Oh dear. Paul Elam’s attempt to anoint himself King of the MGTOWs doesn’t seem to be going terribly well, mainly due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who call themselves Men Going Their Own Way would prefer it if he went his own way off a short pier.
His new ebook on MGTOW — despite receiving rave reviews from people who work for him at A Voice for Men — has not done quite as well amongst the MGTOW masses, many of whom are posting one-star reviews on Amazon.
Their complaints are a mixture of the reasonable and the ridiculous. On the one hand, they accuse him of being a con artist trying to cash in on their little movement with an ebook made up mostly of stuff that’s already been posted on the internet. On the other, well, they think he’s some kind of quasi-feminist supplicator to women who’s committed a sort of treason against his fellow men by not banning all women from AVFM. No, really:
On their own websites, Elam’s MGTOW haters are even more blunt. Here’s what one commenter on MGTOWHQ had to say:
But my favorite response so far comes from a Youtuber who calls himself TheMadShangi. A few months ago, Mr. Shangi was a loyal AVFMer; indeed, he contributed a post to Elam’s site gleefully recounting how he’d been such a royal pain in the ass to me on Twitter that I stopped responding to him. (Or, as he put it, How I made David Futrelle cry and ragequit on Twitter.)
Well, these days he’s singing a different tune. Literally. Here’s his musical critique of Mr. Elam and his book.(The bit at the beginning is from a video Elam made baiting his MGTOW haters.)
Both sides in this MGTOW civil war are so thoroughly terrible I can only hope that they both go down in ignominious defeat, leaving us, the amused spectators, the only real winners.
Britain has it, but in much fewer flavours. Chocolate brownie, cookie dough, caramel cup, phish food, and a couple of those versions with a sauce core.
Contrapangloss, I must see this artwork. Paging talented Mammoth artists, please create this.
Also, nutty bars, Ben & Jerry’s, chocolate and hazelnuts, chocolate and walnuts, chocolate and pecans, chocolate and almonds, chocolate and…(I may be overly fond of chocolate) .
David Hughes, in case you’re seriously asking, of course it is fine for a man to be single. Most feminists are for people having intrinsic value regardless of the romantic relationship they’re in or not in.
On Hommen, I’ve always wondered what exactly the threat to freedom such people feel is evident in gay marriage.
Indeed. Isn’t banning gay marriage a greater threat to freedom than allowing it?
(Rhetorical, I’ve argued with more than enough super-conservatives to know the answer is “But freedom and free speech only apply to me and people who agree with me!”)
For conservatives, “freedom” means never having to be uncomfortable, guilty, or second in line.
@ davethehughes –
Of course not!
I think it’s terrifying that in some subcultures Paul Elam would be considered a feminist.
I know GroundPetrel isn’t around to answer, and he was full of curious rhetorical tics anyway, but – does anyone know what he could have meant by ‘Neelix wannabe’? It was used at least twice, but by the time I thought to ask, the Mallet of Loving Correction* had descended.
It turns out that Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Specs were both invented and marketed by the same man. What a complete dedication to destroying the dreams of childhood that shows. Although I did enjoy looking at them under my microscope.
*Term used on the Scalzi Whatever blog for the banhammer.
The Googles are telling me that Neelix is a Star Trek character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neelix
Cassandrakitty – thanks for the link. Still seems like an odd expression to use as an insult – “you’re always trying to jolly people up, and you can’t really cook!”
If I was to try to think of which Star Trek characters people might aspire to be like that definitely wouldn’t be my first choice.
Nor would it be the go-to thing you don’t want to be like, so yeah, I’m baffled.
Maybe ‘Neelix wannabe’ is a weird way of saying ‘beta male’? Definitely bonding material. /s
Maybe he thought people aspire to have literal buttheads?
(Why does Star Trek do that so often, create groups that look exactly like humans except for the fact that they appear to have an ass on their foreheads?)
Maybe we’re overthinking this, and he was just really, really dumb and really, really bad at insults. Or maybe Puddleglum is right, and he was a genius at playing stupid and naive.
I thought he said something about Neelix trying to kill everyone on Voyager with his cooking.
Despite the fact that he tried to nerdsplain Star Trek to me, I’m sorry that he turned out to be a tedious little troll.
I wonder how long it took that MGTOW thread to turn into “my dad used to beat my mom and here’s why it was always his fault.”
Sorry, I ventured into those forums ONCE before I knew much about MRAs just to see what it was all about… never again!!!
Hmmmmm…. realized there was a bizarre typo in my comment that makes it sound pretty icky and weird! Should’ve read:
I wonder how long it took that MGTOW thread to turn into “my dad used to beat my mom and here’s why it was always HER fault”
This is not to say that I believe this – I don’t. But all I saw when I went on there was them blaming their mothers for the abuse they suffered.
Cassandrakitty – regarding the forehead trope on Star Trek, from what I’ve read it was a compromise between the makeup/prosthesis team and the directors. Any significant prosthesis below the eyebrows will interfere with the actor’s ability to convey emotion using facial expressions. So – go ‘head with the fo’head.
Now I know Jude Law did a bang-up job from behind his mask in “V”, but it’s probably a lot harder to do with a television show.
Robert, isn’t that also why Gerard Butler got half of a half face mask in the Phantom of the Opera movie? Because he couldn’t convey emotion with the whole top half of his face covered?
Of course, Gerard Butler is a terrible actor, but it took my a long time to realize that. He’s so good-looking that it didn’t hit me until I saw The Ugly Truth.