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Here’s the video of the Al Jazeera English show featuring Helen Lewis and Rebecca Watson, among others, and me.

It’s  pretty good show. Most of the discussion involves social media researcher and Fordham professor Alice Marwick and Helen Lewis of the New Statesman. Those of us in the Google+ Hangout pop in briefly with comments and questions.

FWIW, I appear only briefly in the show proper, but I have a somewhat longer (and a bit more coherent) comment in the ten minute “online only” portion that immediately follows the show (and which is also on this video).

It was a somewhat strange, if educational, experience, my first appearance on TV. (The next time I get webcammed into a show, I won’t reflexively look down at the laptop while talking.) It all went by really, really quickly. Weirdly frantic behind the scenes as the producer tried to slot us all in.

The comments on the video on YouTube nicely  illustrate the problem we were discussing; that is, they are a rancid pile of misogynistic shitlordery.

My favorite comment is this one from Urhoboman5 about Rebecca Watson:

At 5;30 that chick has a youtube channel. Just type in rebecca feminist and you’ll find it. Interesting how most of her videos are voted down. Sometimes as much as 80% negative because the stuff she says is pure nonsense.

That’s right. He actually thinks that the fact that her videos are targeted by downvote squads proves that she’s wrong to talk about harassment. She’s harassed by dudes who don’t like her talking about harassment so therefore it’s “nonsense” for her to talk about harassment. Brilliant.

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Rabukurafuto
Rabukurafuto
12 years ago

After furiously reading Man Boobz for a few months, I decided to post for the first time after seeing the Al Jazeera video. It was a pleasure to finally see and hear David Futrelle after so many hours of reading, and I very much appreciated everyone else that appeared. Thank you for making me aware of the men’s right activists (or rather putting a name to them—I had heard of the misogyny on Reddit before I came to Man Boobz and had heard something about “fathers’ rights” years before that).

Falconer
Falconer
12 years ago

I know it’s a pollyanna vision, but I can dream. It’s one of the reasons I’m a Star Trek fan.

Nice try, but I’m never getting out of the fandom, no matter how hateful you get.

I just can’t abandon George Takei like that.

Falconer
Falconer
12 years ago

Or perhaps a better way to put that is: You’re not worth giving up Trek over, Ruby, no matter how far I want to distance myself from you.

ShadetheDruid
ShadetheDruid
12 years ago

Well you don’t even have to agree with Ruby about the awesomeness of it. You just need to ask her who is better, Kirk or Picard, then hopefully you’ll say the opposite and there we go.

CassandraSays
12 years ago

@Shadow

I’m afraid the UK is going to have to decline your offer. As much as I don’t like Coldplay, I’d still take them over Bieber (as long as Chris Martin isn’t allowed to talk, anyway).

Also, Ruby, as people keep pointing out, you keep forgetting how the (ancestors of the) people who invented rock and roll ended up in the US in the first place. As I said earlier, follow the thread back far enough and it points to Africa.

katz
12 years ago

Guys, you are all missing the point here:

RUBY HAS A DAUGHTER OH GOD SHE REPRODUCED THERE WILL BE MORE OF HER

CassandraSays
12 years ago

Actually, if Ruby has a daughter who loves anime, maybe that’s the first step in rebelling against mom’s rather narrow viewpoint.

Not that there aren’t plenty of virulently racist anime fans, but hey, I live in hope (and I really don’t want to imagine Ruby Part 2).

Monsieur sans Nom
Monsieur sans Nom
12 years ago

Regarding those three lasses with the “SLUT” paper discs covering their faces….The one the left is a hawt piece of ass! 😛

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

Noms, we already know you’re a douche, you don’t need to keep trying to prove it.

ShadetheDruid
ShadetheDruid
12 years ago

We interrupt this Parade of Arseholes to bring you Random Shit I Found on the Internet ™ – taadaa.

ShadetheDruid
ShadetheDruid
12 years ago

Thanks WordPress, how nice of you to ruin my linking.. let’s try that again.

Monsieur sans Nom
Monsieur sans Nom
12 years ago

I wonder if she’s wearing buttfloss under that skirt. *smirks*

Myoo
Myoo
12 years ago

Oh no, MSN, you’re so awful and infuriating, and totally not a boring sub-par troll at all.

AbsintheDexterous
12 years ago

Pecunium has it right, for the point that I was making. Sorry about the confusion, Shade.

I’m also wary of people using the “other people are bad too” argument because while it’s a good way to counter “religion (or whatever other thing) is the only source of bad things”, that’s about the extent of its ability.

My way of thinking about it isn’t so much “other people are bad too” but more of what it takes to dig deep for the motivations behind why some people go the “X is evil” route. With many things – small and big – it always seems like that there are some people who really, really need to establish themselves as higher up in a hierarchy, however small that hierarchy is, sometimes to ridiculous lengths. And while I think that attitudes of tribalism will always be with us, sometimes it’s useful to figure out the motivations behind it because we might be able to make an effort to combat it.

(Apologies if I’m not making sense, I’m a bit tired. Off to bed!)

jumbofish
12 years ago

Stop talking to yourself nomless.

Steele
Steele
12 years ago

I certainly agree that, while the West has some less than “stellar” marks on its cosmic report card, there is much that the rest of the world should – and indeed, does – aspire to. The West, and more specifically Europe, are and pretty much have always been the technological innovators. Democracy sprang primarily out of the West. The West has the highest quality of life by a wide margin – again, collectively.

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

So never mind all that oppression and junk we did. And are still doing.

Steele
Steele
12 years ago

Excuse me? Stop putting words in my mouth; you only make yourself the jester’s fool.

ShadetheDruid
ShadetheDruid
12 years ago

I’ve never seen someone use “excuse me” so much except when they have gas.

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

You wound me, sirrah.

I wasn’t putting words in your mouth, dumbass. I was mocking your willful ignorance.

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

Oh, and marry, nuncle.

hellkell
hellkell
12 years ago

Someone should put words in Steele’s mouth, it would certainly up the quality of what’s exiting his cakehole now.

pecunium
12 years ago

One of the things I was thinking about the other day, as I was listening to some really good pibroch, was the ways in which the repetitions of the chanter, and the subtle plays in minor changes to the theme works.

There is, of course, a lot of that in Irish instrumental music too, and then I was thinking about jazz, and how it does the same, and wondering if it was cross cultural fertilisation.

But what I didn’t do was think it made white folks superior to anyone.

katz
12 years ago

At least Steelpole has learned the use of qualifiers to artfully dodge anyone pointing out counterexamples. Doesn’t help him dodge people calling him a racist fuckhead, though, as I will happily do right now.

Shadow
Shadow
12 years ago

I find it hilarious how enamored Steele gets with words or phrases that he thinks are clever. U’d think a writer, even of the M-feminist dream denied variety, would know better. But, you know, vile, disgusting, vile bigotry!!