Anita Sarkeesian, host of YouTube channel Feminist Frequency, has recently provided the public with a financial breakdown of the Kickstarter funds for her Tropes vs Women in Video Games campaign. The details are enclosed in the “2014 Feminist Frequency Annual Report,” showing how the $160,000 Kickstarter pledge was divided up and how much money her non-profit raked in for 2014.
While it’s nice to have some degree of transparency interjected into any Kickstarter campaign, these stats do raise some concerns.
Unless, there’s a breakdown of the breakdown still to come, the whole thing still seems a little vague. What were the “Backer Rewards,” and have they been received? Who are the contractors? What is a “Fee” in the context of the breakdown, and why does it not fall under any of the other categories? Why is the “Curriculum and Bonuses” section estimated, and why is this likely to cost $8,000?
Also, many of Sarkeesian’s detractors will be quick to note the “Salary & Wages” segment of the pie chart represents the bulk of the outlay. Of course, such an undertaking would justify payment for the hours devoted to the project, but isn’t $70,000+ worth of expense teetering on the extreme for a simple YouTube series?
With the pie chart showing a full 100 percent allocation of funds, are we to conclude the money has already been spent on those areas? Is this breakdown supposed to show us where the funds have already gone, or where the funds are going (bearing in mind the series is far from complete)? Is the financial security of the series secure?
Although I typically feel that this kind of candor should be lauded, I feel this latest report has actually raised more questions than it has answered.
Sarkeesian also provides a quarterly breakdown of Feminist Frequency’s “2014 revenue.” While the donations received in Q1 to Q3 only amount to just over $44,000, the non-profit received a massive $397,778 in the fourth quarter. This would likely account for the discrepancy between Feminist Frequency’s sizable revenue and its, comparatively smaller, $64,200 expenditure.
According to the financial report, this “unexpected increase in revenue” will allow Sarkeesian and colleagues to allocate additional resources in 2015 to aid in “… expanding Feminist Frequency’s writing and support staff as well as our programming.” It’s difficult to know what this might entail.
Three Episodes Published… Just Nine More to Go
Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter was first launched in 2012, achieving full funding on June of the same year. Described as an investigation into the “… five common and recurring stereotypes of female characters in video games,” Tropes vs Women first started out as a five-part YouTube series. However, due to the unprecedented popularity of the campaign, and with almost $160,000 raised through the crowdfunding website alone, Sarkeesian elected to up the number of videos she was to produce.
For reference, the following is a preliminary list of the 12 video episodes that Sarkeesian was supposed to release:
- Video 1 - Damsel in Distress
- Video 2 - The Fighting F#@k Toy
- Video 3 - The Sexy Sidekick
- Video 4 - The Sexy Villainess
- Video 5 - Background Decoration
- Video 6 - Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress
- Video 7 - Women as Reward
- Video 8 - Mrs. Male Character
- Video 9 - Unattractive Equals Evil
- Video 10 - Man with Boobs
- Video 11 - Positive Female Characters!
- Video 12 - Top 10 Most Common Defenses of Sexism in Games
Nine months after achieving her original Kickstarter, Sarkeesian released the very first video in her Tropes vs Women series. In 2013, the feminist and self-proclaimed “pop culture critic” released a three-part video for her Damsel in Distress episode, along with the single-part episode Ms. Male Character.
Looking at 2014, Sarkeesian went on to produce a two-part video, entitled Women as Background Decoration, which has a total duration of just shy of an hour. No further episodes were released in 2014, however.
Naturally, some of Sarkeesian’s backers have previously enquired as to why it takes so long to construct each video. With her first YouTube episode so long in the making, even some of the Feminist Frequency host’s supporters started to get a little antsy. In discussing the research requirements for the project, Sarkeesian explained that she needed to play over 150 games for her first video alone.
Video Games are Misogynous… But Let Me Just Spend Over Two Years Checking That
Putting aside people’s many and varied complaints about the content (it’s been covered pretty extensively here, and elsewhere), should backers really pay for someone to go away and comb through video game titles for nigh on two and a half years, only to be presented with a handful of 20 to 30-minute-long videos? Simply put, would Sarkeesian’s 6,900+ Kickstarter backers have pledged almost $160,000, if they had been armed with the knowledge that it would take her many years to complete just a fraction of her proposed project.
While it’s admirable that someone would go to such lengths to fully research the topic at hand, this does beg one very obvious question: why critique something that you know so little about? Don’t get me wrong, an outsider can still offer some important insights into the inner workings of a piece of entertainment, including the subtleties of its plot, characters and underlying themes. But when you need to spend years playing “catch up” to bring your flagging knowledge of a given subject up to scratch - desperately researching hundreds of previously unplayed titles, while hooked up to an IV drip of caffeine - then perhaps you’re out of your depth?
It feels like Sarkeesian has prefaced her Kickstarter campaign with the notion that the video games industry, along with the titles it spawns, is entrenched with misogyny and sexism, only to then turn around and say, “Gee, now I guess I better actually play these hundreds of video games that I’ve been labeling.”
#GamerGate, Anita Sarkeesian and Video Game Journalism: It’s Time For Change
If someone were to launch a publicly funded campaign designed to explore the various tropes in the movie industry, one wouldn’t then imagine its inceptor to expect financial backing for viewing hundreds of previously unseen movies, all year round; you would expect him/her to already possess a fundamental understanding of the medium they wish to dissect. At the same time, it would seem even more ludicrous for that same critic to use five percent of their $160,000 Kickstarter ($8,000) to pay for a movie collection and a high-def television. Surely any movie buff worth their salt would already have access to these basic resources? If not, what has this critic been watching his/her movies on?
So, What Really Happened in 2014?
As part of the 2014 Feminist Frequency Annual Report, Sarkeesian lists this year’s achievements as follows:
- Released two episodes in our ongoing Tropes vs Women in Video Games series addressing the topic of Women as Background Decoration
- Released the video “Playing with Privilege: 25 Invisible Benefits of Gaming While Male”
- Received Game Developer’s Choice Ambassador Award – March 19, 2014
- Nominated for Microsoft’s 2014 Women in Games Ambassador Award – March 20, 2014
- Wrote “Anita Sarkeesian on Video Games’ Great Future” – New York Times Op-Ed – Oct 28, 2014
- Wrote “Five Feminist Moments in the History of Video Games” – Matter, The New York Review of Video Games – Dec 17, 2014
- Focused on advocacy efforts regarding online harassment including consulting with tech and social media companies to improve their platforms and participating in a task force working on short- and long-term strategies to end digital abuse
- Mentored a Women in Tech public speaking workshop
- Presented and lectured on topics of online harassment and women’s representations in games at five universities and three conferences
- Twenty media appearances and interviews
Alas, just one out of 10 of these goals directly relates to her unfinished Tropes vs. Women series. The majority of the remaining points refer to the perpetual media circus that seems to enshroud Sarkeesian’s controversial material.
Instead of knuckling down and focusing of completing Tropes vs. Women in a timely manner, it appears much of Sarkeesian’s waking hours have been devoted to writing NY Times op-eds, collecting awards and making media appearances. And with each new interview she undertakes, she deviates further and further from her original purpose.
Making reference to Sarkeesian’s “incredibly low output,” Forbes’ Erik Kain summed up the situation quite nicely: “More than anything, these stats show that Sarkeesian has become a media talking head rather than a YouTube personality—her 20 media appearances in 2014 dwarf all other stats provided.”
Looking Ahead to 2015 - The Year of the Merchandise
Sarkeesian also gives us a glimpse of what’s in store for 2015. Despite there appearing almost no end in sight to the Tropes vs Women series, the feminist critic already has new plans afoot. While she aims to “continue” producing Tropes vs. Women episodes, Sarkeesian also intends to look at “representations of men and masculinity in video games,” and begin a new mini-series that explores some of the more positive female characters in the video games industry.
Adding to this, she will also recruit new staff members, expand her role in education and consultation on gender-centric online harassment, rebrand her website (replete with a new logo) and create “Feminist Frequency” merchandise.
So, while there are strong odds that Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter followers won’t see the remaining nine episodes of Tropes vs Women any time soon, at least they’ll have a nice Feminist Frequency mug with which they can drown their sorrows.
The question remains: when is a $160,000 Kickstarter campaign not enough? Well, when you’ve got dozens of other lucrative offers on the table - and with people willing to give you a lump sum of $160,000, no questions asked, for a dozen YouTube videos - you do the math. Anita clearly has.