It was late at night, and Darim’s animation studio had just finished designing a new look for a character in one of South Korea’s most popular video games, MapleStory.
Darim was proud of her work. So, sitting alone on the floor of her small studio apartment, she posted the trailer on social media. Almost immediately, she was flooded with thousands of abusive messages, including death and rape threats.
Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.
They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.
It was only when Minsung traded video games for playing real-life games, including Dungeons and Dragons, that he met women, and his views shifted. He became, in his words, an “ardent feminist”.
Tabletop gaming has really come a long way since the early days.
Any actual human interaction with women is going to be helpful to an incel.
I bet he would have taken positive changes from a badminton club if it meant talking to women in the real world.
A video that goes into insane depth into the cultural context in Korea that’s behind this. This video is a part 2 and I do recommend the part 1 (which is a full hour shorter than part 2) as well. But part 2 is the one that deals specifically with this gesture.
It will probably not surprise anyone here to learn that it’s a little more complicated than
a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago
So focused on a single frame of something so small… They really do tell on themselves, don’t they.
