What do women want? Dudes. In groups. Especially dudes who hate them.
That, in any case, seems to be the conclusion drawn by a blogger who calls himself Hipster Racist, and who seems to be a white supremacist of some kind. Anyway, he’s written a little post about the rise of Reddit’s Red and Blue Pill Subreddits and how they illustrate the Mannerbund Effect, a theory that helps to explain just why it is that the ladies allegedly like getting up in men’s business so much.
Here’s how HR tells the story of the two subreddits:
Someone created a section of reddit called TheRedPill which is devoted to “game,” seduction and anti-feminism. Essentially, a group of young men comparing notes on their various romantic successes and failures, which for obvious reasons, include a lot of frustration and what some might call misogyny. … Some of these men talk about “gaming” women in the same sense you might talk about training a dog. Gaming bitches, they might even say.
Yeah, some might call that misogyny.
The men’s romantic advice to each other essentially boils down to: women are selfish and incapable of love, so never fall in love, just improve yourself, lift weights, make money, dress better, and the women will come running.
Yeah, some might call that misogyny too.
As if on cue, the women show up and create TheBluePill a section of reddit exclusively focused on mocking, shaming, and attacking TheRedPill with anti-male rhetoric just as critical and harsh and the anti-female rhetoric of TheRedPill.
Now, pretty much none of that is true. TheBluePill is populated by a lot of dudes as well as women and the subreddit is basically an elaborate parody of the Red Pill subreddit, punctuated by occasional serious posts when people there are too astonished by the misogyny to make jokes about it. Take a look. If you can find any sincere anti-male rhetoric within it, posted by a regular commenter and with net upvotes, I’ll literally mail you a dollar.
But what is so fascinating about the dynamic is this: the men exclusively discuss how to improve themselves, while the women exclusively discuss … how the men can improve themselves. Obviously, they have very different views of what “improvement” looks like, the men essentially say “be more macho” while they women essentially say “be less macho.”
Well, not exactly. The advice in The Blue Pill subreddit is really only implicit advice, and it isn’t so much “be less macho” as it is “don’t be a misogynistic, manipulative, rapey asshole who gets validation from a bunch of other misogynistic, manipulative, rapey assholes like those Red Pill dudes on Reddit.”
Anyway, so Mr. Hipster Racist thinks that what all this means is that the Blue Pill ladies want the Red Pill men, and want them bad.
The dynamic plays itself out, over and over again, constantly. A group of men get together – the Mannerbund is formed – and do something. The women then show up, watch the men, and either cheer them, or heckle them.
But when the boys get together, the one thing the girls cannot do is ignore them.
Mr. Racist refers us to the manosphere-famous video of the protests of the Warren Farrell talk at the University of Toronto from last year. He points us to one female protester who became notorious in the manosphere for shouting at one of Farrell’s male fans, declaring him to be a “fucking rape apologist, incest supporting, woman hating, fucking scum.”
To Mr. Racist, only one thing could be driving this much apparent hate: pure animal lust.
Look at the man, look at the woman, and look at how the woman is looking at the man. Look at her eyes.
You could cut that sexual tension with a knife.
No. Just no. Sometimes a “you fucking rape apologist” is just a “you fucking rape apologist.”
So, anyway, someone took the opportunity to post Mr. Racist’s reflections on the Mannerbund Effect to the Red Pill subreddit — well, ok, that “someone” was Mr. Racist himself — where it met with many huzzahs.
My favorite comment of the bunch comes– surprise! — from Mr. Racist, posting as jack50s; it’s almost Penthouse Lettersesque in its sophomoric eroticism:
Later, Mr. Racist wandered into the Blue Pill subreddit, and quickly convinced himself that everyone there, including me, had the hots for him. (To be fair, I did kind of lead him on a little.)
Huh. Apparently I’ve been awarded some sort of honorary Women’s Studies Degree from the Dean of Pompous Nazi Blogger University. That will help to ease the sting of rejection a little. A little. At least I have my cats.
@Claudiah: I read the Hobbit not that long ago, and from what I remember all the elves appearing there are pretty generic background-elves except the king.
No, Tauriel’s a complete invention.
But come on. Three-quarters of the whole damn series is a complete invention, and if you think she’s what’s ruining the movies, you need to recalibrate your standards.
see, I can understand nerd rage at making up a character that was never in the books to begin with, but as usual, its the hurling of misogynist insults that tip me off that it’s not really about that, is it?
if they stuck a black elf in there and people started using racist slurs against zir then it’d rightfully be called racist bullshit.
Anyway, I read The Hobbit ages ago and never finished, when I saw the trailer I wondered who she (Tauriel) was and thought she looked cool. I don’t know how to feel about randomly adding in a made up character. Generally I’d be against it if a movie is trying to follow a book but I’m not a hardcore Tolkien fan- meaning I haven’t read the books (though I do own them) I just loved the LOTR trilogy and the first Hobbit movie…so yeah. I’m more of a comics person 😛
It’s just…not really fucking hard to make an argument about these things without it descending into sexist slurs. I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with this shit. MRAs and everyone else tries to hand-wave it away and everyone who speaks out against it is silenced. And why is it such an affront to people that women get representation in entertainment besides porn and chick flicks? We are half the damn population. Yet it’s so controversial to have female characters play an important role in our entertainment.
I think what they don’t realize is what they consider “for men” actually translates to “for people” anything blatantly woman-like is only for women so we should shut up and stick to that.
“Because, like, there has been nothing in the canon that suggests a timelord can change gender in their regenerations. Oh, and regeneration itself? Totally believable. Totally. Feh. It’s not even that I think that the next doctor needs to be female (although I’m hoping for Ellie Kendrick) it’s just that the idea of it is so ridiculous or offensive to some people… why? Blargh. The doctor is a hero because the doctor is heroic (some of the time…) not because he has had a penis until now.”
Um, so this is second hand info, but didn’t um, Romana? Regen as a guy? I know 11 said something about a time lord who was sometimes a girl. And skin color? Melody Pond -> River Song.
So yeah, canon totally says this is possible.
Thanks for the correction, katz, it’s been years since I’ve read the book.
Quackers, remember the racist crap that got spewed against the black character in The Hunger Games? Even though she was clearly intended to be black in the book, and all the racist fans just glossed over that and so it became some big betrayal. But at least people did rightly view that as racist BS (or at least decent people did).
The man is making a 9 hr saga out of a 300 page book, and people are PROTESTING the addition of new characters?!!! Do they WANT 9 hrs made out of just the source material?!!
So what do those fundies think about frozen fertilized eggs? That they must be implanted (in whom)? Or do they think it will sound too ridiculous in public, so they are tactically shutting up about it?
There’s enough gray area with abortion that I just can’t imagine thinking that it’s ok for a government to ban it. Especially not in a country where this happens: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Jury-acquits-escort-shooter-4581027.php
I made the mistake of reading the r/mr thread about The Hobbit. Someone is arguing that the makers shouldn’t be putting female characters in there because it was a male-targeted movie based on a male-targeted book. There is so much wrong with that I can’t even…
I can’t link or cut and paste because I’m on my tablet (well, really, because I’m too lazy to do the workarounds that would allow me to link/cut and paste while I’m on my tablet), but it’s one of the top comments and it’s a giant wall of text.
Same dude also admits that the actress was the recipient of a lot of gendered insults, but then wonders why anyone would call that sexism.
AFAIK they’re against IVF precisely for the reason that it results in fertilized eggs that are just gonna “die”.
“AFAIK they’re against IVF precisely for the reason that it results in fertilized eggs that are just gonna “die”.”
I ought to have guessed that. But have they made any stament abount the fertilized eggs that already exist?
Seriously, the Hunger Games? Everything is told from the main character’s POV, and she clearly hasn’t seen black people before and don’t have the racial vocabulary, but she describes the people of a certain district and the girl she befriends as having black hair and brown skin. So, clearly they’re black people. If you can’t stand the main character befriending a black girl to the extent that you interpret “brown skin” as she and everyone in her district having super-deep tans, and then go “WHY DID THEY MAKE HER BLACK IN THE MOVIE?” when the movie comes out – yeah, then you’re pretty fucking racist.
@Talacaris: IDK – I guess they might be smart enough publicity-wise to realize that it’s easier to get some portion of the public to sympathize with your cause if you focus more on Da Evol Slutty Slutz having abortions than proper married couples who try their best to have a baby in order to complete their marital bliss.
@Cloudiah
Yeah I do remember that regarding The Hunger Games and wish I didn’t. People are so…ugh.
Giant wall of text person is the one I was mentioning too, “YetAnotherCommenter” is their username. I love how they bring up My Little Pony FIM as an example when the creators have acknowledged the bronies numerous times and even put things in the show as a nod to then. Example:
well I can use the same argument as you, dumbass. Bronies don’t sign petitions to include male characteres because a good chunk of them are drawing pony porn.
Although I have been told that some of them want the ponies to have boyfriends. How about fuck off. Its not even including male characters for story purpose or to appeal to a male demographic, no, its so some of those bronies can live through them or some shit. And women are the ones who supposedly want romantic relationships in everything.
@Shadow
see…that is a good point that I haven’t considered. This movie is being drawn out so long, how do we know she and Legolas (who is also not supposed to be in it) are there for plot reasons rather than the dastardly feminist ploy to include FEMALES IN MOVIES!!! oh the HORROR.
*are NOT there for plot reasons, rather.
Actually there are many brownies who want more male characters. They did cater to them by adding more male characters.
This is getting old.
When I was a kid I read the John Carter series (space fantasy about a man who’s mysteriously teleported to ancient Mars). I thought it was fun and exciting, but you couldn’t exactly identify with this princess of his, who was constantly getting kidnapped by bad guys and then rescued by John. A few years ago Disney made a movie out of the first book. They made the princess a scientist who had figured out how the bad guy’s weapon functioned, and that’s why the bad guys were after her. She got to fight too, pretty competently, although at the end of the day she was rescued by John just as in the books.
There were probably misogynists across the globe who’d also read these books as kids and were pissed off by those changes to the princess, but to me, it just made the movie more enjoyable. I mean, it’s a silly movie, based on a silly original story, so you still have to shut down a portion of your brain to enjoy it, but with a less traditional damsel in distress at least I don’t have to put feminism on hold while watching. I’m all for making these kind of changes when filming a book, at least if you’ve already made the decision not to follow the book to the letter (which movies rarely do anyway).
so the bronies got what they wanted, but when women want more female characters and ones that are actually good, they get shut down or harassed by internet misogynists and MRAs.
@Dvärghundspossen
its amazing to me how so many misogynists…well not even just misogynist people…people overall are so against updating means of storytelling, especially to keep up with the times. Just because something is a trope, doesn’t mean we have to use it all the time. It’s actually quite anti-creativity. Ever heard of doing something different for a change? People who defend damsel crap just defend the status quo and the same bland shit over and over again. There is no shortage of stories with damsels in distress, a few with women actually doing important shit isn’t gonna kill you.
and for the record I don’t mind all damsel stories, I do loves me some old school Disney and Super Mario Bros, but it was a product of it’s time (well moreso the Disney films) but, I like to see things reflect current and more realistic gender roles. There’s only so much of simpering, helpless, princesses I can take >_>
I just remembered that updating movies is nothing new: The book “Pippi Longstocking in the South Seas” was written in 1948, and is about how our heroine finds out that her (white, Swedish) father, presumed dead, is actually alive and well – after a ship he was on sunk, he ended up on a southern island where he was quickly made king of all the “negros” living there. And he’s seriously referred to as “negro king”.
When this book was made into a movie in 1970 he was a “pirate king” instead, commanding a fleet of pirates rather than an island full of worshipping “negros”.
AFAIK, back in 1970 there wasn’t tons of people complaining about how political correctness had run rampant etc etc because of the changes from book to movie.
their dudebronerd rage is the epitome of first world problems, as are those who whine about political correctness because they can no longer pretend minorities dont exist or be assholes to them.
at least the seemingly unimportant complaint that most female characters are weak and useless is rooted in fact that women were seen as weak and useless throughout history and thus represented as such in entertainment.