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!
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This can only be good news. The more set backs the people associated with online PUA (of which Roosh is definitely associated with) the better off everyone will be. In addition, a source of hate online (I’m assuming since I didn’t actually see it, but its about gamergate so…), albeit an inconsequential one, goes down.
Really they think that Star Wars 7 is imposing gender equality? Someone hasn’t taken a single glance at any part of the Star Wars expanded universe that Disney torched. Funny how there was most likely no mention of Bastila Shan despite her being in a game that paved the way for Mass Effect. Or the canon heroine of its sequel the Exile. Damn Skyrim for making people forget that there were other open world games before Elder Scrolls doesn’t even help that up until Morrowind the games were kind of shit. Sorry if I seem bitter.
I agree, a tear…for the simple loss of comedic magic these asshats have provided in their short, meagre, pathetic existence.
Most of those articles look more like parodies than anything else. If I had come to this site by accident I would have assumed the whole thing was an elaborate joke.
The only time I’ve been exposed to Reaxxion since it’s been out (other than here of course) was during a comic book conversation about Wonder Woman getting a costume change. This is interesting since I devote more time on the internet to video games than to comic books.
“I take full blame for the site’s commercial failure.”
Gee, why? {addresses Roosh} You had a site and it didn’t work out; that’s something which happens all the time. But if it’s your idea that some kind of manning-up needs to be done here (though for the life of me I can’t see why) taking “responsibility” ought to be enough. More is theatrical. As a famous schoolteacher once said, one should cultivate an innate sense of these things. (No, dude, it wasn’t Aristotle. It was Miss Brodie. Thanks for asking, though.)
I need to say something about Star Wars because I’m 44 years old and went to see the first one in theaters several times when I was a girl. As a child we had disney princesses and Jodie Foster disney movies (thank god, Freaky Friday and Candleshoe, she was so tough and cool and not touched by make up or conventional beauty and she got to say really cool stuff and be in charge of herself)… but I distinctly remember as a child that it was pivotal moment when Princess Leia was rescued and suddenly we were clued in that she knew more about what was going on than they did and was a key player in the rebel alliance and barked, “will somebody get this walking carpet out of my way!?”
So I get mildly peeved when people minimize that when talking about the franchise. When I hear countless older black people talk about how Uhura in Star Trek made them happy and proud and verkelmpt.- I feel the same way about Leia, so back off. lol, Not saying anyone here has done that, but I keep seeing Star Wars getting mentioned and it always jogs memories on feminist terms. <3 🙂
So this is the way Reaxxion ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Fitting.
ZOMG.
Link?
Mammoth book club?
” If I had come to this site by accident I would have assumed the whole thing was an elaborate joke.”
You mean it’s not? David doesn’t just make this stuff up as satire? People — actual live people — actually say this shit?
This sounds like a good time to share my favourite moment of the whole GG saga.
Once upon a time, a man called Milo Yiannopoulos had earned himself a name for what passes for journalism at Breitbart. He had formerly been extremely scornful of men who play video games, but when the GGers started harassing women he saw them as
useful patsieshis ideological brethren, realised the error of his ways, and decided to join forces. After a while, Yiannopoulos announced that in order to foster even closer ties with the GGers, he would play a video game, and would welcome advice from the GGers as to which game should be his introduction.An internet poll was set up to allow GGers to vote on which game should be Yiannopoulos’s first. However, the quixotic mischeviousness of *chan culture is not easily contained, even when the GGers are trying to be nice to a new ally. As a result, the winning game was not what you’d expect.
It was Hatoful Boyfriend.
For those unfamiliar with Hatoful Boyfriend, it is a deconstruction of Japanese dating games. Instead of a boy who solves puzzles and raises his numbers in order to date girls, one plays a girl who solves puzzles and raises her numbers in order to date pigeons. There are no male characters, only pigeons. Like many deconstructions it’s extremely clever and comes across as very wryly funny if you are familiar with the genre, but will baffle anyone else. The fact that Hatoful Boyfriend was even considered as an option for the vote is puzzling, and the fact that it won can only be put down to wholesale trolling.
Yiannopoulos did not make good on his commitment to play Hatoful Boyfriend. Nobody really blamed him for this either, because oh come on.
Maybe I’m missing something but what does transgender acceptance have to do with video games?
EJ:
1) Correction, There is no “instead of a boy.” Hatoful Boyfriend is a parody of “otome games” which already have girl main characters. So a more correct statement is “instead of a girl who solves puzzles and raises her numbers in order to date boys, she does so to date pigeons. All the cliches of the characters are otome game cliches.
2) Hatoful Boyfriend is amaaaazing… He shoulda played it.
Wait. Whining about a feminist “boycott” of Game of Thrones? This why the comment section on the Mary Sue article of “sorry we wont promote GoT anymore” was overrun with boring trolls and refused to die?
http://www.themarysue.com/we-will-no-longer-be-promoting-hbos-game-of-thrones/
@EJ: That story made my day. I’d have loved to see Yiannopoulos whining about SJW pigeons and ethics in aviculture.
Thanks for the corrections, Tessa.
Anyone who dislike Glitchhikers can’t have a heart. The soundtrack in that game is absolutely amazing! Seriously, im not kidding, you can get it for free from the guy who made it.
Anyhow, that site sure looked like fun, it probably caused people to get a headache from seeing all the…. questionable headlines and content.
@Mike
Gamergate has done shit, really. In their quest to protect their own ignorant believes they have managed to harass a whole lot of women (and some men) take down ads for intel hardware from gamasutra (however that helps anyone is beyond me) and fuck with the kinja network some
And a whole lot of doxxing to.
Really, they haven’t accomplished shite cept’ for wallow in their own insecurity, fuck em’
dslucia1:
Exactly. But the problem with GG – and the reason Reaxxion flopped so miserably – is that they don’t want their own spaces to discuss and promote the games they like. What they want is for the entire industry to kowtow to their standards of “ethics” – i.e., no discussing sexism, racism, or any other kind of sociopolitical issues in game reviews.
For example, Polygon have always had a left-leaning ethos and frequently publish reviews examining games from a sociopolitical perspective. This has always been their MO. But GG can’t accept that maybe, just maybe, they are not the intended audience for this content and should seek their video game coverage elsewhere. They can’t stand the idea that a site like Polygon exists and is successful on any level, so instead, they attack its staff from behind the (at this point, almost entirely dissipated) smokescreen of “ethics”.
Alan Robertshaw:
Also exactly. GG is really fascinating (from a distance) because it’s an almost entirely self-reflexive entity: its primary reason for existing is to justify its own existence. But to maintain this, there needs to be the sense of resistance coming from the outside, otherwise the whole thing just collapses in on itself. They are extremely dependent on their perceived villains for their continued existence. This is why they have failed to lead by example and create a self-sustaining outlet for the type of “ethical” games journalism they claim to be fighting for.
Wait.. one of those articles was written by a CHAD?
Hey, it’s not fair to mock her for her generosity. She must be forgoing literally dozens of sales!
@History Nerd, I keep forgetting Jordan Owen wrote a book, I wonder if it’s up free anywhere.
@Tracy,
here’s the link to Judgy’s latest book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B012YMFYW0/ref=x_gr_w_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_uk-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738
Sadly it’s no longer free, but is free to read on Amazon kindle. I haven’t left it an amazon review, as I wouldn’t want to show up on her radar under my real name.
Sorry, I should given the .com link:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Fitness-Test-Janet-Bloomfield-ebook/dp/B012YMFYW0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
Funny, one of the two reviews describes it as an anti-feminist book, they can’t know that unless they’re a fanboy from her blog.
@tinyorc
Fucking nailed it. A+ deluxe.
Thinking about it:
I hypothesise that the reason Reaxxion failed is not that it’s poorly written by hateful people, but that it’s doing exactly what the GGers most despise: talking about the cultural meaning of video games instead of discussing tech specs, regurgitating press releases, printing advertising as editorial and other “objective” things. It may be a hard-right cultural critique, but it’s a cultural critique nonetheless.
Of course, since the GGers are deplorable people, their response hasn’t been to subject Reaxxion to the same barrage of hate that Polygon received but simply to ignore it. Meanwhile the sites giving them what they actually want – that is, advertising – are still getting their attention.