Yesterday, several days after the twentieth anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, A Voice for Men took a moment to honor the brilliant musician who tragically ended his life at the age of only 27.
Well, not exactly. What they actually did was run a terrible poem using the anniversary of Cobain’s death as an excuse to launch an extended attack on the supposed evils of feminism.
Here’s the opening:
Feminists killed Kurt Cobain
Men my age are all the same
They hate themselves & feel ashamed
For what they are & cannot change
It gets worse. The poem, written by a YouTube MRA calling himself Laudanum Byron, continues on for another 104 lines after this. Only 13 refer to Cobain, and five of these are simply repetitions of the opening accusation: “feminists killed Kurt Cobain.”
The rest of the poem consists of an assortment of Men’s Rights talking points sketched out in the most melodramatic manner possible.
Men chastised, demonized,
Healthy males pathologized
A man is just a dirty ape
Longing, lust, desire: all rape
Your body is a loaded gun
And all that it has done is wrong
Like all too many MRAs, Mr. Byron lets his anger at women get the better of his logic. In the following lines, for example, he lashes out at women both for living off of the earnings of men — and for earning money of their own.
Now the girls get told get what you can
After all, he’s just a man
You’re right to think it’s right to take
Yes you go girl, you make him pay
The girls get taught they must get on
Like work empowered anyone:
To sell your life for dollar bills
Taking calls & stacking shelves
In offices & factories
Fulfilment sought in drudgery
Mr. Byron – no relation, one presumes, to the actual Byron – seems to have only a rudimentary notion of what a poem actually is. While most, though not all, of his lines scan, he has persistent troubles with the concept of rhyme, with his aabb and aabbcc rhyme schemes dominated by half-rhymes and quarter-rhymes and, well, the words have some similar sounds in them.
“Bills” and “shelves” don’t rhyme, or half-rhyme, despite both ending in the letter “s.” “Take” and “pay” aren’t even remotely close.
Admittedly, “chivalry” is a tough one to rhyme. But surely one can do better than “steeds.”
White knights, on their hobbled steeds
Still cling to laws of chivalry
Passed over by the queens they save
A joke to all the other slaves
When he pulls off an actual rhyme, it comes a surprise:
All of us the sons of Cain
Feminists killed Kurt Cobain.
But while we’re on the topic, it’s worth pointing out that feminists and/or feminism did not actually kill Kurt Cobain. (Nor did anyone else; the conspiracy theories suggesting he was murdered don’t make a lot of sense.)
Byron’s only “evidence” linking feminism to the suicide?
He screamed onstage & pierced his flesh
Put on make-up, wore a dress
Look, nobody knows for sure the reason or reasons Cobain took his own life, but he was a troubled man with a history of suicide attempts. He suffered from depression and from a painful, persistent stomach ailment. He was addicted to heroin. And as his suicide note made clear, he found the fame he had achieved to be something of an intolerable burden; he felt like a fake. Like a lot of suicides, Cobain’s could be seen as psychologically overdetermined; it could have been caused by any or all of these things.
Using his suicide to score cheap rhetorical points against feminism is not only dishonest but highly disrespectful to his memory.
To top off this gigantic platter of disrespect, whoever wrote the headline on AVFM didn’t even bother to spell Cobain’s first name correctly. It’s Kurt, with a K.
Below, “Byron’s” own reading of his poem. If you can’t bear listening to it — I only made it a couple of stanzas in before I had to shut it off — you can make your way to AVFM, or to YouTube, to read the rest. I feel safe in saying that Kurt, who considered himself a feminist, would have hated it, and A Voice for Men as well.
“persistent troubles with the concept of rhyme” it doesn’t have to rhyme to be poetry!
I have heard the boners calling, each to each
I do not wish that they should call to me.
No, but if you have a rhyme scheme you should stick to it unless you want to jar the reader by breaking your scheme.
I don’t want to interrupt the poetry, but wanted to note this week’s MRA doxxing/harassment of a young woman, which the r/mr mods left up for 14 hours until someone posted about it on r/amr and messaged their mods to tell them to take it down. (Mod response: “I took it down, but not because you told me to take it down I had my own reasons STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO MOM!!! I HATE YOU!!!”)
I think that I shall never see,
An MRA who’s smarter than a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth will ne’er,
Blame feminism for bad weather.
A tree doesn’t look at screens all day,
Vowing some random actress will pay.
A tree won’t ever peacock,
(Even with an actual peacock)
On a tree’s website has never lain,
The same sad jingles of misandrist refrain.
A tree can be grown by any idiot like me,
But you’d have to be even dumber to think MRA’s aren’t already free.
I have a different radio star parody, although katz’s one is truly excellent.
Hehe … this is fun!
I first saw you in the summer of ’02.
My telefocal lens was zooming in on you.
Your shirt wet from rain,
I hoped for nipples showing through.
Oh oh
They convinced you to be “who you want to be”.
Filled your pretty head with words like “misogyny”,
and they’re the reason you won’t shag Nice Guys(TM) like me.
You weren’t the first one.
You’re not the last one.
Feminists “killed” the video star.
Feminists “killed” the video star.
The breasts in my mind,
are in your bra.
Feminism’s gone too far.
It confused your mind
and stole your heart,
and gave us Nice Guys(TM) bad P.R.
Oh video star. Oh video star.
As you walk, breast movement it begins to show.
I helped you move, no sex?!?! Not how it’s supposed to go!
You ugly, alpha-f*cking, hypergamic ho.
You aren’t the first one.
You’re not the last one.
Feminists “killed” the video star.
Feminists “killed” the video star.
Just heard that Joan Jett is likely to front for Nirvana at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Ha ha, MRAs.
Gold Digger for the World,
Boner Maker, Evil Noncompliant Western Land Whale,
Slutty Divorce-Causer and the Nation’s Cum Dumpster;
Emotional, conniving, inferior,
Bitch of the Big Bazongas,
Why won’t you sleep with me?
….euw. Now I need to go take a shower.
The four seasons of misandry are Valentine’s day, International women’s day, Mother’s day and Breast cancer month. For example:
Box full of chocolate
for the entitled princess-
anticipates blowjob
One big-ass red rose
has wilted by tomorrow:
You had feminism
No woman ever
raised her children without man
paying his tax money
As the leaves turn pink
outside my rectal sanctum:
What about prostate?
Don’t forget Black History Month (for the racist segment of MRAs)
Whitepocalypse
Is upon us. Solution:
Marry an Asian.
@grumpycat
Grrr! blockquote fail…
And this thread and others like it are why MRAs need to write bad poetry more often. 😀
BINA!!!!! I can see that cross stitched on a sampler. Magnificent.
Oh awesome! I wonder what they’ll play. Whatever it is, I just know it will have these fools eating their hateful hearts out.
THIS IS THE FIRST POETRY SLAM I’VE EVER MC’ED AND I GOTTA SAY, ALL THIS MISANDRY AND UNCHECKED FEMALE PRIVILEGE JUST WARMS THE COCKLES OF MY HEART. IT’S GOING TO BE IMPOSSIBLE TO PICK A WINNER, BUT THEN AGAIN, SO IS WOMEN BEING GOOD AT SCIENCE, AND MOTHAFUCKIN ROSALIND FRANKLIN WANTS A WORD! LET ME TRY MY HAND AT A COUPLE HAIKUS!
Messages from the AVFM mailing list
by tesformes
Thirty feminists
armed with sharpened box cutters
No, for real, thirty!
I don’t hate women
I just think they’re kinda dumb
And kinda worthless
I’m not like most girls
I’m a rape apologist
A special snowflake
The thing I hate most
Is false rape accusation
Unless I do it
I love Sodini
Not because he killed women
I just like his hair
That bitch Sarkeesian
Why can’t men have a safe space?
Like the Internet?
Rape jokes aren’t cool
Oh, you’re a male feminist?
I hope you get raped
Give money to Paul
He spends it on his porn bills
And not on bon-bons
and, finally…
Misandry is real
A woman on the late bus
Didn’t talk to me
CAN WE KEEP THIS POETRY SLAM ROLLING? FIBINACHI IS STILL IN THE LEAD FOR WINNER, BUT SINCE EVERYONE HERE IS A SOCK OF DAVID’S, WE’RE ALL WINNERS! KEEP ON POURING YOUR IRRATIONAL, NON-STEM EMOTIONS ONTO THE PAGE, AND THE MEN WILL CORRECT YOU AND TELL YOU HOW YOU SHOULD FEEL.
*snap snap snap*
I have eaten
the rights
of the mens
and the boners
you were probably
saving
for a boner thing
forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and full of boner
One
Two
one-two-three
(Try to sing along)
I realized today
…
With a terrible thought
…
that all of my rhyming
….. has gone quite for naught
To eternally lambaster
these assfax masters
spurred on by a frail web that faaaaaaails
No wit or grace or clever phrase
no smile or glint or hard-fact-flint
Can seem to dent
their ig-nor-ance
or make a break in their pretense
So hence, my innocence is gone in a sense
and I have a decision I feel will meet some derision…
….
….
…. Dear Manboobz, Sir Furtrelle
the posters, the others, I wish you all well
But I fear
this ends here
For I’ve got a thing to tell
Iiiiii’veee goooneeeeee:
Over to Roosh’es
I’ve joined with Douches
My morals made a woosh
As I kicked them with a swoosh
Down the drain where my empathy went!
I relent on my yammering, I’m done with the hammering, these days all I’ll do is…
All I’ll do is…
Fart around with the
FartisteHeartistewhine about about the lack of nazi’s
Sure could use some segregation in this nation
Though I think it’s a bit odd, the conjecture’s pretty broad
and wait how will that help me get laid OH NEVERMIND–
I’ve got an admission, I’ve made subscription
to a mailing list of which the gist is to make a fist and be all pissed at those that bitch so my day consist of making lists of things to say to assist my way to get the lay and to persist till I get kissed ‘cuz at some point they can’t resist and I’ve only been maced eight times so I won’t desist! I must say; because
Not caring is almost easy, my hair is all greasy and though I feel queasy when I’m being sleazy it’s not so bad to kill yourself a tad for a single smile full of pity from some
ladyslut who thinks my prepared lines are witty (They’re designed by commitee of posters online, and I write Field Reports in my spare time to fill my mind with… with…the information I have been assigned. Find: NicePerson, delete, be unkind - access Soul.exereplace with debris
Initiate GrowGoatee
My humanity is now a detainee
I’ve invested my stocks in not giving fucks
I’m done with all the beta-bucks!
But sometimes, in my new haircut of fried oil and a whisk of MAXMANLY DANGER
When I walk down the street and shout “SPINSTERS!” at some stranger
I feel perhaps my dance with a social advance has gone askance
My Axe body-spray is a forcefield of fragrance
my slicked up hair is stony, like pavement
and my rhyming has lost all cadence
Oh Manboobz, please take me back
I’m no good at negging; I lack the knack for giving strangers flack
I miss not causing a chemical alarm when I enter a bank
It’s so lonely communicating only in grunting, my hair is all rank
and I ended up in jail for real
HAH IT’S A PRANK
No seriously, I caused someone to faint because my pores have begun literally leaking Axe body spray and I think perhaps it’s displacing the oxygen in the rooms I occupy.
And no one wants to listen about how Asians are the best
And I don’t understand how demographics about white-pocalypses help me make small talk with friendly folks in bars
Women aren’t from Venus
But MRA’s should move to Mars.
Ok, forget the all caps lock thing for now. Fibinachi, do you write raps or poetry in your free time? No offense to anyone here, but you are far and away the best poet here. have you ever seriously devoted a lot of time to it?
MOAR POTERY!!!
Roses are red,
Boogers are greeny —
Why won’t you bitches
Suck my sad wienie?
Roses are red,
Armor is white,
I hate nothing more
Than a mangina knight!
(Except bitches, of course. If I didn’t hate them the most, my Man Card would be revoked.)
I highly doubt anyone else here would contest that fact. I wouldn’t.
Nor I, and we have some very fine poets here.
I wouldn’t contest that fact, either!
Also I love this:
Just reading this now (and I’ll definitely have to read your guys’s poems later). Clicked on the link for the video and wow, holy shit, those are some of the most respectful YouTube comments I’ve ever seen. O_o