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 terribleâand 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.
A bit off-topic, and no disrespect to Lorde intended, but I just want to mention that this aphorism has always bothered me a bit. People use it to try and shut-down what might otherwise be meaningful action/activism/etc.; it’s elemental enough that practically anything can be cast as one of “the master’s tools;” and, on a basic level, it’s a confusing metaphor: why couldn’t the master’s tools be used to dismantle his house? A hammer can still smash a window regardless of who ostensibly owns it. I guess one could argue that once the slaves have claimed the hammer as their own it’s no longer one of “the master’s tools,” but then why distinguish it as such to start with? In the context of Lorde’s statement it makes sense – you can’t change the racist and patriarchal norms of western academia if your thought emerges from a racist and patriarchal framework – but the same simplicity and pithiness that makes the metaphor so powerful also means it gets applied to lots of situations that it maybe isn’t suited for.
So, to go back to this current post: I actually disagree; I think that oftentimes you can use the tools of a movement against that movement – but you have to learn to use the tools first.
@Handsome “Punkle Stan” Jack
Yes, that’s what I was thinking too. If I wasn’t endeared to the discussion already, that just compounded it!
@Alan Robertshaw
Yes, that’s indeed exactly what I’ve always understood to be the case.
@Gipsz Jakab
I understand that, but that isn’t what people here were saying. They were assuming that these goons pronounce it wrong, and then saying things such as ‘fuck them!’ for that hypothetical situation. The pronunciation wasn’t an issue before, it was brought up and then people who do such things mocked.
@Paradoxical Intention- Mobile
That is what was said. The hypothetical mispronunciation was what was being mocked, and that is wrong.
They are certainly trying to use a big word to seem more impressive, but that isn’t what I’m contesting. The fact is that mispronunciation of a word has been used as some sort of mockable thing on its own, and that is not on.
In particular what offended me was that I was then told that someone’s mispronunciation of the word ‘rhetoric’ was ‘His âruh-tore-ickâ was rightly mocked.’ It certainly wasn’t ‘rightly’ mocked, that is a horrible thing to do. I pronounce it wrong, and I certainly do not deserve to be mocked for it. People should be corrected, not mocked. Where did politeness go?
Jarred H
Exactly.
“Holy shit are people being seriously scammed by this. My professor from Tokyo Broadcasting is going to lose his shit.”
Wait…this spatchbo guy attends school at Tokyo Broadcasting? Is there a for-profit university with that name? Are there regular broadcasts about “The Tale of Genji”? I’m confused here.
It’s cute when they try to use our jargon like they have any idea what it means.
@scildfreja
I can only say you know more than me about celtic history. However his real name is King Arthur Pendragon, he legally changed his name and i don’t think he is doing it for attention. Genuinely think he believes he is King Arthur’s rebirth (for whatever reason)
His campaign was to have the bones buried at stone henge returned there, which seems nobel to me. And his other campaign was that he wants free access to stonehenge without having to ‘pay to pray’. And since someone else mentioned Paganism is recognised religion maybe this is noble also.
Also, considering your thoughts on neo paganism, how do you feel about the covens that some poeople have mention they are a part of?
Also i beleive that there may be more records of celtic history than you suggested. Considering how often britain was invaded at the time, the records of forigners may well have been invaders who were there. Such as romans and the anglo saxons.
But really my point was not about king arthur but more about the neo right’s reference to Samhain as if it is part of their heritage, when quite clearly it is not.
@Valentine:
I think your last comment is more correctly directed to maghavan, not scildfreja.
Re. Mispronounciation
I pretty much mispronounce many words. Especially since my written English s much better than my spoken. But i agree with what people have said about ego, using big words to seem smart is the thing to laugh at, not the mispronouncing. It is a very cruel and easy way to cut someone down when you debate to just nit pick for pronounciation. But it doesn’t make you right. It just makes you a dickhead.
@Jared h.
Oh was she quoting someone else! I’m so sorry. I got confused X(
Samhain is a word in the Irish language, a language most people don’t speak. If one is going to use it one should learn the proper pronunciation. Irish pronunciation is not intuitive.
Well, now, THERE’S a slippery slope! There are a number of Christian denominations that contend that “real” Christianity died out when John of Patmos died, too, and are only now, “in these last days rekindled to bring the faithful souls etc., etc….” For myself, I don’t feel like I have the authority to say whether someone else’s spiritual commitment is “right” or not. My research has led me to believe that the Druidic religion was extinguished by a combination of Roman and Christian persecution, but I can’t say I’m right… I wasn’t there. I don’t remember if Lady Thompson, Crowley, and/or others who did the work that resulted in the modern Wicca religion believed themselves to be inspired (what I call an ecstatic experience, or “hearing the voice of the divine”) or not, been a while since I’ve researched that. In any case, they believe themselves to be the vessels of an ancient tradition. I don’t get to say otherwise.
Additionally, it’s important to note that “halloween”, “yule logs/Xmas trees”, and a dozen other traditions that the Christian culture has adopted, DID COME FROM pagan traditions of pre-christian Europe. These traditions were co-opted or appropriated by the Christian culture over time. They did not die out and get resurrected in modern times, they are carried over from a millennium in the past. Am I well-read enough to say that the traditions which 21st century Druidism are using haven’t been carried over as well??? Nope, not me.
p.s., apologies to anyone who practices Wicca or other paganism if I’ve mis-stated the history of your culture, it’s been decades since I’ve read much on that, and that’s a BIG (and thoroughly fascinating) subject.
@ nparker
It is also impolite to selectively quote someone in order to be righteously indignant about.
The person in my anecdote was rightly mocked because – and this is the important part you excised – he would argue that he was pronouncing it correctly; he was right, and everyone else was wrong.
And it is doubly impolite to misrepresent the person quoted – to put words in my mouth (or post) that were never said. Never, in any form or fashion, did I suggest that the simple act of mispronouncing a word should be mocked.
Rather, I did say though that when someone decides to use a big word or complex idea incorrectly (and ‘incorrectly’ does include pronunciation) with the sole purpose of talking down to others, I will mock them for it. And if they continue to assert, no, they’re right, even in the face of evidence to the contrary? More mocking.
If you disagree with that, fair enough, but please don’t concern troll me over something I never said.
Aside on mispronunciation: it’s quite possible to have learned a word solely through reading it and have no idea how it’s spoken if you haven’t taken the opportunity to look it up in a dictionary. I’ve fallen into that trap myself!
@ Shallang;
Well, THAT much is certain!!! I tried to learn Irish pronunciation when reading a book on the Ulster Cycle, that was very difficult. (O_o) I had to learn Russian pronunciation for a project at work, comparatively, that was easy.
@ all:
Speaking of the son of Uta Pendragon…, I saw on CNN where they found “Excalibur, the Sword of Kings” when digging at Tintagel Castle!! Actually, after reading the article, it turned out that was not the case at all, but still, that cycle of stories is fascinating as well!
@Paradoxy
Yeah, anyone who self-describes as an ‘Odinist’ is telling you they’re total scum. The other popular tell is ‘folkish/vĂślkisch’ as in ‘folkish Asatru’ or ‘folkish Heathen’ (I’ve noticed a large number of Asatru, racist and non seem to have claimed the term ‘heathen’ to distinguish themselves from the better known Celtic-flavoured neopaganism.)
@Alan
indeed, most of it predates the Celtic habitation of Britain by a similar amount of time, and nobody knows much of anything at all about the culture of whoever did build it, except that they made some distinctive types of stone tools.
@Weird Eddie
Nequam yes! ‘chaos’ was fucking baffling for me XD who would ever guess to say ‘kay-os’ from that is a smater person than me.
English has 21 different vowel sounds but only 5 letters to write them with, there is bound to be confusion. Also if anyone could tell me the proper name for things like ‘th’, ‘sh’ ‘ch’ etc i would be very grateful. đ
Eta for Eddie. Russian pronunciation is the way it’s meant to be! đ very simple.
@Eddie
I for one don’t think you have anything to apologize for. Especially since nothing in your comment boils down to ‘nuh-uh they don’t exist/died out therefore you can’t be one’, I get enough of that shit being trans.
The “folkish” bits were mentioned to me as well. Plenty of nasty people trying to “rebrand” themselves so they don’t come off as outright assholes, especially on tumblr where there’s a few “folk” and “Odinist” blogs. I’ve seen the screencaps, they are…not nice, to put it mildly.
Though, I didn’t know about the “heathen” bit. Ugh. I actually like that term, and flaunt it to pearl-clutching Christians who like to call practitioners that. Guess I can’t do that anymore. : /
Why do the alt-right seem insistent on taking so many awesome things and making them awful? Odin, Pepe the frog, and now “heathen”.
@ shallang
My Auntie Mebd would certainly agree with you.
@ valentine
The word “dipthongs” comes to mind, but I might just have dreamt that.
@ Dalillama
Thanx, I guess what I was responding to was a sense of “they’re doing it wrong” in Mike’s comment which, re-reading it, I don’t see now. Definitely agree on the idea of Christianity being an unbroken, if somewhat splintery, tradition at least back to Constantine/early 4th century. The denominations that see themselves as not part of that tradition ARE basing that contention on a “they’re doing it wrong” philosophy.
Can you steer be to some recent literature on modern paganism, Wicca, Druidism? Not asking you to do my research, just some breadcrumbs. đ Thanx.
Regarding English pronunciations:
“We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.” – James Nicoll
Alan, i too thought dipthong but i thought that was only double vowels…
@Paradoxical Intention: To be clear, the term Heathen isn’t being claimed merely by folkish Asatru, but Asatru and other Nordic/Germanic/Saxon/Teutonic religions in general. These groups — especially the Asatru groups — tend be highly Reconstructionist and take issue with the ecclecticism and syncretism that is so common in much of the rest of the Pagan community. Even if they are not racist/folkish, they prefer to present themselves as distinct from the ecclectic Pagans.
Also, another argument tends to be that if they are focusing on Germanic/Teutonic culture and religion, why would they use a Roman term (pagan) to describe themselves when there’s a perfectly useful Germanic term (heathen) that means the same thing? đ
So again, the use of the term isn’t limited to the racist/folkish Heathens.
Wikipedia informs me that constructions like th and sh are called digraphs. This is when two letters are used to represent a single sound.
Maybe not what you were looking for.
@ valentine & POM
Ah, maybe those are the druids we’re looking for?
The hard ‘th’ sound used to be represented in English by the thorn rune. That’s the one that looks like a “Y’. Hence all that ‘ye olde teashop’ business.
@Mouse,
Tokyo Broadcasting is a Japanese TV broadcaster. Dude’s saying that the anime he watches on pirated TV disagrees with Anita.
@Valentine, yes! I’m sorry for not being clear. I was replying to maghavan. With a vibrating Fluttershy. Because I am desperately restraining comment.
#Mispronunciation, I treat mispronunciation much as I treat improper spelling. Can I understand it? Okay, great, no problem. Do I not understand it? Okay, great, ask for clarification. Sometimes I’ll tease someone if I know them. I don’t do this as much because I have weird typing/pronunciation hang-ups, and my friends are pretty eager to tease me mercilessly if I give them a chance đ