Writing about abhorrent misogyny pretty much every day of every week can get a tad depressing. So I’m glad to have some actual good news to report. Good news, at least, for non-misogynists.
The #TakeDownJulienBlanc campaign has taken off internationally, and the “pickup artist” who advocates choking women as a clever “opener” has been kicked out of Australia, his visa revoked.
In an op-ed in The Independent yesterday, self-described “Aggressive Chinese Girl” Jenn Li explained why she started the #TakeDownJulienBlanc campaign and what it has accomplished so far:
Julien Blanc, a “dating advice” consultant working for Real Social Dynamics (RSD), travels around the world teaching men how to manipulate, and in some cases, sexually assault women. …
In Blanc’s videos his treatment of women is – to put it lightly – horrifying. There are videos of him going up to women, clasping their throats, while putting his finger on his lips, saying “shhh”. For reasons beyond me, he has decided to document this abuse by labelling the videos of him doing this with his own hashtag: #ChokingGirlsAroundtheWorld. …
When talking about how to “seduce” a Japanese woman, he is quoted as saying: “Just grab her… To take the pressure off, yell Pikachu or Pokemon or Tamagotchi or something”. He is obsessed with degrading Japanese women, and abusing his white male privilege. “…
By perpetuating the idea that Asian women are a “free for all” for predatory men, he is encouraging other pathetic men to abuse them. …
When I first started the campaign, I had almost no strategy; I just threw things and hoped they stuck. I called the Japanese Embassy, reported him, wrote to the press, did the hashtag thing, and started a petition on change.org.
I’m now targeting venues who are hosting his events. The campaign is still in its early stages, but something has seemed to have stuck. We have been able to shut down events in Melbourne, Brisbane, Austin, and Seattle, and Eventbrite have stopped hosting his events.
In Melbourne, as I noted a couple of days ago, Li and her supporters convinced the hotel hosting his event to boot him. Blanc ended up having to host the event on a boat, and sent an assistant along to conduct the “seminar” in his place. Locals organized a protest and the event itself was shut down. Not long afterwards, local authorities reported that they had revoked Blanc’s visa. He’s now left the country.
Li’s next goal? To shut down Blanc’s scheduled seminars in Japan in two weeks.
RSD founder Owen Cook, aka “Tyler Durden,” has posted a weird, rambling “non response” to the controversy on his website, a strange mixture of apology, defiance and self-justification. After announcing that “we’re not NOT responding. :),” he basically throws Blanc under the bus:
I think Julien’s video was absolutely stupid. It was totally out of context and he posted it to get shock, not realizing the full outcome. I’m sorry about the video. I would have taken it down if I’d seen it, but don’t monitor all social media postings.
I watched Julien’s entire Free Tour from that event today, and he talks about not degrading women and how he’s just kidding around. The full infield clips have the girls laughing and asking him to kiss them and things like that. He deliberately left this out of the video to make it inflammatory. Again I don’t approve that behaviour and frankly neither does he, he was an idiot to post that.
Then he complains that #TakeDownJulienBlanc supporters are
deliberately taking things out of context. … I see fake twitter accounts claiming to be Julien, or videos from me with sarcasm that are cut to say insane things I’m not saying, and that have context when you watch the whole thing. They know they’re doing this and think it’s funny, so there’s not a lot of dialogue to be had.
So I’m not NOT talking… it’s just that there’s nobody to talk to. 🙂 I’ve apologized in other threads and condemned the behaviour. From there it is what it is.
He follows up with a weirdly self-aggrandizing spiel:
All I care about is my ability to do good in the world. RSD has been a cool vehicle to do that. If it isn’t a viable vehicle anymore, I’ll continue to do good. The people who watch our stuff honestly have no idea what it’s like to be a shy guy trying to learn to meet girls, or the pain it causes. They have no context for why we teach guys what we teach, after years of trying different things to see what works.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll always do amazing work and make the world better. As long as I can do that, I’m happy. The vehicle is just a temporary form that has to be discarded like anything else, whether tomorrow or in 50 years. As long as I’m alive I’ll keep finding new vehicles to do good things.
It seems like SJW’s cause a lot of trouble for good men as well as bad. I think it’s important people find out about them. I think the mainstream media does a lot of messed up things as well. I’ve honestly felt guilty for not addressing these issues for a while now, but was too busy teaching “pick up” which I’m sure people sensed I did more out of obligation to the community that helped me, than it being my main focus.
So regardless of what happens, I’ll continue to do good. I’ve spent days working on RSD related stuff, no different than before. I personally expect RSD to be fine. My life is basically the same as it ever was, not really different. I’ve been planning on building something new for a long time, and have a lot of things in the works with it even before this, so if it’s not fine I’ll do other things.
I suspect the plain English translation of all that is: CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP I THINK WE’RE SCREWED.
As far as I know, Blanc himself hasn’t offered any response to any of this yet — aside from quietly taking down Tweets featuring pictures of him choking women.
For the latest on all this, check out the #TakeDownJulienBlanc hashtag on Twitter, and follow Li herself at @JennLi123.
You can also sign a petition to Take Down Julien Blanc and RSD’s Seminars and Web content. Last I checked, the Change.org petition had garnered more than 30,000 signatures. There’s another one directed at the Japanese government here.
For more on the campaign against Blanc, see:
Julien Blanc, the ‘female attraction’ expert, glorifies sexual violence. The fewer seminars he holds, the better, by Somayya Ismailjee at TheGuardian.com.
Julien Blanc, self-described pick-up artist who promotes choking women, leaves Australia and has visa cancelled, at ABC.net.au.
Australian Government Deports Notorious “Pick-Up Artist” Julien Blanc, by Mark Di Stefano at Buzzfeed.
One down, 205 to go.
If he truly “only wants to do good in the world”, maybe rescuing shelter dogs or feeding the homeless might be a better choice. Plus, since feeding the homeless is apparently against the law in some places (argh, what’s wrong with government), he could even earn points with SJWs.
Thats great news and I’m incredibly surprised my country put its foot down, considering what a backwards shiyhole it is.
Typical. He uses terms like “mainstream media” and “SJWs” like he’s talking about the boogeyman. He posted all the damaging shit on his own. It just scares me he didn’t think anyone would find it offensive. His brain must be a dark and frightening place.
‘FINE GOOD I DON’T EVEN CARE ANYWAY YOU JUST HATE MEN HAVE YOU EVEN MET A FEEEMALE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW HOW TO BEHAVE AROUND FEEMALES UNLESS I TELL YOU GAH WHY ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT ME I DON’T EVEN CARE’
That’s basically what he said, yes?
Right, because “shy guys” have a unique experience in the world and it’s just impossible for anyone watching their videos to be able to relate. It’s impossible for a not-shy guy to have ever been a shy guy in the past, and shy people who are not guys don’t exist.
Boo hoo, somewhere, right now, there is a peen that isn’t being touched. Let’s cry a fucking river for that poor, lonely, suffering peen. Let’s definitely teach it to manipulate women and coerce them and rape them. Let’s not, under any circumstances, teach the man attached to the peen to talk to women like they are people and become a decent human being that people actually want to date.
Among the many, MANY, things wrong with Mr. Cook’s response here, the one that bothers me the most is the “Julien was just joking around!!!” defense. Really? Mr. Cook, if someone came up to you and grabbed you by the neck, implying that they were about to kill you, would you be inclined to think they were joking? Would you not be absolutely terrified, even AFTER this douchebag let go and said he/she was just kidding?
Here’s some “Real Social Dynamics” for you, dickweed: women are taught from a very early age to not make a scene and be polite to everyone. We’re socialized to do this so well that even when we think we’re in a life-threatening situation (say, some STRANGER coming up to us and choking us), we are more concerned with how it will look to others if we scream or fight back. If you saw those women in the video laughing it up and asking Julien to kiss them, take a closer look. Chances are they were still nervous as hell and didn’t know how else to react except to pretend that it was a totally reasonable thing to avoid excessive attention.
For someone who claims to be helping shy men engage, you don’t seem to know very much about engaging appropriately.
Not even Roosh likes RSD.
http://www.rooshv.com/is-rsd-hurting-young-men
(I don’t know how to donotlink, I’m sorry).
For anyone who doesn’t want to read yet more PUA claptrap, Roosh has an issue with RSD’s signature tactic of “spam approach. They push you to approach every single available girl just to lose the fear of approaching, and even if the girl isn’t feeling you or showing signs of disinterest, you must “plow” through as if her response doesn’t matter.”
His concern regarding this tactic is how many women will be made to feel uncomfortable, annoyed or even scared by a random guy vying for her attention and refusing to take no for an answer.
Jokes! His concern is that these guys are being too upfront and will end up getting rejected so many times that they’ll turn away from pick up artistry altogether.
Owen, dude, when a well known PUA asshole doesn’t like what your company teaches, it’s not a good sign.
I tweeted asking why Blanc shouldn’t go to jail but realistically, could he be charged with anything? The vids are clearly sexual assault, but couldn’t the “seminars” be seen as inciting/advocating criminal behavior?
Yeah selling shy insecure men that they can overcome their social anxiety by being creepy and teaching how to become predators is “doing good”. It’s so transparent they consider women are goods to obtain and not people.
I’ve been extremely shy my entire life, and yet I’ve never needed anyone to
trick me out of thousands of dollarstell me it’s okay to go around assaulting people if I want something from them. Nor does being extremely shy mean I am incapable of understanding why that sort of behaviour is disgusting. As a shy person, I am greatly offended that this man would suggest this about me and people like me.Side note: If you’re biggest, most painful problem in life is a lack of hot dates, you lead an extraordinarily charmed life. Maybe that $3000 you were going to waste on this idiot’s get laid quick seminar could go towards going on a sweet vacation or a new hobby or joining all the dating sites in the world for several years. Seriously, take a cooking class, you’ll have more luck meeting ladies that way than by randomly accosting them in the street.
I know it’s going to sound weird, but I actually see this as a really positive development. Feminists have been trying to tell people that PUAs teach rape how-to’s, and that gamer culture is a cesspit of toxic misogyny, for years, and for the most part the mainstream just brushed it off as feminists moaning about nothing important and overreacting. The reason for that, other than reflexive anti-feminism, was that the people brushing it off had for the most part never actually seen what PUAs do, or how women are treated in geek culture. Now, thanks to the gamergate dudes waving their misogyny around in public, and this fool pushing his videos into spaces where they can’t just be ignored, the general public is finally seeing the reality of who these people are, and guess what? Even the ones who’re generally anti-feminist don’t think this shit is OK. I’ve seen the Blanc video posted with “WTF is this pathetic asshole doing” comments by men who are normally either indifferent or actively hostile towards feminism.
There’s a huge amount of latent misogyny in most cultures, and rape culture is rampant, but even so, the stuff that men steeped in this toxic internet culture of angry geek misogyny are doing is a bridge too far for most people in the mainstream. People don’t have to be feminists to realize that shoving a woman’s head in your crotch while screaming “pikachu!” at her is way over the line, or that sending a woman death threats because she criticized your favorite game is completely unreasonable behavior.
For years these guys have been arguing that the majority agrees with them about their rage towards women and the resulting behavior being totally justified, and this is what they wanted, for this stuff to finally hit the mainstream media. And how is that going for them? Well, it turns out that most people don’t agree with them after all. Even most men who don’t give a shit about feminism think they’re being fucking ridiculous.
They could have carried on just perpetuating their weird little woman-hating culture on their own websites and at their creepy little seminars and most people wouldn’t even have noticed, but they weren’t happy with that. They wanted the world to see what they were doing and cheer them on.
Well, they finally got the attention that they wanted. Problem is, it turns out that the public doesn’t agree with them at all, and now stuff that they’ve been doing for years is going to get shut down because they just had to shove it in people’s faces.
Reap what you sow, assholes. You did this to yourselves.
Meanwhile in the Red Pill subreddit the regulars are saying that the only reason women don’t like Blanc’s advice is because “it works”.
Not if it’s consensual sex you’re after, dickbags.
It is kind of funny how hard they’re clinging to their delusions in the face of mounting evidence that nope, most normal men don’t think that forcing some random woman’s face into your crotch means that you’re a super studly alpha male who’s impressively good with women.
Read the comments on the mainstream news articles about this, PUAs. Most regular guys think that the fact that you’re even considering signing up for this kind of thing is proof that women would rather touch a bag full of roaches than your penis.
Actually deported? Fabulous.
I went to the non-explanation explanation link. Oh, my, they are certainly a put upon group. We are mean meanies, using our massive preponderance of social justice warrior influence to make life harder for these shy men who just want to ask girls out. Is that so wronnnggg?
Right?
The het men in my life that I’ve seen have the most dating success (or even “success in eliciting responsiveness / having positive interactions with women”) have been those who – suh-prise, suh-prise – treat women like other people rather than potential conquests (or separating them out into “potential conquest/not potential conquest” groups) or alien beings with a divergent language and strange customs.
Hey! Any potential PUAs lurking our there! Women are people! Really!
There are some that you won’t naturally connect with, and that’s ok. You shouldn’t date each other, anyway.
And there are some that you’ll “get” right away and who’ll “get” you.
Really.
I promise.
The one thing that these hucksters who’d like to bilk you of your money have right is that you have to put yourself out there – but rather than *thrust* yourself out there, just interact. Treat women as you’d like to be treated.
I mean, unless you’d like to end up like Roosh, somewhere in the wilderness having an existential crisis because making the core of your life about mindless sex with a string of incompatible people tends to leave a person a bit empty inside.
@marinerachel
Yeah, it’s good, in the way that dumping your chemical waste on someone else’s property is good.
No, officer, I don’t think you should arrest me for assault — I’m just shy. How else am I gonna get a woman to touch me if I don’t force myself on them?
“Pokeman pikachu tamagotchi!” is totally how you say “would you like to go get a drink some time?” in Japanese, right?
You know, Owen Cook is right about one thing, at least:
Julian Blanc IS an idiot.
“I think Julien’s video was absolutely stupid.”
Of course you do. Note, he didn’t say the assaults were wrong, but that the video was stupid. If only he would’ve been smart enough to not provide evidence, that’s what that guy is saying.
It’s so good to see so many people rising up and saying that this is unacceptable. This is how violent abusers must be treated. Put the spotlight on them and how wrong their behaviour is. Punish them, don’t let them be welcome at places. Make it as difficult as possible for them.
Whatever the evidence the PUA lovers cannot see it. Apparently the women in the videos ‘loved it’. That is to say – they tolerated it because they had been put into an unpleasant and unsafe situation and they did not want to exacerbate the situation with a man who is clearly MUCH bigger than the women he targets. Why do they not get that the ‘smile’ they see is a GRIMACE of EXTREME DISCOMFORT?
Ellesar: Because by repeatedly saying unfounded crap like “Women like to be physically and mentally dominated” and choosing to view women’s non-violent reactions as “she’s loving it”, PUA’s get to whitewash their rapey antics as something positive. It’s the only thing stopping their advice from sounding 100% like a sexual assault how-to.
@cassandrakitty:
I was thinking the same thing lately. I completely agree that it’s about time the public knew what was going on in these toxic communities, and I’m not surprised by the general outrage we are seeing. The problem is that, at least as far as the Gamergate crowd is concerned, widespread public disapproval is seen as validation of their position. In Gamergate’s case, when objections about their movement started to spread around, instead of listening, the crowd just whipped up some MS Paint infographics to “explain” just why the “SJW’s” were controlling game review websites. When the objections reached the New York Times’ front page, the Gaters could have stopped and thought “well, maybe we could reevaluate our lives now”, but did they? Nope, they broke out the tired “mainstream media brainwashing” clichés. Basically, they could not conceive that they could be wrong in any way. Any disagreement is seen as part of a widespread conspiracy to “persecute” poor straight white male video gamers.
The same “Us vs. Them” mentality is observed in the manosphere in general and PUA circles in particular. They have arbitrarily divided straight men (because nobody else counts, or even exists) into Us/Red Pillers/Alphas and Them/BluePillers/Betas (along with their EEEVIL feminist overladies) . As usual with that kind of mind frame, “Us” is always right forever for having swallowed the “Real Truth”, and “Them” is always wrong forever for choosing to ignore the plain BIOTROOFS BRUH in front of them. Unless, of course, they get “saved” by swallowing the Red Pill propaganda.
Basically, I’m worried that instead of taking general opposition to their views as the wake-up call that it is, Gaters and PUAs will take it as a reason to double down…