Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know what’s fantastic about the new Feminist Frequency video—I mean really, REALLY fantastic—is it dispels in an instant the entire Anita Sarkeesian victimhood narrative—you know, the one where she’s only being targeted for being A WOMAN:
[0:19] Anita Sarkeesian: “-it’s actually men going after women in really hostile, aggressive ways. THAT’s what GamerGate is about. It’s about, like, terrorizing women for being involved in this industry.”
[0:30] Sarkeesian: “-you know, we have this larger culture in gaming. We’re a subset of—mostly male gamers have been viciously going after women and attacking them.”
[0:41] Sarkeesian: “-again, what I’ve described to you today is not unique to me in my experience. Every day, many women voicing their opinions online deal with a similar flood of slander and defamation designed to undermine their careers, their credibility, their resolve, and their confidence.”
[0:55] Thunderf00t: Remember, the reason she turns off comments is because of the harassment she receives as a woman:
[1:01] Anna Akana: “As unsettling as all of this is, the thing that disturbs me the most is the kind of personal backlash that Anita and her channel have faced. She’s had to turn off her comments and hide her like/dislike ratio. This is not okay. Please watch this video, and share.”
[1:15] Thunderf00t: But of course, if a man were to make exactly the same video, he would get no, um, harassment, right? Because only women get, uh, harassment, because they’re women, and it’s nothing to do with the outrageous dishonesty or the utterly stupid things that they say:
[1:33] Feminist Frequency: “We must remember that games don’t just entertain. Intentional or not, they always express a set of values and present us with concepts of normalcy.”
[1:51] Thunderf00t: Yeah, of course. If a man said something completely stupid, everyone would instantly take it “seriously” because he’s got a penis:
[2:00] Rick Perry: “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian. But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas, or pray in school.”
[2:13] Thunderf00t: Which is exactly what FullMcIntosh says at the end:
[2:19] Jonathan McIntosh: “Because it was created by a straight, white man, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.”
[2:27] Thunderf00t: No, if a moronic man says something stupid, it’s taken no more seriously than if a moronic woman says something completely stupid. DEAL WITH IT. Cute thing is though, apparently Jonathan here so strongly believed that he would get no harassment for being a man and saying stupid shit, that he also took the precaution of disabling comments and ratings. After all, someone’s got to keep the world safe from the horror of free expression.
[2:56] Oh, and, by the way fellas, if you’re gonna herd people up to read stuff off an Autocue, at least move them far enough away from the Autocue that you can’t see that they’re READING IT OFF AN AUTOCUE. ‘Cos that kind of dispels the whole idea that these are, ‘honest people who really believe what they’re saying’.
[3:13] Then the fact that they all look like they’ve been selected and dressed by a PR company to represent a ‘white demographic’ of Joe everyman—I’m sure is pure coincidence. That said, I did recognize this guy who writes songs about feminism.
[3:29] Now firstly, I gotta give the guy credit. He does leave his ratings and his comments open, which does show a degree of maturity and honesty. And just like FullMcIntosh said, the message becomes instantly credible when it’s delivered by a guy. Right? . . . Oh.
[3:47] Nope, apparently a dumb message typically gets a bad rating no matter what your chromosomes are. You know, it’s almost like the flak that Anita Sarkeesian gets is nothing to do with the fact that she’s a woman, and it is in reality due to the fact that her premise that “videogames cause sexism” is about as bogus as Jack Thompson’s premise that “videogames cause violence”:
[4:15] clip: “-game industry lobbyists are quick to point out a total of nine federal courts have rejected so-called “studies” that videogames cause aggression.”
[4:23] Thunderf00t: which it turns out FullMcIntosh also believes: “Scientific consensus is that playing violent videogames increases aggression and aggressive behaviors. Amazing so many people are in denial” (radicalbytes).
[4:35] Yeah, right. Sure, people will just instantly take you seriously if only you’ve got a penis:
[4:42] McIntosh: “-because it was created by a straight, white man, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.”
[4:50] Thunderf00t: You muppets. But hey, I guess it’s a hard life spending a $160,000 on a project that raised 25 times more money than it needed:
[5:01] Sarkeesian: “I actually raised 25 times [applause] what I initially asked for.”
[5:09] Thunderf00t: Which is already years past its due date, and you haven’t even made half of the videos that you said you would.
[5:17] Akana: “This is not okay. Please watch this video, and share.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: What’s that? Anita Sarkeesian was invited to talk at a conference on digital ethics? Really? Are we talking about the same Anita Sarkeesian who says this about piracy:
[0:13] “Why we need you Veronica Mars”: “That said, you should go out immediately and BitTorrent, pirate, rent, buy—whatever you have to do to watch Veronica Mars.”
[0:20] Thunderf00t: -and the one who laments that third parties cannot flag things as harassment—which means that it was Anita who saw these tweets and thought they were so offensive that they warranted flagging someone off Twitter, and it couldn’t have been third parties.
[0:37] Thankfully, after I was initially suspended, Twitter very quickly saw the light and reinstated my account.
[0:44] Look, Anita, let me explain why random third parties cannot flag stuff for ‘harassing’ someone else. First and foremost, it’s a blank cheque for flagging campaigns.
[0:57] Now I know you like to change the rules such that the internet is just one giant echo chamber for your opinion:
[1:03] Sarkeesian: “How are their forums allowing conversations to happen or not happen? What are—there’s so many things, right? We could brainstorm a million ways that we could create these structural changes. And creating structural change means people have to follow those structures.”
[1:17] Thunderf00t: And I hate to break this to you, but if it does come down to this flagging war that you seem to be itching for, it will be minorities and batshit crazy groups like your own brand of feminism that will be crushed.
[1:31] And even if by some miracle you win, and convince Twitter to turn itself into an echo chamber where only your particular brand of feminism will be allowed:
[1:42] “Feminism in Focus – Anita Sarkeesian”: “But one way that I personally deal with comments is to moderate them, because I really want to create a space where people can come and engage with feminist ideas, where they don’t have to risk being harassed or ridiculed.”
[1:54] The Colbert Report: “That’s right. It’s a safe space where like-minded folks can hear things they already agree with from someone who’s opinion they already know.”
[2:01] Thunderf00t: All you will achieve is to create an opening in the market to be filled by someone who actually does value the robust and level playing field of free speech.
[2:12] But surely, someone with such profoundly thin skin as Anita, feeling that she is entitled that society treat her in a privileged fashion—at least compared to everyone else—would at least treat others as she expects to be treated. Right? After all, she does spend a lot of time composing her tweets:
[2:33] Sarkeesian: “Sometimes I feel this double-edged sword because I’m very careful about what I say. I’m very careful about—I spend hours trying to compose a tweet.”
[2:41] Thunderf00t: Nah, for Anita, she was quite happy to say this about the formidable Christopher Hitchens about two days after he died. Yeah. Smearing a man who’s been dead for only about two days by calling him “a racist, a sexist, and a warmonger” (femfreq).
[2:58] But that wouldn’t be ‘harassment’ now, would it Anita? Oh, but if someone points out that you lied through your teeth in your video series—oh, that’s outrageous criti—sorry—that’s outrageous harassment! But oh if someone blames feminist actions for a feminist’s PR problem—that’s gotta be hatred of women. That’s gotta be misogyny.
[3:20] Got news for you, Anita. Hitchens will achieve more dead than you will ever achieve by being alive.
[3:27] Christopher Hitchens: “If you want to get good people to do wicked things, you need religion. What do I mean by that? I mean to say that, who, when they see a newborn baby arriving in their life—if anyone’s ever thought, even myself, ‘Well, maybe there is something to this. Look at the perfection of this little bundle . . . but they say, ‘I tell you what though, before we go any further we need to get a sharp knife or a stern from somewhere and start hacking away at the genitalia of this little bundle; because if we don’t, we won’t be doing god’s will. Now, where is—no moral person would do such a thing unless they thought it was divinely warranted.”
[4:03] Hitchens: “Is it not the case that the spread of Christianity—about which you spoke so warmly and affectingly in your opening remarks—attributing it to the innate truth of the Bible’s story was spread by that means, or because the Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire? Which in your view contributed more to the spread of the faith?”
Frank Turek: “The Holy spirit.”
Hitchens: “I rest my case.”
[4:31] Thunderf00t: Or blaming ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘patriarchy’ for a school shooting less than 24-hours after that school shooting.
[4:40] Sarkeesian: “Sometimes I feel this double-edged sword because I’m very careful about what I say. I’m very careful about—I spend hours trying to compose a tweet.”
[4:48] Thunderf00t: That wouldn’t be offensive or harassment, now would it? Yeah, Anita, you might be happy now that Twitter allows people to be offended on other people’s accounts and flag them as such. After all, that is what you and Women, Action & the Media wanted.
[5:05] But damn, you should be careful what you wish for. ‘Cos don’t you know that many people would regard YOUR tweets as ‘harassing’? I mean, don’t ya think that calling someone a racist only two days after they died would be deemed as ‘harassment’ by at least the relatives? And don’t you think that blaming a school shooting on ‘patriarchy’ before the bodies are even cold would be deemed as harassing and offensive by the parents of those children?
[5:38] By your lack of vision, and your lust to be able to control what people are and are not allowed to say, you have been petitioning for the tools of your own demise.
[5:50] And, like I say, even if by some miracle you get Twitter to give you all the privileges that you think that you’re entitled to—you know, like you have on Wikipedia—yeah, not a single word on there about Anita Sarkeesian’s dishonesty. And the fact that her project raised 25 times as much money as it needed:
[6:09] Sarkeesian: “I actually raised 25 times [applause] what I initially asked for.”
[6:18] Thunderf00t: -is now two YEARS overdue, and still hasn’t produced half of the videos that it said it would. Not a mention of these facts on Anita Sarkeesian’s Wiki page.
[6:30] Nah, even if you manage to get Twitter to give you all this special treatment, it will not change the fact that in your own terms, you are just Jack Thompson with boobs—no, I take that back, ‘cos that’s not entirely true. You’re Jack Thompson on steroids, with boobs. ‘Cos not only do they claim that videogames cause violence, Feminist Frequency writer Jonathan McIntosh on Twitter, “Scientific consensus is that playing violent video games increases aggression and aggressive behaviors. Amazing so many people are still in denial” (radicalbytes).
[7:06] Thunderf00t: But they also believe that they cause sexism:
[7:09] “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1”: “In other words, viewing media that frames women as objects or sexual playthings profoundly impacts how real life women are perceived and treated in the world around us.”
[7:18] Thunderf00t: Yeah, Anita. Rich, middle class, white women—the most persecuted class of people in history. And surely, if only you had a penis, then men would take you seriously. Oh no—wait, not they wouldn’t. ‘Cos newsflash, Anita. A bad argument is a bad argument, no matter how many times you tell someone you’re a persecuted woman who finds everything offensive.
[7:44] Hitchens: “If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say, ‘Well I’m still waiting to hear what your point is’. I’m very depressed how in this country you can be told, ‘That’s
offensive!’ as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me, they don’t. And I’m not running for anything, so I don’t have to pretend to like people when I don’t.”
[8:05] Thunderf00t: This is why people like me have always argued for the open marketplace of ideas and a robust and level playing field, ‘cos if you can’t convince anyone in an arena like that, then there’s a good chance that you’re talking crap. I guess this is what I’m trying to tell ya:
[8:22] The Avengers: “You’re missing the point—there’s no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top.”
[8:28] Thunderf00t: But back to the digital ethics. Is this the same Anita Sarkeesian who, if she was judged by her own standards would be blatantly racist and homophobic and transphobic, and even normalizes white supremacy? ‘Whooa’, I hear people say, ‘surely there’s no way you can justify that?’ Actually, using social justice warrior reasoning—or more specifically, feminist reasoning, it’s trivial.
[8:54] You see, you don’t judge work by its content, you judge it by, say, the number of black people in the work. So, when it comes down to the new Star Wars trailer, FullMcIntosh tweets this, and Anita retweets it: “3 faces in the Star Wars trailer are those of a black man, white woman, and Latino man piloting an X-Wing. That matters more than you may think” (radicalbytes) and, “Let’s take time to consider that the first trailer for the biggest most anticipated movie of the decade features zero white dudes” (radicalbytes).
[9:27] Thunderf00t: Now, for me, I really didn’t care about the gender profile of the film. I just sat there scratching my head like, ‘Hang on. Aren’t all the stormtroopers meant to be clones of Jango Fett?’
[9:37] Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones: “Your clones are very impressive. You must be very proud.”
[9:40] Thunderf00t: So, w-why is the stromtrooper black? And why is this woman so small that she can ride on RoboCop 2’s shoulder cannon? And then FullMcIntosh thinks that this guy is a Latino and not some white dude. Personally, I’m surprised that they didn’t tweet how the only woman in the trailer was wearing Islamic-type garb and was therefore promoting the idea that women must cover up their faces to avoid being raped or something.
[10:07] Nah, for me, I found the spoof trailers ripping one Abram’s use of lens flare and the, ‘it’s a new Star Wars movie means you gotta have a new novelty light saber type stuff’, far more relevant, and far more entertaining. Yeah, I know, Anita. Come on, tell us how Abrams’ friends and supporters should be able to flag ALL of this media as ‘harassing Abrams’.
[10:30] But whatever. You get the point. In social justice warrior terms, you judge if a work is sexist or racist by the number of minorities in it.
[10:39] Let’s look at Anita Sarkeeian’s ONLY creation. You know, the proposed videogame which is gonna show us how to free ourselves from the stereotypes, clichés, and tropes in computer games by essentially a verbatim retelling of Prince of Persia: “The player must lead the game protagonist out of the dungeon and into a tower. Doing so requires bypassing traps and fighting hostile swordsman” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(1989_video_game)
[11:07] Apart from it’s a woman in the leading role—which is totally not a man with boobs trope—‘cos, you know it’s only a sexist trope when men do it. Yeah. Let’s see. ‘No black people, not even a stereotypical person of color, let alone one which is a very interesting character that’s NOT beholden to stereotypes. Therefore, RACISM.’
[11:28] And for those who think that’s harsh, let’s check out Anita’s criticism of “True Blood”:
[11:33] “Beyond True Blood’s Sensationalism”: “-no other black men and no other queer men on the main cast. So, he’s really all we get in terms of alternative sexuality and as far as black male masculinity.”
“We see Lafayette working in the kitchen of Merlotte’s but on the side he’s also a prostitute, and he runs his own porn website, and he’s a drug dealer. I mean, really, could there be any other stereotypes thrown in here?”
“He is every stereotype about black queer men all rolled into one pretty package and it constantly infuriates me because we don’t want to reinforce these stereotypes. We want to dispel them and break them down and make very interesting complicated textured characters that are beyond stereotypes—but NO. True Blood can’t do that.”
[12:20] Thunderf00t: ‘Let’s see, no gay people. Check. Homophobic. No trans-people. Check. Transphobic. Only white people in the entire game. Check. Normalizing white supremacy.’
[12:35] Now, I wonder if FullMcIntosh will tweet about this outrageous racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, in this game concept? I mean, he was quite happy to break down a one minute or so trailer with only three people in it along ethnic and gender lines. I wonder if he’ll do the same with Anita’s game concept? Which, apart from the man-with-boobs lead role, ALL of the characters are white dudes.
[13:02] ‘Yes, this regressive, all-white casting must stop. We need righteous people like McIntosh to lead us in condemning writers of this white supremacist crap. People like Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh’. Oh.
[13:22] But let’s keep going. Let’s see. ‘Promotes violence against men. Check. Man-hating and promoting domestic violence. Normalizes the concept that the only way to deal with men, is through violence, institutionalizing feminist supremacy theory’. Oh, and of course, let’s give it the Bechdel test:
[13:44] “The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies”: “The Bechdel test, or the Mo Movie Measure, is a type of litmus test to assess the presence of women in movies.”
“When I call it a systemic problem, what I mean by this is that it’s not just a few people here and there that don’t like women, or don’t want women’s stories told, but rather that the entire industry is built upon creating films and movies that cater to and that are about men.”
“Next time you go to the movies, just ask yourself these few questions: are there two or more women in it, and do they have names? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk to each other about something other than a man?”
[14:18] Thunderf00t: Yes, Anita’s game concept would fail EVERY SINGLE element of the Bechdel test, a test which notably films like The Bikini Carwash Company would pass with flying colors.
[14:31] And yes, this is the same, um, ‘test’ which Sweden has decided to introduce as a film rating in a bid for gender equality (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/swedish-cinemas-bechdel-test-films-gender-bias). ‘Cos, you know, where there was a load more films like the Bikini Carwash Company that would sure be one hell of a step toward gender equality.
[14:50] But let’s see, ‘The lead character is neither fat, or disabled. Well, that’s fat-shaming and ableism! Has she no empathy for the special snowflakes on Tumblr with headmates and otherkin?’
[15:04] ‘The lead character is not a dribbling retard, programming the audience through media exposure that dribbling retards cannot, say, break out of jail and achieve things. Dribble-shaming! And retardaphobia.’
[15:19] ‘The main character is heteronormatively beautiful, a purposeful effort to institute game mechanics that undermine the confidence of ugly women. And this is done exclusively to promote and maintain the, uh, privileges that this girls’ club of normatively beautiful women think that they’re entitled to.’
[15:40] Thunderf00t: And what’s with the giant eye-to-head ratio? Did Anita sit there and say, ‘No, I don’t want the women in this game to look like adults. We need to pedomorphize them to give them this really big eye-to-head ratio because we need to normalize and institutionalize pedomorphic sexualization of women in this game while simultaneously portraying the men with appropriate adult proportions, implicitly encouraging the ageist and discriminatory concepts that young, beautiful women are more sexually valuable then old, wrinkly, ugly ones.’
[16:15] ‘And let’s be real, this whole game from start to finish is just one superficial excuse to indulge in armor porn. The lead character is wealthy, normalizing the narrative that rich people can do whatever they want without consequences. And seriously, what message is this game sending our children? That all you need to do to become a rich, happy, white woman is violently assault and kill a load of men. Is that not the narrative that this videogame is promoting? Have you not read this book about how games become reality and influence our behavior? Should
we not prosecute these people for the murders that they are responsible for? Or at least prevent them from spreading this narrative of hate speech at a minimum. Should we not institute structural reform that will prevent them from proposing these hateful things?’
[17:13] Sarkeesian: “And creating structural change means people have to follow those structures.”
[17:16] Thunderf00t: ‘‘Cos once we’ve ejected these sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, fat-shaming, retard-shaming, dribble-shaming, white supremacist bigots—then we can finally have an open and more FREE form of gaming, a more INCLUSIVE gaming community where finally, once and for all, no one will EVER be offended.
[17:41] Hitchens: “If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say, ‘Well, I’m still waiting to hear what your point is.’”
“I’m very depressed how in this country you can be told, ‘That’s offensive!’ as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me, they don’t. And I’m not running for anything, so I don’t have to pretend to like people when I don’t.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know, Anita Sarkeesian has recently found herself in some goood company. According to her, just like Jack Thompson and Glenn Beck, games are actually a direct and significant influence on people’s behavior.
[0:14] So Glenn Beck was convinced that just merely pushing the buttons on the gaming control in the game Watch Dogs was actually teaching people how to hack mobile phones and computers!
[0:24] clip from “Glenn Beck: Violent Video Games”: “Watch Dogs allow the players to hack into cell phones, ATMs, drawbridges, even helicopters, to wholly envelop the lives of others . . . the idea here is they’re teaching you to hack, and then become the ultimate voyeur in other people’s lives—including their bedrooms—by hacking into their phones, and everything—everything that we talked about.”
[0:51] Thunderf00t: And Jack Thompson was declared by Machinima to be the number one enemy of gaming for his long history of claiming that video games actually teach people how to become school shooters.
[1:03] clips from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”, “Top 10 Enemies of Gaming”, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”,: “Though the 130 million dollar suit was dismissed, Thompson is still convinced that these images inspired three murders.”
[1:10] “NUUMBER OOONE! Jack Thompson! Disbarred attorney Jack Thompson has long been an advocate against obscenity in pop culture . . . But this Jack Thompson fella, he sees obscenity as something different than you or I. Basically ANYTHING that offends his own delicate personal sensibilities. Over the years he’s sued or threated 2 Live Crew, N.W.A, MTV, Madonna, and recently he’s turned his attentions towards the video games.”
[1:36] “To him, this is not entertainment. It is a murder simulator.
[1:41] “Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted.”
[1:47] “You’re kicking, punching”
[1:49] “Violability occurs when, as Nussbaum points out, the objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.”
[2:01] “Ultimately shooting, cutting the heads off of people with machetes of people you don’t even know and don’t have a motive to be violent against.”
[2:07] “Since these women are just objects, there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. Meaningful relationships or interactions are not even possible.”
[2:16] Thunderf00t: Indeed, not only did Machinima declare him the “number one enemy of gaming,” they claim that he was the ultimate end-game villain:
[2:24] clip from “Top 10 Enemies of Gaming”: “He is the ultimate level-boss to the gaming industry. Using videogames as scapegoat for tragic school-shootings, he said: “In every school shooting, we find that kids who pull the trigger are video gamers.
“He even suggested that the PS2 controller’s vibrations help condition gamers’ minds to enjoy killing.”
[2:42] Thunderf00t: Now Anita Sarkeesian must have watched all of this with a deep sense of envy, because she has declared herself to be the ultimate villainess—ah, sorry—correction, she claims that gamers have declared her to be the ultimate villainess.
[2:59] clip from TEDx Talks, “Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012”: “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.”
[3:12] Thunderf00t: Oh, I know, vanity and aspirational victimhood in one package. Yeah, damn straight, Anita Sarkeesian is pretty much exactly what you would expect from an unholy hybrid of Jack Thompson and that crazy woman from Amy’s Baking Company:
[3:29] clip from “Kitchen Nightmares Amy Bouzaglo Season 6 Episode 16 Part 1”: “I have issues with customers that are trying to be online bullies and say horrible things.”
“Online bullies?”
“I told them, I thought he was a loser, he was a moron.”
[3:38] Thunderf00t: So Jack Thompson claims that video games CAUSE SHOOTINGS. Glenn Beck claims that videogames CAUSE HACKING. And Anita Sarkeesian claims that videogames CAUSE SEXISM. Hey fellas, got a great question for ya: did the game Batman make you wanna dress up like a bat and fight crime as a vigilante?
[4:01] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline” “Centuries ago, it was the pamphleteers who were scolded for dragging down society. In the 50’s it was comic books, in the 60’s it was The Beatles.”
[4:10] Thunderf00t: However, meanwhile in reality with the sheer number of computer games played, the one thing that we CAN say with surety is that if there IS any link between behavior and playing computer games, it’s BLOODY weak.
[4:28] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”: “Game industry lobbyists are quick to point out a total of 9 Federal Courts have rejected so-called “studies” that video games cause aggression.”
[4:35] Thunderf00t: But just so we’re clear how dishonest Anita was willing to be to come to this conclusion: she claimed that in the game Hitman: [Absolution] men were meant to get their rocks off to beating up the dancers and then controlling their dead bodies:
[4:49] clip from “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
[5:05] Thunderf00t: The problem was that no one who played the game DOES that. Trust me, I watched at least 40 playthroughs and none of them attacked the dancers, ‘cos in Hitman, you’re not meant to kill innocent people. Indeed, you get penalized for it. So how can Anita then claim that this game is making people sexist?
[5:26] Well, obviously she’s gotta go beat the living crap out of these virtual women herself, then drag their bodies around in a big circle—and you know it’s her doing it, because the body starts right by the body locker that she’s eventually going to put it into, and then she drags it around in a BIIIG circle over the other body to make it seem as nasty as possible. That is, in reality the only people who play Hitman as a fantasy to kill women and desecrate their bodies, are feminists like Anita Sarkeesian. Indeed, it’s kind of ironic that if you actually listen to what she says:
[6:01] clip from “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “-derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal, connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
[6:16] Thunderf00t: Anita’s footage of this part of Hitman is quite literally the only footage that I’ve seen anything even remotely like this. And quite how Anita’s strange fetish for violence against women in computer games proves that games cause sexism—I’m not quite sure. But yeah, with arguments as rigorous as that, it’s quite CLEAR why she’s got the same winning ratio as Jack Thompson. I mean, Anita’s arguments here are about as convincing as suggesting that team games encourage team killing. And just to prove it, here is some POWERFUL footage of Anita going on a team killer killing spree.
[6:55] clip
[7:08] Or it’s like her going griefing in Minecraft—that’s the practice where assholes go and destroy worlds which took people DAYS to make—simply so she can claim that the game is there to encourage and reward people for going griefing in Minecraft.
[7:24] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”: “And it makes him an object of scorn in the gaming world. Kids who wear ‘I hate Jack Thompson’ t-shirts can trade blows with his likeness in the game Mortal Combat.”
[7:37] Thunderf00t: Interestingly though, while Jack Thompson was being inserted into videogames as a character who could be killed in numerous, violent ways, like having his body fed through grated, grinding, bloody wheels of one sort or another—that really didn’t offend Anita’s sensibilities. Apparently men being fed into thrashing machines doesn’t count as sexism, or harassment, or online bullying. However, when someone made a much simpler version of that game with Anita:
[8:07] clip from “16×9 – Dangerous Game: Tropes vs Women bullying”: “The games are not meant as a threat. They’re not meant to intimidate. He goes on to say he was criticizing your project as a person in the media.”
“To make a game to beat me up and then hide behind this idea of ‘we’re just trying to have a conversation’—I mean, I don’t think anyone would buy that. Or anyone would think that that was an acceptable form of communication.”
[8:28] Thunderf00t: Oh no! This must be a unique hatred of women in gaming! Because remember, if there’s one thing that Anita has taught us, it’s that it’s ONLY sexist when it happens to WOMEN. Well, I’m done. Can I have another $160,000 now?
[8:45] “This videogame character is dressed too sexily. I don’t like it! Change it!”
“I’m dressed too sexily and you don’t like it? STOP OPPRESSING ME!”
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.
[0:00] Thunderf00t: Today’s message is brought to you by Jessica Valenti, feminist author who, under the banner of “MORE FEMINISM, LESS BULLSHIT”, Tweets: “I truly believe that American culture prefers girls chaste and dead over slutty and alive.”
[0:17]: Well, thanks for letting us know what MORE feminism will look like, Jessica.
[0:22]: So, there’s ALWAYS someone out there telling you what you CAN’T say. I mean, let’s start from the very top. Some people think that the word ‘nigger’ is so offensive that they ALWAYS, and in many ways, childishly substitute it by calling it “the N-word”.
[0:39] clip from YouTube, “Charles Barkley discusses the N-word on TNT”: “I’m a black man. I use the n-word. I’m going to continue to use the N-word with my black friends, with my white friends.”
[0:52] Thunderf00t: Even Seth McFarlane backs away from using the word.
[0:55] clip from Family Guy: “WHAT did you just call me?”
“I thought that was your name!”
“THAT IS OUR WORD! YOU’VE GOT NO RIGHT USIN’ IT!”
“Hey—hey—hey—I’m cool, I’m cool. No problem . . . Could—could you pass me the oar, N-word Jim?”
“THANK YOU”
[0:10] Thunderf00t: I mean, don’t these people realize that language is context-specific? The word ‘nigger’ is neither universally offensive-
[1:18] clip from Pulp Fiction (YouTube, “SHEEIT NEGRO!!”)
[1:30] clip from YouTube, “Chris Rock – Black People VS. Niggaz (Bring the Pain 1996)”
“Every time black people wanna have a good time, ign’nt ass niggas fuck it up . . . CAN’T DO SHIT . . . CAN’T DO SHIT! without some ign’nt ass niggas fuckin’ it up.”
[1:45] Thunderf00t: Nor does it make a lot of sense to always allude to it as the “N-word”.
[1:50—3:20] clips from YouTube, “Top Gear Presenter Jeremy Clarkson Apologises over N Word . . .” and from Life of Brian
[3:20] Thunderf00t: I mean seriously, what would be the point of having words that you CAN’T use?
[3:26]: And some people think that the word ‘cunt’ is so offensive that they always, and in many ways, childishly substitute it by calling it “the c-word”.
[3:36] clip from YouTube, “Paloma Faith On Meeting Diane Warren & The C Word”: “Her favorite word was the C-word.”
“OH NO, it’s not like that.”
[3:40] Thunderf00t: Well this video is about words like these, and the people who think that you shouldn’t be able to use them.
[3:48] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m not Bossy. I’m the Boss”: “Words matter.”
“Let’s just ban the word ‘bossy’.”
[3:51] Thunderf00t: Well, in the atheist community, it’s people like PZ Myers. Apparently, he thinks that every time someone uses the word ‘cunt’, every single woman on the planet is insulted, devalued, and demeaned.
[4:05] clip from YouTube, “Rebecca Watson – European Atheist Convention 2012”: “And when I point out that ‘bitch’ is a gendered insult that demeans all women—again—most people, get it.”
[4:13] Thunderf00t: In a recent article titled, “How to drive a Brit crazy” he states “It turns out to be really easy. All it takes is five little words. “’Cunt’ is a sexist slur”.
[4:24] Thunderf00t: So PZ tweeted this image here: which is meant to be a social-justice-warrior joke about what happens when the outraged-about-everything brigade want to point out that “‘cunt’ is a misogynistic slur”.
[4:38] clip from YouTube, Feminist Frequency, “Kanye West’s Monster Misogyny”: “’Misogyny, as defined by The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, is a cultural attitude of hatred for females simply because they are female.”
[4:45] clip from Skepchick Video [?]: “-um, more that I think that there are a lot of things that are, uh, part of a misogynist culture or milieu that would go by unnoticed by most women. They went unnoticed by me for most of my twenties.”
[4:58] Thunderf00t: That is that it conveys HATRED for ALL women.
[5:05]: So PZ goes on: “I retweeted it, and then the replies came flooding in. The defenses are hilarious, irrational, and indignant. It’s incredibly common to see people protest that it’s a perfectly acceptable word; everyone says it in England; it doesn’t have any sexual connotations at all, because apparently, people in the UK are so stupid that they don’t remember that it’s a word that refers to the female genitalia.”
[5:34] Thunderf00t: Well actually, let me tackle that one. Not just as a Brit, you understand, but as someone who has travelled extensively in the wide world. Firstly, colorful language is rarely literal.
[5:47] clip from YouTube, “Trekkie Lingo! ;-)”: “Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It’s currently laced with—shall I say, more colorful metaphors.”
[5:54] Thunderf00t: When people are saying words like ‘dick’ or ‘cunt’, they are not literally referring to the genitalia of all men or women on the planet.
[6:03]: Secondly, no it doesn’t drive Brits crazy. Indeed, quite the contrary, it just shows that you are perfectly fitting into the stereotype of the archetypal American, as the culturally narrow-brained moron.
[6:16] clip from The Simpsons, (YouTube “It’s Chowder!”)
[6:24] Thunderf00t: -arrogantly thinking that your use of the language in YOUR culture is how ALL other cultures around the world must use their language. Sorry, but language just isn’t like that. It’s very plastic in its meaning.
[6:40]: So, for instance, in America, ‘fanny’ means ‘bottom’. It’s a nice way of saying ‘ass’, and it’s a term that you can quite happily use in polite conversation. Not quite so much in England. No, in England, ‘fanny’ means what ‘cunt’ means in America.
[6:58]: Indeed, when I was a kid in England, the terms were perfectly interchangeable. Yeah, there’s one hell of a learning curve on that one. So yeah, news flash social-justice-warriors, the whole planet does not revolve around YOUR use of language. Just because YOU swoon at the mere mention of the word ‘cunt’ does NOT mean that the rest of the world does too. Yes, words have very different associations in different places.
[7:29]: So for instance, in England what you call ‘pants’ in America, are called ‘trousers’. And what they call ‘pants’ in England, are called ‘underpants’ in America. Indeed in England, the term ‘pants’ can even be used as sort of polite and comical swear word in that if something is ‘rubbish’—ah—sorry, something is ‘garbage’, then you would say that it’s ‘pants’.
[7:52]: Well, when I was a kid in England, the word ‘nigger’ was nowhere near as offensive as it is deemed in America. And this is because we didn’t have the Deep South in England; which is where the name acquired most of its social connotations.
[8:08] clip from YouTube, “Where did the N-word come from?”
[8:19] Thunderf00t: There really weren’t that many African sorts in England. But if there were, the offensive term used in England dated back to the colonial days, which was to refer to black folks as ‘Wogs’.
[8:30] clip from YouTube, “Niggers & Wogs”
[8:41] Thunderf00t: But like I say, the term wasn’t that widely used, because there weren’t that many African folks in England. However, after WWII there was a fierce labor shortage in England. And lots of people came over from both India and Pakistan. And so it was that the name ‘Paki’, short for ‘Pakistani’ became a very offensive way of referring to people with brown skin.
[9:05]: Now for people who didn’t live in that culture, it’s probably difficult to see why it should. I mean, surely ‘Paki’ is just a contraction of ‘Pakistani’, right? Why should that be offensive?
[9:17]: But like I was saying, language is rarely that logical. And it carries a lot of the social baggage of its civilization. I mean you could claim that ‘nigger’ is just a phonetically contracted way of referring to someone from Nigeria.
[9:32]: Or maybe another more pertinent example, would be ‘Jap’, which could simply be viewed as a contraction of ‘Japanese’. But it picked up most of its negative connotations during WWII where it was widely used, especially in America, as a pejorative. And yeah, the term has much more offensive connotations in America, than elsewhere in the world. I mean, this is just the plasticity of language.
[9:58]: And, likewise, other contractions of nationalities or nicknames for cultures are not seen as offensive. So for instance, referring to people from Britain as ‘Brits’, or referring to Australians as ‘Aussies’, or Americans as ‘Yanks’, just isn’t offensive. Language can just be infuriatingly illogical like that.
[10:17]: However, yeah, in England, the term ‘Paki’ is seen as a very strong term. It’s almost like ‘nigger’ in America and is a derogatory way to refer to dark skinned people, along with other terms, like ‘coon’ or ‘the brown people’.
[10:32]: However, if you’re over to Germany, the ‘brown people’ refers to something entirely different. It refers to the modern incarnation of the nationalists—you know, after Hitler’s “brown shirts”. They are “the brown people”. And while we’re talking about things that can be UNfortunately offensive in German, ‘schwarze’ means ‘black’ in German. Whiiich, phonetically speaking, makes this one the most unfortunate names EVER.
[10:59]: And in parts of Germany, cats have seven lives, not nine. And you go a little east to the Slovak ones, and you find that dogs don’t go ‘woof’, but ‘haf’. And cows don’t go ‘moo’, but ‘boo’. And in Easter, they chase girls, and whip them, to make them strong and beautiful for the next year. And the girls have to give them candy in return. EEh, it’s kind of like trick-or-treating; which in itself is a pretty weird thing to do if you think about it.
[11:26]: And in places in Spain they throw tomatoes at each other. And one day a year in Germany, women are allowed to go and cut the ties off men.
[11:35] clip about weiberfastnacht
[11:45]: Or in England, once a year, we celebrate a guy failing to blow up the government, by making an effigy of that man and burning it on a fire. Seriously, that’s “family fun” in England—is burning an effigy of a man who’s been dead for a couple hundred years—on a fire!
[12:03]: Oh, and don’t get me started on all the different ways that cultures celebrate Christmas. It’s like they say: travel broadens the mind—it really does. And you know you’ve travelled enough, when you come back to your native country, and it feels like just another foreign land, with its own set of peculiar customs. And you just come to the conclusion that when in Rome, do like the Romans.
[12:28]: And it takes a special level of arrogance to expect every culture on earth to conform in every detail to what YOU find offensive in Minnesota.
[12:40]: As for the word ‘cunt’ demeaning all women, well like I was saying: language is rarely that literal. When people refer to someone as a ‘cunt’, they’re no more making a reference to the genitalia of women, than calling someone a ‘dick’ is a reference to male genitalia.
[12:56] clip from YouTube, “Trekkie Lingo!”: “Are you sure it isn’t time for a colorful metaphor?”
[12:58] Thunderf00t: Or that calling someone an ‘unclefucker’ is referencing someone who actually fucks their uncle.
[13:03] clip from South Park
[13:06] Thunderf00t: These are just colorful metaphors of our time. So no, around the world the word ‘cunt’ or ‘fanny’ means different things in different cultures, like in Australia, where the word ‘cunt’ can almost be used as a term of endearment.
[13:24] clip from The Sound of Music “what is it you can’t face”
[13:34] clip from YouTube, “Australia, Yeah, C**t – Australia’s new National Anthem”
[13:46] Thunderf00t: So what’s the point of all this, I hear you ask. It’s to let people like PZ Myers and the “I-find-that-offensive!” brigade, claiming that because the word ‘cunt’ is really offensive in America, that everyone in the entire world should find it as offensive as they do.
[14:05]: And the strange thing is these folks think that this is showing how wonderfully thoughtful, egalitarian and progressive they are. When actually, it shows the exact opposite—of just how arrogant, narrow-minded, and ethnocentric they are, to expect the entire English-speaking world to fall in line with their use of language in, say, Cowpoke [?], Minnesota.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript 🙂
Thunderf00t 