Anita Sarkeesian was on The Colbert Report tonight

Gross. I guess she can't be friends with Suey Park anymore.

She's one of the major targets of Gamergate. Which is what this interview is going to be about. Of course she should be involved.

the reactions tommorrow to this are gonna be interesting to say the least.

Hatsune Miku in a WWE wrestling match, Anita Sarkeesian on The Colbert Report... something screwy is goin on.

What's reality's agenda? Sure seems pretty suspicious.

That's a surprising turn of events. Let's hope things don't get any more ugly than it already has been...

Reality™ is now a Hideo Kojima/Swery joint.

There is room for someone else to put in the effort that she has in this discussion, but I don't see anyone really breaking in right now.

I don't really see why a leader in the discussion of women's roles in games would distance herself simply because she is receiving tremendous negative attention from people who perceive her as a threat. She is forcing the discussion she always wanted to force and her platform has never been larger, why would she step away?

@milkman:

You are fighting an uphill battle brother.

This will be interesting to see.

@jasonr86: Believe me. I know.

The segment just aired here on the east coast. It was all pretty innocuous and kind of funny. Colbert started with some pretty generic jokes about games and gaming. He name dropped Dark Souls, which was kind of weird and then told the gust of wind from Flower to blow him so I'm sure Vinny will be on board here. Then he brought out Anita and they talked about pretty much what you would expect. Anita said that GamerGate is actually about harassing women. Colbert asked why it mattered that games were so male dominated to which Anita talked about many of things she talks about in her videos about how sexist tropes enforce stereotypes. Colbert then kind of poked fun at the fact that "games journalism" is something that matters at all and then asked if as a man, he's allowed to be a feminist, to which Anita said "do you believe in equal rights for women?" Colbert said sure and she said then you're a feminist. The end.

@galacticpunt: Where the capital Fuck is Jack Thompson, and why isn't he making a fool out of himself for my entertainment?

Because he's banned from doing law in Florida, but I assumed he'd just shuffle right along the coast and start being insane in Georgia.

They finally said that "ethics" word at the end there. Colbert brings up a great point... who the **** cares? All GG did was bring certain people into the spotlight over something that matters little if at all. Great job twitter morons. I didn't want to see more of Anita either, but to resort to a god damn hashtag campaign with a few morons doing DEATH THREATS?! How god damn moronic, disgusting, and shortsighted. Oh my god, how stupid this whole thing has become.

Wait, that's the lady everyone gets mad at all the time? She made good points, wasn't antagonistic towards anyone besides the harassers of gamersgate and gave a good interview all around.
That wasn't bad, there was nothing bad about any of that on her end.

I'm glad this happened and that he was pretty harsh. Maybe some mainstream condemnation will help shut this thing the fuck down.

Just won a $50 dollar bet. No talent easy to identify true motives.

Loved the Sega Genesis gamer bible gag. The most interesting things about this was simply seeing how it all continues to go more and more mainstream.

Anita is allright, I dont have any beef with her. My only gripe is if you have problems with some of her examples (hitman im looking at you) there isn't a place for that discussion to happen.

I just watched it and Colbert pretty much had the same reaction as people I talk to who don't play games. They're used to political corruption, wars, gay marriage, and the militarization of the police, so they don't really get why Gamergate is a big deal about ethics in games press. As far as they're concerned, it might as well be Hollywood reporting, like Colbert mentioned.

The internet is very fast.

Here's the segment for anyone interested.

When your video is the catalyst for a movement and someone threatens a school shooting when you try and lecture, yeah that's worth an interview. She doesn't owe it to the "movement" to be your custom fit mouthpiece.

@thatpinguino: The problem is there hasn't been a discussion. Anything Anita says is always going to be associated with this terrible negative response which drowns out valid points for or against hers. It's important to validate what she says, the truth & the falsities.

This isn't a new topic of debate either & it seems whatever this part of it isn't achieving anything but a shameful view on gaming because of a tiny minority of extremely vocal people.

Tabloid that you care about is still tabloid. Something you have to be a part of to really "get" is a cult, if the vast majority of people see this issue in a certain way that might just be closer to the truth. In the same way the world outside North Korea may have a better perspective on what's not right about that nation than the people inside with zero access to anything else. A lot of gamers do kind of live in a bubble and maybe it is the responsibility of the world beyond to provide perspective to this issue.

Still I don't see misogyny playing a direct role in shootings, as it is the shooters that feel mistreated by women, and not the other way around. The image I have from most of them is of people misfitted in reality, awkwardly shy, that are more easily mistreated, than treating bad others. But that is just a generalization, but I don't see misogyny as being a relevant factor in the shootings, although I do believe it is a indirect cause.

But I do agree with patriarchy playing a significant role, as well as the roles attributed to the sexes in society.

@yurimegumi: unfortunate on the transphobic (?) jokes, pulled from over 15 years for the daily show and 9 for the colbert report, but i'd blame his writers more. I know show's ending but maybe write them if you feel strongly about it?

That last single out of context image showing how terribly racist he is is a clear satire on racism, though.

Anyway very good on Anita and im glad the GG shit didn't keep her down. Hopefully she makes the most of her appearance.

well that was dumb...

Didn't the threat say something like "Im going to shoot every feminist I can find"? You don't see the misogyny? smh

And now we should feel sorry for them lol ok

See this is what Im talking about.

I thought she was great. Nothing over the top, and she wasn't thrown by Colbert's style like some guests can be. I also thought Colbert comparing games journalism to Hollywood journalism was quite on point. At the end of the day, the idea that the so called "corruption" GG is rooting out is an incredibly important issue worth the incredible amounts of hyperbole being thrown out there is pretty ridiculous.

The irony of Sarkeesian gaining all of this fame due to those who seem to despise her and want to make her disappear amuses me greatly.

I didn't read the threat. There is misogyny there if he really wrote that, still it is an effect of something else. Why did he write that?

I don't think we should feel sorry for them, but if we want to prevent shootings we have to understand the reasons for them to happen, and work on those reasons. If being mistreated leads to violent behaviour, we should care to be more vigilant towards that same abuse and be more caring.

Or we'll just be passive agents of reality and calling monster or monsters to the shooter or shooters after each shooting, and spiting on their names, because nothing will change.

Not a bad segment at all! Also, Anita's hair looks really nice styled that way.

They call her a professional victim looking for attention, and then give her this attention she is supposedly desperate for.

Really, she could have just been another Kickstarter success story that we all eventually forgot about, but everything being thrown at her turned her into a icon of the industry.

It's on here if you didn't see it. It'll be on the website tomorrow morning as well.

http://www.themarysue.com/watch-anita-sarkeesian-colbert-segment/

People are already tearing her apart over the "three game thing" and are saying she dodged Colbert's questions.

Pretty good segment. More and more mainstream attention being put on GamerGate, and people are not liking what they see. Good on Anita for putting up with mountains of shit.

I'm amazed at how much she has benefitted from GamerGate when it wasn't even about her at all to begin with. She's great at whatever it is she does.

The widespread national attention GG has gotten fucking amazes me. No doubt the hivemind will call this latest a win. Any press is good press, etc.

I've seen some tweets saying as much too. That might work for products (sometimes, word of mouth can kill a movie) but I'm not entirely sure about ideas. It might gain some followers but I'm willing to bet if most of what's being said of them is negative then a lot of people won't buy into it.

What if I don't want her to go away? What should I do then?

The most common sticking point among GamerGate types concerning the interview seems to be the "name three games" thing. It's even got a new hashtag, #NameThreeGames. I guess we're back to the "she's not a real gamer" narrative.

You haven't watched the show before, have you?

This person: Stephen Colbert

is completely different from this person: Stephen Colbert (character)

This is like getting angry at Bryan Cranston for being a drug dealer.

They make a ton of gay jokes, race jokes, religion jokes, ideological jokes, etc in the vain of those transexual jokes. They are just jokes.

That was pretty amusing. I kept waiting for a sea lion reference or an "it's actually about ethics" jab, but it never happened.

Probably for the best really.

Yup, that was a normal Colbert segment. Good stuff.

@milkman:

The 'real gamer' thing is so dumb. I like that it comes with the assumption that this 'real gamer's' perspective and value judgement matters at all to the apparent 'non-gamer'.

Projection is a hell of a thing.

I thought we stopped talking about gamergate on Giant Bomb because the threads always implode.

http://imgur.com/a/biBgs

Name calling and shaming people is something gamergate folks are used to.

Anita Sarkessian seems similar to Jack Thompson of the past and her ideas of what is and isn't okay concern me. I will always choose more freedom over less. I'm not going to change my opinion of what she says based on what organs she has.

Here is the producer and write for Tropes vs. Women.

George Carlin has been my hero for a long time and I think this is appropriate.

That said death threats are awful and so is bullying.

I don't care for Anita's work but at least it wasn't a train wreck like Brianna Wu's appearance on The David Pakman Show.

She's more grounded.

Yeah, I was talking at length to someone this week who explained to me that they were certain most of the recent anger has actually been about "real gamers" trying to make sure gaming goes back to being about them. Apparently, that should be obvious to everyone. I asked what that had to do with ethics, and they said that game developers and game outlets are unethical if they aren't serving "the real gamers".

I would hope that's not a sincere view held by many, but after even one of my friends flipped out tonight that Sarkeesian was on the Colbert Report and they hoped she would have her mouth shoved full of dicks until she couldn't attack "real gamers" anymore, I really wonder. I objected to how they said that, and they bemoaned that people were too sensitive about different opinions and they were "just being honest." Eventually, they did admit they probably could have shared their objection without insulting her like that.

I've held for a long time that the vast bulk of those that have flipped out about her and others are relatively normal folks, and that's probably the most disconcerting part of all this.

Hmm, they should check out her video series in which she discusses more than three games.

@slaegar: If George Carlin was coming into prominence today we would be reading articles from Polygon about how his comedy is too vulgar and juvenile.

Well hell, I think I'm losing the last shred of respect I had for Colbert.

@slaegar: Her comments on shootings seem to be specifically targeted at toxic elements of masculinity which hurt men and may help contribute to such tragedies.

The point being, certain harmful elements of cultural masculinity are detrimental and worth reforming. Stuff like pushing men toward guns and violent resolutions over peaceful ones. Not backing down in conflicts or dealing with emotions instead of allowing them to eventually blow up. Elements of modern masculinity that may contribute to their greater use of overt violence and guns in suicide or in situations of distress or illness that result in a lot of mass shootings.

These are cultural difficulties which are well worth considering and talking about for the sake of men and wider society. All things considered, pointing that out is relatively tame.