On March 28th 2016, Blizzard game director Jeff Kaplan caved in to the demands of a single oversensitive SJW by removing one of Tracer’s victory poses from the soon-to-be-released “Overwatch”. Jeff assured this emotionally-fragile baby that Blizzard were committed to making sure that no one ever felt “uncomfortable” and that all of their games would be as insipid and inoffensive as possible going forward (I’m paraphrasing slightly).
The response from the regressive left in the gaming press and beyond was as predictable as it was pathetic.
A fascinating thing to note about the video game hipster cabal is the way they alternate between demanding that video games be considered “art” and demanding that video games never make anyone feel “uncomfortable”. In fact, every time a developer removes content to appease one of these crybullies, the “games are art” crowd celebrate and insist that it was a business decision. But business decisions aren’t “art”. Do they want “art” or do they want bland committee-approved corporate products? Even they don’t seem to know.
But as inconsistent as their position is, it is at least consistently inconsistent. It’s the same illogical arguments and dumb sound bites every time. Occasionally though, one of these sinister goons will go off-message and accidentally reveal their genuine beliefs to the gaming public. Which brings us to this genius:
@bobber205@worldlystone@scrumpmonkey@patrickklepek@Monkioh Really, not having the anime arse is a fair trade for not being raped as much
— Danny O'Dwyer (@dannyodwyer) March 28, 2016
This tweet perfectly exemplifies why Danny O’Dwyer is one of GameSpot’s most valued employees. Danny was able to condense all of modern video game criticism into a single 16-word sentence. This level of stupidity would have taken Patrick Klepek or Jed Whitaker an entire article to reach, but Danny was able to achieve it in just one tweet; even with five other handles eating up the available real estate.
Now this tweet can been interpreted in one of two ways. The first is that Danny was suggesting a causal relationship between “the anime arse” and “rape”. The idea being that we can literally trade pixelated posteriors for a reduction of sexual assault. Danny denies that this is what he meant.
The second interpretation is that the trade he was referring to was actually between being a man and being a woman. In other words, women have to worry about being raped but men only have to worry about not having “the anime arse” and that disparity represents a fair trade. This is wrong for three reasons. The first is that, even if we accept this ridiculous premise, it is not a fair trade. I’ve never been raped myself, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that being raped is quite a bit worse than not having “the anime arse”. So if I had to choose, I’d almost certainly choose not being raped. Which brings us to the second problem. I don’t have to choose. No one does. The premise is flawed. There’s no trade to be had. The two things have literally nothing to do with each other.
This is why people’s initial interpretation of Danny’s tweet was not entirely wrong. He obviously believes that there is some kind of link between “anime arse” and rape because he didn’t immediately recognize his proposed “trade” as a false-dichotomy.
I mean, why rape? He could have offered a trade between “the anime arse” and any number of other things that affect women disproportionately. He could have said “Really, not having the anime arse is a fair trade for not getting breast cancer as much.” He didn’t do that because even with his limited intelligence, he understood that that would constitute a non sequitur. Somehow though, invoking rape in a conversation about video games makes perfect sense to him.
The third problem is Danny’s incorrect assertion that this issue is gendered at all.
The great irony of all this is that the original complaint about Tracer’s pose came from a man, the decision to cut it was made by a man, every article endorsing the decision has been written by men and almost all vocal support for the act of censorship has come from men. In fact, this controversy has been entirely manufactured and sustained by a group of creepy guys competing with each other for social justice points. From Rami Ismael to Daniel Floyd, this whole thing has been a circle-jerk of progressive posturing from desperate losers who only feel better about there own psychological deficiencies when they’re treating adult women like helpless, vulnerable children.
Danny O’Dwyer perfectly embodies the values of these pitiful creatures. His tweet was specifically aimed, not at the people who disagreed with him, but at men. Implicit in the exchange was the idea that women are a monolithic group. The very notion that there might be women who disagree with any of his opinions is anathema to his entire world view. He’s going to defend them, whether they like it or not.
The sad truth is that Danny O’Dwyer is just another brainwashed Bay Area Cultist, eagerly suckling the SocJus cool-aid from Anita Sarkeesian’s worn-out teet. To him, “the anime arse” and actual rape are all a part of the same mysterious patriarchal structure that binds the universe. He literally sees removing content from video games as part of the same struggle as the fight against real-world sexual violence.
Danny O’Dwyer’s views are an embarrassment to gaming and an insult to actual rape victims and I’m sure we would all feel more “comfortable” if he would follow Leigh Alexander’s example and leave video games to people who actually care about them.
Because really, not having Danny O’Dwyer is a fair trade for our hobby not being raped as much.
I hope this finally gets me banned. ;)
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