There’s some great news for supporters of The Sarkeesian Effect, the seemingly random collection of badly filmed interviews with assorted people who dislike Anita Sarkeesian that is allegedly being edited into a film of some kind!
In a new video, Jordan Owen — the hairier of the two Sarkeesian Effect impresarios — has announced an amazing new opt-out opportunity for the alleged film’s backers to donate money to him and his pal (then enemy, then pal again) Davis Aurini.
Owen reports that, even though they’re supposedly already done filming their alleged film, the two have somehow managed to work out a way to do some more filming “that we didn’t think that we’d be able to do but it’s really going to tie the movie together,” much like the non-big Lebowski’s famously peed-on rug, I guess.
Now, Owen won’t provide any details — which, he suggests, might have something vaguely to do with the Honey Badgers’ recent escapade in Calgary? — but apparently it is a quite exciting filming opportunity and it somehow requires another month’s worth of funding for the alleged film, and unless the project’s backers specifically opt out by the end of the month they’re going to get charged for it!
It’s all very ethical.
In the video, Owen also invites supporters to check out the amazingly professional web site they have up for their amazing film at TheSarkeesianEffect.com. I would also highly recommend that you check it out; it is in every way up to the exacting standards the two are known for.
And before I forget, I’d like to mention some great news for fans of the unintentional comedy that the Sarkeesian Effect duo provide almost every time they open their mouths.
A couple of Sarkeesian Effect mockers — Andrew Todd from badassdigest.com and @kav_p from Twitter — have come into the possession of puppets that, as Kav P puts it, look “startlingly similar” to the Sarkeesian Effect duo. They plan to produce a series of short videos starring said puppets.
Here’s the theme song for the series, which they call MRAsterpiece Theater. You may notice that despite costing nothing to anyone but the two people who made it, this video somehow manages to look and sound a lot more professional than anything the actual Sarkeesian Effect dudes have produced so far.
Of all the wonderful things that came out of BTAS, Harley has got to be hands-down the most successful.
I wish DC would hurry up already and admit she and Ivy are bangin’.
(*I* wouldn’t kiss Dr. Isley carelessly, but apparently that’s just the sort of risk that makes Dr. Quinzel feel alive.)
@Falconer
We all wish that, Falconer, we all wish that.
Well, in the episode Harley and Ivy, Ivy gave Harley an injection to make her immune to the poisons that she secretes. Her base was also on top of a toxic waste dump, so there’s that as well.
And I wish DC would make it canon as well. In the Injustice: Gods Among Us comics, Harley and Joker had a baby that Harley’s sister takes care of (Her name is Lucy and she likes monster trucks and tutus and putting monster trucks in tutus), so why can’t she be banging Ivy beyond blatant tokenism and fetishization?
Which, really, are my only two worries about that becoming true. I want it to happen so badly, but not for the benefit of otherwise homophobic cishet dudes. : /
That, and DC have proven to be quite the bag of dead raccoons when it came to Batwoman and her girlfriend getting together as well. They’re dating, but DC wouldn’t let them get married for some reason.
Oh god, I heard about Harley and Joker and the baby. Of all the people who should not have a child, it’s the Joker. I felt sick.
I gotta admit, my opinion that Harl and Ives are OTP bears less weight than others’, because of the history of lesbian relationships being used for straight white males’ titillation. I’m glad that the ship is obvious to others.
Isn’t Batwoman’s girlfriend Renee Montoya / The Question? I don’t follow BW all that much.
Jordan “Tub Boy” Owen has responded! You’ve made the big time!
And here’s the link: http://www.donotlink.com/ev7r It’s eleven minutes, which is 10:45 longer than how much of this I’d bother watching, so I haven’t listened to it.
I dunno how many people are still looking at the comments here but I just wanna say that you missed my point entirely. Whether you think it’s harmful or not doesn’t matter. Most characters in video games are men because that’s what the market dictates. If most gamers and game developers were women, most characters in video games would be women and games would be designed around the interests of women. In order for that to change the market has to change and that hasn’t happened in any significant way yet. Yes, maybe 45% of gamers are women but I’m pretty sure that includes all gamers, even people who play casual stuff like Farmville, Candy Crush or Wii Fit. The majority of gamers who play games like Call of Duty or Mortal Kombat are men and the games are designed to reflect that. Developers aren’t going to listen to a few feminists whining about how they think games are sexist. They’re gonna listen to the larger majority who actually buy their stuff.
Another thing is I never said female gamers aren’t harassed. I said it doesn’t happen only or even predominantly to them. It happens to everyone and I’ve been playing games online for a long time, since about 2004 or so. Gamers can be very hostile to each other and I’m not sure why to be honest but I know it was happening long before women started gaming in larger numbers. I will say that sometimes they can single out certain gamers who appear vulnerable or different in some way, like for example I remember one time playing Call of Duty and seeing this little kid getting harassed by the others in the game. Still, it isn’t women being specifically targeted because they happen to be women.
Now if you’re gonna argue that harassment and bullying in general are wrong, I can get behind that. But if you’re gonna say “oh poor me I’m an oppressed woman and gamers harass me because of my gender” then I’ll just write you off as a social justice warrior and not take your arguments seriously.
@4th, what demographics are you using to say that the vast majority of gamers who play call of duty etc are men?
*preemptively asks for mercy from the blockquote mammoth*
Why, exactly, doesn’t this matter? If our hobby is filled with things we believe to be harmful, shouldn’t we care? Shouldn’t we speak up about it to the people who have the power to start changing things? Even if the current state of games was nothing more than pure, unsullied market dynamics at work, if it’s accidentally producing something toxic, shouldn’t somebody say something?
Lots of us have, too. Some of us longer than that. Most of us commenting here are adults. A good number of us play video games. This is truly not an alien, newfangled realm to us.
And again—leaving aside the “before women started gaming” part—how is this supposed to make anything okay? Isn’t this something that gaming would be better without? I’m not talking about good natured trash-talk; I’m talking about racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs, death threats, stalking, etc. etc. There is no reason that people should be terrible to each other because of a game.
If you think that people can get singled out for being “different in some way,” and you think that women are a pronounced minority in games, then why do you find it so hard to believe that women and girls receive harassment in a way that men and boys don’t?
Harassment and bullying in general ARE wrong. Treating people like dirt is a bad thing. That should stop. That’s part of why I am all for having good community moderation, easy and safe ways to report abuse, etc.
But while anyone can get an angry tirade from some snotty jerk who thinks you don’t play the game well enough, it is far and away women who get pounced on simply for using voice chat. We’re the ones who get called horrible slurs for having a feminine-sounding handle. We’re the ones who get graphically sexually threatened and/or propositioned. We’re the ones who, if we perform poorly, will not just get called a n00b, but will also get berated for being a girl, and “this is why girls shouldn’t play games.” We’re the ones who, if we perform well, will be accused of cheating or having our boyfriend play for us. We’re the ones who will have total strangers fantasizing about our bodies, or describing how they want to sexually violate us. We are the ones getting creepy PMs and whispers asking us to send nudes.
Games are great. Some gaming communities are awesome. I have made great friends with both men and women through playing games with them online, and I think that *most* gamers are perfectly nice people who are just there to have fun But it is some serious head-in-the-sand nonsense to claim that women don’t get harassed purely because of our gender.
The feminists speaking up about sexism in games and gaming are gamers most of the time. In other words, they are the market. Why does a consumer suddenly not count if that consumer is a feminist and/or a women? I haven’t been a gamer other than bubble shooters and solitaire since the nineties and I’m constantly scrolling past entire long conversations on this site because there are so many gamers here and when they get to talking about games it’s a whole foreign language to me. So just stop trying to pull the “real gamers” card. People here know what they’re talking about.
Also, what evidence do you have that women have only started gaming recently? You keep saying this again and again but it doesn’t reflect any reality I recognize. My friends and I were all obsessed with the Nintendo when I was a kid. A lot of women here have been gaming since we were kids. I seem to remember us pointing that out to you already. Stop acting like gaming is some new trend that women jumped on to be cool. You seem so invested in the fake geek girl myth that you’re unable to even comprehend our posts.
@ 4th
1980. That’s when I started playing video games. Nearly a quarter century more experience than you. And guess what? The viciousness and animosity towards fellow gamers that you claim is part and parcel of video game culture Simply. Wasn’t. There.
So when did it arrive? Certainly after the perceptual shift to “games are for boys.” At a best guess, the paradigm of negative interaction largely stems from the rise of online multiplayer. Internet anonymity both diminished the consequences of poor behaviour and served to de-humanize the targets of the attack. And it wasn’t simply opponents getting attacked; it was, and still remains, anyone who was different. Which most certainly included women.
To say that women aren’t being attacked for being women is either willfully ignorant or glaringly naive, but let’s set that aside for now. You see, if even they aren’t being attacked because they are women, they are still being attacked as women. The tone and language of attacks on (perceived) males gamer versus (perceived) female gamers is noticeably different in a far too predictable way. Hell, even the attacks on male gamers often resort to negative comparisons to women.
You want to spout the same old line regarding market forces, complete with a side of casual sexism (in case you missed it, it was your implication that women largely play casual game and thus aren’t representative of “true” gamers) but you seem oblivious to the fact that all this talk about misogyny and under-representation is a sizable chunk of the market dictating what they want to see in gaming. Telling us to hush because “that is what the market dictates” just isn’t going to cut it.
Nobody missed your point. Your point is based on ignorance and stupidity.
Again, as I said before, economics and market forces do not work this way. The market is not a popularity contest with a single winner. If it worked the way you think, there would be no clothes available for men, because most consumers of clothing are women. By your logic, everyone should be wearing women’s clothing because: free market!
Obviously this is nonsense, because your ideas about how the market works are based in no facts, no knowledge, and no common sense.
Developer: Hmmm. I can make 98% of NPCs and 100% of PCs in my game male, and make the other 2% of NPCs into cheesecake, or I can put regular clothes on the women, make the gender ratio of NPCs closer to parity, and give players the option to play female characters. If I take that option, I’ll lose the 10% of male gamers who won’t buy games if they can’t get wank material out of them, but I’ll increase my user base by the 40% of gamers who are women. That works out to about 50%-60% increase in revenue. Obviously I need to leave that money on the table, because the 4th troll told me that the free market doesn’t operate that way.
@the 4th
Dude, I don’t know if you think recent gaming console have been fitted for a vagina magnet, but I’ve been gaming since 1993, brah, and I’m a woman. My mom has been gaming since 1978-79 (she doesn’t remember the exact year), starting with Pong. She’s an O.G.: Original Gamer. She’s probably been gaming longer than you have been alive.
Dude, if the free market dictated that most games cater to dudes because they made up most of the visible demographic, and now games are catered to more women and a generally more diverse demographic, then the free market has asserted its will, and you should just roll with it. Your arguments seem to boil down to: the way things exist are as they should be. So by that logic, the very presence of SJW-sympathetic games means they *should* exist. I mean there was a demand from the consumers for such things, and the industry decided to supply that demand in order to make the monies. Why should it bother you and other gamergaters? Just don’t play those games you don’t like. Isn’t that what some ggers are telling others to do, play what you like?
4th,
Just out of curiosity, how old are you? Alot of basic facts about the world seem to be brand new news to you. Women just started gaming? You get to tell me when something hurts me. I’m not allowed to decide that for myself? Why would you even think that?
You’re packing around massive amounts of privilege and ignorance. It’s as if when you have a hangnail you think it’s more important that someone else’s tumor.
…or everyone else’s tumors.
It’s a sickening thing to see. Please stop it. Try not being a petulant jerk. It’s a horrible thing to inflict upon others.
Oh, also, her friend, another woman, owned that version of Pong my mom started gaming with, so, yeah.
4th,
How is criticism not the market?
Consumers are saying they want a better product. They are pointing out exactly what ways they believe the product needs to be improved in order for them to enjoy and thus spend $ on it. Critics are pointing out that prejudice is causing people to turn away from this product and dislike the culture surrounding this product.Producers can do with that info what they will.
Will producers of games choose to move toward a wider market and better satisfy their existing fans or will they continue encourage a dangerous and degrading culture that is shrinking their market and making them look like a bunch of assholes who rely on tropes because they’re too lazy to write a good game?
I have a pretty good hunch and you do too. That’s why you’re so angry. It’s another loss for team Bigoted Shitheads.
In reality, of course, content producer are not perfectly rational profit maximizers. It’s true that companies have been shamed into canceling or not making products that would have sold well but offended some powerful group or other. It’s hypothetically possible to imagine a world in which people still want to buy Grand Theft Auto games, but Rockstar closes shop because of the deep shame they feel when Anita Sarkeesian says their games are sexist.
However, the reality is that it’s mostly products women and gay folk like that get canceled out of shame or harassment, not products for straight men.
Really? I only play Farmville, Candy Crush, and Wii Fit because feeemale?
All my games must be mislabeled then. All 200+ of them.
Candy Crush has gotten really dark since they added all the bludgeoning and murder, by the way.
And Wii Fit sure does have a lot of icky zombies. And I seem to not be getting any fitter.
And Farmville reminds me of a game…what was it…? Oh, right! Harvest Moon!
http://replygif.net/i/538.gif
Oh wait, you were serious? You need an education, son.
Holy shit, really?
I’ve been playing games for a whole decade longer than you!
Kid’s a newb. I’ve been playin’ since the mid-80s. Does he even know why people call things “Nintendo hard”?
I’ve so had it with these fake geek boys. They’re just trying to get attention from true gamer women; it’s sickening.
Pah, unless you played “Spacewar!” when it came out you’re all noobs.
And I mean on the PDP-1; not you PDP-11 Johnny-come-lately’s
😉
In their defense, I think they’re talking about when they started playing online and not talking about when they actually started video games, especially since we’re talking about online harassment.
However, the comment about “when women started gaming” was stupid. Women have always gamed and will always game. Deal.