Let's start from the top, shall we?
Let's.
Her twitter account alone had plenty of threats and the number of times the word "cunt" appeared didn't do much more than fuel the idea that there was a massive anti-woman culture in video games, even if that wasn't quite true.
Good point, but you have to consider the fact that people have been harassed for not toeing the "social justice" line. Just ask Nolan North. And yet I never heard any mainstream media outlet using that to claim there was a massive anti-man culture in social justice activism.
Moreover, she doxed somebody just for insulting her. Not threatening. Not harassing. Insulting.
Someone made a flash game so you could beat her up and you're claiming that it wasn't that bad?
Somebody also made a game where you could beat up Justin Bieber. Where was the outrage about that? That's not to say I like either game (they're both crude, immature, and immoral), but again, it's evidence of a double standard.
Furthermore, the reasonable comments were buried under the number of people acting like twelve year olds. You've been to comments for YouTube and Twitter, you want to claim that it's fertile ground for civil discourse? I can also claim that while there were plenty of reasonable critics (and Thunderf00t is under the bar IMHO), but there was nearly no effort to promote those people because Anita had dropped off the radar for most gamers.
No matter how you slice it, that's the media's fault. If they can't be bothered to do more complete research or present a balanced story, then it's up to them to change.
Finally, I just noticed that the ME3 ending, A:CM and criticism of her videos weren't getting in the mainstream media. I had noticed that the threats she had received for her videos (which are worthy of criticism) did make the mainstream news. How does that make me the arbiter of newsworthiness?
Okay, sorry if I came off as hostile. I didn't want to attack you. However, the fact remains that the media, for whatever reason, decides to push a "damsel in distress" narrative at the expense of a very large subculture.
Does Anita deserve what she got?
Of course Anita doesn't deserve the vitriol against her. But honestly, I don't know why you care so much. After all, there's one person extremely important to this discussion who doesn't care, and her name is Anita Sarkeesian.
Oh, she pretends to care, crying her crocodile tears and whining about how evil misogynists are going to rape and kill her (not necessarily in that order) while the cameras are rolling. But actions speak louder than words. And when she had a golden opportunity to take action, she ignored it.
See, she cancelled a talk at the University of Utah because of a shooting threat (which the FBI deemed non-credible, but that's neither here nor there). But some folks online managed to find the source of the threats: a Brazilian journalist. They notified the FBI, the Brazilian authorities, and Anita herself. All that was needed was for her to report it.
This was a huge opportunity for her. She had a chance to deal with a particularly vile harasser. If he went down, this might have made her other harassers disincentivized to go after her, as there would now be actual consequences for it. She had a chance to prove that she
wasn't helpless, that she
wasn't an easy target for any jackass with an internet connection. She had a chance to fight back, and to prove that she actually
was being harassed.
What did she do? She ignored it.
This is not the behavior of a woman who legitimately fears for her life. This is the behavior of a woman who wants to play the victim so that she can get money and fame.
Does that mean she deserves it? Of course not. However, that doesn't mean you should be concerned. After all, she isn't.
But more important, I've done quite a bit of research into the controversy, and I've found that your narrative just doesn't hold water.
I would recommend anyone to stop listening to UP's opinion, and follow his professed methodology instead. While there are good reason to be wary of Atheism+, the circumstances for its emergence may not be as simplistic and one-sided as he claims.
Elevatorgate was a deplorable escalation of hostility and intolerance on both sides. People who enjoy wanking on their hate for Atheism+ and everything it represents are just as guilty for the pitiful state of the atheist "community" as the A+ buffoons themselves, if not moreso. I have to deal with atheists so full of themselves and their own superior Rationality™ that they reject on principle any accusation of prejudice or bias targeted at them or their ingroup way more often than ideologues who insist that lack of belief in God somehow implies a very specific brand of humanism, and that any atheist who do not follow that particular way of thought is "doing it wrong".
Ah yes, the whole "both sides are equally bad" card. There are some cases where that's legitimately true, but most of the time, it's just an excuse people use to stay neutral on the issue while feeling superior about it..
Furthermore, the media is rather selective in which women it sympathizes with. Christina Hoff Sommers and Cathy Young are two prominent feminists who suffered a lot of harassment for going against the grain.
Not every expression of hostility constitutes harassment. And while they may or may not sincerely consider themselves feminists and hold feminist opinions, these two women cannot be called "prominent feminists" (with the implication of them being prominent activists of feminism) when they made themselves known mostly from their crusade against perceived feminist excesses.
And now a "No True Scotsman." By your logic, any Christian who calls out Pat Robertson isn't
actually a Christian.
Of course, I may not be completely objective about them, since I happen to think those two are perfect exhibits for a certain Nietzsche quote about fighting with monsters.
Care to elaborate? What, exactly, have they done that's so grievous? Question flawed (if not outright false) statistics?
