“Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian”

A video game published to abuse a feminist critic

By Khristopher Reardon, Staff Writer

via br1dotcom, Flickr

Players are invited to beat up Anita Sarkeesian, blogger for Feminist Frequency, in Newgrounds video game because she is scamming people through her Kickstarter, according to the author of the game.

When Sarkeesian, feminist pop culture critic, decided to pitch a video blogging project on Kickstarter to take a close look at gender roles of women in video games she probably never expected to star in one.

A spite of misogynist attacks against the web author telling her everything from ‘get back in the kitchen’ to people writing lies and abuse into her Wikipedia entry and even a taunting meme to follow in her efforts to explore the subject.

She became the target of the online abusers strongly opposed to the video blogging project. Fortunately it wasn’t enough to deter Sarkeesian as she rounded up $160,000 through crowd funding through 6967 backers.

Most stories would end here, however, unfortunately for Sarkeesian her online bullies have a good memory.

The most recent entry in her online abuse is a video game called ‘Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian,’ which was published on Newgrounds before being promptly ‘Blamed’ by the community and consequently being taken down from the site.

In the game, the player is invited to beat up Sarkeesian by clicking on her face causing multiple welts and bruises to appear distorting the picture.

The author of the controversial game, Bendilin Spurr, is a 25-year-old resident from Sault Ste Marie in Ontario, Canada. He believes Sarkeesian is being self serving in her fund raising efforts and even accuses her of running a ruse over her backers.

“Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labeled to be sexist against her,” Spurr says in the description for the title. “She claims to want gender equality in video games, but in reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.”

The newest incident is once again putting the spotlight on misogyny in the video game community on the internet with sites like the Huffington Post, Think Progress and NewStateman reporting on the entire ordeal.

Though the video game is nothing more than a internet media stress ball for those internet trolls who feel like letting off a little frustration after being essentially brushed off in the previous round of attack. The ‘beat a feminist blogger because of her video game opinions’ video games has done little to give their dissenting movement any forward momentum and instead just gives the video game community a black eye in the view of the substantiated press.

Sarkeesian is still working on the video blogging project though updates on the “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” project are yet to be released.

Sources:

http://www.feministfrequency.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/06/internet-trolls-online-beat-up-anita-sarkeesian-game_n_1653473.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/598591
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/posts
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/internet/2012/07/what-online-harassment-looks
http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/07/image-based-harassment-and-visual-misogyny/

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
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