Renown feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian (of Feminist Frequency fame) has been implicated to the support and co-creation of a musical “rebuttal” that lampoons criticism of her Tropes vs Women in Video Games series.

The mockery was directly aimed at a video published by the Factual Feminist, Dr. Christina H. Sommers, which actively scrutinizes Sarkeesian’s findings.

Sommers’ video has been seen by many as an interesting perspective in the subject of sexism in video games, and cites various studies to back her claims. Her content and words on social media platform Twitter have been embraced as a strong counterpoint to Sarkeesian’s video series thus far.

Instead of being met with discussion or civil debate, Sarkeesian and her partner Jonathan McIntosh allegedly helped musician Jonathan Mann curate a puerile video that autotuned Sommers’ voice against background music. Throughout the video, Mann can be seen dancing in an overlay across Sommers’ original video.

In a recent post on his Patreon page, Mann says that he not only met Sarkeesian and McIntosh at this year’s XOXO Festival, but that the duo actually contributed to the video by “giving feedback”.

Sarkeesian even went so far as to “help a lot with editing and subtitles”.

“So, I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with Anita Sarkeesian last weekend at XOXO. I had met her producer and partner-in-video-making Jonathan McIntosh last December at a YouTube event in LA. What lovely people.

“I’ve been fans of theirs for years, so it was great to get to know them a bit.  

“Watching Christina Sommers, the first thing that struck me about that video was that the audio was very clean – perfect for auto-tuning.

“I ran the idea by Anita and Jonathan and they seemed to be into it. So I set out to take apart her argument, point by point, in a song. They gave me some feedback on early versions, and then Anita actually helped a lot with editing the subtitles! I’m bad at details!”

Shortly after Mann’s video went live, Anita Sarkeesian Tweeted it out onto her feed, significantly boosting the signal across her 140-thousand-plus followers.

Here @songadaymann offers a funny autotuned rebuttal to the ludicrous claim that there is no sexism in video games: http://t.co/uigyxHXkws

— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) September 19, 2014

While no concrete links of Sarkeesian’s and McIntosh’ involvement in the video have been made, it’s easy to see how the content could benefit their cause, and suspicion is quite high.

Oddly enough it appears that Mann thought nothing of revealing this information, but if accurate, this information has many implications.

This event is the second occurrence to implicate Sarkeesian in objectionable actions. Known YouTube personality and critic of feminism Thunderf00t has recently been suspended on Twitter, and according to him, Sarkeesian may have used her considerable standing to make it happen.

Sarkeesian has won over many big names in the entertainment industry–from games journalists to Joss Whedon of Avengers and Firefly fame–and as a result she’s become an influential voice and cultural force within the media.

Over the past few weeks the Internet has seen sensationalist content strewn throughout the media that consistently insults gamers and proponents of GamerGate, but this information points to a very valid sense of irony.

It may serve as a glaring example to the blatant hypocrisy of the purported “Social Justice Warrior” cause–i.e. mocking and taunting others in the name of “equal rights”, gaining attention, or accruing monetization through “clickbait” reporting.

This has proven to be yet another interesting development in the ongoing paradigm shift in gaming culture brought upon by GamerGate. It’ll further be interesting to see if this apparent collusion to smear constructed criticism will affect Anita Sarkeesian’s following, and if it’ll have any ramifications on her credibility as a critic of video games and its shifting culture.

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Popular YouTuber and Anita Sarkeesian critic Thunderf00t has been suspended on Twitter for taking part in “abusive behavior”.

In a recent video Thunderf00t reveals that the social media platform chose to temporarily ban his account from the service, citing a violation of Twitter’s abusive behavior policy.

The policy reads as follows:

Threats and abuse

Users may not make direct, specific threats of violence against others, including threats against a person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, or disability. Targeted abuse or harassment is also a violation of the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service.

Interestingly enough, Twitter allows what it calls “offensive content” as long as it stays within the agreed upon margins.

Offensive content

Users are allowed to post content, including potentially inflammatory content, provided they do not violate the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service. Twitter does not screen content and does not remove potentially offensive content unless such content is in violation of the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service.

The YouTuber’s videos, which criticize Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women in Video Games series, have become a strong counterpoint within the GamerGate movement.

Speculation has arisen that this suspension was an attempt by anti-GamerGate activists to “warn” the YouTuber about spreading his content across the social media platform. “It looks like Anita Sarkeesian is personally responsible for getting me suspended on Twitter,” Thunderf00t said in the latest upload.

The account is currently suspended so we can’t officially verify the content of the user’s Twitter feed, but Thunderf00t goes on to point out that he “barely uses the account” and Tweets around average two messages a day.

Based on the content in the video it appears that he’s been suspended not because of his Tweets, but because of the videos he links to and spreads–the videos that criticize Sarkeesian directly.

This is an interesting development in the GamerGate debacle, which today saw a DDoS attack centered on The Escapist‘s GamerGate forums. The Games Journo Pros e-mail group was uncovered just yesterday, further reinforcing the argument that video games journalism is too tight-knit and lacks critical distance.

The implications of these claims remain clear, and solidify a more troublesome trend: the majority crushes the minority with just cause and its overwhelming might, using social media to further perpetuate the echo-chamber effect.

At this point Twitter is being used as a megaphone by journalists and industry veterans to enact a sense of moral authority, and it seems to be working; those with large amounts of followers are heard while others remain lost in the tumult.

And what’s worse is that critics–such as the Factual Feminist’s Christina Hoff Sommers–are actively dismantled by the media, albeit in an editorial, opinionated capacity. It seems that anyone who challenges a champion has an “example made of them”.

Furthermore it seems that Twitter may have a biased agenda to censor criticism, mimicking the current GamerGate censorship across 4Chan’s /v/ forum and Reddit. Can we expect mass suspensions of big-players in the movement, including Internet Aristocrat and perhaps even Adam Baldwin?

Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women in Video Games has made major headway in industry-wide reform, but it has also opened criticism from various sources.

Thunderf00t has coined the phrase ‘Sarkeesian Effect’ for this apparent retaliation, but at this point it remains unclear if Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian had anything to do with the suspension.

The suspension may just be on the part of Twitter, who holds discretion on case-by-case bases. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops in the future, and whether or not Thunderf00t’s account will be reinstated or not.

For now it looks rather suspicious–especially considering how Sarkeesian responds to criticism–but it’s too early to tell who’s at fault, whether it’s Thunderf00t himself, Twitter, or possibly FemFreq.

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