[0:12] Actually, no. But whatever. Apparently motivated by this petition, the Australian shops “Target and Kmart have decided to stop selling the game, GTA5. Target and Kmart stores pulled the game after a petition launched by three female survivors of violence gained more than 40,000 signatures. Target said the decision “was in line with the majority view of customers” (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30328314)
[0:39] Yeah. Let’s ignore the fact that there is no more evidence that videogames with a sexual element to them cause real-world sexual violence, than games with violence in them cause violence in the real world. After all, as many will tell you, it’s actually quite easy to tell the difference between the fantasy of a computer game, and reality:
[1:00] Total Annihilation: “What began as conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds”
[1:09] Thunderf00t: And, just because someone has experienced sexual violence in their life—which I’m sure is a traumatic enough experience—that doesn’t give them a blank card to veto any media that anyone else might want to watch.
[1:24] I mean, look, there are plenty of war survivors out there—which is also very traumatic. But oddly enough, Target didn’t seem to have a problem with selling war games where you can kill thousands of- men- in brutal and gruesome ways. WHY the selective outrage?
[1:54] And what do you know, it’s already got more signatures than the petition to ban GTA5. And with good reason. ANYthing in GTA5 is vanilla compared to the Bible. A book that not only advocates burning witches—it commands it and in real life. A book that advocates killing all men, women, and children, but keeping the virgins for yourself:
[2:21] “And Moses said to them, ‘Why have they saved all the women alive? . . . Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women and children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep for yourselves.’”
[2:41] Thunderf00t: DAMN the selective outrage of you social justice warriors just has to be seen to be believed.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Ray Comfort: “Behold the atheists’ nightmare.”
[0:07] Steve Sanchez [?]: “Now, your nickname is “The Banana Man”.”
Comfort: “Yeah . . . Evolution comes from the imaginations of man. It’s very nebulous. It’s as big or as small as the imaginations of man, and you can see it by the language they use, the language of speculation: “we believe”, “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could’ve”.”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: Well, you see, this is where you and I fundamentally differ, Ray. My understanding of reality is contingent on reality; whereas yours is not.
[0:31] Yup. Given the right observations, I will correct my views to make them congruent with reality. And if that involves jettisoning the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Darwin, then so be it. Now let’s compare this to Ray.
[0:45] Ray’s understanding of reality is not contingent on reality because he already deems himself to have divine insight.
[0:53] clip, “The Thunderf00t – Ray Comfort discussion”: “I’m gonna stop you there because I know what was in the beginning. You don’t know. I know what was in the beginning. In the beginning, ‘God created the Heavens and the Earth’. You don’t know, I do.”
[1:03] Thunderf00t: That’s right—there is NO evidence that could be presented to Ray to make him change his mind because HE KNOWS. The irony is of course is that Ray, who is so proud of his absolute knowledge of the origin of the universe, has a less than impressive track record when it comes to the origin of—oh, I dunno, let’s pick a subject at random. Let’s say the origin of BANANAS.
[1:28] Comfort: “pointed at the top for ease of entry. It’s just the right shape for the human mouth. It’s chewy, easy to digest. It’s even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. Seriously, Kirk, the whole of creation testifies the genius of God’s creative hand.”
[1:43] Thunderf00t: (Heh) Yeah. Ray initially used his absolute knowledge to say that ‘bananas speak to the glory of God’s creation’. Then Ray released a video saying that he was ‘misquoted’ and that he accepted that bananas were selectively bred by man.
[1:59] clip: ““Banana Man” is a reference to an illustration presented by Comfort, in which he compared the complex design elements of a Coke can to the complex design elements of a banana in order to demonstrate that thoughtful design by a designer is required for both examples. However, atheists removed the Coke can from the video version and sent it across the internet saying that ‘Comfort believed that the banana was conclusive proof of God’s existence’, missing the point of the illustration completely.”
“They also said that the banana had been modified over time by man to fit in the palm of the hand, and not by God.”
“Comfort apologized for his mistake about the banana saying, “My apologies for not explaining myself more clearly. I was not aware that the common banana had been so modified through hybridization.”
[2:46] Thunderf00t: And then in his latest interview he says that there is ‘no evidence that bananas were genetically engineered’:
[2:52] Comfort: “Especially the guy that made that banana video and using a modern, weird shaped banana and saying it was genetically altered when there was NO—absolutely no credibility to his claims at all. It’s bogus.”
[3:05] Comfort: “I know what was in the beginning. ‘In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth’. You don’t know. I do.”
[3:10] Thunderf00t: There’s a famous quote from a famous scientist that adequately sums you up here Ray: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence, than it does knowledge” (Darwin). Yep. That’s right, Banana Man, your bitch ass just got served by Darwin.
[3:24] I guess these are the differences that make me a scientist devoted to building a better understanding of reality, whereas Ray is verbatim, repeating a script that he prepared some three years ago.
[3:35] Comfort: “You can see it by the language they use, the language of speculation: “we believe”, “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could’ve”.”
““We believe”, “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could’ve””
[3:44] Thunderf00t: And even back then his ace-in-the-hole was asking a bunch of, well, with all due respect, greasy high school students on what their understanding of evolution was, and then crowing when they couldn’t give a cogent explanation of something they didn’t understand. Braavo Ray, bravo. Truly showing the caliber of your creationist arguments thereby quote mining teenagers. I mean, I’m surprised you didn’t ask these, uh, experts about long division as well. Then you could’ve disproved mathematics at the same time.
[4:16] Now, Ray recently staged a cheap publicity stunt where he put a creationist’s introduction into the seminal work of Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.
[4:27] Sanchez: “How many Origin of Species books did we get onto the university campuses last Wednesday?”
Comfort: “170,000.”
Sanchez: “170,000. And how many campuses?”
Comfort: “100 top campuses across the U.S. That was the main point of the whole thing. I don’t wanna turn people AGAINST evolution. I want them to doubt evolution enough to reexamine or examine the claims of the gospel.”
[4:49] Thunderf00t: What are you on, Ray? Evolution at its simplest is that in iterative self-replicating systems more successful patterns, by definition, propagate better than less successful ones.
[5:02] But how on earth in your mind do you get from expecting people to question what is true by definition, to examining the claims of some 2,000 year old stories about goat herders and magic men in the Mediterranean? Stand back, Banana Man is about to try logic:
[5:21] Comfort: “Richard Dawkins says I’m an ignorant fool, so what I’ve written must have been ignorant foolishness. So why was he telling them to ‘rip it out’? He should be saying, ‘READ the ignorant foolishness of Ray Comfort and see what an ignorant fool he is and, well, strengthen your faith in evolution.’”
[5:36] Thunderf00t: Uuuh, no, Ray. Reading junk constitutes a waste of time. Yes, it’s true that by reading your introduction you can come to this stunning conclusion that a man who thinks he knows—with absolute certainty—the origin of the universe (something that has eluded the minds of the smartest people on the planet) that doesn’t know where bananas come from, is, mmm, intellectually challenged.
[6:01] But DAMN, that bastardization of logic makes me cringe.
[6:04] Comfort: “‘READ the ignorant foolishness of Ray Comfort and see what an ignorant fool he is and, well, strengthen your faith in evolution’.”
[6:11] Thunderf00t: No. Determining that Ray is a moron does not impact on the veracity of evolution any more than it impinges on the credibility of atomic theory. And Ray, faith is belief in something without evidence. Evolution stands on its ability to describe the facts. You know, the evidence that we have in reality.
[6:32] Comfort: “-strengthen your faith in evolution’. But he’s afraid of the gospel that it contains.”
[6:37] Thunderf00t: Hmm. That’s an interesting conjecture, Ray. But where are my manners? Let me let Banana Man field the answer to that one:
[6:44] Comfort: “-blog to hundreds of atheists each day who are waiting for anything that comes out of my mouth so they can rip it to shreds. But they hang around me like—someone says, ‘why do you call those atheists centralists?’ Because atheists hang around me like bugs hang around a campfire. I can’t get rid of them! I slap ‘em and say, ‘go away’. ‘No, we’re staying here’. It’s like a train wreck. ‘We wanna see what’s gonna happen next.’”
[7:03] Thunderf00t: Yep, that’s right, Ray. This is the reason why people hang around you; because you’re a clown. It’s not because they fear anything you have to say. They hang around you for the LOLs.
[7:14] Dawkins suggests that you rip the introduction out because Dawkins ISN’T in it for the LOLs. He’s an educator. And your introduction is comparable to putting an introduction in a book about leprosy, saying that it’s nothing to do with bacteria and that god describes how to cure leprosy in the Bible by killing a bird, and then dipping another bird in the blood of the first, and then letting it go. And then getting all surprised when healthcare professionals of one sort or another kinda get pissy at you.
[7:43] Comfort: “I wanna thank that lady that put the “Origin of Stupidity” video on. They got over well over a million views advertising the book.”
[7:52] Thunderf00t: By ‘that lady’ I assume you’re referring to the fiery sex-bomb goddess of ZOMGitscriss. Yeah, I’d like to thank her too. Nice one, Crissy.
[8:04] Comfort: “I really appreciate it ‘cos that was free publicity, and they’d done a great job.”
Sanchez: “So in an essence, the atheists have catapulted Way of the Master—your ministry about Evangelism, Jesus Christ, God—to the next level, haven’t they?”
[8:18] Thunderf00t: Yeah, right. I love the desperate attempt to put a positive spin on it. But face it. It was free advertising for, as you put it, ‘a train wreck’.
[8:27] I guess another fundamental difference between us Ray, is, I would not be happy for free publicity as ‘Banana Man’ or, Mr. Moron-performs-another-unintentionally-funny-intellectual-train-wreck. However, you have stepped up to the plate, and in this role both of us seem to be happy.
[8:45] Regrettably, we lost PCS. But I’m perfectly happy for Banana Man to succeed him in all of his offices.
[8:52] clip: “But in their efforts to make him look foolish, atheists gave Ray Comfort an international platform for his message.”
[8:58] Comfort: “Behold³ the atheists’ nightmare.”
[9:02] Thunderf00t: Yeah, that’s almost right. Ray is famous for being an idiot. But even if this did somehow transfer as publicity for the Bible, ANYONE in product promotion or brand image would projectile vomit exorcist-style at the idea of having this sort of promotion. You know, it would be kind of like having a lead paint manufacturer endorsing a line of toys for children.
[9:27] Ray is aware of his train wreck persona too. And you have to look no further than his attempts to rewrite history to realize this, firstly claiming that his banana argument was ‘valid but misquoted’:
[9:40] clip: “However, atheists removed the Coke can from the video version.”
[9:44] Thunderf00t: And then, of course, acknowledging that bananas were selectively bred.
[9:47] clip: “Comfort apologized for his mistake about the banana saying, “I was not aware that the common banana had been so modified through hybridization.”
[9:55] Thunderf00t: But not wanting to disappoint his loyal fans, train wrecked Tim then gives us this gem:
[10:01] clip: “However, the truth remains that God gave man the knowledge and ability to modify it so that it perfectly fit into his hand. He did the same with big dogs, so they can fit into his car.”
[10:13] Thunderf00t: Yeah, sure, Ray. 30,000 or so years ago when man first started selectively breeding the domestic dog (Wikipedia, ”Origin of the domestic dog”) he thought, ‘you know, we should breed a small dog such that in 30,000 years’ time when we invent the car, our dogs would fit in them.
[10:27] Anyway, sometime later Banana Man gives up trying to justify his ‘bananas prove God’ argument as ‘valid but misquoted’, and happily performs the routine as ‘legitimate humor’:
[10:40] Comfort: “The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other. You’ll find the maker of the banana, Almighty God has made it with a non-slip surface. And as out would indicate inward contents: green, too early. Yellow, just ripe.”
[10:56] Thunderf00t: Yeah, this is the champion of creationism performing his argument for god as ‘legitimate humor’. Way to fill PCS’s shoes, Ray. I mean, to make a “Why do People Laugh at Creationists?” video you need someone of the caliber of PCS. But to make a ‘Why do Creationists Laugh at Creationists?’ video, that requires a Banana Man:
[11:20] Comfort: “Notice the pointed top for ease of entry, just the right shape for the human mouth. Chewy, palatable, good for you, and the Maker has even curved it toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. That’s if you get it the right way around.”
[11:43] Thunderf00t: Way to represent, Banana Man. Way to represent.
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] “As You Remember It: The Lift-Off of APOLLO 11”: “T-minus 60 seconds and counting”
[0:02] Thunderf00t: You know, risk comes to us in many forms, and sometimes death doesn’t even bother to wear a mask. And sometimes, if you wanna achieve great things, you’ve just gotta accept that dance with death.
[0:19] This is the mighty Saturn V rocket. It weighed about 3,000 tons—almost all of which was fuel. And that fuel had about the same energy density as high explosives.
[0:32] clip: “20 seconds and counting”
[0:34] Thunderf00t: That is, this beast was a barely controlled, 3,000 ton BOMB. Let me just throw that into perspective for you.
[0:45] This, on the same scale, is the B-17 Flying Fortress. It was the mainstay heavy bomber of the United States in early WWII. And it could carry about three tons of bombs to a distant target. And about a 1,000 of these guys could lay waste to a city. A thousand bombers at say, three tons a piece—that’s 3,000 TONS of explosives. That’s about the same energetic content as the Saturn V rocket.
[1:15] clip: “T-minus 15 seconds. Guidance is internal”
[1:18] Thunderf00t: And man, [dramatic music] as frail as you or I, ascended ALL the way to the top of this rocket, which was essentially a 3,000 ton BOMB
[1:30] clip: “12, 11, 10,”
[1:32] Thunderf00t: -enough energy to lay waste to a city
[1:36] clip: “9, ignition sequence start”
[1:39] Thunderf00t: -and fully aware, at exactly what they were sitting on
[1:43] clip: “6, 5,”
[1:45] Thunderf00t: -they said, ‘Let’s light this candle’
clip: “4, 3, 2, 1, 0. All engine running. Liftoff! We have a liftoff! 32 minutes past the hour, liftoff on Apollo 11 . . . Tower clear! Tower clear!”
[2:03] Thunderf00t: And even with all those insane risks, I would’ve still changed places with them in a heartbeat, for the wonders that they saw.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:08] Thunderf00t: So what if I were to tell you that there’s quite literally a way where you can lose 1 kilo—that’s like 2 pounds—per day? With no fuss, no tricks, no dieting—just literally breathing the weight away.
[0:24] ‘Crazy!’, I hear you ask, ‘you’ve got to be selling me something!’ I hear you say. Actually, no; not even close. This is using knowledge gained through the Apollo space program.
[0:36] You see, if you can put three men in an oversized Coke can and fly them off into space for a week or so, the one thing that you REALLY need to remember is to pack enough supplies before you leave. And the supply that you’ll miss the most the first, is air.
[0:52] clip from Garbage, The Trick is to Keep Breathing
[1:02] Thunderf00t: -specifically, the oxygen in the air. So NASA really needed to know how much oxygen they should put in their space capsule. Now it turns out you need about a kilo—that’s about 2 pounds—of oxygen per day to survive.
[1:17] Or looked at another way, you breathe out about a kilo—about 2 pounds—of carbon dioxide per day. Now just think about that for a second. If you breathe out about a kilo per day that means that you’re breathing about 365 kilos per year. That’s a THIRD of a TON of carbon dioxide is how much [Equation] your breathing out PER YEAR. That’s FIVE times my own body weight. And just so you know, this chemical reaction is doing what your body is doing EVERY single day. It’s essentially burning sugar and it’s releasing about how much energy your body releases per day. And that’s about how much carbon dioxide your body is producing PER DAY.
[1:59] Which does bring about this really quite odd question that if I excrete five times my own body mass of carbon dioxide per year, is there really anything left of me that was there at beginning of the year? I mean, just ignore for a second the water that you take in and put out. The majority of the mass that you actually excrete comes out as carbon dioxide. That is, if you’re going to lose weight, it’s gonna come out of the same hole that it went in through.
[2:25] clip from Garbage, The Trick is to Keep Breathing
[2:29] Thunderf00t: This has a very global impact. I mean YOU—just you—your metabolism alone is producing about a THIRD of a ton of carbon dioxide per year. That’s HALF the mass of a small car, and there are 7 billion other people doing almost exactly the same thing. How that carbon footprint compares to your total carbon footprint, and how the energy dumped into the atmosphere from your burning metabolism compares to the total amount of global heating that you’re gonna get from that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are points that we’re going to address in an upcoming video series called “The Universe in Perspective”.
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!”
[0:00] Thunderf00t: Now, many would think that Anita Sarkeesian has said some pretty dumb stuff over the years, and that therefore no one would take her seriously. Well actually, this year, 2014 she got an Annual Game Developers Choice Award. Specifically,
“The Ambassador Award, honoring someone who is helping video games “advance to a better place” through advocacy or action, is going to media critic Anita Sarkeesian, creator of Feminist Frequency, a video series that deconstructs representations of women in game and pop culture narratives”.
[0:38] Woow, that’s impressive! I mean there really aren’t many towering intellectuals who could lay claim to the title of a “media critic”.
[0:47] But what would it look like if men acted like feminists in “deconstructing the representations of men in pop culture narratives? Well I think it would look a little something like this:
[0:59] “So I got a lot of feedback from privileged women on my last video about why men shouldn’t be used as sword practice by females. This was mostly from women in denial about the serious, social-ableist-oriented, neo-gendered boundary-integrity issues that this problem causes.”
[1:20] “Firstly, they need to educate themselves on that it’s possible to both enjoy a media while simultaneously being critical of its more pernicious aspects. That’s why I always ensure that ratings and comments are disabled—for your comfort and convenience. After all, I AM telling you the truth. And only man-haters would want to allow those telling man-hating lies to confuse the clarity of what I am telling you.”
[1:48] “This is why we need BrotherlyBroadcast videos to be taught without opposition in schools, classrooms, and even universities. It’s only fair.”
[1:59] “In this sense, it’s good for us to remember that we are ALL influenced by the media we watch in a way that closely resembles homeopathy.”
[2:08] clip from Feminist Frequency, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games” : “While it may be comforting to think that we all have a personal force-field protecting us from outside influences, this is simply not the case. Scholars sometimes refer to this type of denial as a “third-person effect”, which is the tendency for people to believe that they are personally immune to media’s effects, even if others may be influenced or manipulated.”
“Paradoxically, and somewhat ironically, those who most strongly believe that media is just harmless entertainment, are also the ones most likely to uncritically internalize harmful media messages.”
“In short, the more you think you cannot be affected, the more likely you are to be affected.”
[2:44] Thunderf00t: “That is, the less you think you are affected, the more likely you are TO be affected. I mean, check out the extensive citations below, and you’ll see that I’m telling you the complete, academic, honest truth. But maybe that’s not enough for some people. Maybe there are some out there who say, ‘I’ve watched Star Wars a hundred times. I’ve never even once thought about turning into a Dark Lord of the Sith’; or, ‘I’ve watched The Matrix a thousand times. And no matter how much I think that it’s a fantasy, I still can’t dodge the bullets!’”
[3:20] “Well, facts really aren’t relevant here, because I’m citing feminist research. Specifically, over $30,000 of feminist research.”
[3:30] clip from Feminist Frequency, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “In short, the more you think you cannot be affected, the more likely you are to be affected.”
[3:36] Thunderf00t: “The first thing that you have to realize, is just how much these games OBJECTIFY men. Again and again, the men in these games are just portrayed as objects to be acted on.”
[3:50] clip from TEDxYouth, “The Sexy Lie: Caroline Heldman . . .”: “We’re thinking about the object-subject dichotomy. Subjects act. Objects are acted upon.”
[3:57] clip from Feminist Frequency, “Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “is via what’s called the subject-object dichotomy. In the simplest terms, subjects act, and objects are acted upon.”
[4:03] clip from lacigreen, “SEX OBJECT BS”: “-the subject. Subjects act, while objects are acted upon. Now I know you’re thinking, ‘crazy Laci, what’s this got to do with sexuality?’ And the answer is: everything.”
[4:15] Thunderf00t: “Because, once something has been turned into an object, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permissible. Now I know there will be many out there who will say, ‘that’s absurd. I mean everyone knows that the streets are full of cars, which are objects. But if you try to smash those objects up, you’ll get arrested for vandalism; because, just because something is an object, that doesn’t mean that violence against it is acceptable’.”
[4:42] “Well, once again—facts are really not relevant here; because I’m citing feminist research. Specifically, over $30,000 of feminist research.”
[4:54] clip from Feminist Frequency, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted.”
[5:01] Thunderf00t: “The pattern of having men turned into objects by women such that they can be dehumanized and objectified such that the protagonist women in question can shoot them, hack them, or simply throw them to their deaths, is widespread in popular culture. It even encourages females to throw both old men and young male children off towers.”
[5:27] “Now, the more observant among you might say, ‘but the video you just showed, showed a man throwing a young boy off a tower’. Yes, that’s right—a man being puppeteered by feminist theory. Indeed it’s SO widespread now that almost ALL games are [oriented] to fulfill this deeply seated female need. Women are meant to derive this perverse sense of pleasure from having males desecrate the bodies of unsuspecting male victims. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to having the subservient gender trait of males controlling and punishing representations of other males.”
[6:11] “In my previous analysis, I came to the CLEAR, academic conclusion that MEN killed by women is actually due to the influences of feminist theory in the mainstream media such as movies and interactive media such as games. And now we find that feminist theory is actually ALSO responsible for all men being killed by MEN.”
[6:34] “That is, feminist theory is DIRECTLY responsible for ALL the violent killings of men in the world. This is clearly a very serious issue, and requires IMMEDIATE action—not just sitting around and talking about it, but to take action. I mean, we could all sit around here whining all day and it won’t achieve anything.”
[6:57] “This requires something serious, not just talk—something radical, something totally different from complaining; something dramatic. I don’t know, maybe as severe as a hashtag. Or better still, we can get this subject unpacked and deconstructed by a pop culture critic such as myself; because we all know that pop culture critics are the intellectual gods of our time. And we all know that if you want something done properly THAT’S where you should go.”
[7:28] “I just want men to be whole, complete, non-disposable characters in movies and not to be shot, stabbed, or disposed of by women; or by men who have been subverted by the detrimental normalizations of feminist theory. Is that really such a big thing to ask from the movie and gaming industry?”
[7:52] “I mean, I don’t care that people say this would make a really dull game, and that no one would want to play it. And I don’t care that people say that it would be an economical failure; because we all know that “economic viability” is just another one of those buzz-words that is used by feminists so that they can continue making these computer games with their erotic fantasies about getting men to kill other men. You just don’t know what it’s like to be a MAN, knowing that any woman out there might use you for sword practice. And yet women still pretend this is not a big social problem.”
[8:29] “Well, I think we should end this. Don’t tell ME not to dress like an interchangeable target. Teach women not to kill. Or better still, don’t tell me to sleep with one eye open. Teach women not to stab people to death in their sleep; like in the film, Basic Instinct.”
[8:47] “Now, I know there will be many women out there who will try and distance themselves from this saying, ‘that’s absurd. I would never stab you to death in your sleep because I saw it in a film’. Well that’s exactly the sort of denial you would expect BECAUSE”:
[9:00] clip from Feminist Frequency, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “Paradoxically, and somewhat ironically, those who most strongly believe that media is just harmless entertainment, are also the ones most likely to uncritically internalize harmful media messages.”
“In short, the more you think you cannot be affected, the more likely you are to be affected.”
[9:18] Thunderf00t: “That’s right. The ones who say that they are least affected are the ones who are most likely to stab you to death in your sleep. Remember, this is what $30,000 of feminist research looks like. So it must be true.”
[9:32] “Women simply can’t understand what it’s like to be used for sword practice because of their privilege. Women have the privilege of being able to express their sexuality while feminist theory has prevented men from expressing theirs; sometimes, physically.”
[9:49] “Now many women who have been brainwashed by this feminist theory will say that women don’t have privilege. Well yes, of course you can’t see your privilege. That’s like being raised your whole life in a red room, and then being taken out of that red room and being asked to describe what the color red looks like.”
[10:08] “But just because you can’t SEE your privilege, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, and you doubling down and denying your privilege—or even worse, asking me for evidence for it—is simply making the issue worse.”
[10:23] “And this is the reason why I make these videos on manlyism. And BrotherlyBroadcast Videos have been used in classrooms, high schools, universities, and even presidential speeches. Many a times, I received thank-you notes from parents who’ve used this material to educate their daughters, how stabbing a vulnerable man to death in his sleep with an ice pick, is BAAD. Remember, don’t teach ME to take precautions with MY safety. Teach YOUR daughter not to stab people.”
[10:56] “And with all this female privilege, is it any wonder that they’re incapable of understanding how hard it is, to be a man? In short, if you’re a woman, you are unqualified to tell a man what his oppression feels like. And no matter how much you feel the need to ‘femisplain’ why using men as target practice is just ‘harmless fun’, you just need to shut up and listen. You need to educate yourself on what it’s like to be a man. I mean, this is manlyism 101 here. We need for you to become manlyists, the radical belief that men shouldn’t be used for female sword practice; because if you’re not a manlyist, then you’re a bigot. A sexist bigot. I mean, there is nothing in between.”
[11:43] Clip from “Gloria Allred: If You’re Not a Feminist, Then You’re a Bigot”: “I often say that if you’re not a feminist then you’re a bigot. I mean there is nothing in between.”
Many thanks to Linda for providing the transcript!
[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 🙂
[0:00] Thunderf00t: The reason that the “Ban Bossy” Campaign was one of the most EPIC face plants of our time, is that it was so incredibly poorly thought out on the most simplistic and rudimentary levels.
[0:17] There’s an irony in telling people to, ‘ban the word bossy!’ It is, well, kind of BOSSY.
[0:22] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”
[0:25] Thunderf00t: I mean, seriously, did no one in this campaign think of the internal inconsistencies here? It portrays women as less suitable for leadership, in that if your dreams of leadership can be undermined simply by being called ‘bossy’, it’s highly questionable if you were ever suitable for making those tough decisions of leadership in the first place.
[0:44]: Then there’s the 1984 police-state solution of BANNING WORDS.
[0:49] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”
[0:53] Thunderf00t: It makes the incredible leap that girls lose interest in leadership when they become teenagers, and then attribute this to the word ‘bossy’.
[1:01] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”
[1:14] Thunderf00t: Even if it WASN’T a pure distortion of the actual original study, it would be one HELL of a leap of faith to NOT attribute the change in boys and girls with adolescence, and instead say, naah, it has nothing to do with adolescence. It’s all down to a SINGLE WORD.
[1:33]: Put simply the, uuh, factual basis of this ENTIRE campaign was BULLSHIT. They claim that being called ‘bossy’ keeps women from leadership. Yet EVERY single example they give of women in leadership says they were called ‘BOSSY’!
[1:52] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”
[1:56] Thunderf00t: And they STILL ended up in leadership of one sort or another. I don’t think you really thought that one through, did you?
[2:03]: And finally, even if EEVERY single thing they said was true, they’ve just advertised the way to destroy EVERY woman in a leadership role in America.
[2:14] clip from YouTube, “The Doctor Vs The Prime Minister – Doctor Who . . .” and clip from “Ban Bossy”
[2:43] Thunderf00t: I mean you can see ‘em now, all sat around, pumped up and brainstorming in their Donald Trump’s Tower boardroom:
‘We need something short, punchy, catchy—something people will remember. Oh! Alliteration’s good. I know—how about banning a word? But we need a word that starts with ‘b’. Not bitch. That’s a naughty word; we don’t want to ban naughty words, just ones that hurt women’s feelings. Ones we can portray as sexist. Okay—look, sure, I know that ‘bitch’ hurts women’s feelings too. And it can be portrayed as sexist. But look, we just don’t want a feminist campaign with the word ‘bitch’ in the title. Okaay? We need something short, something punchy. Wow! BAN BOSSY! Yeah, ban bossy! Now all we need is a load of women in leadership to say that they got called ‘bossy’ and how it destroyed their chances of leadership. Don’t worry about the inconsistencieees. No one’s that observant. And then we’ll just use their billionaire’s brown-nosed network to get the U.S. Secretary of Education involved with BANNING WORDS. And then all we need is a pretty object to put on the front of it. Yeah, a woman of some sort. Don’t worry, this is a feminist campaign. We only call it sexism and objectification when OTHER people use beautiful women to sell things. Ah! Perfection. What could possibly go wrong?’
[4:04]: This was all actually backed by an impressive array of successful women, most notably was Sheryl Sandberg’s baby. Sandberg is listed as being worth about a billion dollars. A billion dollars is actually quite a lot of money. Just to put that into perspective, let say this video gets 25,000 views. From her wealth, she could pay each one of those 25,000 people an average U.S. salary of about $40,000. So, she can’t be a complete idiot. Right? Eeeh, that’s until you realize that Donald Trump is worth three to four Sandbergs. Crazy thing is, if you watch Sandberg’s TED Talk, you’ll realize that she already understands why there aren’t so many women in leadership. She describes it EXACTLY: ‘women typically want to have children’:
[4:54] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “And from the moment she starts thinking about having a child, she starts thinking about making room for that child: how am I going to fit this into everything else I’m doing? And literally from that moment, she doesn’t raise her hand anymore. She doesn’t look for a promotion, she doesn’t take on the new projects, she doesn’t say ‘me, I wanna do that’. She starts leaning back.”
[5:14] Thunderf00t: And childbearing age comes right bang in the middle of career development. And then, a sophisticated and dynamic job [?] is typical of leadership, of those privileged enough to have those jobs.
[5:27] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “In the high income part of our workforce in the people who end up at the top Fortune 500 CEO jobs or the equivalent in other industries, the problem that I am convinced is that women are dropping out.”
[5:40] Thunderf00t: Being out of the loop for six months or a year-
[5:42] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “Nine months of pregnancy, three months of maternity leave, six months to catch your breath-”
[5:47] Thunderf00t: -makes it much harder to come back and compete at the top of the pile. So she basically describes how they play it safe—they lean back in more supporting roles rather than leadership ones. They lose interest in being at the top of the greasy pole.
[6:03]: After all, is it really worth pissing your life away, fighting to be at the top of the greasy pole, simply so you can say you have three billion dollars rather than one? Really, when you’re on your death bed, do you really believe that you will look back and think, ‘yeah, I’m really glad that I decided to spend so much of my life dedicated to staying at the top of the greasy pole, simply so I can die with a four and a lot of zeroes after my name, rather than a one and a lot of zeroes’?
[6:32]: In fact, to be honest, in your boardroom, Sandberg, if you were privileged with that choice-
[6:37] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “Everyone who’s been through this, and I’m here to tell you, once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it’s hard to leave that kid at home.”
[6:46] Thunderf00t: I would say, that leaning back and living life is by far the best choice. Exchanging life for money that you could never possibly spend, is just a fool’s errand.
[6:58] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “When I was in college, my senior year, I took a course called “European Intellectual History”. Don’t you love that kind of thing from college? Wish I could do that now.”
[7:06] Thunderf00t: Seriously, she’s, say, 44 now. Let’s say she lives another 50 years. If she doesn’t earn a single penny for the rest of her life, she would have to spend TWENTY MILLION dollars a year. That’s five hundred times the average salary of an American, just to consume her wealth.
[7:25] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “Don’t you love that kind of thing from college? Wish I could do that now.”
“The numbers tell the story quite clearly. 190 Heads of State; 9 are women . . . And out of 193 world leaders, just 17 are women . . . 80% of political offices being occupied by men . . . less than ¼ MP’s is a woman . . . of all the people in parliament in the world, 13% are women . . . Men occupying the highest ranks in virtually EVERY industry in the world . . . in the corporate sector, women at the top, C level jobs, board seats, tops out at 15-16%. The numbers have not moved since 2002, and are going in the wrong direction.”
[8:08] Thunderf00t: Sandberg describes this women-losing-interest-in-leadership, in detail in her TED Talk. She UNDERSTANDS the reasons. But what I’m missing out on here, is where is the sexism in this picture? WHO is discriminating against the women here? The different representations of men and women she basically describes as being down to lifestyle choices.
[8:33] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “-and I’m here to tell you, once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it’s hard to leave that kid at home.”
[8:41] Thunderf00t: WHERE is the sexism in that? Where is the sexism in not finding women at the top of the greasy pole?
[8:50] clip from DNews?: “-men occupying the highest ranks in virtually EVERY industry in the world.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript!
sure... guns are super hard to get in UK and EU, so it stopped the shootings, but now all the students are making b… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…3 days ago
Thunderf00t 