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.
Oh my fucking GAWD!!!!!!!!
This is the funniest shit I’ve read in weeks!!!
Ministry of Human Robot Relations??
LolololololoLololool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* dies of laughter*
*regenerates self to read the next line*
*dies of laughter again*
Soul thinks about just how many results Google came up with on the topice
*reincarnates*
Notices that Hell is getting a little impatient with my popping in and out in such rapid sucession
*shows post to Satan*
He chuckles. Apparently he’s rather proud of that little joke.
“I plan to, I just wanted to make my position clear”
That’s nice. Please stick the landing when you flounce.
Yes, Fatcat, you should take your delicate sensibilities elseweb.
@ Jumbofish
You do have a point, there just seem (from my perspective at least) to be more men in the world who hate women than women who hate men. I don’t know why.
I’m afraid I shall have to, as they put it, ‘flounce’ now, because it is really, really late here, and I don’t want to disturb further mockery. I’m sorry if I didn’t answer all your questions.
Historically women have always got the shitty end of the stick compared to men in what they were allowed to do and how they are treated. Those attitudes are vanishing as women gain more and more rights but they have not entirely vanished from the consciousness of the human race.
Excuse me, but I’ve always thought of myself as more of a Heather.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t answer all your questions.”
I’m sorry if you thought we cared.
Its the same reason why people are spiteful towards people of color and lgtb people, historically they have been treated as lesser but as they gain rights people become less bigoted but bigoted ideas have not entirely vanished they still exist. Do you think centuries of oppression can vanish in a few decades? No, it takes time.
So now fatcat has devolved into nattering about female privilege? Oh dear. My initial impression of “kind of clueless” is gradually being upgraded to “head firmly wedged in posterior”.
Also I’ve lived in a number of different countries, and travelled through even more, and never encountered a country where everyone is grouchy. Where does she live, the Republic of Miserableness?
Meanwhile, the anti-robot-fucking act that never was is hilarious. How gullible are these guys?
Well impeding a mans right to fap to a representation of his neighbors daughter is rape donthcha know.
And apparently Ontario has a Ministry of Human Robot Sexual Relations!!
Oh, but the law will bite feminists in the ass when the majic elixer of prepubescent skin becomes available and every woman races out to look sixteen again!! Makeup should be illegal damnit!
Oh my god!! How will I put my don’t fuck with me face on tomorrowif I can’t get that idea outta my head!!!
@Tulgey, I almost missed that. That’s it, you’re getting you’re own Artistry for [why did I make the name so long?] blog post! I mean, eventually. I have to cook dinner first.
I also have never been told to ‘smile’. Honestly, I don’t get this. I guess here everyone is just grumpy all the time…
The fuck? Seriously?
Full marks for your Double Douchebag Flip. You got a “it’s never happened to me so that means it never happens,” then followed up with some classic victim-blaming. It takes a real expert to accomplish both at once.
Unfortuantely, the only prize is my undying contempt. Enjoy.
1. Love that anyone anywhere knows what the Canadarm is (and thinks it’s sexy. No wonder those conservatives wanted those exhibits banned at Ottawa’s science and tech museum).
2. Autism and mental illness seem to come out quite a bit when it comes to MRAs, PUAs, creeps, etc. A shame no one ever seems to consider what it’s like for women with social anxiety, autism and the like when they’re being yelled at on the street or being stalked (innocently, I’m sure, by a shy guy).
@Falconer – Chandler, Duke, or McNamara?
Kavette: Imbecility-by-choice is not its own defense. I don’t have to be charitable towards people who are deliberately idiotic, ignorant and infantile — especially if those people hate me, to boot, to the point of lamenting the very fact that I exist. You have some nerve calling us mean.
I also have never been told to ‘smile’.
This has been happening to me for all of my life. My natural expression looks sad, I guess. I can smile if its genuine, but I have a really hard time faking a smile. It literally hurts my face.
People almost never say this to men. Women and girls are supposed to be cheerful all of the time, I guess, otherwise we’re bitches. That pisses me off. Telling me to smile will get me NOT to smile, that’s for sure.
Forgot the blockquotes.
To be perfectly honest, the answer to this question is a big fat NO. It really doesn’t matter what their political aspirations are.Being honest with people doesn’t get shit done the way making up sensational stories does.
@Tulgey, this one’s for you:
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/commissioning-troll-poetry/
@ Nom – “Being honest with people doesn’t get shit done the way making up sensational stories does.”
You would say that. After all, you blow tapirs for crack.*
* He hasn’t really done this.**
** That I know of.
Seriously though that’s the worst argument ever.
“Why do you keep crying wolf when there isn’t one?”
“Because if I told the truth about the lack of wolves then no one would come running. Duh.”
I know I have white privilege. How do I know it? I carry a knife, all the time. I’ve had cops ask to look at it. I’ve had one cop do that, hand it back and tell me, “that’s a good knife.”
He did that on my college campus. A campus that had a rule forbidding any sort of, “weapon”, and specifically calling out knives.
Honestly, I don’t think Al (that was the cop’s name, Al Reddick) was going to single out blacks (he was black) but I suspect he’d have told a black person to put it in a pocket, or a bag, rather than wear it in the publically visible belt holster I had it in.
And Al isn’t the only cop to not so much as blink at my having a knife. The only times I’ve had a cop react to it in a less than casual way was once when I was being pulled over for expired tags. I got cuffed while they ran me for wants and warrants.
After that, an apology for it, and my knife was handed back.
I’m in NYC, carrying a knife. I’ve never been one of the people they choose to, “stop and frisk”. I don’t wonder why that is. It’s because I’m white.
Actually,a lot of us autists who are male DO know what it’s like being yelled @ on the street. The difference is the insults aren’t sexual but they’re just as infuriating.
What bothers me is that as a longtime participant in autism internet forums(like wrongplanet.net among others) is that there are so many bitter, angry aspie feminists who whine about Men and even insult other autists just because they happen to be male! >< I wish women with autism would reject feminism because this movement only seeks to divide us and turn autistic women against autistic men(the latter whom are favorite targets of stupid-ass neurotypical feminists when they decide to go man bashing to stroke their egos).
Which you know because of your extensive history with sexual street harassment? Do I need to say that I highly doubt it?
If you’re being at all serious and not just trolling for attention as usual, this makes me wonder why you’ve chosen to do the exact same thing with the genders reversed. Bitter? Check. Angry? Check? Whining about Women? Check. Insulting women just because they’re women? Check.