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 the transcript for these videos!
[0:00] news clips: “Well it’s a simple idea with big potential, turning polluted air into actual products that most of us will use every day.”
“Absolutely! Here in a Southern California plastics factory you are NOT gonna imagine WHERE this comes from. Just wait until you see this story.”
“We connect to a Newlight through our technology innovation funnel at Dell . . . who’s doing, of all things, making plastic out of carbon in the air. It almost seemed like it was too good to be true.”
[0:26] Thunderf00t: WOW. So the solution to global warming is here:
[0:31] clip from “Plastic made from air may help solve carbon emissions crisis” (CBS): “This building in Costa Mesa, California, looks unremarkable. And what’s happening inside sounds unreal.”
“So that’s plastic? That was literally made out of thin air?”
“We would be breathing this right now.”
[0:46] Thunderf00t: A way of turning carbon in the air into plastic. And the GREAT thing is, it’s gonna be CHEAPER than regular plastic. And it’s been featured on USA Today, The Guardian, The Weather Channel, CBS, and of course, Fox News, and the computer company, Dell, is promoting this AMAZING new technology, hard—so it can’t be complete bullshit. Right? I mean surely, someone must have fact-checked this. Right?
[1:16] So, firstly they claim that they’re gonna be making this plastic out of exhaust gases:
[1:21] clip from The Weather Channel: “-supposed to be a big game-changer for climate change, and Dave, you were telling us earlier about how they take the carbon out of the atmosphere and turn into plastic. How exactly do they do that, and Stephen our producer said, ‘well, why don’t they just hook up kind of a vacuum to, you know—smokestacks—and just get it right like that?’
[1:38] Thunderf00t: Well, that’s great. So now we know what we’re talking about: carbon dioxide.
[1:43] clip from The Weather Channel: “Yeah, that would be the way to do that. And they ARE doing that. In the future they hope to get it from a concentrated source. Right now they’re taking it from the air and they’re taking it from concentrated sources. But everything you see here—the cups, the bag, the plates—even, in fact, the chair that I’m sitting on right now, it’s all made from this plastic that comes from the air, and it’s one man’s dream.”
[2:07] Thunderf00t: And here’s their CEO saying that, just like trees take carbon dioxide out of the air:
[2:13] clips from Weather Channel, Dell: “pull Southern California’s polluted air from the roof and make something with all that carbon coming from cars, power plants, and farms.”
“Plants do this every single day. The way a tree grows is by pulling carbon out of the air.”
“Every single thing that you see that’s green—that’s ALL produced by pulling carbon out of the air. So we do precisely the same thing. It’s all around us. We just found a way to pull it out of an airstream and then turn it into a plastic molecule, and that plastic molecule we can then turn into shapes and things like that.”
“The environmental impact has the potential impact to be massive.”
[2:47] Thunderf00t: Yeah, that’s mostly right. Trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere AND water and a load of energy from the sun, and turn that into sugar—which is then polymerized to make things like cellulose, which is essentially wood.
[3:03] Now, plants GET that energy from the SUN. They are solar powered. Where’s he gonna get his energy from? Solar Roadways [LOL] , thorium-powered cars? Because the one place he can’t get it from is burning fossil fuels, ‘cos that would dump about as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as he’s going to be sequestering.
[3:24] As of rough chemical compositions, most plastics are basically petroleum-based polymers. And their chemical composition is basically that of oil; which is approximately this:
[3:37] Sugars and their polymers, which is cellulose, make up things like wood. And can, at a simple chemical composition-level be looked at as partially combusted hydrocarbon. That is, IF you could simply transform these petroleum-based polymers into wood, it would release a load of energy. And then of course you can simply finish off that oxidation in a very simple manner just by burning wood, which everyone knows releases a load of heat. I mean, it’s basically turning wood, into carbon dioxide, water, and a load of energy; effectively reversing what photosynthesis did in the first place.
[4:16] But energy is conserved here. There are no free lunches. If you wanna turn that carbon dioxide back into wood, you gotta put a load of energy in from somewhere and it will cost you AT LEAST as much energy as you got out from burning it in the first place.
[4:34] And the same thing is true if you’re trying to turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon-based plastics. WHERE is this energy going to come from?
[4:46] Secondly of course, this would just be a drop in the ocean. I mean from my last video you’ll recall that humans breathe out about 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide per day. That’s just your carbon footprint for being alive. And then you have all these people from CBS just gasping with awe at how someone has maybe sequestered 50 or so grams of carbon in a cellphone cover:
[5:13] clip from CBS “Plastic made from air may help solve carbon emissions crisis”: “So I know this sounds more like magic than science, so I wanted to make sure you guys could actually touch and feel this . . .”
[5:35] I mean, seriously, that’s only about 1/20th of their personal daily metabolic carbon footprint and they’re impressed by it!
[5:43] news clips: “Newlight is selling its plastic to companies such as furniture maker KI, which uses it to create chairs. There are also air carbon cellphone cases, soap dishes, and even plastic bags.”
“a big game-changer for climate change, and Dave, you were telling us earlier about how they take the carbon out of the atmosphere and turn into plastic.”
“At a recent Fortune Magazine event, Michael Dell announced he will use Newlight’s air carbon bags to wrap his Dell computers.”
[6:17] Thunderf00t: And just a personal metabolic carbon footprint is peanuts compared to the total carbon footprint. I mean, like I was saying, this is a drop in the ocean AT BEST. I mean let’s keep this in perspective:
[6:32] clip from Weather Channel: “2011, the U.S. alone generated almost 14 MILLION TONS of plastic. Only about 8 percent was EVER recycled.”
[6:39] Thunderf00t: 14 million tons might sound like a lot. Until you realize that the U.S. carbon footprint is about 5,000 MILLION TONS, which was achieved by burning about 2,000 million tons of oil. Yeah, ALL of the plastics that you consume are give-or-take only take about 1 percent of your ENTIRE carbon footprint. If we were talking about carbon dioxide, he’s simply talking crap.
[7:12] Buuut it turns out that all that speak about basically doing what trees do—not entirely honest. Turns out that this process is actually gonna run on methane. That’s right—it’s basically turning hydrocarbon into plastic—which sounds exactly like what the oil industry is currently doing.
[7:32] So, what’s the difference? Well, they claim that they’re gonna get the methane OUT of the air:
[7:38] clip from Dell: “We connect to a Newlight through our technology innovation funnel at Dell . . . who’s doing, of all things, making plastic out of carbon in the air. It almost seemed like it was too good to be true.”
[7:48] Thunderf00t: And I simply call BULLSHIT on that. Well you’ve gotta understand that there really isn’t much methane in air—and for good reason—it gets oxidized away in our atmosphere really quite quickly with a half-life of about 10 years.
[8:01] Now, while it’s true methane IS a very big greenhouse gas, it’s also true that its concentration in air is very low—only about 1 part per million. There is just bugger-all methane in the air.
[8:16] So, I mean, just some ballpark numbers, the cubic meter of air is what this girl is essentially sitting in, weighs about 1 kilogram. So if you wanted to make about 1 kilogram of plastic, you would need to harvest the methane of 1 MILLION cubic meters of air with 100 percent efficiency. I mean, look, this is the tube they claim they’re sucking all our air through to make this plastic:
[8:41] clip from Weather Channel: “pull Southern California’s polluted air from the roof and make something with all that carbon.”
“This plastic comes from the air.”
“And this is it right here, more than 50 percent of THIS plastic right here came from the air on top of this building.”
[9:01] Thunderf00t: So let’s do a real simple back-of-the-envelope calculation. For a TRIVIAL task of say, producing 1 kilogram of plastic per hour—that means they’ve gotta suck 1 MILLION cubic meters of air through that tube. That tube, if you’re generous, is about 0.1 meters by 0.1 meters. So if they’re gonna achieve the paltry task of making 1 kilogram of plastic per hour, iiit turns out they’d have to be sucking air through that tube at about 100 TIMES the speed of sound. And that’s just the flow problem. Unless they’ve got some magic method for extracting the methane out of the air, it’s simply pointless.
[9:41] Now, 100 times the speed of sound—about a 100 times the speed of a bullet—might not sound impossible to some people. So let me put this into more human dimensions. So, we basically need about 1 million cubic meters of air to create a single kilogram of plastic. Well, by happy coincidence, the volume of the Empire State Building is also about 1 million cubic meters. So the bare minimum you would have to do is pump a volume of air the size of the Empire State Building—ignoring all the stuff about extracting the methane and turning it into plastic.
[10:20] But just for the moment, let’s just take a look at the costs of pumping that sort of volume of air. It’s actually going to take a sort of industrial pump that can pump about 2 cubic meters per second, and it runs on about 2 kilowatts. So this pump would take about one week to pump that million cubic meters of air. And just the grid electricity to pump that volume of air would generate about 200 kilograms of carbon dioxide—the equivalent of burning about a 100 kilograms of oil to generate 1 KILOGRAM of plastic.
[10:58] And just to put that into some perspective, the petrochemical industry basically works by taking about 1 kilogram of oil and turning it into about 1 kilogram of plastic.
[11:08] clip from “Dell AirCarbon Plastic – Made from Air, Not Oil”: “Gone from doing less harm, to do no harm, to ‘let’s make it better than we left it’.”
“Newlight’s technology is such a great partner for that, but they’re making it better.”
[11:22] Thunderf00t: This really is the problem that you face, that you have essentially 1,000 tons of air, and you’re trying to extract from that 1 kilogram of methane, which can maybe be converted into about a kilogram of plastic.
[11:36] Look, this is the thing—you can get methane from the petrochemical industry fairly cheaply. But these ‘air carbon’ people claim that their process is cheaper than the petrochemical industry:
[11:47] clip from The Weather Channel: “although Mark truly believes he has found a way to make air plastic cost less than oil plastic.”
[11:55] Thunderf00t: In which case, the obvious question, if your air methane is cheaper than petrochemical industry methane, why not just sell it as ‘fuel’? You know, just for burning. It would be incredibly bio-friendly, as methane’s about 30 times as bad a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.
[12:15] I mean there’s just something about this that REALLY stinks. That is, I simply don’t believe that there would EVER be a cost-effective way of extracting methane from the atmosphere like this.
[12:27] Now if you were doing this with BIO sources of methane—weeell, now that’s a little different. But that’s MUCH more what the petrochemical industry is essentially doing at the moment. And calling it “air carbon”, you know, pulled out of the air:
[12:40] clip from The Weather Channel: “Right. So this is actually air carbon.”
“Air carbon is the product name they use for this white powder.”
“How does this become plastic though?”
“Heat it up, and air carbon becomes a plastic called, PHA.”
CBS clip: “So that’s plastic that was literally made out of thin air?”
“We would be breathing this right now.”
[12:58] Thunderf00t: -seems to be ENTIRELY misleading.
[13:01] So, in summary, if they’re talking about making plastic from the carbon dioxide in the air, then they’re simply talking crap, as it could NEVER be cost-effective unless you can find a cheaper source of energy than fossil fuels. If he’s talking about methane in the air, then he’s MORE full of crap than the Empire State Building is full of air. And if he’s talking about bio methane created on a farm IN A BIOLOGICAL REACTOR—you know, to generate the methane in the first place—he’s talking about bio methane generated on a farm and he’s not talking about pulling it out of the air. And all those claims about ‘carbon out of the air’—not really true.
[13:47] clip from Dell: “Almost all plastics today come from fossil fuels. So, the difference with air carbon is, air carbon is made from air and carbon that we would otherwise be breathing right now.”
[13:56] Thunderf00t: Look, there’s ONE polymer that is the UNDISPUTED claim to call itself ‘air carbon’. It’s the most abundant biomolecule on Earth: cellulose, created by plants and the key structural component of trees—you know, wood. You wanna use ‘air carbon’ to wrap your computers, use paper. THEN at least the carbon GENUINELY came from the atmosphere and not some fraudulent claims about being able to make plastic cost-effective out of thin air. But I still just wail with despair at just how much scientific illiteracy there is throughout the mainstream media.
[14:38] clip from CBS: “So I know this sounds more like magic than science, so I wanted to make sure you guys could actually touch and feel this.”
[14:45] Thunderf00t: And just how a large company like Dell can promote this pseudo-science without even a cursory look as to if those claims are even remotely possible.
[14:57] clip from Dell: “We connect to a Newlight through our technology innovation funnel at Dell . . . who’s doing, of all things, making plastic out of carbon in the air. It almost seemed like it was too good to be true.”
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 supplying the transcript to this video! 🙂
[0:00] Thunderf00t: First we had that fantastic Dove commercial:
[0:03] clip from “dove evolution”
[0:16] Thunderf00t: Then we had “Ban Bossy”:
[0:19] clip from “Ban Bossy”
[0:23] Thunderf00t: And now following close in its footsteps we have #LikeaGirl. The format is pretty generic, you wanna get this behind-the-scenes feel to make it seem less staged and more authentic. You know, “trustworthy”. And you know, maybe get a clapper board in there or something . . . Like the girl sitting down while someone says that you’re “recording audio” . . . despite the fact that that’s the only audio used in the entire video, which, by the way, cost about $130,000 to make. And then take a point that everyone can agree with, you know, like say for instance that women on magazine covers are Photo shopped and then just hope no one spots that the title of these, um, uh, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
[1:18] I mean I just kind of scratch my head at this one. Are these people really getting upset about people using Photoshop to make themselves seem more beautiful than they actually are, when the very product that they are trying to sell you is meant to make you appear more beautiful than you actually are?—you know, appearance-enhancing cosmetics.
[1:40] I mean, to be honest, if you don’t find this being transformed into THIS a problem, then why do you really care about the Photo shopping? And that of course is just ignoring the fact that the whole thing was just a Unilever marketing campaign time “to coincide with the expansion of Dove brand artificial appearance-enhancing cosmetic soaps and cleansers” (Wikipedia “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty”). Uh—sorry, no, nothing to do with that at all. It was just about how much Dove brand cosmetics agrees with you about just how wrong it is for other women to try to be more beautiful than they actually are.
[2:17] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”
[2:31] Thunderf00t: Now we have another corporation with an ENTIRELY philanthropically motivated message. This time they want young, confused girls—about the time they get their first period—to know that a sanitary towel manufacturer knowsand understands their problems. And it’s got nothing to do with all that hormonal shit that kicks off in a woman’s body about this time. No, it’s all down to people saying ‘throw like a girl’.
[2:57] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “So when they’re in that vulnerable time, between 10 and 12, how do you think it affects them when somebody uses ‘like a girl’ as an insult?
“I think it definitely drops their self-confidence and really puts them down, because during that time they’re already trying to figure themselves out. And-”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: Well isn’t that nice of them, to know that the corporation like this has your best interest at heart. In that sense, it’s a perfect viral advertising campaign for something that is intrinsically difficult to market.
[3:29] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no such thing as a ‘happy period’. The reality is, some people simply can’t handle the truth.”
[3:38] Thunderf00t: You get to engage with your audience without having to deal with all that icky stuff that’s usually associated with the subject.
[3:46] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “In the past, we tried to be more honest in our approach. In the 1980’s we ran a series of focus groups to help us gauge the public’s reaction to periods: the cramps, the mood swings, the insatiable hunger—and yes, Richard, the blood coursing from my uteri like a crimson landslide.”
[4:02] Thunderf00t: They get what they want, which is for teenage girls to have a positive association with Always sanitary towels. That is, as long as they don’t think about it too much. Buut we’ll come back to that in a second. If you wanna see how eye-rollingly badly this game can be played, just watch the Pantene commercial. Pfft. No clapperboard. Amateurs.
[4:22] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”
[4:33] Thunderf00t: -where it insists that women keep apologizing like this isn’t something that EVERYONE does just to be polite—no, no. It’s only women who ever do this. Then, of course, what if women didn’t say sorry?
[4:45] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”
[4:59] Thunderf00t: Yes, Pantene wants you to be one of those people who never says sorry.
[5:04] clip from “ORIGINAL VIDEO – Bitchy Resting Face”: “Because if we wanted to be constantly misunderstood, we’d try and talk to a deaf person.”
“Hey, Taylor—I think you might actually be a bitch.
“In real life.”
“You should’ve all been aborted.”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Oh yeah! Everyone loves someone who never says sorry. Ain’t that so, Liz?
[5:29] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”
[5:50] Thunderf00t: Buuut joking aside, and coming back to the thinking about the ‘throw like a girl’ commercial—as much admiration as I have for how well-executed this marketing campaign was, it’s still BULLSHIT. Annd maybe this would be a good time for those ‘meee tooo’ Tumblr-type feminists to get a box of Kleenex in, because if you think the expression “like a girl” is what destroys the self-confidence of young women, then a hard stare at reality will likely cause a gendered panic-attack of apocalyptic proportions.
[6:24] The expression ‘throw like a girl’ probably has its roots in fairly obviousbiology. You know, guys tend to have almost twice the upper body strength of girls (Wikipedia, “Sexual dimorphism”). I know—it’s hardly rocket science. Add in there a spot of culture. You know, girls having less historical need to throw stuff than guys. And the fact that sports mostly focus on higher, faster, and stronger; which on a level playing field, with NO SEXISM whatsoever, is actually men in every category. And you would need a very special class of feminist idiot to say otherwise:
[7:05] clip from Feminist Frequency“Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth; which of course is completely false.”
[7:13] Thunderf00t: Aww, I know, let me taste those sweet, juicy, social-justice-warrior tears. Let me just say that again: on a level field, with NO glass ceiling and absolutely no sexual discrimination, men are faster, stronger, and better throwers. Yet, that’s not sexism you’re looking at. That’s just the reality of being a sexually dimorphic species.
[7:40] So, in demographic terms, little girls tend to be the weakest throwers of all. So guess what, this is simile—or metaphor, or whatever—for someone who throws weakly.
[7:51] Whoa—I know, rocket science! ‘But noo, the fact that little girls are the weakest throwers is clearly wrong because little staged girls in Barbie-pink and rainbow girl here can throw stuff too! to uplifting music which includes important demographics including sporty and token!’ And as with all advertising campaigns, absolutely no fattys and no uglys; because although you’re courageously battling for the self-esteem of young girls, the last thing that you want is your product associated with fat or ugly people. And the fact that you can confuse a teenage girl or actor or whatever into not understanding the difference between the meaning of ‘a girl throwing’ and the simile of ‘throw like a girl’
[8:35] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “Yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl because I am a girl. And, that is not something that I should be ashamed of.”
[8:45] Thunderf00t: I know, poor girl must go white with fear when someone says she’s ‘into shit’, or someone ‘eats like a pig’ or ‘I would kill for a royale with cheese’. But anyway, no—girls’ plummeting self-confidence is all down to the devastating metaphor of ‘throw like a little girl’.
[9:01] THIS is why girls’ self-confidence plummets during puberty. Well, that and of course being called bossy:
[9:08] clip from “Ban Bossy”:“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher.”
“Being labelled something matters.”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”
“And that’s because they worry about being called”
“‘bossy’”
[9:22] Thunderf00t: And as many a feminist has pointed out, when women have such heavy crosses to bear, and the fact that they think that women are such weak and fragile creatures that they really need to have to have their hands held to deal with these horrific social burdens, it must truly amaze feminists that ANY women make it to adulthood at all. All the while having that perplexed look on their face as to why the term ‘feminism’ has inexplicably acquired a reputation of being a CULT, where the only tenent is that you whinely embrace victimhood. GOOD JOB feminists. That’s EXACTLY the role model that young women need.
[10:03] But as for the viral marketing campaign, yet it struck a great blow. And it’s certainly fighting against propagating harmful stereotypes. And it’s made #LikeaGirl mean amazing things, like how you can destroy a teenage girl’s self-confidence simply by using the expression ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘bossy’.
[10:24] clip from “Ban Bossy”: “By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”
“And that’s because they worry about being called”
“‘bossy’”
[10:31] clip from “The Doctor Vs The Prime Minister – Doctor Who . . .”and “Ban Bossy” [LOL!]
[10:49] Thunderf00t: Well, in this new age of gender equality they should just learn to ‘take it like a man’. Always. Good job.
Many thanks to Linda for creating this transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: So meet Suey Park, the instigator of the #cancelcolbert. And she’s quite clear about one thing, that she’s NEVERclaimed to be an educator.
[0:10] clip: “And I’ve never claimed to be, like, an educator. Um, I’m an activist and I think”
[0:15] Thunderf00t: However when she was sending a question to President Obama, she obviously felt that ‘#activist’ might sound, well, kind of pathetic. I wonder if there’s a way that she could make herself sound more important?
[0:27] clip: “Hi! I’m Suey Park, and I’m from Chicago, Illinois. A month ago, I started the hashtag, #NotYourAsianSidekick that sparked global conversation for, and by Asian American women. I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer”
[0:40] Thunderf00t: (LOLing) that’s just EPIC.
[0:43] clip: “And I’ve never claimed to be, like, and educator”
“I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer”
[0:48] Thunderf00t: So, Suey is one of those precious social justice warrior flowers, always so hair triggered to be outraged at the most trivial of things. And always so, so rational.
[1:01] clip: “And not just shift it to another group, is that we need to understand how genocide, and slavery, and orientalism, all work together to uphold white supremacy”
“how genocide, and slavery, and orientalism, all work together to uphold white supremacy. It’s really kind of the way that I understand my work. Which is why a lot of my work isn’t essentially with these mainstream Asian American activist groups. #NotYourAsianSidekick was actually not a call for Asian American visibility or Asian American celebration. It was actually a call to not be a sidekick to white supremacy”
[1:35] Thunderf00t: We have the great market out there for the professional victims. Giving keynote talks at places like Purdue University about their first-world problems and getting their articles in places like TIME Magazine. But I’ll come to those shortly.
[1:51]:The principle role in this was a keyboard social-justice-warrior, revolutionizing the world one ‘meetooo’ keystroke at a time.
[2:00]: She’s best known for being the instigator of the #cancelcolbert. And she really, really believes in this online activism stuff making a difference, as can be seen in this Tweet here, of ‘(yawn) another online petition about me’.
[2:16]: Yes, it’s clear that she thinks that this hashtag activism about first-world problems can change the world. As long as the online activism isn’t about her racism. Or sexism. Or whatever. But yes, Suey. Claiming that people cannot understand things, based solely on their skin color, or their sex, is what we call racism and sexism.
[2:38] clip: “-especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying”
[2:43] Thunderf00t: So understand, Suey, that when you look in a mirror, that the person looking back at you, is what a sexist, and a racist, looks like.
[2:52] And then you gotta foil that up with an expert petulant and dishonest display:
[2:56] clip: “You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive, and I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”
“Explain”
“I just told you I wouldn’t enact that labor”
“Okay. Thanks for being with us, Suey”
[3:12] Thunderf00t: -where she reports this interview, where she says that the interviewer couldn’t understand things because of his skin color, and his gender, like this: “In case anyone thought I was censoring Colbert, please know I was just talked down to, muted, and silenced by @joshzepps and @huffpostlive.” To which Zepps actually told it like it actually happened: “Ahh, the righteousness of professional umbrage-takers. @suey_park wasn’t muted or silenced. I invited her to explain herself & she declined.”
[3:47]: At which point Suey really threw her toys out of the pram and just took the high road with: “You are so pathetic, @joshzepps”
[3:56]: In case you’re wondering what silencing tactics ACTUALLY look like, just see how feminists deal with an opposing viewpoint.
[4:04] clip: “It’s my hope that as a result of my talk, a few of you may decide to–okay, you know, it’s the signature—it’s a signature of a totalitarian ideology to attempt to quash descent. So every time you interrupt, you’re merely showing your repressive tendencies. You’re not showing anything about your virtue . . . So you think this is a victory? Yeah, why are you so frightened of hearing an opinion different from your own?”
[4:43] Thunderf00t: And you’ll be happy to know that Anita Sarkeesian, popped up to suggest that the backlash was nothing to do with the stupidity of what she said, or the racism or the sexist things that she said. No, it was entirely because she was a woman.
[4:58]: Oh, professional victims of the world unite! Interestingly, the article she links to describes the above interview like this:
[5:06]: “Her treatment on Huffington Post Live by Josh Zepps illustrates how even the mainstream media decorousness could not restrain the impulse to publicly punish and shame a disobedient woman of color”
[5:21]: However, other than the article being hilariously over-the-top, there’s links to a screenshot of a petition, which looks curiously like a White House petition. The curious thing is though, I can find no such petition on the White House. And my suspicions are further aroused by the fact that by the time this very low-resolution screen shot was taken, only ONE person had signed the petition.
[5:44]: I mean, let’s be real. A natural, next-phase in the lifestyle of these professional victims is if they can’t actually get a real threat narrative going, is just gonna be to invent one wholesale.
[5:55]: However, even if the petition was one hundred percent legit, let’s just remind ourselves of some of the other online petitions of the White House, like for Obama to do the Hokey Pokey, or for the U.S. government to build a Death Star. The latter receiving some thirty-thousand signatures and actually got an official and very funny response.
[6:14]: But OH NOES when there’s a petition with just ONE signature to deport Suey Park and remove her first amendment rights, this is actually a real threat against women! And that it’s therefore entirely reasonable for these professional victims to lose their shit.
[6:30]: Now, to a degree, she may have a point about this hashtag activism changing the world. But probably not in the way that she thinks. In this interview here, this is the pertinent bit:
[6:42] clip: “-already”
“Wow. It’s so funny because I feel like there’s new change happening, um, with new media where, social groups that haven’t necessarily had a voice—ever, before—now has a platform.”
[6:58] Thunderf00t: Yes, giving a voice to AFFLUENT, middle-class women in their twenties, still living with their Moms:
[7:05] clip: “One second. My Mom just came home”
[7:07] Thunderf00t: -who NEEDS something to be neurotic about so they can Tweet about their therapy; and how they’re soon to be getting a therapy animal. OH MY god, really—she’s getting a therapy animal and she has the gall to call anyone else PRIVILEGED. I mean, I can see the architecture of the internet now, gently sobbing in a moody basement somewhere:
[7:27]: ‘We invented the internet to make society a better through communication of information. We never—in our most hideous nightmares thought it would be used by the most whiny, and self-righteous losers on the planet to unite in the mother-of-all outraged-about-nothing PITY PARTIES. We just didn’t KNOW!’
[7:50]: But occasionally these whiners do hit the big-time. Well, for fifteen or so minutes anyway. But for ALL of the WRONG reasons. For instance, Suey Park got her opinion into TIME Magazine. An interesting article to be sure. Especially if you do a word analysis on it and you find that the most used word in the entire article, is ‘white’. Followed in second place by, ‘racism’, ‘satire’, and ‘racist’. And in third place with, ‘you people anti-liberals’.
[8:20]: But mainly the star sentence in the whole thing is, “These white liberals are not mad that we pointed out racism, they are mad that they now have to consider the ways in which THEY may be racist.”
[8:34]: OH, SWEET MONUMENT to passive-aggressive irony. Berating people for being racist in the VERY sentence where you were judging people SOLELY on their skin color. Seriously, just Google #cancelcolbert or Suey Park and you’ll get pages and pages of this stuff.
[8:55]: The amazing thing is though, that it gets as much support as it does for these utterly vacuous arguments.
[9:01]: Now let me just say for those people with no discernable skill or talent—for them, playing the professional victim is probably the best option they have available to them. And that the people who really are paying that much attention—to them, all they see is someone saying that ‘I’m being victimized by an evil majority’. And these folks immediately put it into the David –versus-Goliath category and root for the underdog.
[9:27]: Now thankfully, it’s not a long-term winning strategy, and that as time goes on it becomes clearer and clearer—this is actually more The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Oh maybe more aptly, the professional victim who cried ‘sexism’ and ‘racism’ over their first world problems.
[9:44]: And yeah, sure, all of this does wonders for the credibility of REAL victims of sexism and racism.
[9:53]: But the verpidity of these morons—I mean, they think that THIS is a good argument for sexism:
[10:00] clip: “Men occupying the highest ranks in virtually every industry in the world”
[10:05] Thunderf00t: -then just immediately gloss over the fact that men also make up 90 percent of the prison population. I mean, I guess that just must mean that the entire criminal justice system is SEXIST against men. I mean, how else could you explain it? Yes, these are EXACTLY the sorts of sexual partitionings you would expect in a fair but sexually dimorphic species. That is, if you want to claim sexism, you’ve got to demonstrate sexism.
[10:33]: And no matter how many times you bounce up and down and say ,‘look, there’s inequality of outcome’, that simply doesn’t cut it as evidence of sexism. Because in a sexually dimorphic species, even when there IS equality of opportunity, you do not necessarily expect equality of outcome.
[10:50]: Or the vacuous nature of Suey Park claiming everyone else is privileged. I mean, can you imagine her outrage if she was told to ‘check her yellow privilege’ because Asians are universally the BEST PAID demographic in America.
[11:05]: And actually, yes they are. Earning on average twice as much as blacks. Maybe you need a new hashtag, Suey; maybe something along the lines of your ‘BETTER PAID Asian sidekick. Especially when you’re talking about privilege, of the back drop of the immensely well-stacked FINE CHINA teacups.
[11:23]: But fundamentally, yes. Saying ‘check your yellow-woman privilege’ is dismissive, and racist. For EXACTLY the same reasons that THIS is dismissive and racist:
[11:35] clip: “-especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying”
[11:39] Thunderf00t: Now let me say this in PLAIN language, so there can be absolutely no ambiguity. Suey Park is not only a racist, and a sexist—I think we’ve covered that already. But also a WORLD CLASS hypocrite. I mean we’ve already seen how she dismisses other people’s online activities “yawn”. But thinks that her hashtag activism is gonna change the world.
[12:05]: In her own words: “This is not reform, this is revolution”—OH, sweet mother of delusion of grandeur! But back to the hypocrisy. You will remember her outrage when someone just called her opinion ‘stupid’.
[12:19] clip: “No. No one’s minimalizing your experiences. No one’s minimalizing your right to have an opinion. It’s just a stupid opinion. I mean, it’s a misunderstanding of what satire is—it’s a misunderstanding of what irony is”
“You just called my opinion ‘stu-piiid’”
“You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive. And I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”
[12:40] Thunderf00t: Yes, that’s INCREDIBLY patronizing and offensive to call someone’s opinion stupid. It’s demeaning and so forth. Unless of course you’re Suey Park, then it’s perfectly acceptable for you to call other people’s questions stupid: ‘“When white men ask me stupid questions—I zap them into trolls and put them in my garden”’
[13:01]: Suey, tell us what you think of that argument:
[13:03] clip: “You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive. And I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”
[13:12] Thunderf00t: But for me, the one that sealed the deal that she’s just formally unplugged from reality, was in her interview with Salon. And it went like this:
[13:22]: ““Interviewer: What do you think is the best way to work with white people, to get them on our side?”
“Suey: I don’t want them on our side”
“Uhhh. You don’t want them on your side?”
“This is not reform, this is revolution”
[13:38] Thunderf00t: I’m not quite sure what you’ve got in mind here, Suey. A society free of racism where absolutely everyone is equal—uhh apart from the white people. Really, when you were given that keynote talk at Purdue University at the Conference on Diversity:
[13:53] clip: “I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer. And this spring, I’ll be travelling to all different colleges in the U.S. to connect with students”
[13:59] Thunderf00t: I’m just curious—did you hang a sign outside saying: ‘whites not welcome’?
[14:04] clip: “I think that facebuilding and dialogue are necessary in continuing to build an inclusive movement”
[14:09] Thunderf00t: But this one REALLY knocks the whole thing out of the ballpark in that she’s on a whole new level of bat-shit crazy:
[14:18] ““Yes, because I think it’s important. A lot of white America and so-called liberal people of color, along with conservatives ask, “Do I understand context?” And that’s part of wanting to completely humanize the oppressor. To see the white man as ALWAYS reasonable, ALWAYS pure, ALWAYS deliberate, always complex and ALWAYS innocent. And to see the woman of color as literal””
[14:46] Thunderf00t: HOLY CRAPwoman, what planet are you ON!? Always see the white man as REASONABLE!?
[14:52] clip: “Tide goes in, tide goes out—never a miscommunication. YOU, can’t explain that”
[14:57] Thunderf00t: Always see the white man as, REASONABLE!?
[15:00] clip: “I know that human being, and fish, can coexist peacefully”
[15:07] clip: “It appears, that, there were not weapons of mass destruction there”
“You said you knew where they were”
“I did not-”
“-know where they are, in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and-”
[15:20] Thunderf00t: WHAT PLANET are you ON? Here on planet earth, we judge arguments based on their merits. And we call those who judge arguments based on skin color, RACISTS because it’s a STUPID way of judging if an argument is valid or not. Nor do we judge arguments on “privilege”.
[15:38] clip: “Because they live in white privilege”
“Yeah”
“And they live, like, so deeply in white privilege that they can’t get their asses out of it”
[15:44] Thunderf00t: This woman, is a BILLIONAIRE. She’s as privileged as they come. But bizarrely, when she does something stupid—outrageously stupid—we don’t judge her actions based on the fact that she’s a woman. Or that she’s rich, and privileged, and entitled. We judge her actions based on their merits. Or, in this case, the lack of them:
[16:07] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
[16:09] Thunderf00t: ‘Yes, I was called ‘bossy’ when I was a kid. And now I’m a BILLIONAIRE and one of the most powerful women in the world! So let’s get more women involved in leadership by banning the word ‘bossy’’’.
[16:20]: And this man is a billionaire, and as privileged and white as they come. But, according to Suey, we must regard “the white man” as ALWAYS reasonable, ALWAYS pure, ALWAYS deliberate, ALWAYS complex, ALWAYS innocent. BULL SHIT!
[16:36]: If he claims that vaccines cause autism, then his opinions are moronic.
[16:41] clip: “You just called my opinion stu-piiid”
[16:43] Thunderf00t: Sure, Suey. And I don’t say that because he’s white, or a man, or a privileged billionaire. I say it because his arguments are demonstrably WRONG. And only morons and social-justice-warriors would base an argument’s validity—well, lack of it—on whether someone is poor or privileged. That is, only a moron would dismiss someone’s opinion simply by saying, ‘check your privilege’ because it’s a matter of supreme irrelevance to the validity of an argument.
[17:14]: Just like saying someone’s skin color—or if you have girl parts or boy parts—is a matter of SUPREME irrelevance to the validity of an argument.
[17:23]: But for Suey, it’s of almost NUCLEAR face palm proportions. And they are supposedly trying to END racism in a revolution in which white people will NOT be welcome.
Many thanks to Linda for creating this Transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: This is your brain. This is your brain on a new wave of feminism:
[0:05] clip: “Bossy, bossy, bossy”
“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”
“Being labelled something matters”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: Yeah. That’s right, what else could possibly explain the lack of women in leadership roles but the word:
[0:27] clip: “bossy”
[0:28] Thunderf00t: And what better way to correct that than by banning a word?
[0:32] clip: “We need to help them lean in”
“Words matter”
“Let’s just ban the word ‘bossy’”
[0:38] Thunderf00t: Yes, apparently this is the latest in the string of feminist explanations to explain why there aren’t more women in certain fields. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in humans. You know, that OUTRAGEOUSLY SEXIST reason why we split up the Olympics by sex.
[0:54] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender is a deeply ingrained, socially constructed myth. Which, of course is completely false”
[1:03] Thunderf00t: Or the fact that the physical dimorphism is accompanied by behavioral dimorphism as well. You know, it’s a consequence of having that neural net we call a ‘brain’, marinaded in mostly one hormone or another—nah, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in the behavior of humans. It’s all bound to the word ‘bossy’.
[1:23] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”
“Being labelled something matters”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”
[1:37] Thunderf00t: First we have those feminists, like Rebecca Watson:
[1:40] clip: “That’s right, you liberal, intellectual guy, who has a healthy interest in science and skepticism, but who finds feminism distasteful and would rather not hear about it. You are worse than rape threats”
[1:54] Thunderf00t: -who told us that sexism in Atheism was so bad, that a woman could get ASKED FOR COFFEE in an elevator. And THAT’S why there aren’t so many women in atheism. While she simultaneously thinks that starting a charity fund raiser by spitefully insulting every, single, male atheist in the audience, is just funnnny.
[2:17] clip: “I opened with a joke, referencing the fact that”
“Hello, YouTube. It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. And, I’m guessing that you’ve missed me too. Because I’ve heard that if a male atheist on YouTube goes too long without calling a woman a cunt, his balls will actually shrivel up, and then tuck up inside of him, forming what some call a ‘mangina’”
“Most people, got the joke”
“Most people, got the joke”
“Rule number one: don’t try to be funny, even though you are obviously not funny”
[2:50] Thunderf00t: Seriously, you start your video by spitting in people’s faces, and then blame the people whose faces that you’ve just spat in, for not finding it funny.
[3:01] clip: “You think that my sarcasm and feminism causes misogyny. In the same way that birds flying south for the winter causes the snow to come”
[3:11] Thunderf00t: No, Rebecca. I think that people are pissed at you, was CAUSED by you SPITTING IN THEIR FACES for exactly the same reason that I think smoking causes cancer. And then you portray the fact that they’re pissed off that you spat in their faces, as a reason why you’re persecuted, and people need to give you money. Or maybe that’s the whole point.
[3:33] clip: “I’m gonna continue speaking out about feminism and harassment of women online. Why? Because it pisses you off.
[3:40] Thunderf00t: And then we have the “pop culture critic” who doesn’t even like playing computer games, ‘cause it’s “gross”
[3:47] clip: “And also, videogames—like, I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[3:54] Thunderf00t: -telling people that the reason that she doesn’t like computer games is because it’s “gross”. Oh, no. That won’t do at all. That doesn’t involve accusing people of sexism orblaming men. Yes, the reason she doesn’t like playing computer games is because of the “sexist depiction of women in computer games”. Especially the ones that involve:
[4:14] clip: “shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[4:17] Thunderf00t: -an argument that is just so mind-blowingly stupid. It’s like calling Victoria’s Secret ‘sexist’ because they only make lingerie in women’s sizes, and that they don’t use an equal number of men to model their lingerie. Yes, the first-person shooter industry demographic is mostly men. Because most girls, like Anita here find that sort of thing “gross”.
[4:42] clip from “boom headshot” (Hahaha! Damn)
[4:48] clip: “shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[4:51] Thunderf00t: Look, Anita. Just because you CHOOSE not to play a game that doesn’t appeal to you—that doesn’t make it sexist. You choosing not to play that game DOES NOT mean that you are being discriminated against by an unquestioning boys club.
[5:05] clip: “-is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . And all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club”
“I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Just like when I choose not to go shopping for lingerie because it doesn’t appeal to me—that’s not sexism, I am not being discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club.
[5:35] Now, if that what I was after, there are FAR easier ways to get discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club. Like the one that gave you $160,000 to make some videos.
[5:46] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . Nearly seven-thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”
[6:03] Thunderf00t: Of which you’ve made four. In two years. $160,000. Or maybe that’s the whole point. Oh yeah, good business is where you find it. And selling victimhood to feminism is just as easy as selling a persecution complex to the religious.
[6:25] clip: “Listen, we have an outstanding broadcast here today. I took the time to do a compilation concerning Christian persecution in America. Check this out:
[6:35] Thunderf00t: And almost as profitable.
[6:37] clip: “There is coming a time very quickly here in America that we will not be able to bring this gospel message the way we currently are. That’s why we are urging you to donate today to continue and expand the work of this broadcast ministry before the lights go out. God bless you.
[6:55] Thunderf00t: And now you get this outrageous spinoff that the reason that there aren’t as many women managers is because they don’t like being called ‘bossy’. Because apparently the patriarchy has imbued men with this unholy power not to be discouraged by being called bossy. While these feminists think that women need special treatment, because ‘they’re emotionally fragile creatures than men’. Of course, if I were to say that women are more emotionally fragile creatures and need special protection from being called ‘bossy’ they would instantly label me as outrageously sexist and misogynistic.
[7:28] clip: “-horrible bigots, like Thunderf00t”
[7:31]: But these feminists think they are showing just how well women can compete on a level playing-field by saying that women are too emotionally fragile to handle being called ‘bossy’.
[7:44] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”
“Being labelled something matters”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”
[7:58] Thunderf00t: Ah, the face palm fails me. Look, let me say it once. Let me say it loud and let me say it clear: humans are a sexually dimorphic species. MEN and WOMEN are BIOLOGICALLY different. Which MAY or MAY NOT mean, that women are more biologically, emotionally fragile.
[8:21]: However, what we call ‘fair’ in society is equality of opportunity. Which in a sexually dimorphic species DOES NOT guarantee equality of outcome. In simple, simple terms the reason that it’s men who invariably end up shifting a couch up the stairs, is NOT because of sexism. Men are not conspiring to keep the couch-moving trade the “boys only” club with all the privileges and entitlements that come with it. It’s simply that they’re physiologically better-suited for it. You know, the same reason we divide the Olympics up by sex without everyone losing their shit and calling it sexism. If you wanna call it ‘sexism’, it’s simple. You have to show that there was not equality of opportunity. ‘Cause in a sexually dimorphic species, showing inequality of outcome, just doesn’t cut it.
[9:20]: But setting aside the 1984-style aspirations of being able to control words
[9:26] clip: “This is “Ban Bossy” take one”
[9:28] Thunderf00t: Well, I wouldn’t mind so much, but one of the women they have on board was Condoleezza Rice.
[9:35] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”
[9:39] Thunderf00t: Here’s a radical notion: maybe we should BAN POLITICIANS from telling bold-faced lies to the public to take them into an unjustified war.
[9:47] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”
[9:51] Thunderf00t: You know, one that’ll kill tens of thousands of people.
[9:55] clip: “There are no limits”
[9:57] Thunderf00t: -BEFORE we worry about banning the word ‘bossy’. Just sayin’.
[10:02] clip: “BAN ‘bossy’ . . . Join us to ban ‘bossy’”
[10:10] Thunderf00t: Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. The U.S. Secretary of education saw this, and thought, ‘Oh, ban ‘bossy’. That’s a really good idea. I really want to be a part of that!’
Many thanks to Linda for creating the transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know, Feminist Frequency uses a lot of feminist buzz-words. Like: ‘patriarchy’ and ‘misogyny’.
[0:07] clip: “patriarchy, sexist, sexist attitudes, and paternalistic attitudes about women, gender clichés, -and doing misogyny”
[0:13] Thunderf00t: Yep. She sees the oppression of women everywhere.
[0:17] clip: “Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: Now, in many ways, Anita using her “pop critic skills”-
[0:26] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic”
[0:27] Thunderf00t: -to show how oppressed women are, has made it almost a very cartoony, caricature trope of the modern feminist.
[0:34] clip:
[0:48] Thunderf00t: That is, Anita has become the ‘straw feminist’. Which she has previously claimed was merely a sexist trope to undermine feminism.
[0:57] clip: “Every now and then in Hollywood-land, the character that’s identified as ‘feminist’ will magically make its way through the production process and appear on our television screens. Unfortunately, this is almost never good”
“I’ve heard it said that in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team; they are the ball”
“Hollywood writers rely on one of the most deceptive and disgusting tropes ever to be forged in the fires of Mount Doom. That trope is called the straw feminist”
“Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives”
“In television and movies, the straw feminist works by deliberately creating an exaggerated character of a feminist, which writers then fill with a bunch of oversimplifications, misrepresentations, and stereotypes”
“Because it’s basically a choose-your-own-patriarchal-adventure porno fantasy”
[1:42] Thunderf00t: That is, she is not challenging stereotypes. She is reinforcing and fitting into them.
[1:47] clip: “The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over-the-top, and unnecessary.”
“It’s an old, yet effective tactic. But clearly it’s working. Because I often hear young women say, ‘I believe in the equal right of women. But, I’m not a feminist’”
[2:01] Thunderf00t: Now, personally speaking, so, broad egalitarian—you know, someone who thinks that everyone should be treated fairly—not just women. I like to use words like oppression to mean things like, this:
Or, words like ‘patriarchy’ to describe cultures like this:
[2:18]: To use the word ‘patriarchy’ to describe situations like this:
[2:22] clip:
[2:30] Thunderf00t: -merely reduces the word to a trivial level of first world problems.
[2:35] And believe me, no one has done more, or worked harder, to undermine the impact of these words, than modern feminists like Anita Sarkeesian.
[2:45 clip]: “The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over-the-top, and unnecessary.”
[2:51] Thunderf00t: for instance, Anita wants to uh, research games, of all things to find out just how much society is oppressing her.
[2:59]: Now, in science where we’re genuinely interested in discovering the unknown, we have a tradition. That is, you start with the research. And that after you’ve done the research, you draw your conclusions. This is the antithesis, of things like creationist research, where you start with the conclusions, and then you go to research things to show that your initial prejudice was correct. And this is also how Anita Sarkeesian does “research”. That is, she starts with the conclusion:
[3:30] clip: “Many games tend to reinforce and amplify sexist and downright misogynist ideas about women”
[3:36] Thunderf00t: And then asks for funding to go and do the “research”, to support these prejudices.
[3:41] clip: “As you might imagine, this project requires an enormous amount of research. This is an incredibly ambitious project, because of the scope and scale of the research and production involved. So please donate any amount you can”
[3:53] Thunderf00t: Now in her first video, she seemed to particularly pick on Mario.
[3:57] clip: “-four Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2, Mario games, Mario Brothers, Mario, Super Mario Brothers, Mario Party, Mario Sports, and Mario Kart, Super Mario series, Super Mario, Mario, fan of the Mario and Zelda franchise”
[4:08] Thunderf00t: There’s just one problem with the Mario example. Mario, just so we are clear is an Italian plumber. It really is hard to think of a more underrated, underprivileged, disposable, and instantly forgettable male.
[4:26]: Peach, on the other hand is A PRINCESS. Well, no privilege there then. Oh, I’m sorry. Did your pop culture critic feminist and womanly skills miss that?
[4:38] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic. I am a feminist, and I’m a woman”
“Because, you know, nothing is worse in a patriarchal society than being a woman. Except maybe being a feminist”
[4:48] Thunderf00t: I’ll make this simple for you, Anita. Really, really simple. You claim as a hypothesis all you want, that woman not being portrayed as you want in video games, is making society misogynistic.
[5:02] clip: “The pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak, ineffective, or ultimately incapable, has larger ramifications beyond the characters themselves, and the specific games they inhabit . . . We have to remember that these games don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re an increasingly important and influential part of our larger social and cultural ecosystem . . . The reality is, this trope is being used in a real-world context, where backwards sexist attitudes are already rampant”
[5:27] Thunderf00t: Just like you could claim that Pokémon is set in a real-world situation:
[5:32] clip: “Pokémon—plural—are incredible creatures that share the world with humans. Each has his own fighting abilities.”
[5:40] Thunderf00t: And is Satan’s way of getting at your children. In a world that is already rampantly anti-Christian.
[5:46] clip: “So Pokémon is a game, that teaches children how to enter into the world of witchcraft, how to cast spells, how to use psychic phenomena, how to put to work supernatural powers against their enemies, how to fantasy-role-play. . . Pokémon world is a world of the demonic, of the satanic. While you might not take it quite seriously, I assure you that demons take it quite seriously”
[6:11] Thunderf00t: However, merely stating a hypothesis, no matter how vocally, doesn’t make it true.
[6:18]: You fail to realize that you’ve yet to demonstrate any effect that these videogames have on people’s behavior. And until you do, you might as well be claiming that Pokémon are the ‘devil’s way of getting at your children’.
[6:32]: Hell, the people who claim that videogames make people more violent have a far better case than your claim that they make people sexist. And their claims have thus far, proved to be all but inconsequential.
[6:45]: The problem is of course, that people have claimed since time immemorial that violent fantasy media makes people more violent. Problem is of course, with the huge amount of violent video games played, there appears to be no clear correlation of violence in society. Meaning that any social vector, if it exists at all, is small. And they have a far, far, FAR stronger case than you do. Really, really, simple Anita.
[7:14]: Playing Assassin’s Creed does not increase your chances of becoming an assassin; because it’s a fantasy game.
[7:22]: The fact that you kill hundreds of people in this game, doesn’t make you any more likely to be a killer, than the fact that you died hundreds of times means that you won’t mind dying anymore. Because fundamentally, people can distinguish between reality and fantasy.
[7:38]: So, really, Anita. Where is your demonstration that the generation that enjoyed getting this Italian plumber, to rescue this princess from a giant turtle monster that are any more likely to be sexist? EXACTLY. These games are about as likely to make you sexist, as they are likely to make you think that violence against turtles is acceptable.
[8:04]: And this is why the fundamental premise of your entire video series is bullshit. And it will remain to be bullshit. Until you can actually demonstrate a link.
[8:17]: This is what happens when your idea of “well-researched” is to merely go and look for patterns that support your initial prejudices.
MANY thanks to Linda for creating this transcript 😉
[0:00] Thunderf00t: So, Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency was recently on CNN.
[0:06] clip: So I announced my intentions to create a video series examining the way women are portrayed in video games. And I was attacked by a section of male gamers. And I think part of the attack was based on their attempt to preserve the status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space, and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club.”
[0:28] Thunderf00t: Well that’s one version of her “reality”, Anita. But here’s one that may be closer to the truth. You see, there was this gaming community that was about, well, playing games. And then you come along with this massively self-centered, and entitled behavior, throwing out these great shovels of troll-bait, saying, ‘why isn’t this gaming community pandering to my social preferences?’ Then, when you get the utterly predictable backlash of anyone who says such stupid shit online, you act surprised.
[0:58] Incidentally, Anita, I find it curious that it’s almost six months after you’ve given your TED Talk, the one which you were so proud that your fans had given you $150,000.
[1:09] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . nearly seven thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”
[1:26] Thunderf00t: Now, sure, I could note it’s almost a year since this project was funded to the tune of twenty-five times what you asked for. And thus far, this project of yours, the one that’s gonna be-
[1:38] clip: “bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”
[1:41] Thunderf00t: -consists of ONE single twenty-minute video. That’s all you’ve made in an entire year.
[1:50] clip: “Instead of just being five videos, it’s now thirteen videos, plus a classroom curriculum that educators can use for free.”
[1:56] Thunderf00t: And to be honest, the video that you made was of the caliber that I would estimate is about two working days of effort in it. But that’s not what I noticed here, Anita. I find it curious, in that almost six months since your TED Talk, the one which you were so proud of all the money you’d raised, and this CNN interview, which was curiously titled: “Online trolls attack feminist media critic”. Now, what I noticed is, that you’ve not only apparently not changed your outfit, or your earrings, your hairstyle—but not even one single word of your troll baiting/professional-victim routine.
[2:33] clip: “-larger implicit goal here is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . was based on their attempt to preserve this status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space . . . and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club . . . and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club.”
[2:55] clip: “So, in their minds, they concocted this grand fiction, in which they’re the heroic players of a massively multiplayer online game, working together to take down an enemy. And apparently, they casted me in the role of the villain. And what was my big diabolical master plan? To make a series of videos on YouTube about women’s representations in games.”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: But the crazy thing is, Anita, I can find no evidence for this “grand conspiracy” anywhere outside of your head. At least, beyond your claims that it exists. In fact, a quick search for images of you online shows that the internet has been far kinder to you, than it has been to me.
[3:33] but the gaming community constitutes all walks of life: libertarians, democrats, republicans, blacks, straights, gays, whites—whatever. And in many ways, it’s the ultimate, non-discriminating, and fair playing field. Which means in the sort of games that I play, when you get into the arena, the only thing that matters is: can you shoot faster, and more accurately than your opponent? That’s the only thing that matters. There is no socially constructed oppression for you underachievers to blame your failures on.
[4:08]: Well, maybe lag. If you cannot compete in such an arena, you cannot blame this on anything, other than your lack of ability, or your lack of performance.
[4:20] clip from The Matrix and “mras and feminists arguing at u of t mra event,” Fatal1ty
[5:05] Thunderf00t: Even back in the day, when I was playing as part of a clan, we had the most incredibly diverse group I’ve ever been in. We had a gun libertarian, we had a progressive liberal. We had an immigrant Mexican, and a republican police officer. And some Ivy League researcher. This was a group I would’ve never usually met or socialized with. But in the arena, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was I knew these people played well. And I could trust them to cover me. Especially in games like capture-the-flag. And that’s why, as a clan we played well. Because we mostly understood that we were here to play the game. Not to fight over political, or social issues.
[5:49]: That’s why it’s called The Gaming Community.
And, yeah, curiously enough, Anita you go into this community with this outrageously over entitled attitude, and expect everyone to change their behavior to service your social whims. And then, of all things, to complain when there’s a backlash against your shit-stirring antics.
[6:10]: This is the metaphorical equivalent of going in to say—oh, I dunno—a baby clothes knitting society, and start demanding that they make it less about the “privileges” and “entitlements” of the dominant and unquestioning girls club; that they make it less homophobic and more welcoming to libertarians. And then, wondering why everyone thinks you’re a shit-stirring douche. And then you turn around and say, ‘Aah! Look at that backlash to my troll-baiting. That just proooves how much sexism and homophobia there is in a baby [clothes] knitting society.’
[6:45]: But anyway, this is the part where it goes hilariously off-script:
[6:50] clip: “What do you say about people who say, ‘don’t feed the trolls’?”
[6:59] Thunderf00t: Oh, you just got served, Anita. That coy little smile of: ‘oh my. She knows about trolls on the internet’. It’s almost like they read the comments on your YouTube channel, and came to the conclusion, ‘this girl is just crying wolf. She brings nothing in the way of intellectual content, so she’s playing the best card she can.’ And that’s to hold up this pathetic handful of trolling activity so she can get the attention for her professional victimhood.
[7:28] And then to claim that the community that for the large part only cares about gaming, actually has some scheming plan to keep women out of this fictitious boys club.
[7:39] clip: “larger implicit goal here is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space”
[7:47] clip from The Matrix, Fatal1ty
[8:06] Thunderf00t: But Anita recovers quickly, and gets back onto point.
[8:09] clip: “What do you say about people who say, ‘don’t feed the trolls’?
“Um, I think that that is a pretty good attitude to take. Um, but I think there’s a difference between not engaging one-on-one with the trolls. I think that—I never spoke to any of the people harassing me directly . . . There’s a sort of conception that what happened to me was trolling. Um, and trolling is largely thought of as, one individual who’s trying to get a rise out of another individual. And what happened to me was really a cyber-mob, right? It was thousands of individuals coming after me who were loosely working together.
[8:45] Thunderf00t: Bullshit, Anita. You say dumb shit online, you can EXPECT to get trolled by thousands. And yeah, when you get trolled by thousands, those trolls will occasionally end up talking to each other. This isn’t a manifestation of people conspiring together to discredit you. This is just trolls, passing in the night, and laughing at the stupid shit that you’ve said.
Thunderf00t 