VidCon Defends Anita Sarkeesian vs Sargon of Akkad

Controversial feminist social critic Anita Sarkeesian was back in the hot seat after publicly insulting fellow YouTuber Carl Benjamin (a.k.a. Sargon of Akkad) at last week's VidCon convention, but in the end, it looks like she may have come out on top.

Last Thursday, Benjamin sat with several friends in the front row of Sarkeesian's "Women Online" panel at a convention center in Anaheim, California. After spotting him in the audience, Sarkeesian proceeded to call Benjamin a "s**thead" and a "garbage human," claiming that he and other critics constantly make videos at her expense and say "the same s**t over and over again."

Following the incident, the rival factions quickly began to wage war online over what actually occurred at the event, with Sarkeesian’s supporters dismissing Benjamin as a “harasser,” while her critics called for VidCon officials to condemn the panelist's behavior for breaking their official code of conduct.

The next Monday, Sarkeesian ran a follow-up post on her blog Feminist Frequency, which accused Benjamin of profiting off harassing her online and offline. In echoing her sentiment, the feminist pop culture site The Mary Sue reported that Benjamin made a living off “misogynistic and otherwise hateful videos.”

That same day, Benjamin appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, during which he relayed his side of the story, while expressing little surprise to some of his supporters' notion that news media has been rather openly taking Sarkeesian’s side.

As the tension continued to build up on social media, VidCon officials released a statement via Medium, in which they apologized to Sarkeesian for subjecting her “to a hostile environment” and warned against those who would attend the conference to “focus the outrage of their followers on individuals,” a message many believed was intended for Benjamin.

Needless to say, VidCon's press release was met with mixed reactions, with Sarkeesian's supporters welcoming the official response as a victory against online harassment, while YouTube personality Philip DeFranco, who had previously slammed Sarkeesian for equating criticism and debate with “harassment," called out the statement as "ridiculous." Furthermore, others standing behind Benjamin alleged that VidCon officials are biased in favor of Sarkessian, due to her fame and political leanings.

In response to VidCon's press release, Benjamin tweeted that he had not been contacted about the incident from Hank or John Green, the co-founders and organizers of Vidcon, while asserting that the Green brothers took "the abuser's word at face value."

And at the end of this debacle, we are left with one one question: when will these absurd culture wars ever end?