Is Reddit nothing more than a collection of rape jokes and pedophilia apologias?
Nope! As the totally scientific chart above shows, it also contains: generalized misogyny, racism, atheist dickbaggery, and last but not least: lots of pics hosted on imgur!
Here, some recent data, most of which I have borrowed from ShitRedditSays. I’ve put the number of upvotes for each post in brackets, when relevant.
Rape jokes:
Guys, you’re not making enough rape jokes! [+856]
“I’d fuck her until the neighbours complained about the smell.” [+250] [Bonus points: Also a murder and necrophilia joke!]
Rape clock [+36]
Redditors mock a rape victim! [Assorted upvoted posts]
Pedophilia apologia:
Admitted pedo and child porn fancier compares himself with Gandhi [+83]
More goodness (by which I mean badness) from that thread, courtesy of SRS.
Oh noes! Evil anti-pedos threaten free pedo speech! [+25]
He’s been shamed into deleting it by you. Are you happy now? For the record, mattperrin said “Why does she have to be 18? So she can be in porn? Very very few girls enter porn, and if you’re just talking about being sexually aroused by her, that’s okay for anyone 13+”.
Pedo joke … perfection! [+100]
General Misogyny (and creepiness):
Ha Ha! Girls can’t work cameras! [+636]
Girls only like thugs and they’re all dumb and why oh why won’t they go out with a nice guy like me? Did I mention I hate women? [+assorted massive upvotes]
Help me prove to this guy feminism is no longer needed. (Please do not use profanity and words like “cunt” though.) [This whole discussion is sort of delicious; our pal ThingsAreBad, aka JeremiahMRA, pops in to argue that feminism was never needed because everything was peachy back when women couldn't vote.]
I’d fuck her right into a broken hip. [+588] [Referencing Helen Mirren.]
Racism:
“I just had sex with my first black guy, and believe me it’s true what they say…he stole my t.v.” [+477]
“No no no, that will just attract more rapists.” [+70] [BONUS POINT: Is also a rape joke!]
Atheist douchebags:
Reddit Makes Me Hate Atheists, by Rebecca Watson. As you’ll notice, her examples from r/atheism contain many massively upvoted rape and pedophilia jokes, not to mention lots more generalized misogynistic douchebaggery. The circle is complete!
But generally speaking you can pick almost any random highly upvoted post here for endless more examples of what makes even atheist activists hate Reddit atheists.
Which have helped to inspire this meme.
Pics on Imgur:
Top posts on (my) Reddit at the moment:
Then again, random pics of cute dogs and squirrel-riding frogs are certainly preferable to more angry racist rapey hatey pedo-justifying crap. So, yay imgur, I guess? (At least when it’s not being used to post still more angry racist rapey hatey pedo-justifying crap.)
Posted on December 28, 2011, in antifeminism, creepy, disgusting women, douchebaggery, evil women, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, nice guys, oppressed men, pedophiles oh sorry ephebophiles, penises, racism, rape, rapey, reactionary bullshit, reddit, that's not funny!, thug-lovers. Bookmark the permalink. 390 Comments.
Yes.
Well, okay, sometimes there are other things.
And you gotta love the mentality that says rape, murder, and pedophilia jokes are okay, but don’t go around saying they’re not funny because if you do, somebody else might not be having a good time.
Yeah. I’m atheist and can assure everyone that misogyny is alive and well in the atheist community. But when you point it out to them, all it does is to allow the mansplainers and the evo-psych apologists to go to town.
What happened to Rebecca Watson over the whole elevator-gate bullshit is a prime example. Like her, I grew to despise a lot about the atheist community.
At least the theists are open about their misogyny and point to a book of fables for its justification. What do the atheists do? Essentially “Yeah, sexism will always exist. It’s nature. Surely as a freethinking woman, you understand this. But just in case you don’t, let me explain it to you…[mansplain mansplain mansplain]“
That the 15yr old is considering pulling her entire post makes me sad. Hostile environment wins again.
Jeremiah is TAB? Spreading his message of joy everywhere… women *never* needed feminism and rights?
reddit sounds like such an awful place. why does anyone go there?
To counter the “argument” convicted child rapist, it is not illegal to be a pedophile. It is just illegal to act on it. Nobody has to know that you like children if you don’t act on it.
I don’t even understand the guys who made fun of the girl for showing a picture of her face beside a book. WTF? They were like “Whoa, she’s showing off having a face. How dare she!”. Then Watson showed how there are plenty of pictures there where men are photographed with books, but nobody made a big deal out of it. This is a good example of othering women. When there is a picture of a man with a book, it’s simply a person with a book. When there is a picture of a girl or woman with a book, all of the emphasis is on her gender. She’s not seen as just another person with a book.
Finally, there is no winning for girls and women who have pictures on the Internet. If misogynists think she is attractive, they’ll accuse her of fishing for compliments and attention. If they don’t find her attractive, they will spend all of their time criticizing her looks rather than actually listening to what she says. Either way, she will be judged by her picture and not her thoughts and words.
I’m loving the Scumbag Privilege Denying rAtheism meme.
erm, he’s self-righteous about it, and ‘pandering’ is obviously a stupid word to use, but on a certain level, he is right. as a nation focus too much on criminalizing pedophilia and showing ‘appropriate moral’ outrage after the fact, and not enough on prevention, including appropriate treatment for pedophiles.
Nice try, but Gandhi had the decency to wait until his nieces were 18 before he slept between them naked.
I … do not understand reddit.
Our nation could do a lot more when it comes to prevention, including help those who may have inappropriate urges. Perhaps better counseling for those who have such urges if that might prevent criminal behavior.
But my point was merely to say that people who have such urges do not have to act on them and if they do not they will be treated well by society.
I shouldn’t have said “convicted pedo.” He’s a self-admitted pedo who turned himself in for using child porn. I’ve fixed it.
@Lady Zombie, it’s made it’s way into being a meme? PZ wept!
“And you gotta love the mentality that says rape, murder, and pedophilia jokes are okay, but don’t go around saying they’re not funny because if you do, somebody else might not be having a good time.”
And then they claim that it’s the other people who are just too sensitive. Yep.
I like the guy (Fontaine) who says, “She can participate (about the young woman Skepchick was talking about) if she stops being obviously female on the internet”, and then gets upset when people tell him he’s supporting misogyny.
Then someone else comes in to say that people need to stop looking at the context of that statement, and just the exact words; then they will see that Fontaine is being completely reasonable, and all the people who are saying he’s not can just shut up now.
My respect for Rebecca Watson grows with every post of hers that I read, considering all the shit she puts up with and all the idiots her posts must inevitably attract.
The only part of Reddit I’ve ever been near is Shit Reddit Says, and I think I’ll keep it that way.
Reddit has to be one of the worst communities I’ve ever come across. At least groups like the folks at 4chan have the self awareness to realize that they’re acting scummy. Reddit is full of assholes who think that they’re the next level of intelligence and enlightenment while spouting bullshit, like comparing pedophiles to Ghandi, and blaming all their personal faults on imaginary evo-psych “science” that they pull out of their own asses. It’s no difference that claiming “the devil makes me do it”.
And /b/ does not take kindly to pedophiles at all.
Me too! SallyStrange, take a bow… she’s one of PZ’s Pharyngula horde, and has been kicking butt awesomely over on the threads on Skepchick and Pandagon about this.
On mobile, so I have to be brief, but I really think we need to identify Pervsplainin’ as a subcategory of Mansplainin’ to cover all the apologetics and “Of course it’s wrong to harass young girls, but here’s why it happens and is basically inevitable “(Often adding: Unless you want CENSORSHIP, and/or the removal of MEN’S SEXUALITY!”)
Also the people claiming her “Bracin mah anus” comment was her seductively wiggling her butt in front of Reddit are very special.
i saw that, and my first thought was ‘oh god, she has no idea how bad it’s about to get, does she?’
and then it got terrible
I read it and thought “She’s 15. Adolescent girls (and boys) tend to say shit like that.”
But apparently that makes it okay for (presumably) adults to make rape and pedo jokes and waxing philosophic about her “holes” because hey, 1) it’s the internet, and 2) she brought it on herself for being, you know, a girl who didn’t hide her gender in an e-burka.
Or something.
Xanthe:
I was sneaking glances at the thread while at work and I want to +1 the hell out of everything SallyStrange said in it!
I posted the Skepchick article on my FB and not minutes later I got a friend going “OMG someone’s a dick on the internet?” snarky responses. I feel like such a wuss for being to wound up to verbally smack him for that, but points to everyone on that thread willing to keep at it.
Niki,
I am so sick of the “It’s the Internet, what do you expect?” meme that all of these douchebags keep coming out with: they can all leave the human race and go off somewhere else as far as I am concerned. Kepler 22 is 500 light years away, that’s plenty far enough for me.
They are defending and excusing sexual harassment and rape threats against a 15 year old. For fuck’s sake.
Oh, and about 1500 comments so far on this r/atheism reaction thread: A Response to “Reddit Makes Me Hate Atheists”. The reaction? Amidst the predictable gendered slurs starting with the letters b, c, and t, also rape and assault threats (I’m sure the redditors will claim they are just ‘jokes’) against Rebecca.
One of the freethoughtblogs.com bloggers, Al Stefanelli, started his own thread, The Evisceration of Rebecca Watson, but that one ain’t so popular. Hmm, I wonder why?
*despairs at humanity*
Evolution went wrong somewhere…
Hehehehe! These are mine.
And now, the r/ShitRedditSays thread about the previous reddit threads… is this an infinite regression of enclosed dolls or something? o_O
in case i wasn’t clear, that was part of my reaction. like, i didn’t think she got how people who should have known better were going to take that as a free pass to go fucking wild.
@Sharculese I understood you!
Yeah, it was disgusting. A lot of the excuses being offered up now essentially boil down to “But…but…but…she started it when she mentioned her anus. OPEN SEASON!”
How about, hey, she’s just a kid. How ’bout you all act like the rational adults you supposedly are? Why not leave supportive comments like “Demon Haunted World rocked. You’ll enjoy it!” or “It’s cool your religious mom is open minded enough to get you that.”
But no. That’s apparently too much to ask when there’s a 15 year old girl to creep out with rape jokes.
How about, hey, she’s just a kid. How ’bout you all act like the rational adults you supposedly are? Why not leave supportive comments like “Demon Haunted World rocked. You’ll enjoy it!” or “It’s cool your religious mom is open minded enough to get you that.”
But no. That’s apparently too much to ask when there’s a 15 year old girl to creep out with rape jokes.
…
Well, duh. You can’t expect red-blooded men to talk about atheism or anythign with this girl. If she wanted THAT, she wouldn’t have shown up, all FEMALE. Serious wimmen talk serious and don’t advertise their wimmenness! And besides, her being interested in the book is part of what makes her hawt… so it’s not like they don’t respect her! Really! The idea of a female that shares some of your interests instead of being like the other stupid females while still beign HAWT makes them even hotter, so it’s the ULTIMATE compliment. They’re perving on you because of your mind, which is so rare combined with young boobs!
This is the best/splainingist/creepiest comment ever, btw –
NukeThePope (_) 70 points 2 days ago* (226|164)
Allow us old men the small luxury of fawning over you. It’s really… exciting when a (presumably) clever and friendly mind comes in such a pretty package. You are the girlfriend most of us would love to have.
It’s not that we don’t take you seriously as an atheist/scientist/whatever. It’s that people who are knowledgeable about this stuff are a dime a dozen but people who are both knowledgeable and hot looking are much rarer.
Meanwhile, while everybody’s (figuratively) climbing all over you, is your mother already doing anything tonight??
We take you seriously, baby! So serious! (presumably clever you!)
Oh, but don’t worry, he EDITED –
EDIT: To the horde of assholes who choose to be offended at this comment, please take note: At the time I wrote this it wasn’t yet known that she’s 15. I’d guessed her to be between 17 and 21. No, I don’t want a 15 year old girlfriend, and my own personal standards of “young girl” are meanwhile at age 30. But I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that many Redditors, if she turned out to be legal, would be only too happy to have a pretty girlfriend like her. If you have a problem with that statement, then fuck you.
….
You tell ‘em, nuke the pope!
And seriously, Demon Haunted World really does rock.
And of course, our anger should be directed at MUSLIM MEN INSTEAD!
EDIT: To the horde of assholes who choose to be offended at this comment, please take note: At the time I wrote this it wasn’t yet known that she’s 15. I’d guessed her to be between 17 and 21. No, I don’t want a 15 year old girlfriend, and my own personal standards of “young girl” are meanwhile at age 30. But I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that many Redditors, if she turned out to be legal, would be only too happy to have a pretty girlfriend like her. If you have a problem with that statement, then fuck you.
well, since he didn’t know she was 15 at first, all his bullshit and being a creep is perfectly okay!
No, wait, not it’s not!
I made a few Scumbag Privilege Denying rAtheism but since it’s the first time I’ve posted links, David has it in moderation.
Anyway, @zhinxy I saw that. It was creepy to the n’th degree. When I read it, it translated as –
“Allow us old men who are probably old enough to be your father the small luxury of creeping on you. It’s really… exciting hurr hurr exciting in mah pants hurr hurr! when a (presumably) because you’re female so we can’t know for sure, you know clever and friendly mind comes in such a pretty package because everyone knows smart women are ugly, amirite fellas. You are the girlfriend most of us would love to have because our current girlfriends are shrewish hags who don’t tolerate our sexist bullshit so we can’t say whatever dickheaded thing we want.
It’s not that we don’t take you seriously as an atheist/scientist/whatever we don’t. It’s that people who are knowledgeable about this stuff are a dime a dozen but people who are both knowledgeable and hot looking are much rarer did I mention that smart women are ugly? Actually forget the smart. Hot looking is all that matters.
Meanwhile, while everybody’s (figuratively) climbing all over you i.e. making very literal inappropriate sexual comments, is your mother already doing anything tonight??‘cuz it’s cute when the same men who are perving on you, make innuendos about your mother
Oh god, not more of this Rebecca Watson crap again…
“OMG, some dude in an elevator made me feel uncomfortable and awkward for 12 seconds of my life…”
What is worse is this woman is an adult. Seriously Rebecca, grow the fuck up! You aren’t 14 years old anymore. Life has awkward moments…deal with it like an adult and stop whining about it like a entitled baby.
Brandon, if you cared to read, this is about Elevatorgate. Thanks for stopping by and dropping off your pantload of sexism.
^isn’t about Elevatorgate.
@hellkell: What sexism? That she behaved like a child? If a man did what she did, I would say the exact same thing. So please tell me…where is the sexism?
So, just to be clear, RW says, “Guys, don’t do that,” Richard Dawkins and a thousand MRAs go apeshit about how dare she wah wah wah, and Brandon comes to the conclusion that RW is the one behaving like a child.
brandon, do you know what irony is or is that another form of humor that’s too complicated for you?
One, you would never say that about a man, and two, if you did, it wouldn’t be paraphrased thusly:
…making the man sound like some vapid Valley Girl.
Three–most importantly–this mention of Rebecca had nothing to do with Elevatorgate, but that’s immediately what you jumped to.
@Hellkell:
“Reaaa-din-ggg?” *Brandon checks mental dictionary* “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term you adorable little ragamuffin”
Sharculese, he sure as shit can’t grasp sarcasm, do you really think he can tackle intentional irony?
remember kids, brandon always has to be the victim. it doesn’t count until brandon is affected.
@hellkell
it was unintentional irony on his part, i’m sure, but point taken
I know, the use of belittling language to minimize what happened to someone else is just everyday conversation for B_don, so the poor dear probably has no idea he’s doing it.
/sarcasm
@Bee; And who is she to tell people what to do? Also, Dawkins just mocked the shit out of the situation because Rebecca’s reaction was blown out of proportion. Some dude asked her up for coffee and she goes apeshit, posts a video mocking the dude, then proceeds to tell men how they should behave and act around her. Like she is actually important and has the authority to tell men what they should or shouldn’t do, specifically around her. Not people, not women, her…just her. If anything, she seems arrogant and entitled.
I’m assuming you haven’t seen the video, Brandon, because absolutely nothing you typed has any basis in reality.
you do this. constantly, and at great length. you’re actually doing it right now. how little self-awareness do you posess?
irony. learn about it.
@Hellkell: No, but if some dude was complaining about some fat chick hitting on him all night via a blog or youtube account, I would tell him to quit his bitching because he is acting like a whiny baby.
Ya, nobody likes it when someone you aren’t attracted to keeps persisting…we all get that from time to time. There is no need to make a whiny youtube video about it.
This is like me making a video telling gay men not to flirt with me. It has happened in the past, it will happen in the future most likely. But I don’t go making videos saying “how did he not know I was straight and his flirting made me feel awkward”.
People would tell me to get thicker skin and quit bitching about it.
@Hellkell: Yes, I am using belittling language because she acted like a child…so I am going to treat her like one. You want to be treated like an adult…act like one.
people should already be telling you this, fyi
and that’s the event horizon, folks
@Sharculese: And just like you, I am entitled to have my own opinion on things. No where in my writing have I said people should be forced to live the way I do or be restricted to do things. That however, doesn’t mean I have to like their decisions. People should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn’t harm others, but I am free to have an opinion about their decisions.
nobody said you didn’t have the right to be a self-righteous, entitled moral scold who whines and stomps his feet every time somebody does something he doesnt like. if you want to be a sneering ignoramus, it’s not like i can stop you.
but have a little awareness of how ridiculous it sounds when you flip the fuck out because you think someone else is behaving like you.
@Sharculese: I am stating my opinion on the whole stupid, overblown Elevatorgate crap that happened. I am far from “flipping the fuck out”.
Who is behaving like me? Rebecca? Last time I checked, I wasn’t posting videos on youtube whining about a bad pickup attempt.
All Rebecca Watson said was “Guys, don’t do that.” She wasn’t whining about it, she wasn’t playing the victim, all she meant was that when a female convention speaker speaks about how a lot of women feel objectified and uncomfortable at skeptic conventions because men hit on them instead of appreciating them as fellow skeptics, and then later is hit on in an elevator at four o’clock in the fucking morning by some dude who completely missed the point of what she was saying, to not do that.
It was the backlashed started by entitled men who were flapping their arms, stamping their feet, and going “HOW DARE SHE TELL ME NOT TO HIT ON WOMEN! WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS, THE BITCH?!”
Christ. People still missing the point a half a year later.
yeah, i guess the analogy doesn’t hold up since you only do your whining in blog comments. you have beat her out for volume, though.
@Lady Zombie: No, she was just being bossy.
Also, I fail to see how a guy asking to talk to another human being over coffee is now objectification and flat out “hitting on her”. Hell, maybe the dude just wanted to talk over coffee. Maybe he was hitting on her…who knows since she said no to him. But since the conversation died right there, it seems highly speculative to say that, without a doubt, he was trying to pick her up.
So she was uncomfortable in a elevator for 12 seconds of her life…whoopty friggin doo! I have had countless awkward moments in my life, that doesn’t give me the right to tell the people that made me awkward “Hey…don’t do that!”
If this guy was being threatening (e.g yelling, screaming, groping, etc…) I could see her point and would support her. But some dude started a conversation in an elevator about how interesting he thought she was and invited her up for coffee.
All she had to do was say no…get out of the elevator at her floor and get on with her life. But no, she thought it was important to bad mouth this guy because he had the “nerve” to talk to her.
What next? Are we going to require permission to start a conversation with someone?
It’s funny that the mere mention of her name has Brandon in full metal whine mode, seeing as the OP of this here thread has nothing to do with Elevatorgate. Sparky just used his Super Awesome Selective Reading Powers and flipped his shit, missing the point yet again.
You’d think that would get old, but he seems to have a remarkable capacity for utter cluelessness.
this is the part where brandon, realizing that everyone else understands things better than he, is going to start backtracking and going off on tangents, finally claiming that he’s only here to rattle the cages* and stir up controversy.
then hell make some inane comments about going off to have quadruple-dildo unicorn sex or whatever and stutter off into the night.
*because i alluded to it in another thread, it does irritate me that somebody as ignorant, self-righteous, and entitled as brandon exists, so i guess brandon gets a point in his childish “neener-neener game’…
@Sharculese: Dude…you are the Queen of Ad Hominem attacks. Attacking me and not my position is the sign of a poor debater.
Sharculese, I’m with you on that irritation. You can cut someone like MRAL some slack due to youth, but when you realize the asshole in question is in his 30s and still has this evil, solipsistic jackass worldview, you just want to puke.
@Hellkell: And what does my age have to do with anything?
Oh, now I am evil and solipsistic? You are a master of projection…kudos to you!
Oh, Brandon, stop pretending that you’re here for honest debate. It’s supremely unattractive.
Yes, dear, I’m the Queen of Projection and have showings at 7, 9, and 12.
We’re just amazed that someone your age acts like a teenager.
@Hellkell: Oh, I would love to have an honest debate. The problem is that you and most of the other commenters think that attacking me personally and attacking my position are the same thing. They aren’t.
If you want to attack my position, then lets do it. But if you are going to make personal attacks, I am not going to take you seriously and just goof off.
@Brandon:
“Hell, maybe the dude just wanted to talk over coffee. Maybe he was hitting on her…who knows since she said no to him. But since the conversation died right there, it seems highly speculative to say that, without a doubt, he was trying to pick her up.”
That’s being intentionally obtuse and you know it. This didn’t happen in some completely foreign culture where misunderstandings are likely to happen. This happened in Dublin, where the coffee/tea social connotations are the same as in North America and the UK. And he clearly wasn’t interested in what she had to say because she had just given a talk on women in the movement being hit on constantly, so I treat his “I find you interesting” shtick as highly suspect. I am well within my rights to hit on a woman who had just a minute ago public declared that she really didn’t want to be hit on at the conference, but by exercising my rights i am also being a complete and utter dickhead. I can;t think of a single man who would do that without the desire to be a complete dickhead to the woman in question
bringing up ad hominem at the first opportunity is a putz move, but w/e brandon.
you dont have a position, you have a petty gripe and a staggering victim complex. im just making fun of you.
That’s crap. You rolled in here undies atwist over seeing Watson’s name and decided to call her childish, how is that wanting a debate?
Especially seeing as that’s not why she’s being mentioned in this thread, a fact that consistently eludes you.
Go ahead and don’t take me seriously, the feeling’s mutual.
Thinks We’re amazed that someone his age thinks like a teenager.
Priceless> Painfully stupid but, still, priceless.
Brandon, you have to have a position to begin with, before it can be attacked and demolished. Instead you have completely failed to express anything that is to do with what David posted about, and are demonstrating your failure to grasp the topic by whining on irrelevancies. The topic isn’t your misconceptions about Elevatorgate. Way to miss the point.