The votes are in and the winner of the highly coveted Man Boobz Troll of the Year Award for 2012 is … MRAL!
Wait, you say, he wasn’t even on the ballot?
Well, no. The troll that got the most votes from you, my dear readers, was the verbose anti-Man Boobz crusader known as Steele — also known as Mikhael Varpole and, briefly, as Torvus Butthorn. Indeed, Steele cruised to victory, getting 47% of the vote, as compared with the 33% received by Tom Martin, his only real competitor. (Dr. Pell came in third, with a mere 6% of the total.)
But as it turns out we’ve been played, big time. The troll we know and love as Steele turns out to have been MRAL all along.
Yes, that MRAL – the long banned commenter who cannot seem to walk away from this blog. We’ve uncovered and banned many of his previous sockpuppets, but somehow he managed to slip his boldest sockpuppet right by us.
Oh, sure. I and others here often wondered if Steele was for real; it seemed pretty clear to me that he couldn’t possibly believe everything he said. But it wasn’t until I went back to some of “Steele’s” earliest comments here, in preparation for this post, that I discovered how justified these suspicions had been. Turns out that one of “Mikhael Varpole’s” IP addresses matched one used by an earlier troll, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, who had been outed as MRAL a couple of months earlier.
D’OH!
“Torvus Butthorn” really should have been a dead giveaway. But otherwise the highly dedicated MRAL did a masterful job of keeping his troll character consistently ridiculous yet plausible enough to not be an obvious phony, and of hiding his particular obsessions in such a way that he didn’t give himself away.
So, congrats, MRAL, and you’re banned again.
After this, the rest of the results are a bit of an anticlimax.
Sunshine Mary wins the Special-est Snowflake award for Female MRA Trolls, with 52% of the vote. Driversuz comes in second with 32%.
Tom Martin easily wins the Worst Human Being award with a stunning 73% to David K Meller’s 22%.
Some Guy Bored With Your Schtick wins Most Tiresome with 58% of the vote; Diogenes is a distant second with 24%.
And JudgyBitch wins Most Pathetic Vote Beggar.
I hope they’re not all MRAL too.
Oh my goodness. My dream of an entire novel in Steele’s inimitable style (yes, there were some good mockeries, but they were mockeries of the ultimate mockery) may one day come true. That level of good-bad is bloody difficult to sustain.
And if the original persona is a finely honed fiction then it’s also an emotionally involving and frustrating one and thus even more impressive.
In its warped way I can see the appeal of that kind of sockpuppetry. It combines creativity and twisted mischief and it’s just a shame that it’s ultimately basically negative. I just hope that whatever human actually lurks under all the layers finds something to do with all this energy that isn’t quite so pitiful.
that is a Shyamalanian (pre-2001) twist right there! the dedication and attention to detail, oh mylanta.
so on the one hand WHOA. but on the other hand MrTorvButtAl needs to go find some more edifying pursuits. and perhaps start prepping for NaNoWriMo.
He certainly earned the title anyway. Here’s a trophy I made.
This version is probably more appropriate, though.
Aw, shucks you guys.
I’ve posted my acceptance speech on my own blog.
http://thewomanandthedragon.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/special-snowflake-of-the-year-acceptance-speech/
Soooooo pathetic. I’m not giving him cred for being creative either…it’s too easy to lie online. He’s basically a glorified prank caller who desperately needs off-line hobbies. He was entertaining to me in a petty kind of way — ’cause who doesn’t hate bad writing?
Oh, sunshine, pirating Sally Field’s speech. Wow! So fucking lame. I thought maybe you wrote something on your own.
So fucking lame.
I should hasten to add that I am not a feMRA though. I reject all labels other than the banner of Christ.
Wow, he really put some time and effort into that show. I’m actually kind of glad he’s only trolling blogs, if he put that much work into real life activities (assuming the views he represented are at least real) he could do some serious damage.
Myoo, both of those are wonderful. I have to update my blogpost about Steelepole with this revelation, and I will use the one disguised with the funny glasses.
Sunshine: You are what you are.
Myoo, your second trophy made me lol.
@cloudiah
Glad you like them.
Anyway, I’m off to bed now, it’s way too late where I live.
Ah ha ha ha. I cannot help but find this surreally hilarious. That was epic. I cannot believe he put that much effort into pretending to be a DIFFERENT intellectually dishonest troll! O_o
Pretty much. I think if the initial coming out was actually real and he’s really that young there is a possibility he could grow into a decent person… or at least a not-terrible person. Hopefully he’s done here now though. *rolls eyes so damn hard*
I have been certain for some time that Steele was a Poe, but I never particularly connected him to MRAL. That’s creepy/hilarious. Creeplarious?
MRAL, seriously, for all that you continuing to come back here is pretty sketchy, Steele was frequently a genuinely funny character – if you use that talent for comedy to do something better than troll a blog, I think you could make some pretty cool shit. 🙂
The funny thing is I kinda decided in my head a while ago most of the trolls are one or two (max three) people because I can’t tell them apart. One Owly, one Martin and apparently one MRAL. That is all there is to them.
I never voted because I guess I don’t know the trolls well enough because I’m fairly new to manboobz.
I’ll look for the names in the future (some of them I did recognize).
Come to think of it, “vyle” should have been a clue. Remember ‘fymynyst?”
Noooo, you cant ban him! That level of dedication needs rewarding! And besidrs, if hes online at least we know where he is.
Zoinks!
Jesus, sunshinemary, you couldn’t come up with anything cleverer? That acceptance speech is pretty pathetic even for you.
Beware of the MRA army! He’s invading!
@ David
Can we at least read Steely’s acceptance speech? Pretty please?
He reminds me of David Brame. That is the kind of stalker, deceitful, abuser shit he did all the time.
He had to have been laughing at this but does Steele/Varpole have a high IQ since that was comparing him to himself. There were some small tells, but lost in the not unclever verbiage, and the (general) lack of obsession on specific people.