In a nutshell: "Hey Baby!" is a game - maybe more of an art project, really - in which you play a woman who walks down a public street and receives unwelcome attention in the form of catcalls.  (Nothing unusual there, I'm afraid.)  You then retaliate by opening fire, and killing them.  

I'm sure you will not be surprised to learn that this has stirred up a lot of controversy online.  The usual sort of name-calling, forced disbelief, and huffy setting up of straw men that you see in pretty much any kind of online controversy.

I won't retread all that for you.  Mefi user empath has put together a good collection of links which covers it; be sure to read the comments on those linked blog posts, as they will make you lose the will to live.  Or avoid reading the comments, for exactly that reason.

I think we can all agree that killing people is wrong.  There is a certain category of people who believe that encouraging people to kill video game people is wrong (the Concerned Mothers).  There is also a category of people who believe that it is okay to encourage people to kill video game people (the Gamers).  

An interesting quirk of this situation is that it is inspiring many Gamers to act like Concerned Mothers, with no apparent self-awareness about how odd this is.  Isn't it somewhat hypocritical to decry "Hey Baby!" if you spend all your spare time killing Nazis with long-range sniper fire, or driving your car over prostitutes to get your money back?  Tell me the difference please.

The fundamental problem with "Hey Baby!" is that you enact your revenge by doing something inarguably wrong: killing your harasser.  This is a pretty standard off-the-rack revenge fantasy video game, and those always leave a sour taste behind.  

A better, more subtle, and arguably more effective project on the same themes is Hollaback.  In a way, Hollaback is the "Hey Baby!" for grown-ups.  Hollaback began as a blog in 2005, for women to snap pictures of their street harassers and upload them with some explanation.  This not only publicly shames the harassers, it also helps to publicize the fact (and quantity) of street harassment.

A lot of men assume that street harassment is not a common problem, because they don't see it happening.  This assumption is understandable, if silly.  Blogs like Hollaback can go at least some distance towards popping that insular bubble of male privilege.

Hollaback is now in the process of coming out as an easy and convenient iPhone app, which is frankly just awesome.  Now instead of having to wait until you get home, logging into the blog, posting your story, etc, you can upload your harasser to the centralized website with a few taps of your iPhone.

Emily May, who started the Hollaback blog and is now the executive director of Hollaback as an organization, feels strongly that the only way to end street harassment is to remove the culture of shame that exists around street harassment.  If you want to give her a hand, you can donate to the Hollaback project through their Kickstarter account.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Subspace