
EDITED TO ADD:
ATTENTION NEW COMMENTERS! I would like to draw your attention to this bit from my comments policy:
[I]f I’m writing about someone who’s gotten harassed by misogynists on the internet, and you want to talk about how much they deserved it, or what a lying liar they are? Well, fuck you! Your comments go right into the trash.
So take that into consideration. It might save you some time.
CORRECTION: I removed a screenshot of a Tweet that wasn’t threatening but was posted by a troll. See here.
Lol.
I had more cat pics lined up. Now I have to save them for the next troll.
Also, much applause for Fibinachi. Power to the poetry!
We could even stock the bridge with troll treats!
And now I’m trying to figure out what one would make troll kibble out of.
Select pieces from the SCUM manifesto
Male tears?
Do trolls need a high protein diet? Maybe we can feed them kibble made of other trolls.
Whatever it is, it must include toxic waste, like oxygen and water.
According to “Mike the (White)Knight” it’s turnips.
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about MRA Baldrick.
*pops in*
Did I miss anything exciting?
Oh. Just yucky boners updates.
Pass.
*pops back out*
Oh for…I mentioned my ladyboners *one time*.
titianblue! Hi, how’ve you been?
OFFICIAL MOD NOTE: being less than polite to people is not really against the rules here, as long as one is not maligning entire minorities. And mocking ignorant, disingenuous misogynists is our favorite sport. The only reason I’m not mocking you more is that I’m at work. I trust our other mod will bring her epic snark to the table soon, though.
Tl;dr no, I’m not gonna yell at anyone for mocking you and it’s hilarious that you thought I’d be on your side.
Sure. It’s not like you’re constantly bombarded by advertisements trying to arouse you in order to sell you stuff. It’s not like women’s clothing and makeup more or less exist to serve the male gaze, and it’s not like you’re conditioned to view our bodies as inherently sexual. Nope, nothing cultural affecting your sex drive at all.
… I’ve missed some fun today!
Work’s been busy, but the floor’s calmed down a bit. I might need to skim to catch up to the laughing at the evo-fail-troll…
I feel bad for engaging with the bonertroll before leaving the house, and egging him on. He turned pretty gross pretty fast.
Eh, he was pretty damn determined to tell us about his bonerfeels, don’t think it took a whole lot of encouragement to get him to go there.
What I don’t understand is why these guys always think that “men have needs, you know” is going to be some sort of shocking idea that we’ve never heard proposed before.
Well they’re needs, you know. And feminism is clearly the belief that male sexuality is evil, so they’re just standing up for the right of men to be men.
Right? That’s logical. It’s coherent. It has nothing to do with toxic masculinity
Also if we admit that women want sex too, then why don’t they want it with me? That might mean there’s something about me, specifically, that they don’t want. How dare you make me consider that possibility you evil harridan?
Nope, it’s just that women aren’t that into sex. That must be it.
There once was a post about boners
The perspective? Their owners
Sometimes they like what they see
so much so they fill up with glee
Curse women for making them loners!
These trolls ARE way more entertaining. Dammit, I’ve been all up in the wrong thread. *sigh*
Also I’m like seriously intimidated by you guys and your talent for rhyme. *not worthy*
OF course not. You don’t want them catching Mad Troll Disease. Especially because it’s basically impossible to tell the difference.
“Also I’m like seriously intimidated by you guys and your talent for rhyme. *not worthy*”
We all contribute in our own ways. If you can’t contribute rhyme, reason will do nicely.