Anita Sarkeesian

2009internet personalityclassic

Anita Sarkeesian is a media critic and creator of the Feminist Frequency video series who became widely known in 2012 after her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter triggered a coordinated online harassment campaign from gamers. The backlash pushed her original $6,000 goal past $150,000 and made her a central figure in early debates about misogyny in gaming.

gender discourse memesfeminism memesgamingculture war memestrolling memes

Overview

Anita Sarkeesian is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a video series that analyzes tropes about women in pop culture and video games from a feminist point of view1. Her name became a widely recognized internet reference point in mid-2012 after a Kickstarter campaign for a new series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games set off one of the earliest well-documented coordinated harassment campaigns targeting a woman for talking about games3.

Her earlier videos covered television, film, and pop culture patterns like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, and were mostly known within a smaller feminist media audience before the 2012 project pulled her into the wider gaming conversation5. The response to the Kickstarter, described by outlets like Wired and Kotaku as intense and personal, included YouTube comment floods, Wikipedia vandalism, rape and death threats, and organized flagging of her fundraising page13.

How It Spread

Sarkeesian launched the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter in mid-2012 with a modest $6,000 goal to fund five videos1. Within days, the YouTube promo was flooded with thousands of hateful comments, including slurs and rape threats, along with mass reports asking YouTube to pull the video as terrorism3. Her Wikipedia entry was vandalized with pornographic images and text, and for a stretch the top Google result for her name read "Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist video blogger and cunt"3.

Coverage from gaming and general tech press flipped the effect the harassers intended. Wired ran a profile framing the attacks as a warning sign for women in gaming, and The Mary Sue published a widely shared piece calling the abuse depressingly familiar and comparing it to earlier incidents involving BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler and the Cross Assault fighting-game controversy12. Support poured in and the Kickstarter closed with 6,968 backers and over $150,000 raised, expanding the plan from 5 videos to 121.

After the funding closed, Sarkeesian announced she would extend the timeline and open the series with an episode on the Damsel in Distress trope, targeting a late fall or early winter 2012 release, a schedule change some critics tried to spin as her failing to deliver6. Gameranx and other outlets pushed back on those attacks and walked through the actual update timeline she had posted to backers6. From that point on, Sarkeesian's name was attached to almost every subsequent flashpoint in the gaming culture wars, well before the term GamerGate existed.

How to Use This Meme

Sarkeesian is a real person rather than a template, so her name mostly appears online in two contexts. Supporters cite her as shorthand for the argument that mainstream games have a sexism problem, often linking directly to the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games episodes on the Feminist Frequency YouTube channel4. Detractors used her name as a rallying tag during the 2012 backlash and later gaming controversies, typically pointing to the Kickstarter or specific tropes videos to argue against her analysis3. The clearest way to engage with her actual work is to watch the original series on feministfrequency.com or her YouTube channel rather than the meme-ified secondhand versions4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Anita Sarkeesian

2009internet personalityclassic

Anita Sarkeesian is a media critic and creator of the Feminist Frequency video series who became widely known in 2012 after her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter triggered a coordinated online harassment campaign from gamers. The backlash pushed her original $6,000 goal past $150,000 and made her a central figure in early debates about misogyny in gaming.

gender discourse memes feminism memes gaming culture war memes trolling memes

Overview

Anita Sarkeesian is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a video series that analyzes tropes about women in pop culture and video games from a feminist point of view1. Her name became a widely recognized internet reference point in mid-2012 after a Kickstarter campaign for a new series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games set off one of the earliest well-documented coordinated harassment campaigns targeting a woman for talking about games3.

Her earlier videos covered television, film, and pop culture patterns like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, and were mostly known within a smaller feminist media audience before the 2012 project pulled her into the wider gaming conversation5. The response to the Kickstarter, described by outlets like Wired and Kotaku as intense and personal, included YouTube comment floods, Wikipedia vandalism, rape and death threats, and organized flagging of her fundraising page13.

How It Spread

Sarkeesian launched the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter in mid-2012 with a modest $6,000 goal to fund five videos1. Within days, the YouTube promo was flooded with thousands of hateful comments, including slurs and rape threats, along with mass reports asking YouTube to pull the video as terrorism3. Her Wikipedia entry was vandalized with pornographic images and text, and for a stretch the top Google result for her name read "Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist video blogger and cunt"3.

Coverage from gaming and general tech press flipped the effect the harassers intended. Wired ran a profile framing the attacks as a warning sign for women in gaming, and The Mary Sue published a widely shared piece calling the abuse depressingly familiar and comparing it to earlier incidents involving BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler and the Cross Assault fighting-game controversy12. Support poured in and the Kickstarter closed with 6,968 backers and over $150,000 raised, expanding the plan from 5 videos to 121.

After the funding closed, Sarkeesian announced she would extend the timeline and open the series with an episode on the Damsel in Distress trope, targeting a late fall or early winter 2012 release, a schedule change some critics tried to spin as her failing to deliver6. Gameranx and other outlets pushed back on those attacks and walked through the actual update timeline she had posted to backers6. From that point on, Sarkeesian's name was attached to almost every subsequent flashpoint in the gaming culture wars, well before the term GamerGate existed.

How to Use This Meme

Sarkeesian is a real person rather than a template, so her name mostly appears online in two contexts. Supporters cite her as shorthand for the argument that mainstream games have a sexism problem, often linking directly to the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games episodes on the Feminist Frequency YouTube channel4. Detractors used her name as a rallying tag during the 2012 backlash and later gaming controversies, typically pointing to the Kickstarter or specific tropes videos to argue against her analysis3. The clearest way to engage with her actual work is to watch the original series on feministfrequency.com or her YouTube channel rather than the meme-ified secondhand versions4.

Frequently Asked Questions