Oh dear. Paul Elam’s attempt to anoint himself King of the MGTOWs doesn’t seem to be going terribly well, mainly due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who call themselves Men Going Their Own Way would prefer it if he went his own way off a short pier.
His new ebook on MGTOW — despite receiving rave reviews from people who work for him at A Voice for Men — has not done quite as well amongst the MGTOW masses, many of whom are posting one-star reviews on Amazon.
Their complaints are a mixture of the reasonable and the ridiculous. On the one hand, they accuse him of being a con artist trying to cash in on their little movement with an ebook made up mostly of stuff that’s already been posted on the internet. On the other, well, they think he’s some kind of quasi-feminist supplicator to women who’s committed a sort of treason against his fellow men by not banning all women from AVFM. No, really:
On their own websites, Elam’s MGTOW haters are even more blunt. Here’s what one commenter on MGTOWHQ had to say:
But my favorite response so far comes from a Youtuber who calls himself TheMadShangi. A few months ago, Mr. Shangi was a loyal AVFMer; indeed, he contributed a post to Elam’s site gleefully recounting how he’d been such a royal pain in the ass to me on Twitter that I stopped responding to him. (Or, as he put it, How I made David Futrelle cry and ragequit on Twitter.)
Well, these days he’s singing a different tune. Literally. Here’s his musical critique of Mr. Elam and his book.(The bit at the beginning is from a video Elam made baiting his MGTOW haters.)
Both sides in this MGTOW civil war are so thoroughly terrible I can only hope that they both go down in ignominious defeat, leaving us, the amused spectators, the only real winners.
In order for him to be king of MGTOW wouldn’t he have to be going his own way? I thought these were the subset of the MRA that swore off woman, doesn’t he claim to have “a supportive girlfriend” that foots part of the bill for AVFM?
Wait, that kind of sounds like he’s mooching. Hmm.
… and now I’m wondering where the fudge I picked up the bad habit of overusing like…
I’m not from the valley, I’m from the hills! And I live in the mountains, darn it!
I did get called a “disgusting, loathesome bigot” once for using the word “faggot”.
The context? Shakespeare play I was reciting to my very flamboyantly gay friend, who was at the time wearing a rainbow tie-dyed t-shirt with “I love Boobs” written on it. Some random bystander heard the word “Faggot” (as in faggot of wood) and thought I was being an asshole.
In another example, the League of Super-Redundant Heroes webcomic once featured a 1940s superhero called the Gay Basher (gay as in cheerful or happy), who was advised to change his name and not throw around his trademark “Gaymakers”.
So I do understand context and usage-dependent meanings. Just not entirely sure how to qualify the sheer absurdity of these MRAs.
Hmm. If Elam boots a FeMRA every time he’s trying to sell stuff to the MGTOW’s, I wonder which will be the last rat on the ship. My guess is JB. Elam just looooves having a woman around to harass women in his stead, and no one’s more enthusiastic about tearing down other women than JB.
So, the effective difference between MRA and MGTOW is this:
MRAs will accept women (or at least pretend to do so) if the women in question agree with their misogynist ideas and nod and say that “yes, most women are totes evil good thing we’re not like them.”
MGTOW, however, are allergic to the very notion of women being people who are allowed to influence society in any way. They are hateful of women and want them under their heel, no matter what, no exceptions – it is oppressive to their masculinity if they do not dominate and control women. Any measure of equality is bad and women need to be put in their place and kept there.
? That about right ?
PS: Manosphere misogynists having a little war about who hates women the most is fun to watch, but I think Shangi’s “music” constitutes a war-crime. Should we notify the UN?
I completely understood what GroundPetrel said, I simply don’t think it’s really our job to educate zir *especially* when zir’s follow up post is about *why* ze feels comfortable using ableist terms. Honestly, it’s not actually difficult to come up with other words *or* to understand why certain words are problematic without having to state why *I* (or you, or he/she/ze/they) don’t feel personally threatened or hurt by them. For example I don’t need to explain why white people don’t find racial slurs problematic, and I don’t need to explain/understand how/why POC can reclaim those terms, I, as a white person, have to not use them, that’s it that’s all.
@GroundPetrel
Stupid Crazy is my preferred discription.
Speaking as a person with neurological and developmental disorders (and I’m a dude, Shaun, just in case you wanted/needed specific gender pronouns for me), I’m not insulted by being called “crazy” or things like that. I just find it strange because to me, in my extremely unusual case, “crazy” is a word for people like Pat Robertson, who thinks that gay people cause earthquakes (no, really), not for genuinely mentally ill/mentally unstable people. To me, likely as a result of my upbringing, “crazy” means something like “flaming asshole” rather than “mentally ill”.
I recognize and comprehend why people don’t like that language, and in my original post I explicitly stated that I wanted to find a word that people here would find less offensive.
I think for now I’ll describe these flagrant MRAs with “Neelix wannabes”, after the psychopathic, abusive, tyrannical Killer Chef from Star Trek: Voyager.
Groundpetrel – that’s a good idea. Now you should really stop belaboring it. There’s a point where going on and on about how you’re not doing the rude thing becomes rude in itself.
Yeah, seraph, I was going to add words to that effect but it sounded like a flounce and there is no way on this fucking planet that I’m gonna flounce on an online comments thread, because that’s just a pathetic move.
Anyway. I’m reading FSTDT and one of the fundamentalist Christian Neelix wannabes has apparently gone on a spree. It is very amusing in the same way that black comedy is amusing.
@ vanir – I’d say you got the MRA’s right, but you’re a little off on the MGTOW’s. Oh, they do feel and want all of those things, but they know that obtaining them is impossible. They believe that society has become so totally biased toward women that the only way for men to be safe and achieve any sort of freedom is to drop out, John Galt style, wait for the whole thing to burn down, and then wait for everyone to come crawling to the MGTOW’s begging for them to come back. With that in mind, the presence of any women is an unacceptable concession to the Gynarchy.
They never do seem to get around to the “dropping out” part, though…
sunnysombrera
“I can’t believe one of them said that modern society is hostile to men. HAH!”
Poor menz, they can’t control and abuse us how and whenever they please. They have to see us as actual human beings with opinions and feelings. The Poor Deerz 🙁
Dudeinthewoods
He also thinks that women shouldn’t be getting jobs. If anything is going to get done leave the work to the men but later MRAs complain why men have to do all the hard and dangerous work? MRA’s don’t know what they want do they?
But don’t you see? Mooching IS his own way! Lo, such is the way of the Elamite…
And we recently had a troll here tell us that MGTOW totally do get to have sex with eeeevil feeeemales, too. I’m assuming it’s kosher as long as they do it…drumroll please…THEIR OWN WAY!
There’s not enough popcorn in the world for this show, I swear. “Neener neener you’re a FEMINIST Pauly!”
Can I just take this as strong evidence that they use “Feminist” as a general insult for people they don’t like, and that they don’t actually know what feminism is?
I come in to contact with more MGTOW types than MRA types in real life–this one jerk who is a very popular sponsor in AA around these parts brought it into the community, and it spread like the plague…which is one of the main reasons I don’t do AA because what the hell kind of recovery is that?
Anyway, from personal experience, MGTOWs are pretty much an organized tantrum-throwing party. Nothing I have heard has been related to going their own way in the slightest, but rather they have a glorified pissing contest over who has it worst when it comes to women.
Adding Paul, whose whole philosophy is a glorified pissing contest, to the mix is proving very entertaining.
Hey Peeps – off topic, but I just wanted to share that my 15yo son yesterday spontaneously said that white males are the most privileged people in society. He is also an avid gamer who paid no attention to gamergate. Yes, manosphere, take that!
Well, my buddies and I got high on Red Bull once and decided to troll MRA blogs for laughs. Nothing too absurd, just the run-of-the-mill bigots.
I got called a “feminist tranny ho beta male”.
It was really pretty remarkable.
My roommate got mistaken for a woman and called eighteen different sexual slurs, while my lesbian friend got mistaken for a dude and called a “stupid collared omega male”.
That was an interesting day.
contrapangloss, I wrote something in response to what you said (basically, yes, MRAs do seem to consider “feminist” an insult), but it got shunted for moderation because I forgot to bleep “tr*nny h*” in “feminist tr*nny h* beta male”.
See, my buddies and I trolled MRA blogs once while high on Red Bull. We got called every insult under the sun, including the above quoted phrase (which was delivered to me). It was almost funny.
THAT SONG. If all MRA’s and Gamergaters are trying to constantly keep up the image that it’s not a movement run almost exclusively by white men, why are they always in such a hurry to remind us that they don’t have any rhythm?
(Also, anyone else check out that Vivian James is claiming to have been a real person all along, recently? Despite the fact that you can see her creation being discussed in its infancy, and while conveniently cosplaying in her GG costume…?) Please tell me she is a real person so this isn’t as immensely creepy.
Yes, those words definitely get you in the mod bin, unless bleeped. We’ve had too many trolls use them seriously, and not in the “I’m quoting an insult delivered to me” way.
… and they’re not nice.
The trolls or the slurs. Both are bad.
GroundPetrel, I am a ciswoman and, as such, have been called “crazy” by men to excuse their terrible abusive behaviour and to keep me in a position where they can continue their terrible abusive behaviour unquestioned all the while garnering sympathy for being around “crazy”. My father (who literally tried to murder us after we had escaped), my last ex, who has threatened to murder me…I don’t need you to tell me why you don’t think it’s harmful. Women when discussing abuse are labeled crazy *specifically as a means to justify/excuse/deny abuse*, so it’s not just that it stigmatises those with mental illness, it does palpable harm to women *while allowing men* to continue toxic behaviours (which are self harming, but to a much lesser degree). Words have meaning, impact, and history and I don’t see why expecting people to use them responsibly is a call to arms.
Nice!
I <3 thoughtful young people.
GK re: "crazy": I get it. I really do. I came into this place thinking about the word in the exact same way, but lurking for a bit helped redirect.
My first reaction when someone called it an "ableist slur" was, "What? That's silly. Don't be so damned sensitive."
But then I thought about it, put myself in others' shoes, and pulled my head out of my ass.
I still sometimes use it conversationally ( :-/ ) with other people who I know use it in the same way, but Imve actually found that my IRL use of it has dropped dramatically as well.
It warms the heart to see the bad blood between AVFM and the MGTOW crowd, but I suppose this kind of bickering between similar activist groups will be familiar to anyone who has been involved in political activism – certainly on the left, but, from the outside, it looks like the right suffers from it too. Actually, it reminds me of something…
Brian: Are you A Voice for Men?
Reg: Fuck off!
Brian: What?
Reg: A Voice for Men!? We’re A Voice for Man! MAN! A Voice for Men? Fuck!
Francis: Wankers!
Brian: Can I… Can I join your group?
Reg: No. Piss off!
Brian: But I hate women as much as anybody!
Reg: Listen, if you wanted to join A Voice for Man, you’d have to REALLY hate women!
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh yeah? How much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you’re in. Listen, the only people we hate more than women are A Voice for fucking Men!
Group: Huh, splitters!
Francis: And the Men’s Voice International.
Group: Yeah, splitters!
Stan: And A Voice for Man!
Group: Yeah, uhh…
Reg: What?
Stan: A Voice for Man! Splitters!
Reg: WE’RE A Voice for Man!
Stan: Oh. I thought we were A Voice for Men?
Reg: Man! MAN! Fuck!
Francis: Whatever happened to A Voice for Men, Reg?
Reg: He’s over there.
Group: Splitter!
And MGTOWs: Go your own fucking way already.
You’d get *some* respect if you actually did that – live in co-ops with other men so as to reduce your need to earn enough that would lift you above the income tax threshold; become contemplative, monk-like souls in the wilderness, living a life of quiet determination and self-reliance; or perhaps become itinerant preachers of the MGTOW way, traveling from town to town, learning as you go and living by your wits.
I wouldn’t agree with you, but you wouldn’t be effing pathetic, whining man-children threatening to “go Galt” against a society that takes you for granted.
Newsflash: Society doesn’t need you.
It may want you if you ever get a clue, but for now you’re like a mosquito in a tent – annoying, but that’s it*.
(*Erm, this analogy only works if you include temperate climes and colder…pre-Tiger Mosquito.)