Ryan Carlson
Ryan is a passionate gamer who is conflicted about whether he should become the Ubermensch or a Ghost In the Machine. Maybe his answer will be found in the Golden Mean.
Tim Schafer is a video game developer who is known for developing Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, and The Secret of Monkey Island. On Wednesday night at the Game Developers Choice Awards he made a joke that mocked both women and minorities who supported gamergate. For his joke he pulled out his hand puppet. His puppet asked, “How many gamergaters does it take to make a single piece of armor?” The puppet answered, “Fifty. One to do the modeling, one to do the materials, and forty to tweet that it is not your shield.”
Mathematically, his joke does not make any sense. Nevertheless, it was still stupid and you can watch the joke on the video below.
#NotYourShield
His joke may seem innocent at first if you are unaware of what “not your shield” means. A couple months ago #NotYourShield was a Twitter movement responding to corrupt video game journalism much like gamergate. For example, there were video game journalists who were anti-gamergate who argued that it was filled with nothing but angry white males, and so the movement should be ignored completely.
SJW video game journalists would use women and minorities as a shield to argue that they are not corrupt because they are protecting the rights of minorities, unlike #gamergate. The #NotYourShield Twitter movement consisted of women and minorities who argued they support #gamergate and would no longer allow corrupt video game journalists to use them as a shield to promote their own personal agendas. Below is an example of one of the tweets.
#GamerGate
Social justice warriors and feminists view #gamergate as a hate group filled with nothing but angry white males. But this view has been proven false—it’s made up of both men and women who have different sexual orientations and races. So Tim Schafer’s ignorant joke was an insult to the different minorities and women who support ethical video game journalism through the #gamergate movement.
After insulting so many people through his joke, he made a cowardly move to argue that he should not be blamed for what his hand puppet said. Tim Schafer cannot use his hand puppet as his shield to protect him from the consequences of making such a distasteful joke.
Jokes
What Tim Schafer doesn’t realize is that for years social justice warriors and feminists have constantly argued that a person cannot joke about rape, murder, racism, or oppression of any kind. It is only fair for Tim Schafer to be subject to the same rules. He made a joke that insulted both women and minorities so he should suffer their wrath, but we know that at the end of the day social justice warriors and feminists will let Tim Schafer’s joke slide.
They will let it slide because they don’t actually care about real women victims or minorities. Social justice warriors only care about themselves and the way they can use their fictional victim hood in order to make money or gain attention for themselves. It looks like Tim Schafer is now part of that group.
Read Next: #GamerGate Is Hate T-Shirts Have Arrived
