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.
I’ve never had a shitty time with the VA, though some clinics (and hospitals) are better than others. If I start having more serious problems I may start saying we need to consider moving to where the VA is better (Palo Alto is allied with Stanford Medical School; it’s also a new facility. I’ve had great treatment there).
Milk and sweetener in my tea!
Once at work I’d just poured milk and found it was a bit off – start over again. Mr K (who likes his tea and coffee black) put in an appearance.
Him: That wouldn’t happen if you took it black.
Me: Shut up, smartarse.
teratomatastic — Steele / Varpole went by Torvus Butthorn too. And suggested response to a Pell Incident might be to just play along, the more you toy with him, the funnier he gets.
This thread was where I had fun with him (he was John Thomas then) — http://manboobz.com/2012/05/09/womens-suffrage-still-controversial-apparently/
I used to have a lot of MRA type views because I was an asshole as a teenager. I also got a lot of reinforcement from gay male culture in which women were seen as desperate fag hags who were moody, unreasonable, vapid and prudish.
Then I realised that those guys didn’t like me either, because Im femmy. Then I grew up, read a lot of blogs, actually talked to women and especially my mother (a second wave feminist who answered phones at family planning when abortion rights were being fought over).
And then I became a feminist and general queer radical. And it was good.
@ leftwingfox- Recovering nice guy on the wagon, huh? You might enjoy Jezebel’s article on Nice Guys of OK Cupid (2 sites I love, together at last!).
If someone is really interested, I guess there are plenty of 101 articles and entire blogs out there where they can learn. Save your energy – we got some candles to drink.
Or something
I swear I am being haunted by tea lately.
The other day I decided that I was going to develop an appreciation for tea, damn it, because everyone I know seems to love it and it’s never tasted like anything more than hot, slightly flavored water to me. (The expection being Panera’s iced green tea, but that is probably because it is more sugar than water or something.) Another forum just gave me about five pages worth of tea recommendations.
So far I’ve tried Irish breakfast tea and despite putting two teabags in one cup and letting it steep for ten minutes, plus milk and sugar, I still couldn’t taste a thing. I don’t know what’s up with that because usually I have no problem picking up flavors. I can’t taste Lipton’s either. I still have some fruit-flavored and herbal teas lying around, so I guess I’ll try those next. Also an Internet friend is mailing me something called Yorkshire tea, which apparently, if I can’t taste that, will mean I am just not destined to be a tea drinker.
Bottoms up, deezers!
Lauralot, if you’re not into tea, then you’re not! You’re not obligated to enjoy something because other people enjoy it.
@katz
Yeah, I just want to be sure I’ve given it a good try before I decide it’s not my thing. I’ve never really had it before and there’s just so much of it – I figure the odds are there might be at least one that I like.
Yeah, never an MRA myself but certainly a recovered Nice Guy (I think I’ve been past the ‘recovering Nice Guy’ stage for long enough now that I don’t think of myself that way anymore). The most fetid part of it was association of ‘girly’ interests with consumerism, i.e. a misogynist’s socialism. I would say in general that it was exacerbated criticism of how other people’s interests played into capitalism without an equivalent strength in my own self-criticism (and obviously that meant a harsher look at traditionally female interests than those that were part of my ‘alternate’ masculinity, i.e. geek culture).
Thank the gods I’m no longer 19. If I could go back in time to slap some sense into myself I’d do it.
If ever there were a moment to cry “Jenkies!!” it’s now. Cant lie, this was a pretty awesome way to start the New Manboobz Year off (and a mad late Happy New Year to everyone!!).
Re: the Feminist v Egalitarian thing
I can understand the whole calling yourself Egalitarian instead of Feminist, do you, label yourself whatever want. What I don’t understand is this idea that people who identify as one thing don’t identify as anything else, or that people who advocate for one cause don’t advocate for anything else.
Same here! If time travel is ever invented, that will have to be the first thing everyone does with it.
@Lauralot
If you have any good Indian restaurants near you, you may want to give masala tea a try (if you like spicy drinks). I don’t really like tea (which, as a South Asian, may have me tried as a blasphemer), but I find the spices really change the taste to something more enjoyable.
Also jumping on the Recovered Nice Guy bandwagon. So glad that time is behind me.
katz: Same here! If time travel is ever invented, that will have to be the first thing everyone does with it.
Not me. Yeah, I screwed some stuff up, but if I’d done it differently I’d not be who I am today, and I don’t know that I’d be happier.
Since I am, in the main, satisfied with my life, I don’t want to screw it up.
Yes, exactly
Lauralot, I don’t know, tea is pretty nice, you’re probably being too hard on it. You should really give tea a chance, instead of falling for all those asshole beverages like coffee and beer. Sure they’re tasty and fun to drink, but they’re not warm and consoling the way tea is.
timetravellingfool: Heh, for certain values of “enjoy”. I found the articles and the tumblr.
Fortunately, my actions and words never metastasized into that level of fuckwittery, but I can sure recognize the attitudes.
@Lauralot
I’m from Yorkshire. We take our tea very seriously. *stern look*
BoyFantastic is doing that whole ‘dry January’ thing and because I don’t want to be sat on my own drinking cider after less than a week, I am joining in when we’re at home. Since the only non-alcoholic drinks we usually have in the flat are normal English tea (milk and sugar type) and fruit cordial, we decided that we were going to try different types of tea. After £3.50 and a lot of suspicious eyeing of cups I can confirm that 1) Assam just tastes like strong black English tea (which is part-made from Assam so I suppose that’s to be expected) 2) Green tea tastes and looks like boiled pondwater 3) All fruit teas still taste like really weak hot cordial.
And it’s only the 3rd of January. *pathetic face*
@ leftwing- I just happened upon it shortly after I read your comment, so I thought I’d hook you up. Congrats on X days as not a Nice Guy!
If you like sweet tea, Nutcracker Sweet from Celestial Seasonings is fun this time of year and Trader Joe’s has a slightly less sweet version (called just Cinnamon and Vanilla or something. If anyone cares, I’ll get off my ass and check.) That makes an excellent iced tea when made with a bit of brown sugar and cream or milk. (With milk, it tastes a bit watery to me so I’ve been using half and half.)
natfantastic: You might want to try some oolongs, keemuns, or pingsueys.
Lapsang Souchongs are very different. Masala Chai can be great, or awful; no way to know until you try it.
TIbetan brick teas… not for the faint of heart.
Laura, if tea ain’t your bag, don’t force yourself.
While we’re talking about teas:
Folks who live in New England who like ‘dessert teas’: Tealuxe at Harvard has a tea called Crème de la Earl Grey. It basically tastes like bergamot-scented cake. With cream and sugar, it’s basically liquid dessert. Strongly recommend.
Non New England folks: well, you can order it online…
thenatfantastic, have you tried Earl Grey? And Lady Grey? They’re a little different to regular black tea and I think they’re yummy. There are also about a gazillion green teas; I have to be in the right mood but it can be really yummy, and you can get some fun teas with dried flowers that open in the water at specialist shops.
Also, fruit teas are by and large far too sweet for me but rosehip is fruity without being sticky, and I actually found a green apple (not the delicious Turkish apple tea that is 50% sugar though that’s good too :D) that’s really addictive.