So the Men’s Rights movement has faced some setbacks in the past. The Southern Poverty Law Center profiling them as a movement filled with hate (if not literally a hate group by the SPLC’s strict definition). Events that literally no one showed up to. Paul Elam.
But MRAs have never faced anything quite like this.
Wil Wheaton — yes, that Wil Wheaton, the one who was on Star Trek TNG — has stated publicly that he thinks they’re a bunch of idiots:
https://twitter.com/wilw/status/348291001481310208
Naturally, this tweet has the fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit feeling hurt and angry. Well, they always feel hurt and angry, so I guess I mean they feel even more hurt and angry than usual, with a lot of this hurt and anger directed in a Wil-Wheatony direction.
Here are some of their comments. I don’t really have any jokes to make about them because, I mean, just read them. I can’t top this sort of ridiculousness.
Click on the individual comments to see them in context on Reddit. Oh, and note that this comment at the top has MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED UPVOTES.
![giegerwasright 119 points 7 hours ago (150|31) Wil Wheaton has never had to live life as a regular man. He has never been treated by women as a regular man. He is a privileged white male. All those things that feminists say that white men have that we recognize are actually really only reserved for rich white men? Well. He's a rich white male. So. What do you expect? Perspective? LOL. He has media to sell and pussy to pander to for approval, hanglowstankin, and profit. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]cfornax 63 points 7 hours ago (82|17) Ironic isn't it. He undermines men to elevate his privileged status in eyes of feminists who wish to undermine his privileged status. permalink source save parent give gold [–]giegerwasright 39 points 7 hours ago (53|17) And that, my dear lad, is how the wealthy mangina maintains his status. Key word being "wealthy", a distinction that the unfortunately unwealthy manginas don't recognize. Always. Follow. The money.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/geiger2.png?resize=580%2C365&ssl=1)
Wait. What is “hanglowstankin?” Oh, never mind.
Also, I would bet a mint-in-box Wesley Crusher action figure that Wheaton didn’t call you guys “idiots” because he wanted to pander to “pussy” but rather because you are the sorts of guys who routinely refer to women as “pussy.”
![ruboos [-2] 10 points 7 hours ago (16|6) Wil Wheaton has always been a self hating misandrist. I've never liked him. And his narration is atrocious. Listen to "Ready Player One" if you don't believe me. The dude is a joke. Thank you for calling him out in public. He has no excuse.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/narration.png?resize=580%2C101&ssl=1)
![AnotherDAM 14 points 7 hours ago (24|10) Just because someone is famous in one context does not make him an expert in any, or every, other context. The man made a decent beer with Stone Brewing, he is incredibly practiced at talking with people so don't expect to win a war of words with him or out "cool" him. Just point out to him that he has had everything handed to him on a silver platter his entire adult life ~ he doesn't need to worry about money or getting girls or an invite to the uber-cool CES ~ does not actually mean his opinion matters to anyone but himself. He will eventually get it when all of his male friends start dying decades before his female admirers. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]VortexCortex [+1] 4 points 3 hours ago (5|1) I would merely appeal to his sense of logic: "There's much evidence to the contrary, Wheaton; You have not tried try to refute the null hypothesis before holding your belief." Not that it would actually work -- He's an actor who once played a young scientist -- but many of his viewers practice rationality.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dyingrational.png?resize=580%2C327&ssl=1)
But Wil had one defender amongst the Men’s Rightsers:
![chocoboat 6 points 5 hours ago (25|19) Wil is still cool. He just got misinformed by some feminists, who in an effort to protect their privilege, smear the name of MRAs and fight against equality when it doesn't serve them. He was taught that MRA = a whiny bitch who wants a return to 1950s gender roles and can't stand women having any power over anything. Of course he thinks that kind of person is an idiot. Don't bash Wil, bash the people who misinformed him. I can virtually guarantee you that he would support the same pro-equality ideas that MRAs do, and that he's against the sexist situations that men sometimes run into (such as being arrested after calling police when your wife attacks you, or being made to change airline seats due to "every man is a pedophile" hysteria). permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]Zetadood 17 points 4 hours ago (23|4) Nah, no one gets a pass for misinformed ignorance. If he changes his views later on that's different, until then he's a tool.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wilcool.png?resize=580%2C326&ssl=1)
EDIT: H/T to the AgainstMensRighters for pointing me to this.
Literally the only thing that makes me happy about the MRM is that the vast majority of them aren’t socialists or anarchists.
:: shudders at the thought of an mra socialist party ::
I RELATE to Orca! I love Salmon!!!! (I like Alaskan sockeye )
Given their fondness for violence it really is a good thing MRAs are too authoritarian for anarchism to appeal to them.
What would that even look like? I’m trying to picture it and I’m coming up with nothing.
Also, I once talked to an anarchist dude who seemed interesting at first…until he revealed he was a vehemently anti-feminist PUA who bragged about once harassing a “women’s lib chick” about her feminist views and then having consensual sex with her later that night.
To clarify – if they were a group with any real social power the authoritarianism might actually be more of a problem, but since they’re viewed as fringe oddballs by most of the right wing it’s kind of meh. They don’t have good enough people skills to forge alliances with other authoritarian groups.
So he decided to hang out at r/mr.
Just let that sink in.
Why do I get the feeling that Butthead’s next comment will be something to the effect that GiegerGeek’s comment was spot on because women are an unequally distributed “resource”?
Thanks for the welcome package! I’m basically new. I’ve made maybe 2 or 3 posts.
I’m sure homeless white men are just as likely to be victims of racist violence than homeless black me- oh wait. It’s as if no axis of privilege is “canceled out” by another.
Again, I’m not saying there are no legit issues with racism and whatnot. But your financial standing affects every aspect of your life, your job, your living conditions, whether you can afford to participate in society and essentially live a full life. It is the basis for all other forms of oppression (insofar as racism and homophobia can even be called “oppression”). Yes, economic inequality should be given primacy.
Unless the “anarchism” they’re interested in is anarcho-capitalism. Quite a few anarcho-capitalists are MRAs. Unsurprisingly, though, anarcho-capitalism is pretty much just anti-state libertarian capitalism, so it doesn’t deviate too much from their authoritarian character.
I’m not seeing how anarch-capitalism can even be a legit thing, given how fundamentally opposed the two ideas are.
I’m sure it’s just coincidence that the only important form of oppression is also the only one that directly affect’s buttboy’s pasty white ass.
Sadly, manarchists are already a thing. So are brocialists, and my personal fave, the macktivists. (That’s the PUA variant on the theme.)
There are even Facebook groups dedicated to memes about them, shit they say, etc. I follow them on the principle that one has to laugh, if one is not to throw up one’s nose and howl in despair.
Did Home Depot have a sale on shovels recently?
The same thing can be said for literally every other form of oppression – which, by the way, often influences socioeconomic status. All forms of oppression work together with capitalism; they are inseparable.
Oh great, a class reductionist. You do know that class reductionism has historically led to minority groups being left in the dust, right? During the Spanish civil war, anarchy was established in a few Spanish cities (such as Catalonia and Barcelona) and the anarchist women of Spain had to form their own women’s rights group, Mujeres Libres, just because the anarchist men they were working had the exact same beliefs you do. They believed that capitalism and the state were the most important and everything else was secondary.h
Oh, absolutely. Just as privilege doesn’t exist for you when you’re soaking in it.
See? Anyone who’s been active in leftist politics has met guys like this, they’re the herpes of lefty activist circles.
I may be wrong but I believe Ancap’ism refers to the mythical “free market” and separating it from from any sort of government involvement. Kind of like the separation of church and state, but for greedy, sociopathic fuckwits.
Considering that most MRAs are Libertarians to varying extremes, it’s not surprising that some buy into Ancap bullshit.
So basically it’s about as closely tied to reality as the Flat Earth Society.
Think libertarian capitalism minus the state. Instead of the state enforcing property rights, “private defense associations” hired by corporations take the role of enforcing those rights. Ancap ideology is so fixated on the philosophical notion of property rights that it has led the most prominent ancap thinker, Murray Rothbard, to write this shit:
Yes, this is a real thing he wrote.
See? Anyone who’s been active in leftist politics has met guys like this, they’re the herpes of lefty activist circles.
I’d argue we’re the realists who get shit done. And by the way, we’re not some minority.
And I’m sure people of color and homosexual people would agree with you. I mean, it’s not like they’re facing, in their everyday lives, shit that you’d have no concept of, or anything.
buttboy: It’s very easy to say oppressions you don’t have to live with aren’t that bad isn’t it? Can you picture an heir to some company saying being poor isn’t so bad? Easy for him to say. Your reluctance to ackowledge that other people face significant problems you don’t face is beyond childish.
“Realist” is such a nice, polite way to say “selfish asshole”.