Sexist Fuckwittery

Felicia Day, Geek Goddess

Oh, Ryan Perez...you asshat! What ever prompted you to go on your Twitter rampage against actress, gamer and self-described "new media geek" Felicia Day? The now-fired blogger says he was just acting "drunk and stupid." Is this another example of how easy it is for gamers to bond over misogyny?

"Does Felicia Day matter at all?" Destructoid contributor Ryan Perez tweeted to no one in particular last Friday night. "I mean does she actually contribute anything useful to this industry, besides retaining a geek persona?" Then, he tweeted directly to Day: "Could you be considered nothing more than a glorified booth babe? You don't seem to add anything creative to the medium."

Wil Wheaton, who has way more than a million fans following him on Twitter responded with this in her defense.

 "I have fucking had it with idiot asshole men being shitbags to @feliciaday because they're threatened by her creativity and success," Wheaton tweeted. "I'm sick of idiot men giving *any* woman grief in gamer and geek culture. Enough already, we're better than that."

Felicia is a real geek and has a successful career, they're not mutually exclusive. You can find ample proof of her geekiness all over the interwebs, it's not even debatable. She's more of geek than most people who use the moniker. The only reason anyone even brings that into question is because she's a girl. Otherwise they'd just be like, well, I'm not into her work but she's clearly "one of us".

He didn't just call her a poser, he called her a "glorified booth babe" and wondered about whether she contributed anything to gaming at all. The Guild, Geek & Sundry, The Legend of Neil and a whole lot of other things shows her contributions to geekdom in general, and gaming culture specifically.

While it is absolutely ok to call someone out as being a poser. That's not what Perez did. He criticized her for being female, he used specifically gendered insults. That's why he is an asshat. Calling her a "booth babe" dismisses her contributions and reduces her to a sex object. She's a great writer and legit gamer that happens to be a girl.

Pretty damn misogynistic.