Anita Sarkeesian runs a blog called Feminist Frequency and a long running, fascinating webseries of the same name where she examines the ways in which media and most often modern popular culture subtly and not-so-subtly support and perpetuate misogynistic ideas. I love her videos not because I necessarily agree with everything she’s ever said ever (you know, because we are not a single consciousness) but because when I do disagree with her, her detailed approach prompts me to calmly, privately examine why. This is not the case for 100% of human beings, however, and when she began a Kickstarter campaign to gain the means to expand her series to cover video games, it became the go-to example of overblown, vicious, flailing hate directed at a woman by self-identified members of the video game community. The net result of the harassment campaign (in numbers anyway, which is not to discount important qualitative things like personal peace of mind, or the outside perception of the video gamer community) was to encourage others to fund her campaign more than twenty-six times over what she’d initially asked for.

Naturally, the first video in her series is great: slickly edited, reaching back to Greek myths and forward to modern remakes of classic games, and she opens it with an idea that we here at The Mary Sue are all to familiar with: “Remember that it’s both possible and even necessary to simultaneously enjoy media while being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.”

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We’ve had quite the year here at The Mary Sue. Looking back on it now, we can say without any snarkiness, it was a great one. Part of that has to do with all of you, the folks who visit our site daily to participate in (usually) engaging conversations. When we post an article, we hope it garners discussion, even if that discussion is about how much Peter Jackson must have spent on shampoo for The Hobbit or how hilarious tap dancing zombies are. Some posts never get any comments (and how sad they must be) but others take on a life of their own when a particular topic gets readers talking whether the topic was controversial or not. We like it when things remain civil and do our best to step in when they don’t, but it’s always interesting to see different perspectives. Here now are our Top 10 Most Talked About Stories of 2012 on The Mary Sue.

Hey, we all have chores to do. (Jim Mossey via Ashley Hay)

Featuring Legolas and Bard. I hope I don’t have to explain which one is which. The side effects of filming things simultaneously, ladies and gentlemen. (Blastr)

Of course Bruce “My parents are dead!” Wayne would be a fan of Charles Dickens. Of course. (The Spectator, via The Beat)

Just in case you were wondering. Comic Book Movie has a few more shots from on set of The Wolverine.

Everyone on the Internet is mean. Seriously, every single person who has ever booted up a computer is a total jerk, and that is the only plausible explanation for the vitriol of YouTube users, the violent comments hurled at feminist pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian, and just the general garbage spewed on Twitter all of the time. At least, that would be the easy explanation behind our culture’s predisposition to online flame wars. As it turns out, the answer to what makes us all so mean on the Internet, and what to do about it, is fairly nuanced, and a difficult problem to fix.

We all know that the response to Anita Sarkeesian‘s online harassment over her Kickstarter campaign has been supportive, but sometimes, it’s just great to see someone say those words out loud and make some goshdamn sense for once. That is what Jay Smooth (aka John Randolph) did in his most recent installment of Ill Doctrine, his video blog. And we think it’s a reassuring and positive way to end a week of otherwise gnarly internet behavior — with someone with something good to say.

(via Ill Doctrine on Vimeo)

Over the past week, Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency has been subject to some truly vicious harassment, the kind that only the internet can deliver. Sarkeesian is currently running a Kickstarter project to fund a new video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. The associated YouTube video has been flooded with thousands of hateful comments, a sampling of which can be found on the Feminist Frequency website (warning: graphic language).

Whether or not you like Sarkeesian’s work is utterly moot. You might disagree with some of her points. You might disagree with all of her points. You might even vehemently disagree. That’s not the issue here. The issue lies in this: A woman declared her intent to publicly voice her opinions about video games. For that, she was called a bitch, a whore, a slut, a cunt, a dyke, and a baffling assortment of racial slurs. She was threatened with violence, rape, and death. She was told to shut her mouth, get back in the kitchen, and die of cancer. Her video was repeatedly flagged for terrorism in an effort to get YouTube to pull it. Her Wikipedia page was defaced with pornography and profanity. All for the crime of being a woman talking about women in video games. No, not for being a woman talking about video games. For being a woman who had announced that she would, at some point in the future, be talking about video games.

Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency as usual, says many intelligent things, this time about how changing the perspective of The Hunger Games (from first person in the book to third in the movie) and the way that the story is presented an consumed (from private reading to public viewing) changed certain aspects of the experience, and even in some cases the meaning of the story as a whole.

Kind of what you’d expect from a story that plays with themes of exploitation in entertainment. In the beginning of the video she mentions another video just about The Hunger Games as a book. You’ll find it embedded below.