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.
After saying I was part Japanese during random conversations struck up by guys, I have genuinely had the response, “Yeah, Pokemon and stuff, yeah, I like that too”.
That’s… I hope you said, ‘I’m not that part of Japan.’ or something. Part Pokemon? What could be going through the guy’s head? Was he so drunk he couldn’t think straight?
Part Pokemon would be more like a Furry thing or somesuch.
…I coulda swore blockquote worked before…
“RSD Nation Your hub for dating advice, social dynamics, and self-actualization” – the top of the webpage that David linked to in the OP.
If any guy wants any of those things, he should seek it elsewhere. If anyone reading this actually wants help in any of those areas, please seek out an organisation that has properly credentialed staff who are members of their relevant professional bodies.
Like Elam, these guys are grifters.
@ Misha
I still want to go to one of their seminars and speak to them in the language of their people, to see if they’re capable of self-awareness or if they just get confused. Bugs Bunny! McDonalds! Walmart! Starbucks! Daffy Duck!
Chances are they wouldn’t get it, though.
@wwth
As someone who is occasionally read as Hispanic by strangers I can unfortunately confirm that yes, some white guys do indeed think that yelling out the names of random food items is the height of inter-cultural communication and the pathway to romance. It’s especially odd in that, OK, maybe tamales were the only food they could think of, but picture the shape of a tamale. Not very suggestive of the female form, is it?
@ Crissa, not Misha, sorry. Damn green splotchy icons.
Also, these guys remind me so much of the dudes I used to work with when I did sales. That’s basically what they’ve modeled this PUA crap on, classic high-pressure sales tactics. When I used to run into them in bars back in the day I always felt like they were about to try to sell me a satellite dish along with their penis.
Cassandrakitty: Ha,ha! The language of their people.
Yep, just yell out random American consumer products and see what that gets you.
Seconded! That last link was a thing of absolute beauty *sniff*
That would be like me running up to random Black people and yelling, “Okra, Peanuts, Watermelon, Chicken!”
How can you not know that screaming Saturday morning cartoon names and toys is anything but demeaning? Are these guys really that blind that they could hear something like that and think that’s valid advice for approaching a Japanese woman?
So, RSD was one of Elliot Rodger’s faves, huh?
If someone came up to me all Haggis! Whisky! Tartan! I’d be more likely to think they needed psychiatric assistance than to go home with them, and that’s without the icky racial dynamics involved here.
These PUA-types literally want all of the sympathy. They don’t just want everyone to feel sorry for them; they want them to feel SO sorry for them that it’s impossible to feel sorry (or any kind of empathy at all) for anyone else.
Pretty much.
@Crissa, I have no idea. I’ve found dudes have an extra dimension of super creepy when trying to ‘chat up’ young women who look like they may be of Asian descent. I assume it’s the whole ‘Japanese/Chinese women are submissive and eager to serve’ stereotyped bullshit that makes these kind of guys think they can say this particular type of crude nonsense. The day I learned about intersectionality was truly the day of “Fuck that noise”.
@JQ:
They basically want pity-dating to become law.
“Pity-fuck us or we’ll just rape you anyway” pretty much sums up the PUA philosophy.
Misha,
I’ve done that plenty. Sometimes it isn’t danger from the man that keeps me smiling. Sometimes it is fear of making a scene and compounding the humiliation. Sometimes it’s fear of going to jail for knocking him off of his bar stool and kicking him until I can’t or ending up with injuries that slow me down or hospital bills I can’t pay. Those kind of things would hurt my whole family. It’s too much to risk. I have to choke that rage and sometimes panic down and keep smiling. It is always fear disguised as prudence that keeps me smiling. Even when I knew a panic attack was kicking into gear, I have smiled and been polite to the man who would not let go of me. It’s a survival mechanism. It often feels like the only real option.
As a shy, a bit socially awkward and anxious man I’d like to ask mister blanc and mister cook to kindly get the fuck out of my planet. And I didn’t put any caps as the first letters of their respective names because that is just how much Ioath them.
PUA: It can be really painful to be shy.
Others: Yeah, it can!
PUA: Shy people can have a hard time connecting with people and it’s super lonely.
Others: Yep.
PUA: It’s also pretty embarrassing to be a virgin in some circumstances.
Others: Yeah, that sucks too.
PUA: And when you do meet someone you like, it really hurts if they reject you or break up with you.
Others: I feel your pain.
PUA: That’s why men should learn how to abuse and rape women.
Others: WOAH WOAH WOAH HOLD UP THERE COWBOY!
PUA: Why are you shy-shaming and virgin-shaming? You SJW!
I saw the video clip of the RSD head (the guy who calls himself Tyler) talking to a group about raping a woman. It was revolting. He claims that, in the extended version, he asserts that she eventually ‘got into it’ – given how he talks about the incident, I suspect she wanted it over with as quickly as possible. Truly vile. The way he kept breaking into a strange, choked laugh during the recounting disturbed me more than expected.
@cassandrakitty
What kills me is that how divorced from reality does one have to be to not see how fundamentally broken and horrible that is? Like, there was a time when I was suffereing severe depression and anxiety and had vaguely similar thoughts of emotionally extorting sex–but even then I realized what I was thinking was morally reprehensible and never acted on it.
It’s like Blanc and co. don’t even think their victims are real or human.
Robert, wow…all the ewww.
Ah, yep. That joke news story Strivingally linked to in the other thread totally got it. It referenced SJWs insisting women are people.
It’s not just standard sexist women aren’t really people dur hur, though, with these guys it’s also a sense of rage because how dare these non-people deny me something that I feel entitled to? Who do those bitches think they are, saying no to me?They think that women have wronged them by denying them the sex they deserve, and the whole PUA thing is an attempt at vengeance as much as it is an attempt to get laid.
@Buttercup Q Skullpants (Is this by the far the most entertaining handle to type out? I’d argue yes.)
Wait, this makes it sound like me giving my credit card info to a billionaire’s site offering SECRETS to making a KILLING in the STOCK MARKET was an error in judgement on my part. That can’t be true, he’s going to give me FIVE SECRETS and you don’t become a billionaire without knowing what’s what. I’m sure it’s going to work out great for me.
They are basically an organized criminal enterprise. That is what the RICO laws are for.
With so many links offering 3 SIMPLE TRICKS that will make women LOSE THEIR INHIBITIONS I’m not sure why people are willing to pay these clowns so much extra. I guess they just really value the personal touch.