How to make a hilarious “Downfall” parody, in two steps.
Step One: Make one like this.
Step Two: Don’t make one like this.
Naturally, the second video here went over like gangbusters on the Men’s Rights subreddit. One critic declared:
Another had this suggestion:
I dunno. “Your_Fun_Counselor” doesn’t really strike me as being very much fun at all.
also i like how he felt the need to explain the reference, thinking that if he just worked harder he could overcome the fact that he said it in the lamest way possible
Well, there is one guy who is always willing to buy gold at inflated prices.
I once met someone who worked at one of those gold exchange places. She told me, with only the tiniest twinge of guilt registering on her face, about how she would give not-too-smart returning American tourists about 30 cents a piece for the gold content of their pound (sterling) coins, each of which is of course worth about a buck fifty in ‘fiat money’.
Hope Joe’s getting a good deal.
The last time that gold doubled in price relative to the pound over a six year period was in the late 1970s.
And it peaked the week my parents bought their wedding bands. #badtiming
It works best as a psychotic homoerotic love story, imho. Didn’t know that was Joe’s thing.
When I saw Fight Club, I was convinced it was about something.
Of course, I thought The Phantom Menace (owwww) was about something, too.
Yeah, there are layers to Fight Club. Palahniuk is like that. Because it starts out with just the seductive nature of somebody who tells you that you are being oppressed and if you tear down all the old stuff what’s left, what’s new, will be better, will be right. And then it kind of gets to the fact that you are not really being oppressed, you are a white dude on top of the heap, and you are the tool of your own oppression.
Or, yeah, I could be reading into it.
But it sure SEEMS like a searing indictment of everything 1stJoe preaches from here.
@howard
*SPOLIERS*
To be fair, I haven’t read the book. But the climax of the movie seems to be saying that Narrator was making the conscious choice all along to allow Tyler control, because he liked the power. When he finally took responsibility and was honest with himself about what was happening, he was finally able to drop the alter ego and relate to another human being.
Regardless of that arc, the whole “consumer society is so alienating and dehumanizing, now join my cult where we have no names and chant all the time and dream of locking those we don’t like into cages” theme was pretty fantastic.
On the other hand, there is a fair bit of crypto-MRA shit going on (modern men buying duvets is horrible oppression! It’s like they’re women!), and most people I know who REALLY like it are pretty sexist, so maybe I’m not picking up on the same themes.
Ugh: the ending of the book and the movie are two different things.
There’s actually room for a whole series of essays on the differences between the book and movie, I think. But I have difficulty reading Palahniuk–so that could be just me.
But both the book and movie sort of fail on a Poe’s law level… folks like MightyJoeFirst here can see a perfect formulation of their argument. If you look closer, you can see that maybe that glorified version of their mighty justifications is mocking it, but they will never be able to see it as satire.
What is it they say about war movies? No satire will ever be recognized as such by the jingoistic? Full Metal Jacket and Platoon are watched by war-fetishists all the time. They don’t see any criticism.
To be clear–the Poe’s law failure here isn’t really the fault of the author. (though, um, sometimes)
The problem is a particular kind of single-minded reading where you ignore anything you disagree with.
Shades of confirmation bias.
@ragefromthebasment – do try to keep up. I just exploded every one of your strawman stereotypes about MGTOW upthread. You look like a drooling moron when you repeat things that have already been disproven.
The point about MGTOW isn’t that we expect society to change in response to it – Ahahahahaha! Don’t be fucking ridiculous! We’re not so naive as to believe all those cash and prizes will be given up now! Nor do we expect that there’s some kind of road of repentance “back” to the “old ways”. Hell, the “old ways” sucked a lot for men too. Feminist Opportunism and Social Conservativism are both rocks that grind men like corn.
MGTOW don’t WANT to go back to be taking for granted & working our asses off, living and dying for ungrateful wife / kids / country. We’re free now, and we’re staying that way.
No. The point of MGTOW is to live the best life we can, within the hostile environment we are subject to. And if not to hasten the collapse of a thoroughly corrupt system, at the very least to starve it of our direct support.
It’s a non-violent, passive resistance that also involves having a great time! And NOT: going to jail, getting beaten / cuffed / shot by cops, nor keel-hauled in secret family court, stuck in indentured servitude, slammed into debtors prison, nor killing ourselves.
MGTOW is the Tai Chi of social activism. A “soft” / Yin resistance. To the “hard” / Yang attack by an over-reaching police state / prison industrial system.
You strike and strike and strike against us. But we are not there.
You threaten us and grasp at us. We slip through your hands like water.
You tempt us. We do not notice.
You berate us and shame us and demean us. We don’t care.
By ceasing to pursue all the things society insists we must desire. We win.
Non Serviam! Elutheria!
(Have fun with that^ Latin / Greek pedants! :p )
LOL!! @Ugh, who posts triumphantly crowing how I couldn’t possibly have made X% on the deal that I did…. and then checks the charts again and has to ‘fess up to being wrong again. And still somehow keeps up with his faux-pity trolling. Give up. You were WRONG.
Also, quoting a 20second clip of a movie to make a very particular point does NOT equal “this moooovie is uh mannerfesto”. You enormous idiot. Hahahahahaa!!!
@Blackbloc – I’ve been a dues-paying union man for nearly 20 years, as it happens. And I absolutely agree that collective wage negotiation is a vital thing.
Global corporates draw on outsourced labour in developing nations where unionisation is brutally oppressed AND they also lobby on the one hand to keep illegal immigrants illegal, and on the other they use the same people to boost their profits – depressing wages globally. But you know this.
I was merely pointing this reality out to someone posting here who was crowing about how MGTOW would somehow = more money for her.
I disapprove of this corporate manipulated reality.
I do NOT blame the poor immigrants (legal or illegal) for doing their best to earn a crust.
I do blame global mega-corps and their crony gov’ts for fucking us all.
@Gametime – it was YOU that equated banksters with “Jewish”. Guess what? There’s millions of Jews who are NOT banksters!! Surprise! YOU fucking RACIST!!!
You’re also an apologist for a global 0.001% class of globalist criminals who are responsible for breathtaking crimes against humanity. You are a pathetic BIGOT.
@pecunium – floating currency is not necessarily a problem (although speculation against floating currencies can be). USURY is always a problem, and any currency that yields interest to its creators is a “pump” that inevitably moves real tangible wealth from the many to the few. Anyone capable of doing simple maths understands this (so, sorry 110%Myoo – that’s not you!).
Again, for some really interesting discussions of different currencies, & their different pros and cons, and proposals to improve people’s lives, I recommend Bernard Leitaer’s site – he’s NOT an MRM / MRA / MGTOW, nor afaik a Libertarian – he is a very experienced economist and currency expert. Check his stuff out.
@Joe
I was wrong. That’s the difference between you and me, I own up to it.
You sure managed to take advantage of a financial panic to make a quick buck from suckers. So did the banks. Well done.
Find me a single MGTOW forum where people have not made repeated posts about how sorry those women will be when they grow old and the MGTOW won’t marry them, then come back with this BS.
I mean, it’s really more of irrelevant complaining and non-action, that the system sees as another form of consumerism. A lot of corporate executives have made millions off people “resisting” by buying Fight Club DVDs and V for Vendetta masks.
If you really wanted to go away, you’d go away, not hang out here complaining about how hard it is for you.
I mean, if you told actual corporate leaders about how you went off to live in a boat, they wouldn’t be all “Oh no, a man doesn’t want a house and kids, how will we ever survive,” they’d be like “when you gas up that boat, buy Shell.”
@Howard and Ugh – so funny how you create a strawman and then churn out pages picking it apart. 😀
The POINT was. Rand’s idea that superior architect man MGTOWing = end of society is probably false.
Vs.
That 20sec speech that when you fuck with the guys who fix the sewers and take away the garbage and guard you and cook your meals – if they MGTOW that’d have a much more profound impact.
That is all.
Not all your absdljfkgsavhsbfdlgvcnsbdgjkcwa whatthefuckever middle-class psuedo-psychological horseshit! Wankers!
And yeah, there was a lot to Fight Club. Duh. Which is what makes it a great movie.
There’s so much there, it almost works like a mirror or Rorshach test. So racist Howard sees “OMG TEH EVIL WHITE MENZ” and homophobic Ugh sees “OMG HOMOEROTICA”.
Joe, do try to keep up: We dismissed paeaen to the glories of Joe, because it’s immaterial. The idea that MGTOWs are actually going their own ways?
Risible. Yes I am sure there are some men going their own way. We don’t care about them, because they went.
You, and yours, however, aren’t going. You are bleating about how sorry everyone will be when enough of you finally get off your arse and go, but in the meanwhile you are complaining that no one wants you around.
@pecunium – floating currency is not necessarily a problem (although speculation against floating currencies can be). USURY is always a problem, and any currency that yields interest to its creators is a “pump” that inevitably moves real tangible wealth from the many to the few. Anyone capable of doing simple maths understands this
Dude… it’s not the currency that does that. It’s the system using it. Britain did that very thing when it was gold behind the money.
Gold won’t fix that.
I’d have more trust in Lietaer if he were, as well as an economist, an anthropologist. Because what he’s preaching isn’t new, and it’s not as radical as you seem to think it.
Monetary systems have failed before (the fall of Rome being the most notable). People coped. The fact of the matter is money is, having once been invented, impossible to give up. It makes large scale trade possible. I agree with you, in part, on the subject of interest. Guaranteed return is a problem.
The sense that monetary debts are somehow privileged is the problem. But that problem is independet of the medium of exchange.
Which is why you are an idiot; you haven’t shown any grasp of that last fact.
@Ugh – Ahahahaha! One of the points of living on a boat is they don’t know you do. Or where you are. Or what you buy. Also, you don’t know anything about boats / fueling issues etc. It’s like stepping back in time a few decades. Hell, most of my boat’s hull is 120 years old. The engine is a good deal older than I am.
If everyone lived at the level of consumerism I did on my boat the giant corporations would be bankrupt in a couple of months. I dream of CEOs weeping in the streets.
There are still cracks in the system.
It was actually pretty funny. That’s kind of what this site is about. We were mocking Rand, not you. It’s actually not always about you.
I mean, statistically, besides sewer repairmen, all those occupations are likely to be filled by first generation immigrants. THOSE PEOPLE ARE ALREADY BEING FUCKED WITH.
Again, statistically speaking, these people are more likely to be single anyways because shitty immigration laws split up families.
Also, if a lot of these guys quit their jobs, their families would go without medical care or housing. People aren’t garbagemen or line cooks when they’re sitting on a pile of money back at home.
I didn’t say anything about homoerotica. I said it was a satire on people who rage against society’s oppression by creating even more oppressive societies. Also of people who invent personas of male dominance because they’re unable to relate to women normally.
Joe, I think it is a Rorcshak test, of sorts. You, for example, saw a discussion of subtext and immediately assumed the people having it saw those subtexts out of fear.
Now we see you engaging in commentary on subtext… so I assume we can safely assume you are racist, homophobic, classist, and stupid.
As to the issue you think we are talking about… if all the people who engage in infrastructural support quit, yep, things would go to hell.
If.
Lot of implied action in that if. Lots of assumptions. The most foolish being that there are enough men who share your views that anything close to that sort of general strike could happen.
The second most is the idea that, barring a general strike, the men who do those jobs can’t be replaced.
It’s a fantasy. It’s a silly one. It is, for all you deny it, Galtian. It ain’t gonna happen, because it’s based on lies the MGTOWs tell themselves to salve their egos. Sort of like a guy who uses money to buy gold to get money telling himself he’s beaten the system.
I hear that’s actually a very lucrative occupation.
@Pecunium – no, you haven’t followed my argument. As envinced that you’re STILL banging on about gold, which is just ONE thing which can perform some or all of the functions of money. There are plenty of others. Duh.
You’re doing an Ugh and desperately looking for anything to disagree about and pumping that up to be everything. It’s pathetic, to be honest.
Esp. if they are female CEOs.
actually we’d probably just find people who aren’t whiny chickenshit misogynists to do it
fight club was just a movie dude. just because you wank to it doesnt mean it’s a profound moral statement.
Your Fight Club clip was misogynistic, because it erases all the work women do. Women can do those jobs, too. It’s also likely that it was women who raised those men, women that raise those men’s children, and women who will take care of them when they are elderly. See, everyone is interdependent. If you want to be a MGTOW hermit and live on a boat, then more power to you. I prefer living in a city with modern amenities and conveniences, and I don’t take anyone else in society for granted.