As near as I can tell, Honey Badger Brigade is a trio of pro-Gamergate MRA women who produce execrable podcasts railing against phantasms of feminism and asking buhhhh what about men’s rights?? and other such balderdash. They’re big with literal hate site A Voice For Men, for which one of the Honey Badgers (please don’t make me type those words again) has written.
Anyone who has had any interaction with MRAs or Gamergate people understands that they’re disingenuous, raving paranoiacs who are best ignored
in the hopes they’ll tucker themselves out from yelling about women in video game’s. They’re not the types you’d want around an event called the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, a convention with a muscular sexual harassment and abuse policy that’s the first item on their FAQs. So if the H____ B_____s wanted to attend Calgary Expo to spread their message of blarggghhhh they needed to employ a little sleight of hand, as The Mary Sue reports:
However, Honey Badger Radio did not use their website to apply for vendor/exhibitor status. The “Honey Badger Brigade” on the Calgary Expo website links to a webcomic site (run by Honey Badger Tieman) instead. If you didn’t think all of this was enough to warrant expulsion from the convention (it is), there’s more.
The H____ B_____s managed to not only secure a booth but raise nearly $10,000 in a homegrown crowdfunding campaign in order to do something no less innocent than:
We plan to infiltrate nerd culture cunningly disguised as their own. Each of us has been carefully crafting a persona of nerdiness through decades of dedication to comics, science fiction, fantasy, comedy games and other geekery, waiting for this moment, our moment to slip among the unaware. Once there we will start distributing the totalitarian message that nerd and gamer culture is… perfectly wonderful just as it is and should be left alone to go it’s own way.
That’s it folks.
As men’s issues advocates and defenders of creator’s rights to create unmolested, that’s what we have to say to the nerds and geeks and gamers. You are fantastic as you are, carry on.
Why, that sounds perfectly reasonable and ap
olitical. Sounds like these folks just wanted to attend the con to spread a message of “keep it up!” and “you’re doing great” to the gamer’s and nerd’s. That must be why 200 MRAs opened their wallets to send people who have spent years blogging about false rape epidemics and spermjacking or whatever to a comic con: positive reinforcement. So what did the H____ B_____s do when they got there? From The Mary Sue again:
Panelist Brittney Le Blanc gave us this account of the events that transpired:
We were about fifteen minut
es into the panel when a woman in the second row stood up and identified herself as a Men’s Rights Activist. She and her male companion both came to raise issues they felt would not be covered by our panel. Raising points about the way men are portrayed in comics struck a note with all the panelists, as we agreed that we want to see a diversity across body types, characters, races, etc in mainstream comics. Not everyone wants to see a hero who looks like he’s built like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. They also accused us of presenting all women as victims, which was an outright lie and derailing tactic.
Their questions did take up quite a bit of time at the panel and served to derail the topic onto another tangent, which was frustrating for the panel and for those in the audience. It’s what they came to do, and in part, they succeeded. I would say that it brought up some great discussions though, allowing us to talk
about the lack of representation for people of colour in comics and to give well deserved props to artists like Sophie Campbell, who has done an amazing job in showcasing a broad range of bodies with her art in Jem and the Holograms.
It’s disappointing that they weren’t there to have a conversation or to listen to what we, and members of the audience, were saying. They wanted to stand up and have their say, but not to listen or try to understand the points of view other people in the room had. This was further proven by the video discussion they posted later last night, in which they mentioned our panel and that we were “donning the ball gowns of our victimhood”, which I’m not even entirely sure how to take. I will admit to not watching the whole video, and I think anyone who attempts to watch it would understand why.
Ahhhhhh yeah, that’s the shit. On Day 2 of the event, the H_
____ B______s were kicked out by Expo organizers. The best part? According to the exhibitor package, “No refund shall be given to exhibitors who are removed
from the show.”
$9,300 down the tubes. Ethic’s in video game journalism. Men’s rights. Your crowdfunder sucks.
Honey Badger Brigade: Stand up to censorship!
