By David Futrelle
On Sunday, the Australian “Fortnite” streamer known as MrDeadMoth was arrested after inadvertently broadcasting an argument with his wife that ended with him — just off camera — allegedly hitting her in the face while one of their children screamed in the background.
Naturally, some of the internet’s worst people are defending him and blaming his wife for “provoking” him into hitting her.
“MrDeadMoth didn’t do anything Wrong,” declared someone calling himself Burrito6920 on Reddit’s UnpopularOpinion subreddit.
Let’s say he did hit her. Guess what, she fucking deserves it. She’s a loud, shitty wife. She throws shit at him and acts like she’s more important than him. If your man tells you to leave him the fuck alone, you leave him the fuck alone. … If he hit her it can be justified as self defense from her verbal and physical harassment.
And even if it’s not legally justifiable, she’s a fucking bitch. Just because she’s pregnant doesn’t make her better than or special over anybody else. … [A]ny person that’s that much of a c*nt needs to be taught not to be such a c*nt.
While this opinion has indeed proven to be an unpopular one on r/UnpopularOpinion, with other Redditors voting the post down to zero, similar arguments have been getting a much more welcoming reception on KotakuInAction, Reddit’s main forum for reactionary gamers, a subreddit that still officially describes itself as “the main hub for GamerGate on Reddit.”
“She was abusing and violent towards him,” someone called Gathrax asserted in a comment in a KotakuInACtion discussion of the incident.
Everything she did was to make it sound as bad as possible on stream. This was classic female vindictive abuse.
They both suck but I am sick of people saying it was his fault when all he did was a simple Sean Connery to get her to stop abusing him and maybe even abusing the kid.
This comment got 77 upvotes from fellow KotakuInAction readers.
“I don’t want to say she’s ‘asking for it’ but she’s basically asking for it,” another commenter called tosi-ebin opined.
A classic case of “how long can my man take abuse and try and de-escalate the situation before he loses his shit”. The “crying” stops real quick and she comes back for more each time.
Tosi-ebin got 38 upvotes for this, er, wisdom.
“Ladies, at this point, can we all just admit that an ass whoopin’ just doesn’t fall out of the goddamn sky?” wrote yet another KotakuInAction commenter called astonwave.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re both horrible fucking people for putting their child in this situation, but she essentially instigated this by throwing shit at him, and people are surprised he’d had enough and retaliated?
A commenter called spliffcitycanada joked “Save yourselves, go mgtow.”
All of these comments also got upvoted by the KotakuInAction gang.
Meanwhile, over on the internet Nazi tip sheet the Daily Stormer, one of the site’s regular contributors offered a strikingly similar, if somewhat more colorfully worded, defense of the alleged wife beater — then worked some anti-Semitism into the mix.
“Twitch Streamer MrDeadMoth Arrested for Defending Self Against Hysterical Aggressive Fronthole” the headline blared.
In the article itself, the Daily Stormer’s “Luis Castillo” attacked the wife for not being properly appreciative of her husband.
“This man apparently gave this woman a place to live and have kids, and bought her some food for her to cook for him, which she cooked as a service to him,” he wrote.
Then she went full aggro on him for not eating the food she made for him. …
Women will do any sort of shit they can get away with. This used to not even be a problem, because our grandfathers used to not let them get away with stupid shit. This continues to not be a problem outside of the West, because non-Westerners continue to not let their women get away with stupid shit.
This is only a problem in the West, now, because the Jews created Feminism and pushed it on us through their control of our cultural institutions and legal system.
Most of the Daily Stormers commenters agreed.
“This is the perfect example of a psycho wife using psychological assault,” declared a commenter called ashenone.
“The pimp-slap heard aroud the world” someone calling himself Xbowjoe1 joked.
“He should have fucking punched her in the mouth and locked her in a room and told her to think about what she did,” declared bossn*gger.
But not every Daily Stormer commenter was quite so impressed with MrDeadMoth. Someone called Alt-Reich attacked him as a “f*ggot” — not for beating his wife, but for playing video games in the first place.
That guys is a fucking f*g and a disgrace as a dad, how many hours has he been playing that game …
[A]re you seriously defending this f*ggot! A lot of men seem to know all there is about how fucked up women are now (they are), but they need to take a good look in the mirror, because they too have become absolute disgraces as Men…
Jews own most guys now, they have fucked up the men as much as the women … .
It shouldn’t be much of a shock to see commenters on Reddit’s “main hub for GamerGate” in close agreement with Daily Stormer Nazis — that last anti-gamer comment notwithstanding.
The Daily Stormer’s Andrew Anglin cut his political teeth — and learned how to troll — in the fetid misogynistic and anti-Semitic swamp that is 4chan’s /pol/ board. 4chan also helped to birth the GamerGate movement and the reactionary gamer culture left in its wake; GamerGate was steeped in fascist (and often blatantly antisemitic) imagery even before the resurgence of the far-right in 2015 and 2016.
Of course, during the heyday of GamerGate, commenters on KotakuInAction at least generally tried to pretend that they weren’t raging misogynists. They don’t seem to feel the need to bother any more.
You can see the whole incident these lovely people are arguing about here.
H/T — Thanks to Twitter’s @0utofBeta for tipping me off about this.
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@mildlymagnificent
Thanks. I heard about the conference and the man, he recently made the newspaper in the area as he was going on a tour in my area.
I’m in complete agreement with his thesis and his solution. Learning how to communicate better, accept my feelings, my limits and recognise my bad reaction to stress were pretty much how I managed to get out of my problem and improve as a person.
@eprovonost
I don’t think it is fair. I dont think it is appropriate to say “what about the men” and say “but look at both sides” when this article is about a woman abused by a man and then the men saying horrible abusive things about her later on the internet, specifically supporting/denying the abuse of women.
I understand 100% for you personally with your experience of abuse that this will upset you in a specific way, however that does not mean that the other comments that you said are appropriate or justified.
Many of us also here are men with experience with abuse from women or female partners, but it is not the time to talk about it, because even if you don’t mean to, it will sound like “but what about men” or “but look at both sides” which is very upsetting for the women here who have been in this situations with men who they know/love or male family members, and are triggered or upset by this event in another way.
@Valentin – Emigrantski Ragamuffin
You are right. The idea of talking about my experience and feelings on domestic violence were inapropriate to a certain extend. I just realised that it could be compared as if I had walked in a funeral home and started to talk about my own grieving of someone else entirely. While it can be understandable from my perspective, it’s indeed insensitive toward those who grieve over the person for which the funerals are actually held.
Arrested? That’s right, Nazis, abusive gamers, and Nazi-gamers, sometimes that shit will get you arrested.
It’s so unfair! But we do, after all, live in a matriarchy.
Perhaps you could learn to mind your p’s and q’s?
And maybe refrain from battering others?
All is in the “apparently”. Because, out of this outdated/obsolete view of how couple life is, the major part of couples where one is a youtuber has also the non-youtuber one also working (except maybe for the big ones, and for the ones thinking like the poster, of course).
But it is always so easy to build theories and arguments on some “apparently”, “probably” and “possibly” to pushforward your opinion…
@Kupo, re: BrokenDreams23
Well, that started off as facepalmingly wrong-headed, but a sort of wrong-headedness one can grasp: after all, yes, de-escalation is often a good thing.
And then, just in case anyone really thought that might be where he was going, came the second tweet. Sigh.
As for the reactions in general, I’ve stopped being at all being surprised by this sort of thing ever since I watched a documentary about a survivor of child sexual abuse for which the top YouTube comment dismissed the idea that the abuser was an abuser, including the immortal sentence “If anything, she raped him.”
Yes. The 10 year-old raped her father. That’s definitely what happened.
I’ve sort of lost the capacity to be horrified since then.
Am I the only one who looks at this idiot and thinks “How the hell is he old enough to be married?” Looks about 12.
@ occasional reader:
Yeah, and that, along with the people saying “she didn’t have to be s whiny about being hit, just because she’s pregnant,” struck me as a cartoonishly bad defence argument: “he bought her some food to cook for him, how dare she act like doing the work of cooking is a contribution to the household.”
Hi, Criminal Justice major here: that’s not how self-defense works.
The more I heart about this story, the worse it gets.
“Streamer hits wife on camera”
“Streamer hits pregnant wife on camera”
“Streamer hits pregnant wife on camera, while their children are watching”
How fucked up do you have to be?!
@Shadowplay
Same thought I had. “This dude has kids? Oh dear.”
I think others can and have spoken to the nature of misogyny and domestic violence, so I’m going to sound off on a couple of less obvious things.
Like why did this guy call himself “Mr. DeadMoth”? Why do these clowns have to have really goofy names that incorporate “Death”, “Dead” or “Skull” in them to make them seem more fearsome than they are. My original screen name was dumb too, so I changed it to something not quite as dumb, but still a tad silly. At least I’m not trying to
The other thing is this whole concept of monetized video game streaming. That sounds precarious at the best of times. I know a streamer or two in my daily life who do monetize gaming streams, but they do have regular gigs that depend on visibility, so streaming makes sense. But even the idea of monetizing what essentially amounts to a pastime is just strange to me. I can see it if you’re an amateur artist or a writer and selling what is essentially a hobby, but there’s typically an end product to be sold. It’s like monetizing videos of you flying a kite.
That said, I have watched a video game playthrough or two in my time, but only if it’s a game I’ve played before and wanted to hear somebody else’s perspective, or if I needed help on a quest.
Yeah, paying to watch people play video games is just weird. It’s not we do this for people playing any other game. Nope. Never have people earned money from playing, say, football. That’s just ridiculous. Why would anyone want to watch someone else play games? They should just play it themselves! ?
@Katamount
In our late capitalist society, you make a living any way that you can.
I’m sorry to have to go off topic, but I need to get this off my chest because I feel like I’ve been to cloud cuckoo land today and I’m still trying to get my head right.
I’m used to having clients I don’t like, but the client I currently have is from the moon. I do audio recording and video editing, and I picked up a very lucrative contract from a singer / songwriter from Zimbabwe, who spends money like it’s no object. I’m helping him made videos and manage his social media. The problem is, he’s a patriachalist, and believes a lot of conspiracy trash. He is anti feminist and believes Soros runs BLM. Which is interesting because he is a POC himself. I just find him impossible to like and I just have to sit there saying yes and no in the right places. He doesn’t know I’m trans so he patronises me and calls me lady etc, and insists on calling me my girl name instead of the name I would rather go by. However, I was overdrawn in the bank and he’s paying me money for old rope and I need the job, so I just hope I can hang on to my sanity. I’m going to have a good Christmas thanks to his dosh.
@kupo
Fair point, but folks who play sports sign contracts with teams, and it’s ultimately the teams that you’re paying for. Individual players don’t set up their own videocasts and monetize it as they play each other; typically that’s a league that does it and its profits are shared among the franchises. Not sure if e-sports is the same thing, that’s not something I’m interested in.
I come at this from the mindset of an old school gamer, who played Mario for like an hour or so, then stopped. It was a fun way of challenging yourself, but I’d never subject anyone else to it. Certainly wouldn’t subject anyone to my Star Trek Online sessions, given how bad I am at it.
Either way, just feels odd to sell a gaming persona to the masses. You’re selling yourself using products created by somebody else, but without a contract with that organization. Feels like being a mercenary pitchman.
@Cindy
Ain’t that the truth.
Katamount,
Not all sports are team sports. I root for various gymnasts and figure skater not from the US simply because I like their individual work all the time.
Now I have an excuse to urge everyone to check out first year senior figure skater Rika Kihara. She’s fantastic. She just beat Oympic champ Alina Zagitiva to win the Grand Prix final. Unlike the Eteri girls, I think she’s been trained to have a long career and not lose all her jumps when she finishes puberty.
Virgin Mary,
Sorry you have to put up that. One of the many reasons I’m for universal basic income is because I really think people should not have to put up with degrading BS just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
@Amaror
I know; And close together, too.
Either this couple doesn’t know birth control from a hole in the ground or this weak little dork who looks like scrawny, geeky pre-bodybuilder early Carrot Top (whom any woman other than his terrified partner probably take in a fight) is one of those douches who trap the woman in their life via pregnancy.
What infuriates me is that women for the past few millennia have had “Men are not just a little bit physically stronger than women, but super-strong like a raging rhino, even if he’s a shrimp” drilled into their heads so bad that we women “freeze” when a shrimp guy who’s not much bigger or stronger attacks us.
First off; The strength difference is only in the upper body. Women and Men are more equal, waist-down.
Second; Brute strength alone is almost meaningless and it’s the size of the fight in the dog that counts.
Third; Women are mammals, therefore, like all mammals, they are designed to be able to (at times, though not every time) put a male in his place when he gives her smack. Just ask a lion or bear. Male bear may be bigger and stronger but She-Bears have been known to trash He-Bears if he’s a threat to her and her cubs. Prehistoric women probably clobbered Sabertooths when they threatened her and the kids.
It’s just infuriating to me as a woman to see my sex made into something so weak that they literally freeze from extreme “fight or flight” when a 5’3”, 115 pound dork boy decide to rape/murder them.
I’m not blaming victims; I am blaming patriarchy. We have been programmed with a LIE that makes men stronger than they are and women weaker than they are. As a result, women are constantly victimized when some quick thinking and few smashes to the groin and kneecaps from our powerful lady-legs would have put the guy in his place.
Women can be just as strong as men….regardless of a male’s upper-body strength advantage.
We need to fight rape culture, we need to fight Toxic Masculinity, we need to end sexism of all kinds and we need to teach girls that they can fight a man and win! The secret is the lower body, gals! KICK HIS ASS!
There needs to be “Gulabi Gang” chapters in every country. If the Law fails and resources to protect victims aren’t around, then the Gulabi’s can come to DorkMoth’s house and put the fear of SHAKTI into him.
How I long for the day when an abused woman has enough and TKO’s her abuser with a haymaker!
@ spukikitty
With all the usual caveats that no-one is under an obligation to defend themselves etc, I would just say that haymakers aren’t necessarily a good idea; especially where there is a size differential.
Far better to use heel of hand strikes. Safer to yourself and a much harder strike; and it’s a technique that actually favours the shorter person. Also, done properly, most of the power of the strike comes from the lower body. So again, a handy technique for women.
@wwth
We all know Orser was the better Brian anyway.
Perhaps… But also men have an upper body advantage, and I am small. And de-escalation. And I can’t fight, and maybe he can, if he’s being so aggressive. And any weapon I have is one that he will take from me, and use on me.
And then they… Go to jail?
(granted, this was a woman killing her abuser, so all the tw for domestic abuse and sex trafficking there)
I get where you’re coming from, it feels good to see the underdog win with a spectacular finish. But saying “JUST FIGHT BACK” ignores the reality of many situations.
I wasn’t there. You weren’t there. How you think you would react in the moment doesn’t really mean anything to how you would react, as a pregnant woman with children in the house. Perhaps the woman in this horrible situation is hoping that if she takes the abuse, he won’t hurt anyone else in the house. Perhaps she didn’t believe it would escalate to actual violence. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
We all want less people to be victims, but saying that they acted wrong in a situation is putting the blame on the wrong people. The ones who acted aggressively, they are the ones I have a problem with.
@Alan Robertshaw
Makes sense. I looked up “haymaker” and realized he’d see that coming a mile away. I also was trying to sound “smartypants” with a sentence that sounded good.
I agree that a short, more direct movement that can’t be telegraphed is best, especially if someone isn’t a “fighter”. Women aren’t usual biologically built for stuff like “haymakers”….short hand strikes and quick stomps are best. Even a stomp on a kneecap is preferable to kicking his nuts (guys know this and prepare accordingly).
I’m also sorry for my angry tone. I just get psychotically angry at times. I really need to chill out.
Some of my above points still stand but the junk about stooping to his level out of revenge (rather than self-defense) is dumb.
Heck; It’s possible that this guy’s Fortnite streaming WAS his job (People pay to watch these things and work’s often slow). That said; Even if his spouse was being a tad unreasonable he was still a HUGE JERK for hitting her.
Katamount,
I recently found a late 80’s or early 90’s Carmen on ice special starring both Brians and Katerina Witt. It’s kind of amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRy0_31zny0
Very cheesy, but fun.
@Alan Robertshaw If only it didn’t result in disproportionately severe legal penalties against women… 😛
@SpukiKitty – Sorry, it just dawned on me… Have we already had this conversation? You suggesting that all women need to fight, people reply with “do the best that you can in the situation, which means you fight, flee, de-escalate, whatever, but do what you think will get you out of there”, then you apologise and say that you just get so angry?
I mean, if it wasn’t you but rather another commenter, then I’m wrong. But I do remember hitting these beats before?
If it was you, please don’t offer a single solution to a complex problem. There is no single solution, and violence is not always the best.