When I was young a dumb, I followed the anti-feminist YouTubers that used Anita Sarkeesian as their punching bag. I loved video games and bought into their idea that she was trying to ruin them. Now that I’m older and wiser, I can see that that was a load of baloney. I watched the original Tropes vs. Women in Videogames series and it was very level-headed and rational. There were a few things that the anti-feminist YouTubers said “well what about this???” and Anita actually covered that in the video but the YouTubers cherry picked and didn’t show the response. Anita has done a lot of good and has had so much hate and harassment that I feel she deserves a break.

Oof, the last paragraph hit me hard:

“It gave me space to breathe a little more,” she said. “I remember a moment where I did get harassed, I don’t know what it was, but it was either a Twitter [message] or an email. And [when I saw it], I was like, Oh, that hurts. And then I was like, Wait a minute. That hurts. That’s cool. Being able to feel again, that’s a form of healing.” And by stepping away for a bit, she hopes to keep giving herself more and more space to grow.

I learned a lot from Anita Sarkeesian’s work, and it was a nice thing to see, growing up as a girl who had to justify my existence in the space, despite gaming making up a huge portion of my youth

Her videos about women in video games were mind-blowing. And I never forgot her Lego City vs. Lego Friends comparison. Smurfette-syndrome and damsel distress are words I didn‘t know before watching this channel.