When you spend as much time as we do here at Man Boobz scrutinizing the Men’s Rights movement, it’s easy to forget what a fringe phenomenon it is. So here are some charts from Google Trends – charting the frequency of certain search terms from 2004 until today — that help to put it all in perspective. (Thanks to Katz, Cloudiah and Cthulhu’s Intern in the comments for inspiring this post.)
That “rapidly growing” Men’s Rights movement that MRAs like to talk about? It may actually be stagnant or even shrinking, if searches for “men’s rights” are any indication. Despite a recent comeback, they’re still less than half of what they were at their height in 2004.
Now let’s put that in perspective.
No, there’s nothing wrong with that graph; it’s just that My Little Pony is so much more popular than Men’s Rights that the latter simply vanishes into the X axis.
But this graph is my favorite:
Well, nothing will top that, but here’s a graph showing that people are a lot more concerned about misogyny than misandry — and, I would add, for good reason.
Let’s see what other trends we can find!
(Oh, and sorry about the low quality pics; WordPress won’t let me embed the charts.)
Cloudia, time travel too, or didja discover the fountain of youth?
Holy fucking shit, dude. Somebody who hasn’t mastered basic sarcasm really shouldn’t be throwing their intellectual weight around like you are. It’s painful to watch.
I bet you’ve met a lot of queens of France and monkeys’ uncles.
Diogenes The Comic said: “There are 360 degrees to a circle. Another Babylonian victory. People hardly use radians.”
Maybe not the best reason to de-lurk (hello everyone!), but Jesus wept, that has to be the daftest statement I’ve read in a long time! “People hardly use radians”, do they? Apart from every mathematician, scientist and engineer in the world?
Oy vey Diogenes, how do you manage to get by, you know, day to day, when you’re capable of writing something so ridiculous?
(Sorry, all, that this post has nothing to do with MRAs or horse porn, and sorry if I seem radian-obsessed. I’m not. Well, not much, anyway. And so what if I am? Just thought something needed to be said in support of the poor old radian.)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=horse%20porn%2C%20Voynich%20Manuscript%2C%20bum%20bum%20bum&cmpt=q
This is interesting
@Unimaginative – have you tried the Drama Button?
For a ‘civil rights activist’, Frankie, you’re quite cavalier about self-doxxing yourself. Facebook link directly in your poster profile, really?
Is Frankie going to spend as much time spamming people with the videos as whomever it was spent putting up those posters?
That’s some sort of activism.
Huh, “kitties” seem to have a lot less expression than “puppies”, whereas “puppies” are more popular than “puppy”
I forgot to say, “kitty” is far more popular than “kitties”.
After reading the entire thread, I only have one question… what the hell is going on in Pakistan?!
I explained the premise of this thread to my 67 year old mother. She is laughing herself silly right now over the overwhelming popularity of “Horse Porn”.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/14ny6l/poster_in_memory_of_thomas_j_ball_who_will_for/
Contender for the bad poster + worse message award.
I just caught up on this thread and I want to know who’s going to reimburse me for that half hour and how.
You use radians to compute mathematical equations with a unit circle. It also allows you to work with and develop degrees and lines of trigonomic figures (In particular, triangles) and other neat tricks, like figure design.
When you’re taking an IB exam and doing calculations, it is important to know if your calculator is currently set to radian or degree computation.
Your results are wonky otherwise.
I know this because I did it. And spent math examination being confused at my results. I had set mine to degrees.
This is an anecdote to illustrate that the phrase “Hardly use radians” hardly applies to a real world examination taken by near 80.000 people in 2007, according to a quick google search. It’s more 5 years later.
Whether or whether not you can actually use the things in “The Real World, For Real Stuff” I don’t know. Not a mathematician by trade.
Still, I assume you probably do, because mathematics isn’t a battle that you can win. Competing systems of thought prove more accurate than others when used to describe phenomena.
I guess.
No one bludgeons someone else to death with a ruler.
In relation to math.
Well.
In relation to “Better Math”. Some mathematicians get a little angry at times.
Although having ruler fights and degree wrestling is fun.
—
As an objective lurker (I lurk near objectives and contrive to win when others are not around. We are using the phrase to refer to games with spatial objectives, right?), I’m going to say that no one here seems to be trolling (‘cept the obvious ones!).
You just seem a little miss informed, Mister Cynic.
That happens.
If it intersects with also being grandiose, it gets to be problematic.
You’re right about the suits though – that is an interesting factoid. It’s just that:
There is no such thing as a culture war. A culture can’t fight a war. You can use the phrase as a metaphor and imaginative description of what takes place when information is exchanged between parties, but “Culture” do not engage in wars. Not even The Culture, of Ian Banks fame. Except that one little war.
See? I can do obtuse literary references too.
It’s the same sort of idea that makes people describe a “Battle of the sexes”, a “War of minds”, a “slaughter at the football stadium” or a “Bloodbath dinner” when meeting the family for dinner. Imaginative descriptions provoke a sort of… idea that the things are related. Because it allows you to set up a neat bipartisan system where one side emerges victorious victor and obviously did so because of Great Destiny, Much Betterness and Virility and Righteous Awesome.
And not because of such fiddly details as population demographics, ease of usage or the soil situation over time in relation to feeding people and government / private investments in the spread of knowledge. No no. It was a great culture war of radians and degrees and radians were BANISHED into the wastes of the Platonic Ideals.
…
It’s easier that way. To compute in your mind. Because then it’s Us Versus Them, and They are always Wrong.
Try to avoid it. If I may quip: as a cynic, it seems unbecoming to engage in what I think you would describe as trite metaphors, groupthink, emotionally laden thinking, magical rituals and wrongful assertions because of ideals in ones head.
Merry Christmas otherwise, Diogenes, ManBoobz and Trolls.
Scented fucking candles.
I like the comments (the poster was bizarre, and opaque. and guaranteed to confuse… it looks like someone trolling for a little, “action”.
I like the, implicit, understanding that Feminism can’t be right, and the throwaway, “Giving your kid a smack or whatever is not abuse.
@Cloudiah okay yes that poster wins. if not for the comment by the person who posted the link, I would have said that this is an effort by the manboobz street team. Actually, when zhe says “Giving your kid a smack or whatever is not abuse” maybe zhe is just an expert expert troll. At least, that is what i want to believe because if not ZOMG.
To be fair, the poster OP has a brand new Reddit account.
That poster confuses me.
Or should I say, my tumblr tainted mind sees things that the artist (and I use that term loosely) obviously hasn’t intended.
Is there any objective viewer out there capable of explaining poor little me wth is going on?
If the Manboobz
StreetInternet Team had done that, there would at least be an otter or a Hitler mustache, I think.To my eye, it has the same saccharine sentimentality and fascination with maleness I associate with real MRAs, but I suppose it could be a troll. Especially given the username.
@Ice, I think it’s trying to depict Ball’s body being consumed by flames, but since it does so in a really amateurish and half-hearted way it just looks like some sad, horny man made of jelly beans or marbles or peas is falling apart.
I say trolling. You have to notice the details. A real mra would have it uncircumcised.
I take it back: he’s clearly made of army ants or termites.
Poor ant man. Ant Men’s Rights!
… Did anybody else click through to the Thomas Ball memorial poster and get a sketch of a torso, a couple of gestured-in legs, and a lovingly-detailed erection?
‘Cause that’s what I got and I wonder if I got trolled, or if someone seriously thinks that’s gonna get wheat-pasted up somewhere.
Okay, never mind. Question answered. More questions raised.
… Upon further ponderance, I have concluded: Nope.
Yep, lovingly detailed, someone was sniffing glue before making that.
I’ll go through and read all the comments later, but here is a trend that makes me very happy:
Magic Knight Rayearth vs. Men’s Rights
Yes, the manga I became obsessed over back in seventh grade, which was made back in ’93, is still way more popular than Men’s Rights. Go me.
I also tried fathers rights as a keyword. Well, Rayearth used to be more popular than that, but sadly that is no longer the case. However, all those keywords are still less popular than horse porn. See here.