The He-Man Manosphere Cat Fight Continues! The long-awaited 20/20 story on the Manosphere did not, alas, run as scheduled last night — it’s been postponed until who knows when — but the Men’s Rightsy infighting it inspired continues!
Yesterday, you may recall, the Spearhead’s WF Price called out A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam for his alleged naiveté in going on the show in the first place, and for generally being a shitty backstabbing narcissistic asshole — all fair enough criticisms.
Well now Elam and his AVFM attack squad have responded to Price’s attack in the comments on the Spearhead– as various Spearhead readers have stepped forward to offer their own thoughts on Elam, many of them even less flattering than Price’s screed.
Elam, in his response, tried his best to affect a tone of Olympian condescension:
Wow, Bill, this is pretty sad.
But hardly surprising given the nature of so many men.
These days I normally would not bother responding to this kind of thing, but I do respect a lot of the work that has been done here. The Spearhead has been a very important part of advancing badly needed counter-theory. Still, I personally think my actions deserve better than the skewed, half-baked interpretation you just fed your readers. It actually embarrasses me for you.
He went on to suggest that the “man-o-sphere” that he had explicitly tried to divorce himself from — in a post entitled “Adios, c-ya, good-bye man-o-sphere,” no less — doesn’t really exist, and that getting bad publicity from the 20/20 story was part of his plan all along.
AVFM is moving on according to plan. The banner I placed to The Spearhead on the top of the home page will remain despite the fact that I think this article was a chickenshit move by someone who wants to distance himself to avoid flak for which he never had the stomach in the first place.
Price wasn’t buying any of his false magnanimity. Responding to another commenter suggesting that he had “stabbed AVfM in the back,” he wrote:
You are delusional. I have watched Paul shit on people for years, and finally I’ve had enough. I saw clearly with his scheme to impugn others right when he goes live on TV that he meant to stab everyone else in the back to position himself as better than the other folks just as we are all about to get crapped on.
You MHRM people have your place. Please, stay there so I don’t have to be associated with it.
There are a number of other, well, memorable comments in the thread.
3DShooter offered these thoughts on Elam’s leadership abilities:
I once thought quite highly of E-lame, until I eventually had a private email disagreement with him. His utter lack of rationality and profuse use of uncalled for foul language showed him for the little man that he really is (and you can almost see the spittle dripping from his chin in his response to this article really Paul, ‘chickenshit’ – ya know ya really wanted to drop the f-bomb like you do when no one’s looking). Frankly, the MRM’s probably lucky he didn’t go off on one of his foul mouthed rants on camera.
If there can be such a thing as a ‘leader’ in the MRM, E-lame isn’t it. Maybe this will give E-lame an opportunity to reflect on why it is important to not be so quick to turn on others – eh, I don’t think he has it in him.
In keeping with the unwritten manosphere rule that whenever people within the manosphere actually step up to criticize one another they generally do so for the completely wrong reason, assorted commenters attacked A Voice for Men for allowing women into its little clubhouse, and a few accused Elam of possibly being some sort of a mangina or even a feminist. Anonymous Reader put it this way:
More and more, AVfM appears to be heading down the path of the Good Mangina Project – co-option by conservative feminists … is proceeding onward. In time, Elam will likely be surprised to be kicked out of his own organization, just as Tom was at the Mangina Project.
Because of the known 4:1 preference that women have for other women in organizations, allowing any woman to have any authority in a group like AVfM sets in motion the long term destruction of the group.
Paul Elam unhappily has been a beta all along.
And then there was the always baffling joeb, with this bit of conspiracy-theorizing:
Some of the garbage I see from AVFM would be considered by some businessmen if it was there interest as nothing short of Machiavellian
From the last encounter with the gays in Toronto” witch to me seemed scripted ,( I have good reason ) Too giving a American Traditional institution like 20/20 a chance to push Man up on the population Throw what will be code blue shaming tactics is unforgivable .
This could set back the Manusphere two or three year . With the recent offspring Mgtow claiming popularity its going to kill membership . Hope the best and prepare for the worst is what I always say . Whatever happens I think It would be a really Really good Idea for all of us to saturate the net for the next few weeks , Taking advantage of ether Lindsey Lohan press or Good Press its all the same .
Oh, Manosphere, My Manosphere: in the sheer weirdness department you never disappoint!
Love seeing the snake eat its own tail (oooh, an ouroboros — there’s some yonic imagery for ya, fellas!).
Can I also just say, I went and read the whole of Matt Forney’s idiotic post about being contacted by 20/20 to be interviewed for the piece, and I was ROLLING. I e-mailed it around to a few other producers on my show’s staff with the subj: “MOS has seen through our facade.” (MOS being “man on the street.”) They couldn’t believe it; a reporter read it over my shoulder and made me scroll through the rest of the site to prove it wasn’t a parody. I could go through that piece of idiocy point-by-point and explain every nuance that makes it a steaming, fetid pile of pure bullshittery, but … what cracked us up the most was the producer “disclosing” the fact that they were having a hard time getting sources. What? No! What you say to a recalcitrant source is, “We’ve had a lot of people who are eager to talk with us, and there are some pretty loud voices saying things that don’t always jibe with what you’ve got to say, but we think you’re one of the more valuable leaders in this community so we’d really like to hear from you to give that side of the story some guidance.” BOOM. HOOK LINE ‘N SINKER.
Anyway. Chow down on those tails, snakes. Love it. Can’t wait for the actual piece.
I think it’s telling that some people can’t criticize Elam’s website without blaming some women for it, even if it was intended as a backhanded insult to take away Elam’s “man card” or whatever.
Over on the Spearhead, I saw this in the comments, “the women’s government schools is a massive cluster of hate-crime lies which harms the children who intend them, not only the boys, as ill-intended, but the girls who yearn for the patriarchy.” I’ve never run into any girls who long for the patriarchy, have you?
Is it me or Elam’s ‘hardly surprising given the nature of so many men’ is incredibly anti-man?
A Voice for Men:
CompassionHatred for Boys and Men. *nod*“the women’s government schools is a massive cluster of hate-crime lies which harms the children who intend them,”…
What is it that thew children intend? I missed that part.
*the, not thew
I live in a glass house, but still. Even I have better writing ability than that.
I’m still taking to the comment section under the ABC spot. SO many MRAs running around, it’s easy to have a chat with them and prompt them to say something awful, like this: “Feminists always try to grab the moral high-ground in any argument by conflating alleged white female oppression with that of blacks. Blacks hate you.”
Haha, that’s ol’ UncleElmer right there.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/women-battle-online-anti-women-hate-manosphere/story?id=20579038
Boumbette: MISANDRY! MISANDRY! How dare you call a man anti-man for saying something that criticizes men!
Translation: Refer to fake pop psych/soc factoid pulled out of a random ass, repeat how women always totally ruin everything.
I like joeb’s “Manusphere” typo. I’d almost say it was a Freudian slip referencing the masturbatory nature of the MRM, but I don’t think joeb’s vocabulary is that good.
I read joeb’s comment four times and it still doesn’t make any fucking sense.
I hope they’re completely butthurt that they got preempted by a dead white woman (which is broadcasts news’s favorite ratings bait). That must really frost their flakes.
“Manusphere” does go well with Scrotoverse.
The fuck? Is this some bass-ackward version of how when there’re 50% women in a room, everyone thinks women comprise far more than half, or how if women spend the same amount of time talking as men, everyone thinks that they’re overbearing and speaking way more than their fair share?
I just don’t understand MRA-bizarro world…
Jesus, this site’s great – y’all are so funny and smart! Got here from Fark, and I am happyyyyyyyyyy!
That is all.
When women are in an organization, they will always want to get rid of all the men.
That’s why we need to get rid of all the women.
Another comment:
And another:
So they recognize their articles are right now providing fuel to some homicidal rage-addict who will inevitably snap and kill a bunch of people, but the problem is how the media will react when that happens?
ABC got wise, and didn’t want to be a laughing stock by airing that crap.
Welp, there you have it. Nobody is ever just one kind of bigoted.
Dan, weren’t you just on about how we hate fairness and equality cuz we mock these guys? Which is it?
You can hear Paul E. on blathering on for about 7:00 minutes on talkradio by going to the 10 minute mark here: http://www.kfiam640.com/media/podcast-bill-carroll-on-demand-BillCarroll/manosphere-1pm-1017-23855821/
David Futrelle
Its never over until the fat lady sings, except given the fact that these are MRA, I think we’ll have to say it won’t be over until the fat gentlemen sings. Lets see which of our “brave warriors” for “oppressed” men comes out on top.