One of the strangest things about doing this blog is all the things I ‘ve learned about myself in the process. I don’t mean all the insights into my inner being I’ve gained, though there’s been a bit of that. I mean all the completely untrue things I’ve learned from people who hate me.
For some reason, many of the people who most hate this blog– many of whom have never read it — aren’t satistfied with criticizing me for what I do and who I am; they find it necessary to make up many new and horrible and not-actually-true things to criticize me for: That I plant the things I quote on this blog to make Men’s Rightsers look bad, that I write all the comments myself (all the hundreds of thousands of them) to make Man Boobz look more popular.
Oh, and that I want all men cuckolded.
To those who hate me and this site, I and the Man Boobz commentariat have become what sociologist Stanley Cohen called “folk devils,” convenient scapegoats around which various urban legends — or in this case internet legends — have grown like mushrooms.
The ShitRedditSays empire on Reddit has developed a similar mythos of its own. ShitRedditSays started out as a subreddit to collect together and skewer the worst, most bigoted nonsense that regularly posted and upvoted on Reddit; it grew into a robust Reddit counterculture that’s really one of the only good things about the site.
But to most Redditors, it seems, the SRS folk devils really are akin to the devil, and they are accused of all sorts of preposterous things on a daily basis — many of which suggest that SRS wields vast and nefarious powers behind the scenes on Reddit and possibly even in the real world. There’s so much of this nonsense that the SRSers have started a whole subreddit devoted to the SRS Mythos.
Basically, all the preceding was sort of a long-winded preface to me saying that I just discovered SRSMythos and have been really enjoying reading it.
Here are some of the not-so-true facts about SRS catalogued there:
A claim that
my friend used to mod there [on SRS], he and his buddies from Stormfront.org started it as a joke to get people to hate politically correct liberals and black people.
The notion that SRS was secretly started as a joke by Nazis or other bigots is one of Reddit’s favorite conspiracy theories.
A claim from a Men’s Rights Redditor that one of the Men’s Rights subreddit mods is a secret SRS agent.
Another Redditor, familiar to anyone who reads the anti-SRS and/or Men’s Rights subreddits, offers a convoluted theory about how SRS is all part of a weird eugenics experiment.
Someone called againstSRS complains that “THEY’RE the ones who try to make fun of US for so-called “ridiculous” conspiracy theories? Our theories about SRS and women destroying society are more grounded in concrete facts than their entire sense of reality.”
Someone else asserts that SRS is a
horrible horrible subreddit full of Nazi Feminists that aren’t actually for equality. They hate all men, and think that every man is a rapist. I’ve seen people banned from it just for mentioning that they were a guy while commenting.
Actually, SRS did its own demographic surveys and found that most SRSers — -somewhere in the range of 57% to 59% — were dudes. Granted, that’s a low percentage of men for Reddit — which is overall 80% male — but not exactly evidence that SRSers are a bunch of man-hating feeeeemale separatists.
Check it out. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff there, whether you’re studying the sociology of scapegoating, or if you just like seeing Redditors post idiotic crap.
minus one “virtually”.
I honestly have no idea what my username means.
But as far at the OP goes, I hear David is destined to bring balance to The Force by killing all the cute little baby Jedi.
(Or maybe he’ll just argue with a MRM activist on reddit)
SRS is, effectively, the Red Scare of Reddit. Downvotes are from SRS, the admins/mods are SRS shills, dissenters are SRSers, deserters were tainted by SRS. Any space that incorporates anything feminist-y is either SRS-lite (if a subreddit) or SRS controlled (if outside Reddit). In general feminist thought is now considered “SRS”, while the Feminism subreddit is anything but.
The most hilarious example I’ve seen is the SRSSucks subreddit spun off from the AntiSRS subreddit because their “Anti-SRS-ism” wasn’t strong enough.
RE: Weeboy
Enh, we spent a fair amount of our adolescence desperately trying to hide our own batshittery, because we knew were were highly imaginative and were terrified we were ENCOURAGING ourselves to be batshit. Aaaand then terrible things happened and only madness saved our ass. It was pretty terrifying for us too, and we’ve spoken to a lot of terrified teens, and I just haven’t seen the “doing it for teh lulz” that a lot of folks seem to think of them. Most of them seem just as terrified as we were. Maybe I’m just hanging in the right places or something?
RE: DefJam
Since you people apparently cannot be bothered to get yoru facts straight, I don’t see the point of continuing to post here.
@ Devil’s advcate discussion.
yeah. there is a reason I admitted its as a bad habit. to be fair, I try to keep it to a minimum of horribleness.. Like, you might see me argue potential Ignorance or mindset of someone before you see me argue their viewpoint is correct, even theoretically. Mostly because I actually do NOT see the ‘Right” to their ‘side’ of the discussion. Typically, I will Think both sides of an issue have a point before I start.. well playing Devil’s advocate, but I admit, Its developed Into a habit of mine for good or ill. (The habits was developed In a Fandom Setting, Where any given 2 theories almost always had pros and Cons, And I liked to exorcise my mind by accepting everything. Obviously, this translates to real world issues poorly.))
Also, Freemage. I appreciate the advice. this is the kind of advice that Transcends my Goal Of being a Regular poster here, As that is good advice for me in General, Thanks to my tendencies.
Example:What I did abit ago by saying some ‘MRA’ are simple misguided Neophytes who don’t understand the mission of MRA. Thats an example of the kind of Stuff I Try to do, but again, its in part to my tendencies to give a benefit of a doubt to everything. Obviously, I have my limit, and when someone posts something about his ‘Liquid gold Seed’ Or who actively petitions that woman should have their rights removed to somehow make up for our ‘privileges'(which are usually just double standards that fail to benefit the male gender for once.)
I mean.. I can tell you right now, Im rreaaaaallly tired of the ‘coal mine mammoth army’ Mantra of ‘men did hard work so you owe us the better jobs/your soul/your sex and stuff!’ Especially because of how.. you know, the whole coal mine and army thing is in fact, something that feminists have pushed for, and how pushing for inequality rather then equality is kind of stupid.
Anyway, Im ranting by now. trust me, I have a lot of pent up frustration towards MRA Types, PUA, and the like. So I will cut this short. But again, Thank you all for being so welcoming. I do hope I don’t wear anyones Nerves thin with my bad habits. ^^
@marinaliteyears, I definitely wasn’t trying to say that I expected you to play devil’s advocate in a wankery way, or that I was side-eyeing you, or anything like that. Just to be clear. 🙂
This. I hate the “devil’s advocate” stuff, because it’s far too often some dude who’s either so buried in his privilege he doesn’t notice, or is actively trying to cause distress because it amuses him to be so Intellectual and Superior to those lowly emotional people who are harmed by the shit he espouses.
I have here in my hand a list of 205 mods that are card-carrying members of ShitRedditSays.
Also, how can this post not have included the phrase “that is how the Manboob does”?
As I once read somewhere: The problem with playing devil’s advocate is that you’re actually advocating for the devil.
It’s a similar reason to why a lot of trolls baffle me, especially if they’re anywhere in my circle of friends; their success hinges on being a convincingly terrible person.
This was one of my terrible ex’s favourite tricks, which is probably part of why I’m a bit touchy about it. He was always all “hey, so just for the sake of argument, did you ever wonder…” and then he’d call into question whether women could ever be as intelligent as men, or whether I could ever be good enough to achieve my goals, or whether I was a good person. “Whoa, calm down,” he’d say when I inevitably reacted. “Is it impossible for you to just have a reasonable conversation?” Blech.
Exactly, and being a convincingly terrible person almost always means you’re trying to cause distress to someone, or don’t care that you are.
Viscaria, he should step on all the Legos and have shit sandwiches forever.
It’s such a cowardly way of bullying, too. They’re not even admitting to taking pleasure in hurting or triggering someone, oh no, it’s just debate. No, it’s them exerting control and not even owning that.
My reaction on first hearing about Schrodinger’s Cat was something like this, because the person telling me about it didn’t bother to say it was a parody. I felt like, why does a fucking thought experiment have to revolve around an animal’s death?
(Actually I hate most thought experiments I see, full stop.)
Yeah, I understand. Playing devil’s advocate is certainly a minefield, to be sure. I understand your not like, Accusing me or anything, but I also fully understand Why it’s touchy. I will try to keep it on the down-low. Like I said, I try to keep it limited to the benefit of a doubt on someone’s intentions, rather then their actual content, At least in this context.
In alot of ways, saying your playing devils advocate is like saying “Im just asking!” and stuff. a Flimsy excuse to talk psudo-intellectually about something you don’t actually disagree
with.
There’s no functional difference between someone who is a total idiot, and someone who acts just like a total idiot for shits and giggles.
Saying that you’re going to keep your Devils Advocacy on the down-low implies that you’re going to do it but be sneaky about it. I’m hoping that’s not what you mean, because people here would lose patience with that very quickly.
Given that this site mocks misogyny, playing devil’s advocate here essentially means speaking as if in support of misogyny. That’s not going to fly.
I don’t advocate the devil .Myself personally.
Yeah, even if you mean well, devil’s advocacy – especially in a social justice space – is just not a good idea in general.
mm. Allow me to rephrase.
I look for the good, even in bad people, But I will try to avoid overdoing it.
Thats what I meant by my unorthodox use of ‘down low’.. I meant it in a literal way, as in keeping the amount of DA Down/Low.
And I admit, I may also be misusing the term devil’s advocate. Im not going to say ‘Here is why MRA could theoretically be right.’ Like I would In a fandom setting for opposing theories I happen to disagree with. For whatever reason, I have taken Devil’s Advocacy to encompass more or less empathizing when I can. To use an example, If someone says “I hate woman because they make my socks stink,” I might say “Well Maybe he had a bad experience with Smelly socks and attached it to a woman somehow,(his mother noth washing his socks for him..?) even if thats not fair or sensible of him.”
Does that make more sense? I tend to use words and phrases Incorrectly, I note, So If I’m off base here, feel free to call me out on it. And because I have a habit of Empathizing with even bad people,(along with the people who more deserve Empathy.) I Wholly welcome Criticism.
I want to be a more rounded and Understanding person, And to lose my lingering uh.. Assumptions about people, but I admit, Im far FAR from Ideal.
“For whatever reason, I have taken Devil’s Advocacy to encompass more or less empathizing when I can.”
Ah. There’s the problem. That’s not what it means at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate
@Kittehserf
Yeah. I blame myself for it. I use it correctly usually, but I eventually allowed the word to shift meaning for me over time, then began to misuse it as well as correctly.
It also doesnt help that people who claim to be playing at being a Devil’s advocate often do so to try and argue their own beliefs, just with a free pass to ‘withdraw’ if they receive criticism.
Another thing I think it’s worth mentioning is that this isn’t a trying-to-understand-misogynists site. We’re here to laugh at them, because they’re so vile and so stupid. These are men (and some women) who think, essentially, that men should own women, that we should be utterly dependent on them, and that rape shouldn’t even be on the books as a crime. I have no empathy for them.
As we see in soooo many of the trolls here! 😀