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.
I’d say that there is a little more operating when “you’re old enough to know better “is coded as “you’re not socialized properly”.
Blood now reduced in caffeine- stream…
Ok, the thing is, we’re trying to lampoon a mindset, not so much a living situation.
With these guys, it’s not so much choosing or being stuck living with the parents. It’s choosing to be self absorbed, selfish, narrowminded little cretins who shit on people for recreation.
So we just need more creative insults, I guess?
…Keyboard kommando. A human pustule. Cheeto-farting, pimply-assed, crusty windbag. Pompous, self- important buffoon. Self-Deluded. Swollen-headed malodorous shitweasel. Parasite upon the ass of humanity. Loathsome as the ballsack of a deceased leper. All the morals of a beef tapeworm. Repugnant as a dog feasting upon it’s own vomitus.
feel free to take those or make your own.
This one has a definite poetry
i just realised, it reminds me of this
“sounds like a malodorous git wasting everybody’s time”
Ah, Blackadder – master of the convoluted insult.
damn, it’s meant to be “malodorous runt”, not git. Please excuse my multi-posting. I know how annoying that can be.
Sort of connected to Blackadder, ‘cos Tony Hamilton: on Time Team last night they were casting a cannonball. The bit of iron sticking up from casting is called a git, from gate, and yes, that’s where useless git comes from. 🙂 Nice to know one insult isn’t from body parts!
Absolutely. Young (and youngish) adults are constantly told that their opinions and needs don’t matter because ‘someday you’ll understand’, ‘come back when you’re older’, ‘only mature people need apply’, etc. As though age confers wisdom…
re: living the parents’ basement. I rent a place with my mother because neither of us could afford a decent place on our own, so I’ve always squirmed when I’ve seen it applied to trolls. Plus, a decently finished basement is my preferred spot for my bedroom; it’s cooler, less noisy, and dim. Sigh. I really miss having a basement (can’t afford a place with one, lol).
Exactly. Hooray for creative insults!
(although people can be very good even if they don’t have much creativity, too. Feel free to copy blahlistic in that case.)
FFS! Seriously? Really?
cretin (n.)
Oh. Huge fail. I wasn’t aware that it had been used as a name for such a serious illness.
Sorry for reproducing that.
with due respect it in the comment policy
(bold in the original; underline added)
Not that the word’s being specifically mentioned in the common policy has stopped it being used in another 89 comment sections on the site. it is just another example how people may unintentionally use their phrasing to reproduce prejudices against disadvantaged groups.
I just submitted a comment that was sent into moderation for the very reason that it contains is because I was quoting the comment policy. I understand why it went into moderation. I’m just posting here again to ask whoever moderates my post also correct the grammatical and capitalization errors that I slipped through my fingers.
There are a lot of terms like cretin that were once medical or quasi-medical but have lost that connection for most people. At one time the words “idiot”, “imbecile”, and “moron” indicated degrees of mental retardation: an idiot supposedly had an IQ of 0-20, an imbecile 20-50, and a moron 50-70. We still generally recognize “moron” as an ableist term but “idiot” and “imbecile” seem to have become general insults divorced from their former meanings.
The defense of “cretin” as an insult seems especially out of place since someone just recently called out for using the term “bonkers” as an insult.
Yeah, but if that meaning is so out of date that most people don’t know it, you could at least go easy on them. I had no idea that it was that bad of a word. Now that I do, I wouldn’t use it, but I also wouldn’t expect everyone to know extremely old usages of every word.
Wouldn’t that apply to “bonkers” as well?
The defense of “cretin” just seems like a pleading meeting tonight…sorry.
Jesus, Michael. How about building a bridge and getting over yourself?
If this is an attempt to gain back some sense of moral authority after the whole “yeah, but what’s wrong with being a sleazy creep in sexualized spaces?” conversation it’s not working.
Michael, nobody is defending the use of cretin — they’re just saying they didn’t know what it meant. You need to lighten up a bit.
I tried to avoid feeding the blockquote monster, but I was a second too late.
No, fuck you very much
Are you just, like, too special for a social skill or what?