The gentlemen bloggers of the Manosphere — particularly those obsessed with pickup artistry, a.k.a. “game” — like to pretend that they’re part of some sort of reactionary intellectual renaissance. Indeed, some have even convinced themselves that they’re part of a new “dark enlightenment.”
These intellectual pretensions are undercut rather thoroughly by the often puerile content of their blogs, in particular the bloggers’ obsession with cheap insults of the “yeah, well, you’re a fattie who can’t get laid” variety. Indeed, sometimes this seems to be their only real response to their many critics.
Some of these “dark enlightenment” intellectuals have discovered that crude, cheap, offensive insults garner more attention from the wider world than their sad attempts at serious philosophy. Witness some of Matt Forney’s dumb, attention-seeking provocations aimed at “fat girls” and female self-esteem.
Now “game” guru Roosh Valizadeh has decided to gin up some pageviews by launching a week-long assault on fatties, which began on Monday. In a post on his Return of Kings blog announcing the start of “Fat Shaming Week,” Roosh argues, with the utmost insincerity, that this is a public-minded intervention designed to make the world a better place:
We at ROK fully understand that the reason women are so against fat shaming is because it works. Mocking someone for lazy and slothful behavior is one of the best ways to motivate them to change and appear more pleasing before our presence. If a fat woman goes to the bar with attitude, thinking she’s a great catch, but several men check her for that arrogance by calling her a grenade launcher, do you think she’ll feel comfortable the next day for her scheduled cupcake and ice cream binge?
Even setting aside the fact of Roosh’s extreme assholery, this is simply not true. Fat shaming doesn’t work. In fact, as a recent study by Angelina Sutin at the Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee found, it can actually lead to weight gain. Looking at data from more than 6000 participants in the nationally representative longitudinal Health and Retirement Study, Sutin found that
Participants who experienced weight discrimination were approximately 2.5 times more likely to become obese by follow-up … and participants who were obese at baseline were three times more likely to remain obese at follow up … than those who had not experienced such discrimination. These effects held when controlling for demographic factors (age, sex, ethnicity, education) … .
She concludes:
The present research demonstrates that, in addition to poorer mental health outcomes, weight discrimination has implications for obesity. Rather than motivating individuals to lose weight, weight discrimination increases risk for obesity.
In other words, fat shaming makes people feel like shit, and it causes them to gain weight, not lose it. This is obvious to anyone who thinks about the subject for more than a few seconds: after all, we live in a society in which fat shaming is ubiquitous, and rates of obesity continue to rise.
But of course Roosh isn’t really interested in making anyone’s life better except his own. Indeed, it’s fairly clear that what’s really motivating his little campaign is a desire for revenge on the women who have turned him down over the years. He more or less comes out and says it:
Hurting people’s feelings is the quickest way to get them to change, as any man who has been rejected by women can tell you (we can get laid today only because we’ve adapted to being shamed and punished for our appearance and beta male behavior over the course of many years).
Huh. Does Roosh really want to create a world full of bitter, angry women who are essentially female equivalents of him, using and manipulating men for their own pleasure without remorse?
Well, no. I’m sure he didn’t think it through that far. He just wanted an excuse to post a bunch of crap making fun of fat women.
So what sort of public spirited content did Roosh offer his readers during Fat Shaming Week?
A post urging men to take unflattering pictures of fat women without their permission — and post them on Twitter in order to shame them.
A post, evidently inspired by Matt Forney’s “Why Fat Girls Don’t Deserve to Be Loved,” titled “5 Reasons Fat Girls Don’t Deserve Love.” In it, semiliterate dating coach Christian McQueen explains, among other things, that “fat girls” smell (because “[i]t’s impossible to be that fucking fat and be able to wash your ass properly”), are bad at sex (because he cannot find their vaginas “unless I roll you around in flower [sic] and look for the wet spot”), and eat too much. He concludes:
Your fatness is the human version of a dead hippo, a beached whale, or to put it more bluntly, a human size cupcake: spongy on the outside, round and full of crap.
Really? Where exactly are you buying your cupcakes, dude, because normally cupcakes are delicious.
Another “humorous” post compares “fatties” with wild animals and suggests ways to kill them if you’re the victim of a “fatty attack.” Douglas writes:
Fatties tend to have poor hygiene habits so physical contact can be unsanitary. Their physiology provides many unique difficulties to overcome. Their thick skull is an effective counter to blows to the head. Their bulk is a good defense against projectile weapons. While big game cartridges such as .300 Winchester magnum and .338 Lapua can put a fatty down, a man would have a difficult time explaining to a grand jury why he was packing such a weapon outside of Africa.
“Emmanuel Goldstein” contributes “5 Ways To Bully Fat Sluts On A Date,” full of hilarious suggestions like “Go Bike-Riding Together” (because fatties can’t ride bikes!), “Go For A Hike Together,” (because fatties hate to walk!) and “Go Ice Skating Together” (because she’ll fall through the ice!).
There are several more “fat shaming week” posts up; they’re equally puerile.
Roosh and his pals have also taken their campaign to Twitter, posting such gems as these, using the hashtag #fatshamingweek.:
#FatShamingWeek selfish cunts. Children from fat mothers probability wise, are dumber, fatter, more prone to depression. Wipe de sperm off.
— Francis Begbie (@BegbieBegbie) October 8, 2013
https://twitter.com/Beppo_Venerdi/status/387635431283515392
https://twitter.com/JacquesJournal/status/387844928052543488
https://twitter.com/RealCMcQueen/status/388494710580326400
https://twitter.com/Feisty_Woman/status/388458961705250816
https://twitter.com/EsotericTrad/status/388331081344487425
Even Tom Leykis, the semi-popular radio misogynist, has gotten into the act:
#FatShamingWeek what a great idea! If your girl looks like a human Cinnabon or a Butterball, make her feel like shit! http://t.co/cjbLvvNKeB
— Tom Leykis (@tomleykis) October 11, 2013
Happily, the hashtag has been pretty much taken over by feminists and fat acceptance activists and other people countering the douchebaggery of Roosh et al.
And the only real media coverage the campaign has gotten — from Buzzfeed and The Daily Dot — has focused on the sheer douchebaggery of the fat shamers.
So it seems that the main effect of Fat Shaming Week has actually been to advance the cause of Fat Acceptance, not to undermine it.
Brilliant, dudes. Just brilliant.
My worry with this stuff is that giving these men any attention at all gives them oxygen. Then again, what the hell? Their own words reveal them to be the losers that they are.
Somehow I feel the need to post this.
Yes, the irony is that although what they desperately want is attention, it’s actually the worst thing they can receive because they’re so tone deaf that they don’t realize how ridiculous they look to people outside of their cult. The very thing they want the most, attention, is the very thing that will make their movement even more of a joke.
holy shit, these people are terrible. I hesitate to post this comment because it’s 1. glaringly obvious and 2. doesn’t really add to discussion, but . . . holy shit.
My BIL has been trying to fatshame my sister into losing weight for years–it really doesn’t work. I can’t believe my sister puts up with it. Really.
Nothing gives me more satisfaction about this post than seeing Tom Leykis’s pathetic self-promoting tweet get only three re-tweets.
Also, I know this is kind of off-topic, but does anyone else find that “Dark Enlightenment” graph hilarious? “Economists” has exactly two names: Hans Herman Hoppe, moderately infamous for being as close to a fascist as a libertarian can be, and “Super-Economy (Tino)”. Uh, who? Is that even a name? It’s probably some dude’s youtube handle, and they probably don’t make very good videos.
Other notes on the chart: HBD stands for Human Bio-Diversity, which translates into English as Psuedo-Intellectual Racism. There’s a reason Charles Murray is directly connected to the HBD node (although if the graph were based on influence it would be a pyramid with a few names like Murray’s at the very top and all the youtube pseudonyms at the bottom).
My favorite name on the graph is Mencius Moldbug, a relatively influential “thinker” whose screeds are a mountain of entertainingly foolish and offensively racist excessive verbiage.
Anyone want some of this cake? I can give you more icing for it too.
I thank God daily for the fact I am too fat for these assholes and being upset about my weight stopped happening ten years ago.
I was blissfully aware of this Tom Leykis fool unitl just now.
ER, unware. un.
unaware. sheesh.
Have some cake Grumpycatisagirl. It is really tasty. And I have milk!
The “Fat Shame Week” nonsense makes me want to go eat some cake and then have sex…just to stick it to these assholes.
Of course, you’d only go ahead and fat-shame women, because when men get fat, it’s totally normal and he should be applauded, but when a woman gets fat, ZOMG YOU SO UGLY UNLOVABLE [slurs for women here].
*rolls eyes*
I can’t help but think that if your group contains Christian traditionalists, you’re pretty much banned from using the word “enlightenment.” I have no major quarrel with your garden variety Christian, but traditionalists are ridiculous.
True, the phrase “dark enlightenment” does conjure images of the original enlightenment thinkers with Spock’s beard superimposed over their faces – even the ones who already had beards – so it does fit with their total lack of rationality and forethought.
Something tells me Roosh got his sleazy ass turned down by a heavier woman and now he’s seeking righteous revenge for the slight.
I know it’s a stupid thing to focus on, but these guys actually think your skull gets thicker as your weight increases? Do they even science?
cloudiah – “Do they even science?”
Well, for one thing, they’re MRAs. For another thing, they actually think that negging will actually make a girl more likely to sleep with them.
You might as well ask if the sky is green in color. 😛
Well, at least it’s Thanksgiving this weekend so I don’t have to change my plans to accommodate gratuitous face-stuffing 😀
I’ve developed a quick little rule over the past year for determining things like this.
Is it stupid? Does it demean women or paint them as evil harridans? Then yes, they believe it.
@cloudiah: And that a person’s intestines get bigger if they get fat too, apparently. Actually, they don’t really seem all that familiar with anatomy or how sex works, to be honest.
http://radicalcentristblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/fat-shaming-week-at-return-of-kings/
Science is misandry! I thought we’d established this already.
As for the OP, yeah the idea that you can be overweight and healthy is a total delusion, just like the idea that I don’t really fit either binary gender. Cupcake anyone?
Any Pittsburghers around? The best friend used to ride his bike over to my place when I was in Millvale, and back…up the arsenal park hill. He’s just barely in the obese category by BMI standards. Meanwhile, I fucking hate that hill and am the line between underweight and normal. Oh, right, male. Never mind.
I just googled Tom Leykis. He is fat.
Here Alice, have some bacon!
I’m a grown ass (pun intended, because oh my, has it ever grown) woman, and this…no, sorry. I just wanted to make that pun. Because I like my big butt, I cannot lie…
Sorry, going to bed now.
If you go to the Buzzfeed article, the top comment says “maybe us fat girls should make #tinypenisweek” under that comes all the butthurt comments which amount to “wooooow WOW…forget the article, now you’ve just crossed the line”
I’m against shaming anyone for their genitals and don’t use it as an insult myself, and I see their point that two wrongs don’t make a right, but it really goes to show how anytime women start to fight back using similar tactics, suddenly its gone TOO FAR. Imagine startig a popular hashtag called #tinypenisshamingweek…
The more women get insulted be men like this, the more unsympathetic I feel towards their complaints.
As disgusting as this is, it doesn’t surprise me. As the manosphere has previously said, they only believe that women are useful for 1) Looking pretty 2) Babying men and 3) Having sex with. So naturally following that logic, if a woman isn’t appealing for them to look at or have sex with, then they’re clearly worthless.
Treating women as human beings is misandry!