You remember Reddit Island, right? The utterly serious, unintentionally hilarious project in which a bunch of Redditors attempt to set up a Reddity miniature utopia on some remote island somewhere? They are still trying to find an island, and apparently that process is … not going so swimmingly.
As Adrian Chen of Gawker notes in a nice long piece on the project, a fortysomething IT guy from Virginia names Mark Wells has been telling prospective Reddit Islanders that he may have found the perfect place for them:
Wells, who uses the handle Citizenpolitician, explained in a series of increasingly breathless posts on Reddit Island that he’d been scoping out a tiny tropical splotch called Current Island. Just off the coast of Bahamian island of Eluthera, Current is sparsely inhabited, and could be a possible option for their settlement. He’d cold-called members of the local government about the possibility of having a few hundred internet nerds settle Current Island. And he had been met with a very promising response.
Or so Wells said. Trouble is — SPOILER ALERT — Chen himself got in touch with Theo Neilly, the Bahamian Member of Parlliament who Wells had said was “very interested” in the Reddit Island project. And Neilly had a rather different story to tell Chen:
Neilly was more than a little surprised when I told him this. He’d never spoken with or even received an email from Wells, he said. He had heard word of Reddit Island, but only because an acquaintance Wells had actually contacted forwarded him the email. … [E]veryone in Eluthera I spoke to was eager to distance themselves and anyone they knew from him the Reddit Island idea.
D’oh!
Wella, for his part, claims that Chen has mucked up a good thing by actually trying to check to see if anything Wells was saying was true.
When Chen contacted the Bahamians, after being asked not to be involved since we were at a delicate time trying to start a process of negotiations, his contact to the Bahamians, making the relationship public, removed all opportunity for any further communication with the Bahamians and I am afraid now that he has gone to the extent of mentioning them in his article, will suffer political fall out because of this. THis is extremely poor journalism and unfortunate not just for us but for those that wanted to find out more about what we had to offer and what could come of that.
This also puts us in a difficult situation because any further communications with other land owners and government representatives in other countries could become publicly abused as this relationship did and end all hopes for negotiating in good faith with those people. It means that going further will be difficult if we are to maintain transparency and be open to the group here because people like Chen will use it to distort and dismantle those efforts.
So, back to the drawing board, I guess. (The whole discussion of Chen’s article in the Reddit Island subreddit is hilarious, actually.)
Let me make a suggestion, guys: Don’t try to go it alone! Basically, what you’re talking about is forming a tiny civilization that will be essentially a bunch of dudes. In the past, you guys have treated the “sausage party” aspect of the project as a liability.
Instead, you should embrace it as a selling point. Team up with some of the fellas over in the Men’s Rights subreddit; many of them seem not to be fans of women at all.
Heck, some of the guys there are ALREADY TALKING ABOUT GETTING AN ISLAND:
MRA Island! Make it a reality.
In related news, a number of years back a bunch of Something Awful goons launched a similar island project. It involved an actual tropical island and everything. It seems to have fallen apart; it’s not clear (since I haven’t actually read anything about it beyond that blog post I linked) if there was any cannibalism involved.
Fatcat, why do MRAs need absolution for the horrible things they say, and why would writing them off as mentally ill be the best way to do this? What you’re doing is infantilizing the mentally ill, not absolving the MRM. Besides, are you the Pope? If not, absolution’s not your gig.
How’s this then: we don’t need to feel embarrassed about being privileged people. We might be embarrassed about saying or doing terrible exploitative ignorant oppressive fucking things (like I did, round these very parts, last week) but that’s because those are shitty things to do that we should feel embarrassed about. The privilege has nothing to do with it.
FTFY
There is no “male privilege” any longer here in the white western world. Though I do acknowledge that in some countries such a thing certainly does exist(like Iran and Saudi Arabia among others).
Or rather, privilege allows us to do gross things, but it doesn’t force us to do gross things. And not actively working to dismantle our privilege is also a gross thing.
FTFY
Seriously, if you think you have to literally force women to cover themselves and refrain from driving for male privilege to be a thing I am embarrassed for you.
MSM, you never got back to me on how you feel about MRA sites that have to make up stuff to be upset about (like that robot sex act in Canada).
Do you ever feel that a real political movement wouldn’t have to make shit up?
@ Jumbofish (and others)
What I meant to say was that I have been in the position of the guy on the bus. It is not easy for me to admit this, but for a while I was terrified of men. I didn’t like sitting next to them, hearing their voices on TV, etc. I know this is nobody’s problem but mine, but it can be explained by mental problems, so this is probably what this guy has too. He needs help, ASAP.
@ hellkell
It’s OK, I know this is a site for mockery, and I know I will be mocked. I just want you to know that not everyone who disagrees with you on some points is an MRAs or one of those ‘losers’ you like to mock (then again, I probably am a loser, but a different kind of loser).
On privilege: I think it is ridiculous to say that everyone who belongs to a certain group has privilege (except of course, in countries where they don’t have equal rights under the law). Some people will never feel that ‘privilege’. Accusations of privilege will just be met with hostility, nothing else.
Lol wut?
There’s a robot sex act in Canada?
What, like when the Canadarm was putting together bits of the space station?
As a guy you have so much to be thankful for and so much shit you will not have to worry about.
You never will need to worry about people sexually harassing you on the street, or worry excessively if you will be raped or not, or worry about being harassed or complained at if you wear too much or too little clothes/makeup, or be concerned if people will take you being harassed/raped seriously if you are, or even worry about being taken seriously in the field you are in, or have your judgment be disregarded because of your gender, or be considered a walking sex object, or have strangers comment telling you to smile, and ect.
@pillowinhell
Several MRA sites reported that there was a Human Robot Relationship Act passed by Parliament in 2010 to meanly deny men the right to have sex with robots in the future. The primary supporter was allegedly Jessica Valenti, who in the MRA world is now apparently Canadian.
MSM, I shit you not, believed the whole story and used it as a talking point until I called him out on it.
Apparently it never crossed MSM’s mind to fact check this wildly implausible tale by typing the act’s name into Google.
Also, the Canadarm is… kind of hot, as industrial machinery goes.
There is a difference between being scared of a group and hating a group. This guy hates women, just the fact they are allowed to exist in public with the same rights as him makes him furious. Thats why they wanted to make their own island. Its not the same at all and I really have to question your motivated if you can’t see the difference.
LoL!!
This I gotta read! Please tell me there’s a link!
I think we were a bit too busy with HIS Honorable Asshat Steven Woodworth trying to stir up an abortion debate to notice that one!
GUYS GUYS GUYS. You are forgetting that there is literally NO WHERE ELSE TO GO ON THE INTERNET so if you can’t BE NICE and make everyone feel welcome what the FUCK are they gonna dooooooooooooo???????
“Accusations of privilege.” This wording makes me think that, even though you may have read all teh posts on privilege, you did not pay close attention, because that is not in line with the concept.
Privilege is not a crime or a conviction, it is how society treats you.
And yes, we’re already well aware that lots and lots of people, whether they know they feel their privilege or not, react with hostility when they see the concept of privilege discussed.
To be clear, I am not a guy. I have also experienced lots of privileges as a woman (even though a lot of them are privileges I don’t really care about, to be honest), and saying these are just consequences of male privilege is not something I am comfortable with.
I dislike a lot of what MRAs say, especially the way they talk about rape and violence. I hope that in the future they can become less extreme and angry, and that there can be more dialogue, but I don’t feel all that hopeful right now.
I also have never been told to ‘smile’. Honestly, I don’t get this. I guess here everyone is just grumpy all the time…
@pillow
I can’t remember exactly which comment thread it was on and I don’t know how to search comments here. He didn’t provide a link, because he was confident enough to state it as fact. If you search “Jessica Valenti Canadian robot sex act” you’ll see the articles he probably got it from.
Fatcat, maybe you could take your delicate feelings elsewhere?
@fatcat
Has it occurred to you that the fact that there are all these MRAs talking about rape and violence against women but no comparable group doing the same for men is, itself, a fairly obvious male privilege?
Such as?
yall are just grumpy!
I don’t think there is much “dialog” to be had with hate groups. *facepalm*
Can someone please turn this latest Semi-Steeleism into poetry?
@Jumbofish
I meant the people here in my country are grumpy and never smile, not the people on this blog. Sorry
@ Ugh
No, it’s an example of people being assholes. That so many people can’t see that is a little disturbing.
@Hippodameia
I plan to, I just wanted to make my position clear
Uhh did you miss the part where only men were doing that against women but no women were doing that against men? How is that just being assholes if there is social groups fighting against womens rights but not mens? Thats a little more that “just being an asshole” thats privilege.
@cloudiah
Like the noble, onward-faring trout,
every day misogyny gains growing clout,
while the vile writhing deadlights
of mixed-metaphor-feminists
fade from the road like a deer in the headlights
suddenly sideswiped
by my semi-truck.