Atheists Against Retsupurae

One of our viewers asked if we could make suggestions to Retsupurae about how to avoid offensive behavior. This should be simple. That anyone needs instructions on how to act like a decent human being really tells us something about our culture today. But it does look like Retsupurae could use some extra help, so I’m going to start small today. The first thing they need to do is apologize to the people they have bullied.

Of course, this would take forever. They have been professional bullies for over four years. Plus they still don’t agree that all of what they’re doing is wrong, though there are some signs of progress. I would like them to take some baby steps here by apologizing to people they have subjected to especially nasty bullying. The first person I would like to look at is the Youtube user DarkenedAuras.

DarkenedAuras made this video after having three of her Let’s Plays stolen and overdubbed with hateful mockery. They even took this video and added some “comical” noises to it. This was uploaded on a sock account, probably because Retsupurae knew this was more cruel than usual and didn’t want their main account banned for bullying.

The original video doesn’t exist anymore. DarkenedAuras deleted many videos and eventually left Youtube due to constant bullying from Retsupurae fans. Youtube, and other sites on the Internet can be a safe space for people who deal with harassment every day of their lives. The bully culture that Retsupurae encourages threatens these safe spaces. It would go a long way for Slowbeef and Diabetus to clearly and sincerely apologize for what they’ve done here.

If you made fun of the game, or the gameplay, your video commentary might actually be funny. But you are making fun of the way people record, talk, and sound. And it’s not funny, it hurts. —DarkenedAuras

A few days ago, Diabetus made a post on his Formspring which referenced our blog. I recommend that everyone read this post before continuing.

This is going to be a long response to his post. I have been working on this ever since I first read it. Please take the time to read it if you have asked me a question and haven’t gotten a response. Our inbox is flooded with questions (over 300 now), and many of them are abusive. We will try to answer as many legitimate questions as possible, but some are bound to slip through the cracks.

Anyway, on to the response:

What Diabetus got right

Many people have commented that we only have negative things to say about Retsupurae. This is a silly complaint, since this blog was specifically created to criticize their behavior. They don’t deserve a cookie every time they fail to insult and dehumanize some group of people. Here, though, Diabetus is apologizing for past behavior based directly on a previous post of ours. So, it makes sense to highlight the progress he’s made.

In his post, Diabetus claims to regret making transphobic and homophobic jokes. He realizes that making such jokes prevents Retsupurae from being as inclusive as it should be. In his words, the jokes were “tasteless” and “lazy”. He ends by apologizing for the comments that he made.

This is good. This is progress. However, we shouldn’t be complacent, as there is much more progress to be made.

What’s special about homophobia and transphobia?

At the time Diabetus wrote this apology, we had other blogs up addressing issues such as body shaming, cyberstalking, and the trivialization of the experiences of breast cancer victims. However, he dismissed these other issues as “farcical”. Why is Diabetus able to see some problems, but is blind to others? Those already familiar with the social justice movement can easily see that he is blinded by his privilege when it comes to gender issues. Body shaming, cyberstalking and breast cancer are not issues limited to women, but they disproportionally affect women to a large degree. If you believe he is sensitive to women’s issues because of his opposition to PewDiePie’s rape “jokes”, I will address that in the next section.

But wait, if Diabetus is cis-hetero, why is he not also blinded by privilege when it comes to homophobia and transphobia? There are two explanations I see for this. One is that he may be (or may have been) “questioning” on his sexuality, gender, or orientation. There is no direct evidence of this, but it’s always a possibility. The other explanation is that our education system has done a much better job of bringing lesbian, trans, and gay issues to light. It would be a tangent to dive into this topic, but here’s one piece of evidence for this: there has been a trend of seeing a larger percentage of the population identifying as homosexual. This is great news, not because homosexuals are “better”, but because more people feel they are free to express their sexual identity. There is no doubt that this is also true for trans people, and I welcome seeing more of the population identifying as trans in the future.

What about PewDiePie?

In case you’re not aware, Retsupurae has recently made a video mocking the popular Youtube LPer “PewDiePie”. One of the main complaints that Slowbeef and Diabetus had about him was that he would often make rape “jokes” which amounted to little more than talking about raping various objects or people in the video games he played. I will not link his channel for this reason.

Unfortunately, while Retsupurae is obviously right in calling out this behavior, their criticism was unbelievably anemic. To them, the problem with rape jokes apparently has nothing to do with the feelings of rape survivors or people who must face the very real fear of being raped every day of their lives. No, the problem is that the jokes aren’t clever enough. Slowbeef even made sure to distance himself from feminism while complaining about the rape jokes (from Retsutalk episode 10). What’s wrong with being a feminist, Slowbeef? Are you against gender equality?

This PewDiePie incident would have been a great opportunity to educate people on rape culture, but instead we get some weak criticism of a Youtube personality. In short, no, Retsupurae does not get a cookie for being against some unfunny rape jokes. End of story.

Where do we go from here?

So, we’ve seen some tiny signs of progress from Retsupurae, and we should make the most of it. Diabetus realized that his background has blinded him to certain social issues. The next step is to show him the other issues that he’s still unable to see properly. That’s what this blog is meant to do.

Another important step for Retsupurae would be to examine their previous videos, delete the ones they’ve found offensive, and explain why they’ve done this in the next Retsutalk. In my estimation, this would amount to a large number of videos, but hopefully they find inclusiveness and the fight for equality to be more important than a channel’s view count. This really is necessary if Diabetus is to be taken seriously in his apology.

There is a certain mentality of male entitlement that pervades many careers, interest groups, and hobbies today. This is sometimes referred to as the “Boy’s Club” effect - girls are not explicitly prevented from entering some space, but it is kept virtually male only through various means. Retsupurae is one example that has been, for the most part, a male only space.

The only female RPer I’m aware of is Cherrydoom, a member of Something Awful who has participated in Let’s Plays. As far as I know, Cherrydoom was only present in these three videos:

• Let’s Play Parts of Earthbound
• I’m still in a dream, Steak Eater
• Let’s Listen!

The third video, “Let’s Listen”, is a great example of what happens when a woman stumbles into the Boy’s Club of Retsupurae. She can’t get a word in for the first minute due to the two men talking over her. Throughout the entire video, she only speaks three times total. How has Retsupurae managed to create such a hostile environment for women? The situation hasn’t gotten better - there hasn’t been a woman participating in Retsupurae since these three videos recorded four years ago.

Taking a step back, many people think these gender gaps go away naturally over time. This simply isn’t true. The gender gap in Computer Science majors has actually widened in recent years:

Educators are exploring new ways to combat this. Many have noted the privilege that arises from prior experience in programming (see this article). One solution is to teach an obscure programming language at colleges - one that no one will have prior experience with - to level the playing field. Another idea from the previously referenced article is to explore alternative teaching approaches:

Some writers have argued that some aspects of methodology of the programming, such as top-down design and hierarchical decomposition, reflect male-dominated culture and therefore might be an unsuitable means of learning for women.

Whatever solution works best for Computer Science, the point is that we need creative solutions for solving these problems. I would like to see the members of Retsupurae give some suggestions on how they might achieve gender equality in their next “Retsutalk”. I’ll certainly be listening.