I am not a huge video game fan, I am probably one of the few college aged guys that hasn't dumped hours of their life into "Fortnite."
And I am in no way saying this to make myself look good, we all have hobbies that some other people don't like.
That being said, every once in a while a video game catches my eye and forces me to dust off my Xbox One controller. Rockstar Game Studios's "Red Dead Redemption 2" was such a game. The story and gameplay are riveting. The epic realism of the minor details, like how you have to cock your gun each time before you fire, is truly revolutionary.
The game is so amazing I was going to go as far as to write a review for the Odyssey, and perhaps I will soon, but something happened more recently, a controversy surrounding the game.
A Youtube gaming channel called "Shirrako" posted a video called "Red Dead Redemption 2- Annoying Feminist Fed to Alligator."
In one of the game's major cities, a suffragette (the game takes place in 1899) can be found speaking about granting women the right to vote. The player can approach the woman, and encourage or antagonize her. The player can choose to be rude or friendly to every character in the game. The player can also beat up, shoot, or lasso and hogtie almost every character in the game as long as they are not essential to the main story.
In Shirrako's video, he ties the woman up, and carries her on horseback to the swamp near the city and drops in front of an alligator, which will kill anyone you put in front of it, it doesn't literally eat them. Shirrako proceeds to kick and beat up her corpse.
Shirrako has over 600,000 Youtube subscribers, and this video has over one million views and 67,000 likes.
However, the high view count is due in part to the fact that the video made headlines because Shirrako's account was deleted by Youtube temporarily. He made a huge fuss on Twitter complaining about his rights. He used the argument that you kill hundreds of men in the game but if you kill one woman you get in trouble.
His account was reinstated and he made two new videos, "Deporting a Mexican in Red Dead Redemption 2" and "Bringing a Black Man to the KKK in Red Dead Redemption 2." There is a random event in the game where you can watch the KKK attempt to do a cross burning but it fails and one of them catches on fire.
I mention this to remind people, before I discuss Shirrako's videos, that the game actually tries its best to have refreshing progressive politics. There is a mission that you can't skip where you help suffragettes by driving a wagon for one of their rallies, you do not get any penalty for killing everyone in the KKK, and two of the main characters are a woman and a half Native-American, half African-American man.
What disgusted me about Shirrako's video was the thousands of comments that don't just warmly support, but fully embrace his content. He even said he' could make a career out of producing videos just like this.
In 2014, there was a huge discussion about the rampant misogyny and racism in the gaming community. Gamers called the event "GamerGate" and the intersectional feminist critiques of the gaming community launched the careers of many of the "anti-SJW" Youtubers who remain heavily critical of feminism and other forms of diversity.
I don't want to share any of the comments that discuss what types of disgusting crimes these people desperately want to do to women, but I assure you the gaming community is still a breeding ground for misogyny, and the Youtube comment sections are for the most part identical to neo-Nazi websites.
A common argument about these people express is that they are not anti-woman or anti-equality, but they are just critical of third wave feminism. However, the woman in the game is a first wave feminist, fighting for the right to vote which is one of the most basic freedoms women have earned throughout their long struggle. So this sort of debunks the notion that they're pro-woman and anti-feminism.
The other argument is that they are only joking and this in no way represents their actual views.
Well, a joke has to be funny. I personally believe comedians should always rail against PC culture (that includes offending conservatives as well as liberals. Make more jokes about Trump). Shirrako is not a comedian and the video is fundamentally not funny.
Now pointing out that violence against women and minorities in today's culture makes one a "snowflake" but most of us just see the fundamental difference between comedy and gross behavior.
And furthermore, the extent Shirrako and his fans will go to justify this type of content suggests they do hold this views. That being said, we already know America is filled with young men that have a profound amount of hate in their hearts.
After exposing them, there is little we can do. It's impossible to regulate what someone does in a video game, and violent actions in video games typically do not cause people to act out in real life.
However we have seen the number of hate crimes on a steady rise in recent months, and it is worth beginning the debate as to whether or not there is a link.
