Thunderf00t the Cherrypicker

hello everyone this is a video about youtuber thunderfoot and specifically his latest video about anita sarkeesian entitled anita sarkeesian banned sexy girls in video games but first off i want to briefly look at a video we put out a few weeks ago called somewhat obnoxiously i don't debate enemies i bury them in which he's talking about ideas for future videos let's take a listen turns out anita sarkeesians again going with the with the trope versus women in video games and the whole thing is basically one giant cherry pick that's right anita sarkeesian is at it once again talking about sexism in video games how irrational of her to keep banging on that same drum over and over you'd really think she'd have something else to talk about by now wouldn't you now before we move on i just want to point out two things here first off is from the foot's use of the word cherry pick apparently he's not a fan of cherry picking just file that away in your short term memory for a little while secondly if we look at one of the top rated comments on that video ted cruz ted cruz well says i don't care what you do as long as it's not anita i'm [ __ ] tired of her stick to science 227 likes you see thunderfoot's got something of a thing for anita and he doesn't seem to be able to shut up about her at all ever and sure enough against the emphatic objections of his audience he decided to make another video about anita and we're going to talk about it so first things first it can be a little hard to follow thunderfoot's point at times his video appears to be about 75 constructed out of older videos he's made about anita sarkeesian and as a result he can tend to wander a little bit or a lot away from the point and he doesn't really stick to a clear argumentative thread so i've had to do a lot of untangling of his arguments over the course of making this video and so to avoid accusations of hypocrisy here i'd recommend you go and watch his video i'll put a link in the description i'd encourage everyone to watch anita's video and thunderfoot's response and that way you can be sure that i'm not misrepresenting his arguments secondly this is a video about how thunderfoot misrepresents anita's opinions and misleads his audience i'm not going to be talking about anita sarkeesian or the arguments in her videos beyond explaining where thunderfoot has misunderstood or misrepresented them i agree with some of anita's points and i disagree with others but this video isn't about her so i'm not going to be going into any of that right now and with the disclaimers out of the way let's get started so thunderfoot opens this video with anita talking about overwatch and let's take a look the five female characters introduced consisted of the slender adventurer tracer the slender healer mercy the slender support character symmetra the slender sniper widow maker and the slender but well armored security chief pharah overwatch was hardly alone in having all of its female characters share a similar physique well ain't that the truth because in 2000 now massive blizzard fanboy that i am i noticed something here watching thunderfoot's clips of anita she appears to be cherry-picking care examples from the overwatch cast she seems to only be talking about certain characters in the game and ignoring the other characters and i'm not the only one to notice this apparent oversight user do anyth says what about may zarya and anna moppy puppy says did anita just skip over mei and zarya and expect no one to notice z7 games says i've don't seen the video but she did miss zaya i mean that character invalidates her entire argument 100 user charles darwin charles darwin well says doesn't overwatch also have a female character named may who isn't exactly slender but then again facts never really mattered to sarkeesian and there's a couple of 100 other people who all commented echoing similar points for non-overwatch players out there there are three female characters in the game that aren't the typical young and slender type that anita's talking about there's zarya who is a large muscled russian weightlifter there's anna who's an older egyptian sniper lady and there's may who is lovely and amazing and she's my friend so what's going on here is anita really trying to get away with only mentioning the characters that support her arguments and not the characters that don't you know why didn't anita talk about these three characters oh but what's this he says feigning shock she did mention those three characters which means all the people scrolling past right now didn't watch anita's video so let's do better than those guys and actually watch anita's video and here's the first time she mentions overwatch at their annual blizzcon event in 2014 the wildly successful game studio blizzard entertainment showed off a new game they had in the works called overwatch and from that first reveal it was clear the appeal of overwatch resided in its cast of characters a diverse assortment of heroes each with unique traits and abilities you see anita is specifically talking about the 2014 overwatch character announcement trailer which did not feature zarya anna or may and in which bastian got shield in front of him when he was in turret form which is frankly ridiculous and imbalanced and i'm glad they ditched that and later on in anita's video when she's giving examples of games which do feature women with different body types she returns to overwatch let's go back to overwatch for a moment since that initial reveal a few female heroes have been added to the roster there's mei and zarya both of whom have body types that are notably different from those of the originally announced female characters anna reporting for duty and more recently blizzard announced the game's next hero anna who's both an older woman and a woman of color and she goes on to call these character designs welcome and encouraging of course thunderfoot neglected to show any of that in his video he edited out anita's introduction of the trailer and neglected to mention it and he didn't show her talking positively about the other characters in the game and he therefore left his fans with an incorrect impression of anita's arguments he actually cherry-picked in such a manner that led his fans to believe anita was the one cherry-picking which is a neat trick so well done in that regard after overwatch anita moves on to talk about the character rosters of some other games and there's one particularly shameless example of thunderfoot taking what anita says out of context here let's first watch anita's clip and then we'll see what thunderfoot does to it similarly when we look at the champions on offer in the hugely popular moba league of legends we see the designers employing a wonderful range of body shapes and proportions across dozens of male characters from the classic muscular warrior physique of tariq to the hefty beer belly of gragas to the cartoonishly disproportionate body of dr mundo there isn't any one male body type that is presented as the standard default male body type and the value of these characters is definitely not connected to their sexual desirability but when we look at the female heroes there's nothing approaching the diversity we see on the male side of the roster and here's thunderfoot's take on that bit while female heroes are mostly relegated to being standard humanoid characters with conventionally attractive facial features female characters across the board are often limited to that same specific body type there isn't any one male body type that is presented as the standard default male body type there isn't any one male body type that is presented as the standard default male body type there isn't any one male body type that is presented as the standard default male body type really anisha yeah sure about that you see anita was specifically talking about the lineup of league of legends there thunderfoot just lifted one line out of it and repeated it over and over pretending that anita was talking about all video games but she wasn't was chief underfoot and the other audio clip is from when anita is talking specifically about the lineup of dota 2. likewise in dota 2 male heroes can be handsome or comical outlandish or grotesque while female heroes are mostly relegated to being standard humanoid characters with conventionally attractive facial features thunderfoot took two out of context audio clips and stitched them together to make it appear that anita is arguing something that she isn't but even if we take thunderfoot's point seriously here just look at some of the examples he's used to illustrate that all men have a default body type in video games firstly kratos the god of war secondly michael from gta 5 who is a middle-aged slightly fat man so apparently they're they're the same thing they're the same thing in thunder foot's head so let's talk about another game that thunderfoot misleads his audience over and that's the excellent beyond good and evil slender slender slender slender blender adventurer slender figure with prominent breasts is viewed as the standard for female character design but oddly that standard for female character design didn't stop feminist frequency from recommending jade from beyond good and evil as a positive feminist character so i'll pause all thunderfoot there just to point something out um in her video anita never said that slender characters and games were sexist she never even said that having slender characters in games was harmful watch the following clip and see if you can't follow along with her argument rather than seeing such an exciting range of female characters we mostly get the same body type over and over again one designed to be sexually appealing to the presumed straight male player this reliance on the same body type for so many female characters isn't just boring it's harmful now which of the following did she say slender characters and games are harmful or an over-reliance on one specific body type in games is harmful now some people seem to really struggle with this point so i'll give you a hint those two sentences do not say the same thing who was a slender normatively beautiful cut price lower croft hair you know the one with the skin tight pink top hugging jade's normatively beautiful body and revealing that fantastic pancake flat midriff now if you watch anita's video about beyond good and evil she does actually address jade's appearance and she even calls jade's top silly thunderfoot neglected to include that in his video obviously but for the most part anita is much more interested in the presentation of jade's character than her appearance she likes that jade has everyday motivations she's presented as smart and capable and all that you see from the foot appearance isn't everything when it comes to character design and speaking of jade's everyday motivations here's what thunderfoot has to say about that and of course she had realistic concerns that normal people could relate to we definitely need more games with warm compassionate multi-talented characters who have realistic and relatable concerns like stopping a giant alien invasion now actually jade's relatable concerns that anita's talking about in that section of her video are paying the bills and taking care of her adopted family you see if you watch a whole video and don't just cherry-pick lines out of it this is obvious games often give us heroes who are either fantastically wealthy like the bruce waynes and lar crofts of the world or who at least don't have practical everyday concerns about money but money's not just an abstract concept for jade she's a working class character with real financial struggles this is established at the very beginning of the game when we learned that the orphanage's electricity has been shut off and uncle paige's hovercraft is in dire need of repair and thunderfoot has a bit more to say about beyond good and evil god damned twice in one game but you are not like them you are mine charlie and i am going to kill the human part of you david shawnee because while a damsel in distress reinforces long-standing regressive myths about women as a group so what he's done here is notice a few things firstly anita likes jade secondly anita doesn't like damsels in distress and thirdly jade is helped out by a male character and then steam starts coming out of his ears and his head spins around like a cartoon robot trying to divide by zero but here's what he missed it may seem like a minor detail but the fact that paige tells jade to free herself instead of doing it for her is incredibly important he assists her but he doesn't rescue her he knows that even in this situation she's far from helpless and the fact that paige treats her as a capable partner encourages us to see her that way too you see anita actually likes this take on the damsel thing she didn't ignore it or overlook it she thinks this is the way to do it right she even included beyond good and evil as a positive example of a male character helping a female character way back in her damsels and distress videos now i'm certainly not arguing that all stories must include completely fearless hyper-individualistic heroic women who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and never need anything from anyone of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with offering or occasionally needing assistance of course thunderfoot neglected to mention any of that in his video and actually he went a little further than just not mentioning it this time and this is me thinking like a video editor again here but indulge me so thunderfoot's making his video and he wants to include the scene where jade is imprisoned by the alien thing so he can make his damsel in distress comparison and now we know he has anita's video on beyond good and evil in his video editor because he uses clips from it which means he's already got the scene right there so why not take the easy path and just use this footage of the scene to illustrate his point now the problem for thunder foot here is the feminist frequency border on the video you see having this border would tip his audience off to the fact that anita does actually talk about this scene so instead of using that footage he has to go out and specifically download the cutscene by itself and this gives this audience the impression that anita doesn't address that part of the game is that intentional or unintentional who knows now the next cherry pick of thunder foots that i want to talk about has to do with anita's appearance at the unhelpfully named the conference in sweden last year and let's watch the start of his argument did you ever look at the games she found problematic page after page of them and did you ever notice that all of the games that she hated they're all games for adults you know grown-ups names which include a few male gigolos two dozen so first things first all of the games that anita has ever found problematic have an adult rating all of them well that's what he said so either thunderfoot is just exaggerating in order to mislead his audience or he thinks super princess peach has an m rating you see anita talks about problematic things in all kinds of games not just ones with a mature rating and talking about problematic things in the game doesn't mean you automatically have to hate it i mean a lot of anita's videos even start out with that exact disclaimer but please keep in mind that it's both possible and even necessary to simultaneously enjoy a piece of media while also being critical of its more pernicious aspects now let's watch the next part of underfoot's argument and do you notice anything about all the games that she likes nothing not one single game with an adult rating these are some of my favorite games and here's where the cherry pick comes in if you watch anita's full talk at the the conference stupid name you'll see that in this section anita is talking specifically about attitudes towards casual gamers and what are considered casual games there's a very gendered stigma attached to what are thought of as more casual interactive experiences that sentiment actively works to alienate women and other marginalized communities from mainstream gaming and frankly makes us feel unwelcome the image she puts up are all games of a specific type because they're the kinds of games she's talking about in that part of her speech she didn't just come out and apropos of nothing show a slide of some games and say these are my favorite video games you know it's got a context she's talking about patronizing attitudes towards casual gamers that's why she has an image of some casual games and speaking of patronizing let's watch fun the foot prove her point for her but let me help the gaming industry out here you know something that you might want to give me about an award or something for about how you can immediately make all of the feminists happy it's simple all you got to do is modify your gaming labels so for instance the gaming label might read this game is for grown-ups it's not suitable for small children or feminists now the next part of underfoot video i want to talk about strays into some weird territory let's give it a watch but her outfits appear to be designed for yeah i don't even know well anita allow me to tell you it's to make her look good and before you launch into a diatribe about how always gender signifies to mean all women and reduce them to me sex objects because it's not like you in real life would ever use appearance enhancing cosmetics you know like like bright red lipstick to imply arousal or eye makeup to draw people's attention to your eyes or mid-rift bearing outfits high heels to add height and hip sway for the evil nail gate and of course why not a a low cut figure hugging top to draw your presumably straight male audiences attention to that part of your body so first off here uh thunderfoot philip what the [ __ ] man are you doing okay like in general is everything all right over there dude cause that's some weird [ __ ] you just did right there secondly let's look at this argument here you know if we can find it so i think he's saying that because anita criticizes video game women who are presented like this uh she shouldn't dress like this so let's unravel this thing the video where anita talks about this character is called lingerie is not armor and it's about inappropriate clothing in games now the character in question is some sort of special forces operative or something from a resident evil game but she dresses inappropriately for the job that's the point it's not that she's trying to look good it's that she's trying to look good while fighting off a zombie invasion or whatever it is she does her clothes don't fit her role none of this is to say that characters in games should never be sexual far from it sexuality and sexualization are very different things the sexualization of female characters is about designing them dressing them or framing them in ways that are specifically intended to be sexually appealing to presumed male viewers or players anita's not saying women shouldn't ever try to look good the argument's about appropriate clothing for a situation and one example of a time when it is appropriate to dress up and try and look nice is a fancy launch event for your new thing whatever the thing was additionally thunderfoot uh what's a mid-rift i make up to draw people's attention to your eyes or mid-rift bearing outfits a mid-rift well that's okay maybe you just misspoke that one time and revealing that fantastic pancake flat mid-rift oh right he thinks it's called a mid-rift okay phil i'm gonna do you a favor now you see this part of the body here that's a mid-riff there's no such thing as a mid-rift and thunderfoot isn't done talking about this launch event why is he even looking up photographs of anita sarkeesian and when i say white male i mean white male this is the premiere of anita sarkeesian's new video series about ordinary women i've got a game for you it's called spot the woman or minority in his social justice warrior hipster crowd and if your cherry pick detector isn't going off by now i'd get it looked at you see i went and looked up all the other photographs of this event and so as crass and stupid as this is and with my full apologies let's play spot the minority with your host thunderfoot and when i say white male i mean white male this is the premiere of anita sarkeesian's new video series about ordinary women i've got a game for you it's called spot the woman or minority in his social justice warrior hipster crowd so the last instance of cherry picking i want to talk about is the clip that thunderfoot chooses to close this video out on and he really did save the best for last other than taking usdr archetypal straw feminist that you complained about all those many years ago you know the one who finds every slight little thing sexist the girls are influenced by femme fatale's malicious rhetoric to see benign routine everyday things as a conspiracy against women and against them personally everything is sexist everything is racist everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out well that seems fairly damning doesn't it straight from the horse's mouth as they say everything's racist and sexist every little thing that's what she said but i don't know something about that clip seemed a little off to me and my cherry pick detector was going off again so i decided to go and look up the circumstances in which anita said this statement which is harder than it seems you know unlike old thunderfoot there i don't have a folder on my desktop filled with videos of anita sarkeesian and photographs of anita sarkeesian and articles written by anita sarkeesian secret love letters to anita sarkeesian and so on so i just had to go googling for it and i found it it's from all about women 2015 the how to be a feminist panel at around 33 minutes in and before we watch the full clip let's just once again see how thunderfoot chose to present it the girls were influenced by femme fatale's malicious rhetoric to see benign routine everyday things as a conspiracy against women and against them personally everything is sexist everything is racist everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out and now here's the actual clip i'm intrigued by anita i'll come come back to you jamal i'm intrigued by anita saying she had to learn about systems you had to learn about the sociology of systems and structural change and it was obviously quite a journey for you yeah absolutely i i sort of joke about how it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me and also the most frustrating for everyone around me because like when you start learning about systems everything is sexist everything is racist everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time so there's a good year of my life there's a good year in my life where it was just i was the most obnoxious person to be around and there's not really much i need to say about that i don't think so some closing thoughts on fun the foot's weird obsession with anita sarkeesian you'd really think that after so much practice arguing against anita thunderfoot would be better at it if anita's arguments were so easily refuted thunderfoot wouldn't have to resort to twisting her words showing out of context clips only showing half of her argument and not the conclusion cherry-picking photographs and making weird comparisons to anita's own appearance thunderfoot stop embarrassing yourself man give it up your fans don't even want to watch this stick to whatever else it is you do i i don't know what you do [ __ ] about with thermal cameras or something

Channel: Shaun

Views: 525,131

Rating: 4.6490321 out of 5

Keywords: thunderf00t, shaun jen, thunderfoot, anita sarkeesian, feminist frequency, cherrypicker

Id: 7bVqfQvXP2o

Length: 26min 22sec (1582 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 26 2016