You have all heard about the constant battle between Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate. I have been following both of their tweets not to pick any side but to see if what she says has any truth in it. She is the kind of person that says to have been harassed, faced with death threats and constantly being belittled for what she does. Let’s start off from the begining and see where she started.
She first became popular on a site for donating called kickstarter where she practically made money with the promise of making videos about certain gaming characters. The goal was reached and actually overreached since she got „6,968 backers pledged $158,922 to help bring this project to life but the promises were not held.
- $7,500 – Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress (Tropes Video #6)
- $9,000 – Women as Reward (Tropes Video #7)
- $10.500 – Mrs. Male Character (Tropes Video #8)
- $12,000 – „Ugly” = Evil (Tropes Video #9)
- $13,500 – Man with Boobs (Tropes Video #10)
- $15,000 – Special Video To Be Announced If Goal Magically Reached!
So, there were supposed to be 10 videos but if you check her youtube channel, there are only 6 videos and this project was funded in 2012 so it has been a while but the videos didn’t appear. What does that say to us? That she basically scammed the persons who actually funded her project and did not respect the made promises.
Anita Sarkeesi now is a representative of feminist frequency. I actually checked her tweets and videos only to see a few patterns that currently reside everytime she is interviewed or questioned by the media:
- She never stops complaining about death threats and harassment.
- In her every video she needs to mention gamergate and the people that harass her from this group.
- Whenever asked by people about her goals, she always gives out the female in a flimsy armor or the female used as decoration.
- In all her videos she also says about the damsel in distress stereotype.
We can see that first of all, she strikes to draw pitty upon herself from the audience so they she will grow sympathy from them. Next, she pulls in the name card so that her opposition will be viewed as something negative and will be remembered as something unthrustfull and negative in case people doubt her. Her next two opinions are general and used everytime eventhough she gives proof of a lack of understanding the diversity in video games. Sure, there are videos like that but i clearly remember world of warcraft, mass effect, Diablo and many other games that do not fit her pattern yet she mentions nothing of them. Maybe she doesn’t have enough popularity to go against a big company like Blizzard or she might be afraid that the companies have the balls to actually press charges against her for slander.
Let’s all forget who Anita Sarkeesian is and focus on what she represents. She represents Feminist gamers yet i do wonder something. Why do the feminists agree to be represented by someone who basically scammed people on kickstarter? Why does the media never ask her questions about the kickstarter project? She clearly isn’t a positive image to behold or to be represented by so why does no feminist jump on her head about these things that she has done? Why do they let her grow in popularity when she clearly does it for popularity and more money not for the ethics of it? Those questions will probably be left unanswered as feminists do not engage in criticism and neither does she. For someone who believes in her freedom of speech and changes, she doesn’t accept any critic since her videos have disabled comments so that tells us only one thing: she’s either afraid of being called what she is or of people that could change her followers opinion.
Another thing that you should take notice about her character are the tweets that she sends and just today i found some that clearly states what kind of person she is:
You can see here that she indulges in brainwashing people because she says so not because people would have enough judgment to see what and who is right ( see Tweet with gamergate hates women). Another one is her nature of judging people that would invite her to a show and her opinion when she clearly dislikes the person. Her personality is one of a person that provokes people and would not accept the consequences of her words but is that right? Is it right to provoke with words and then behave like a victim if people tell her off? I think not and i think feminists should find a more intelligent person to represent them not this vindictive little scammer.
One thing she also confuses and seem to confuse are people with trolls. Just because she has received harassment from someone who has ” gamergate” on following doesn’t mean that the whole group of gamergate is harassing her. NO, make the difference between internet trolls who will engage in these kind of discussion and the group gamergate. If you can’t make that difference then you’re just an attention whore with a problem towards the group itself seeking any chance to relate any troll to it.
I have to say one thing: this person doesn’t represent female gamers and will never represent real women. Real women would not accept to be represented by someone who clearly cares more about her vendettas with a group, who can’t take criticism, who complains about harassment and yet provokes it within her tweets, who scams people with the promise of a project yet fails to respect it. I refuse to be represented by a person with clearly a lack of morals and respect for anyone who might challenge her to a real debate.
miculcritic 