Oops! Roosh V’s #FatShamingWeek rallies Fat Acceptance activists, makes fat shamers look like the dicks they are

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.