I would not have minded this series nearly as much if every game website did not feel the need to write the EXACT same news article (Gamergate victim Sarkeesian shows the haters blah blah) every time a new video got posted.

Yeah, as bad as she is, her supporters have always been far worse.

I kind of like that she helped me discover some cool looking games. Then again, I likely won't be playing a single one of them, good or bad. Still, I don't mind her pointing out which games are giving in to the Id of male gamers and which are classy enough not to. I also think that maybe she made a mistake plucking all her eyebrows, and would advise her to look into eyebrow tattooing.

ooo! ooo! lets find clips of Tipper Gore!

The moment Brianna Wu decided to run for congress on a platform of "I'm batshit insane," she re-entered the realm of fair game.

Crazy bitch was talking about how we've gotta be careful with private space exploration because somebody might build a machine that throws moon rocks at earth (this is not a joke).

Go read the top review on the game's Steam page.

Well, GG has largely now moved on to becoming full on internet Neo-Nazis

Honestly, should interplanetary travel ever become cheap enough for private concerns and easy enough to be run by few people, we SHOULD worry about folks dropping rocks. Any sort of thruster using in-situ sourced reaction mass is particularly dangerous. There are plenty of NEOs that fall below detection thresholds for most of their orbit, but would still be city killers if given the proper nudge several years ahead of impact.

I think we can safely save the "what about moon rocks" argument until a point much further along in private spaceflight.

Daesh 2121 will be a real threat

Brianna Wu says video game female characters don't have enough diversity or body types.

Develops her own game where the main female characters are rail-thin Bratz dolls.

^^best summation ever

It's over, but we'll always look back on the time a lady on youtube said "video games should consist of only things I approve of" and some guys screamed for her for five years.

Except she never said that.

Gun nuts live in a fantasy world.

It was clearly the implied intent of her screed. There are tons of options for games that don't contain the petty issues she complains about, even tons of games that go against it.

She never mentions any of them. She never points out any positive alternatives to turn to, which you think she would if her goal was actually about choice and positive role models (getting your role models from video games is a whole problem onto itself).

But she doesn't, because her goal is to get people outraged with "this is an outrage and shouldn't be allowed to exist". There's no difference between her and moral panic hucksters like Phil Donahue raging against smut that's an affront to Christian values.

Actually she said _exactly_ that. Her early videos call for mass censorship, and routinely shamed particular developers and franchises. Would you like me to find them for you, because you're a lazy fuck apparently?

Yes! This is the kind of arguing I'm going to miss. Come on, a little more for old times sake.

Didn't she sleep with some journalists or something? That seems important to talk about.

"Her early videos call for mass censorship, and routinely shamed particular developers and franchises. Would you like me to find them for you, because you're a lazy fuck apparently?"

Well call me a lazy fuck then, because as far as I know, Sarkeesian has never called for mass censorship.

Now shaming developers and franchises ... ? There's a word for that, and it's called "criticism". It's something I expect critics to do. It's something from which none of us are exempt. So point me to the calls for mass censorship please.

Again, there are tons of choices for games that don't contain any of the stuff she complains about. If this isn't enough for her and she still complains about it, what possible inference can you walk away with other than "these things shouldn't be allowed to exist at all" ?

Do you think fundy groups protesting black magic promoting Harry Potter are really just about having more choice in books that promote Christian values?

I've updated the FIRST AMENDMENT MURDER SCOREBOARD to reflect the final tallies from this video series:

TOTAL NUMBER OF VIDEO GAMES CENSORED, CANCELLED, OR OTHERWISE DESTROYED DUE TO ANITA SARKEESIAN: 0

TOTAL NUMBER OF GAME STUDIOS FORCED TO CLOSE DUE TO ANITA SARKEESIAN: 0

TOTAL NUMBER OF DEATH THREATS RECEIVED BY ANITA SARKEESIAN BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T LIKE DEAD OR ALIVE BIKINI VOLLEYBALL: [Error: our current understanding of math does not make it possible to express a number that large]

Point me to where Trump outright calls for violence against protestors.

That's right! He never said that. Hence Trump and his supporters do not promote violence!

It shows how nobody has a good argument against Trump's views when their go to insult is instantly about his appearance.

The most common insults against Ann Coulter are calling her a bitch and insulting her appearance. It exposes the misogyny that drives her critics and only proves her point about hateful LIE-berals.

Yeah, now you're just changing the subject because you know you can't defend your fantasyland "Anita wants censorship" assertion.

OOPS, I DROPPED SOMETHING:

"Knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell— I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise. It won’t be so much ’cause the courts agree with us too."

-Beloved Pacifist Donald Trump speaking to a crowd on how to deal with protestors, February 2016.

So ... Anita DIDN'T call for mass censorship? That seems to be the fact of the matter. Thanks!

It's over, but we'll always look back on the time a lady on youtube made up a bunch of problems about video games and some guys AND girls screamed for her for five years.

I used to work with a guy who was getting a degree in game development from an actual accredited, reputable college I'm not going to name, and he said in so many words that there should be a formal industry ban on breast size adjustment in the character editors of games because "people will abuse it" and unironically compared playing a character with comically large breasts in an online game to hate crime.

He also once went on a tear about how some old Ripoff Press comic from the late 60s that we were selling was pornography because it had a drawing of Minnie Mouse topless in the corner of one panel on the cover, and that it was morally reprehensible to publish something like that and it should be banned.


He also saw no contradiction between these opinions and having completely straight faced conversations about getting a hand job at the local movie theater from a local "chick" who was "easy."



Not really making a specific point, I've just been sitting on that anecdote for like a year and this is probably (hopefully) the last time it will ever be even tangentially relevant here.

But he respected VIRTUAL women so it's okay!

And if we're going with "it's not the intent unless explicitly stating it", then Anita's entire argument falls apart (even more).

Your cishet phallus waving male vagina shaming ass needs you check your privilege now I am triggered. You are literally worse than Hitler.

this is good Kinja

^^^

Awww yeah, here we go!

She realized her early act was too authentic so she had to water it down and pretend she's always been reasonable.

Unlike her earlier videos that had her calling for forced censorship of all media to her standards and a total ban on all video games?

And, as usual, someone paints all criticism for her with a ridiculous strawman brush.

(followed by a "^THIS!" dummy)

Nominal - "If two people agree it's the same as ^THIS"

First impressions make a difference. If her arguments were always reasonable, why weren't they in the beginning? The beginning is usually when formative opinions are made. You can't call someone unreasonable if they gave someone a chance.

If they change their tune, those same people have every right to be skeptical.

Or did you discover a machine that can tell what someone is thinking, with zero errors?

You're dumb for even trying to use the argument that you did.

I was talking about Binro, the Hot Topic of sociopolitical discourse.

^^^^^

"Shit like this is why Trump was elected."

Speaking of not a good look, you're kind of reinforcing her point about how misogyny is baked into people.

It's sexist to call an ugly person ugly? Oh, I get it, she's a girl so it's automatically a sexist comment, instead of what it actually is -t a jab at someone who made a living off of demonizing regular people for having sexual desires and subsequently having them being met within an entertainment medium that understands this.

But nah, you're probably right and cam is literally hitler.

Yeah, just like original sin.

I'm going to pretend the word 'misogyny' hasn't been robbed of any impact by assholes like Sarkeesian long enough to ask; are you saying it's not possible to insult a woman without it being an act of bigotry, or is that only the case for the ones who cry victim well enough?

Well, there's the small matter of how you can't bring yourself to comment on what she has to say, and dismiss her solely on the basis of looks. And I don't even think you have detected a decline in her looks, but since it's a woman, insulting her looks is the go-to move.

"IM NOT SEXIST JUST NOTICED SHES AN UGLY CUNT WHORE!!!"

There was a time when many people, myself included, tried desperately to comment on the garbage that she was saying, and even then the only responses we got were self-righteous histrionics and an impenetrable wall of victim complex.

I'd compare it to trying to have a similar conversation with the kind of people who take Coulter seriously, but it's actually worse.

I'll believe you made a serious comment about her the same day I believe alex jones

"There was a time when many people, myself included, tried desperately to comment on the garbage that she was saying, and even then the only responses we got were self-righteous histrionics and an impenetrable wall of victim complex."

Yeah, I hate it when my choices are everyone else's fault.

Don't quote Hillary Clinton at me.

Oh hush, Bort. It's low road trolling against a crowd with deaf ears to a reasonable critique and you know it. Nobody here has an issue when someone points out Ann Coulter is a wax skeleton.

Actually, I _have_ watched women vs tropes in video games, and addressed this before. Her early arguments show her true feelings - they're cruder, more victim-heavy and inflammatory - this was when she was aware she was trending and trying to capitalize on it. It worked. She's just a talking head selling a viewpoint to people who already hold it, and this late-minute attempt to sound reasonable doesn't excuse the inept and fallacious arguments she started out with. She already tipped her hand about how she really feels.

I'm not going to listen to 10 bad arguments from the same person hoping the 11th is better, so I'm sorry I tuned out early.

"Oh hush, Bort. It's low road trolling against a crowd with deaf ears to a reasonable critique and you know it. Nobody here has an issue when someone points out Ann Coulter is a wax skeleton."

When we call Anne Coulter a wax skeleton, it's usually not in service to proving her point. If the head of the NAACP said something about whites being dismissive of black issues and someone (probably RoUS) commented "hey you know what NAACP stands for? Niggers Are Always Crying Persecution!" that would be more or less the same thing.

"It's misogyny to criticise LIBERAL women. Conservative women are bitches who deserve to have their femininty denigrated."
- Bort


(Ah, just kidding - just trolling out of nostalgia for the pre-Trump years when I could still laugh at that stuff.)

Hazelnut - it is a fair point that going after Anne Coulter on the basis of her looks is at least somewhat misogynistic (the other part of it being, we're going for the low-hanging fruit because that's how we roll in these parts). We are more likely to criticize a woman on her looks than we are a man.

"I hate women, ESPECIALLY Corrupt Hillary Clinton."
- Bort

HaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAH!

https://vtdigger.org/2017/05/04/burlington-college-donor-says- never-signed-pledge/

https://vtdigger.org/2016/07/15/sanders-campaign-millions-go-t o-mystery-firm/

https://vtdigger.org/2016/08/18/don-keelan-best-legal-form-sip honing/

https://thevpo.org/2016/07/19/why-wont-bernie-talk-about-his-f inances/

Women don't get insulted for their looks any more than men do, you've just been trained to notice it more and give it greater significance when it happens to a woman.

At least, to a woman you agree with.

Anime women are even more sexist.

Honestly she probably wouldn't have even made her original goal if a bunch of gmorks, dairyqeens and nocturnos hadn't proven her right and given her massive media exposure through their childish tantrums, sexist insults and deaths threats because girls aren't allowed to have options about games

calm down you giant baby

SolRo pretty much sums it up there.

Just like how everyone proved Jack Thompson right when they made videos of him getting his spine ripped out.

SolRo never sums up anything other than "What would let yell the most?"

Honestly she probably wouldn't have gotten more than an eye roll from the vast majority of her critics if the SolRos, StanleyPains, Binros, and bawbags hadn't given her massive media exposure by calling everyone a neo nazi because people aren't allowed to have opinions on girls with opinions on games.

Excuse me? I'm not in the MRA/feminist hating crowd. I'm a feminist. I don't know anyone who hates feminism that would willingly lie and self-apply that label. I only took issue with her arguments. I dislike her, and I am extremely repelled by her face. I agree that she's ugly. If that's what you want to use as ammo against me sure, knock yourself out. I don't feel bad at all about either of those opinions any more than I feel bad about also thinking alex jones is an ugly and narcissistic talking head who only cares about stirring the shit and making money, while building their ego in the process. Honestly they are both very similar just on different ends of the spectrum. Claiming feminism as a shield against all criticism is a ridiculous thought - every argument should always be questioned - whether sound or unsound. That's how you find out who's full of shit. She is full of shit. She's just smart enough to change her tune and take away the ammo from the shitlord MRA woman hating crowd.

The crowd you stupidly said I belonged to.

"I'm uncomfortable with women having opinions."
- SolRo

I'm increasingly uncomfortable with Any of you having opinions.

Let's keep this going! Nobody has commented yet on whether it's possible to create feminist art without it being inherently political and therefore propaganda, or her shitty fade.

Were you hoping to call her an ugly bitch one last time?

Never did. I agreed with cam she's ugly, but you're attributing motives to me that do not exist.

Tilt at some other windmill.

Because characters in video games are not abstract checker pieces. They are characters In a narrative. They are our heroes, and play an important role of inspiration, And representation of what someone who isn't me goes through. Yes I know chain whipping thousands of skeletons isn't what people go through but it does help us realize that someone else has the same idea of what a hero can be, in this context it means women can be hero's. and not having that understanding, leads to effects in our real and everyday lives.

Having more diversity in or hero narratives allows us to be more empathetic in our everyday lives.

Oh hey is it sexist that the queen in chess does more work than the king but isn't as important? That SACRIFICING the queen to be "CAPTURED" (ugh... just ugh) is worth it, even mandatory if it's to save the do-nothing king?

The king may be put into check, but he never checks... his privilege.

ha ha

Bac, I replied below by mistake. I'll also add that I think it's a fine thing that she's produced the series, but I have a rather nuanced view of its value as research, critique, rhetoric, and what it's affect may or may not be.

Wow, Quad9Damage, way to broadcast your misogyny.

The word cleric is etymologically related to clerk, as in SECRETARY.

I've never been so angry in my life!

Anita is an asshole spouting garbage for assholes, but I have to stop you there.

Ken Levine is a total creeper. This should have been obvious in Bioshock and it's even more obvious in Infinite. Your first encounter with Elizabeth is before you even meet her when you find nude pictures of her strung up in a darkroom by the "surveillance" people who have secretly been watching her since she was a child. You then get to interact with her first period rag (yes, really). Throughout the game she wears less and less clothes until the end where her tits are popping out of a corset while she's being tortured with electricity.

Fuck Ken Levine.

A detailed analysis that asks questions instead of blindly agreeing?

You fucking neo nazi!

Wow simon666, way to mansplain. Just... ugh. Can't deal with your hate right now. Just. Can't.

Just.

Y'all are doing a bit, right

Totally. Just nostalgic.

My 0ho3e screen is busted so I feel like a heel for what is a lacking response to your excellent points.

When I was in grade school a teacher asked the class if their were any jobs we thought women shouldn't do and I said boxer and construction worker. I had never seen femal3 either.

Also, dont we already know that representation in fiction of any variety is important? I mean if it wasn't Wed still have Minstreal shows.

I don't know the overall affects, and rather liked your statements regarding more study. And the response sarkeesian first got puts the odds in favor of
C being the most likely answer. ;;;

Another privileged male dehumanising women as "crazy". Did you know "hysteric" comes from the Latin for uterus? You need to educate yourself, it's not my job to educate you.

The tired misogynist tropes on display when Man on Fire showed a 9 year old girl as helpless against her ruthless cartel kidnappers, needing a (highly trained ex-marine, CIA Special Activities Division officer) man to rescue her. Why not have her rescue herself?

Actually Ashley was 20 according to the manual. That may be a localization adjustment, but whatever. Referring to Anita's criticism, I don't recall a single person ever complaining about her being hard to manage. She was the least annoying companion quest partner in game history at that time. Didn't have a gun, but was easy enough to keep out of harm's way. Didn't run into the middle of a firefight like a dope.

Ellie is 14. She never learned how to swim. Therefore, naturally, she would be afraid of water.

13/14 whatever

Ashley was a "kid" in the sense that she was a sheltered rich college girl. How doe Anita THINK she should be portrayed? Like the survivalist chick from You're Next?

Here's another point conveniently ignored by this huckster: this is how ALL sidekicks are portrayed in fiction. Their role is to be more pathetic than the hero to make them look comparatively cooler: Tonto, Robin, Ron Weasley, the countless "nerdy hacker" sidekicks in video games, etc etc. Sex has nothing to do with it.

Agreed. These lady sidekicks are all limited by virtue of their circumstances, having either been sheltered (Ellie, Elizabeth) or raised as elite socialites (Ashley, Princess Ruto.) President's daughters away at college don't get special ops training. Medieval princesses don't associate with people outside their social circles. A girl locked in a tower for 20 years with nothing to do but read books and talk to a robot bird won't be an expert in actual weapons handling, but there might be locks to practice on.

It's sorta like the time Anita asked why Lara Croft shouldn't weigh 300 pounds. Because Lara Croft makes a living by jumping, climbing and running.

TYT might as well be an Alex Jones style false flag operation for the GOP at this point. I gave them the benefit of the doubt for a while in early 2016 but by the time the election rolled around I had even less patience for their shit than ever.

Truly the Fox News of the left, which makes sense since Cenk was outspokenly right wing until he had some kind of ideological "coming to god" moment during the Bush years and turned into the left wing version of the same thing.

Also his accelerationism, constant Clinton-bashing (as opposed to rational criticism, which she and her campaign certainly deserved), and giving Jimmy Dore free access to one of the biggest left-leaning platforms on the Internet were without a doubt a small but real factor in Trump's election.

Those of us on the left seriously need to get better people on YouTube. Overheard some people at an art event talk about how they get all their news from the Young Turks and complete cringed. Some of the stuff they say is indistinguishable from Breitbart.

I'm trying to pick up the slack but I can't do it on my own.

She is at least slightly responsible for Trump's victory.

Then I should thank her for that as well. Not because I wanted Trump to win, but because I wanted Hillary to lose.

We need to stop calling this stuff "third wave" because the actual third-wave Feminism that happened back in the late 80s and 90s may have set some of the groundwork for the commodification of Feminism in the 2000s/10s but it was still a very different thing (if I'm not mistaken it's literally where the term "sex positive" was coined, for example).

I the term Susan Faludi's coined back in 2013, "Facebook Feminism," myself, but it doesn't really capture the scope of the commodification.

I haven't gotten to read Jessa Crispin's recent book yet, but the excerpts, reviews and interviews I've read make me expect that when I do she wll have absolutely nailed it.

This interview in particular (ironically in Jezebel, whose bread and butter are exactly the sort of things she is calling out) is really good.

http://themuse.jezebel.com/a-frank-talk-with-jessa-crispin-abo ut-why-modern-day-fe-1792367458

And to be absolutely clear, this isn't about Feminism specifically, it's just that modern Feminism really started to come into its own in the late 50s and early 60s, so it has a decade or more head start on, say, the gay rights movement or the civil rights movement (not to mention the fact that other social justice movements have been held back by not directly serving the immediate concerns of upper middle class, heterosexual, white women).

This is about what ANY social movement is in serious danger of suffering when it achieves enough of its goals that it becomes a profitable market demographic.

OZ: If we can trace back the pathology of this insanity to the 1990s then I don't feel bad referring to it as third wave.

Welcome to the comments section! I will keep my replies brief.

People get mad when their hobbies are attacked, especially nerds. Especially.

The issue wasn't over Anita stealing the stolen LP footage. It was her never playing the games she critiqued and thus not capturing her own footage.

GamerGate was such a huge, confusing clusterfuck that explaining it to anyone requires my subjective speculation. 'Ethics' in game journalism haven't existed since Nintendo Power, so yeah, that was bullshit.

People, either easily impressionable, not knowing any better, lazy, or all of the above, equated feminists like Anita with feminism in general. Her name and face frontrunning the movement perpetuated a stereotype. I've seen comments from women unhappy with Feminist Frequency for that very reason.

So I looked it up and I guess there is an argument over whether she has played the games she is criticizing. Crazy stuff. I can't find much evidence either way and as much as I'd like to trust another feminist, she had a kickstarter, so I wont guess. To me anyone with a kickstarter can't be trusted.

I DID read that she mentioned playing her Wii and enjoying Nintendo games. I think that's interesting because as much as I'd hate to admit it I think Nintendo has been one of the most sexist developers in recent years. They just don't seem to adapt to modern things well at all. It's always still rescue the princess. As far as I know Princess Daisy is still the most powerful Mario character which is just sad.

@Zoot42

Anita is a self aggrandizing charlatan who is merely another wannabe moral guardian like Estes Kefauver, Tipper Gore, Jack Thompson or many other busybodies who litter history's dustbin. Good riddance, I say.

Gamergate is a reaction to Cultural Marxism & the temporarily inconvenienced Pulitzer Prize winning Journalists who are merely slumming it until their big break. If you despise people who enjoy racing & fishing, you probably shouldn't write for American Angler, Field & Stream, or Motor Sport. See where this is going? A bunch of hipsters with blue armpit hair have no business judging my hobbies.

There are plenty of female Gamergaters & most of us are Left Libertarian.
We just loathe people who try to regulate what we do with our free time. I hated what happened during the 80's with D&D and Heavy Metal. This time we put up a fight that dropped Hillary Clinton & Gawker.

Not too shabby.

Finally, lay off the gender shaming & stop blaming men for your problems. Identity politics is a dead end that just doesn't take you anywhere. See the KKK & BLM...

Vidya games provide the most bang for your entertainment buck. That's why so many people enjoy them. The pastimes you mentioned are things I indulge in, however Mods allow me to explore & experience games in whole new ways that were never possible before. I look forward to where it takes us next.

TL,DR: Don't throw shit at us & we won't hurl dump truck loads back at you.

The issue with her using nothing but lifted LP footage was that she claimed a good chunk of the money raised was going to be for purchasing all the games she would be covering.

Which was then confirmed by this photo

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/484/230/2de.j pg

Then she goes and does something that could have been done for free, and puts it on a video that anyone could have done at a local access station for free.

So where did the money go? She raised 2000% more than she claimed she needed. I've said it from the start: I will eat crow if it ever turned out she donated the extra money (or a good chunk of it) to a women's shelter or CS scholarship fund for women.

That's one thing I'll agree on.

I forget who here summed that game up perfectly: "What we were promised was a satirical take on American exceptionalism and racist institutions, what we got was someone's Doctor Who fanfic."

"A garbage story that suggests oppressed people are just as bad as their oppressors, and that the truth is always somewhere in the middle."

Except oppressed people are also human and thus subject to the same flaws, so yes, they can be just as bad as their oppressors. Turning into the thing you hate, becoming the monster you fought against, replacing the oppressive regime with another oppressive regime, surely Anita knows this has been a staple of culture, and actual human history since...the beginning of human history.

"But that's too big a can of worms to open in this video," she says with a smile, knowing this is her last one on video games and she will never have to elaborate on it again.

That's what gets me about this wave of tumblr slacktivism. If this were ANY other activist group: PETA, The Catholic League, The Parents Television Council, Tipper Gore, Jack Thompson, etc, people would immediately call out their bullshit, fraudulent claims, quarter truths, and shoddy research. It's especially baffling when people post 80s moral panic videos here then the same people go on to defend Sarkeesian, not making any kind of connection.

Yes, she is as awful as all those other people. She's tried to put on her most reasonable face on for these latest videos, but her Twitter and website show how vile she and her message are. Don't forget the time she jumped on the Sandy Hook shooting in less than 24 hours to attribute it to violent video games.