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A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam duped by obviously fake article on satirical website

Hamsters: Still less gullible than Paul Elam
Hamsters: Still less gullible than Paul Elam

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.

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Cthulhu's Intern
11 years ago

That isn’t satire! Everyone knows that satire is when you say awful rape/violence apologist shit without a hint of irony.

kittehserf
11 years ago

Wonderful, just wonderful.

Though I kinda wish in this instance that the Dean could fire the little shits who voted no.

Maybe Pauly was shocked – shocked! – that his budding MRAs could be subjected to such indignity. Even though they weren’t.

Ashley
11 years ago

He’s a chump and half.

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

RE: Ashley

A chumplefuck?

cloudiah
11 years ago

I laughed so hard when I first read this on r/amr. Paul will believe literally anything if he can spin it to pretend women or feminists are doing something bad. (Not that spending money on anti-rape campaigns, especially when there’s an unidentified rapist running around, is a bad thing to anyone except Paul Elam and his FTSU wrecking crew.)

augochlorella
augochlorella
11 years ago

So was there an apology or was this story taken down with no explanation?

Athywren
Athywren
11 years ago

But he’s the king of satire… I thought? How does he fail to recognise satire when everything he’s ever written was satire?

It’s almost as if… but no, that would be ridiculous. Obviously his understanding of the world in general – and satire in particular – is perfectly sound. This is obviously just a matter of liberals writing hateful shit and then pretending it’s a joke afterwards to weasel out of criticism. Obviously…

kittehserf
11 years ago

Apology, augochlorella? Expecting manly menz to apologise is MISANDRY!

cloudiah
11 years ago

Clearly, The Syrup Trap owes Paul Elam — and all men everywhere, for he is their king — an apology! Any other position is the rankest misandry, augochlorella!

Athywren
Athywren
11 years ago

You know, it occurs to me… on manboobz: the magazining, or whatever it ends up being called, we’re probably going to have to have a banner up at the top of the funnies pages in size 72, bold: “The following is humour. Do not take seriously. MRAs, this means you.

@Brodt

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.

OMG! Censorship! CEEENSOOORSHIIIP!!! Leave Poor Elam alone! Stop oppressing him, you misandrist bigot! 😛

Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
11 years ago

Whaddayaknow, it looks like Paul E’s confusion over the meaning of the word ‘satire’ was genuine after all. I guess he’s very slightly less disingenuous than I though.

moldybrehd
11 years ago

Is anyone else reminded of the fevour surrounding the banning of non-existent sexbots?

Viscaria
Viscaria
11 years ago

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 whose logo is a cartoon beaver with a plastic cup on its head.

To be fair, in Canada we put cartoon beavers on everything, serious or not. Legal contracts. Love letters. Declarations of war.

Seranvali
Seranvali
11 years ago

*chokes laughing*

Yep, this is a classic! And Google has seem it…it’ll be all over the web in not time flat! I’m going to make popcorn, anyone else want some?

kittehserf
11 years ago

moldybrehd – ah, that was one of the funniest ever, the sexbots saga!

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

Oh, Paul. Stay stupid.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Whoops.

Chie Satonaka
Chie Satonaka
11 years ago

TW: Sexual assault

In New Zealand, a group of young men have been plying girls as young as 13 with alcohol, gang raping them, photographing their crimes, and posting those photos on social media to “name and shame” their victims. They call themselves the Roast Busters. Police have known about the group since 2011. Until yesterday, they claimed that they couldn’t do anything about the group, couldn’t even do anything about their website, because no victims had filed formal charges. Turns out that was a lie. Two girls, both 13 years old, pressed charges in 2011. Police told them they were asking for it. There have been no arrests. The case is only getting attention now thanks to the attention of a local television news program.

But there is no such thing as rape culture, right Paul Elam, you smug fuck? 13 year old girls plied with liquor, gang raped, photographed, and bullied online afterward, and the local cops shrug.

kittehserf
11 years ago

Fucking useless police …

Oh, there’s a troll hanging around on the other threads, calls himself Kevin. He’s a right little chew toy in the making.

Ashley
11 years ago

LBT, “A chumplefuck”…precisely!

Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Buttercup Q. Skullpants
11 years ago

Is Paul Elam the target audience for all those warning labels?

“DO NOT IRON SHIRT WHILE WEARING IT.”

“SUPERMAN PAJAMAS. WILL NOT ENABLE WEARER TO FLY.”

“PEANUT BUTTER. PRODUCT CONTAINS PEANUTS.”

StarStorm
11 years ago

Man, that is some prime Elam assturbation.

Also, fut the whuck is up with people. That’s just… eurgh, that’s horrible Chie.

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

RE: Chie

D:

Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
11 years ago

@ Buttercup Q Skullpants – My favourite one of those was

WAIT FOR CHAINSAW BLADE TO COME TO REST ON ITS OWN. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP BLADE WITH HANDS OR GENITALS

toujoursgai
11 years ago

After all, in Rape Hysteria Culture a frosh week chant can go places no sane person could actually predict.

I know expecting internal logic from Paul Elam is like…some ridiculous analogy I’ll make up later, but presumably “rape hysteria culture” is supposed to refer to all those feminists getting “hysterical” about rape. If so, how can a pro-rape chant be an example of “rape hysteria culture”? I don’t even understand what he’s trying to say here.

Never mind, I’ll just point and laugh. AHAHAHAHA.