Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:03] clip from VenomFangX: “Jesus spoke about a second death. There are two types of death: mortal death, which is when our soul is separated from our body; and spiritual death, which is when our soul is separated from God. Adam and Eve had their souls separated from God the day they ate from the forbidden fruit. That’s why God kicked them out of the Garden. Now, that is also why we are born spiritually dead in our sins. You are dead in your sins, and that’s why Jesus said you have to be born again right now by repenting of sin and putting your faith in Jesus Christ. You will then be born again of the spirit of God and be able to remain with God forever. If you don’t do that now, during this life, you will remain separated from God forever.
[0:41] clip from The Terminator
[0:52] clip from VenomFangX: “I’m gonna make a challenge for ya. Do you wanna debate with me? Live? We’ll record it, post it on YouTube, make it a big event. We could even have one of those Mortal Combat screens, you know, me on one side you on the other. It’ll be crazy right? Let’s do it. It’ll be fun.”
[1:05] Thunderf00t: Well, it’ll be fun for me. But then again that’s because I’m not so stupid as to say that the Grand Canyon was formed at about five times the speed of sound.
[1:14] clip from VenomFangX: “If the planet flooded like the Bible says, the Grand Canyon could have been formed in about five minutes. The Grand Canyon could have been formed in about five minutes.”
[1:28] Thunderf00t: However the reason I have little interest in humoring you with a debate is exemplified by these videos. Put simply, someone who has repeatedly demonstrated such a crass lack of scientific understanding as yourself, is not in need of a debate, but an education.
[1:45] However you shouldn’t feel bad about this attribute as it’s so much pervasively true of all young earth creationists. Let’s see what gems you have for us this time:
[1:56] clip from VenomFangX: “The Bible says Noah only had to bring things that breathe with their nostrils. Fish don’t breathe with their nostrils, and I bet you even know that.”
[2:03] Thunderf00t: Aaaah, Noah’s Ark. It’s almost shameless that anyone could try and defend this. But let’s look at the facile point that Noah took nothing onto the ark that didn’t have nostrils. Well, sure that would’ve meant that Noah wouldn’t have to take any bugs on the ark. But then again it would’ve also meant the extinction of almost all insects and plant life on earth, and of course the humble earthworm and thereby ensuring that Noah and everything else on the ark would’ve starved to death on a dead planet.
[2:33] But then again, what about the whales? They breathe through their nostrils. Shown are the nostrils of the largest creature ever to live on the earth, the blue whale. I really would’ve loved to see how Noah got all the animals that
[2:45] clip from VenomFangX: “breathe with their nostrils”
[2:46] Thunderf00t: on the ark.
[2:47] clip from VenomFangX: “The Bible says Noah only had to bring things that breathe with their nostrils. Fish don’t breathe with their nostrils, and I bet you even know that. So insects breathe, not through their nostrils but through their skin, so no insects either. Now, the seas get saltier at an increasing rate every year. And if you take the rate in which they’re getting saltier in reverse time, about 4,400 years ago the seas would be totally freshwater.”
[3:08] Thunderf00t: Aaah, so the water was totally fresh 4,000 years ago, eh? Well, where did these come from? These are chalk cliffs. They’re known to be composed of microscopic shells of a form of creature similar to the modern phytoplankton called coccolithophores. These phytoplankton require two materials to make their calcium carbonate shells: firstly, calcium, which is dissolved in the sea water. Secondly, carbonate, which is usually obtained from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
[3:41] The geological period of time in which these deposits were laid down is named after these chalk deposits; the Latin name for chalk being ‘creta’. In the Cretaceous period these areas were covered with oceans and the chalk deposits were laid down between 150 and 70 million years ago.
[3:59] Now comes the amusing bit. The raw materials required for coccolithophores to make chalk, or calcium carbonate, are a salt solution of the iron calcium and carbon dioxide. Now if the oceans were purely fresh water, as the creationist states, then where did these calcium carbonate deposits of coccolithophores come from?
[4:20] clip from The Matrix
[4:23] clip from VenomFangX: “Jesus spoke about a second death. There are two types of death: mortal death, which is when our soul is separated from our body.”
[4:31] Thunderf00t: I can only assume that by ‘death’ he means ‘brain death’. We’ve known for decades now that the only thing that causes irreversible death is the death of the brain. Once the neurochemistry goes south, it doesn’t come back.
[4:45] However, this is the thing: animals have brains that function on a very similar fashion to our own. Yet I somehow doubt that the creationist would argue that it’s impossible for animals to die, because they have no souls to separate from their bodies. Next of course comes the obvious question: we know our brains make our decisions, so what’s the purpose of the soul that the creationist speaks of? Why do those who claim that they have been ‘born again’ with souls have behavioral characteristics that are indistinguishable—or worse—than those who haven’t been born again with a soul? For instance, divorce rates and the such like.
[5:20] clip from VenomFangX: “-and spiritual death, which is when our soul is separated from God.”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Okay, so the creationist is now saying we have a soul, and that there is a god. And that having your soul separated from god counts as death. Umm, okay. Well, I’m still struggling to see how if god is omnipresent and omnipotent, how you can ever be separated from him.
[5:40] clip from VenomFangX: “Adam and Eve had their souls separated from God the day they ate from the forbidden fruit. That’s why God kicked them out of the Garden.”
[5:47] Thunderf00t: Okay, so Adam was born with his soul alive, and killed it by eating forbidden fruit. So what did we learn? Well, in creationism it’s possible to kill your soul by eating.
[6:00] clip from VenomFangX: “Now, that is also why we are born spiritually dead in our sins.”
[6:04] Thunderf00t: Okay, so in creationism it’s not only possible to kill your own soul by eating, but it can also cause ALL the children you have to be born with dead souls.
[6:15] clip from VenomFangX: “You are dead in your sins, and that’s why Jesus said you have to be born again right now by repenting of sin and putting your faith in Jesus Christ.”
[6:23] Thunderf00t: Okay, so when you’re born, your soul is automatically tied to your body, but it’s dead. Then when you choose for your soul to come alive, uuh, how? What makes the choice? The dead soul, bad chemistry of life? Well let’s leave that for a minute and see where this goes.
[6:40] clip from VenomFangX: “You will then be born again of the spirit of God and be able to remain with God forever.”
[6:45] Thunderf00t: So your soul is born into a piece of bad chemical machinery, thanks to your ancestors not being picky enough about their diet. And now, if you manage to get your soul to come alive by some undescribed process, then you get to become a part of god.
[7:00] clip from VenomFangX: “If you don’t do that now, during this life, you will remain separated from God forever.”
[7:05] Thunderf00t: And if you don’t obey the creationist’s fantasy, then his fantasy will punish you for your disobedience. But of course the funny thing is the creationist’s fantasy would automatically kill the souls of all the babies who haven’t chose to have their souls born yet. That’s a pretty unpleasant fantasy.
[7:22] But now let’s compare what we know, and can PROVE with the physical evidence, to the creationist’s fantasy.
[7:30] clip from VenomFangX: “If you don’t do that now, during this life, you will remain separated from God forever.”
[7:35] clip from The Terminator
[7:49] clip from VenomFangX: “The Bible says Noah only had to bring things that breathe with their nostrils . . . 4,400 years ago the seas would be totally freshwater.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:03] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “If the universe looks like it’s fine-tuned for complex life, maybe there’s a fine-tuner. Maybe it was fine-tuned for life.”
“If we didn’t have the electromagnetic force you would have no bonding between chemicals. You would have no light and the list goes on. So you need all these sorts of fundamental principles have to be in place in order for life to occur. Wipe out one of those principles, wipe out one of those laws—no life.”
[0:28] Thunderf00t: Okay, so he’s saying that there’s only one unique way for life to exist. This of course is purely speculative creationist tosh. To demonstrate this point I’m going to go to the microscopic level of molecular dynamics. Shown is a molecular dynamic simulation of the bee sting protein called melatin. These simulations that are routinely used are very useful for the interpretation of experimental results and the predictions of microscopic behaviors of such systems. It’s a well-established and mature field of chemistry. There’s just one thing: there is no gravity whatsoever in these calculations. Nor is there any gravity whatsoever in the more detailed quantum mechanical calculations.
[1:12] Gravity is about 1000 billion billion billion billion times weaker than the electromagnetic force. It’s an irrelevant factor in the molecular forces which determine molecular dynamics. Which is why you can leave it out of the equation altogether.
[1:28] It’s also notable that life is remarkably robust to the absence of gravitational fields, functioning almost as well on the earth as it does in microgravity. Put simply, there is no reason whatsoever why you couldn’t get life functioning perfectly happily in a universe with no gravity.
[1:48] There are just four forces that we are aware of. That’s gravity, the strong, the weak, and the electromagnetic force. Now I’ve just shown that gravity is not necessary for the functioning of life. Further, a recent paper has suggested that a universe without the weak force would look largely indistinguishable from our current universe (Harnik, Kribs, Perez, A Universe Without Weak Interactions).
[2:09] So half of the forces that we know about are not essential for the functioning of life. So much for the creationist statement that everything needs to be perfect for life to function.
[2:22] But now let’s move on to the simple deceit of creationists:
[2:26] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “One example of this fine-tuning is the force of gravity.”
“Imagine a ruler divided up into one inch increments, and then stretched across the entire universe, a distance of some 14 billion light years. For the purposes of illustration, the ruler represents the possible range for gravity.”
[2:51] Thunderf00t: Yep, you always need dramatic music if you’re gonna play god and choose a new gravitational force constant to the universe. However if you want to play god, as the creationist seems intent on doing, then the limits for the gravitational constant is zero and infinity.
[3:06] However you cannot put an infinite number of finite-sized inch strips together on a finite distance—it’s impossible by definition. Like say, for instance a square with five sides. What the guy’s describing is simply mathematically impossible.
[3:23] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “In other words, the setting for the strength of gravity could’ve been anywhere along the ruler, but it just happens to be situated in exactly the right place so that life is possible. Now if you were to change the force of gravity by moving the setting just one inch compared to the entire width of the universe, the effect on life would be catastrophic.”
[3:45] Thunderf00t: Weell, in fairness, the animation was neat and the music was fine. However it’s still pointlessly speculative mathematical nonsense. The creationist demonstrating that he doesn’t understand mathematics is Lee Strobel, author of such books as The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator. The title of these books and his gesturing are unsurprising given that Strobel’s highest degree was not in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics—or any other scientific discipline for that matter—but law.
[4:16] Yep, that’s right. The creationist fielding the case for creation is a lawyer. Now at this point an inquiring mind will be asking ‘what is a lawyer doing making predictions about diddling with the fundamental force constant to the universe when he has no real scientific understanding of the one he currently lives in?’ In this sense, Strobel’s mathematically impossible speculation on the gravitational constant has about as much academic credibility as a burger-flipper lecturing a brain surgeon on cerebral aneurysms.
[4:47] The principle difference between lawyers and scientists is that scientists gain their reputation on track record based on what they can establish from the physical evidence and logical deduction. However for lawyers, truth is an irrelevance as the criterion that determines a successful lawyer is their ability to present a successful case, not their ability to establish truth; although obviously it helps for those who harbor a conscience if the two coincide once in a while.
[5:17] clip from A Few Good Men
[5:26] Thunderf00t: But let’s take another look at this case for a fine-tuned universe. There’s about 75 cubic kilometers of life on earth, while the volume of the earth is approximately one trillion cubic kilometers. That means that by volume the earth is approximately one billionth of a percent life.
[5:48] For me, this device is an example of fine-tuning. For this object, each of the thousand billion billion billion billion atoms are arranged—sorry, fine-tuned—for the purpose of human transport. Now if you found a rock of comparable size and found a fleck of iron in it the size of a pinhead that’s approximately the equivalent volume fraction of life on earth, would you conclude that the rock was fine-tuned for the purpose of being a car? So why would you conclude that the earth is fine-tuned for the purpose of life?
[6:23] However, it’s better than that, as the creationists in this video go on to argue that we are the only life in the Milky Way. Fantastic. The volume between us and the nearest galaxy is about five times [Equation]cubic kilometers. That means that the creationists are happy to argue that something where you find one part in [Equation] that works, means that that object is fine-tuned for that purpose.
[6:51] Now for the creationist to call this a fine-tuned universe for the purpose of life is like taking a billion earths and finding a single iron atom on one of those earths and then concluding that these billion earths are fine-tuned for a purpose.
[7:08] In summary, it is deeply unconvincing to try and argue that a universe which has essentially no life in it is fine-tuned for the purpose of life.
[7:24] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “Wipe out one of those laws—no life.”
“Maybe there’s a fine-tuner. Maybe it was fine-tuned for life.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:03] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “Listen to what two of the greatest scientific minds in history said about the design in creation: Sir Isaac Newton: “the most beautiful system of the sun, the planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Albert Einstein—he said, “in view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no god.”
[0:33] Thunderf00t: Aaaah, quote mining; another favorite ploy of the creationist, using partial or misleading quotes from real scientists in the hope that some of their academic credibility will rub off on them. It’s trivial to do. For instance, these are the words of the devoted creationist Kirk Cameron and his partner Ray Comfort:
[0:52] clips from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “You guys who believe in god are idiots. You’re small-minded people who are unintelligent. You don’t think.”
“There’s no god.”
“I’d rather go to hell than to believe in a megalomaniac like god.”
[1:08] Thunderf00t: This is the worst kind of deceit; worse in many ways than actually lying in that it is specifically designed to intentionally mislead people by either misquoting people or misrepresenting academic discourse (which is essential to the progression of science) as a weakness of a theory.
[1:25] It is also very noticeable these creationists plead with you to accept their views. In academic circles this would be instantly interpreted as a man with no case to present, which is why he resorts to such snake oil-salesman-style techniques.
[1:40] In academic lectures on research science, it’s taken that any argument presented stands on its merits. The lecturer is expected to present his case clearly, but any attempt to suggest that his arguments should be accepted based on the pleading or scoffing of the lecturer would be instantly greeted with academic skepticism.
[2:00] This sort of thing might fly in the pulpit and in political forums, but it has no place in the academic arena.
[2:11] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “You know if a Coca-Cola can was MADE, there must be a maker. When I look at a painting, how can I know there was a painter? Well the painting is absolute, 100 percent scientific proof there was a painter. Well a building is absolute, 100 percent scientific proof there was a builder.”
[2:32] Thunderf00t: Yeaaah, tell it brother! Just like rocks are 100 percent absolute proof of a rock-making god. Just like sunsets is 100 percent absolute scientific proof of a sunset-making factory. Yeah, just like a nearly perfectly spherical Mars is 100 percent absolute proof that there is a Mars-maker. Oh yeah, that’s right. I remember now. The reason we don’t think that sunsets are made by a sunset-making god is because we understand the origin of sunsets. We can still say that god did it. It’s just that that doesn’t advance our understanding of the world any. And it’s a path that leads to an intellectual dead-end.
[3:10] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “If it’s designed, there MUST be a designer.”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: This statement is of course tautological. But the question is how can you recognize design? For instance, crystals are among the most ordered objects in the universe. Yet we do not instantly reach for a crystal-making god to try and explain the existence of these highly ordered structures. Again, the reason we do not reach for a god to explain these structures is because we have a perfectly satisfactory naturalistic explanation of the origin of crystals.
[3:41] There is nothing wrong with a tautological statement that designed objects are designed. There’s nothing wrong with the statement that paintings, etc. are designed, simply as they have no plausible naturalistic explanation for their origin. However, there IS a naturalistic explanation for life. It’s called evolution. And before the creationists start coming out with their unfounded tosh about how ‘it’s never been observed’ and so on: it’s more than observed. The principle of evolution is used by the likes of engineers to design aerodynamic bodies—a sort of design without a designer.
[4:16] Indeed, even I myself have written such pieces of code. All you need is reproduction with variation, and environmental attrition and evolution intrinsically follows. This is not just some animation about the front end of an evolutionary algorithm, where the bugs are actually evolving to the environment.
[4:38] Well let’s just highlight the logical flaws of this typical creation argument that ‘designed objects such as paintings, buildings, etc. require a designer. Life looks designed, so it must have a designer’.
[4:51] Let me parody this creationist logic. Let me take a load of pebbles, and see if any of them perfectly fit a shot glass. The answer is no. Indeed I could keep on trying to get pebbles to fit the shot glass in perpetuity and never find one that fits it perfectly. Indeed, I could happily conclude that the only way for a pebble to fit the shot glass perfectly is if it were designed to fit the shot glass.
[5:17] Liquids however fit a shot glass perfectly every time. So, by the creationist’s logic, liquid must be designed to fit the glass. Now the reason this argument is bogus of course, is simply because the two objects being compared have different critical properties. In my case I am comparing deformable matter such as liquids to solids, and drawing the bogus conclusion that liquids must be designed to fit the glass.
[5:45] In the creationist’s case, they are comparing objects that are known to be manufactured, with objects that can evolve—that is, objects that suffer environmental attrition and reproduction with variation—and then drawing the bogus conclusion that life must be designed.
[6:08] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “When I look at this building, how do I know there was a builder? You can’t see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, or smell him. I mean, what evidence is there that there was a builder?
[6:18] clip from “Bob the Builder”
[6:27] Thunderf00t: Yeah, that’s right. You know there was a builder because you CAN see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, and smell him—although few builders would allow you to go that far. But even if you couldn’t see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, or smell him, you can watch builders building buildings all the time. And even if you couldn’t do that, you go down to the planning department and get the blueprints for the building and get the date the building was erected on and how it was made.
[6:53] clip from“RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “When I look at this building, how do I know there was a builder? You can’t see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, or smell him. I mean, what evidence is there that there was a builder?
Many thanks to Linda for providing this transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know, I can put up with A LOT of fiction in a good story. Like blue god-like quantum men, or hundred year old girls fighting werewolves in subways. Or, people in computer games who can stop bullets if they believe it, and so on. However what I can’t take, even in a fantasy, is internal inconsistency. Like say, for instance when these agents—they can punch through walls—and they wanna kill everyone in this car, and this is what happens when he jumps on the first car; he utterly destroys it. And of course, that’s what happens when he jumps on the car with everyone in it he’s trying to kill, right? Nah, he just nimbly lands on the hood, merely making a mess of the paintwork, and so on.
[0:42] Or the time where the car he wasn’t trying to kill the people in is a mangled, bullet time wreck. In films, these are just kind of annoying and they’re called plot holes—it’s an internal inconsistency, and it’s the hallmark of bullshit. And people who can hold these internal inconsistencies in their mind in the real world—and even justify them—are idiots.
[1:05] So, let me just give you an example like: ‘my boyfriend only beats me because he loves me so much.’ Actually, no that’s a bad example because that’s pretty emotionally driven. Let me give you another example, that ‘God loves me so much, that he will torture me for eternity if I don’t do what he says.
[1:24] Huh, now that’s exactly the same thing just for the fictional character. Now it’s just come to me. I’ve got a famous example of this. Like when John Paul II claimed that it was a miracle that saved him from dying when he was shot, and that it was the Lady of Fatima who diverted the bullet away from a critical artery. To which Richard Dawkins famously retorted in The God Delusion that:
[1:48] clip from “Richard Dawkins Reads The God Delusion”: “When he suffered an assassination attempt in Rome, and attributed his survival to intervention by Lady of Fatima, “her maternal hand guided the bullet”. One cannot help wondering why she didn’t guide it to miss him altogether. Others might think the team of surgeons who operated on him for six hours deserve at least a share of credit.”
[2:19] Thunderf00t: Hell, if he wanted a miracle thing, why didn’t he just make like Neo? I mean believe me, if the Pope could do this, there would be a hell of a lot more Catholics in the wide world. But the reason I bring all this up is ‘cos this YouTube video I saw the other day.
[2:35] The creationist Kent Hovind is currently in jail after being convicted on a host of federal offenses mostly related to not paying his taxes. In fact, he’s been in jail for the best part of the last ten years. So some of the religious folks were discussing this:
[2:50] clip from “New 911 EMERGENCY! Dr. Kent Hovind 07/10/2014 Truth Serum Talk Radio Show Club Creation”: “And if you’re not everyone, priest [?] please lift him up in prayer. God has kept his hand of protection on Kent. Kent has been with some of the most violent offenders in this nation, and he’s not been harmed.”
“Mmhmm. Yes, exactly. And that just shows you the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of God at work here.”
[3:13] Thunderf00t: So did you get that? The fact that Kent has not been harmed in jail—just like tens of thousands of other prisoners who haven’t been harmed in jail—is actually the work of god. However, it would seem that even though god is powerful enough to keep Kent safe in prison, he’s not quite powerful enough to free him from prison.
[3:33] clip from “New 911 EMERGENCY! Dr. Kent Hovind 07/10/2014 Truth Serum Talk Radio Show Club Creation”: “But then again, you know, we do have an enemy and it’s not flesh and blood. Our adversary is the Devil and it’s his objective, um, to clearly to shut Dr. Hovind up and lock him away from the world so he can’t continue winning souls.”
[3:50] Thuderf00t: I mean, really, an all-powerful being who you think has personally intervened to keep you safe in jail, can’t get one man out of jail. I mean DAMN, the sheer self-centeredness of it all. If you’re gonna pray for something, DAMN pray for an end to childhood cancer! Not to get Kent Hovind out of jail. Or even better—get off your knees and actually DO something. ‘Cos as the old saying goes, a single pair of hands at work achieves more than a billion clasped in prayer.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript to this video! 🙂
[0:00] Thunderf00t: First we had that fantastic Dove commercial:
[0:03] clip from “dove evolution”
[0:16] Thunderf00t: Then we had “Ban Bossy”:
[0:19] clip from “Ban Bossy”
[0:23] Thunderf00t: And now following close in its footsteps we have #LikeaGirl. The format is pretty generic, you wanna get this behind-the-scenes feel to make it seem less staged and more authentic. You know, “trustworthy”. And you know, maybe get a clapper board in there or something . . . Like the girl sitting down while someone says that you’re “recording audio” . . . despite the fact that that’s the only audio used in the entire video, which, by the way, cost about $130,000 to make. And then take a point that everyone can agree with, you know, like say for instance that women on magazine covers are Photo shopped and then just hope no one spots that the title of these, um, uh, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
[1:18] I mean I just kind of scratch my head at this one. Are these people really getting upset about people using Photoshop to make themselves seem more beautiful than they actually are, when the very product that they are trying to sell you is meant to make you appear more beautiful than you actually are?—you know, appearance-enhancing cosmetics.
[1:40] I mean, to be honest, if you don’t find this being transformed into THIS a problem, then why do you really care about the Photo shopping? And that of course is just ignoring the fact that the whole thing was just a Unilever marketing campaign time “to coincide with the expansion of Dove brand artificial appearance-enhancing cosmetic soaps and cleansers” (Wikipedia “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty”). Uh—sorry, no, nothing to do with that at all. It was just about how much Dove brand cosmetics agrees with you about just how wrong it is for other women to try to be more beautiful than they actually are.
[2:17] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”
[2:31] Thunderf00t: Now we have another corporation with an ENTIRELY philanthropically motivated message. This time they want young, confused girls—about the time they get their first period—to know that a sanitary towel manufacturer knowsand understands their problems. And it’s got nothing to do with all that hormonal shit that kicks off in a woman’s body about this time. No, it’s all down to people saying ‘throw like a girl’.
[2:57] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “So when they’re in that vulnerable time, between 10 and 12, how do you think it affects them when somebody uses ‘like a girl’ as an insult?
“I think it definitely drops their self-confidence and really puts them down, because during that time they’re already trying to figure themselves out. And-”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: Well isn’t that nice of them, to know that the corporation like this has your best interest at heart. In that sense, it’s a perfect viral advertising campaign for something that is intrinsically difficult to market.
[3:29] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no such thing as a ‘happy period’. The reality is, some people simply can’t handle the truth.”
[3:38] Thunderf00t: You get to engage with your audience without having to deal with all that icky stuff that’s usually associated with the subject.
[3:46] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “In the past, we tried to be more honest in our approach. In the 1980’s we ran a series of focus groups to help us gauge the public’s reaction to periods: the cramps, the mood swings, the insatiable hunger—and yes, Richard, the blood coursing from my uteri like a crimson landslide.”
[4:02] Thunderf00t: They get what they want, which is for teenage girls to have a positive association with Always sanitary towels. That is, as long as they don’t think about it too much. Buut we’ll come back to that in a second. If you wanna see how eye-rollingly badly this game can be played, just watch the Pantene commercial. Pfft. No clapperboard. Amateurs.
[4:22] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”
[4:33] Thunderf00t: -where it insists that women keep apologizing like this isn’t something that EVERYONE does just to be polite—no, no. It’s only women who ever do this. Then, of course, what if women didn’t say sorry?
[4:45] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”
[4:59] Thunderf00t: Yes, Pantene wants you to be one of those people who never says sorry.
[5:04] clip from “ORIGINAL VIDEO – Bitchy Resting Face”: “Because if we wanted to be constantly misunderstood, we’d try and talk to a deaf person.”
“Hey, Taylor—I think you might actually be a bitch.
“In real life.”
“You should’ve all been aborted.”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Oh yeah! Everyone loves someone who never says sorry. Ain’t that so, Liz?
[5:29] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”
[5:50] Thunderf00t: Buuut joking aside, and coming back to the thinking about the ‘throw like a girl’ commercial—as much admiration as I have for how well-executed this marketing campaign was, it’s still BULLSHIT. Annd maybe this would be a good time for those ‘meee tooo’ Tumblr-type feminists to get a box of Kleenex in, because if you think the expression “like a girl” is what destroys the self-confidence of young women, then a hard stare at reality will likely cause a gendered panic-attack of apocalyptic proportions.
[6:24] The expression ‘throw like a girl’ probably has its roots in fairly obviousbiology. You know, guys tend to have almost twice the upper body strength of girls (Wikipedia, “Sexual dimorphism”). I know—it’s hardly rocket science. Add in there a spot of culture. You know, girls having less historical need to throw stuff than guys. And the fact that sports mostly focus on higher, faster, and stronger; which on a level playing field, with NO SEXISM whatsoever, is actually men in every category. And you would need a very special class of feminist idiot to say otherwise:
[7:05] clip from Feminist Frequency“Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth; which of course is completely false.”
[7:13] Thunderf00t: Aww, I know, let me taste those sweet, juicy, social-justice-warrior tears. Let me just say that again: on a level field, with NO glass ceiling and absolutely no sexual discrimination, men are faster, stronger, and better throwers. Yet, that’s not sexism you’re looking at. That’s just the reality of being a sexually dimorphic species.
[7:40] So, in demographic terms, little girls tend to be the weakest throwers of all. So guess what, this is simile—or metaphor, or whatever—for someone who throws weakly.
[7:51] Whoa—I know, rocket science! ‘But noo, the fact that little girls are the weakest throwers is clearly wrong because little staged girls in Barbie-pink and rainbow girl here can throw stuff too! to uplifting music which includes important demographics including sporty and token!’ And as with all advertising campaigns, absolutely no fattys and no uglys; because although you’re courageously battling for the self-esteem of young girls, the last thing that you want is your product associated with fat or ugly people. And the fact that you can confuse a teenage girl or actor or whatever into not understanding the difference between the meaning of ‘a girl throwing’ and the simile of ‘throw like a girl’
[8:35] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “Yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl because I am a girl. And, that is not something that I should be ashamed of.”
[8:45] Thunderf00t: I know, poor girl must go white with fear when someone says she’s ‘into shit’, or someone ‘eats like a pig’ or ‘I would kill for a royale with cheese’. But anyway, no—girls’ plummeting self-confidence is all down to the devastating metaphor of ‘throw like a little girl’.
[9:01] THIS is why girls’ self-confidence plummets during puberty. Well, that and of course being called bossy:
[9:08] clip from “Ban Bossy”:“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher.”
“Being labelled something matters.”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”
“And that’s because they worry about being called”
“‘bossy’”
[9:22] Thunderf00t: And as many a feminist has pointed out, when women have such heavy crosses to bear, and the fact that they think that women are such weak and fragile creatures that they really need to have to have their hands held to deal with these horrific social burdens, it must truly amaze feminists that ANY women make it to adulthood at all. All the while having that perplexed look on their face as to why the term ‘feminism’ has inexplicably acquired a reputation of being a CULT, where the only tenent is that you whinely embrace victimhood. GOOD JOB feminists. That’s EXACTLY the role model that young women need.
[10:03] But as for the viral marketing campaign, yet it struck a great blow. And it’s certainly fighting against propagating harmful stereotypes. And it’s made #LikeaGirl mean amazing things, like how you can destroy a teenage girl’s self-confidence simply by using the expression ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘bossy’.
[10:24] clip from “Ban Bossy”: “By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”
“And that’s because they worry about being called”
“‘bossy’”
[10:31] clip from “The Doctor Vs The Prime Minister – Doctor Who . . .”and “Ban Bossy” [LOL!]
[10:49] Thunderf00t: Well, in this new age of gender equality they should just learn to ‘take it like a man’. Always. Good job.
Many thanks to Linda for creating this transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: So meet Suey Park, the instigator of the #cancelcolbert. And she’s quite clear about one thing, that she’s NEVERclaimed to be an educator.
[0:10] clip: “And I’ve never claimed to be, like, an educator. Um, I’m an activist and I think”
[0:15] Thunderf00t: However when she was sending a question to President Obama, she obviously felt that ‘#activist’ might sound, well, kind of pathetic. I wonder if there’s a way that she could make herself sound more important?
[0:27] clip: “Hi! I’m Suey Park, and I’m from Chicago, Illinois. A month ago, I started the hashtag, #NotYourAsianSidekick that sparked global conversation for, and by Asian American women. I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer”
[0:40] Thunderf00t: (LOLing) that’s just EPIC.
[0:43] clip: “And I’ve never claimed to be, like, and educator”
“I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer”
[0:48] Thunderf00t: So, Suey is one of those precious social justice warrior flowers, always so hair triggered to be outraged at the most trivial of things. And always so, so rational.
[1:01] clip: “And not just shift it to another group, is that we need to understand how genocide, and slavery, and orientalism, all work together to uphold white supremacy”
“how genocide, and slavery, and orientalism, all work together to uphold white supremacy. It’s really kind of the way that I understand my work. Which is why a lot of my work isn’t essentially with these mainstream Asian American activist groups. #NotYourAsianSidekick was actually not a call for Asian American visibility or Asian American celebration. It was actually a call to not be a sidekick to white supremacy”
[1:35] Thunderf00t: We have the great market out there for the professional victims. Giving keynote talks at places like Purdue University about their first-world problems and getting their articles in places like TIME Magazine. But I’ll come to those shortly.
[1:51]:The principle role in this was a keyboard social-justice-warrior, revolutionizing the world one ‘meetooo’ keystroke at a time.
[2:00]: She’s best known for being the instigator of the #cancelcolbert. And she really, really believes in this online activism stuff making a difference, as can be seen in this Tweet here, of ‘(yawn) another online petition about me’.
[2:16]: Yes, it’s clear that she thinks that this hashtag activism about first-world problems can change the world. As long as the online activism isn’t about her racism. Or sexism. Or whatever. But yes, Suey. Claiming that people cannot understand things, based solely on their skin color, or their sex, is what we call racism and sexism.
[2:38] clip: “-especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying”
[2:43] Thunderf00t: So understand, Suey, that when you look in a mirror, that the person looking back at you, is what a sexist, and a racist, looks like.
[2:52] And then you gotta foil that up with an expert petulant and dishonest display:
[2:56] clip: “You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive, and I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”
“Explain”
“I just told you I wouldn’t enact that labor”
“Okay. Thanks for being with us, Suey”
[3:12] Thunderf00t: -where she reports this interview, where she says that the interviewer couldn’t understand things because of his skin color, and his gender, like this: “In case anyone thought I was censoring Colbert, please know I was just talked down to, muted, and silenced by @joshzepps and @huffpostlive.” To which Zepps actually told it like it actually happened: “Ahh, the righteousness of professional umbrage-takers. @suey_park wasn’t muted or silenced. I invited her to explain herself & she declined.”
[3:47]: At which point Suey really threw her toys out of the pram and just took the high road with: “You are so pathetic, @joshzepps”
[3:56]: In case you’re wondering what silencing tactics ACTUALLY look like, just see how feminists deal with an opposing viewpoint.
[4:04] clip: “It’s my hope that as a result of my talk, a few of you may decide to–okay, you know, it’s the signature—it’s a signature of a totalitarian ideology to attempt to quash descent. So every time you interrupt, you’re merely showing your repressive tendencies. You’re not showing anything about your virtue . . . So you think this is a victory? Yeah, why are you so frightened of hearing an opinion different from your own?”
[4:43] Thunderf00t: And you’ll be happy to know that Anita Sarkeesian, popped up to suggest that the backlash was nothing to do with the stupidity of what she said, or the racism or the sexist things that she said. No, it was entirely because she was a woman.
[4:58]: Oh, professional victims of the world unite! Interestingly, the article she links to describes the above interview like this:
[5:06]: “Her treatment on Huffington Post Live by Josh Zepps illustrates how even the mainstream media decorousness could not restrain the impulse to publicly punish and shame a disobedient woman of color”
[5:21]: However, other than the article being hilariously over-the-top, there’s links to a screenshot of a petition, which looks curiously like a White House petition. The curious thing is though, I can find no such petition on the White House. And my suspicions are further aroused by the fact that by the time this very low-resolution screen shot was taken, only ONE person had signed the petition.
[5:44]: I mean, let’s be real. A natural, next-phase in the lifestyle of these professional victims is if they can’t actually get a real threat narrative going, is just gonna be to invent one wholesale.
[5:55]: However, even if the petition was one hundred percent legit, let’s just remind ourselves of some of the other online petitions of the White House, like for Obama to do the Hokey Pokey, or for the U.S. government to build a Death Star. The latter receiving some thirty-thousand signatures and actually got an official and very funny response.
[6:14]: But OH NOES when there’s a petition with just ONE signature to deport Suey Park and remove her first amendment rights, this is actually a real threat against women! And that it’s therefore entirely reasonable for these professional victims to lose their shit.
[6:30]: Now, to a degree, she may have a point about this hashtag activism changing the world. But probably not in the way that she thinks. In this interview here, this is the pertinent bit:
[6:42] clip: “-already”
“Wow. It’s so funny because I feel like there’s new change happening, um, with new media where, social groups that haven’t necessarily had a voice—ever, before—now has a platform.”
[6:58] Thunderf00t: Yes, giving a voice to AFFLUENT, middle-class women in their twenties, still living with their Moms:
[7:05] clip: “One second. My Mom just came home”
[7:07] Thunderf00t: -who NEEDS something to be neurotic about so they can Tweet about their therapy; and how they’re soon to be getting a therapy animal. OH MY god, really—she’s getting a therapy animal and she has the gall to call anyone else PRIVILEGED. I mean, I can see the architecture of the internet now, gently sobbing in a moody basement somewhere:
[7:27]: ‘We invented the internet to make society a better through communication of information. We never—in our most hideous nightmares thought it would be used by the most whiny, and self-righteous losers on the planet to unite in the mother-of-all outraged-about-nothing PITY PARTIES. We just didn’t KNOW!’
[7:50]: But occasionally these whiners do hit the big-time. Well, for fifteen or so minutes anyway. But for ALL of the WRONG reasons. For instance, Suey Park got her opinion into TIME Magazine. An interesting article to be sure. Especially if you do a word analysis on it and you find that the most used word in the entire article, is ‘white’. Followed in second place by, ‘racism’, ‘satire’, and ‘racist’. And in third place with, ‘you people anti-liberals’.
[8:20]: But mainly the star sentence in the whole thing is, “These white liberals are not mad that we pointed out racism, they are mad that they now have to consider the ways in which THEY may be racist.”
[8:34]: OH, SWEET MONUMENT to passive-aggressive irony. Berating people for being racist in the VERY sentence where you were judging people SOLELY on their skin color. Seriously, just Google #cancelcolbert or Suey Park and you’ll get pages and pages of this stuff.
[8:55]: The amazing thing is though, that it gets as much support as it does for these utterly vacuous arguments.
[9:01]: Now let me just say for those people with no discernable skill or talent—for them, playing the professional victim is probably the best option they have available to them. And that the people who really are paying that much attention—to them, all they see is someone saying that ‘I’m being victimized by an evil majority’. And these folks immediately put it into the David –versus-Goliath category and root for the underdog.
[9:27]: Now thankfully, it’s not a long-term winning strategy, and that as time goes on it becomes clearer and clearer—this is actually more The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Oh maybe more aptly, the professional victim who cried ‘sexism’ and ‘racism’ over their first world problems.
[9:44]: And yeah, sure, all of this does wonders for the credibility of REAL victims of sexism and racism.
[9:53]: But the verpidity of these morons—I mean, they think that THIS is a good argument for sexism:
[10:00] clip: “Men occupying the highest ranks in virtually every industry in the world”
[10:05] Thunderf00t: -then just immediately gloss over the fact that men also make up 90 percent of the prison population. I mean, I guess that just must mean that the entire criminal justice system is SEXIST against men. I mean, how else could you explain it? Yes, these are EXACTLY the sorts of sexual partitionings you would expect in a fair but sexually dimorphic species. That is, if you want to claim sexism, you’ve got to demonstrate sexism.
[10:33]: And no matter how many times you bounce up and down and say ,‘look, there’s inequality of outcome’, that simply doesn’t cut it as evidence of sexism. Because in a sexually dimorphic species, even when there IS equality of opportunity, you do not necessarily expect equality of outcome.
[10:50]: Or the vacuous nature of Suey Park claiming everyone else is privileged. I mean, can you imagine her outrage if she was told to ‘check her yellow privilege’ because Asians are universally the BEST PAID demographic in America.
[11:05]: And actually, yes they are. Earning on average twice as much as blacks. Maybe you need a new hashtag, Suey; maybe something along the lines of your ‘BETTER PAID Asian sidekick. Especially when you’re talking about privilege, of the back drop of the immensely well-stacked FINE CHINA teacups.
[11:23]: But fundamentally, yes. Saying ‘check your yellow-woman privilege’ is dismissive, and racist. For EXACTLY the same reasons that THIS is dismissive and racist:
[11:35] clip: “-especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying”
[11:39] Thunderf00t: Now let me say this in PLAIN language, so there can be absolutely no ambiguity. Suey Park is not only a racist, and a sexist—I think we’ve covered that already. But also a WORLD CLASS hypocrite. I mean we’ve already seen how she dismisses other people’s online activities “yawn”. But thinks that her hashtag activism is gonna change the world.
[12:05]: In her own words: “This is not reform, this is revolution”—OH, sweet mother of delusion of grandeur! But back to the hypocrisy. You will remember her outrage when someone just called her opinion ‘stupid’.
[12:19] clip: “No. No one’s minimalizing your experiences. No one’s minimalizing your right to have an opinion. It’s just a stupid opinion. I mean, it’s a misunderstanding of what satire is—it’s a misunderstanding of what irony is”
“You just called my opinion ‘stu-piiid’”
“You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive. And I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”
[12:40] Thunderf00t: Yes, that’s INCREDIBLY patronizing and offensive to call someone’s opinion stupid. It’s demeaning and so forth. Unless of course you’re Suey Park, then it’s perfectly acceptable for you to call other people’s questions stupid: ‘“When white men ask me stupid questions—I zap them into trolls and put them in my garden”’
[13:01]: Suey, tell us what you think of that argument:
[13:03] clip: “You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive. And I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”
[13:12] Thunderf00t: But for me, the one that sealed the deal that she’s just formally unplugged from reality, was in her interview with Salon. And it went like this:
[13:22]: ““Interviewer: What do you think is the best way to work with white people, to get them on our side?”
“Suey: I don’t want them on our side”
“Uhhh. You don’t want them on your side?”
“This is not reform, this is revolution”
[13:38] Thunderf00t: I’m not quite sure what you’ve got in mind here, Suey. A society free of racism where absolutely everyone is equal—uhh apart from the white people. Really, when you were given that keynote talk at Purdue University at the Conference on Diversity:
[13:53] clip: “I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer. And this spring, I’ll be travelling to all different colleges in the U.S. to connect with students”
[13:59] Thunderf00t: I’m just curious—did you hang a sign outside saying: ‘whites not welcome’?
[14:04] clip: “I think that facebuilding and dialogue are necessary in continuing to build an inclusive movement”
[14:09] Thunderf00t: But this one REALLY knocks the whole thing out of the ballpark in that she’s on a whole new level of bat-shit crazy:
[14:18] ““Yes, because I think it’s important. A lot of white America and so-called liberal people of color, along with conservatives ask, “Do I understand context?” And that’s part of wanting to completely humanize the oppressor. To see the white man as ALWAYS reasonable, ALWAYS pure, ALWAYS deliberate, always complex and ALWAYS innocent. And to see the woman of color as literal””
[14:46] Thunderf00t: HOLY CRAPwoman, what planet are you ON!? Always see the white man as REASONABLE!?
[14:52] clip: “Tide goes in, tide goes out—never a miscommunication. YOU, can’t explain that”
[14:57] Thunderf00t: Always see the white man as, REASONABLE!?
[15:00] clip: “I know that human being, and fish, can coexist peacefully”
[15:07] clip: “It appears, that, there were not weapons of mass destruction there”
“You said you knew where they were”
“I did not-”
“-know where they are, in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and-”
[15:20] Thunderf00t: WHAT PLANET are you ON? Here on planet earth, we judge arguments based on their merits. And we call those who judge arguments based on skin color, RACISTS because it’s a STUPID way of judging if an argument is valid or not. Nor do we judge arguments on “privilege”.
[15:38] clip: “Because they live in white privilege”
“Yeah”
“And they live, like, so deeply in white privilege that they can’t get their asses out of it”
[15:44] Thunderf00t: This woman, is a BILLIONAIRE. She’s as privileged as they come. But bizarrely, when she does something stupid—outrageously stupid—we don’t judge her actions based on the fact that she’s a woman. Or that she’s rich, and privileged, and entitled. We judge her actions based on their merits. Or, in this case, the lack of them:
[16:07] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
[16:09] Thunderf00t: ‘Yes, I was called ‘bossy’ when I was a kid. And now I’m a BILLIONAIRE and one of the most powerful women in the world! So let’s get more women involved in leadership by banning the word ‘bossy’’’.
[16:20]: And this man is a billionaire, and as privileged and white as they come. But, according to Suey, we must regard “the white man” as ALWAYS reasonable, ALWAYS pure, ALWAYS deliberate, ALWAYS complex, ALWAYS innocent. BULL SHIT!
[16:36]: If he claims that vaccines cause autism, then his opinions are moronic.
[16:41] clip: “You just called my opinion stu-piiid”
[16:43] Thunderf00t: Sure, Suey. And I don’t say that because he’s white, or a man, or a privileged billionaire. I say it because his arguments are demonstrably WRONG. And only morons and social-justice-warriors would base an argument’s validity—well, lack of it—on whether someone is poor or privileged. That is, only a moron would dismiss someone’s opinion simply by saying, ‘check your privilege’ because it’s a matter of supreme irrelevance to the validity of an argument.
[17:14]: Just like saying someone’s skin color—or if you have girl parts or boy parts—is a matter of SUPREME irrelevance to the validity of an argument.
[17:23]: But for Suey, it’s of almost NUCLEAR face palm proportions. And they are supposedly trying to END racism in a revolution in which white people will NOT be welcome.
Many thanks to Linda for creating this Transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: This is your brain. This is your brain on a new wave of feminism:
[0:05] clip: “Bossy, bossy, bossy”
“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”
“Being labelled something matters”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: Yeah. That’s right, what else could possibly explain the lack of women in leadership roles but the word:
[0:27] clip: “bossy”
[0:28] Thunderf00t: And what better way to correct that than by banning a word?
[0:32] clip: “We need to help them lean in”
“Words matter”
“Let’s just ban the word ‘bossy’”
[0:38] Thunderf00t: Yes, apparently this is the latest in the string of feminist explanations to explain why there aren’t more women in certain fields. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in humans. You know, that OUTRAGEOUSLY SEXIST reason why we split up the Olympics by sex.
[0:54] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender is a deeply ingrained, socially constructed myth. Which, of course is completely false”
[1:03] Thunderf00t: Or the fact that the physical dimorphism is accompanied by behavioral dimorphism as well. You know, it’s a consequence of having that neural net we call a ‘brain’, marinaded in mostly one hormone or another—nah, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in the behavior of humans. It’s all bound to the word ‘bossy’.
[1:23] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”
“Being labelled something matters”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”
[1:37] Thunderf00t: First we have those feminists, like Rebecca Watson:
[1:40] clip: “That’s right, you liberal, intellectual guy, who has a healthy interest in science and skepticism, but who finds feminism distasteful and would rather not hear about it. You are worse than rape threats”
[1:54] Thunderf00t: -who told us that sexism in Atheism was so bad, that a woman could get ASKED FOR COFFEE in an elevator. And THAT’S why there aren’t so many women in atheism. While she simultaneously thinks that starting a charity fund raiser by spitefully insulting every, single, male atheist in the audience, is just funnnny.
[2:17] clip: “I opened with a joke, referencing the fact that”
“Hello, YouTube. It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. And, I’m guessing that you’ve missed me too. Because I’ve heard that if a male atheist on YouTube goes too long without calling a woman a cunt, his balls will actually shrivel up, and then tuck up inside of him, forming what some call a ‘mangina’”
“Most people, got the joke”
“Most people, got the joke”
“Rule number one: don’t try to be funny, even though you are obviously not funny”
[2:50] Thunderf00t: Seriously, you start your video by spitting in people’s faces, and then blame the people whose faces that you’ve just spat in, for not finding it funny.
[3:01] clip: “You think that my sarcasm and feminism causes misogyny. In the same way that birds flying south for the winter causes the snow to come”
[3:11] Thunderf00t: No, Rebecca. I think that people are pissed at you, was CAUSED by you SPITTING IN THEIR FACES for exactly the same reason that I think smoking causes cancer. And then you portray the fact that they’re pissed off that you spat in their faces, as a reason why you’re persecuted, and people need to give you money. Or maybe that’s the whole point.
[3:33] clip: “I’m gonna continue speaking out about feminism and harassment of women online. Why? Because it pisses you off.
[3:40] Thunderf00t: And then we have the “pop culture critic” who doesn’t even like playing computer games, ‘cause it’s “gross”
[3:47] clip: “And also, videogames—like, I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[3:54] Thunderf00t: -telling people that the reason that she doesn’t like computer games is because it’s “gross”. Oh, no. That won’t do at all. That doesn’t involve accusing people of sexism orblaming men. Yes, the reason she doesn’t like playing computer games is because of the “sexist depiction of women in computer games”. Especially the ones that involve:
[4:14] clip: “shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[4:17] Thunderf00t: -an argument that is just so mind-blowingly stupid. It’s like calling Victoria’s Secret ‘sexist’ because they only make lingerie in women’s sizes, and that they don’t use an equal number of men to model their lingerie. Yes, the first-person shooter industry demographic is mostly men. Because most girls, like Anita here find that sort of thing “gross”.
[4:42] clip from “boom headshot” (Hahaha! Damn)
[4:48] clip: “shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[4:51] Thunderf00t: Look, Anita. Just because you CHOOSE not to play a game that doesn’t appeal to you—that doesn’t make it sexist. You choosing not to play that game DOES NOT mean that you are being discriminated against by an unquestioning boys club.
[5:05] clip: “-is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . And all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club”
“I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Just like when I choose not to go shopping for lingerie because it doesn’t appeal to me—that’s not sexism, I am not being discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club.
[5:35] Now, if that what I was after, there are FAR easier ways to get discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club. Like the one that gave you $160,000 to make some videos.
[5:46] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . Nearly seven-thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”
[6:03] Thunderf00t: Of which you’ve made four. In two years. $160,000. Or maybe that’s the whole point. Oh yeah, good business is where you find it. And selling victimhood to feminism is just as easy as selling a persecution complex to the religious.
[6:25] clip: “Listen, we have an outstanding broadcast here today. I took the time to do a compilation concerning Christian persecution in America. Check this out:
[6:35] Thunderf00t: And almost as profitable.
[6:37] clip: “There is coming a time very quickly here in America that we will not be able to bring this gospel message the way we currently are. That’s why we are urging you to donate today to continue and expand the work of this broadcast ministry before the lights go out. God bless you.
[6:55] Thunderf00t: And now you get this outrageous spinoff that the reason that there aren’t as many women managers is because they don’t like being called ‘bossy’. Because apparently the patriarchy has imbued men with this unholy power not to be discouraged by being called bossy. While these feminists think that women need special treatment, because ‘they’re emotionally fragile creatures than men’. Of course, if I were to say that women are more emotionally fragile creatures and need special protection from being called ‘bossy’ they would instantly label me as outrageously sexist and misogynistic.
[7:28] clip: “-horrible bigots, like Thunderf00t”
[7:31]: But these feminists think they are showing just how well women can compete on a level playing-field by saying that women are too emotionally fragile to handle being called ‘bossy’.
[7:44] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”
“Being labelled something matters”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”
[7:58] Thunderf00t: Ah, the face palm fails me. Look, let me say it once. Let me say it loud and let me say it clear: humans are a sexually dimorphic species. MEN and WOMEN are BIOLOGICALLY different. Which MAY or MAY NOT mean, that women are more biologically, emotionally fragile.
[8:21]: However, what we call ‘fair’ in society is equality of opportunity. Which in a sexually dimorphic species DOES NOT guarantee equality of outcome. In simple, simple terms the reason that it’s men who invariably end up shifting a couch up the stairs, is NOT because of sexism. Men are not conspiring to keep the couch-moving trade the “boys only” club with all the privileges and entitlements that come with it. It’s simply that they’re physiologically better-suited for it. You know, the same reason we divide the Olympics up by sex without everyone losing their shit and calling it sexism. If you wanna call it ‘sexism’, it’s simple. You have to show that there was not equality of opportunity. ‘Cause in a sexually dimorphic species, showing inequality of outcome, just doesn’t cut it.
[9:20]: But setting aside the 1984-style aspirations of being able to control words
[9:26] clip: “This is “Ban Bossy” take one”
[9:28] Thunderf00t: Well, I wouldn’t mind so much, but one of the women they have on board was Condoleezza Rice.
[9:35] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”
[9:39] Thunderf00t: Here’s a radical notion: maybe we should BAN POLITICIANS from telling bold-faced lies to the public to take them into an unjustified war.
[9:47] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”
[9:51] Thunderf00t: You know, one that’ll kill tens of thousands of people.
[9:55] clip: “There are no limits”
[9:57] Thunderf00t: -BEFORE we worry about banning the word ‘bossy’. Just sayin’.
[10:02] clip: “BAN ‘bossy’ . . . Join us to ban ‘bossy’”
[10:10] Thunderf00t: Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. The U.S. Secretary of education saw this, and thought, ‘Oh, ban ‘bossy’. That’s a really good idea. I really want to be a part of that!’
Many thanks to Linda for creating the transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know, Feminist Frequency uses a lot of feminist buzz-words. Like: ‘patriarchy’ and ‘misogyny’.
[0:07] clip: “patriarchy, sexist, sexist attitudes, and paternalistic attitudes about women, gender clichés, -and doing misogyny”
[0:13] Thunderf00t: Yep. She sees the oppression of women everywhere.
[0:17] clip: “Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: Now, in many ways, Anita using her “pop critic skills”-
[0:26] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic”
[0:27] Thunderf00t: -to show how oppressed women are, has made it almost a very cartoony, caricature trope of the modern feminist.
[0:34] clip:
[0:48] Thunderf00t: That is, Anita has become the ‘straw feminist’. Which she has previously claimed was merely a sexist trope to undermine feminism.
[0:57] clip: “Every now and then in Hollywood-land, the character that’s identified as ‘feminist’ will magically make its way through the production process and appear on our television screens. Unfortunately, this is almost never good”
“I’ve heard it said that in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team; they are the ball”
“Hollywood writers rely on one of the most deceptive and disgusting tropes ever to be forged in the fires of Mount Doom. That trope is called the straw feminist”
“Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives”
“In television and movies, the straw feminist works by deliberately creating an exaggerated character of a feminist, which writers then fill with a bunch of oversimplifications, misrepresentations, and stereotypes”
“Because it’s basically a choose-your-own-patriarchal-adventure porno fantasy”
[1:42] Thunderf00t: That is, she is not challenging stereotypes. She is reinforcing and fitting into them.
[1:47] clip: “The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over-the-top, and unnecessary.”
“It’s an old, yet effective tactic. But clearly it’s working. Because I often hear young women say, ‘I believe in the equal right of women. But, I’m not a feminist’”
[2:01] Thunderf00t: Now, personally speaking, so, broad egalitarian—you know, someone who thinks that everyone should be treated fairly—not just women. I like to use words like oppression to mean things like, this:
Or, words like ‘patriarchy’ to describe cultures like this:
[2:18]: To use the word ‘patriarchy’ to describe situations like this:
[2:22] clip:
[2:30] Thunderf00t: -merely reduces the word to a trivial level of first world problems.
[2:35] And believe me, no one has done more, or worked harder, to undermine the impact of these words, than modern feminists like Anita Sarkeesian.
[2:45 clip]: “The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over-the-top, and unnecessary.”
[2:51] Thunderf00t: for instance, Anita wants to uh, research games, of all things to find out just how much society is oppressing her.
[2:59]: Now, in science where we’re genuinely interested in discovering the unknown, we have a tradition. That is, you start with the research. And that after you’ve done the research, you draw your conclusions. This is the antithesis, of things like creationist research, where you start with the conclusions, and then you go to research things to show that your initial prejudice was correct. And this is also how Anita Sarkeesian does “research”. That is, she starts with the conclusion:
[3:30] clip: “Many games tend to reinforce and amplify sexist and downright misogynist ideas about women”
[3:36] Thunderf00t: And then asks for funding to go and do the “research”, to support these prejudices.
[3:41] clip: “As you might imagine, this project requires an enormous amount of research. This is an incredibly ambitious project, because of the scope and scale of the research and production involved. So please donate any amount you can”
[3:53] Thunderf00t: Now in her first video, she seemed to particularly pick on Mario.
[3:57] clip: “-four Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2, Mario games, Mario Brothers, Mario, Super Mario Brothers, Mario Party, Mario Sports, and Mario Kart, Super Mario series, Super Mario, Mario, fan of the Mario and Zelda franchise”
[4:08] Thunderf00t: There’s just one problem with the Mario example. Mario, just so we are clear is an Italian plumber. It really is hard to think of a more underrated, underprivileged, disposable, and instantly forgettable male.
[4:26]: Peach, on the other hand is A PRINCESS. Well, no privilege there then. Oh, I’m sorry. Did your pop culture critic feminist and womanly skills miss that?
[4:38] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic. I am a feminist, and I’m a woman”
“Because, you know, nothing is worse in a patriarchal society than being a woman. Except maybe being a feminist”
[4:48] Thunderf00t: I’ll make this simple for you, Anita. Really, really simple. You claim as a hypothesis all you want, that woman not being portrayed as you want in video games, is making society misogynistic.
[5:02] clip: “The pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak, ineffective, or ultimately incapable, has larger ramifications beyond the characters themselves, and the specific games they inhabit . . . We have to remember that these games don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re an increasingly important and influential part of our larger social and cultural ecosystem . . . The reality is, this trope is being used in a real-world context, where backwards sexist attitudes are already rampant”
[5:27] Thunderf00t: Just like you could claim that Pokémon is set in a real-world situation:
[5:32] clip: “Pokémon—plural—are incredible creatures that share the world with humans. Each has his own fighting abilities.”
[5:40] Thunderf00t: And is Satan’s way of getting at your children. In a world that is already rampantly anti-Christian.
[5:46] clip: “So Pokémon is a game, that teaches children how to enter into the world of witchcraft, how to cast spells, how to use psychic phenomena, how to put to work supernatural powers against their enemies, how to fantasy-role-play. . . Pokémon world is a world of the demonic, of the satanic. While you might not take it quite seriously, I assure you that demons take it quite seriously”
[6:11] Thunderf00t: However, merely stating a hypothesis, no matter how vocally, doesn’t make it true.
[6:18]: You fail to realize that you’ve yet to demonstrate any effect that these videogames have on people’s behavior. And until you do, you might as well be claiming that Pokémon are the ‘devil’s way of getting at your children’.
[6:32]: Hell, the people who claim that videogames make people more violent have a far better case than your claim that they make people sexist. And their claims have thus far, proved to be all but inconsequential.
[6:45]: The problem is of course, that people have claimed since time immemorial that violent fantasy media makes people more violent. Problem is of course, with the huge amount of violent video games played, there appears to be no clear correlation of violence in society. Meaning that any social vector, if it exists at all, is small. And they have a far, far, FAR stronger case than you do. Really, really, simple Anita.
[7:14]: Playing Assassin’s Creed does not increase your chances of becoming an assassin; because it’s a fantasy game.
[7:22]: The fact that you kill hundreds of people in this game, doesn’t make you any more likely to be a killer, than the fact that you died hundreds of times means that you won’t mind dying anymore. Because fundamentally, people can distinguish between reality and fantasy.
[7:38]: So, really, Anita. Where is your demonstration that the generation that enjoyed getting this Italian plumber, to rescue this princess from a giant turtle monster that are any more likely to be sexist? EXACTLY. These games are about as likely to make you sexist, as they are likely to make you think that violence against turtles is acceptable.
[8:04]: And this is why the fundamental premise of your entire video series is bullshit. And it will remain to be bullshit. Until you can actually demonstrate a link.
[8:17]: This is what happens when your idea of “well-researched” is to merely go and look for patterns that support your initial prejudices.
MANY thanks to Linda for creating this transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: So, Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency was recently on CNN.
[0:06] clip: So I announced my intentions to create a video series examining the way women are portrayed in video games. And I was attacked by a section of male gamers. And I think part of the attack was based on their attempt to preserve the status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space, and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club.”
[0:28] Thunderf00t: Well that’s one version of her “reality”, Anita. But here’s one that may be closer to the truth. You see, there was this gaming community that was about, well, playing games. And then you come along with this massively self-centered, and entitled behavior, throwing out these great shovels of troll-bait, saying, ‘why isn’t this gaming community pandering to my social preferences?’ Then, when you get the utterly predictable backlash of anyone who says such stupid shit online, you act surprised.
[0:58] Incidentally, Anita, I find it curious that it’s almost six months after you’ve given your TED Talk, the one which you were so proud that your fans had given you $150,000.
[1:09] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . nearly seven thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”
[1:26] Thunderf00t: Now, sure, I could note it’s almost a year since this project was funded to the tune of twenty-five times what you asked for. And thus far, this project of yours, the one that’s gonna be-
[1:38] clip: “bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”
[1:41] Thunderf00t: -consists of ONE single twenty-minute video. That’s all you’ve made in an entire year.
[1:50] clip: “Instead of just being five videos, it’s now thirteen videos, plus a classroom curriculum that educators can use for free.”
[1:56] Thunderf00t: And to be honest, the video that you made was of the caliber that I would estimate is about two working days of effort in it. But that’s not what I noticed here, Anita. I find it curious, in that almost six months since your TED Talk, the one which you were so proud of all the money you’d raised, and this CNN interview, which was curiously titled: “Online trolls attack feminist media critic”. Now, what I noticed is, that you’ve not only apparently not changed your outfit, or your earrings, your hairstyle—but not even one single word of your troll baiting/professional-victim routine.
[2:33] clip: “-larger implicit goal here is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . was based on their attempt to preserve this status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space . . . and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club . . . and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club.”
[2:55] clip: “So, in their minds, they concocted this grand fiction, in which they’re the heroic players of a massively multiplayer online game, working together to take down an enemy. And apparently, they casted me in the role of the villain. And what was my big diabolical master plan? To make a series of videos on YouTube about women’s representations in games.”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: But the crazy thing is, Anita, I can find no evidence for this “grand conspiracy” anywhere outside of your head. At least, beyond your claims that it exists. In fact, a quick search for images of you online shows that the internet has been far kinder to you, than it has been to me.
[3:33] but the gaming community constitutes all walks of life: libertarians, democrats, republicans, blacks, straights, gays, whites—whatever. And in many ways, it’s the ultimate, non-discriminating, and fair playing field. Which means in the sort of games that I play, when you get into the arena, the only thing that matters is: can you shoot faster, and more accurately than your opponent? That’s the only thing that matters. There is no socially constructed oppression for you underachievers to blame your failures on.
[4:08]: Well, maybe lag. If you cannot compete in such an arena, you cannot blame this on anything, other than your lack of ability, or your lack of performance.
[4:20] clip from The Matrix and “mras and feminists arguing at u of t mra event,” Fatal1ty
[5:05] Thunderf00t: Even back in the day, when I was playing as part of a clan, we had the most incredibly diverse group I’ve ever been in. We had a gun libertarian, we had a progressive liberal. We had an immigrant Mexican, and a republican police officer. And some Ivy League researcher. This was a group I would’ve never usually met or socialized with. But in the arena, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was I knew these people played well. And I could trust them to cover me. Especially in games like capture-the-flag. And that’s why, as a clan we played well. Because we mostly understood that we were here to play the game. Not to fight over political, or social issues.
[5:49]: That’s why it’s called The Gaming Community.
And, yeah, curiously enough, Anita you go into this community with this outrageously over entitled attitude, and expect everyone to change their behavior to service your social whims. And then, of all things, to complain when there’s a backlash against your shit-stirring antics.
[6:10]: This is the metaphorical equivalent of going in to say—oh, I dunno—a baby clothes knitting society, and start demanding that they make it less about the “privileges” and “entitlements” of the dominant and unquestioning girls club; that they make it less homophobic and more welcoming to libertarians. And then, wondering why everyone thinks you’re a shit-stirring douche. And then you turn around and say, ‘Aah! Look at that backlash to my troll-baiting. That just proooves how much sexism and homophobia there is in a baby [clothes] knitting society.’
[6:45]: But anyway, this is the part where it goes hilariously off-script:
[6:50] clip: “What do you say about people who say, ‘don’t feed the trolls’?”
[6:59] Thunderf00t: Oh, you just got served, Anita. That coy little smile of: ‘oh my. She knows about trolls on the internet’. It’s almost like they read the comments on your YouTube channel, and came to the conclusion, ‘this girl is just crying wolf. She brings nothing in the way of intellectual content, so she’s playing the best card she can.’ And that’s to hold up this pathetic handful of trolling activity so she can get the attention for her professional victimhood.
[7:28] And then to claim that the community that for the large part only cares about gaming, actually has some scheming plan to keep women out of this fictitious boys club.
[7:39] clip: “larger implicit goal here is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space”
[7:47] clip from The Matrix, Fatal1ty
[8:06] Thunderf00t: But Anita recovers quickly, and gets back onto point.
[8:09] clip: “What do you say about people who say, ‘don’t feed the trolls’?
“Um, I think that that is a pretty good attitude to take. Um, but I think there’s a difference between not engaging one-on-one with the trolls. I think that—I never spoke to any of the people harassing me directly . . . There’s a sort of conception that what happened to me was trolling. Um, and trolling is largely thought of as, one individual who’s trying to get a rise out of another individual. And what happened to me was really a cyber-mob, right? It was thousands of individuals coming after me who were loosely working together.
[8:45] Thunderf00t: Bullshit, Anita. You say dumb shit online, you can EXPECT to get trolled by thousands. And yeah, when you get trolled by thousands, those trolls will occasionally end up talking to each other. This isn’t a manifestation of people conspiring together to discredit you. This is just trolls, passing in the night, and laughing at the stupid shit that you’ve said.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying the following transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: So Feminist Frequency has put a lot of work, and research, into her latest video of “Tropes vs Women”:
[0:07] Clip: “Each video in this new series will be between ten and twenty minutes long, with well-researched, in-depth analysis”
[0:13] Thunderf00t: Indeed, Anita told us just how seriously she would take the research on this video:
[0:18] clip: “As you might imagine, this project requires an enormous amount of research”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: -using her skills as a “pop culture critic”
[0:24] clip: “As a pop culture critic”
[0:25] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic. I am a feminist, and I’m a woman”
[0:29] Thunderf00t: To make sure that this was very well-researched:
[0:32] clip: “This is an incredibly ambitious project because of the scope and scale of the research and production involved”
[0:37] Thunderf00t: Well let’s just see how well-researched this video actually was, shall we?
[0:41] clip: “So, without further ado, let’s jump right into the damsel-in-distress”
[0:45] Thunderf00t: For instance, she describes Double Dragon Neon, like this:
[0:48] clip: “Most recently, Double Dragon Neon in 2012 reintroduced new gamers to this regressive crap, yet again. This time in full HD”
[0:56] Thunderf00t: -without mentioning that the game Double Dragon Neon ends like this:
[1:09] some guy: Awww! Right in the baaalls!
[1:13] Thunderf00t: Which I kid you not, she then goes on to describe like this:
[1:16] clip: “-pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak, ineffective, or ultimately incapable, has larger ramifications beyond the characters themselves. And-“
[1:24] Thunderf00t: Yeah. That’s right. The game that ends with Marian, breaking a twenty-foot tall, super-space lich man in half like a toothpick, by punching him in the balls, is apparently:
[1:36] clip: “the pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak”
“ineffective”
“or ultimately incapable”
“has larger ramifications beyond-”
[1:47] Thunderf00t: I think we’re gonna have a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes “well-researched” here, Anita. Now, this really wasn’t the best damsel-in-distress you could’ve used in your first “Tropes vs. Women” video.
I mean, really, did you have to start with a straw man in the title? Do you really think that tropes as specifically adversarial to women? Maybe I should title this video in a reciprocatively fair fashion. Maybe something like: ‘Feminism versus Facts’. You know, not just scoring on the parody, but on the alliteration as well.
[2:21] But like I say, Feminist Frequency’s ability to find patterns that don’t exist, is rivaled only by her ability to miss the most important, and bloody obvious pattern of all: these games are not made to keep feminists happy. These games were not designed to subjugate women. These games were designed to be fun to play, and thereby make a profit for the designer. And this is the point [that] seems to have completely eluded Feminist Frequency during her twenty minute analysis. And yeah, this does mean that in the case of the original Double Dragon, that if you’ve only got about seven seconds to explain the plot—trust me, seven seconds. I timed her—then the characters are obviously gonna tend to be fairly one-dimensional, and the storylines, simple.
The damsel-in-distress of course, is just one of the simple story lines you can set up very easily. Why? Because most people in healthy relationships care for each other and therefore, immediately willing to make significant sacrifices for their loved ones.
Indeed, the very fact that they’re willing to make such sacrifices does not show that you are thinking as your partner as the “ball” in the “game of patriarchy”-
[3:34] clip: “I’ve heard it said that in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team. They are the ball.”
[3:39] Thunderf00t: -but it’s in fact a token of how much you care about them. I mean, let me just give you a couple of scenarios here, Anita. Billy’s girlfriend gets punched in the stomach, and abducted by a gang of thugs. Which of the following options defines the healthier relationship? That, he immediately sets out, risking his own safety to try and protect his loved ones. Or that he decides, ‘she’s a grown adult and can look after herself’. And then goes home to polish his car.
[4:09] clip from American Beauty: “1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I’ve always wanted, and now I have it. I RULE!”
[4:14] Thunderf00t: Personally, Anita, I think that most women would regard the latter, as a relationship-ending lack of commitment. But Anita’s take on an abducted loved one, is a little different.
[4:26] clip: “One way to think about a damseled character is via what’s call the subject-object dichotomy. In the simplest terms, ‘subjects’ act, and ‘objects’ are acted upon. The subject is the protagonist, the one who the story is centered on, and the one doing most of the action.
So the damseled trope typically makes men the subject of narratives, while relegating women to the role of object. This is a form of objectification, because as objects, damseled women are being acted upon. Most often becoming or reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found, or a goal to be achieved.”
[4:58] Thunderf00t: Or a loved one to be helped. I mean, Jesus girl, you are one sick puppy. So in your mind, if my girlfriend gets abducted, I can’t want to protect her. Or to keep her safe, without turning her into an object.
[5:12] clip: “-while relegating women to the role of object. This is a form of objectification, because as objects, damseled women are being acted upon.”
[5:19] Thunderf00t: I mean, damn. I thought I was cold. But that—that’s inhuman. Even the raptors in Jurassic Park showed more empathy than that. I mean really, by your feminist reasoning here, hospitals—you know, the places where patients come to be “acted on”—are actually ‘objectification centers’, where people are turned into merely objects to be acted on. And doctors—they’re not medical help providers. They’re the biggest objectifiers of all. Or the police. When someone gets abducted, are the police now to sit idly by because they can’t help without turning the abductee into an object? Yeah, it’s something they learned in Anita Sarkeesian’s “feminism class”. And this is the “well-researched” feminism that you weren’t taught in schools.
[6:04] clip: “-including seven new bonus videos, and a classroom curriculum”
[6:07] Thunderf00t: Yes, it really is this simple. It’s a sign that someone cares, that they are willing to make these sacrifices.
[6:13] clip from Star Trek (2009)
[7:21] Thunderf00t: This is a concept powerfully understood by almost anyone, with a sense of human empathy. Now sure, you can overanalyze this till you come out with your desired conclusions. Like, how selfish George was to rob his pregnant wife of a sense of agency by acting on her, and turning her into an object in the game of patriarchy. But your game, not only displays an inhuman lack of empathy—it’s facile.
Look, I’m gonna use this exact scene that you take from Dragon’s Lair in your Damsel in Distress video. And use my “well-researched” “pop culture critic skills” to come up with a similarly bogus conclusion to yours:
‘Have you ever noticed how men in games, almost always fall into one of the few stereotypes or clichés? We have to remember, that this regressive sexism is turning men into one-dimensional, clueless objects incapable of solving even the simplest of problems. Like, cages are locked with keys.’
[8:23] clip from Dragon’s Lair
[8:26] Thunderf00t: ‘-without the cerebral intervention and puppeteering from an intellectually manipulative woman. It’s simply turning men into barely house-trained Neanderthal objects, for the purpose of doing the dangerous work for a woman.’
[8:41] some guy: “I’m starting to feel bad. Like, I love my girlfriend Marian. But like, these guys didn’t actually do anything”
[8:52] Thunderf00t: ‘We have to understand that such derogatory stereotypes are detrimental to our society and our cultural ecosystem. But to see really how much this regressive crap degrades men, you only have to compare how many ways there are for the princess to die in this game versus the knight. That’s right, the whole game is one purpose-built, giant death-trap for the man. And whereof by some miracle he survives, he wins the honor of being puppeteered for some object by the princess.
Or, for that matter, let’s compare how many coherent sentences either can offer. The knight’s only dialogue in this entire game is screams, and of muffled screams, as he’s killed over, and over, and over again. Why couldn’t he be a thinking hero, who talks to the dragon and thoughtfully negotiates a mutually agreeable settlement? Why does this game have to dehumanize the man, by making his only course of action killing things?
[9:52] I mean you say as much in your own video. ‘Yes, it’s the “beat-‘em-up” trope being used here to propagate the socially harmful myth that men are unthinking psychopaths who can only solve problems by beating them up, or killing them. You watch this media, and yet you fail to see the blatantly misandric elements in this game. Like this woman, punching a man, as spitefully as she can in his sexually reproductive organs. It’s a deeply symbolic gesture of how much these games despise men, by causing them as much pain as possible, while simultaneously stopping them from reproducing.’
[10:32] some guy: “Awww! Right in the baaalls!”
[10:36] Thunderf00t: ‘How simple do you need this hatred of men in these games to be? Now I’m not saying that all games that employ such tropes are automatically tying to reinforce and amplify the socially harmful stereotypes that men are easily controlled, brainless, fighting, troglodytes. But this does help to normalize extremely toxic, patronizing, and demeaning attitudes about men.’
[11:04] But like I say, you can overanalyze this to you leisure until you can parlay it into whatever desired conclusions you want. But it won’t change the real fact of why these games are like they are. Because theyserve a market. It’s basically the same reason there are all these beauty magazines; because they serve a market.
[11:27] And it’s the same reason that you in your videos wear lipstick, eyeliner, nail varnish, and those big girly earrings. It’s not because you’ve made this conscious decision that women are naturally too ugly and unappealing, and therefore need to use these appearance-enhancing cosmetics. Although, I’m pretty certain that if a certain pop culture critic feminist were to be researching and analyzing your very video, she would happily bundle you into one of a few stereotypical women in the media, concluding that you’ve simply become a chill girl and sister-punisher by donning the Barbie-pink bondage-shackles-of-patriarchal-expectation by adorning yourself with attention-grabbing trinkets and by painting your face to resemble mild arousal.
[12:15] Trust me, it would be just as trivial to pin you into the role of the willing servant of this non-existent, scheming patriarchy as it was for you to parlay the damsel-in-distress into a systematic attempt to subjugate women.
No. You, like they, serve a market. The market you serve is telling feminists that they are oppressed. If you really thought there was a market for these feminist games, why not do the empowered-woman thing and lead by example, and design and market these games successfully yourself? I suspect that you know full-well that the reason these feminist games don’t exist, is not because the patriarchy is conspiring against you. It’s simply because there’s not a market for them.
[13:03] Look. Let’s be honest. We both know the free market doesn’t care what your ideology is. It only cares if it will turn a profit. Yeah. What you’re proposing is not viable. And this is why you’ve shown this masterly reluctance to cash in on this goldmine of feminist gaming that you think is out there. And this is the fundamental reason why you are a critic and not a creator. I mean, why take the risk of making a game that will almost certainly be an expensive failure, when you have this guaranteed market of selling the idea that ‘you are being systematically being oppressed by the patriarchy’, to feminists?
But the sad thing is, even if they did make this game exactly as you wanted—you know, like that game you were lamenting at the beginning of your video:
[13:52] clip: “The game was to star a sixteen year old hero named Krystal, as one of two playable protagonists. She was tasked with travelling through time, fighting prehistoric monsters with her magical staff, and saving the world. She was strong. She was capable. And she was heroic . . . Pretty cool, right? Well, it would’ve been. Except the game never got released.”
[14:18] Thunderf00t: And it’s a good thing it was never released, too. Because if it had been, it would’ve simply helped to ‘reinforce sexist, and downright misogynist ideas about women.’
You see, if your comprehensive research had included the master’s thesis of the feminist, Anita Sarkeesian . . . Oh. Well, if your research had actually included your own master’s thesis, titled, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You: Strong Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Television”, you would’ve realized that—I’ll let this guy explain:
[14:49] clip from Instig8iveJournalism, “Anita Sarkeesian Part 1: The College Graduate: “She argues that strong, empowered, female characters still aren’t feminist because they’re only pretending to be men . . . According to her, any women in a TV show who shows strong leadership, is only doing so in a charade of strictly masculine trait . . . the second diagram illustrates what she wants TV to give her. Once again—at odds with herself. Notably, she proposes significantly fewer positive feminine traits than positive male traits, with women hilariously unable to show confidence, or self-control.”
[15:17] Thunderf00t: Not only that, but in your feminist world, ‘strong’ is only a favorable attribute for the masculine.
[15:25] clip: “She was strong-”
[15:27] Thunderf00t: This is just what it’s like to play this game of constantly moving goal posts, with this sort of feminism. It doesn’t matter what the game that’s made is. The conclusion will always be:
[15:40] clip: “games tend to reinforce and amplify sexist, and downright misogynist ideas about women.”
[15:46] Thunderf00t: However, the part in your video where you go from finding patterns that don’t exist, to La-La Land, is here:
[15:52] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained, socially constructed myth. Which of course, is completely false. But the notion is reinforced and perpetuated when women are continuously portrayed as frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures.”
[16:09] Thunderf00t: Uuhh.BULLSHIT. You see, we are part of a sexually dimorphic species. That is, males and females, tend to have different physical characteristics. Look, the reason that we divide the Olympics up by sex, is not because we are inherently sexist. It’s because men and women tend to have different traits. On average, in the upper body strength, it’s almost fifty-percent difference. Ugh, come on. Tell me again how this is really a myth.
[16:38] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth. Which of course is completely false.”
[16:46] Thunderf00t: I’ve not seen this study yet. But I’m gonna go out there on a limb and predict that there will be no correlation whatsoever between the number of damsel-in-distress video games and the ensemble differences in the upper body strength between men and women.
[17:01] However, many who take a few seconds to read the Wiki page on ‘sexual dimorphism’ in humans, might come across this, where someone seems to be suggesting exactly that: “The smaller differences in the lower body strength may be due to the fact that during childhood, both males and females frequently exercise their leg muscles during activities like running, walking, and playing. Males, however, are socially pressured to enhance their upper body muscles, leading to a wider difference in upper body strength” (Wikipedia, “Sexual Dimorphism)
[17:31] But this is the cute thing—when you actually take a closer look at those references, and you find this: “The Gender and Science Reader brings together the key writings by leading scholars to provide a comprehensive feminist analysis of the nature and practice of science.”
And just, take that to heart for a second. A ‘feminist analysis’. Not an objective analysis. Not a scientific analysis. A feminist analysis.
[17:59] Now let’s compare that to some of the other studies like: “One study of muscle strength at the elbows and knees—in 45 and older males and females—found the strength of females to range from 42 to 63% of male strength. Another study found men to have significantly higher hand-grip strength than women, even when comparing untrained men with female athletes” (Wikipedia, “Sexual Dimorphism”)
Hmm. And both of those from peer-reviewed scientific journals. I think I’m almost to the point where I can track down the difference between objective scientific research, and feminist research.
[18:37] clip:“As you might imagine, this project requires an enormous amount of research.”
[18:40] Thunderf00t: I’m now also firmly of the opinion that one of these has a place to be taught in schools. And the other, doesn’t. I also note in passing, Anita, that you have disabled comments and ratings on your video. Which, has become the standard line of people on YouTube who peddle bullshit that cannot stand up to public scrutiny. I also note the reason you say you’re doing this, is a claim of victimhood. But let me offer you an alternative suggestion. The pushback you get, might mention that you’re a woman.
[19:12] clip: “I’m a woman.”
[19:13] Thunderf00t: But it’s not because you’re a woman. The pushback that you get might mention that you’re a feminist.
[19:20] clip: “I am a feminist
[19:21] Thunderf00t: But it’s not because you’re a feminist. Now the reason you get this pushback, as, I hope this video has amply explained, is because what you say is bollocks”
Thunderf00t 