Oh, say it ain’t so! The creative team behind The Sarkeesian Effect has fallen apart in a wave of mutual recriminations and accusations and general bad feelings! Owen is accusing Aurini of blackmail! Aurini is accusing Owen of being a nerd who can’t get laid! They’re both accusing each other of trying to take the money and run!
And apparently Roosh V — yes, that Roosh V, do you even know of any others — played the Yoko Ono role in this breakup. (Sorry, Yoko, it really wasn’t fair to drag you into this, so I’ll post a video of your awesome Walking On Thin Ice at the end of this post.)
Owen announced the firing of Aurini in this video:
Oh, sorry, that wasn’t Owen announcing the firing. That wass Tammy Wynette singing D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Here’s Owen:
Whoops. That was “The Breakup Song” by the Greg Kihn Band. HERE’s Owen:
Ok, that was actually Frida — you know, from ABBA — doing “I Know There’s Something Going On.” I dunno, it’s a pretty good song, don’t you think? And it’s sort of relevant.
Anyway, here’s the actual video from Owen. It’s not that long. You should watch it. He’s fully clothed in this one. Well, at least from the waist up.
I’m not quite sure if Owen actually has the authority to fire Aurini, but then again I’m not an expert in Shithead Breakup Law. In case you didn’t watch the video, he says he plans to finish the, er, film without Aurini. And he apparently has all the money.
Aurini, meanwhile, has offered his side of the story in a blog post:
Jordan Owen has decided to split the partnership he and I formed to produce the GamerGate documentary about Anita Sarkeesian, with the planned title The Sarkeesian Effect. Conveniently after collecting the funds I begged you for in my last post.
Aurini, despite being fired and not having access to the duo’s Paypal account, pledges that he too will see the, er, film to its completion, thus raising the possibility that there will be TWO COMPETING SARKEESIAN EFFECTS, sort of like when Black Flag got back together, but as two competing bands, with one touring as Black Flag and the other just as Flag.
“This project will see fruition,” Aurini writes, “and it will be a palpable blow against the Social Justice movement.”
A BLOW, A VERY PALPABLE BLOW!
Alas, I knew him, Horatio.
A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
Anyhoo, Aurini claims that the film “is as good as in the bag,” with not much beyond editing left to do, and claims to be puzzled as to why Owen would take his ball and go home at this late state in the production. He claims
there was absolutely no disagreement over the film at all, and Jordan’s role as Producer, by this point, had mainly devolved to signing the cheques while I did the editing, and others did the animation.
The only logical reason to split the project at this point was because he’d just received the final month’s funding…
But just when you think Aurini is going to start in on a rant on what a dirty thief Owen is, he heads in a totally different direction, insinuating that Owen’s REAL reason for the breakup had less to do with money than it did with, well, let’s let Aurini explain:
After the past two months of communiques with Jordan, I strongly suspect that he undermined this project because of an irrational jealously of Roosh, and any man who’s able to relate to women easily.
He’d been asking me for advice about women since the get go – which led me to recommending my colleague Roosh who has done much to support us – but every time I spoke about him, it seemed to fill Jordan with rage. Eventually leading to a panic attack that got him kicked off of an airplane – the last time I saw him in person.
That’s right. He’s saying that Jordan Owen is some kind of Omega Male Luh-huh-LOOOOOSER who can’t score the HBs!
Then Aurini asks for more money:
I ask that you continue to support me as I pull the last strands together, and cancel your financial support to Mister Owen. He does not have the technical capacity to put this film together the way it needs to be done.
Oh, this is going to be good.
Oh, and here’s that Yoko Ono song, which seriously is probably one of my top ten favorite songs of all time.
H/T — Skiriki, for being the first to alert me to this exciting development.
H/T — To Mike in the comments, who pointed me to that pic of the formerly dynamic duo, which I knew was out there but just couldn’t find!
Reminds me of my favorite ending to the classic pig-and-scorpion fable. As the pig dies, he hears the scorpion say, “Hey, you KNEW what I was when you picked me up.”
theladyzombie: That video was great… and wow, those guys are just terrible people. But the most interesting thing (other than the skulls, the belts… and $15,000!!!!) was the definition of social justice they put up. Wow. That is like a straw colossus they are trying to tear down. Jeesh. They really don’t understand it all. I guess that’s why they can feel they can decry social justice without any irony and not realize they’re not good people.
http://giphy.com/gifs/beyonce-laugh-QgVdpT0URYpYA
I just found out one my cats has cancer. This made me feel so, so, SO much better! This is ridiculous and hilarious and absolutely perfect.
I desperately hope we, the awaiting public, are blessed with two versions of the ‘film’, one with bathtub rants/despair/lots of belts and one with turtlenecked-ninjas/dramatic cigarettes/lots of skulls. Oh please, please let this be what happens.
GIF monster!!! *shakes fist*
@Tracy Oh that must be so scary! I wish you guys the best. I’m glad the news helped cheer you up.
Another version of the pig-and scorpion fable: Al Wilson’s “The Snake”
@ Tracy: Your precious furrinati overlords/ladies and/or rulers will be in my prayers tonight. 🙁 I hope they’ll be okay!
My deepest sympathies Tracy. I hope your kitty recovers. Zen hugs if they are welcome.
It is wrong to laugh at anyone getting ripped off. Even a ripoff artist.
It is wrong to laugh at anyone getting ripped off. Even a neoreactionary.
It is wrong to laugh at anyone getting ripped off. Even someone who seems to be going for an “I Am Evil” decor.
Eh, screw it. HAW HAW HAW.
Maybe it finally sank in how racist and sexist Aurini is after months of people asking Owen how he could work with someone like that.
At least I can hope some sense is starting to come back.
I love the comments. Some of them are actually admitting that Aurini is a fucking nutty woman-hating racist piece of shit, and was “making the project look bad”. Because Owen is nothing but the height of reason and credibility.
Man, these guys.
What I always find hilarious is that whenever they see how fucked up something in their movement is, they don’t criticize it because it’s wrong, they criticize it because “it’s ammunition for the SJWs.”
If you’re only going to purge your movement of white nationalists “on paper” because SJWs are going to point out their existence, maybe it’s a good fucking thing they’re doing that?
Tracy, so sorry to hear about your cat. Glad this was able to cheer you up a bit.
Mike, THAT’S THE PICTURE i WAS LOOKING FOR!! i’m going to replace the one I’ve got with it. Thanks!
It is odd that Roosh was the trigger for Owen’s realization that he was working with a racist, woman-hating shitstain. How he somehow managed to miss this in the first place I’ll never know.
How did everyone manage to come up with such a large set of music videos?
When I see the phrase “Gamergate breakup”, I get this song stuck in my head and I’m unable to think of any others:
Who will get custody of the skull? I’d hate to see that poor little skull caught in the middle of a legal battle.
Dangit Casually and ej, you two stole my awesome joke before I even thunk it up!
What Owen doesn’t know is that those skulls belong to Davis Aurini’s former collaborators.
There goes my $10,000 donation and my Vegas night out with the boys.
So Owen has a panic attack – seriously horrible thing to happen – and Aurini decides the best thing to do is spread it all over the manosphere to discredit him? Cu-LASSY. What lovely folks.
are there any other pictures of them together? i need them because of reasons
I need more images of them together, surely there are some? Somewhere? Video? Please? I promise to use them for evil.
I really enjoyed these breakup songs. They made a nice soundtrack while I was writing on commute this morning.
Here’s my contribution. Maybe the eventual Sarkeesian Effects could be put on split screen, though I doubt the effect will be anything as awesome as this Patti and Michael duet.
http://youtu.be/KsH63qJlIMM
Walking on Thin Ice was excellent, too. It’s not often that I see Yoko appreciated as a groundbreaking artist, a fact that parallels the subject matter of this blog. Also, am I the only one who’s curious about David’s top 10 favorite songs of all time?
Thanks for the positive nod to Yoko, but I would have preferred you not reference her that way in the first place. Yoko Ono was not controlling and she did not break up the Beatles, by McCartney’s admission. She was in an abusI’ve relationship with Lennon because Lennon, though a talented musician, was an abusive dick. The reason Yoko was always around at rehearsals and recording sessions was that Lennon wanted her there. He was so jealous he belived she’d be fucking other men if she was out of his sight for a minute.
Scary thought: If it’s taken them this long to disagree on something, and that something was nothing less than Roosh, Owen must be a hell of a lot worse than we think.
Well, I’ve thoroughly creeped myself out now. Need to watch that video about the toy skulls again.