The Tanoubliette: Pussy Hurt and Delusions or TTPHAD for short.

Dr. Mario: "Still not clear on whether or not she was talking about hitman. Maybe this will finally be cleared up when the new hitman game comes out and legions of shitlords derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the unsuspecting bodies of 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."

Really, Doc? It's not that complicated:

She was talking about a trope. She used Hitman as an example of that trope. An appropriate example.
You pretending this is somehow an impossible concept to even grasp, let alone acknowledge, is kind of funny, I guess. Carry on.

Oh, and I wouldn't say "legions", but if every sandbox game with sexualized, vulnerable female NPCs thus far has shown us anything, it's that there will likely be a lot of guys doing exactly what you described. I mean, not "actual rape" numbers, but almost certainly more than "fake rape accusation" numbers, if I'm gonna guess. I think the miscommunication is that you see a value judgment on actual people in her statement. I don't see that at all. I see another way of saying "GTA proved that gamers love to kill hookers, let's keep including killable hookers". Are you telling me that a developer that includes killable hookers to please some fans is arbitrarily "better" than a developer that concocts a "mix of sexual arousal, connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality"? When the director of a teen comedy flick throws some tits onto the screen, is he "exploiting a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of raging teenage hormones, sexual frustration, and a voyeuristic taboo thrill elicited by the exposure of generous young mammaries"? Is there a difference? Sarkeesian is giving her theory as to "why" and if you don't like it you can try to correct her. Stop trying to make it so personal. The developers didn't feel "attacked". Most who even talked about her work were openly supportive. Really, if she was calling anyone out (and she wasn't), it was them.


Chanur: "Anita is a grown woman. Her work should be able to defend her. If it cannot ...well you should think about why that is."

Her work stands as a flawed but interesting criticism of how women are portrayed in video games. She gets some things wrong but she also raises some valid points. She's trying to generate interest in her field by doing her thing and that's fine. Nobody should have a problem with her speaking her mind, especially after she generated more than enough interest to get her project funded (and I mean before the harassment and the donation spike). I appreciate her work for what it is, but I will not hesitate to criticize anything that's wrong with it, and nobody should ever feel that they are not being "allowed" to criticize her work, as though they needed her permission or her comments section to do so.

The backlash she got is completely disproportional to the "threat" she posed. She didn't open the floodgates of asshattery just by "being wrong". And no, Quaid, it's not necessarily because gamers "hate women" (although if you think misogyny doesn't exist or didn't play a role in how she was treated, I don't know what to tell you). I think a far more clear motive is because people love a villain. They love a reason to act like an asshole. They love to justify just shitting all over someone, so if they have to take a minor feminist making videos about girls and games and transform her into a liar, a fraud, and a con artist, they will not hesitate to do so. And if showering her with this disproportional and, frankly, ridiculous negative attention only ends up making them look like assholes while generating a ton more attention, support, fame, wealth, and influence for her, well... They'll just have that much more reason to yell even LOUDER next time about how she's actually a liar, a fraud and a con artist, right? The people gotta learn, right?

Quaid: "Why do you think #GamerGate 'acting like assholes', in response to what you admit is flawed (false) criticism, resulted in increased support, fame, wealth, and influence for Ms. Sarkeesian?"

Why are you bringing GamerGate into this? I'm not talking about ethics in game journalism.

But to answer your question, it's because "acting like assholes" is not a reasonable response to flawed criticism (and no, "flawed" =/= "false").
Let's say you really think she's attacking developers and players with her infamous "carefully concocted" comment. You think she's projecting not just intent, but perverted and twisted intent onto developers and you find that highly offensive. But see, just because you're offended, just because YOU feel she's passing a value judgment on other people, doesn't mean she is. If you believe she crossed some line, you've got to make your case.

Right: "Seems to me the words she used could easily be interpreted as passing moral judgment on both developers and players. If she really wants to generate productive discussion and be taken seriously, she should probably be more careful about her word choice and not use such loaded terms to make her points."
Wrong: "She's attacking us!"

Do you see the difference? One is an explanation of what you think is wrong with Anita's theory. The other is, ironically, a rush to moral judgment and assigning of intent to HER part, sans explanation. One of those reactions will get the attention of people who already have an interest in the topic and are interested in discussing it. The other will get the attention of people who don't necessarily care about how women are portrayed in video games, but DO care about a pop critic being vilainized for ridiculous reasons. People who had never heard of Sarkeesian will speak in her defense if they see that she is being ganged up on by angry assholes more interested in personally attacking her than they are in criticizing her work.

If Sarkeesian had never received the spike in donations caused by her harassment AND she had not fulfilled the promises described in her Kickstarter, she would probably have gotten into a lot more trouble. The entirety of her funding would have come from people genuinely interested in the project itself and not people who wanted to empower her in her battle against trolls and assholes, so there would almost certainly have been some backlash when she didn't deliver (putting aside, of course, that she probably WOULD have finished the project as described if not for the drama taking over).

The assholes are trying to make it all about her, but their misguided and childish efforts have inadvertently made it all about THEM. Their insistence on pushing a narrative based on personal attacks has made it super-easy for neutrals and moderates to identify THEM as the bad guys. THAT'S why "acting like assholes... resulted in increased support, fame, wealth, and influence for Ms. Sarkeesian".

Convo: "Just clicked on this thread to see this guy get slayed by Lithose."

Sorry to have disappointed you then.

So this guy ain't holding back:

Why Are You So Angry? Part 3: Perception Is Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSmDq5Czae0
(Trigger warning: Use of the term "male privilege")

My favorite part:
"Choosing your bubble isn?t a real choice, any more than not going to the doctor keeps you from having cancer. It?s all about perception - about what Jack wants the world to feel like. He exists in the rarified position where bigotry of all stripes exist as purely rhetorical abstractions. They?re all just ideas to him, and he can pick and choose the ideas that make him most comfortable.

All Jack needs is a reason for Anita Sarkeesian to be wrong - or, better yet, lying. The reason doesn?t have to be good, it?s purely utilitarian. It only needs to serve its purpose - insist the doctor?s a quack and get a second opinion. This is why Sarkeesian?s critics can?t politely disagree with her - they have to treat her with contempt. The whole point is to spare themselves from actually considering her arguments, so her arguments have to be beneath consideration."

Home run.

Convo: "I was not dissappointed."

Oh. Sorry for your poor grasp of English, then.

Quaid: "I've been calmly articulating my case against her false analysis for a year. You are choosing to ignore it, and reduce this criticism to 'she's attacking us!'

I do agree with your assertion that she is benefiting from the media's portrayal of her as a victim. I agree that her work wasn't good enough to warrant the massive donation spike it received on its own, and that she has relied heavily on her angered feminist allies to overfund her as of yet undelivered product. I believe her 'loaded word choice' was carefully concocted to achieve exactly this outcome.

And let's make one thing clear. I am not 'offended' by her ridiculous and unsubstantiated analysis of developer intent or male gamer psychology. I am not writing angry screeds on social media or sending death threats. I am merely pointing out how flawed/false her work is, and discussing it among my peers in an enclosed community."

I'm not "ignoring" you, Quaid, and I apologize if that's the impression I was giving you. If you've been calmly articulating your case against her false analysis for a year, then I have no beef with you. More power to you. But let me reiterate: You can show she was wrong about something, but you can't show she was lying. That's why I take issue with your use of "false" (which implies an intentional obfuscation of the facts).

Also, let's be clear here: I am in no way simplifying anything when I claim "She's attacking us!" was a popular rallying cry, even on this very board, used to justify the counter-attacks leveled against her. My problem is with the Sebudais who genuinely believe attacking her personally is their moral obligation. My problem is with treating her with contempt in order to dismiss everything she says as worthless, rather than engage in any kind of good-faith countering of her points. You, Quaid, are one of my favorite posters on this board despite how often you disagree with me specifically because you tend to make a conscious effort to stay reasonable and objective regardless of the topic, so if you ever got the impression I was grouping you in with the "She's attacking us!" crowd, I apologize. But when you make a sarcastic comment like "It's because we hate women", I will (and did) address why that's a stupid point.

Finally, I'd like you to elaborate on "I believe her 'loaded word choice' was carefully concocted to achieve exactly this outcome." Are you implying that she knew she would piss off trolls, which would generate a backlash that would ultimately lead to more support for her? Personally, I think that gives her too much credit. I could easily see how she inadvertently struck a nerve in parts of the gaming community, and I can see how when things started to escalate she took advantage of the attention being given to her. Again, I think she would have been stupid to do otherwise. If you're being attacked and there's an advantage you can exploit to get and keep the upper hand, you'd be a fool not to use it, right? If you're suggesting that she has the trolls so well figured out that she is their puppet master, the Pavlov to their salivating hounds, intentionally provoking them to continue the backlash=>attention=>support cycle for her benefit, I think that's getting close to conspiracy-level stuff. It also implies the angry mob (who still believe themselves to be fighting the good fight) are actually easily-manipulated morons who don't realize they're falling right into her trap, which is significantly more insulting than "They're trying to protect their bubble". Don't forget, she had been making videos following the same formula for years before the video game stuff, with nowhere near the backlash. I just see a critic who generated a reaction nobody could have seen coming which then snowballed out of control, and she just made the best of whatever cards she was dealt every step of the way, even if that meant shifting her focus from her original topic to those attacking her.

Palum: "People love to be empowered by being in a group, by feeling righteous and by having a moral superiority and SJWdom is just an amalgam of the three at all hazards."

So is anti-SJWism.