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.
http://soulslikethewings.tumblr.com/post/69096693067/jungs-endless-shadow-so-ive-been-thinking-a
Wow, this is the dumbest MRA post I’ve seen in a while. V_V
Jammies: Once again, thinking it is OK to “hate your oppressors”, doesn’t mean you do… it just means you’ll make excuses for other terrible people.
Since you people apparently cannot be bothered to get yoru facts straight,
Says the person who is misstating the argument; to make it fit his skewed agenda.
So DefJam has come to accuse us all of being the dreaded manhaters and I’m just… not very interested. I have men in my life that I love very much, but I’m sick of being required to talk about how much I care about them before it’s okay for me to want things like bodily autonomy or basic human respect.
And it’s not like it’s a game we can win, anyway; people will go ahead and insist we hate men no matter what we say. I’ve been told that I hate men because I do things like allow some of the skin on my legs to be visibly exposed when I am in public.
Says dick about “thinking it is OK to ‘hate your oppressors'”. it says that since you will (as you just did) make the claim no matter what we say, there’s fuck all point to trying to prove we don’t (or that we don’t think hating one’s oppressors is bad).
You are going to twist our words (while you abuse the English language in your pursuit), and there’s fuck all reason to care what you think, because you won’t pay attention in any case.
Ally, you might like this more interesting graphic of the various strains of feminism (not that it’s perfect, like anything ever is).
I think I’m not going to sleep well tonight, but I am going to try to sleep nonetheless. Good night, all.
I’m not sure about Lunaish but I think Lunian might already be a real word.
http://soulslikethewings.tumblr.com/post/69096693067/jungs-endless-shadow-so-ive-been-thinking-a
LOL!!! And I thought I was drunk?
Niters, cloudiah!
Well my username is something that has no business being a real word if I ever saw one – on top of starting with the ever-so-fun “dl”, the anglicized pronunciation I use for “Louwe” is only one syllable (low). After some deliberation, however, I decided on dlouwench: a temporary breakdown due to an overwhelming number of requests. Usage: “Upon seeing my lover for the first time in ten years, I had so many things to say that my mouth completely dlouwenched, and I remained speechless.“
kitten-surf-ish:
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6b/e7/ee/6be7ee1c7d78bde3691ee58f29e22fde.jpg
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/f7/d5/2d/f7d52d7be72954bdbfc72a1c354dd059.jpg
neuroticbeaglish- neurotically sniffing, eating and cuddling everything in sight
http://i.imgur.com/uIKIEo2.jpg
LOL I’ll go for the rock star kitteh!
Maddie’s decided she’s a royal cat. She requires attendants to stand around and watch her eat.
Well, of course. One of her human servants IS a king (doesn’t matter what side of the veil- still royalty).
I was thinking kittehs er fish. Where er = or. A serious question that one!
kittens er fish…bowl:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/cf/c9/e0/cfc9e0ae157e21e40b3eec9b629f4ba9.jpg
more rock star kittehs:
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e2/03/02/e2030275564631c96879a4a708ada814.jpg
That just might be the only valid use for those fishbowls that involves pets! They aren’t suitable for fish (and certainly not goldfish!)
Storage // candy bowl, flowerpot, etc, sure. But not fish. (Impossible to filter, shitty surface area ratio, too small…I guess you could use them as a breeder tank with a bubbler and cultured media though, still, the lack of heater could well pose an issue)
Cat bowl? Totally awesome!
auggziliary, Ally S, Thanks for the Welcome!
And auggziliary, As for the ‘moderate’ MRA, I think I Usually agree with you, though Im sure there are at least a few Naive people have been suckered Into thinking MRA are Legit, Atleast until they see the craziest crap.. I mean, I know I Identified as a FemMRA for a brief period when I thought they were ‘usually’ Just people looking to right the wrongs of double standards from the ‘other’ side. (After all, double standards and the patriarchy Is restrictive to all, even if much less so to men then woman.)
Though by this point, I should note I’m.. Unusually empathetic, and play ‘Devil’s advocate’ fairly easily, Because I would rather not assume bad, even for people like The standard MRA. (though someone like Paul Elam has lost most of that good will.) Perhaps i’m just naive myself. xD
SRS was started by the LF castouts from the no longer funny, pozhive libshit forum known as something awful.
Whoo! New person! Welcome, Marinalityears!
Yeah, in any group, there’s gonna be a fringe that doesn’t actually understand that group’s true purpose–neophytes, essentially. Usually, they’re there because they’ve been swept up by rhetoric and some common cause. This is just as true of ‘good’ groups as it is of lousy ones–most social justice movements have some members who are more enthusiasm than experience.
The problem comes from the inherently deceitful nature of the less savory movements. The MRM likes to present itself, like you note, as trying to undo patriarchal norms that hurt men. It’s only when you do a little digging that you realize that they never actually do anything to help men. So a lot of people hear, “Well, we need to change the system so that male abuse victims aren’t being mocked or ignored,” and that sounds great–and they support the guy saying that, even though what he really wants is for female victims of abuse to be mocked and ignored, too, because that would be ‘fair’.
When dealing with an apparent neophyte, the best road to take is to expose the lies. this requires getting them to clarify why they think the MRM is such a force for good; then you can ask for examples of how the MRM is working for that. Since there’s usually no concrete examples, you can then show a feminist group that IS working for that result.
*******
Quick thing about ‘Devil’s Advocate’. It’s fun to do, for some folks (I’m fond of it myself, at least on occasion). But much like ‘satire’, it’s a thing that often gets used by trolls to try to get away with saying horrible shit. So, a few pointers, if you’re interested, on how to not get lumped in with them:
1: Always begin by making it clear that’s what you’re doing. There’s nothing more aggravating than having what seems to be a good-faith discussion with someone who goes on for post after post, only to have them declare, “Devil’s Advocate” as soon as you’ve defeated all of their points. Stating it up front (or, even better, asking the other person if they’re interested in you doing so, first) is a good way to prevent that aggravation.
2: Highlight the places where you really don’t hold those views. FREX, note that you agree that it’s wrong for men to expect sex in exchange for dinner/coffee/drinks, then you can fairly discuss how that expectation has been inculcated by media portrayals of courtship. Again, this helps keep the assumption of good faith intact.
3: Accept ‘defeat’. When taking on the Devil’s Advocate job, you should expect to lose 90% or more of the discussions, precisely because you’re taking the view of the opposition. The benefit to those you’re talking to is twofold:
A: Sharpen their arguments to better deal with actual adherents of the position in question;
B: Get some insight into what errors the opposition is making.
Note: Some folks have no actual desire to engage the opposition in discussion. Those folks will, obviously, also have no interest in a Devil’s Advocate discussion. Accept that, please.
And, once again, welcome!
Similarly, no group is immune from individuals who just want to feel superior by way of ideological purity.
While we’re grumbling about Tumblr, I really wish people would tag the source of those gif sets they post.
“Gee, that looked interesting. Where was that from?”
“Lol how do you not know?”
“I don’t channel surf, and you just tagged it #omg #wtf #Iateanapplethismorning”
Well, you’re correct here only in that your vocabulary is semi-advanced. Unfortunately, you haven’t advanced sufficiently in actually understanding the meanings of the longish words you toss out at random. They have MEANINGS, dude…CONSIDER THE MEANINGS!
Was that a flounce? If so, you get no stars.
And you still haven’t produced any examples of actual, oppressive man-hating or transphobia here, either.
My tagging behaviour on Tumblr is largely useless and inconsistent XD it’s a good thing I only have 30 followers to annoy.
Playing devil’s advocate can be a useful tool in some circumstances I’m sure, but I’m a bit leery of it. I’ve just seen it used so often as a way of turning a real issue that affects real lives into a dispassionate intellectual exercise, and I have no interest in seeing someone entertain themselves by stretching their minds with questions like “would the world be better if women were used as sex dispensing machines?” or “do Black people deserve to be poor because they live their lives wrong?”
I like playing devils advocate with positions I’ve heard often enough to be able to sorta grok. Helps parse out exactly to how to respond to those views in a way that can’t be refuted. But, of course, ymmv.
I didn’t see this mentioned yet, but maybe that’s because I didn’t read all of the comments. I did search for variations on “somethingawful” but didn’t find any matches.
In any case, here is some information on the background of SRS: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3459512&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post399470508
“ShitRedditSays started with user reddit_sux having games like ‘guess the redditor’ to highlight what very little difference there was between reddit and stormfront when it came to the usual topics of bigotry. Eventually that person realized just how big of shithole reddit was and bailed out, leaving the subreddit dormant. It stayed that way until it was revived by a few people from Something Awful, becoming the free-speech/pedo/racist/creep slayer reddit loves to hate.”
This history is usually twisted by redditors that claim that “SRS is a trolling project by SA that was eventually taken over by people that weren’t in on the joke, creating a parody of themselves”. Of course it’s nonsensical, since SRS has always been used for the purpose of calling reddit out on bigotry, in whatever incarnation, and the later expansion of the “fempire” hasn’t really changed anything except for them being more consequential about their convictions.
Back to the OP for a sec: I pretty much only go to Reddit when I’m linked there from here*, and I’ve noticed the MRAs love to blame SRS for any downvotes they get. Did your comment get downvoted to oblivion? Must have been an SRS downvote brigade, because who else would find your posts stupid and/or abhorrent?
*Although I did just discover the Community (the TV show) subreddit while I was looking for info on the 50 kajillion easter eggs and running gags, and it’s like Mecca for people who are as overinvested in this show as I am.
Emilygoddess — my brother swears the cute animals subreddits are full of, well, cuteness. And there’s one he uses to ID weird things neither of us can ID (annoyingly, the last one was late Victorian and I’m like “that’s turn of the century electric work, but I have no clue what it is! It’s not ECT, but beyond that I got nothing”…hair removal, and it looks like a torture device)
But yeah, I am told there are parts of reddit that are not just tolerable, but adorable even.
You can’t link to an awful comment and not expect at least some people to downvote, but SRS explicitly tries to discourage people from doing so. SRS is big enough that if they really wanted to they could bury virtually all posts they dislike outside of maybe top AskReddit comments, yet this virtually never happens, and in fact mainly happens if it’s also linked to by places such as /r/worstof, /r/subredditdrama, which should show that the downvoting brigade accusation is just another myth.