An Open Letter To Russ Pitts

To Russ Pitts, Editor in Chief of The Escapist,

Jim Sterling is a cunt.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. In the last year, The Escapist has made some commendable strides to acknowledging popular culture, and especially video games, as important topics worthy of serious discussion. There was nothing to suggest that you would then hire on a woman-hating manchild with nothing of value to say to fill a hole in your programming lineup.

And then the magazine you work for gave Jim Sterling a show. Despite the fact that he does precisely dick to back up his hateful opinions. Even though he doesn't realize that if you fucking swear too goddamned much, then it's not fucking funny or edgy or controversial, it's just shitfuckdickcuntpeniscunt. Even though he tries to hide zealous bigotry behind "edginess", on a website that already has Ben Croshaw. Even though he has absolutely no understanding on how to record or film a 3-minute segment, without repeating the same "FIRE HOT" so-obvious-it's-stupid statements over and over. Even in light of a good 90% of the comments he gets in the Escapist forums being hate mail. The amount of people who think he is a worthless, shallow, ego maniacal misogynist with nothing to offer The Escapist outweighs any imagined benefit he might bring.




Was this your responsibility? Did you decide this man, who has openly said some of the most foul slurs against women imaginable, should be payed and rewarded with an audience? Was it your idea to plaster an advertisement border featuring this abomination around the videos of other Escapist alumni, even those who aren't cunts? Are you completely without moral conviction, or even common sense? Do you hate the female percentage of your audience enough to support this man's crusade against half of the Earth's population? Giving him an audience is going to cause more damage than letting Brett Michaels practice gynecology.

Have you ever actually sat down and watched "Jimquisition"? I mean, really focused on what he was saying, and how he was saying it? There are photos of war-time atrocities easier to watch than Sterling. Was this cunt really the best you could find to fill up a few minutes? If so, look harder. Because this isn't some amateur Youtube channel. You are not the Editor in Chief of some rag in the magazine bin at 7-11. You manage The Fucking Escapist. You go on and on about priding yourself in standards and ethics, and you campaigned extensively for your website to win a "Best Lifestyle award" from The Webbies. Is the "Lifestyle" in question the one where a big, fat cunt wastes 3 minutes of my time with sexism and bad doodles of MSPaint dicks?

Is this the impression you want those outside of gaming culture, in the larger media to have about those who work at and follow your business? That video gamers are unkempt, childish AND bad at having opinions? Doesn't the video game industry do enough of that for us already? I'm pretty sure I've heard Epic's Mark Rein can't get an erection without slapping a woman with a shotgun.

This, from the same website that gives us "Extra Credits"? The most recent episode of EC as of this writing had James Portnow giving advice to teachers all around the world on how to make education more rewarding and fun for kids. Jim Sterling spent his precious screen-time ranting about dick wolves. That may have actually set back education systems even more. This is pathetic even from the people who commissioned a show about a girl with big breasts counting down from five. I forget if those videos even have sound.

Even "Game Dogs" wasn't this pretentious and evil! I showed an episode of Game Dogs to a small child, and now he can't make the voices stop unless he kills a stray. Even the barking demons in Timmy's soul think Jimquisition is awful.


Jim Sterling is a cunt. This isn't because I may disagree with him on certain issues in video games he has blathered about in the past. This goes far beyond whether or not I think movies are unlike games. This is about a man whose 1950's view on women are being encouraged and highlighted in the year 2011, by a magazine that fucking knows better by now. You know better, because you haven't let go of Arendt and Portnow, or Shamus Young or Bob Chipman, or the dozens of other contributors who didn't hate their fans.

I don't know who is in charge of hiring at The Escapist. I have no comprehension of your authority, Mr. Pitts. All I know is that you have more clout there than any of the faces in the videos on display there, or any of the columns that go up. Maybe you answer to a higher power I'm not aware of, and which isn't made clear anywhere I could see on the main website. Maybe I'm giving you too much credit(and the Game of the Decade nominees show you can never have too little credit).

And hey, don't let me tell you what to do. If you want the outside world to view all video gamers as entitled, obese, bigoted cunts, then Godspeed. If you want people to think The Escapist is about the objectification of women, the hostility of women as human beings and the death of intelligent discourse, by all means stay the course. But do me a favour would you? The next time you have the opportunity, could you ask Susan Arendt (senior editor at The Escapist) how she feels about being on the same payroll as a man who suggested, with a straight face that, feminists upset about the game "Fat Princess"(or at least the ones who called him out for it), are no different from the nazis who enacted the final solution?


Better yet, how do YOU feel about Jim Sterling? Are you as upset as everyone else who lost precious seconds to this scumbag's assault on decency? Are you okay with Jim Sterling? If that's the case, then you might just be the biggest cunt of all. Which... I guess, means I owe Yahtzee an apology on that one.

Cuntcerely,

~Alex Hill