Non-profit media critique and online harassment support group Feminist Frequency have announced Devolver Digital and Landfall Games will match up to $15,000 USD in donations for their Spring campaign.
The “Take Down Toxicity with Feminist Frequency” campaign runs until May 22nd on Givebutter, and is seeking $25,000 USD to keeping their Games and Online Harassment Hotline open longer each day, and more features to improve the experience for those reaching out for support.
Funds will also be used to build a training program for “leaders in the gaming industry” to “help them understand, intervene, and prevent gender-based harm in their studios, companies, and communities.” Finally, funds will allow Feminist Frequency to “Continuing to fill your airwaves with pop culture news, political chatter, and feminist media criticism through our podcasts, videos, livestreams, and articles that encourage critical engagement with modern mass media and its relationship to gender, race, and sexuality.”
Feminist Frequency also state that donations up to $15,000 USD will be matched by Devolver Digital and Landfall Games. It should be noted neither Devolver Digital or Landfall Games have made formal announcements of their support of Feminist Frequency on social media, or via press release.
Feminist Frequency, and its founder Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women YouTube series, have long been criticized for their analysis; usually for claiming certain tropes in media are sexist- such as the use of attractive female characters, damsels in distress, and “male power fantasies.” Some have also claimed they utilize over-analysis or cherry picking to make harmless scenes seem sexist or misogynistic.
They have also been criticized for their belief that media can encourage violent, sexist and misogynistic behavior (the later two debunked by a study in 2015, and violence numerous times over [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]), and outright wrong claims about a piece of media.
An infamous example was Sarkeesian’s video review of Hitman: Absolution; falsely claiming players could ogle women at a strip club, then go into the dressing room and are encouraged to kill them and drag around the body.
In truth, players are punished for killing anyone but their target. The optimal route for the target in that level would not even typically take players to the dressing room, and even if they did kill an NPC in the dressing room, a box to hide them is nearby. In the footage Sarkeesian used, she dragged the body around for far longer than optimal; should you choose to kill an NPC.
Sarkeesian also retracted her Bayonetta review (claiming when re-uploaded that several elements of the plot she got wrong were jokes that did not land), and has been accused of stealing footage for her videos from other YouTube videos and Let’s Plays.
Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women stopped in 2017; with Sarkeesian stating she had been victim to numerous death and rape threats. Sarkeesian herself and her supports have claimed critique of her work has been an orchestrated harassment campaign.
This was maximized around the time of GamerGate. For the uninitiated, a Google Groups mailing list called GameJournoPros [1, 2] was discovered in 2014; where gaming journalist had seemingly colluded on how to cover certain stories, censored stories critical of their own members, blacklisting, and blackballing.
This lead to the failure to disclose whether game developer Zoe Quinn had (as her ex boyfriend claimed) slept with journalists who later gave positive coverage to her game (dubbed The Quinnspiracy in its early days).
After this was discussed at large, those outlets seemingly colluded to produce editorials condemning gamers overall (“Gamers are Dead” [1, 2]); specifically the older generation of gamers in favor of a younger audience less likely to hold “outdated” ideals. 19 articles came out across August 29th, 2014, to September 1st, 2014.
While the GameJournoPros list was not known at the time, many felt this was an act of collusion. Combined with the Quinn controversy, and respect for gaming journalism at a then all time low (praising terrible games while condemning those only guilty of fan-service), the GamerGate consumer revolt was born.
Others at the time claimed it was an orchestrated hate campaign against female game developers and critics; such as Sarkeesian, from criticizing a hobby that had been “allowed to be sexist.”
Reportedly leaked chat logs of online harassment support group Crash Override Network found no evidence of Sarkeesian being harassed; despite cataloging abuse sent against founder Zoe Quinn. Several GamerGate supporters worked on finding at least one individual who had sent threatening messages to Sarkeesian on Twitter, leading back to a Brazilian blogger. He was reportedly reported to the FBI.
GamerGate supports also accused the mainstream media attempting to side against them, attempting to deify those standing against it, including an allegedly softballed interview with Sarkeesian on the Stephen Colbert show.
Sarkeesian has also been accused of misappropriating money intended for the Tropes vs. Women YouTube series, and Feminist Frequency. In 2014, Feminist Frequency became a non-profit organization, and was bankrupt in 2019.
A 2014 YouTube video also makes the damning claim that Sarkeesian was intentionally committing fraud. A video allegedly showing her lecture at Santa Monica College in 2010, where she admits she is “not a fan of video games“ and had to “learn a lot about video games.” At other presentations and interview, Sarkeesian had stated she had been a fan of video games her whole life.
Her testimonial supporting a teleseminar marketer Alex Mandossian has also been proposed by some as evidence of her using similar techniques to “sell” herself, and her business and critique.
She was also accused working with a pick-up artist who taught “Neuro Linguistic Programming” to convince women to sleep with someone; however he would later explain that they were self-help oriented, and over 65% of atendees were women over the age of 40.
