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From time to time I like to check in on the Facebook page for A Voice for Men, to see how that eminent men’s human rights organization’s program to advance the human man rights of human men through badly designed and even more poorly conceived graphic “memes” is going.
Well, I can report that this program is going, and going, and going, a bit like a famous battery-powered bunny.
Looking through them today, I couldn’t help but notice the weird sexual undertones — and overtones — of many of the memes, and realized that, while none of the memes tell us much about the world, they do, in an altogehter accidental way, offer some pretty interesting insights into the ids of those making and “liking” them on Facebook.
You don’t have to be a trained psychoanalyst to see the not-very-well-hidden straight male sexual insecurities that lie behind a large number of AVFM’s memes — both the ones they create themselves and the others that seem to have arrived on the AVFM page after being forwarded via email from someone’s cranky misogynistic uncle. Let’s take a look at some of them.
1) AVFMers have apparently convinced themselves that the history of mankind is the story of nice guys being nice to snooty women who won’t date them.
2) The straight men who make up the bulk of AVFM’s audience are pretty much terrified of women.
3) A lot of these guys seem to really enjoy fantasizing about women being forced into crappy jobs and/or sex work.
4) One of AVFM’s meme makers, the fellow who goes by the name of “John Galt,” has trouble distinguishing between the real world and certain (perhaps unacknowledged) sexual fetishes he appears to be a little obsessed with.
5) Straight cis male AVFMers hate fat women who don’t please their boners, and are angry at feminists for convincing at least some fat women not to hate themselves.
6) These AVFMers evidently prefer women who are very young, very thin, and photoshopped into anatomically implausible proportions and positions. But they simultaneously hate these women for giving them boners.
8) AVFMers really, really hate male feminists — and pretty much every man who doesn’t hate and fear women like they dO — and not-very-subtly project their own sexual insecurities onto them.
9) They also really, really, really hate me.
But I think that’s probably because they’re jealous that I have that second pair of arms.
First they laugh at you and then they laugh at you again and then they click on and forget your graphic, which they didn’t understand anyway, and then you win?
Oh no! Ninja’d by Anarchonist!
I’d also like to note that memes are nothing like Rorschach tests. Those are the inkblots that you make a picture with. Comparison to the Thematic Aperception Test might be a bit closer. But that doesn’t really work either because those have no words. Words would be leading. Psychologists want the test taker to make up their own scenarios.
Memes have words on them precisely because they are trying to communicate an idea or a joke clearly. That’s the whole point of them. They’re a quick and easy way to say something on the internet. If they aren’t clear and concise, the purpose is defeated.
@ManWalk
I love* it when the MRAs support men who are also being subjected to body-policing and unrealistic standards of attractiveness by body-shaming male feminists who disagree with them.
*HATE HATE HATE
Gosh people. You guys are so hateful and simply determined not to get it. I need to screen cap your hateful anti-male comments.
We aren’t anti-male. We think you, as an individual are an idiot.
Go ahead and screencap. Or just link to the page. This isn’t 4Chan and the thread isn’t going anywhere.
Don’t blame us for your inability to communicate and make good memes. If there’s something we’re not getting, explain it. Address what people are actually saying to you instead of whining about mean we are and running back to your buddies at AVFM to tell on us like you’re a four year old.
Get what*? That you’re a crappy meme maker, an even shittier debater, and a self-important asshole? We do get it, that’s why we’re laughing. At you, not with you.
Ahahahahahahaha! Yeah, you do that. Tell us when you find them. I admit I’m curious; I’m a man, and I have not witnessed one single anti-male comment on this thread. Lots of laughing at pathetic manchildren with entitlement issues, but nothing anti-male.
*For the record: I do get what you mean. You think a woman saying anything bad to a man is by nature anti-male and the worst oppression evah, yet expect women to be infinitely forgiving to men who systematically treat them as second-class citizens. That’s not proof of widespread misandry, it’s proof that you’re an entitled misogynist and a shitty human being.
We mock you not because you’re a man, but because you’re a misogynist. Not because of who you are, but what you say and do. See the difference?
Oh noes, the screencaps of woe and despair! Don’t threaten us with those!
@Treehugger I wasn’t referring to that comment. I was referring to the ones which agreed with the sentiment of a meme.
If you claim to be for equal rights, but oppose men’s rights. You might be a feminist.
But yeah, go ahead and straw man my comments and blast me with frothing fuming feminist hate. Try to shock me, try to bring feminist bigotry to a new depth of shame. But not all feminists are like you guys, right?
No! Not the screencaps!! ANYTHING BUT THE SCREENCAPS!!!
What rights are you fighting for?
Wow. This right here truly is a thing of beauty. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a perfect combination of semantic and grammatical nonsense, silly attempt at a dramatic pause, utter ignorance of the real world and a load of pathetic whining in one short phrase.
No, seriously. What rights are we men being denied? And please do not start with the divorce/custody thing (debunked), imprisonment (debunked as well), the draft (ditto) or any of the other bullshit talking points that MRAs use time and time again to inadvertently prove that yes, there are indeed people who will believe literally anything, no matter how ridiculous.
It’s also really obnoxious that you still haven’t given a proper reply to anything that has been asked of you thus far.
Step up your game, Walking Dude. At this rate, you’re never going to stand a chance against Mike “DIRECTLY ON THE BEACH!” at the next troll awards. If you can’t be convincing, at least try to be entertaining. Dance, troll monkey, dance!
…. “This guy” wrote “this headline”?
What does that mean? What’s the take-away?
TIL that making fun of poorly done memes = shocking disregard for the human rights of men.
That top picture, what was the thought process behind it?
“Women who talk about rapists and dead beat dads are like Nazi dictators.”
“…HOT Nazi dictators! *fapfapfap*” Mixed messages with that photo.
They’re so out of touch with what women/feminists actually think it’s pathetic. Yeah feminists are interested in weird macho action movie stuff with Lincoln, not women’s history…!
Stand back, folks, we haz an INTERLECTUAL here!
Oh noes! Not the Man-Hater Card! And the Herd Mentality Card! Oh, whatever shall we do??? We are POWERLESS against this much bullshit all at once!!!
Oh NOES!!! He’s going to SCREEN-CAP us! And make more crappy sexist hate-memes out of us! Fetch me my smelling salts! Where is my fainting couch??? >clutches pearls, staggers<
Oh my, I am DEVASTATED by this wit and logic. However shall I recuperate?
Man tears, man tears,
Booey-hooey man tears!
Man tears, man tears,
Drink them up, YUM!
BTW, here’s the actual first comment on the entire thread. It’s from one of our regulars:
I guess ManFlop mistook it for sympathetic because the commenter is male, as can be seen in his avatar photo. Wrongo!
“Straw-manning” and “screen-capping” are not magical words that automatically win arguments. Words do mean things. You do have to understand the actual concepts in order to use them correctly. Quoting and providing counterpoints to what a person actually says is not straw-manning. Screen-capping is only effective if something totally outrageous/ridiculous is said and/or there is a possibility that a comment might be removed or erased.
I can see how someone who doesn’t grasp the whole “words have meanings” thing could create incomprehensible memes.
Aaand at least two people got there ahead of me with that first comment. Ah well, that’s at least a triple humiliation score for ManFlop.
I humbly suggest that if your images are like Rorschach tests in that everyone who looks at them has a different idea of what they mean, you may not be very good at communicating.
My oath, it really is Stupid Troll week.
Hey ManWalk (and what is a man walk, pray tell? Is it one where you walk awkwardly because your mighty man ‘nads are so mighty they get in the way?) what part of “the new misogyny, tracked and mocked” is too hard for you to understand? It’s right up there in the header. This is a feminist blog, run by a feminist man, yet you seem to think it’s so meeeeeean that we’re pointing and laughing at your feeble attempts at memes. You know something, kid? Your meme works in one way only: it shows your contempt of women. Perhaps you should GYOW, because whiney, entitled, fuckwitted dudes are only going to get that contempt coming back at them from all decent people.
You, sir, are a loser.
Maybe “straw man” is MRA for “being mocked”
What rights are being opposed? The right to treat women like garbage? The right to act as if you know better than women about any subject? The right to ignore consent and responsibility in sex when it’s convenient? The right to hurt and kill women when they don’t cater to your whims?
Ah yes, all these “rights” MRAs whine about … turns out they’re either things men have never been deprived of, or more often, things that are criminal. How tragic that the world is oh-so-slowly turning away from accepting that men own women.
This trolling is not worthy. I give it a 2.