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.
But…strokes don’t generally make you mentally ill.
And even if they did that wouldn’t change the kind of person you’re attracted to.
I get mixed signals from this person too, because like I said, some articles aren’t bad, he is almost feminist in them. His whole Thing is that people create these identities for other people and spend an enormous amount of time trying to maintain it instead of just accepting who they are. Which, ya know, I agree is a good thing to not do. So I find it weird that he’s so sure that you can’t just like things…
BB cream specifically for men is also a thing. Should we send links to the author? I can come up with some with men who are not in drag wearing sparkly eyeshadow too.
But that’s literally the opposite of what he’s saying in that article. He’s saying that women should wear makeup for men and if they don’t they’re Doing It Wrong, and that all the other articles saying that women should decide for themselves (ie, accept who they are) are wrong.
He’s also assuming that all men are spending their whole time gawking at women (or at least, women in makeup). I’d be pretty sure they’re not. Most of the men I see are on the train: they’re either reading, staring out the window with/without earplugs, sleeping, or talking to someone. Apparently asexual, homosexual or just “not interested in staring at women/have better manners/aren’t fixated on makeup” guys don’t exist, for this twit.
I wear red-reducing foundation ‘cos rosacea. I haven’t the slightest idea whether anyone else even notices my rosacea, but I do and I’d rather not have those red patches. I use eyebrow pencil ‘cos it’s a damn sight easier and cheaper than getting my eyebrows dyed to match my hair. I wear mascara on my top lashes ‘cos my eyes are deep set (also the Travatan drops I use make my eyelashes thicker, so yay for glaucoma meds!).
I don’t want to be looked at by men, full stop. I’m not doing it for them. I want to be looked at by one man and I know I am, regardless of whether I’m made up or not.
Come to that, if I do notice a bloke looking at me for any length of time, my reaction is more like “Who the fuck do you think you’re staring at, creep?” than “Oh hooray, my makeup that he probably can’t even tell I’m wearing has caught his dudely attention! My life is complete!”
It’s been a few years, but I look ~fabulous~ in eyeliner.
…Just sayin’.
#makingupforteenageshynesswithadultvanity
I have met quite a few fellahs who liked to wear foundation, eyeliner, or lip gloss. What’s the problem?
katz – Of course they don’t, but strokes in your brain do kill of your brain tissue if you let it be untreated long enough, which is what I think the author was getting at: the only reason you’d think that men who have makeup on is hot is because you’re partially brain-dead.
But of course, I could be bullshtting. 😛
He’s also saying whatever he’s saying in a way that makes me want to confiscate his keyboard. Even Fidelbogen writes better than that.
Athywren – pics! 😉
(Not really, but hey, cool!)
auggz – and when we wear obvious makeup, well, duh, it’s obviously makeup, who’s going to be “deceived” by that?
Cassandra – seconding the motion to confiscate his keyboard. Talk about word salad drowned in the worst mayonnaise.
Oh hey, Last Psychiatrist.
—
Anyone dumb enough to be deceived by smoky-eye makeup deserves to be.
My spidey sense knew there was makeup talk.
SQUEEEEE!!!! Sometimes Mr. HK lets me glam him up, I love it.
Overshare? Sorry not sorry.
This is nonsense. I’ve never been misgendered in my entire life, and I go out without makeup all the time. Nobody has ever commented on it, or treated me oddly because of it.
What a bunch of douchebags. Sure, there are medical conditions, where it is adviseable to lose weight (a type II diabetic might avoid having to take meds by losing weight and changing eating habits), but that’s not what these guys are talking about at all. AND doctors buy into a lot of cultural bullshit about fat people too and will assume all kind of negative things right away or won’t critisize a thin/normal sized person for bad eating habits.
And – as a lot of people pointed out – shaming does not work.
I lost about 13 pounds in the last year due to a chronical gastritis, because eating made me feel sick, so I’d not have a normal caloric intake anymore. I was nowhere near being overweigt before and am now closing in on (to BMI standards) being underweigh. And not only I find it fucking hard – because our culture is that messed up – to not regard this as a “positive sideeffect” a la, yeah, I feel kind of shitty and miserable, but at least I’m losing weight, but other people do not help either. I get this for people who don’t know about my condition (it’s still wrong, dont’ just go about assuming thin = good), but my Dad does that too and compliments me on the “new look”, even tough he knows it’s due to illness. Even tough I’m feeling weak, am getting tired more quickly and my hands shake a lot more than before, because on some days I’m just not getting enough calories.
tl;dr @unwarranted, idiotic compliments: I’m getting cookies for being ill, because it made me thinner.
… Grarghag.
Oh.
Well it was a rather vague statement, and I guess my generalizations only really apply to my own circumstances and the people I talk to. Sorry, I assumed that was implied.
Good you don’t have to deal with idiots, though!
I mean, I kind of see what you might have been going for there, but the point is drowning in enough hyperbole to make a nice political party conference keynote speech.
I think institutionally the wearing makeup thing is something that “real” women are supposed to do. I don’t think it’s supposed to mean that anyone is misgendered so much as gender shamed on an institutional level?
Kitteh, I thought the same, thus sending us both back to the corner of shame.
In a thread in which STRENGTH already gifted us with cock shots?
(I did not click on his name, so thanks for whoever warned the rest of us.)
Why? That’s the point I was trying to make. I guess I did so badly.
I’ll try to rein in the hyperbole next time.
katzentier – That sucks. 🙁
I think one of the things that really infuriated me was when my mother would complement me on losing weight. She’s called me fat on a few occasions, and when I got serious depression, I wasn’t in the mood to eat that much.
I was sorely depressed, utterly miserable as fuck, knew there was something wrong with me, and didn’t want to eat, and yet I’m getting compliments for looking thin. What the hell?
I wish society didn’t automatically think that thin=good, no matter how it’s attained. It’s shitty and it’s unhealthy and it’s just wrong.
It’s such a nice comfy corner, I missed being there. 😛
Is there such a thing as oversharing on this blog, when not done by trolls?