So it seems that some Men’s Rightsers and manospherians, reveling in the negative attention they’ve managed to get from the mainstream for some of their more reprehensible postings, have decided to up the ante a bit, posting stuff that’s so deliberately over the top in its despicableness that even some of their readers have been taken aback.
A case in point: A paean to child abuse recently posted on Roosh’s Return of Kings blog. (Let me put a big TRIGGER WARNING on all the quotes from it that follow.)
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In Why You Should Beat Your Kids, guest poster Rebel Yell argues — well, asserts — that
Beating builds character, and in my estimation, is the solution for today’s flabby, emasculated, and gynocentric culture.
The piece is filled with such wisdom as:
If you don’t beat your kids your son will end up banging some dude and your daughter will become an anarcha-feminist with an unshorn vag.
Yep. For you see, the beatings being advocated here are intended to enforce the patriarchal, homophobic, antifeminist, and even the fatphobic views favored by Roosh and his readers:
[T]oday’s kids … should be beat constantly until they realize that they can’t get away and have to fight back to survive. Beat until they lose their narcissistic attitude and accept that weakness is never an option. Beat until she loses weight and he stops playing with Barbie dolls.
Rebel Yell devotes much of the post to an obviously fictional tale of his own upbringing — which naturally involved a lot of beatings at the hands of his dad — before concluding with an exceedingly vicious attack on some favorite manosphere villains. Who happen to be real people.
Do us all a favor: beat your kids from time to time. If this simple rule was followed Miley Cyrus would shut the fuck up because Billy Ray laid a black eye on his slut daughter, Perez Hilton would be shamed to suicide, and Lindy West would die an ignoble death somewhere in the hinterlands of Hell. After all, Satan is male, right?
This is just straight up harassment.
Like some Men’s Rights activists who revel in saying vile things but try to wriggle out of taking moral responsibility for what they say, Roosh has declared that Rebel Yell’s post was “meant to be satire.”
Clearly Roosh has no idea what satire is. So here is a brief refresher. Satire is
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
In other words, you need to actually disagree with the views you are satirizing. As I’ve pointed out before, when Jonathan Swift wrote his famous Modest Proposal, he didn’t actually believe that eating babies was a good idea. If he had, it wouldn’t have been satire, just a really fucked up essay by a really fucked up weirdo.
The only way Rebel Yell’s post would be satire would be if it were intended as a takedown of misogynist assholes who believe that beatings and bullying are an appropriate response to such supposed social ills as feminism, homosexuality, sluttiness, and obesity, and who hate Jezebel writer Lindy West so much they like to imagine her dead.
But that’s not a description of the sort of people who Roosh and his readers are against; that’s a description of who they are. Indeed, Roosh and his pals in the manosphere just devoted a week to a celebration of anti-fat bullying.
These guys are in many ways beyond satire. It’s hard to imagine anyone more exaggeratedly awful than they already are.
EDIT: And it turns out that this allegedly “humorous” post — as a number of people have pointed out — seems to have been plagiarized in part from a post by misogynistic “humorist” Maddox. Some similar passages:
MADDOX: If you don’t beat your kids when they fall out of line, the next thing you know your son will go off and bang some dude in the ass just out of spite.
REBEL YELL: If you don’t beat your kids your son will end up banging some dude and your daughter will become an anarcha-feminist with an unshorn vag.
MADDOX: The problem is that kids today think their opinions matter. By not beating your kids, they get a skewed perspective of reality … .
REBEL YELL: Beat until they realize that their opinions don’t matter.
And then there’s this. [TRIGGER WARNING for graphics even worse than the quotes so far.]
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Maddox illustrated his post with this graphic, now available as a t-shirt:
Return of Kings illustrated its post with this picture and a nearly identical caption.
So Return of Kings is not even original in its offensiveness.
I wonder what would happen if we started to believe everything they write is satire… Would that make them some of the strongest proponents of feminism?
This misapplication of satire is just frustrating, because satire is a very good and legitimate way to show how hyperbolic and wrong people like these people are, and it’s being diluted and destroyed by these assholes who are using it to mean anything they find funny and don’t want to be held accountable for saying.
That’s right, he didn’t have any balls until his father physically beat them out of his body. Also, the beating somehow enlarged the size of his penis.
Children who are beaten at home are several orders of magnitude more likely to have a wide range of behavioural problems in primary and secondary school.
[Content note: physical abuse, harassment, inappropriate touching, transmisogyny, suicide, self-harm]
I dealt with physical punishment for being slightly fat when I was 14. My tae kwon do teacher hit me on my thighs and behind very hard and shamed me for being “too fat” to do a side kick properly. It was humiliating, degrading, and painful, but it sure as hell didn’t help me lose weight. It just made me hate the people who wanted me to lose weight.
I guess Roosh, out of concern for me, would encourage my dad to join in and also physically punish me. After all, maybe if he physically abused me more, I would lose these silly feelings of wanting to “become female” as well. It sure is great to be forced to live as a guy and bullied into losing weight. No fucking eating disorders or suicidal thoughts or anything like that – nope.
I know that this man isn’t any different from other MRAs/PUAs/whatever the fuck they call themselves, but this post really hurt me in a personal way.
🙁 Hugs if you want them Ally. Your teacher and your dad are both assholes. I think you’re pretty fantastic.
I wonder if there’s some correlation between not turning out alright* after being raised in awful ways, and being willing to sell it as positive character development?
*I mean turning out as an unpleasant adult, prone to homophobia and misogyny. (aka, turning into Rebel Yell. Who I find doubly unpleasant for possibly ruining that song for me forever.)
Oh, I see. Roosh posted a little “This article was indeed meant to be satire.“.
But the disclaimer at the top of the article says: “*For all the effeminate males and troll feminists commenting on this post: rot in Hell. I stand by what I said. Kids need beatings from time to time.”
… So is that part of the satire as well? Are we… satirizing the myopic outlook of not accepting other viewpoints now? Has RoK gone so meta that it’s actually stepped into making satire of its own stated principles in other sections?
I guess the viewpoint that the article is meant as satire is underscored by the grammatical mistakes and the host of random little tidbits that seem too outlandish to be true, but then why keep that “I stand by what I said” thing?
Is RoK itself meant to be satire? Is the entire site, disclaimers, commenters, posters, posts, meant to be a satire on the human condition and the fallibility of men? Is that why Rebel Yell is specialized in “Western Civilization”, game theory and spirituality? How do oyou specialize in Western civilization, I was under the assumption you tended to codify that with a category like “The history of” or “The economics of”, not just the entire thing.
Besides, Maddox did this first. Like, line for fucking line, including the little “If your child doesn’t look like this when you come home”, but you know what the difference was? While that article (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=beat) is just as gut twisting and bad, you can clearly see it’s satire and the little bit at the end says “X amount of people doesn’t know the difference between dicipline and child abuse“. Because beating up people is bad! And wrong! And some people do it for no reason at all times to encourage a state of fear, and this is a bad thing.
Goddammit! Not only is this indelibly corrupting, bad writing, pretend-satire with a terrible message and a hunkered down attitude (If you’re going to have a disclaimer on a satirical piece of writing, don’t make the fucking disclaimer that you’re serious! Make it that.. it’s satire!), this is re-posted bad advice. Other people did it first.
Other people did it first line for line. I don’t know why that somehow makes it worse for me? Like, if this was just shit, I could accept that, sure, but this is shit someone else has actually gone ou to copy from someone else. Not only is this horrendous, it’s… repackaged horribility. It’s not original idiocy.
If you’re going to go out of your way to make nebolous satire that’s difficult to code and could easily be misunderstood as supporting something you don’t actually support, while also helping hold up a host of other small ills, while while being a total ass about it, at least be original.
3 / 10. Made me respond.
May they ALL step on ALL the Legos. Child abuse, emotional or physical or sexual, is NOT cool.
Or so sayeth someone who has seen it firsthand.
This is their new schtick, isn’t it? Just write hateful shit, call it satire.
“Speak roughly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes,
He only does it to annoy, and because he knows it teases.”
True satire courtesy of Lewis Carroll.
Or apparently, plagiarise hateful shit and call it satire and insist it isn’t at the same time! To confuse all the readers into sleeping with them?
Not sure what kind of fail this is – fail because they meant it and even their own readers have WTF’d, or fail because it really was supposed to be satire but published by people who don’t understand satire.
Preface 1: I know this is the most minor of details and not really on topic, but it’s nagging.
Preface 2: Obviously, Billy Ray Cyrus does not own Miley, never did, and in any case, she’s past the age where he has any claim to control over her behavior. That said…
I don’t think he’s as upset by her antics as everyone seems to think he should be. He’s in the business, he raised her in the business, he was a sex symbol himself back in the day, and I’m sure he knows exactly what she’s trying to do, which is to make an Anne Hathaway-style clean break with her Disney Princess past. I’m sure he was more comfortable when she was the little girl on the Disney Channel, but he knows the score.
It would help their case if they knew how to write satire that didn’t sound exactly like them when they’re completely sincere.
TW: Child abuse
True story, I spent a good chunk of my childhood terrified of my mother. She was fond of striking us with whatever was handy, and she hit me so hard she broke things. Flyswatters, wooden spoons, belt buckles, etc. broken on my body. I was afraid of her and I hated her. Then one day she stopped — I was around ten or so at the time.
A few years later we started talking about her childhood, growing up in a home with an abusive alcoholic father and a clinically depressed mother. She had to raise her four siblings because her mother would lie in bed for months at a time (seeking mental health treatment was NOT DONE in lower income households back then). Her parents would steal every nickel she brought into the house so she had to hide her income from two jobs, until she had earned enough to flee. She spent her last two years of high school living with her aunt, and never saw her parents again. I never met them, and am glad of it.
I believe that one day she realized she was turning into her father, and that was the last time she ever hit me. I’m so grateful that she had the strength to change. This is what the cycle of violence does — it breeds hatred and more violence. Roosh is a monster for advocating it.
My mother and I are very close today; I count her as my best friend. She was widowed at a young age and she raised my brother and I on her own. And she taught me how to take care of myself, because she ended up alone and had to learn how to do it late in life.
Violence breeds more violence.
Cool story bro. If any of that were true, you’d be out doing it instead of writing “satire” on fucking Roosh’s shitshow of a blog.
@ Chie,
I can relate to your story; I am sure many people can. I’m so grateful that your mom had the strength and insight to reject her own childhood “programming.” Most people aren’t able to do that. No wonder you are proud of her.
@hellkell,
Touche (as usual)!
What gets me about how the commenters have decided this goes too far, is that they were totally behind the article that detailed how making someone ashamed of themselves is a good way to get them to change. So they’re okay with psychological abuse, but physical abuse is where they draw the line, I guess. Sheeze.
I’m pretty sure that they’re intending to satire what they think feminists think of men. It’s very unclear, and it’s also obviously bullshit, but I… think that’s what they’re trying to claim.
So in other words, when you’re twelve and fighting with your sister and go, “Oh sure, you’re ALWAYS right and I’m ALWAYS wrong!” then that’s satire in the same way. And as mature.
The fact that they think this is some sort of Get Out of Jail Free card is kind of fascinating, since even if you’re doing that, you still CAN’T AGREE WITH IT. On Ellen’s sitcom, her attraction to Laura Dern’s character prompted her to come out, and then Laura Dern literally was given a toaster for “recruiting” Ellen. Same structure joke, I think: “Our enemies think we recruit people; well here’s a humorously ludicrous extention of that!” That kinda doesn’t work if you actually believe lesbians recruit people.
HeatherN – I’m just encouraged that they have a limit. Not, you know, a lot, but at least there’s somewhere that they draw a line.
For some reason, possibly because I didn’t sleep all night, I think this line is fucking hysterical.
I mean, two testicles? A BIG dick!? LOTS OF WOMEN!?!?
And ugh, Ally, that sucks. I had a grandpa like that, but he lived far away and I didn’t have to see him much. Having a family member who lives with you act like sounds terrible. People who don’t realize how brutal and damaging eating disorders are suck beyond works I’m capable of writing right now.
Have an internet hug: http://lovemeow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/6376702299_7cbc71ee3e_o.jpg
**NOT capable. See? 🙁
RE: hellkell
I am a man with two testicles and a big dick between my legs. I fuck women. Lots of women.
Cool story bro. If any of that were true, you’d be out doing it instead of writing “satire” on fucking Roosh’s shitshow of a blog.
Sssh! Don’t tell anyone that he has two testicles and a big dick between his eyebrows! The truth will make them flee!
In less douchey news, to commemorate my rather hasty return to Boston, I am going to be starting another writeathon on November 1st! The topic, naturally, will be ‘journey.’ I hope to see y’all there!
RE: baileyrenee
Hell, I think it’s funny too! Just because I’m trying to imagine where ELSE those genitalia could be located, that he’s so determined to convince us otherwise!
Obviously Rebel Yell felt the need to remind us that he is a fully endowed cis* male who bangs all of the ladies because he actually has/does these things, right?
I am man, hear me roar! *duke nukem music*
Apparently my google skills have failed me… but there’s a sketch with a punk in a public bathroom, and he’s opening all the zips in his jacket and checking inside and getting frustrated, and then a businessman comes in, opens his briefcase saying, “I keep mine in here” and… yeah. Funnier to see it than describe it, but my googles have abandoned me.