Jed Whitaker

His article "’We want more female heroes and less sex objects,’ say teenage boys" quotes a discredited survey. The survey’s numerous flaws include: no peer review, very loaded questions, and being taken exclusively over social media with no way to check if the sample truly consisted of the projected demographic of teens (who couldn’t take the survey without adult consent anyway). The survey’s author, too, partially backpedaled on it and admitted it had no claim of academic legitimacy, its only goal having been to start a discussion. Unlike others reporting on the survey, Whitaker at least describes the survey as exploratory.

Participated in manufacturing the Fire Emblem: Fates scandal, claiming in an article that the game featured the “gay conversion” of a lesbian character, via a magic potion. Not only is the translation that he took as a source completely inaccurate, but the character in question only has male romantic supports, as opposed to the two actually bisexual characters in the game, which, together with the rest of the plot, clearly shows the character is not gay, instead following different Japanese tropes —and the same character archetype of a male character in the previous Fire Emblem, who faces the same issues, with his relationships mostly dealing with his problem, including one attempting to solve it with magic. Despite stating that he was not advocating for the scene’s removal, Whitaker reacted with delight when, following this scandal he contributed to creating, the scene was censored—with further, heavier censorship following soon after.