Cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian may have moved on from videogames, but Gamergaters (yes, they still exist) haven’t gotten over their obsession with her.
Earlier this month, Sarkeesian put out a video on the legendary Murasaki Shikibu, a Japanese woman who wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, a thousand years ago. The four minute video, a slick production featuring elegant Japanese-art-inspired animation, is part of Sarkeesian’s Ordinary Women: Daring To Defy History series, her followup to Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games.
A video about a female writer who lived over 900 years before videogames were invented might not seem like an obvious target for the inhabitants of Kotaku In Action, the main Gamergate (or perhaps post-Gamergate?) hangout on Reddit. But it’s Sarkeesian, so the fake novel-reader boys on KiA rev up their outrage engines.
In a thread inspired by Sarkeesian’s video, a dedicated Sarkeesian-hater called SupremeReader stirs the pot with a trolly claim that Sarkeesian is guilty of “Armenian appropriation of Japanese culture around the Samhain holiday).” In a followup comment, he posts a photo of Sarkeesian in profile to show off her allegedly distinctive Armenian nose.
Others are outraged that her video, which they hated, wasn’t long enough for their tastes, a complaint that brings to mind the old joke about two diners at a restaurant grousing that “the food is terrible—and such small portions!”
“3 f*cking minutes is a joke of a historic video,” complains spatchbo.
Holy shit are people being seriously scammed by this. My professor from Tokyo Broadcasting is going to lose his shit.
Anita you are a horrible historian. Please do more work. This is so bad its a joke of itself. I can actually say I have a far better education on this than she had 30,000$ to come up with. You are a sad state of whatever you are trying to be. Besides a con-artists.
Rygar_the_Beast offers a similar, and similarly badly written, assessment.
You are trying to bring this women up to the light you think they are not in? A f*ck less than a 4 minute video isnt helping.
F*ck, for 3.50 i can give a person the wiki address to the page for this woman that probably has at least as much info about her in the introductory paragraph.
Sarkeesian’s video, while short, is in fact packed with information. It makes no pretense of being the final word on Murasaki, but rather serves as an intellectual appetizer of sorts, inviting viewers to pick up a copy of The Tale of Genji and read it for themselves.
But apparently Gamergaters find it hard to understand videos that aren’t meandering six-hour monologues over still pictures.
*Squeezes eyes shut, bumps into several things and trips over the cat, while blindly groping for the mind bleach*
I hope that Anita takes spatchbo’s thoughtful, nuanced critique to heart. This individual obviously is an eminently capable historian, able to judge the worth of Anita’s project.
So when this scholar says, “I have a far better education on this than she had 30,000$ to come up with,” you know he or she speaks with the voice of authority.
It’s all about ethics in lazy bullshittery.
@Scildfreja, @Jesalin
I read this to my boyfriend. Couldn’t get through it without laughing.
@Paradoxical: If by the 1932 film you mean White Zombie, yeah it’s pretty good. Has a very nice performance by Bela Lugosi. Might seem kind of slow if you’re used to the post-Romero gutmunchers, though.
@Fishy Goat
I assumed that was a reference to her Bitcoin/buttcoin comments, and expected the link to go to some unholy hybrid of American conservatism and Timebanking. Glad to be wrong.
http://i49.tinypic.com/29x9kcm.jpg
I know, right? It’s Sah-win. Fuckers.
Also, speaking of ponies, I learned something today about those little apple water ponies: Someone’s trying REALLY, REALLY hard to compensate for the lack of Applejack merchandise.
Seriously. I opened five of them today (One of each of the Mane Six except Pinkie) and got three Applejacks. (Though, really, is anyone surprised? I mean, it IS apple flavored water.)
Counting the two that are in mine, and the one in roommates’ collection: We have like eight of them. I have one for my collection and one for my dolls (because they’re fantastic doll props, just the right size! So I’m getting two collections for that reason. >.>), and Roommates have one for their collection.
[Their collection consists of everyone but Twilight, and my collection is missing Rainbow Dash and Twilight.]
And I have like five extras just sitting around and I don’t know what to do with them.
http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s598/Paradoxys3DS/IMG_0112_zpsnij0qbvu.jpg
Anyone want an apple pony?
Oh, and Scildfreja: I have a little Fluttershy if you want her. Since I know I’m going to be buying more anyways, I’d be more than happy to give her to you, since I’ll more than likely find another after the sea of Applejacks.
And SFHC, I’m still looking for a dupe Rainbow, but don’t worry I’ll be getting more soon!
[[EDIT]]
Yes, that’s the one. I couldn’t remember the name of it. I’m glad it has your reccomendation. I can’t wait to watch it. 😀
Also, I painted my nails a lovely lavender color I got from work, and I coated it with silver sparkles I got from the local dollar store. I am most fashionable. (Though, note to self: Please don’t paint your nails when tipsy on ale again. It makes such a mess…)
Shit, I almost forgot @Axecalibur: I fucking love that gif. Those two are amazing.
There’s only ONE WORD to describe these GG dudes, and I’m gonna spell it out. S! A! W! F! T! SAAAAAWFT!
If all my fellow Canadian mammotheers are going to play the “post super nostalgic Canadiana” game, then I’m going to have to follow suit. Checkmate, canucks:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=upsZZ2s3xv8
@Scildfreja, Fishy Goat
This was probably my favourite.
Edit: Log Driver’s Waltz was absurdly catchy, but I stand by my House Hippos.
@Paradoxy
These gamergata hatas is sawft like mashed potatas, how you doin? ?
Two words, ‘Buttcoin mining’.
*Sets out to find the river Lethe*
@Atlas
I feel *so* old now.
I found a picture of the buttcoin.
It’s a pencil sketch so it’s not gross, but it is a butt so it may be NSFW and I’ll try to put it behind a link. I’m bad at tech though. Fingers crossed!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjn_JWjl4bQAhXr7IMKHd3qAZQQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonlyonetv.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FButtcoins&psig=AFQjCNE_Lb5ZiD-tPi-IOY6Hnb-2vwBucQ&ust=1478042407910330
@dlouwe
I see your hippos and raise you a Hal and Joanne:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u6HoMhktYjM
Your move 🙂
I would bet none of them has ever read it seeing as its abut as far from hot blooded samurai action as you can get and from what I understand its slow and hard to understand with out a bunch of foot notes or a working understanding of the imperial court.
They might like the part abut Genji grooming a little girl to be his wife but I would think the casual (male) bisexuality would be a turn off for most GGers.
They saw “Sarkeesian,” “considered first novel” and “written by a woman,” and promptly lost their shit.
They couldn’t care less about Murasaki Shikibu or The Tale of Genji; all they GAF about is hatehatehateANITAhatehatehate.
ETA: WWTH, BWA HA HA HA!!
The significance of Samhain here? Was Anita, an Armenian by descent, supposed to be observing ‘Summer’s End’ ? WTF? If nothing else people reading that might learn what it is, or at least come across Glenn Danzig’s post-misfits 80’s outfit of the same name (entertaining horror punk, if that’s your thing).
@Bryce: Apparently she did it around Halloween, so he threw in the word Samhain to make it seem like he knew a big, mysterious-sounding word.
Unless he does actually celebrate it, in which (heh) case, he can fuck right out of my holiday.
As far as I’m concerned, we don’t need to have any intolerant assholes in the pagan community.
I completely agree!
The Genji is the female gaze, if it was made in modern times people would accuse it of being shoujo and fujo bait that REAL anime/manga fans wouldn’t dare look at.
It like an appropriation singularity,
They are appropriating a holiday that was appropriated by Christianity which is now used as an excuse to appropriate the trappings of other cultures as well as appropriating the concept of “cultural appropriation” from the social justice community (and the justified anger of peoples who’s culture has been appropriated on top of that),
its pretty meta.
@Ooglyboggles
I’ve seen it compared to twilight in terms of its popularity and target demographic in its day.
Happy Samhain Everybody!!
http://i.imgur.com/GeiiWx0.jpg
(There is a stone circle in that picture but I’m a pretty rubbish photographer)
After watching the video in question, I would say that its indeed rather short and could easily be expended by talking about the historical context in which Murasaki lived and wrote. This doesn’t make the video bad at all. It’s a nice introduction and if you like small blurbs of easily digestible information to make you smarter, it’s very well done. I personaly didn’t know about this character at all, despite the fact I have studied history for several years (and still do), so I am not disapointed to have learned about it at all. I guess I will attempt to find the novels by pure curiosity. The real problem is that Sarkeesian speaks at an insane rate in this video (I haven’t seen any of her other videos so I don’t know if its a common issue with her). It could have easily been extended to almost six minutes if she simply talked a little bit slower.
@wwth
RIP In Peace
———————–
Scildfreja
@Paradoxy, let me know when you get two first!
As for the Tale of Genji, it’s lovely. For those who would like a review, here’s a great one:
EDIT: epronovost, the videos above are about an hour in total and give you the story pretty well, including great discussions on its cultural significance. The story is basically like the Illiad; it’s a cultural touchstone.