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.
Where the fuck were you living? I’ve lived here for all of 6 decades, plus a few years living in the country when I was a kid. Had a few problems, but I couldn’t manage one per decade if I counted every single thing.
The fuck is going on in Adelaide?
@mildlymagnificent
Middle of the CBD, right next to Victoria Square. It’s probably safer out in the suburbs, hah, but the CBD scares the crap out of me now. =P
Bluddy hell! Come to think of it, where would that be? Around the market – Gouger St and its little side streets, just up the road from Police HQ / courts precinct – Angas St? One daughter lived in a flat in the south-western corner of the city, but that was nearly as peaceful as many suburbs. Though I do notice that the newer residential buildings in the CBD have pretty impressive fences and security. Those old worker cottages with their charming picket fences might not be so wonderful nowadays.
This is a downer. I wouldn’t have thought of Adelaide, of all our cities, as being crime-ridden.
I’d never want to live in the CBD here, but that’s because of noise levels, not thinking of crime.
Adelaide’s pretty ordinary for crime rates. But we’re suffering just as much as everyone else with the open all hours drinkies all the time for everyone policies.
I’m so lucky…we never lock our front door. Once I even left my work car out front with the keys on the driver seat. I figure if anyone broke into it, they obviously just borrowed it and returned it to me safely. I do live in a fairly rural part of northern NSW and everyone is pretty much in bed by 9,30pm. I’m a night owl, and from Edinburgh originally, so still struggle a little with lights out by 9.30 (hint, I stay up late reading and playing A Dark Room on my phone)
What shocks me is the fact that the people near the women being abused leave the “couple” alone. There have been one or two of times in my life where I have intervened and times when I have seen others intervene. Such interventions do not have to be picking a fight with the abuser all that is needed is to give the victim a chance to escape the abuse.
There are times when I wish the Matrix was real so these abusive prats could spend their lives hooked into a fantasy and leave humans with empathy free to get stuff sorted.
Reblogged this on sindhuspace.
I know, eh? And this woman who just happened to be trying Tinder, just happened to meet him. Fortunately, not in the flesh. HIs shitty ‘tude made sure that wasn’t going to happen.
I wonder when he’ll finally twig to the fact that his attitude is pure woman-repellent.
Given that he has less self awareness than a half-dead slug, probably three months past never.
Does Tyler Durden have those videos to show us? Somehow, I doubt that he does, and somehow, I doubt that whatever context he thinks that the alleged full clips provide actually makes the situation look any better. For example, how would the girls asking Le Blanc to kiss them translate into their asking him to choke them?
Then again, at least in this case, these abusive assholes are getting run out of business.
“Asian women are a “free for all” for predatory men”
…yeah, tell me all about that! It’s good in a way that I live in Asia now, because I don’t stand out, because I lived in the UK for a while and sometimes this got pretty bad.
I used to live in Grote/Gouger Street in the Adelaide CBD – there are a bunch of townhouses tucked away behind the Cash Converters. It wasn’t a great place to live and I definitely didn’t feel safe after dark. I didn’t have any attempted break-ins there though.
I live down at the bay now and I’ve had at least three or four attempted break-ins here along with my door being knocked on at stupid early hours (think 2am) in the morning on Friday/Saturday nights and people trying to get in my back gate. As a lady living on my own it scares the living daylights out of me.
Has anyone received a positive response from reporting any of this asshat’s videos? I had a reply from YouTube saying his video didn’t break their guidelines.
This is bullshit. The media and all these feminazies are being way too harsh on the guy. This guy is not a threat, he’s done nothing wrong and is being unfairly attacked. I think he should sue whoever started the petition. There is this thing called freedom, freedom of speech, etc… This guy does not commit any crimes, so let him do what he wants in a free country. He does not promote female abuse. He empowers men who need empowerment. He actually helps people. And he is being censored basically. Honestly this feminism thing is out of control, I think soon us men will have to start getting together to protect our rights. It’s not like his techniques don’t work either. Tons of woman sleep with him. If you didn’t want to be treated like this don’t sleep with guys when they do. Only THAT and not jjulien will promote such behaviour and it’s unfair. Some woman appreciate an aggressive dominant man. Julian is this and more but he doesn’t go so far as to break laws. Most of his quotes are him joking. It’s all taken out of context, a context woman might find hard to understand. I’ve watched a lot of juliens stuff and not once did I feel he was encouraging abusive actions.
There’s also freedom of association (I assume that’s a thing in Australia?), which venues are exercising when they decide whether or not to host Julien’s events. And his detractors have as much freedom to speak as he does. Honestly, do you even know what “freedom of speech” means?
Assault is a crime, dipshit.
The nerve of
sexthingswomen, thinking they have rights. It’s like they think they’re people!So he says.
Comments like this might be the real reason women aren’t flocking to your cock, pal.
Then you’re either a liar or a danger to women. Possibly both.
Yeah, this right here? Does not help your “argument.”
Then again, neither does a single other thing you wrote.
Hi there! *Looks around nervously*
We;ve had something pretty cool happening in the UK recently. ‘Comedian’ Dapper Laughs (he of rape jokes and an ‘hilarious’ PUA-style TV show) has had his TV show dropped, had the homeless charity Shelter say it doesn’t want the proceeds from his ‘novelty’ album, been banned from appearing at Cardiff University and condemned by over 40 comedians in an open letter.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/dapper-laughs-itv-under-fire-over-dating-show-vloggers-rape-comedy-routine-9852224.html
One’s narrative of events when one lives in imaginary-backwards-land. From the sound of it, Kevin, you haven’t yet found the MRM, and it’s only a matter of time. Don’t fret, soon you too will harass individual feminist women on Twitter and believe Warren Farrell is the Allfather.
*That should be Kurtis, not Kevin. Damn you auto-correct.
If you need to assault women to feel empowered, I encourage you to ship yourself off to a deserted island and never be around people again.
… putting your hand around a woman’s throat and shoving her face to your crotch isn’t abusive? Or is a context that the frail woman brain couldn’t understand? I’ve got a big beefy manly brain over here, and I can’t fathom what context would make those things ok beyond consent. And consent is certainly not something present in any of Blanc’s videos.
I hate the PUA movement. Thank fucking god one is called out on his bullshit.
Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Look at the troll droppings in here! ::grabs shovel while grumbling grumpily::
Would some one please call the Wargies? Let them deal with the trolls!