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.
Yes kittehserf, we certainly have enough home grown ones, we don’t need to import any!
Drat, should have blockquoted. My previous comment referred to limesweet’s.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could deport that lot to some uninhabited island in the Pacific?
I’m in Melbourne, btw. Which state are you in, if you’re happy to share?
Hi, I’m in sunny Sydney
Wouldn’t it be great if we could deport that lot to some uninhabited island in the Pacific?
I wish every country could do this. The only company these guys deserve is that of others like them.
And I lost my quotes
Skye, the blockquote mammoth strikes again! Seems zie’s hoarding them now. 😛
::waves in general northerly direction at limesweet::
It’s far-too-sunny Melbourne here today (34, ugh) but there’s s’posed to be a cool change this arvo. Can’t come soon enough for me!
It’s a lovely day up here kittehserf, not too hot at all. I’ve had a wander around the kings cross markets & now I’m lazily deciding what to do with the rest of my day 🙂
Coventry was in a sci fi story I read when I was about eight or so. I have ever after wanted to send these d00dz to Coventry.
In the “They don’t see women as people” category, also remember the GamerGate screed that referred to their opponents as “NPCs”–the whole idea is that even when a woman has ‘preferences’, these can be worked through with enough game-play to cause her to dispense gold coins and/or sex. Hence the PUA approach to ‘seduction’.
(Rest of this post should probably have trigger warning for insight into deeply screwed up thinking, including rape fantasies.)
Sadly, Hollywood has possibly forever warped the definition of “nice”. Where it once would’ve included traits entailed in being a decent (and possibly even interesting) human being, it now means being kind of a creepy stalker/hanger-on who eventually gets the girl after she goes running from the ‘bad boy’ and realizes what was right in front of her, all along. *Retching noises* And that’s the pleasant version–the worst ones will actively fantasize about the bad things that can happen to the target of their ‘affection’ so that they can be the one to rush in and ‘save’ them.
(In some cases I’ve encountered, the ‘saving’ is ideally imagined as coming AFTER the worst has happened, and is just the guy dreaming about taking revenge on a hypothetical attacker after the fact. It is a profoundly fucked-up way of thinking: “Gee, I wish she was raped so that I could beat up/kill the guy who raped her so she’d see how awesome I am.”.)
@ Bina
Because you can’t make a Fleshlight cry. What’s the point of being a bully if you can’t make your victims suffer?
That sounds like a lovely way to spend the say, limesweet!
It is! I’m heading out now to visit a couple of fabric stores, hopefully sewing inspiration strikes. Hopefully it cools down soon for you kittehserf 🙂
Ooooooh, fabric stores!
::makes big googly eyes::
Alert, alert, we haz another Aussie and another crafter at WHTM! Excellent!
Have fun!
Just realized his shirt says “Diss Fatties Bang Hotties”….barf.
34C ? Get a grip, girlie. It got to over 36 in Adelaide yesterday. We were anticipating breaking all the hottest earliest day in November records everywhere – Ceduna just missed out on 43C but they’d have needed over 44 to break the record. But they had closed most of the schools in the region. It was a “Catastrophic” fire danger day. Extreme heat and lots of dry wind. Perfect!
But the cool change is great. Always works nicely when it’s only one hot day and low humidity.
@mildlymagificent,
When I saw that 34C, I thought you were talking about bra size for a moment before the context became apparent.
To me, 34C is the bra size I wore for years under the mistaken impression that boobs stop growing with the rest of the person. HAHAHA no.
Also, 37 degrees C is the temperature of an incubator used for growing mammalian cells.
Oh yeah, that’s right! And you can’t send it neggy messages on Tinder, either.
Bummer.
mildlymagnificent – SHIT that’s early to be getting temps that high. Though I suspect northern Vic has had some over 40s already.
I’m hoping like hell there are no fires here, because the wind is WOAH FUCK that’s strong at the moment. We’ll be in for a catastrophic fire season if there isn’t controlled burning done soon; there’s masses of fuel around. My hairdresser lives in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges and was saying it’s like a forest up there, people haven’t done any cutting back at all.
One of these days I really must scrape together some cash and visit Adelaide. Been to Sydney, been to Hobart, never been across there. Won’t be doing it in summer, though!
Too late already for this year.
What the fire people are telling us is that the fire danger season is getting longer AND that the number of opportunities for safe burning off are decreasing sharply.
As for “people” cutting back stuff around their houses or their access roads. Pffffft. Every year the CFS goes around and letterboxes everyone and/or knocks on the doors of people whose roofs are laden with leaf litter and firewood stacked up against the outside of the house and branches of large trees looming over them. And they do nothing!
I think more CFS units are going to have to get tough and tell people that they Will Not defend such properties. It’s really not worth people risking their lives on behalf of homeowners/landlords who are too lazy, or too lousy to pay, to clear their own gutters and gardens of flammable materials.
If you do that, do not go alone and do not go outside after dark. The cathedrals are beautiful, the mall is great and the zoo and museum are top-tier, but the locals are dangerous as hell. I lived there for two Godawful years and had 28 break-ins, no exaggeration.
Has anyone mentioned Destroy the Joint yet? Other sites have mentioned that they, along with Li, are responsible for Blanc getting shut down in Australia. If so, brava and WELL DONE. Hope y’all get the recognition you deserve.
Their fb page.
Bina, good night, what an onion of awful this guy is
M., bloody hell! That puts an end to that idea, then. Not that going out after dark is something I do anyway, because a) public transport at night, no way and b) there’s nothing happening after dark that I want to go to. But travelling alone (apart from Mr K’s presence) is the only way I go anywhere. I have no other option.
Buggrit.