Youtuber banned after hilarious murder—of female video game character

red-dawn-redemption-2-female-npcs-feminism

When Shirrako discovered an "annoying" suffragette in Red Dead Redemption 2, he thought it’d be funny to dispatch her in various creative ways and upload the clips to his YouTube channel about gaming. One of the videos showed his character using the cowboy game's lasso to drag her to an alligator stationed outside town, which, it turns out, has a hankering for NPC meat.

The video went viral right away, and that's not always a good thing. Shirrako was now on the radar of self-appointed moral guardians eternally peregrinating the social medias for things to be offended by -- journalists -- and, yes, they pounced.

suffragette-female-npc-killed-rdr2-splc-hate-watch
Cross burnings, killing feminist video game characters -- it's all the same hate. SPLC's Hate Watch.

VICE’s Motherboard vertical was the first to publish an article about the video, which they angled around some of the "horrible" comments left by viewers. "Every time I went to the tailor right there I had to listen to her yapping. Got fed up so I took her to lunch... except the only thing served was buckshot" wrote one viewer. Another opined that you could stretch the alligator feeding into a full AAA game and charge $60 for it.

Speaking to VICE, Shirrako told the journalist:

"I know you're probably expecting some political answer but the truth is it was simply a funny moment from one of my streams which I've decided to upload as a separate video. Not sure if it was intentional by Rockstar Games but the NPC is made to be rather annoying, when you try to shop for clothing in the game, your dialogue with the shop keeper keeps being interrupted by her shouting, so I simply wanted to shop in peace, I'm sure that as a gamer you're familiar with these annoying NPC situations."

He says that most people are aware that the videos were intended in jest, adding that while he didn’t agree with the sexist comments some users were leaving on his video, he didn’t wish to censor them for their views.

VICE's piece, which was otherwise fairly balanced, then ends with a complaint about how video games allow someone like Shirrako to roleplay as an anti-feminist murderer and upload a video of his actions onto YouTube for profit, while providing others with a platform to talk about how much they hate women in real life.

The video also spawned a heap of other, far more outraged articles decrying Shirrako and the popularity of his video. Journalists attacked both the YouTuber and Rockstar Games itself for putting the feminist character in the game and allowing the player to attack her like any other NPC.

The Guardian, the newspaper once described by Elon Musk as “insufferable,” expressed outrage over the video, raising usual tropes about sexism in video games and the gaming industry, dredging up past criticism of Rockstar’s games, and even namedropping Anita Sarkeesian. The Telegraph called the result of the inclusion of the suffragette in the video game “depressingly predictable.” Newshub described the whole thing as “outrage over online trolls sharing videos of suffragettes being brutally murdered in Red Dead Redemption 2.”

And just like that, as tends to happen when ideology driven journalists set about their nasty work, his nearly 500,000 subscriber strong YouTube channel went poof.

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As Shirrako noted on Twitter following his suspension, he'd spent a lot of time killing many other types of characters in his videos, not just the suffragette, and those videos never got flagged. In fact, YouTube is full of far gorier video game murders than his humorous Red Dead Redemption 2 clips.

Then came the victory laps.

COGConnected celebrated the ban, stating it was a “consequence” of the video upload. The politically correct, perpetually-offended author called Shirrako’s videos “terrible decisions” sourcing the social justice gaming forum ResetEra, which was aflame with over 18 pages of complaints over Red Dead Redemption 2 and the YouTuber.

A wild Keem appears

But all was not lost for Shirrako.

At some point the creator of Drama Alert, Keemstar, had caught wind of the fiasco and decided to do something about it. Keem is a major youtuber who has built a deserved reputation for using his connections to make things right when smaller creators get the shaft.

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1060236115632947200

Keem's high metric video appeal elicited a prompt response from YouTube's "Global Head of Gaming," Ryan Wyatt, who reviewed the review and decided that Shirrako's videos should instead be age restricted.

https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1060299241317232640

Shirrako 9 hours ago reported that his channel has indeed been restored and all's well again.

https://twitter.com/ShirrakoGaming/status/1060303328452710401

Until next time.

And will there be a Keemstar next time?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxAO4AaFsnQ

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    • 5 years ago
      f yt

      For every channel saved by keem or someone like him there's thousands of smaller ones without friendos to pull strings

  1. 5 years ago
    Anonymous

    YouTube is a private company as far as I know, they can do whatever they want to the content of their website (except maybe stealing it I guess).

    • 5 years ago
      Every time
      • 5 years ago
        Anonymous

        Yea lets make our own video site without censorship I don't suppose that PayPal will have anything against using their payment system for a competitor to Youtube like that - oh wait - alternative social media sites have been banned from using the PayPal system for political reasons making it practically impossible for sites which don't follow the normal narrative of big tech companies to get funding.

        Down with PayPal.

        • 5 years ago
          Anonymous

          Just in case it isnt obvious I'm talking about collusion of several companies banning the same groups of people for politica, reasons. Personally I don't understand why they think that will make them money. I mean if they ban conservatives and people who aren't rabid SJWs shouldn't they be losing money from that part of their viewership? I guess they all assume most people will be brainwashed with their narrative soon enough. That's why the collusion works. Media, big tech, all push for one viewpoint and if there are no others most people will believe it, it becomes the consensus so they don't lose much money if any.

  2. 5 years ago
    Misogynist gamers

    He tortured her, beat her to death and fed her to crocs just because she had a diffrent political opinion to him. It's psychotic and reflects poorly on youtube so it makes sense why he got banned.

    Stop defending this guy, it's exactly what he wants you to do, he's been b***hing "WAH ITS NOT FAIR" in hopes people start fighting on his behalf even though he broke youtube's rules, anyone that defends him is an idiot and misogynist sympathizer which is in the same sphere roughly as MGTOWs and nazis.

    • 5 years ago
      Anonymous

      It's a fricking video game

    • 5 years ago
      Anonymous

      You sound like a snowflake liberal that likes to complain about everything.

    • 5 years ago
      Warlocc

      He also beat and killed KKK members. Those didn't get him banned.

      Either killing NPCs in a video game is okay or it's not. If it's not, YouTube should take down 98% of their content.

    • 5 years ago
      Anonymous

      Snowflake

    • 5 years ago
      Take a joke

      It's video game and it was a funny joke. Get over it

    • 5 years ago
      Take a joke

      It's video game and it was a funny joke. Get over it

  3. 5 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Kill an NPC
    >Other NPCs are upset
    Why is this surprising

  4. 5 years ago
    Anonymous

    It's not that the character is a woman that I want to murder the shit out of them. Devs need to stop making "annoying voiced yelling character" in hubs. Some excessive, beat the dead horse dead again satirical anti feminism videos are probably the least of most players concerns.

  5. 5 years ago
    lmao

    >gets unbanned
    >immediately goes back to shitposting

    Now he's deporting mexican NPCs

  6. 5 years ago
    anonz0rr0r

    Think about this for a second, a YouTube employee removed him because he felt that this was wrongthink, he personally felt that this was WRONG, PIXELS IN A VIDEOGAME. A VIDEOGAME. That's absolutely insane, no matter what political spectrum you're on.

    How a minority like the dude who banned(PERSONALLY DID IT(read his Twitter)) Shirrako came in to power is beyond me and it seems to be happening at almost every big corporation out there.
    Free speech is the cornerstone of every advanced democracy/society out there. Censoring has never worked and it never will, history has proven this countless times.
    Also, the thing they tried to remove/censor multiplied almost instantly, people started uploading his old videos/uploading their own versions of the "crime". Proving my point, and history. Censorship never works. To you lot in the comment section yelling "omg he's a nazi,
    misogynism!!111". No. Click the x button up top, ignore the videos, don't look at it. Look away. Stop bending over to corporations, don't let them control what you consume. That's dangerous. Censorship never works. Go away. You're all ruining media for us(the majority).
    Grow thicker skin. Censorship does not work. Hatespeech laws are subjective and impossible to define. Grow up.

  7. 5 years ago
    Anonymous

    Seem like the woman was a sexist to me.
    He killed a sexist not a feminist.

    • 5 years ago
      Anonymous

      Some feminists are sexist

  8. 5 years ago
    Take a joke

    It's video game and it was a funny joke. Get over it

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