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Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist and self-described media critic notable for her Youtube channel, Feminist Frequency, and its series on role of women in video games, “Tropes vs Women.” In 2012 she announced a Kickstarter campaign to finance a series of videos about the role of women in gaming. She raised a remarkable sum of $185,922 in a matter of weeks. But even after raising this much money, she continues to ask for donations, which has led many to speculate that this is her main source of income. She had no direct connection to Gamergate when it emerged as a story, but became associated with it when the media spun it about harassment against women, where upon she used her own episodes of harassment to denounce and characterize it as misogynist.
Last year, Sarkeesian was allegedly scared out of her home because of a death threat she received on Twitter. Two months later, Sarkeesian canceled a speaking engagement at Utah University because of a threat from someone who vowed to shoot up the school if she came to her talk. Both of these (alleged) threats were publicized by Sarkeesian, the wisdom of which has been called into question. In the first place, the person who left a threat on Sarkeesian’s Twitter feed tweeted her home address. If this person knew where Sarkeesian lived and intended to harm her, why would he give her a warning? Sarkeesian must think that perpetrators of violent acts make it as hard as possible to carry out their crimes by giving their would-be victims advance warning. The victim can now alert the police and be hypervigilant in public areas. On its face the treat seems empty.
The shooting threat also seems unserious. What could the threat realistically hope to achieve in a best and worst case scenario? Best case scenario, Sarkeesian is scared off. But it’s not as if the students at Utah State University are closed off from the world, such that they can’t go online and see who Anita Sarkeesian is and what she believes in. By appearing to scare Sarkeesian off, the threat backfires by giving Sarkeesian greater notoriety and sympathy from the media. She can always point to the threat to condemn her critics as psychopaths, and the media, joined to her hip, will be there to give her a platform. Worst case scenario, the person makes good on the threat and opens fire on Sarkeesian. The shooter risks his life and liberty to make a martyr of Sarkeesian, whose ideas live on. Looking at the threat from a game theoretic perspective, it seems like a false alarm. Utah State University police agreed. After investigating the threat, they found that it posed “no threat to students, staff or the speaker.”
The fact that no physical attempts have been made on Sarkeesian’s life, coupled with the fact that she makes regular public appearances, suggests that Sarkeesian’s life is not in jeopardy. However, even in the persons who made the threats intended to carry them out, the larger question is why Sarkeesian chose to publicize them. Publicizing the threats doesn’t help anyone outside of law enforcement catch the culpable parties, since there isn’t enough information in the Tweets to identify a suspect. So why did Sarkeesian let the public know she had been threatened? A possible clue was provided by Sarkeesian just an hour before the threat was made on Twitter, when she asked her supporters for donations. This led some to speculate that the reaction was a ploy to gain sympathy and donation funds. Whatever her motivation was, it was a counterintuitive way to handle the situation.
Whenever Sarkeesian is profiled in the media, it’s always done in a non-critical manner. Her material is never subjected to any scrutiny by any mainstream gaming or new site. One would think that journalists, who are in the business of finding out the truth, would be interested to see if her “Tropes vs Women” series are factually accurate. Sarkeesian, after all, is a major critic of the gaming culture; if her criticism is based on false representations of video games, journalists should be on top of it. Instead, point-by-point analyses of her Youtube videos have been left up to individuals outside of the press, like Youtube personalities Thunderf00t and Sargon of Akkad, who have taken the time to sift through her videos for inaccuracies.
Gamers also suspect Sarkeesian of being someone who never seriously played or liked video games. This is supported by contradictory statements she has made. For instance, there is footage of Sarkeesian online claiming that she “still loves” and is a “fan” of video games. However, in another clip she tells an audience that she is not a fan of video games and doesn’t play them because they are “gross.” It’s rare that Sarkeesian eve says something complimentary about a game that doesn’t have something to do with the sex roles of the characters.
Because of the conflicting statements she has made about her attachment to video games, the inaccuracies in her videos and the uniformly critical way she talks about games Sarkeesian is viewed as a poser. She seems to be aware of this, and has put out publicity photos of herself standing beside arcade machines and holding game controllers to convey the impression that she is a gamer.
Scott Cameron, Understanding #Gamergate: Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian and the Social Justice Warriors
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