Categories
davis aurini dudes who look like anton lavey gross incompetence sarkeesian!

Is the "Sarkeesian Effect" documentary just an elaborate practical joke? Take a look at the project's latest update

Seriously, is this just some elaborate practical joke? Are Davis Aurini and Jordan Owen deliberately trying to convince the world that they’re such bumbling nincompoops that they shouldn’t be trusted with $15 much less $15000 a month to make a documentary? Or are they really this incompetent?

I’m leaning towards the latter interpretation.

Watch the video and you’ll see what I mean. It’s their latest official update video for their backers on Patreon, to let the people who collectively sent them $9000 last month and another $7000 this month know what’s the SarkeesianEffect duo have managed to accomplish with their money so far.

And it’s filmed on a cheap webcam with bad lighting. Apparently these guys can’t be bothered to spend ten minutes to set up the equipment that their donors have so generously provided for them in order to make a video that looks even vaguely professional.

Even more hilariously, they filmed the whole thing using a directional microphone that 1) makes Jordan Owen sound like he’s fallen down a well and 2) RENDERS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR WHAT DAVIS AURINI IS SAYING ALTOGETHER.

You don’t have to watch the whole thing to see what I mean — skip ahead to about 1:15 in the video and wait until Aurini starts talking. He manages to get in a couple of words before moving out of the microphone’s range, and from then on nothing he says is audible (unless you want to blast your speakers out every time Owen talks).

In other words, not only can these two not be trusted to make a professional quality documentary, they can’t even manage to make a crappy webcam video properly.

Had their bete noire Anita Sarkeesian put out a similarly shitty video in order to tell her supporters what she was doing with their money, she would have been run out of town on a rail. Possibly literally.

In the comments on YouTube, Owen tells his disappointed backers that he can’t upload another video to replace this obviously fucked up one because that would trigger something on Patreon and cause all their backers to get charged again.

Uh, dude, you can’t upload an improved video with a different title, or on Aurini’s channel?

Huh. Maybe you should have, you know, watched your own video once to make sure everything was ok with it before putting it up in the first place?

I swear, these guys must have thought that Tim Burton’s movie about Ed Wood was a how-to, not a comedy.

 

187 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
GrumpyOldMan
10 years ago

Every time they make one of these videos, I can’t keep myself from seeing it as “Beavis and Butthead Make A Video episode N.” Whatever money they could scrounge from their friends, they would spend on beer and weed, and then try to make the video with an old camcorder from a thrift shop.

friday jones
friday jones
10 years ago

Is it just me, or does Jordan Owen’s body language scream “NO, MY TURN TO TALK!” every time Davis Aurini starts talking?

friday jones
friday jones
10 years ago

Also, when you have a cheesy autofocus recording setup, it might be a good idea to refrain from waving your hands around like an overcaffeinated magician while you talk.

GrumpyOldMan
10 years ago

And somebody mentioned confirmation bias. I has been my observation that if the manosphere didn’t have confirmation bias, they wouldn’t have anything at all to talk about.

GrumpyOldMan
10 years ago

They seem to have almost perfect non-confirming data filters — an impressive technological accomplishment.

Jon H
Jon H
10 years ago

“I accidentally watched the whole thing. The part where he casually reveals that he often shits his pants is pretty tremendous.”

Man, between this and the “respect mah skidmarks” guy… what is it about these people and basic ass hygiene.

thebewilderness
thebewilderness
10 years ago

One of the things that always amazes me is people who sit down to record themselves, intending to publish to the public, without a script or even so much as a plan.
It never ends well.

vbillings
10 years ago

Maybe they’re getting private charter jets. For secrecy.

katz
10 years ago

Are you guys serious about the pants shitting? Where did that happen?

Puddleglum
10 years ago

I accidentally watched the whole thing.

Mwahaha, best comment ever.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

Is some sort of tragic inability to control the bowels mandatory in order to be a dude who makes angry misogynist videos on YouTube? How odd. I feel like there’s a Freudian joke in there somewhere.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

They want interviewees who are sympathetic to their cause? So…this will *not* be a neutral, unbiased piece? I am shocked. SHOCKED!

Made it to the pants shitting confession and I was done.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

katz, about 12 and half minutes.

Does Pierre have a clothing store?

Lurker
Lurker
10 years ago

Are you guys serious about the pants shitting? Where did that happen?

It was somewhere close to the end.

Basically they were mocking Suey Park for revealing that she was forced to leave her house during the whole #CancelColbert thing because they felt that just so much as mentioning it was the same as bragging about it, I guess?
So they go into this spiel about how this is nothing to be proud of, it happens frequently, but it’s still embarassing and then Owen seriously says (paraphrased): “Look, it’s like shitting your pants. It happens every now and then but, like, it’s still embarassing.”

These people just have no clue how they come off to reasonable people at all.

The point of this whole thing, btw (aside from getting a shot in at Suey of course)?
That Anita is a backstabbing hypocrite, cause she supported Suey during the #CancelColbert thing and then went on the Colbert show anyway.
Proving once again that these people just do not understand what social critique is about in the slightest. And that they do not listen to the points their target du jour are making at all, since Suey made it clear that she doesn’t want to actually cancel Colbert, but who cares about these things when there’s frothing to be done, amirit?

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

I thought weinie tot 2 wanted to cancel Colbert but not really?

Of course my eyes were glazing over the whole time.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

Seriously katz, Pierre needs to help them. WT2 could go in and ask for a suit with extra pants so he wouldn’t have to change his whole suit if he accidentally shits himself again over the extreme angst he feels over Sarkeesian being more popular and actually getting the amount she requested 25 times over. It practically writes itself! Also he needs a 96% discount because Sarkeesian got 25 times what she requested and that makes it fair. Full Price is Misandry!

lurker
lurker
10 years ago

I thought weinie tot 2 wanted to cancel Colbert but not really?

Of course my eyes were glazing over the whole time

I only skimmed it, so they might have talked about that before that segment, wouldn’t be surprised. It must be getting pretty frustrating to have literally everyone publicly make fun of your conspiracy theories, especially when it’s the very people you thought would totally be on your side in this “war”.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

No idea and I’m not watching it again just in case gramma was right and my face *does* freeze that way.

sylviaplant
sylviaplant
10 years ago

This is embarrassing to watch. It’s like “serious” videos made by children who try to imitate an adult tone, but it just comes off as awkward. Except that with children, it’s cute. With these jokers, it’s sad.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

It reminds me of the time I pretended to be a Radio One DJ and recorded a tape of myself pretending to present that week’s charts. Of course, I was 8 at the time.

vaiyt
10 years ago

Is it just me, or does Jordan Owen’s body language scream “NO, MY TURN TO TALK!” every time Davis Aurini starts talking?

Well, Owen does like the sound of his own voice way too much. Have you seen how fucking long his videos are?

sylviaplant
sylviaplant
10 years ago

@cassandrakitty

When I was a kid I liked to pretend I was doing the director’s cut commentary on a “movie.” I’m still embarrassed about it.

Shaenon
10 years ago

Obviously these guys’ smug conviction that they can make a feature film with YouTube rant video skills and the pure power of white male superiority is entertaining, but I have a semi-serious question. Are they planning to talk to anyone who doesn’t agree with them? I realize they can’t reveal all their interview subjects because it’s super top secret, but the only names they share in this video are anti-PC pundit Jim Goad (who, to his credit, wrote the amazing comic Trucker Fags in Denial) and MRA vlogger GirlWritesWhat. Are they going to interview any of those Social Justice Warriors I keep hearing about? Maybe even the terrifying Anita Sarkeesian herself?

I mean, Michael Moore makes partisan documentaries, but he still talks to people on the other side of the ideological divide. If nothing else, you generally want to get footage of the opposition so you can rebut their points, and to create drama and interesting conversations. They understand that two beardy guys nodding at each other about how much liberals suck is not a documentary, right?

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

When kids play let’s pretend it’s cute, though, and their lack of technical skill is adorable rather than embarrassing.

@Shaenon

The only person in the teaser they released who I recognized was Justine Tunney, who I know about because of the whole drama about Occupy and its social media accounts. Since she is a minor internet celebrity I assume that both she and the assclowns are assuming people will know who she is without an announcement, but in terms of the other people like angry sitting on porch gamer lady and smug sitting in armchair college-aged gamer girl I’m not sure whether the plan is to tell people who they are at some point or not.

isidore13
isidore13
10 years ago

God, what if they are seriously doing a long, boring joke that will actually end in a rehash of the ‘are we the baddies?’ sketch?