A little realization hit me while I was watching videos about #GamerGate recently. MRAs and #GamerGaters really seem to enjoy depicting themselves as cartoon villains. Above, the skull-in-a-Koolaid-pitcher mascot of MRA videoblogger Bane666au.
Below, a screencap from a video by Mundane Matt, one of the movers and shakers behind the whole #GamerGate thing.
Once the smokey skull intro is over, here’s what you look at the rest of the time when you watch one of his videos:
And while we’re at it, the logo for his channel:
When they’re not depicting themselves as evil skulls with creepy eyes, MRAs and other antifeminists like to identify themselves with fictional villains:
That is, when they’re not posing as supervillains themselves:
Oh, hey, it’s our friend Davis Aurini, from earlier today, in an unphotoshopped screenshot from a video of his.
Oh, and here’s a screenshot from a more recent video of his. Note the skull. That’s right: he owns a freaking skull.
I hate to tell you guys, but I think YOU’RE THE BADDIES.
Yes, I know I’ve posted this video before, but once again it seemed very very apt.
Bina – I hadn’t heard of wimp lit before but oh lord I can only imagine how tediously overwrought it must considering the purple prose nonsense “literary” MRA types put out these days. There were really two big moments for me, one was the death of my first girlfriend and how it revealed just how violently dysfunctional her family life had been. I wish it hadn’t take something like that to make me realize how good and evil, strength and weakness all exist independently in people regardless of gender or other such circumstances of birth.
The other was when my sifu basically took it upon himself to spend six months giving me a daily ass whupping until it finally sank in just how little I understood of the world around me. It’s still feels somewhat odd to be grateful to someone for physically smacking me around but it really was what I needed at the time. (Please not this is no way an endorsement of teaching through physical abuse, this was in a carefully controlled environment and I fully acknowledge my case was singular in nature.)
The inclusion of “basement” had already conjured up in my mind the image of an adult child establishing a modicum more of privacy that they had during their childhood. Of course, that comes a whole slew of assumption–primary among which is that the basement itself is habitable. (Ours is not; however, the fact I consider a basement as conceivably habitable implies that I grew up in a class setting where such might have been commonplace.)
I’m with you Michael MCG. There’s definitely a classist element to that insult. The way the economy and wages have been, adults living with their parents is increasingly common. There’s a lot of societal factors at work and it can’t be assumed one is a loser.
It always makes me wonder where Australian trolls live though Kitteh, with our lack of basements… (why don’t we have basements?? I’ve often wondered)
@Michael McG
I do agree with you – I don’t like neckbeard as an insult either. There’s nothing morally wrong with living with your parents or in a basement or having a neckbeard or even playing video games all day covered in cheeto dust (mm.. cheese and bacon balls) as long as you’re not also attacking other people on the internet at the same time.
Maybe the combination of parents and basement is the key because it means they are so unpleasant that their parents don’t want them in the house proper. But even then, I’m sure there are perfectly nice people with not so nice parents. It reminds me of an autobiography I read about a kid who was severely abused, and part of that was his mum made him stay in the basement most of the time from when he was quite small, while the other children were treated normally.
Perhaps we can think of an alternate phrase which would be more accurate with fewer false positives… “posting from their squalid manhole” perhaps? Bonus points for implying they live in a sewer 🙂
Kim – Isn’t the whole basement thing an environmental issue? Sandy terrain making a poor location for basement construction. I know that’s why areas like southern California here in the US don’t have them.
Kim,
Are tornadoes rare in Australia? If so there may not be a need for them. It could also be that the soil makes it difficult to build underground. Where I am, in MN every house has a basement pretty much.
Weirwood – I believe they were also commonly made here in MN because they’re cooler in the summer and warmer in winter so it helps lessen energy costs these days and just gave a place to flee mother nature before air conditioning and central heating became more common.
We can’t have basements here, they would fill up with water. Too bad, we do have tornadoes. At least the ones here tend to be small ones.
When I try to imagine basements here my brain immediately presents me with nightmare scenarios involving earthquakes and liquification.
@ casandra…ooh…had not thought of that.
Also that whole rainy season mudslide thing CA has happen.
Well, northern Australia is prone to cyclones, where they would be useful for protection, but a lot of houses there are built on stilts instead for cooling purposes. Perhaps basements and tropical weather don’t go together for other reasons.
I know Sydney is on sandstone bedrock, and all the skyscrapers have deep basements, just none of the houses. And then you’ve got places like Coober Pedy where entire houses are underground because it’s so damn hot.
http://lonelyplanetimages.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/24978-27.jpg?w=600&h=400
It’s funny though, I always assumed basements were a storage thing. Tornadoes are so not on my radar.
::snicker:: “Squalid manhole” also brings assfax to mind.
Cyclones are a thing in northern Australia, for sure, but not in the southern parts. Where I am, I don’t know about the geology – though a few people have built underground houses, or at least tried to if their local councils didn’t make it impossible – but the weather isn’t the sort that has really called for that sort of build.
Ninjaed!
I’d think one of the reasons for so few basements in Australia is a combination of lots of space for building, pretty easy climate to live in, lower costs/less time required when there’s no need to excavate a basement. The idea of a furnace in a basement for heating a cold house would be ludicrous for most Australians. It’s basically an expensive storage amenity for older, larger, grander houses.
Basements are crucial in northern climates to provide a stable foundation below the frost line. The airspace provides extra insulation in the winter, gets the house up off the damp ground and is a swell place to store skis, unused treadmills, and fondue sets. Here in Maine, a slab basement means your house is going to take a long time to sell.
To me, the “living in Mom’s basement” trope conjures up not so much a lack of employment/independence, but “hasn’t been outside in a really long time and has no idea how humans work”. It’s more of a mindset than a physical situation. Some MRAs who own their own homes mentally spend their days hemmed in by fake wood panelling, anger, and the dim glow of a 4chan screen.
Yup. Probably minimizes the displacement from frost heaves, too. And in olden times (or an older house) they were a swell space to store perishable food, what with being all cool and dark.
It’s the same mindset that leads economical parasites to think of themselves as the “productive class”. High-functioning psychopaths are social parasites; their success depends on being surrounded by people whose trust they can abuse.
I know, glad to see me again, right? I said I’d be back yesterday, but I wasn’t able to go through with that.
@Kanakian:
Absolutely fantastic game! Similar, but more in line with @Policy of Madness shockwave idea, One Way Heroics. Sidescrolling RPG where the goal is to move right (and up and down, and sometimes, yes, even left to dodge mountains and buildings) to escape the encroaching nothing coming from the left, turn by turn in order to reach and defeat the demon, in order to undo his curse destroying the world. It’s a procedurally generated thing to, so the map is never the same (unless you choose to use the same seed repeatedly)
@Cassie’s Major Domo:
No, I was actually looking forward to discussing things with a few of you. No emails yet though. 🙂
@Kevin K:
Okay, that’s damn hilarious.
@Puddlegum:
Just for you..
I can’t find the original post right now, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution lets you talk the big bad out of going through with his plan, without him killing himself or any such “bad guy gets it anyways” happening.
Which itself could be a sign of mental illness.
I’m not saying that lives-in-parents’-basement has to be classist or ablist. I’m just trying to brainstorm reasons why I find it off putting other than that I am personalizing something general that someone said.
(1) We need to find an insult for people who live through their computers and have lost touch with how the real world works that does not have the collateral damage of “living in Mom’s basement” that Michael McG points out.
(2) I see our chew toy Tyler is back for another day of ridicule.
(3) “[Christina Hoff] Sommers may be against “third-wave” feminism, but she is very much for equality, and refers to herself as an equity feminist. She may be against a certain thread of feminism, but she does adhere to the overarching message of feminism.”
CHS is a very smart woman (who is probably an actual feminist in real life) who has made a career of defining herself as a “responsible” “equity” feminist — that is, she uses all the straw-woman arguments against real feminists to say to the guys, “Now, see, I’m the kind of feminist you’ll really like, because I won’t try to make you change any of your sexist beliefs or practices unlike those other meanie shrews.” Like any other movement, feminism occasionally produces some dumb statements and ideas, and she is very clever in finding them and exploiting them to make herself sound like the reasonable alternative.
For example, she is correct that boys do tend to have a harder time adjusting to school. The problem is, society as a whole is moving away from toxic masculinity and boys who can’t adjust to this trend will become less and less successful and employable in the future. So the real solution is not to make schools more friendly to boys a la CHS, but to find ways to help boys make better adjustments to school.
Hello!
OK, but our rules require that when a chew toy comes back for a second day, s/he has to come up with things that are actually worthy of ridicule. You need to be aware that you have fallen in with a group of grizzled, battle-scarred veteran feminists and your comments so far have all been things that we considered and rejected when you (and in some cases your parents) were in diapers. You’re going to have to elevate your game considerably to stay here — so far, as the T-shirt says, “I don’t know where you got your game but I hope you saved your receipt.”
Now, I don’t see even “liv[ing] through their computers and hav[ing] lost touch with how the real world works” as a necessarily bad thing either. What’s absolutely horrifying about the Manosphere is that they have created an online echo chamber of self-reinforcing, toxic ideas and they are endeavoring ever so hard to bring their suppurating pustule of a pity party to the general public–which is only tangentially related to the phenomenon of people’s conducting the bulk of their social interactions in virtual spaces.
@GrumpyOldMan:
Or, at the very least, come back with responses to people from just before you flounced. Even more of the same is better than nothing, and pretending the previous trolling didn’t happen is just rude.
@kirbywarp I’m sorry, I forgot about those posts entirely! I’ll get to responding. However, I still argue that I’m not trolling. I’m not here just to anger you guys or anything.