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.
Oh I know this isnt a place to try to understand them. but it’s kind of my coping mechanism. To know that people out there exist who actually think things like this Deeply Upsets me sometimes, and I think It helps both to laugh at them, (like this site provides.) and to try and understand them.
Plus, If I understand them, I get the added benefit of knowing why they are wrong on all levels, rather then ‘Just’ from my original perspective..
Though as I said, I will try to keep this habit of mine Under control. I know it would get annoying and/or tiresome to see someone always rallying to understand why these people fool themselves like they do. I mean, I appreciate laughing at them as much as the next person I suspect.
I mean.. I HAVE been lurking here for awhile and have been on page for awhile with pretty much everything you guys have said, humerus or not. It might be abit odd to say this what with having just today delurked, But I actually Have found myself deeply respecting you guys here. Hence why Im being maybe a Little nervous and quick to please with my long wordy rants.
“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.”
This ^nth. I’m in general a fan of empathy and not attributing malice to that which can be explained by stupidity, etc, but I tend to draw my limits at extending such to people who try to argue that other people don’t count/aren’t really people, etc
marinaliteyears – yeah, it’s a YMMV thing, isn’t it? I have the good fortune not to have scumbags like this in my life, and our politics here in Australia isn’t as inimical to women as in many places. I don’t need a coping mechanism; I’ve long accepted that there are an awful lot of horrible human beings, wastes of good carbon, and when I think about them, it’s mostly with contempt. Like Skye said, my empathy cuts out with this sort.
Glad you’ve delurked and like this place. 🙂
If some people feel empathy for these guys that’s fine, as long as we don’t start drifting into territory where those of us who don’t feel much empathy for them are being told we’re terrible people because we don’t want to cuddle the angry misogynists.
@Cass
Ah no way. you guys are way too awesome for me to tell your your horrible people, pretty much ever. I have no expectations about you guys so long as you don’t tell me I’m wrong for maybe sometimes feeling sorry for the worst examples of Willfull ignorance and hateful-ness. Honestly, I Laugh, but Sometimes It makes me sad that people can be so delusional, On purpose no less. And if they don’t believe in what they spout (They just want the benefits.), thats even worse, because then they are just dragging people around who do feel this way.
put another way, I have no expectations of you to act a certain way. As hard as I work to empathize with people like Those hateful MRA, Trust me.. I empathize THAT much more with people like you who do not subject yourself to my goofy Ideas of Empathy. Victims, Feminism, Rationality, Intelligence.. These things are FAR more understandable. I totally get that you guys Shouldn’t even feel remotely obligated to even give the time of day to these assholes. They honestly deserve nothing.
And again, If what I do makes people uncomfortable, Im more then open to criticism. I don’t want to alienate people like you in favor of people Like them.. Far from it.
I kind of like the fact that we have a balance of different reactions to the MRM here, actually. Some feel more sympathy, some just want to point and laugh, some want to do political analysis of the roots of the movement. It makes the comments more fun to read.
I read that link about the origins of SRS, and found this little tidbit pretty funny.
Looking at the following post from /r/seddit (the “seduction/game/pua” sub):
The somethingawful user paraphrases that as:
That made me laugh, and I needed a laugh.
Fan of “pointing and laughing” right over here. Though pointing out their lack of citations never gets old either.
I should note in my post I almost made it sound like MRA share my sense of empathy. Obviously they do not, but I do word things weirdly sometimes.
They are surprisingly easy to understand. Lundy Bancroft wrote a book that explains them perfectly. Why Does He DO That, Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.
They are all in there, every one of them.
I think they may be allergic to the concept of sharing in general.
@dlouwe
Or, as I once read somewhere: “the gentleman from downstairs has enough advocates already”
@Kittehs
My favorite was when dudes at college parties did this while ostensibly trying to pick me up. I guess it’s what they did before negging was a thing.
That one has always confused me. Um, why do you think that pissing me off will make me want to fuck you, young man? Is it because you hate women so much that you can’t imagine the desire for sex not being associated with feelings of anger?
I think sometimes it’s a way of testing boundaries. They’re wondering: how hard can I push her before she pushes back? Will she laugh along uncomfortably as I insult her to her face?
Creeps.
Welp, I guess that strategy backfired for a lot of the men I met during my more bar-oriented years.
There was this one coworker who tried it when I was 27 and he was 21 and I just sat there for a moment staring at him incredulously, and then said “what’s wrong with you?”, which prompted snickering from the woman sitting on the other side of him. The poor boy seemed quite put out by the whole thing.
I know we’ve said this before but I really do think that’s a driving force behind the “women are old and disgusting once they reach 25” idea. When I was 18 and going to bars for the first time, I was shy, insecure, and unsure of how I was expected to behave, and I think creepy assholes picked up on that and tried to take advantage of it. May they step on every Lego.
DING DING DING we have a winner!
Oh to have been a fly on the wall. 😉
They seem oblivious to the idea that “I’m not going to have sex with someone who dislikes me.” Possibly because they’re so fucking unlikable themselves, of course.
Misandry is someone that doesn’t like me doesn’t have to have sex with me anyway cuz I want to!
I actually try to empathize with the uber-creeps the most, because I feel I have the most to learn from the experience–I figure, if I can understand why they do what they do, I can learn how to prevent myself from doing the same thing, and also learn to avoid them better. I don’t want excuses for their behavior, only explanations.
Plus, it’s useful in writing; nobody likes an unrealistic villain.
Are you really likely to do the same thing? I mean, you have a functioning set of ethics and a conscience and empathy and all those things … Learning to avoid them, though, is a point. Know thine enemy.
Of course, to hear THEM tell it, every woman is already on her knees, just waiting for their dicks to land in her mouth…
RE: Kittehs
Are you really likely to do the same thing?
The way I see it, the moment I believe I’d never do such a thing is the moment where I’m most likely to do it. It seems safest to keep an eye on myself and not presume myself above anything. I’ve done some shitty things before, and I’d rather not relapse into douchebaggery.
And yet somehow, somehow, they still seem to be missing out, and stuck with ragepriapism.
Fair point, LBT.