Poll: How many of Anita Sarkeesian's videos have you actually watched? (be honest!)

[FPLOON]

I think I've only seen the first TvW video out of morbid sheer curiosity... only I'm not sure for how long since I can barely remember what did happen in said video to truly say how I felt about it in the first place...

With that said, I seem to just read the forum post about her (videos) because I love to lurk like that, I guess... almost like a pseudo-anthropologist observing a subculture, kinda...

Oh... And by the way, the comment you're thinking about, OP, was on a [forum news] topic where she "allegedly" made a GoT reference... (It was a couple of days ago and not yesterday...)

 

[Inglorious891]

All of her Tropes vs Women series and a few of her normal videos.

Don't ask me why I do, because I honestly don't know why. The closest reason I can think of is just curiosity to see what she's going to talk about next and what reasoning she uses, but even then both are becoming more and more predictable as she makes more videos.

I certainly don't agree with her though. The ideas she presents, at their core, are ideas I can get behind, but her reasoning is always so broken it drives me nuts. Using examples out of context, using examples that outright don't make sense, and plenty of double standards.

If she spent some time listing some possible fixes to the issues she talks about for 25 minutes, maybe I could get behind her more, but as it stands she does nothing that makes me want to agree with her.

I've seen the first two of her Tropes vs. Women series and one of her earlier videos (the about the advertizing of Bayonetta).
I didn't find many of her points to be very enlightening since I'm in a Women's College and I learn about this stuff every other semester. Once she talks about games as systems of interaction and how these change how we view women tropes, I'll be interested enough to pick them up again.

For the record, I really didn't like the Bayonetta video. That was...pretty awful.

Just out of curiosity, what did you find bad about the Bayonetta video?

Erm, everything? She rips the game apart for being sexist just because it's sexualised despite the fact that something can be sexy without being sexist. I got the feeling she never played the game either; it seemed like she just watched a few minutes of gameplay footage before making a video mainly due to feelings of outrage at what she just saw. No in-depth detail on the game and why it's offensive, just a 5 minute video comprised of yelling at it. She also dips into outright insults to people who enjoy the game, which is pretty childish.

Odds are you aren't going to believe me (and I understand why), but I know a few people uploaded the original video to Youtube, so if you want to see it for youself it is out there. All of the versions I've seen have some shitty commentary arguing against the original video, so you're probably going to have to deal with that. Just an FYI.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

About two. The whole time I was thinking #Firstworldproblems. No but seriously she spends allot of time talking about male gamers as if we MADE the games.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I've tried to watch all of them at various points, but I usually get a couple of minutes in, get really irritated and then go do something else. She's flat and boring and wherever her points are actually valid, the examples she uses to back them up often aren't examples of what she claims, and are occasionally examples of the exact opposite of what she's claiming. The hitman and bastion ones are the ones I remember specifically, but I recall being generally perplexed as to her choice of clips to use.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I haven't watched any of her videos, I have no real interest in what she has to say. I have no vested interest in stopping her from saying it either. It doesn't effect me. I am physically sickened by all the people who seem to think that the best way to shut her up is to verbally harass her and threaten her physical and mental well being. I'd like to take a two-by-four to the skulls of each and every person doing the harassing just to knock some semblance of sense into them.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I've watched most of her stuff. Agreed with the general thrust, disagreed with some points, y'know - the usual stuff that happens between reasonable, normal people.

The funniest thing is the reaction. And by 'funny' I mean slightly dispiriting and disturbing, in that she appears challenging an industry and culture of sexism and the status quo (not the Status Quo, because we'd all agree they're terrible... ) and is met with insecure misogynistic abuse. Way to disprove her point, knuckleheads!

Regardless of the merits of her argument, or the qualities of her presentation style, I believe she's catalysed an important discussion, so kudos to her for that.

 

[StriderShinryu]

All of the Videogames series and a few of her other videos (though not until after Videogames started as I wasn't aware of her at all until then).

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm sorry, but I'm just done arguing with you. I really have no need to validate my opinions to you. My objective here was to respond to the OP's question about how many videos I watched, and then give my reasoning why. I never made any assertions as to what is and isn't fact, only my opinion. If you really want to continue arguing with someone, that is fine, it just won't be me.

I figured this would come sooner or later. You said things that were lies, complained when I called them lies, and then refused to back them up. Then you started distorting what I said.

I'm sorry, but your "reasoning" was terrible as it was based on false premise. I demonstrated that, and all you did was claim I was dismissing you.

 

[Erttheking]

I've watched all of her episodes minus the last one. That's where my will to go on broke. I wasn't invested enough to keep watching it and I was tired of every argument about women in gaming involving Anita. So I'm not watching anymore.

 

[Something Amyss]

reasonable, normal people.

I know those words, but that phrase makes no sense!

The funniest thing is the reaction. And by 'funny' I mean slightly dispiriting and disturbing, in that she appears challenging an industry and culture of sexism and the status quo (not the Status Quo, because we'd all agree they're terrible... ) and is met with insecure misogynistic abuse. Way to disprove her point, knuckleheads!

"She's talking about sexism in gaming, Al."
"Let's threaten to rape her!"
"Brilliant!"

Also funny is the attitude towards her honesty.

"This woman is making things up. So let's make claims that are demonstrably false and hold them against her!"

Even if I completely disagreed with her, I'd agree people were making her point for her.

 

[Worgen]

I've watched all of her stuff on youtube. For the most part I agree with her and only one of her tropes vs women vids would I really say was way off.

 

[Caiphus]

I think I've only watched one full TvW video. And it was okay. I remember agreeing with a point she made about how arguably too many video games have violence as the best/only response to someone doing something you don't like.

It wasn't hugely entertaining; if I was going to watch a video about sexism in video games I'd probably go and watch one of the ones Jim has made. But it was hardly offensive.

 

[Erttheking]

reasonable, normal people.

I know those words, but that phrase makes no sense!

The funniest thing is the reaction. And by 'funny' I mean slightly dispiriting and disturbing, in that she appears challenging an industry and culture of sexism and the status quo (not the Status Quo, because we'd all agree they're terrible... ) and is met with insecure misogynistic abuse. Way to disprove her point, knuckleheads!

"She's talking about sexism in gaming, Al."
"Let's threaten to rape her!"
"Brilliant!"

Also funny is the attitude towards her honesty.

"This woman is making things up. So let's make claims that are demonstrably false and hold them against her!"

Even if I completely disagreed with her, I'd agree people were making her point for her.

That's what makes this whole mess so painful for me. Her points are painfully dull, she commonly takes things out of context, flat out gets things wrong sometimes (She gave a list of games where you can kill prostitutes and one of them was Metro Last Light. You cannot kill prostitutes, or any civilian for that fact, in Last Light) and while I agree with some of her points, I find her arguments lackluster.

But I just can't get behind the massive overwhelming hate for her. So I commonly get lumped in with the supporters

 

[Denamic]

2 and a half. I like to know what I'm actually arguing for or against. It's why I read the bible. But I just couldn't really be arsed after the second video and stopped halfway through the third, because I was bored and frustrated. Her arguments are regularly ridiculous, and debunking just one video is a monumental task that I'd hesitate to take on if I was being paid to.

It's weird, for someone arguing an idea I fundamentally agree with, there are few people I can name that I disagree with more.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

And don't say you don't care enough about Anita to be bothered, I saw you posting a comment about her just yesterday!

Non-sarcastic apologies for the hostile wording here, but no you didn't. While I have previously referred to Anita's supporters and detractors in relation to the Zoe Quinn scandal (since Anita's support of Zoe has dragged them into this), I have never posted about Anita Sarkessian directly in all of my time on the Escapist iirc (my memory is bad, I admit). Simply put, I've never care about Sarkessian or what she does, nor do I want anything to do with the whole SJW vs MRA crap that surrounds it outside of wishing that both sides would stop with the "Us vs Them" mentality already. Needless to say, I've never watched any of Sarkessian's videos because of this and do not plan to anytime soon.

Once again, I'm genuinely sorry for the hostility. I just really hate it when people assume your position before you actually say it and I didn't know how to word my thoughts here in a more friendly manner.

 

[Signa]

I've done everything in my power to make sure she doesn't get any views on her videos from me. I've seen rundowns on what she's addressing, and more importantly, why her argument is shortsighted or flawed. Things like the Thunderfoot videos.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

None. Zero. Of course, I've never had nor expressed any opinion on her anyway.

 

[Something Amyss]

That's what makes this whole mess so painful for me. Her points are painfully dull, she commonly takes things out of context, flat out gets things wrong sometimes (She gave a list of games where you can kill prostitutes and one of them was Metro Last Light. You cannot kill prostitutes, or any civilian for that fact, in Last Light) and while I agree with some of her points, I find her arguments lackluster.

But I just can't get behind the massive overwhelming hate for her. So I commonly get lumped in with the supporters

I'm largely in a similar boat. I suppose I'm one of her supporters in the loosest sense, but I don't even necessarily think her points are good. I just don't like the fact that so many of the points are fabricated. Though I don't know about Metro and don't specifically remember that claim, so I can't speak to it.

I'm not a huge fan of her, though. I support her in a general sense. Mostly, however, what I do is oppose an unending stream of hate that is both disproportionate and often completely unrelated to reality.

It's amazing how many people in the last week alone have decided to call me some variant of unreasonable because I asked them for specific claims that Anita said and preferably specific timestamps on the video (as almost nobody wants to watch a full one), rather than vague angry comments about how she did X or Y. It's almost funny.

 

[renegade7]

I've tried to watch a couple just to see what the big deal was. But I just lost interest. I didn't necessarily disagree all that strongly with her, it's just that everything she said is stuff I've already heard countless times. For instance, we don't need to hear that sexing up a character is lazy design or that female character designs and roles have in a few cases have been bordering on ridiculous for a long time, nor does it need to be re-stated that games could maybe try harder to attract, or at least not thoroughly repel, a female audience. Finally, you do not need to remind us that the video game industry, like every other technical field, is strongly male-dominated.

The last problem has long since earned the attention of policymakers and social researchers, in the grand scheme of things in regards the effort to gender-neutralize the STEM fields one blogger will not make a big difference. Now, I absolutely am not slighting her for acknowledging the issue (although not recognizing that it's an issue not unique to video games, and forgetting outright the potentially decisive point that many current STEM workers were attracted to technology by video games in the first place), I'm just wondering why she needed $250,000 to do it.

Now, the real problem comes in when she misses the real gender issues entirely and goes straight for the strawman. Zelda isn't inherently sexist because of some shakily-used academic analysis about "male" roles being empowered and "female" roles being passive (right out of a general education literary analysis book, it seems), and that it makes Zelda "the reward" (I think that was her take on it, it was a while ago...). You could make that argument, sure. You could also make the argument that Zelda has, despite this, become one of the extremely small number of game series to have broad appeal to female players. If this was the worst problem with gender equality in the video gaming industry and community I doubt we'd even be having this talk. Why not talk about a real problem, for instance, reports of rampant sexual harassment at conventions? Or try to be constructive and talk about good examples of deep and genuinely empowered female characters?

 

[Varis]

I've not watched any, mainly due to her points seeming so very nitpick-y and as I acknowledge what she is striving for and appreciate it, I prefer to advocate for gender equality in other ways. I think it's good that there is people making people question their beliefs and think. Regardless of the source, perspective and method, in the hopes of one day getting this ball of presumptions and dated principles we know as Earth into a more appreciative and pleasant place.