So our old friend Roosh Valizadeh seems to have fully embraced the Matt Forney school of misogynist internet celebrity, posting over-the-top offensive posts in a transparent attempt to gin up controversy and blog traffic. And it’s working: he’s brought an avalanche of well-deserved hate down upon himself. But don’t worry: he’s still got some supporters — not only on his own blog but in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
The post that’s been keeping the servers hosting Roosh’s Return of Kings blog busy lately is a guest post by Tuthmosis with the title “5 Reasons To Date A Girl With An Eating Disorder.”
It’s pretty much as awful as you’d imagine. Reason 1: “Her obsession over her body will improve her overall looks.” Number 2: “She costs less money” because she’ll only order salads at dinner. Hilarious. It’s all so predictably “provocative” it’s not worth quoting in any more detail.
Roosh has responded to the controversy with an, er, “Publisher Response” that was clearly designed to further stir the shit. In it, he claimed that the original post
contains value for men who want to date thin women in America, a country that is currently facing a devastating obesity epidemic, which we recently highlighted with Fat Shaming Week.
He followed this by claiming that Return of Kings wasn’t promoting eating disorders, merely trying to help women struggling with eating disorders find happiness in love:
We are educating our masculine readers not to pass on eating disorder victims just because they have an illness, yet instead of receiving thanks, we’re receiving hate instead. If we all had cancer, and someone wrote an article titled “5 Reasons To Fornicate With A Man Who Has Cancer,” we would spread it far and wide to make fornicating with us a better proposition for women. We would not send death threats or calls for censorship like is happening to us now. I think a bit more graciousness is in order for our unorthodox method of outreach.
As a much less obnoxious internet celebrity once put it:
Despite setting out to offend as many people as possible, Roosh reacted with indignation when he discovered that someone on the Men’s Rights subreddit had dared to suggest that perhaps he had stepped over the line a bit.
https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/403290871854280704
What’s doubly ironic about this tweet is that he actually has a lot of defenders in that thread — and that the thread itself has gotten twice as many downvotes as upvotes. Only a few found the Return of Kings post offensive; the others dismissed it as clickbait — or agreed with it.
One commenter, posting under the name of a famous turn-of-the-twentieth centuryantifeminist and opponent of women’s suffrage, apparently sees Roosh as some sort of heroic defender of anorexic women:
Meanwhile, the ironically named LogicalDebater beamed us this message from his home planet:
And our old friend Demonspawn, quoting from a commenter on Return of Kings, blamed the outrage on fat, ugly feminists jealous because men would rather date thin women.
![Demonspawn [-1] 1 point 21 hours ago (8|7) This comment on the followup article nailed it to the wall: The anger was only thinly veiled by the eating disorder arguments. Ultimately the original article was about accepting women albeit with the benefit that she's thin and won't cost as much, but I think that is the rub. The feminist hate speech directed in the comments and emails to this site was latent anger at a man's desire to date thin women. Since feminism encourages the destruction of female beauty and femininity most feminists have a hatred toward anything that encourages or accepts women for these traits. The hate directed at this site under the guise of "eating disorders" is just that, the article hit a rough nerve with feminists who hate beauty and acceptance when it is defined by men.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/demon.png?resize=525%2C242&ssl=1)
Men’s Rights Activists often complain about being lumped together with pickup artists; here, many of them have chosen to associate themselves with Roosh at his worst.
The greatest human rights movement of the 21st century, folks!
EDIT: Belated thanks to Snork Maiden for pointing me to Roosh’s tweet and the Reddit thread!
It would explain his obsession with being an “alpha” too.
Seriously, look at that photo. Doesn’t he look like he’s never seen either a cutting board or a kitchen tool before?
He’s waiting for the chicken breast to try running away before he hits it again. What is this food that doesn’t move? So confusing.
@PUAHate
I think Roosh’s income is vastly exaggerated. True, he got mega hits on the last post, and no doubt he will escalate the outrage if he can, but at a certain point people weary. The novelty wears off. The public has a very short attention span.
Remember a few weeks ago Matt Forney’s post about the joys of girls with low self esteem drew so many hits that he was soliciting donations to upgrade his server. Hardly anyone is mentioning that now, although he continues to trawl titter for mentions. He’s bumming around on the streets of NYC, homeless as far as I can gather.
The fact that these blogs get readers =/= these blogs generate significant money.
I sat down once and figured Roosh was probably making — in a good year — about $30,000. Maybe the years his “Bang” books were selling, at the best, he made $50,000?
He survives by keeping his cost of living down. He lives in cheap apartments and travels by bus. He even totes along his own panini maker, to avoid having to eat out!
He has pretty much admitted he has ED problems, and is getting too old to attract girls at clubs. I think he spends his days hanging out in cafes with free wifi or holed up reading “classics”. He churns out a lot of book reviews which no one wants to read. His reading list is hilarious, full of old chestnuts like “All the King’s Men.”
Eventually he may try to find a gig teaching ESL, but that doesn’t pay more than $1000/mo in the countries where he’s living.
I have wondered if Roosh and Forney weren’t getting subsidies from their moms. That would be ironic, would it?
I meant “twitter” of course. LOL.
But does he smell like wet dog?
What has this hypothetical dog been rolling around in recently, and does its owner ever bathe it?
“even basic logic”
There’s the problem. He gets that as well as he gets what showers are for!
Cassandra — no, it’s a gremlin.
I swear getting that poodle puppy wet was like unleashing a hyper gremlin. And, of course, shaking off wasn’t his thing. He was smart enough to attempt to bury himself in his towel though (I gave up and decided he could have it) — worked better if I’d just dry him, but he understood the concept of drying off.
Actually bathing him though? I don’t even care to ponder the mess that’d have made!
Of course, worst he ever got into was tangled fur.
Point here? Roosh is less intelligent than a poodle puppy.
Women aren’t the ones with body image issues, its men! and why wont those fatty fat women watch their weight?!
I just like chicken, period. I was totally vegetarian for a long time, and then my friends took me to this place in LA that makes really good roast chicken and I fell of the wagon and ate breast and thigh meet.
I do have a really good recipe for “palestinian chicken” that uses thighs and bakes them under sliced onions so they stay really moist, that I’ve been meaning to try with breasts. If anyone is interested, I can post the recipe. It involves a lot of basting, though that might not be totally necessary.
Meat, not meet. Sigh. I’ve got a job interview tomorrow and I am nervous and distracted.
Good luck on that interview cloudiah! Best of luck!
Good luck, cloudiah!
If we’ve moved on to recipes, anyone have any suggestions for potato dishes that would be particularly good with roast pork and red wine? We’re going to rub the pork with smoked paprika and something herby.
Isn’t in interesting how these men claim they have such terrible body image issues too, yet also tend to be to ones who berate fat women the most, and usually in the most cruelest ways? I mean you’d think they’d have a little empathy for those who struggle alongside them.
I’m not saying men don’t have those issues, or that women never fat shame, but I’m not going to pretend lots of men don’t berate and hate on women who are fat. It actually has hindered my ability to give a shit to be honest, I’m so sick of all this “what about teh menz” BS when an asshole like doosh has so many fucking followers who are happy to engage in fat shaming women but then crying about their own so called body image issues.
Funny how a lot of them will always justify and hand wave unrealistic beauty standards with “sex sells” too. Yeah I’m so convinced you guys have such crippling body image.
Yeah good luck Cloudiah! 😀
RE: La Strega
I think Roosh’s income is vastly exaggerated.
So do I. I mean, making a living from blogging is TOUGH, and so is being a professional assface. I really can’t imagine this guy making much money from this stuff alone.
It’s not easy being mean.
Good luck, cloudiah!
Cassandra, I sometimes make roasted new potatoes and onion with a bit of thyme. You just cut them into bite-size pieces, toss with olive oil, thyme, and a little salt. I think they’d be good with what you’re planning.
We may put thyme in the rub so that would work. We’ve done something similar with the potatoes sliced before – when you do it do you leave them whole?
Thanks. I’m really conflicted about leaving my current job, which manifests as lots of indigestion. (I will avoid further TMI.)
Potatoes: So far I am limited to mashed and scalloped. But roasted sounds yummy. Do you parboil them?
Cassandra, I leave them whole if they’re the tiny ones. I meant to write “red potatoes” and in that case, I cut them up.
Cloudiah, no parboiling is necessary for roasted potatoes! Just bite-size pieces, olive oil, 400 F, and 30-40 minutes. Toss them now and then and season them how you like and you’re done.
“It’s not easy being mean”
Zing! 😀
Smell of wet dog would be an improvement for Doosh, I think – no matter what the dog had been rolling in.
cloudiah, good luck with the interview, lotsa hugs!
As a naturally thin who can’t help having a small frame, I honestly do not understand what is all the hype around being very skinny. Seriously, I’ve spent almost 20 years of my life like this, I eat and still barely put on any weight if at all, and guess what? It doesn’t make me feel glamorous, drop-dead gorgeous or any superior to women with different body shapes than mine in any way. I’m not saying I have a miserable life because of it, all I’m saying is that I’m normal just like everyone else, this whole skinny thing didn’t bring me happiness, love or satisfaction on a silver plater, I had to work for them like any person of any size. These people are clearly morons.
So that being said, it makes me sick when I see young girls or women for that matter encouraged to starve themselves or hate their bodies in order to achieve the “thigh-gap-skin-and-bones” look otherwise they can’t consider themselves beautiful or promised that it will provide them with a fabulous existence. What a load of bullshit. Beauty is feeling, not appereance.
Also, this guy is disgusting. Who wants to bet that he doesn’t get to sleep with more than half the girls he claims to have bedded? Just another loser trying to make easy money.
Forgot to add, good luck with your interview, Cloudiah! 😉