If CHUDs were right (and they're never right), then they really only have themselves to blame because they dogpiled on someone thinking it will be an easy culture war win after getting overconfident with dunks on tumblr. All they did was give Sarkeesian a bunch of free press and some game developing studios actually listened. Because get this, artists tend to be the "weirdos" CHUDs hate on so much.
CHUDs hate free speech, and REALLY hate artistic freedom.
CHUDs hate free speech, and REALLY hate artistic freedom.
These people don't even like video games, they play the usual FPS/Sports garbage that gets release every year. And think that gives them right to go into other games fanbase and have a meltdown because the new game have something "woke".
The craziest thing is her critique wasn't even "get rid of sexy bimbo dressed female characters" but "ever noticed how it's only the female character dressed in sexualized way".
She never demanded what they claim she did. She just highlighted some objective truths about where game design had ended up. Most of them didn't even notice that the solution a lot of game developers went with was add a himbo'd out male character for every bimbo'd out female character because that lets you maximize the audience you can appeal to.
It reminds me of how around the same time a lot of game industry executives couldn't understand why their female employees were commenting about the booth girls or female pole dancers at company events. Most of the time they were completely unnecessary for whatever the event theme was. Also doesn't take a genius to realize that if the theme of an event calls for some dancers, maybe hire both male and female dancers so everyone gets some eye candy?
Also doesn't take a genius to realize that if the theme of an event calls for some dancers, maybe hire both male and female dancers so everyone gets some eye candy
also no work event calls for strippers I don't want my boss in any way interacting with my sexuality and no one should be expected to have to experience something sexual they don't want to as a condition of their employment or to get ahead in the company
in fact and hear me out here on every occassion you were going to hire strippers hire clowns. Clowns are a style of humour designed for adults originally based around transgression of rules and mockery of established ways of doing things therefore would do great in an office setting
You know, I will say, one of the only "[obviously evil bad guy] was right" for a popular media I've never actually seen is "Ozai was right". Its weird because you'd think fash would be kind of into him. But he's not the most charismatic villain and has minimal screen time so maybe thats why. Also maybe it exists and I just haven't seen it.
If there's one thing that confuses me, is that CHUDs haven't identified with Ozai, Frieza, or Palpatine IIRC. They would probably be more interested in identifying with Azula, but she's a woman so can't identify with that. Kylo Ren I noticed they identified with a little bit, but not enough to catch on.
But if there's one character I am surprised CHUDs haven't claimed as /theirguy/ yet, is James Bond. He's part of the British CIA with a license to kill and he's a chaotic neutral defender of the west that fucks like a rabbit. He's identical to how CHUDs see themselves.
The only fictional character I see chuds claim is like an amalgam of Ryan Gosling's characters from Drive and Blade Runner. Which really makes no sense, because one of those is a criminal getaway driver who ends up helping a Latino gangster's wife and kid. And the other is a bounty hunting android who, through various circumstances, betrays his corporation and police force because he begins to identify with the very underclass of androids he previously hunted down. Chuds are pure aesthetics. They just want to be some hot lonely guy with a cool jacket.
Ozai and Freiza yeah, though Freiza might be a bit too queer-coded for them? But for Palps they do identify with the Empire in a general sense so thats a thing. Azula yeah I think its because she's a girl, and also like, I dont know a single queer leftist ATLA fan who doesn't kind of love Azula. Kylo is funny because he's meant to be a bit of a parody of CHUD manchildren, so them owning that is funny. And as for Bond, I mean, they are mad at he mere possibility of Daniel Craig being replaced by a black guy or a woman so they do have some attachment to him.
Eh, they weren't that good. The critiques were very basic, but they were also very shallow and based in inaccurate claims - she could have done a great breakdown of the sexism in the princess peach games and how they contrast to the mario games, talked how long it took to get a single princess peach game and how few there still are in comparison, but instead she said there aren't any at all. Capital G gamers would have been infuriated anyway, but her inaccuracies gave them ammo to dismiss the entire critique with.
Arguably though, her videos did kinda destroy the chud idea of videogames as reactionary power fantasies, and saw a lot of introspection* from the industry and a move away from many of the themes she raised. The absolute explosion of rage they incited brought the discussion to the forefront of video game culture and forced developers to make conscious decisions about including or excluding them. AAA games pretty much completely ignore the idea of the docile damsel in distress now, even when they're, like, Hogwarts legacy or some complete shite.
*Realising being sexist was going to stop making them as much money