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!
Thanks guys. I should have been more clear, it’s scary but not quite as bad as “cardiac ICU” implies. He apparently has a rare heart condition which is usually not fatal but it took a little while to figure out what was going on, and he needs treatment ASAP, but it’s often an outpatient procedure apparently (at least that’s what his doctor told him). He basically has an extra electrical pathway in his heart, but it’s fairly easy to fix in most patients and he should be just fine.
An interesting tidbit for some of you…he has a mental illness as well, and now we’re left wondering how much this heart condition affected/caused it as it causes extreme anxiety, altered moods and confusion. We’ve long noticed his pattern of going absolutely crazy for a few hours (and I mean that literally) and then coming back to normal; apparently, that can be a symptom of this disease (which I should also emphasize is pretty rare; according to his cardiologist, it only affects about 1% of the population). Today started out as just normal craziness on his part while visiting me, but he passed out 3 times and had weird muscle spasms as well so I called 911.
Well, I hope everything goes well and he comes through fine!
AK – I’m glad it’s not as bad as it sounds!
Is it possible, if his heart and mental conditions are connected, that treatment for the heart condition will help both? Fingers crossed on that one!
kitteh, that’s what we’re hoping. He’s been diagnosed with rapid-cycling bipolar disorder (which was then exacerbated by self-medication–addiction, in other words–but that’s another story), but the “rapid cycling” was these weird mood swings that do seem to fit with the heart diagnosis.
We’ve been really struggling because he’s been trying to get sober for a long time, but he completely loses control periodically and relapses, and then he has to start all over again. We’ve long been thinking that he needs to have adequate mental health care to get sober, but that’s difficult as his illness and addiction have made it difficult for him to hold down a job long enough to get insurance, and even when he has had it, his mental illness was often not covered. We were basically trying to tread water until January, when the ACA really goes into effect and he’ll finally have coverage. Fortunately we live in a city that has a medical school, and that medical school offers a subsidized insurance program to low-income people, and my brother has it, so his current hospital stay is covered (they don’t offer mental health services, unfortunately). So now there’s this branch of hope that maybe just fixing his heart condition will at least alleviate the extreme anxiety/loss of inhibition that often caused him to relapse.
I’m making this thread about us though and I don’t mean to do that though, it’s just heavy on my mind for obvious reasons. 😉 I’m happy to be quiet about it and let everyone get back to discussing asshole MRAs.
AK, that’s good news. I think physical conditions can often affect mental health. I had a student working for me who had suffered from what was diagnosed as depression for years, which didn’t respond to either talk therapy or medications. Finally she got a new doctor who kind of threw a “hail Mary” and had her admitted to a sleep clinic, and it turns out she had severe sleep apnea that meant she almost never went into REM sleep. After a minimally invasive surgery on her throat to correct the problem, the depression symptoms pretty much disappeared.
Not that depression is usually caused by sleep apnea… Anyway, I hope this brings your brother closer to getting some control over his symptoms as well.
AK, no need to apologise, none at all. I really hope this treatment helps him. And it stinks SO MUCH that getting necessary medical help is dependent on having the “right” sort of job (ie. at a place decent enough to offer proper coverage) instead of being part of the basic structure of society.
I’m sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy. Hope you guys can MAN-handle Dan without me. XD
And AK, I wish ACA went into effect even earlier. Our (USian) health care system is SO broken.
@AK
I only discovered this blog a week ago, but as far I can tell asshole MRAs are an evergreen topic, so share away. Good Luck to your brother.
As I said I’m new to this internet underbelly, so the Manosphere still has that new clown car smell. That’s my
excuse for going back to the Spearhead comments.
1) Some very sound logic at work – “SPLC has the nerve to call our agenda a “hate movement” when, unlike ALL feminists (sorry to those not affiliated with RadFemHub, but those bad apples spoil the whole bushel), we do not want to exterminate every member of the opposite sex.”
2) One poster shares a Harriet Tubman quote for inspiration. Just let that sink in for a moment.
All this nonsense stops being weirdly fascinating after a while, right? I hope so because I don’t even want to admit how many hours I’ve spent poring over past posts.
“New clown car” is waaaaay too frightening an image!
I’m afraid it doesn’t stop being weirdly fascinating … or if it does, it takes years’n’years for the truly addicted. David’s been running this blog since about 2010, I think.
As for hours poring over stuff – ha, me too. I’m on this site most days, including at work, and I’ve read heaps of the old posts.
🙂
I’m still fascinated with this stuff after three years. They keep coming up with new ways to be assholes!
@dustydeste: RE the 4:1 claim, I’ve heard this one before, what it refers to is stuff like job interviews and recruitment, the argument goes something along the lines of, “Well, it’s all women that are employed in HR, and women in HR prefer to employ other women over men (by a 4:1 ratio), therefore men are being oppressed…” I know that Steve Moxon’s book Women Racket makes this argument somewhere, but it’s the first time I’ve seen the claim in the actual manosphere
@ David Futrelle
I always thought that avfm would basically “decline” (in terms of manosphere popularity) if Elam retired or withdrew. The Daily Beast seems to think that JtO is going to move it on in terms of “popularity”.
I think it’s basically a one man show, and that although Elam’s nature and personality alienates a lot of MRAs, it’s essentially needed to keep the websit functioning as it does. I say this because I think they are a collection of conspiracy theorists, mostly with additional agendas to th MRA one.
Either way you cut it, the pressure on avfm at the moment, given the 20/20 exposure and the ridiculing Beast article, must be intense.
They will dress it up as victory, because that’s what they do, but it’s the opposite.
Yeah, I think the DB is completely wrong about Hembling being “heir apparent.” AFVM is Elam’s baby, and it’s doubtful it could survive w/o him. Though I don’t know how long it will survive w/ him, given his amazing ability to alienate everyone.
I think the DB may have exaggerated Hembling’s role parly as an excuse to run all that stuff completely demolishing his credibility. Maybe I’m being cynical.
AK, does your brother have Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome? I have that and bipolar as well.
That is exactly what he has, sakurabelle. I’d never even heard of it before last night. Does it affect you much (of course don’t answer if it makes you uncomfortable)? It sounds like if he just has the ablation (I think that’s what they said), it will be fine.
He’s still in the hospital but doing well, just for anyone who wants to know. 🙂 He probably won’t be released for another day or so and no word of when the procedure will be done, but he’s clear-headed and back to normal now.
My depression completely went away when I found out I was celiac and got all gluten out of my diet… when it came back (but differently) it was due to my thyroid (which in turn was related to celiac, so chicken/egg?) Point being, no gluten and thyroid meds = no depression for me.
@AK thinking good thoughts for your brother and family 🙂
Re: DB article – Price is married to a feminist? I didn’t know he was married. I would love to hear their dinner conversations. Anyway, I thought the article did a good job of pointing out why people who don’t like the MRA are not against men, they are sickened by the misogyny and vitriol and… and that most people (including feminists) fully support many of the actual issues facing men, they just don’t want anything to do with the MRA.
I was watching a documentary the other night about the negative societal effects of the US ‘war on drugs’, and one of the largest groups campaigning to end mandatory minimum sentencing is headed by a woman. The war on drugs, mandatory min. sentencing, etc predominantly impacts men, particularly non-white and lower income men. This is something the MRA, if they were actual activists, could really help change… if they weren’t focused on simply reacting to what they see as feminism. Far, far more men are in prisons because of Mandatory min. sentencing (and for non-violent crimes) than because of false rape accusations.
That’s fascinating, hearing about the physical/mental illness stuff. I’m lucky to be a pretty healthy person, physically (though I wrecked my knees exercising–bad me) but it makes sense that some conditions could really cause/influence others. Good luck to your brother, AK!
LBT – It makes sense to me. I recall my therapist teaching me about how there are various factors in mental illness (I think there were five), and that everything is connected to one another: thoughts, physical health, environment, mood, and something else I forget about.
RE: Alice
Yeah. I mean, I generally didn’t have depression… until homelessness was on the horizon, and then it was pretty crippling. And whenever I injured my knee, I went bananas because I’d have to sit in the house all day and I NEED my daily exercise or I get really antsy and unbearable.
LBT – My personal experience was stress, impending isolation, and hypothyroidism. Especially the former and the latter. Getting out of the house made me happy, coming home made me miserable. Etc.
Yeah, that’ll do it. And I know my wonky sleep schedule used to alarm me a lot, because I was sleeping like I had when I was depressed, and I couldn’t tell if I was or not. (Turned out that it was probably my meds. But still frightening!)
I get scared if I go without my levothyroxine now. I don’t want to go back. 🙁
LBT, if I may ask, how’s the housing situation now? Are you currently homeless, hiking across the country, or did it work out some other way?
Regarding physical illness and mental illness… IDK if it’s bad or good to find out that you have some kind of physical problem that made you feel like shit? Guess it depends on whether the physical stuff is easily treated or not. Over the years, I’ve occasionally had some weird physical symptoms, and my psychiatrist has sent me to a, um, what’s the English? Body doctor? – to check it out, and it’s always ended with them concluding that my body is actually tip-top healthy and anything wrong with it is just psychosomatic. I never know whether to feel relieved or frustrated.