How gullible is Paul Elam, grand pooh-bah of A Voice for Men? Well, he just wrote an frothingly angry denunciation of a Canadian business school dean based on an obviously phony story on a satirical website called The Syrup Trap. A website that declares at the top of the page that it is “Canada’s favourite humour magazine.” A website whose logo is a cartoon beaver with a plastic cup on its head.
The backstory: Several months back, you may recall, several Canadian schools got into hot water when it got out that students in charge of organzing freshman orientation events were welcoming in new students with horrific chants full of rape jokes. One of these schools was the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
Appalled by this, the dean of the business school, Robert Helsey, pledged $250,000 towards sexual assault counseling and education. But there was a catch: $200,000 of that sum would have to be approved via student referendum.
Last week, students overwhelmingly voted down the referendum.
Let’s let the writer of the satirical story, a journalist and humor writer named Jonny Wakefield, explain what happened next:
Dean Helsley made a public statement on the vote, which despite all the manager-academic speak, contained something resembling barely concealed rage.
Wouldn’t it be funny to see what he’s actually thinking?
So I wrote up a FAKE letter from Mr. Helsley to the student body, in which he lays down the law. We posted it to the humour blog the Syrup Trap, which, to be fair, has confused people in the past. Like when a post had people convinced J.K. Rowling was buying a campus library and turning it into the Chamber of Secrets.
In the FAKE letter to students, the FAKE Helsley FAKELY announced he was FAKELY firing the entire student body:
When your boss tells you to do something, it is in the company’s best interest that you do that thing to the best of your ability. Because it is in the company’s best interest that this thing be done, it is in your best interest as well.
Sometimes, the things I tell you to do may sound like suggestions. Sometimes I might say, “It would be great if you could complete x task within a given time period.”
But funding this counselling position to make up for joking about rape, while there is a sexual predator at large on campus?
That wasn’t a suggestion. …
Going back to Sauder as business analogy: you are all fired. All of you.
Enjoy the rest of your week. You have two days to clear out your belongings.
Oh, aside from the thing at the top of the page saying the site was a humor site, and the cartoon beaver, another little tipoff that this article was HUMOR and not REALITY is the fact that deans cannot actually fire the entire student body.
But none of these little tipoffs were enough to tip off Mr. Elam, who launched into a full-scale assault on the dean in a posting called “Dean Robert Helsley, asshole.” AVFM has since taken the post down, but happily for us students of MRA delusion and gullibility it has been captured forever by the Internet Wayback Machine. (Make sure you go the the November 5th capture of the page; the Nov. 6th capture of the page will get you a blank page, as they had deleted it by then.) Note: The Wayback machine is having some technical difficulties, so if you can’t get through here’s the Google Cache.)
Here’s Elam, laying down the smackdown for Helsley’s imaginary crimes. Sorry, for Helsly’s imaginary crimes: in keeping with AVFM’s tradition of not ever checking anything before publishing it, Elam even spells the guy’s name wrong in his tirade over the fake article in a satirical publication.
Dean Helsly wanted to blow a quarter of a million dollars of student’s money to allay his personal embarrassment over a fucking frosh chant that got too much media attention, and when they said no he resorted to bullying and public humiliation.
Doesn’t he know that no means no?
The students voiced their will through a democratic process, and Helsly reacted by letting them know that if he could he would retaliate against them for those votes; that he would, in fact, crush them.
I understand that Helsly is embarrassed. After all, in Rape Hysteria Culture a frosh week chant can go places no sane person could actually predict. But what is really interesting is that while Helsly is obviously uncomfortable seeing his name anywhere near the antics of some unruly freshman, he obviously has no concern whatsoever revealing himself publicly and proudly as indifferent to the collective will of his students, pettily resentful of the democratic process and thuggishly willing to play dictator, collective will and democracy be damned.
I’m a little confused as to what exactly Elam thinks Fake Helsley — sorry, Helsly –was going to do to “retaliate” against these students, given that deans cannot, you know, actually fire the entire student body.
Or does Elam think that in our evil Feminazi Gynocracy that’s just how things work? I guess when you devote your life to fighting imaginary enemies anything is possible.
Hint for you, Robert. Even bosses can be fired; especially the arrogant asshole type bosses who mistake their organizations as an instrument of personal vanity and who mistake tyranny for leadership skills.
Why is Elam writing about himself here?
Oh, wait — that’s supposed to be about Helsley?
Oh, and a special note to Sauder students. If you think feminism is a movement for social justice, think again. Feminism is the establishment now. It is the man. And the man just crapped all over you.
Well, not exactly. One man just crapped himself, all over his own website.
And I thought Elam was supposed to be the expert on satire.
The Syrup Trap has posted a clarification of their original story.
Thanks to pretendent on AgainstMensRights for alerting me to this lovely story.
Heeheehee…..
Masculism cannot fail; it can only be failed. Take it away, Grand Negus:
“You failed! Miserably!”
“Rape Hysteria Culture”, that’s a new one.
Aw, the wayback machine link doesn’t work. 🙁
Seems that men’s rights advocacy and a sense of humor just do not go together. I suppose this shows the result of unremitting rage on a person’s critical abilities. Too bad.
Wow, Paul Elam sure is vehemently opposed to stuff Dean Helsley never said.
Ooookay then.
Dense enough to take satire seriously, and dense enough to fail to realize how awful rape jokes are.
Elam, you’re a real champ.
hahahahahaha
Such a charmer. I guess because of course, in our feminazi gynocracy, NONE of that money would’ve EVER helped a male survivor of rape. And even if it did, RAPE HYSTERIA CULTURE ZOMG!
Satirical websites are MISANDRYYYYY
I get that he’s stupid for actually falling for this. I mean I think we all realize that this guy is pretty stupid.
What I’m really appreciating (read: am abjectly horrified by) is that he somehow thinks that a person’s right not to be raped is something that should be put to a vote. Or that the Dean choosing to ignore the referendum would be “bullying”. Because you know, basic human rights are totally a matter of opinion. Well maybe there is room for opinion, it’s just that any opinion that does not fully support them also happens to be intrinsically awful (what a coincidence!).
I kind of want to hear about his feelings toward the civil rights movement. Since after all, there was no vote and those “bullies” on the supreme court forced all the poor racists to not be complete (but still mostly) shitbags to people of different colors. Because you know, white privilege isn’t real, and there is obviously such a bias toward black people in this country. That’s why they have all the money and opportunities, duh!
Actually, never mind. I do not want to hear this moron speak about civil rights in this country. In fact I would prefer it greatly if he refrained from speaking entirely. Every time he opens his mouth its hurts my brain and causes me to die a little bit on the inside.
He should go away. I bet there is nice farm out in the country that would be willing to take him in…
Well obviously The Syrup Trap is run by feminists. Why else would they write such a deceptive article except to fool the brave human rights activists at A Voice for Men?
For shame, The Syrup Trap. For shame.
The wayback machine is having some technical troubles but the link should work once they are taken care of. Happily, I screenshotted the whole thing.
BAHAHAHAHAHA, AVFM FAIL.
Satire is now MISANDRY!
O wait. If satire is now MISANDRY, does that mean that the infamous Bash a Violent Bitch Month is ALSO MISANDRY?
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If satire is misandry, then MRAs are in trouble, seeing as it’s their favorite go-to excuse for everything they write.
David, I LOL’d. On the bus. And I don’t care.
Ah, MRAs… They never fail to amuse.
I never felt the term ‘chucklefuck’ was more appropriate.
Oh, Pauly. Never change.
If your silly ass didn’t exist we’d have to make you up, just for the lulz.
“Pauly the Chucklefuck” is my Phrase of the Day. Thank you, LBT!
They are just so adorable.
The hilarity has now been spread to the Google office in Seattle. The laughter is only beginning.
No problem, Stuffed Fantod!
This is just beautiful. There are a million things about the site that you think would tip him off, but no! He catches wind of his target and doggedly pursues it right off of a cliff.
Why people look up to this idiot Paul Elam as their cult leader is something I’ll never understand.