A Thanks to Doug TenNapel, the Bigot

Earlier this week I noticed a big uptick on visitors to my site. I immediately knew this could only mean one thing: Doug TenNapel must’ve done something stupid.

Last week, a writer for Kotaku did a quick little piece on Earthworm Jim. It was a measured criticism, one that focused on the game’s high points as well as its many failings.  In the end though, she said that the game didn’t hold up all that well. Anyone who has played the game since its original release would probably agree with her.

I’d go one step further and say that the game was nothing more than a stylish piece of shit when it came out in 1994 and has only gotten worse in the following years, but that’s just my personal opinion.

For whatever reason, Doug TenNapel, the animator and game developer who made the game, took offense to her comments and called her out on twitter. Except he misgendered her as a man. The writer is trans, so this was not an accident. He then doubled-down on his bigoted bullshit, spewing a diatribe of nonsense garbage I don’t feel like repeating. You can find it on his twitter, go check it out there if you want. Bring a barf bag.

Anyway, I heard about Doug TenNapel’s recent foray into hateful bullshit, so I suspected my old post about what a piece of shit bigot Doug TenNapel is was the one that was getting hits. And I was right. It has again risen to the most popular post on this site, well outranking the second place article by over a thousand hits.

To be honest, this kind of bummed me out for a bit. And I actually started writing this post to say how I wish that wasn’t my most popular article. I was going to say that I wished more people read my guide to buying records in Japan, or my multi-part YMO guide, my more personal piece about zombie films and dealing with anxiety, my review of a game music DJ show, or my in-depth examination of “scrunge.” I’m kind of proud of those pieces, far prouder than I am of my piece on the bigot Doug TenNapel. This isn’t because my feelings on the bigot Doug TenNapel have changed, but because I don’t think that piece is written very well. It kind of rambles. I guess I do that a lot. I think I’m doing it now.

Where was I?

That’s right, I was bummed about this. I wanted my “better” work to be more popular than a highly critical piece about a piece of shit. But then I noticed something when I checked the message boards where the article was being shared. I was actually changing a few people’s minds. Not many, mind you, a lot of his fellow bigots don’t really give a shit about what I said, but a few people who were on the fence about the bigot Doug TenNapel decided that they had enough of his bigoted bullshit, and that they were finally done with him.

And I’m going to be honest, at a time when I feel like everything I say or do is entirely futile and doesn’t do a damn bit of good, that kind of felt good.

I also like that if you google “Doug TenNapel,” my piece calling him bigot is currently the fifth link that comes up. And I know that the bigot Doug TenNapel doesn’t like that, so that makes me happy.

I know that the bigot Doug TenNapel is reading this, because he’s the insecure kind of bigot who has google alerts set up to tell him whenever someone mentions his name on the internet. Bigots usually want to know when people are calling them out for being a bigot.

So hi Doug! I just wanted to take this time to say thank you. Thank you for making me feel a bit better about myself and my status as a writer. Thanks for giving me hope that people can change (not you, of course, you’re beyond help). Thanks for descending to transphobic bigotry once again so people can be exposed to your bigoted hate, costing you fans. Thanks for doing your part  to make yourself even less relevant than you already were, and thanks for advancing awareness of trans issues.

Now get the fuck out of here you stupid motherfucker. And don’t bother commenting, I got a “no stupid motherfucker” policy in my forums.

Punk ass bigot.