Apparently Davis Aurini is capable of sometimes telling the truth.
As you may recall, the bald, semi-Nazi stain on humanity released his version of The Sarkeesian Effect (that was officially not his version of The Sarkeesian Effect) last week to something less than universal acclaim, with one critic describing the “film” as “worse than a dead squirrel in your wall.”
Ok, that was me.
Weirdly, it turns out that Aurini actually agrees with some of my criticisms. While still maintaining that his not-version of The Sarkeesian Effect is a “damn good film,” he admitted on a livestream last night that the section of his film critiquing Anita Sarkeesian’s alleged lies was “crap.”
He then suggested it would have been much better … if he’d actually watched Sarkeesian’s videos.
Yep. He spent a year — and tens of thousands of dollars of other people’s money — ostensibly making a film about Sarkeesian. But somehow he never got around to watching any of her videos.
ETHICS!
You can hear the whole segment on “Bechtloff’s Saturday Night Livestream: Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour” on Youtube here. (The link should take you to the relevant portion of the livestrean, which starts just short of an hour and twenty minutes in.)
Here are the highlights.
In this first clip, Aurini responds to someone with a question about his attacks on Sarkeesian’s alleged dishonesty.
This clip ends a bit abruptly because Aurini was cut off by Bechtloff before finishing his sentence. Luckily, he went on to elaborate on his point. And threw in in a racial slur while he was at it, because why not?
And here he admits he didn’t bother to watch Sarkeesian’s videos.
It’s about ethics in making an entire film about someone without actually knowing anything about them.
EDITED TO ADD:
We Hunted the Mammoth has obtained this footage of Davis Aurini as a child.
H/T — Thanks to the alert reader who pointed me to the relevant section of the livestream.
Mike P-
Sealioning looks like this
(warning: Im going to use some examples of actual mean language here, lightly censored)
Me(on twitter): the harassment of Zoe Quinn by GamerGate is wrong.
GG SeaLion1: excuse me, do you have evidence of harassment?
Me: yes here is a link to a NYT article-
GGer2: – C*nt!
GGer3: shut up stupid
GGer4: the NYT is a liberal rag
GGer5: guys dont touch the poop
GGer6: clickbait!
GGer7: ugly tr@nn*
GG Sealion1: that evidence is not convincing to me, prove it more better?
Me: ugh stop harassing me block block block report block…
GGSL2: excuse me, do you have evidence of harassment?
GGer Swarm: *rapid fire abuse continues* *threats, maybe something more serious like doxxing*
Me: Go away!! this is awful! someone help me!
GGSL1: Why cant you defend your position, are you a lying attention w**re?
GGSL3: Actually Gamergate is about ethics in journalism
GGSL2: GG doesnt harass anyone. Thats not true. can you prove it?
Me: Its happening right now, to me!
GGhoard: *harassment continues*
GGSL2: all I did was ask an innocent question. Why wont you politely indulge me?
GGSL4: actually, GG never harasses anyone its about ethics in journalism.
*repeat until I delete my account, if I can do so without fearing doing so will endanger me due to the nature of harassment (ie impersonation)*
Not to mention that whole ‘advertising’ thing, which exists solely for the purpose of altering people’s opinions and attitudes towards a subject.
Man standing, back facing camera, looking over shoulder: brooding, impassive, indifferent, powerful. Never smiling.
Woman standing, back facing camera, looking over shoulder, not smiling: sultry, sexy, femme fatale. If smiling: energetic, ‘fun’, sexy.
Strategic Butt Coverings episode, as said above!
I really love Tracer’s design and am thrilled that they decided to drop the butt-pose. She’s too cool of a character! Story-wise she’s just ridiculously witty and fun, and gameplay she’s the definition of a glass cannon – fast beyond belief, powerful if played right, and really challenging to play. And her design’s just too awesome.
It’s nice to get an energetic, fun, playful character without it having a required “sexual availability” characteristic glued on. Tracer deserves better!
@Kale, that sound like it was an awful experience :C
@LindseyIrene, oh for goodness sake. I clicked your link, and the general feel of the place is “women are shallow, vapid b*tches who should be punished for not being sexy to me, and I just don’t understand why none of those stupid sl*ts will love me! D:”
@Karalora:
http://www.colourbox.com/preview/3659293-hand-with-a-cigarette-lighter-on-a-black-background.jpg
@ Viscaria
My favorite part is where some commenter calls women the Hitlers of sex. By not having sex with men we are not attracted to, we are genociding them!
@Scild yup, thnx, its why I have decided to protect my identity online & as a writer am afraid to become too well known, which is part of why Ive given up on a full-on writing career (tbh $ is a bigger factor, I like eating). The point is that what a sealion does is insert himself into that chaos with a fake air of innocent polite inquery, but will ultimately reject all evidence, refuse to end the “debate” when I decline indulging him in one, and ultimately get all smug & turn ugly as if me declining somehow proves his “seekrit” agenda right.
& that, my children, is the tale of the Sea Lion.
@Linds
Internet Nazi logic:
Black & other not-white people existing, immigration, etc: genocide
women choosing their own sex partners, getting abortions, & generally supporting equality: genocide
the Holocaust TOTES NOT genocide, how dare you, its a lie & also the joos had it comin!
Looks like it’s not just video games that have misogyny problems–here’s an article [trigger warning] about one woman’s experiences in the table-top gaming world. At one point, she is actually told, “Find another hobby or you’re going to die.”
I do too. I’m fortunate enough to have a career path that does a lot of work from home and contract work, so I don’t have to really put myself out in the world all that much if I don’t want to.
That is basically what a sea lion does, yes! I often wonder if it’s done as a deliberate bad-faith tactic, or if it’s a natural result of hyperactive confirmation bias + a strong attachment to “being right” + poor empathy. Likely both, i figure. There’s interesting psychology going on in there!
Much better studied at a distance, though.
@LindsayIrene … ugh. ugh. That article is disgusting.
because I actually did talk to a lot of these trolls for way too long, I can honestly say its mostly the former, bc only like 2/100 of them sounded at all like they were even listening to me amd showed me any respect or any connection to reality. GG duped a lot of ppl who ended up abandoning ship, esp NYS ppl who eventually got harassed out of the club for being trans or whatever. things like infighting and boredom setting in got the rest. I also suspect that a lot of the so-called “antiGG harassing GG women” was actually GGers themselves, but thats just speculation, its not like self proclaimed liberals are never sexist. similarly, I think a lot of the “Im a woman pro-GG!” accounts were created by men.If they werent so decimated Id be afraid to even talk about it even here.
@What is a Man
I know I’m late for the party, but if you happen to be around…
Nazi Germany, perhaps? Or the Christians you seem to despise so much?
Or are just “stupid” people liable to being manipulated, and gamers are all “smart” and “special”?
I did actually know what sea lioning is; I was just making a little joke based on Troll Boy’s name. Text-based sarcasm has failed me once again.
Incidentally, that “miserable pile of secrets” quote originally came from some French novelist or other. *googles* Andre Malraux. Just a little factlet I found interesting, because I’m a nerd.
lol,
a joke made richer by virtue of its initial failure!
https://internetsarcasm.com
@What is a Man
Since we have eyeballs and paid attention to the context within which “The Sarkeesian Effect” was produced. The same social activity that produced gamergate fueled this.
Irrelevant. The point of this thread is that you can’t ethically critique things you have not assessed for yourself and act like you are doing some sort of investigational work. Instead what you have is roumor-mongering-as-movie.
Emphasis mine.
Let me get this straight, YOU claim there is no evidence supporting Sarkeesian’s conclusions and you want us to do the work demonstrating it? You tried to hide it by putting the assertion after the sentence, but this is still an argument that “There is no evidence that supports Sarkeesian’s conclusions.”
@chippywillbethere
I only found out about the Tracer ‘scandal’ a day or so after it went down, but I’m so glad Blizzard is being so mature about this game. So many creators love to just put their fingers in their ears and go “LA LA LA CANT HEAR YOU”.
My favourite thing about the Tracer scandal is that it’s so demonstrative. A person speaks up about a thing they think should be changed during a game that is is in beta; the company considers it and goes “yeah, that’s actually right. We’ll change it.”
It would have ended there, and no one would have cared, but the Great Gamer Outrage Machine spun up and all of a sudden it’s a thing. News at 11, game company changes in-development game! Alert the masses!
And they’ve got the gall to say that it’s “SJWs” who are the sensitive ones who need their feelings protected.
How likely is it that this would have happened in reverse? “Hey, Blizzard, I think Tracer should have more sexy confidence!” “Hm, okay, that fits her character. We’ll change it.” Would they be outraged then? Funny how they don’t get upset at the release of schoolgirl outfits and sexy nurse re-skins of League of Legends characters, but it’s a grave offense against free speech if they take away a butt picture.
Bleh. Rant over!
It seems like this thread at large has already done a good job of rebutting this point, so I’d just like to note a frustrating trend re: this general argument. Which is: I feel like I’ve seen a lot of GG/freeze peach/anti-feminist/etc. types insisting that there should realistically be some single piece of scientific evidence that succinctly shows all the potential relationships between art/media and real-world actions, and then insisting that without this single piece of research, we should all just assume that art and media actually have no effect on peoples’ actions. This is A) an intellectually-lazy deferral to the status quo; B) an example of misapplied quasi-religious faith in the omniscience of scientific research (as if an incredibly complex subject – the relationship between art and life – which has occupied countless thinkers for thousands of years could be easily wrapped-up with just a bit of research); and C) it seems like a bit of willful ignorance in the face of a pretty simple and obvious concept. I mean, I hate to rely on “common sense” or whatever, but come on: do we really need to scientifically prove the idea that, you know, being exposed to ideas might cause people to think about those ideas…?
Oh and in case it needs to be said: there is, of course, lots of scientific research and evidence showing relationships between fictional stories and real-world actions (cultivation theory, etc.) to say nothing of all the non-scientific evidence (i.e. the influence that myths and religious texts have had on, um, the whole entire world).
Just like with “Shirtgate,” or as it was originally known, “One snarky tweet.”
@Mike except in actual science, one single study that hasnt been repeated means approx. bumpkiss.
re: Freeze peach
their “logick” is that women saying they dislike bigotry is censorship, whereas men threatening to kill women for speaking their minds is freeze peach
Yes Scildfreja. All I want to know is if that cartoon squirrel ever found love.
She sure did.
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_medium/14/145984/4409069-tumblr_njqs65rohk1tcg2pqo1_1280.jpg
I really wish trolls came in here with something more original. Recently they’ve been yawn-worthy as well as annoying.
@Kale and all the rest of you
Clearly, none of you actually watched the video of that event. Dr. Warren Farrell was nothing but civil the entire time, and he didn’t just go around bashing women like you say. The most of that lecture was him discussing real issues that men face today, issues such as male disposability, the effects of feminizing hormones in our water supplies on male and female puberty, woman as a sex machine vs. man as a success machine, male suicides (“Cry me a river!” I’ve heard feminists say), male inability to express emotion publicly without being treated with disdain, and the tendency for women to either marry up or drop their husbands for a wealthier man as soon as it’s no longer economically advantageous to keep him around. Men see women as incubators, women see men as ATMs.