Froskurinn delivered a brutal takedown of gamer bro culture on G4’s X-Play, calling out the objectification of hosts and more.
Indiana "Froskurinn" Black, formerly a League of Legends caster and now one of the main talents at the revived G4, has delivered a brutal takedown of male gamer culture. In it, she criticizes the tendency of guys to note how "hot" hosts are, and the trend of discounting female opinions on video games.
The whole thing is well worth a watch just to hear how passionately she defends these points, but we've taken the liberty of transcribing the whole thing here for your reading pleasure.
"In joining G4, I was ecstatic to be part of something I grew up watching as a child. But every time G4 is brought up in various channels, without a doubt there will be backlash because I'm not as "bangable" as the previous host. It has somehow been expected that you can talk about how much you jerked off to women as a compliment. It's not a compliment, it's dehumanizing, and it's weird. Morgan Webb and Olivia Munn did not exist to be nice on the eyes for you. That's just obvious sexism. You don't need to declare that you hate women to be sexist. Just check out Thorin's meltdown for some cliff notes."
Froskurinn roasts critics of G4's creative process as "gatekeeping" and "sexist"
She went on to defend her and her colleague's reviews on X-Play, as well as G4's creative process.
"Xplay is made by a team of people. There are too many games for one person to shoulder the burden," Froskurrin continued. "So when we use language like we, or I, that's the reviewer. That's coming from the mouth and experience of the person reading the review. That's not to say that any of us don't contribute to the reviews, we absolutely do, but it's in varying degrees. It takes a whole team behind us. That's why we're X-Play and not Adam play. We have controlled for the variables. Adam will read the script from the same writer I read the other half from, but I'll be the one flamed. And yes, that happens to Gerard and TBH, but that doesn't discount the sexism of it when it happens to me."
Objectification isn't right - it's weird
She continued, calling out the various chat channels for vulgar messages about objectification, as well as for the general sentiment of gatekeeping she perceives in the space.
Both things can be true. That there is a general change that isn't Adam, and that I'll receive special flaming. I wish I could turn the camera around and you could see the team that makes X-Play. Half of our staff are women. When you're in our DMs or on YouTube, or in Twitch chat, thinking that I'm somehow ruining your X-Play experience because you can't objectify me like Morgan. Or when you think I don't have the experience to be doing this but can't quite put your finger on why, even though I'm reading the exact same script as Adam - even though he's reading the exact same script. You're letting your unconscious biases ruin my day, and gatekeeping the gaming space."
She closed with perhaps the line that got perhaps the largest nod of agreement from me, and any content creator for that matter:
So maybe, for 2022, we be a bit nicer, a bit more self reflective, and be appreciative that people are making free content for you. Don't like it? Don't watch.
Even after all that, a vocal minority began calling out Froskurinn for perceived mistakes in her reviews. She apologized for that, proving that she's above the haters.
How has the community reacted?
The community has not been shy about its praise of Froskurin's takedown.
Her co-host, Adam Sessler, who spent much of the conversation applauding backed her up on Twitter, too:
What do you think of Froskurinn's run on G4 so far? Let us know on Twitter @esports and keep it locked here to esports.gg for all the latest in gaming and esports news.