FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Games

Where Were You When the Man Who Made ‘Minecraft’ Had a Mansplaining Meltdown?

There goes Notch, he who created a video gaming masterpiece, calling strangers "c*nts" on the internet.

Here's Notch in 'Minecraft.' Possibly. Screen via YouTube

Read: A Chilean Man Tried to Feed Himself to a Bunch of Zoo Lions

I'm just going to let this first tweet do the talking, to start with. Take it in. And then scroll down a little. Take that next one in. And then the one after. Yeah. It all gets kind of shitty, kind of quickly.

Stop — Markus Persson (@notch)May 22, 2016

Which was in response to:

— Markus Persson (@notch)May 21, 2016

And later, led to this:

Advertisement

— Markus Persson (@notch)May 22, 2016

I don't actually know what to say. This is the guy, Markus Persson, who made Minecraft, a video game adored by millions—surely it's millions, probably daily—of kids and adults alike, worldwide. My five-year-old son can't get enough of it. He pesters me on the regular to take time off from work so that we can carve great caverns out of mountains and fill the new space with bookshelves and beds and torches and whatever else there is to basically make the inside of a mountain a little more homely. It will always reward imagination and creativity. It's one of the greatest video games of all time, a sandbox playground of limitless possibility.

And here we have Persson, "Notch" to Twitter and development circles alike, for a long time, calling someone he's almost certainly never met before, someone who, okay, has called him a dick for previous tweets, but all the same there's no need for the c-bomb, right there. Is there? There's not. It's grotesque, likewise his attitude to the very real phenomenon of mansplaining, a persistent barbed-like-a-bastard thorn in the side of women just trying to get through their days, to do their jobs, or be left the fuck alone by creeps of the real world and social media alike.

— Markus Persson (@notch)May 22, 2016

This guy. He really doesn't get it, does he? I mean, I'm a dude, so I guess I should be able to see his argument, in some way? Because, I guess, it's all just patronizing—but it's not, is it? Realistically, it's not the same "the other way," because "the other way," in my experience at least, doesn't really exist.

— Markus Persson (@notch)May 22, 2016

— Markus Persson (@notch)May 22, 2016

Someone, give Notch something to do. Anything. Maybe even a new game to work on. That'd be an idea. Right now, he's bouncing around his mega mansion, bored out of his busy mind, tapping totally bewildering shit into Twitter, presumably to get a rise (oops?). This guy's a member of Mensa. He made Minecraft. He's a smart dude. He's also a billionaire. But his Twitter game here makes him out to be less than a great guy. So, for the sake of the games industry, for the culture that Minecraft is such a massively important part of, and for the sake of simple common sense: someone, anyone, in the Beverly Hills area, pop over and give him 20 bucks to mow your lawn, or invite him away for the week on your luxury yacht. Whatever goes on in that part of the world, anything outside is good. Just keep him away from the internet a while. He's making the place look bad.

Read more articles about video games on VICE, and follow VICE Gaming on Twitter.