Woah! Just wanted to pass along this news from the Motor City Muckraker:
A controversial conference for a men’s rights group in Detroit appears to be in jeopardy after a fallout with downtown’s Hilton DoubleTree, which planned to host the event from June 26-28.
The inaugural conference at the DoubleTree has been canceled for unknown reasons, and organizers of the first International Conference on Men’s Issues haven’t said yet whether it will be moved to another hotel and conference center.
“At this time, they are not booked with us,” Larry Brown, manager of the DoubleTree, said this morning. He declined to elaborate on the cancelation.
There’s nothing on A Voice for Men about this latest development, though Esmay hinted during his Fox News appearance that they were possibly going to reconsider the Doubletree. But as of right now, AVFM is still selling tickets, as if the Doubletree convention is still a going concern.
Are they going to try to book the convention elsewhere? Or are they going to take the $29,000 they raised for “security” and, I dunno, send Esmay to a better stylist?
One other, ah, interesting detail in the Motor City Muckraker story:
When asked Tuesday whether the event would be moved, an organizer responded: “The DoubleTree GM (general manager) actually said that he has ‘feminist phobia’ and sort of laughed but in a nervous way. So its being discussed.”
It’s questionable whether this conversation ever occurred because the general manager is a woman.
Yeah. Seems like a lot of things about this convention have been pretty questionable from the start.
UPDATE: Well, one thing’s a bit clearer now, though. I called the Detroit Police and they confirmed that the Doubletree did indeed report to them that it had received threats. Who sent them, we still don’t know, but I think we can all agree that whether the threats came from some misguided feminist or “progressive” or from an MRA trying to stir shit and make feminists look bad, whoever made the threatening calls is a shithead who deserves to face the legal consequences for what they did.
UPDATE 2: According to the Detroit News, Elam says they’ve got another venue:
“We have scheduled another venue and will make an announcement on the site this evening,” group founder Paul Elam said in an email Wednesday.
So far no announcement on AVFM; I’ll post about it when there is one.
I do just lurve the internet. Even though there is no place safe from horrible people online, I love the internets with all my shrived black heart. These topics are not some thought exercise for the people who enjoy reading (or writing) this blog. They really do impact our lives and our loved ones. It’s so easy to chat with other readers and then play wack-a-mole with rape apologists and smarmy dudes who want to pretend that they didn’t know grabbing your ass or commenting on your tits was gross and disrespectful and definitely not a compliment or your fault*.
I guess I could hang out at parenting blogs between kissing boo-boos and changing batteries, but then I’d be bored and writing things like this in comment sections:
“Pro tip: Never agree to sort out who’s turn it is. Once you are the arbiter of who’s turn it is, you will always be the arbiter of who’s turn it is. DO NOT BE THE ARBITER OF WHO”S TURN IT IS! EEEYA! EEYAA!”
…and by “writing” I mean “screaming on my front lawn”.
*Yes, that’s exactly who I assume these douchbros are.
That’s who they are defending. That’s who they are telling people women are lying about to achieve power and glory. This is not a coincidence.
I don’t. It’s a sewer. I prefer to use YT through XBox and avoid seeing the comments all together.
*start writing*
Life should come with editors and sound tracks.
@Ally S I got sick of the bullshit that was being posted on ROK, also I tried to question why I should treat women worse for the same behaviour that men do etc. That wasn’t really coherent, sorry, but think of it like this, if a man urinates in public, it’s bad but not that bad, when a woman does, AVfM makes it into a poster about how men lose their respect for women because of stuff like that, like it gives all women a bad rap or something. Then I found Bodycrimes’ blog when she commented on SunshineMary’s diatribe about short haired women. That started the detox, I guess ????
I used to dislike this site prior to that and used to say things like “ugh David Fatrelle” etc. Yeah, dumb, I know.
1: Never look at the comments. At least, never do so in an unmoderated space. It doesn’t have to be an exclusively ‘safe’ space, but anyplace that’s as unregulated as YouTube or most of Reddit just isn’t worth it–between the legitimately awful people and the legitimately awful trolls (who are still awful, because using misogyny and racism to make a joke is still, at the end of the day, misogynistic and racist), it’s just not worth engaging.
2: Nequam: It might help to understand if you realize that a common alternative name for ‘troll’ around these parts is “chew toy”. Some of us enjoy poking them with metaphorical sticks and watching them squeal. Not everyone does, which is why, in fact, David sets up open threads that are troll-free zones.
3: Marinerachel: Used tampons are probably illegal; there’s strict laws about bodily waste, generally, which would probably get hyper-enforced in the situation you describe. Now, tampons that had been dyed with some food coloring could be amusing as hell.
Shadow_Nirvana: Believe me, you’re not the only reformed person around here. I’m a white cis straight male who was raised in suburban America–in the Reagan years. I had SO much crap to clear out of my head by the time I became a nominal adult that it was only in the last decade that I really realized how bad I was.
We could make fake clots out of gelatine dyed red to make the “used” tampons extra exciting.
@Shadow_Nirvana: Glad to see that sometimes people find their way out of the darkness and hatred towards, y’know, actually treating women like people. 🙂 If you could say one thing to the redpillers who are wavering and wondering if perhaps they’re on the wrong side, what would it be?
I used to believe false accusations of rape resulting in social and legal consequences was a realistic fear for men. Then I realised men who actually do commit rape rarely ever go to jail….
The money will be used by Paul Elam, its sole controller, to attack individual random women.
The law firm they like, a porn-defending Las Vegas firm, will be used.
Please remember this post 6 months from now.
This sadistic violence against women must stop
It must stop.
Everyone, please educate yourselves regarding sexual sadism.
@Shadow Nirvana
Youtube comments are a special kind of hell. I remember when I was fighting in the youtube trenches during the atheism-theism wars… wait.
*sits in a rocking chair*
*lights a pipe and puffs thoughtfully*
…during the atheism-theism wars just after the turn of the millenium. It seemed like everywhere I looked, there were fundamentalists just waiting to ambush a passing patrol of atheists with volleys of, “look at the trees,” “my granddaddy weren’t no monkey,” and “how can you be moral if there’s no god?” For a while, I honestly believed that most theists were like that and the whole world was falling under their grip.
They’re not. It isn’t.
Yes, most people believe in some form of god but, honestly, the majority of them are reasonable, decent people who don’t want to burn me at the stake as a baby-eating heathen and replace all governments with theocracies. The same is true in this case. Yes, a lot of people buy into patriarchal attitudes, and some of them get defensive when you call them on it, but they are nothing at all like those people commenting on youtube.
I honestly think there’s value in engaging on occasion – you have to know what they’re saying in order to know how to counter them (or if, as is sometimes the case, they have a point). But if you find that it’s draining, you really don’t have to get involved. The world will not become MRAworld if you leave it alone. Arguing on the internet does matter; you learn from it, and your comments can and do get through to people on the other side and to those who are genuinely neutral observers, but civilisation will not fall if you step away from it. Your own emotional health is more important than scoring points. As I said, the majority of people in the wider world are not as virulently misogynistic as MRAs are, and will not become so simply by you stepping back.
You’re not being irresponsible, and you’re not letting the side down. They are not dominant in society, and no matter how much they may monologue, like Mike B has done here, they’re not going to become dominant any time soon. So relax, and let those comments fester if you don’t feel like you want to engage all the time. Don’t feel guilty about it. Comment more here though, obviously, you’re being a terrible, awful person if you don’t comment here. 😛
Here’s what I think happened. The police report numbers aren’t from the fabricated story that feminists called in bomb and death threats. THAT never fucking happened.
THe police report numbers are from the last Sat. protest. where some goofball MRA’s were there using the cops times to make silly little reports. I will never believe there were feminist bomb and death threats. EVER
@Athywren
What a great comment! I agree to it all, and add: it applies to nearly everything one might fight for.
Fighting in the (metaphorical) trenches gives you an extremely closer view of the problem, and also of the enemy, than the average person might have.
@Shadow Nirvana
… Feminist troll mobs?
Probably bump into walls without any purpose.
Nope, I am also bumping into walls.
Sometime the walls here, and sometime the walls elsewhere.
Why? Ok, I seriously doubt there were any, but not all feminists are reasonable, and it’s within the realm of possibility that someone angry who didn’t really think it through made threats. It wouldn’t be my first assumption, but it’s not impossible.
Yep. They always attack individual women. I’m sure they want me too. Paul Elam is a sleazy character. His power has limits though.
I used to be a pseudo-douchey atheist. I’m still a bit of a douchebag but not in my atheism. Boy, am I happy to have unburdened myself.
Paul, just to make you feel comfortable around here,
“You are Misogynistic Scum” and “I hereby ridicule everything you stand for.”
I am not sure if those phrases are trademarked or not.
I mostly deal with YouTube comments by not reading them. Even on the most innocuous videos people seem to feel the need to be giant assholes there, it’s like there’s some sort of site-specific magic that turns everyone who comments there into a shithead. When I do read them I mostly just wonder how miserable people’s lives must have to be for them to, for example, leave “you should kill yourself” comments on a video of someone playing with their cat.
I forwarded publicly a trailer of a film I’m looking forward to seeing, via G+. One person commented on how the film was going to be really bad because they hated the type of special effects used. I looked at the comment and was like (in my head): “dude, thanks for sharing all your negativity, couldn’t you have just not read my comment or STFU”.
Makes really negative comments on YouTube == loser who can’t even create a good shit.
What can I say? *hair toss* I’m just brilliant like that. 😛
NSFW but a great commentary on YouTube haters:
http://youtu.be/uz2jbCJXkpA
Love that song.
A couple of years back, I watched an old Thomas Edison fiilm of a trick bicycle rider. The comments section consisted of a long argunent started by soneone claiming the film was a fake because Edison would have been in his fifties when the film was made, and so he must have been too old to be doing bike tricks.
I have never looked at a youtube comment since.