It is with heavy heart that I bring you this news: Reaxxion, the dopey video game site that racist skeezeball PUA and rape legalization proponent Roosh V set up at the height of #Gamergate, has been shut down.
Wait, did I say “with heavy heart?” I meant AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Anyhoo, so earlier today, Roosh broke the heart of dozens of readers by announcing that Reaxxion, his opportunistic and ill-concieved attempt to cash in on #Gamergate, would be no more.
I’ve decided to close Reaxxion after approximately nine months of operation. Traffic has not grown to a level that allows the site to financially sustain itself. We have not been able to consistently surpass 250,000 page views a month.
I take full blame for the site’s commercial failure. The writers and editor did a great job trying to achieve my vision of what Reaxxion should be, but in spite of that, the growth did not occur. I attribute this failure to creating the site from a spontaneous idea (in response to gamergate) instead of developing it organically based on an actual need. The fact the gamergate continues to be successful and influential in other communities shows that I did not even provide a substantial need to the audience it was intended for.
(Emphasis mine.)
Setting aside Roosh’s painfully inept writing — you don’t provide needs, you repugnant doofus, you fill them — I will grant him a few points for at least admitting his failure here; others in the extended manosphere, well, let’s jsut say they aren’t so good at this.
The “editor” in question is the lovely and talented Matt Forney; the loss of this “job” will presumably enable him to spend more time with his family stewing in his own rancid juices.
If Forney or any of the site’s writers were actually getting paid for this, it’s possible that Roosh lost a not-insignificant amount of money on this attempted cash-grab. (The amount of ad revenue you get for 250k views a month is pretty tiny.) The cloud to this silver lining is that the money Roosh may have lost would have mostly been going to people as shitty as he is.
Let’s look back at some of Reaxxion’s coverage of, er, video games, from the last few months to see what we’ll be missing:
Come to think of it, I think I will miss them!
H/T — @tauriqmoosa, for the tip!
—
Please read the recently revised COMMENTS POLICY before commenting.
@Mike
Didn’t know that about Intel. Fucked it as they say.
(GG fucked it, that is)
I can’t recall Anita saying that she intended her videos to be used in schools (which is a deceptive word anyway when we’re clearly talking about universities), but I did think she (or someone?) had mentioned that they have been used in classes.
And good for her. The videos aren’t perfect or enormous in scope, but they’d work really well as fodder for one session of a Media Studies class or of certain Gender Studies classes.
@Orion: Totally. I think Anita’s videos aren’t perfect, but they’re great for starting a conversation we really need to have when it comes to games.
Same here. The videos didn’t tell me anything I wasn’t already aware of, but I saw the videos as a sign that videogames are starting to be taken seriously as a creative medium and not just a bunch of glorified toys.
That’s why I really dislike her “critics” – other than the fact getting upset over people analyzing tropes (so…why don’t they go after TV Tropes as well, or is that “totally different”?), they really don’t have anything to say other than they think she’s wrong. They obviously don’t want to contribute to the discussion in any meaningful way than talk about how her videos made them “feel bad” (as if anyone should give a good goddamn shit).
I just can’t stand these anti-intellectual, overgrown smegma and their weird need to stifle conversations about Art that go beyond “it was fun” and “the graphics are good.” They could easily mind their own business and let others be, but no, they have to make it about themselves and self-victimize over the completely non-existent SJW take-over of their games.
The Gamegaters don’t understand the role of criticism in the development of an art form? I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you. (I would be shocked if they DID understand it.)
My earlier comment on Trump and Gamergaters may have been a little too cryptic. I was reflecting on the following comment about Trump by Jonathan Chait’s in his NY Mag blog:
Gamergate and the Tea Party consist mostly of people who are angry — “undifferentiated resentment” seems an accurate description — but not very articulate, so they are willing to support someone who expresses their anger articulately regardless of what s/he might have said or believed in the past. Nothing matters except that he is willing to be mad at the people trhey have selected to blame for the problems in their lives.
Her videos are a lot more interesting, informative, and well-made than most of the videos I’ve watched in school.
@katz
one reason for that being it wasn’t made by a bunch of old white dudes.
I have a (non-serious) theory that all the boring history books were written by men and all the interesting ones were written by women. Not actually true but there is a certain amount of correlation between old white male authors and the whole dry-dates-and-facts style of history, while more diverse authors are more likely to approach history from the perspective of actual human experience, I find.
@katz
sounds plausible. One thing i’ve found when reading older fiction, books form the 1900 to 1950 etc, is that a lot of the writing in them by authors that are old white dudes with big ol’ beards is that their writing style and ideals are very similar.
They are also very racist, and sexist. shite
Orion:
One of the stretch goals for the Tropes Vs. Women in Videogames kickstarter was to create a free classroom curriculum based on the material. I’m not sure if that’s been achieved yet, but I’ve seen a few tweets/comments from teachers and lecturers who have used her videos in classes.
The “taking responsibility” is a combined sop to the people who are in GG and supporting him with strokes (and maybe money) and a sop to his ego. If it was just another failed website/low traffic blog, than he wasn’t doing anything important, or meaningful. He was just having another wank in public,
This is actually a big relief for me because Roosh and his followers scare the bejesus out of me. I know GG has pretty much turned to the Dark Side since it’s initial inception but perhaps a good part of them don’t have that True Redpill Hate
@NickNameNick
I couldn’t possibly agree with you more. What you said about GG being anti-intellectual is spot on. They are very opposed to any sort of complex or deep analysis of games. If it’s even slightly more nuanced then GAEMZ R FUN, HAHAHA, then it’s apparently SJW propaganda or some stupid-ass bullshit.
From what I’ve read, there’s kind of an anti-indie developer theme as well, as indie devs tend to be a bit more daring & narrative based. Not surprising, really.