Terroja Kincaid, You Officially Suck at Men's Rights Advocacy

Roughly two weeks ago, TJ/TheAmazingAtheist made yet another contribution to the insufferable yet laughable Anita Sarkeesian hate machine, entitled "ANITA SARKEESIAN, YOU OFFICIALLY SUCK AT FEMINISM." It need not be mentioned with much depth that all of the mansplaining and hatred that has been fired in her direction for the past three years has had an ironic effect rather than an intended one, but TJ's video adds to this cesspool of ignorance.

Below is the video in question:

The context of the video (The Scythian - Positive Female Characters in Video Games) to which TJ was responding was flat-out diminished in TJ's response to it, not that I find that surprising. If you actually watch her video, then you'll see that she does admit early on that the character is, personality-wise, a blank-slate. However, in the realm of video games, even in Zelda-inspired adventure games as seen in Anita's video, this is pretty much the norm. Often, in fact, player-characters are given a blank template in order to facilitate a flight of fancy in the player. Or in other words, this method allows players to insert themselves into the action. Well, some of the time it works, but I digress.

What TJ didn't tell you, like he almost always does, is that Anita's argument as to why the player character in that game is a positive female character is because in-universe, she is not discerned by her gender, but by her acts, and ultimately, her heroism. The gender neutral treatment of the character from others around her, and the fact that the character defies all odds stacked against her to save the land, is what earns Anita's praise. I have in fact seen Anita's video for myself and quite frankly, it was surprisingly unassuming and rather tame. As for why, or how for that matter, it triggered such a hilariously over-the-top response from TJ is not surprising given his recent contributions to the internet. But I guess you could say that this is just another nail in the #GamerGate coffin, one more among many.

Our hero fixates dubiously on the character's lack of personality when, on the other hand, it's her gender neutral treatment in-game that is most important in Sarkeesian's video. In fact, the Scythian's lack of personality is not even an important detail. By making a video that echoes the arguments that other Gamergaters/MRAs have made in equally (or moreso) stupendous videos, TJ has solidly cemented his place in the MRA/GamerGate echo-chamber. Said echo-chamber, in fact, has yet to demonstrably prove Anita false, nor produce content that reasonably debunks her arguments. Instead people have to watch idiots like TJ take her out of context, ignore entire parts of her videos/tweets, and whether inadvertently or not sic their tone-deaf subscribers onto her, thus continuing the vicious cycle that has both harmed and helped Anita.

He has proven in his video that he doesn't actually care about what Anita says in her video, or anywhere else for that matter, so there's no point in paying heed to his screeds about her. Not yet, anyway, because like all the others, he really has nothing to use against her but to resort to dishonest tactics like that seen in his response. It's funny though that in doing this, he hurt his side of the argument WHILE ALSO proving Sarkeesian's points about (typically male-derived, but there are females who do it too) treatment of females in our culture correct; condescension and belittling, two attitudes often exhibited toward women, are very real to this day. And they are both rampant in his video. Meanwhile, he failed to address her actual arguments in his response to her. Oh the unintentional comedy of it all.

All of that aside, I will poke at one of TJ's more ironic, hypocritical arguments, which is a strawman of epic proportions to say the least. The strawman in his video was his jab at Anita's puzzling inefficiency to deliver on all of the scheduled videos outlined in the infamous crowdfunding page all the way back in 2012. So far she has produced three of them, and there are eleven of them slated for production. While it may be telling, in some ways anyway, that her progress has been lacking on this project, I don't think TJ is the one who should be commenting on this at all. Why, you may ask?

It's because of NotProductive.

An embarrassing chapter for sure, NotProductive was supposed to be TJ's answer to ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, a site from which he was given the boot prior to his pitch for the project. With a target of $20,000, and an ultimate conclusion of $17,287 donated by various bleeding hearts & blind fanboys, one had to ask of it all: why? To get into details as to why everything about the project was fishy would require a dedicated blog post, so I won't bother with much more than that. From before the site's actual development was announced, I knew something wasn't right.

A year had passed before the site managed to launch, because the development cycle was mired in a lack of confidence (even if TJ worded himself otherwise) and a stunning lack of transparency, amidst setback after setback, a switch in developers included in it all. When it finally went online, the result was mixed, at best. An ugly, uncompressed background picture; sub-par (and probably cheap) webhost; disorderly arrangement of channels AND categories; in-your-face google ads; and blatant shortcuts like external hosting for comments for one. On top of that all, the fact that the videos were hosted externally on YouTube meant that everything could be watched through there, so the site as it was served little use to most people. Another deception was the "less editorial meddling" line, which is priceless because it contradicted the god damn mission statement for the site. Oh and there was a contest present when the site started, but who the hell knows what really came of it since the site crashed and burned.

When you look at it today, you see that NP is a boring YouTube channel which TJ seems to wish would be swept under the rug to never be heard of again. That or he simply doesn't promote it anymore because it is about as irrelevant a channel as you can get. The fact that the vLoggers involved were already at least marginally successful (with one of them even having two-hundred thousand plus subscribers) prior to NotProductive's launch, meant that he was a bit hyperbolic with the "people you've not heard of" line as seen in his sales pitch video below:

I'll give TJ this, however; Anita has indeed been slow, for whatever reason(s), but given his own history he really isn't in a position to give her shit over her own failings. Contrarily, at least she is more honest about her project, and hasn't thrown it under the rug like he has. He's failed to produce anything substantive with all of that handout money, and while she's taking her sweet time doing so, at least she's continuing to produce content that was outlined on the crowdfunding page for "Tropes Vs. Women." Also, she asked for a mere $6,000 on her Kickstarter campaign, but because of the army of idiots giving her a bad rap, she drummed up a lot of attention that afforded her nearly $160,000, which is nearly thirty times greater than the asking. 

Perhaps he could ask himself the following: "Why do I keep giving Anita the attention that has benefited her so well so far?" Better yet, maybe the Gamergaters and MRAssholes who are so obsessed with her as to constantly draw attention to her should take this kind of advice. Or maybe they can keep it up so that people can laugh at their expense.

And TJ needs to learn how to actually argue with people with whom he disagrees. Because clearly from this video, he's not only dishonest about it, but he's not very good at it. Age has dumbed him down, evidently.

Edited: Fixed a few typos.

I'm Being Silenced! Force Freedom of Speech (on Private Enterprise)!

Read the subject of this post here: http://amazingatheist.tumblr.com/post/58763857547/youtube-is-100-within-its-rights-to-remove-your

I've written about TJ a few times so far and each time I thought I've seen the worst of him, it seems that he tops himself a little later on, so I then feel the need to comment on him again.

The gist of the situation behind the linked Tumblr post is that a number of TJ's YouTube videos were flagged for removal. Now, no one knows the full story yet, perhaps neither does he, but it's safe to say even at this point that he is indeed being censored. The party responsible is unknown, but that's not really important. What is important is how he is reacting to the issue.

It's fine that he's notifying his more active followers to keep themselves posted on his other social media outlets, but in saying the following...

Let’s consider that for a moment. Should your phone company control what you say on the phone? Should your ISP control what you say online? Then why should YouTube get to control what you post on YouTube? 

If YouTube was a small, exclusive site, I think your argument would have merit. But YouTube is large enough now, culturally important enough now, that we must extend First Amendment protections to YouTube videos.

 ...he does himself no favors. To compare companies which provide actual services to that of websites, albeit with very high traffic (YouTube is ranked #3 by the Alexa Ranking System globally & in the U.S.), is fucking ridiculous. Memorandum to TJ: their site is their god damn private property, and they can set the terms of service for using their site(s) any way they damn well please.

Here is what he responded to. Keep in mind that it contains a bit of vitriol directed at him, but compared to what he's received from many other sources, it's pretty tame:

Youtube is 100% within its rights to remove your videos. They are a company. You are allowed to hold whatever (fucking stupid) opinions you wish, but they are IN NO WAY obligated to give you a platform from which to spout said (fucking stupid) opinions. Yes, I am "for real". I know you wish women didn't exist, but sadly for your sorry fat ass, they do.

Too bad for the big guy that the poster of the above (verbatim) paragraph is 100% correct regarding Youtube's rights on controlling content that populates what is their property. When TJ said that "if YouTube was a small, exlusive site, I think your argument would have merit", he threw in a non-sequitur; the size & reach of an entity in a market, except for utilities, does not serve as a barometer on whether said entity should be regulated in any way by the government. Instead, the function of a company is a category upon which to consider regulations of a private organization. Owned by Google (whose service I am using now, obviously), a private corporation, they are explicitly excluded from freedom of speech rights as declared by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The government has no ability to set limits, or even lift them completely, in the private sector.

And it should stay that way.

I assume that you, reader, have gleaned the aforementioned amendment within a valid copy of the document from which it can be found. In that case, I don't need to quote it to support my argument that TJ is either somehow ignorant of said amendment (the old-world English as used in said document may have threw him for a loop), or is outright cherry-picking it in order to advocate for the abolition of the barrier set in place by that same document. Given his nature as a money-hungry, fraudulent, shady motherfucker since, as an actual example, he's still wrapped in a controversy regarding his $17,000+ video embedding site (which went down within two months of launching, and has yet to return to full operating order as of this writing), I feel that he falls into the latter case.

An argument that pushes government mandates on freedom of speech rights within the private realm, be it the home of the Average Joe (provided it isn't owned by government assets and thus, being publicly-owned property), a small business, a web business, or anything along those lines, is an unsound argument. First of all, it violates the Constitution itself. Second, because YouTube (and Google, henceforth) are accessed by users throughout the world and their assets are not exclusively rooted in the United States (in spite of being founded in Menlo Park, California), it would be a burden to legally impose Free Speech laws on YouTube alone because it would have to be applied distinctly according to the rights (or lack thereof) of each country which grants access to the site. Google's monetary assets are extremely high, and they could challenge such wasteful theoretical scenarios with the best legal teams their money could buy.

TheAmazingAtheist, an admitted Social Libertarian (mind you that within the same context, Social Liberal is virtually synonymous with that position), who held starkly Libertarian views on economics, essentially wishes for the government (his government, mind you) to re-write the Constitution so as to mandate freedom of speech laws on the private sector, particularly YouTube/Google. Keep in mind that this is not out of principle, but rather out of necessity, for him. He doesn't care about the experience of others, but that of his own, since the guy is laughably dependent on his earnings through Google AdSense via YouTube partnership. He's also a shameless beggar who comes up with sob stories or snake oil sales schemes to bilk money out of his more naive subscribers. His channel is, due to a large number of his uploaded videos being flagged down, likely going to be on the chopping block and he is understandably in panic mode.

But arguing for the intervention of the Government to protect his right to a platform and to speak freely on what is the property of a private corporation is not only desperately reaching, it's sadly hilarious. I hope he realizes just how idiotic his response was to the user who posted that comment on his Tumblr, because if that were enacted in the U.S., then it would set a bad precedent of yet conceived proportions. I feel bad for the guy because he's a weak-willed individual with seemingly few principles, if any at all, and will say or do anything to avoid having to get a fucking job like most people do. After all, people who work earn their money, but he has to beg for it. He's 28 fucking years old and he asks for handouts in ways no different than teenagers, but the difference between he and teenagers is that he manages to sell himself doing it.