[UPDATE 2: Pogo now says his misogynistic posts were an “experiment.” For my take on this, see here.]
[UPDATE: Pogo has taken down several of the blog posts mentioned in this post. I have replaced the links to the vanished posts with links to archived versions.]
So you know that dude Pogo, who makes all those amazingly perky-yet-somehow-also-ethereal music/video mashups using snippets of old Disney movies and the like?
Turns out he’s a bit of a misogynistic dickbag.
Yep. On his Pogomix blog, Nick Bertke (his real name) has been posting a bunch of tiresome and achingly unoriginal rants about feminism and the alleged privileges of women that might as well have been cut and pasted from the Men’s Rights subreddit or A Voice for Men.
In “Why We Should Envy Women” he argues that “[d]espite what all these feminists talk about, women actually have things pretty damn good. Better than men, I would say.”
He presents a little list of ways he thinks women have it better than men; it’s an assortment of MRA clichés, a sort of mashup (yep) of Warren Farrell and Girl Writes What, as filtered through a million crappy blogs.
– You are naturally endowed with a more valuable, sought after and artistically favorable body.
– At the bat of an eye, you can be excused from accountability regardless of the magnitude of your actions.
– At 18, you lose the protective status of the child but retain the protective status of the female. …
– Society excuses you from needing to work and says all you need is a hard working and generous man. …
– You are granted the rights of a democracy without the burdens of military service.
The creepiest item on the list is undoubtedly this one:
– You can give the opposite sex a thrashing when the person deserves it.
That’s right: the guy who created the gorgeous “Alice” and the charmingly catchy “Upular” envies women’s alleged ability to beat up their boyfriends without consequence, apparently wishing he could do the same to women when they “deserve it.”
Seemingly channeling the “red pill wisdom” of the internet’s self-proclaimed masters of “Game,” Bertke goes on to explain that women are basically overgrown children needing the “discipline” of a firm father figure.
I’ve always found that the more I treat a woman like a child, the stronger the relationship, the better the sex and the more often it happens. Discipline, reprimand and complete indifference. I think the feminine woman craves the attributes of a firm father in the man she enters a relationship with. The more I realize it, the more I see modern feminism in a different light – it could well be little more than the collective feminine cry for drama and childlike retaliation.
Sigh. He seems to have turned this rant, or portions of it, into a video. (I could only make it through about 30 seconds before my annoyance got the better of me and I turned it off.) [UPDATE: He’s deleted the video.]
In “5 Things I’ve Learned About The Real World,” Bertke urges his readers to, yep, “take the red pill for a minute,” and offers more, er, insights into women’s alleged desire for “fatherly order.”
A lot of women you meet, feminists in particular, will preach that you are the source of their failures and womanly strife. This won’t stop them from playing powerless, and they’ll insist that you roll up your sleeves and rescue them from their mysterious bonds. The collective female cry for fatherly order requires that you as a man are expected to make the world spin.
As you may have noticed, Bertke’s prose is not quite as elegant as his songs. He can’t even keep his metaphors straight.
In “Where Feminism Goes Wrong,” he informs us that “inequality is a door that swings both ways but feminism by definition and in practice treats it as a one way street.” (Here’s an archived copy of the post in case he takes it down too.)
Yep. Inequality is somehow both a door and a street.
He goes on to declare that:
Feminism is taken prisoner by too many women and re-branded as a self entitling social status posing as a humanitarian ideology. There’s really only two possible explanations for why feminism has become a bait and switch: 1. Feminism is revealing its self to be a camouflaged push for gender supremacy, or 2. Feminists just aren’t doing a very good job of communicating their true cause.
There’s actually a third explanation, more convincing than the first two, which is that Nick Bertke has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.
Misogynistic outbursts are apparently not a new thing for Bertke. Last spring, after erratic behavior on his part led some of his fans to worry that he might be undergoing some sort of breakdown, one Redditor reported that “some fans and friends close to Nick that have stated that he’s done something similar in the past, going on a rude, sometimes misogynistic rant and basically acting like a 12 year old … .”
It’s always disappointing to find out that someone whose work you enjoy and admire is a shitty person. Alas, he’s far from the first talented musician to turn out to be a woman-hating asshole.
Bertke, dude, stick to sampling other people’s words. Your own words are terrible.
H/T — @Metz77 on Twitter, who alerted me to Pogo’s asshattery.
EDIT: Reworded a couple of things.
Nifty, I had figured you were after that one about college men admitting to having raped, but only if you didn’t use the word rape. Cuz having sex with a passed out woman is totes not rape >.<
This is actually the inverse of what we see from the kind of misogynists who are featured on this site. Occasionally you see them advocating rape (and calling it rape), but you much more frequently see them arguing that some kinds of rape aren’t really rape. A couple of recent examples: AVFM advocating that sex with an unconscious drunk woman isn’t rape and Vox Day saying that the only real rapes are committed by black and Hispanic strangers.
Here’s a very literal example: Pinky insists that he doesn’t think it’s OK to rape your wife, he just thinks it’s impossible to rape your own wife. But he nevertheless claims to be against rape.
Now, most of these people may know that these things are still legally classified as rape, but they would claim that the law was wrong: That feminists had made completely innocuous, obviously non-rape behavior be classified as rape in order to entrap men.
Ah the “rape is horrible, but X isn’t rape” crowd. Always a “fun” bunch. Particularly when they’re politicians. *bangs head into wall*
@ Paradoxicalintention
“Men still think “obtaining sex by force” is okay, just as long as we don’t call it “rape”, despite the fact that’s the damn definition of rape.”
That’s one definition of rape. In England the traditional definition was penetration through “fear, force or fraud”. The ‘fraud’ has to be about the nature, not the circumstances, of the act.
It’s also clear though that’s it’s rape where a woman has no capacity to consent. That includes circumstances where she’s conclusions or otherwise inescapable of making an informed decision whether that be through intoxication (n the legal sense) or lack of capacity (mental impairment, age etc.)
But very few cases turn on consent but rather the belief on consent. We’ve discussed all that of course further up thread.
conclusions = unconscious
inescapable = incapable
Curse you autocorrect.
Well yeah, there are certainly forms of rape that don’t require force, but using force is rape, unless you’re a bit more than half the men willing to use force, in which case it’s totally not rape! /sarcasm
How fucked is it that there are people who actually think obtaining sex via force is anything besides rape? Like, culturally, in the states at least, there’s still this absurd notion of “real rape” or “rape rape” — where all those other definitions you listed aren’t actually really rape rape… because you need to have been physically forced for it to have been real rape rape. Except apparently nope, even then it might not be rape.
The fucking fuck is this fucking shit?! Our species disgusts me sometimes.
Late comment, but what a complete *douche*. (And I used to like his music, too!) I “love” the argument that women don’t want to work or be in the military, just have a big strong man to provide for us. Has he paid attention to anything a feminist has ever said?
Heck, proto-feminists during the French Revolution campaigned for equal military service for both genders.
Yeah, the study cited just talked about ‘rape’ and ‘sex by force’. I don’t think it even went into ‘sex with someone too drunk to consent’, and it still hit a 1-in-3 total positive response. And this is a demographic (college men) that skews both white and middle-class-or-higher, in comparison to the rest of the country, so that means that even if you’re one of the Neanderthals that buys into the idea that rape is mostly a crime committed by poor men of color, you’re left veering into nearly “Yes all men” territory by default.
*******
Alan Robertshaw:
That’s one definition of rape. In England the traditional definition was penetration through “fear, force or fraud”. The ‘fraud’ has to be about the nature, not the circumstances, of the act.
That last bit, just to be clear–the law is talking about cases where the rapist says, “I won’t do [x]”, and then does so before the victim has enough warning to say “No”? The U.S. has been grappling with a few cases of ‘circumstance fraud’–specifically, the guy coming into a dark room at a party, claiming to be the woman’s boyfriend/husband, and thus tricking her into ‘consenting’. It’s one of those situations where I really, really wish the law could be dealt with on a common-sense basis, instead of legalese.
@ freemage
Nope, but that would be covered anyway as you can make consent conditional. The classic being “you must wear a condom”. If the man doesn’t then that’s rape. A lot of people do either really or pretend to misunderstand that though. It’s been an issue in the Julian Assange case.
By ‘Nature;’ I mean if I told a (very naive) girl that what I was doing was a technique to improve here singing voice then that would be rape. That’s actually from a real case.
Just saying “Oh I’m a Navy SEAL” (or a rock star, or that I’ll marry her or I’m not married etc.) is a fraud as to the circumstances and therefore not rape (under the law).
As to the ‘identity’ aspect, it definitely used to be rape if you pretended to be a woman’s husband (either through a ‘Return of Martin Guerre’ type scenario or lying as to legal status). But that was because of the marital exemption to rape; now thankfully abolished.
Strictly speaking the ‘in the dark’ scenario you describe would be a fraud as to the circumstances not the act, but there is old authority (from 1888) that suggests rape by false identity is an offence even if it’s not pretending to be the husband. I can’t find any modern case where that’s been tested though.
I could see the court of appeal upholding any conviction on that basis though; they’re pretty down on rape (It was the CoA who abolished the marital rape exception not the legislature).
Alan: In the U.S. (specifically, the case I’m half-assedly recalling was in California), the issue has been the wording of the laws against rape–they essentially couldn’t figure out how to differentiate, on the basis of the law-as-writ, the difference between “I’m a fighter pilot who loves kittens” and “Hey, honey, it’s me, Frank”, where both statements are lies used to gain a woman’s consent.
That real case you cite–the one about singing–holy shitballs, that’s disgusting. Though I suppose it resembles some of the turn-of-the-last-century techniques employed by doctors to treat ‘hysteria’–they often entailed little more than molestation to trigger an orgasm, all the while lying to the women about their need for any treatment at all.
freemage:
1923 actually!
There are some very recent ones about unnecessary ‘medical examinations’ but that’s a bit different I suppose.
This is a weird one (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2007/1699.html). Woman tricked into sex by fake messages from police saying she’d be prosecuted if she didn’t sleep with bloke. NOT rape!
Damn I’m so saddened by this, I really liked his work… ach
I don’t even care if he hates women, men, black or white. He created some astonishing piece of art and that is all i to be honest care about. It is not my problem, it is his.
There’s a whole lot of BS on the internet. For example, the comment above with wolverine pictures. You’re comparing a fitness magazine, to a housekeeping magazine. Who are you trying to fool? You only need to google ‘women’s fitness magazine’ and find endless images of bikinis and perfect figures with long hair waving in the wind, big smiles and curves, seductive poses. Stupid argument.
Anyway, when it comes to the Pogo sexism and Yahtzee etc. Not that I agree with their views or anything but you have to wonder how their views came to be. I mean, I’ve lived in a lot of countries and I’ve yet to meet an actual sexist. I think there was one night I met one and quickly went my separate way. But I do find myself turning sexist from listening and reading the feminist nonsense.
First it’s the base nonsense; Rape culture, Wage gap, Gamergate etc. Then it’s the ones who call anybody who disagree a ‘retard who doesn’t have a fucking clue’, regardless of how well informed and rational, or at the least, polite, their argument may be.
Then it just boils down to blind anger and in many cases, physical attacks and direct accusations that can often lead innocents to prison (extreme example I know, but still).
I’m *not* sexist. But as I said, it sometimes comes up because of the way feminists handle themselves and their message. They are for the most part truly awful at it. They allow the extremists to perpetuate and be heard above all others, and OF COURSE that will breed hate and resentment in men. This is why those reddit forums exist. The angry men are defending themselves against the angry women.
It’s time for people to start understanding one another, and consider WHY they’re saying these sexist remarks, WHY women think rape culture exists in the developed west, rather than just state that it’s a fact (which it isn’t) and then just yelling it repeatedly until change happens.
There are other ways to do this.
I’ve seen Pogo in an interview, he seems a nice guy. His shitty views must have been learnt, right? So if you think he’s being ignorant, send him a response which is informative but not on the offence. he might just listen and decide he’s wrong, without having to be publicly shamed into tears, life destroyed and career crippled.
Sure…
Gather around, boys and girls. This is a wonderful example of that fascinating internet phenomenon called “Gertruding.” For those of you who’ve been reading up, this belongs in the category of “arguments in bad faith.”
Here we see the omega male h. sapiens troll begin with an assertion: “I’m not sexist.” Three words. Three admirable words. Who wouldn’t want to not be sexist? Truly, he is to be admired for this. How we all ardently long to reach this stage of enlightenment.
The troll then spends 66 words in the rest of that paragraph explaining why online misogyny is the fault of angry women, and how if the women just shut up and stayed in the kitchen then there would be no misogyny. That’s twenty-two times more words spent being sexist than his initial assertion of not being sexist.
He then follows up with 48 words in another paragraph explaining how this would all go away if only people would be reasonable. For those of you following along in your notes, can you name this fallacy? Yes? Well done, it is of course the false equivalence. That’s sixteen times more words spent being sexist than his initial assertion that he’s not sexist.
A special mention has to go to the assertion in brackets. In just three words, the omega male explains to us that we’re all wrong and there is no such thing as rape culture. That’s good to know! I’m glad he set that troubled issue at ease. Thank goodness such complex and wide-ranging sociological matters can be resolved through three-word assertions! He didn’t even need to quote his sources or cite any studies. What a master.
We therefore have a three-word assertion from the troll that he is not a sexist, followed by one hundred and fourteen words in which he demonstrates that this assertion is false, including another three-word assertion which attempts to hand-wave away a very large thing with almost no effort at all. We can now see that the troll’s initial three word assertion was nothing but a fig-lead which he’s going to use to attempt to cover himself if I call him on his nonsense. This is known as “Gertruding.”
@EJ
You counted out that shit and I just rolled my eyes and skipped it because UH BORING TROLL IS BORING.
You have a much better attention span than I do.
Oh and omnigenous? Before you textwall in response, I feel I should warn you.
Do not fuck with me. I am a STEM-educated white man who owns everything Hitchens ever wrote. I am more verbose, more articulate and more analytical than you could ever hope to be. I am, in short, a levelled-up version of you, except that I’m also emotionally mature enough to understand who the good guys are in this – and it isn’t you, sunshine.
I appreciate that you derive a masturbatory satisfaction from applying an arrogant, patronising, pseudo-reasonable approach to matters which are incredibly personal to other people but not to you; and then when they respond by taking it personally you can pat yourself on the back and telling yourself that they’re nothing but angry unreasonable women. However, this is weak sauce. It’s also ethically abhorrent, but that seems not to bother you.
I also have a month and a half of working my notice in a job which I find interesting but is slowly running down, so I have plenty of time on my hands in which to insult you in ways which your Dunning-Kruger-posterboy ass is going to have to look up.
Turn around and walk away, kiddo. You came here to insult rape survivors to their faces and then congratulate yourself for being more “rational” than them in response. Heavens knows why; we could probably ask some really interesting questions about what sort of person you are that you think this sort of thing is fun, let alone acceptable. We may well ask those sorts of questions.
But we won’t. Because all I need to do is to ask you to cite your peer-reviewed studies to back up the assertions you’ve made, and then we’ll see you dissolve like morning mist, all your claims of rationality and reason left behind along with your dignity and self-respect. You have nothing, and you know it.
Turn around, kiddo. Turn around and walk away. Do not fuck with me.
Y’know, I normally stick to one-liners and let the smarter regulars do the takedowns, but I’m bored and my cat won’t move from in front of the
Splatoon-playing deviceTV, so hey, let’s have a shot at this.Is it really that hard to check the date on the post you’re responding to before releasing the teal deers?
That’s less “False equivalence!!!1” and more “What’s the most common combined with a lack of choices.”
Men’s magazines have three main varieties: Fitness mags (which feature men on the cover), car mags (which feature cars) and porn mags (which feature women). Meanwhile, women’s magazines have two main varieties: Housekeeping/parenting (which may feature men, women or babies) and Cleo clones (which feature celebrities). Women’s fitness magazines are niche to the point where I didn’t even know they exist. Literally never seen one.
… And that’s all moot because PI was talking about what straight women (as a whole) find attractive in men (as a whole). What do Photoshopped bikini models have to do with that?
“I’m not an X, but…” strikes again!
Did you read the article? Or any article here? Or literally any comment section on the Internet? Or your own post?
“RAPE IS GOOD” = Not nonsense. “RAPE IS BAD” = Nonsense. Got it.
First it’s the base nonsense; Rape culture, Wage gap, Gamergate etc.
Have some links to explain all three in small, moron-friendly words: Rape culture, the wage gap, #GamerGate.
Well that’s a Pinocchio-nosed lie, because intersectional feminists don’t use the r-word and anti-intersectional feminists aren’t welcome here.
I have literally no idea who or what you’re talking about, so I’ll skip this one.
Another lie.
WEE-WOO WEE-WOO MAKE WAY FOR THE TONE POLICE.
Hey, did you know that the only angry extremist feminist that MRAs talk about, Valerie Solanas, has been dead for 27 years? Most MRAs haven’t even been alive for 27 years.
Because they’re sexist. Duh.
Because it is a fact. Here’s that link again.
Yes, from other men.
You say that as if we don’t try every single time. Spoiler alert: It never, ever works.
Come on, even you can’t be dumb enough to think that somebody who screams about how evil feminists are would be willing to sit down and listen to a feminist talk about feminism.
And the cat’s finally moved. *skips away*
Piss. Both botched a blockquote and got stuck in moderation. Take two:
Y’know, I normally stick to one-liners and let the smarter regulars do the takedowns, but I’m bored and my cat won’t move from in front of the
Splatoon-playing deviceTV, so hey, let’s have a shot at this.Is it really that hard to check the date on the post you’re responding to before releasing the teal deers?
That’s less “False equivalence!!!1” and more “What’s the most common combined with a lack of choices.”
Men’s magazines have three main varieties: Fitness mags (which feature men on the cover), car mags (which feature cars) and porn mags (which feature women). Meanwhile, women’s magazines have two main varieties: Housekeeping/parenting (which may feature men, women or babies) and Cleo clones (which feature celebrities). Women’s fitness magazines are niche to the point where I didn’t even know they exist. Literally never seen one.
… And that’s all moot because PI was talking about what straight women (as a whole) find attractive in men (as a whole). What do Photoshopped bikini models have to do with that?
“I’m not an X, but…” strikes again!
Did you read the article? Or any article here? Or literally any comment section on the Internet? Or your own post?
“RAPE IS GOOD” = Not nonsense. “RAPE IS BAD” = Nonsense. Got it.
Have some links to explain all three in small, moron-friendly words: Rape culture, the wage gap, #GamerGate.
Well that’s a Pinocchio-nosed lie, because intersectional feminists don’t use the r-word and anti-intersectional feminists aren’t welcome here.
I have literally no idea who or what you’re talking about, so I’ll skip this one.
Another lie.
WEE-WOO WEE-WOO MAKE WAY FOR THE TONE POLICE.
Hey, did you know that the only angry extremist feminist that MRAs talk about, Valerie Solanas, has been dead for 27 years? Most MRAs haven’t even been alive for 27 years.
Because they’re sexist. Duh.
Because it is a fact. Here’s that link again.
Yes, from other men.
You say that as if we don’t try every single time. Spoiler alert: It never, ever works.
Come on, even you can’t be dumb enough to think that somebody who screams about how evil feminists are would be willing to sit down and listen to a feminist talk about feminism.
And the cat’s finally moved. *skips away*
(Feel free to delete the first failure, David.)
Some of us are stuck in the office and you get to be at home with the cats playing Splatoon? M, I am envying you so hard right now.
EJ: Australian. It’s 8 pm here. XD
No idea why I formatted that post like that instead of the usual @ thing. Oh well.
You’re also back in the Correct Hemisphere, aren’t you?
*envy*
Sorry for the text wall coming up. Hear me out.
This is what I was referring to when I discussed the levels of nonsense.
Threats, arrogance, dismissal, accusations.
I’m not sexist for the following reasons: Women deserve to be equal. Men are not better than women. Women are not all as pogo describes. Pogos, and the men forums that I’ve admittedly read only small portions of are retarded and uninformed. I acknowledge sexism exists and there will likely always need at least some degree of improvement.
How can you (the other guy, I can’t figure out how to reply to different people) be sarcastic about me not being sexist? I already admitted that I often feel sexist out of frustration, but that is not to say I do not wish for equality across all frontiers; race, sexuality, gender and, god forbid, religion.
‘and how if the women just shut up and stayed in the kitchen then there would be no misogyny’ – I clearly didn’t say that. And I can’t even think of where you think I implied that. I am constantly telling my girlfriend not to quit her job because promotions are on the horizon – and I’m very content with the fact that she earns more than me. I’m also the only one who cooks and cleans, due to my lighter work schedule.
However, I am as objective as I can be when I look at articles and statistics – regardless of my lack of STEM education. And I see rape being punished and protested. I see people hating rapists and catching them and hunting them down. I don’t see, like I see in many middle east and Asian countries where I have lived and experienced first hand, the nonchalant attitude or even encouragement for such acts. That is what I call rape ‘culture’. The fact that rape happens, rarely, doesn’t make it a culture. Call it a situation of semantics, but when I see a culture in an amazon village I see people dressing the same, eating the same and behaving the same. When I see a culture of black people, I see people with black skin. When I see a culture of rape, I see men perpetually raping, high fiving each other and then marrying whichever one they preferred.
It’s not a culture. If you disagree, you can. but calling me sexist because of my opinions is not constructive. Long ago I gave up these discussions because it always ended up with me being yelled at virtually and hated on, despite my very forced attempts at being reasonable and suggesting those to educate me further if they think i’m being ignorant. now, AS A MAN MAYBE YOU CAN BE LOGICAL AND RATIONAL. (See what I did there? I actually highlighted a sentence which is objectively sexist)
The next post, so far, is just a bunch of arrogance, somehow clairvoyantly knowing exactly who I am and how analytical I am, but I won’t attack you for it, since the whole point of my last post was about avoiding that.
As for your claim that I falsely go on about angry women – Really? Have you seen feminist marches and protests? Have you actually been to one? they’re the angriest things I’ve ever seen. Of course they have good reason, but it’s *not* a good way to go about it. I made a point of mentioning the ‘extreme’ feminists because they are very clearly a problem. Not for me, but for many, many girls and indeed, many feminists who are trying to purport their actual message succinctly. It is counter productive and we all know it. I wouldn’t even argue the point if I didn’t have the backing of actual feminists and other females.
You don’t need to take my word for it, that feminists are really not good at achieving their goals. I mean, of course they are when it comes to legislation and the like. But you see men hating on women everywhere, and it’s always directly in response to those outspoken feminists who talk about cutting all men’s balls off and that all acts of sex are rape unless started by the female, or all men are rapists and nothing more. If the fringe extremists weren’t around, I’m pretty confident a huge percentage of men that are not on the bandwagon right now, would be.
I didn’t come here for anything other than to read about Pogo and what some YouTube comments were on about with blocked comments, and I haven’t insulted anyone other than the stupid post above comparing two magazines that are basically unrelated.
It’s interesting that you call me arrogant etc, and then respond far, far more so in that style. Is that a deliberate thing, like, to be ironic or reflective? I’m not sure so again I’ll probably just let that go.
As for peer reviewed blah blah. This is a recent internet phenomenon where anybody who wants to have an opinion suddenly requires either numerous peer reviewed quotes from google or to have done their own peer reviewed study, otherwise they can shut the hell up. I think this is stupid, so again, I’ll ignore that. Having more education/ knowledge/ experience no longer gives you authority. That’s just how the internet is, and it’s a source of rage such as your own; the idea that somebody supposedly inferior to you can have an opinion.
Well, look at me, I have an opinion. I’m happy to discuss it. I’m happy to be corrected and to change my opinions. I’m also happy to dismiss others and correct others accordingly. Is it so hard for you, a leveled-up version of me, a verbose, more articulate and more analytical person than myself, to do the same and give some credit to a little poor country boy with ignorance for his best friend like myself?
Seriously though – I’m just being patronizing in a light-hearted fashion. I’m sure you know your stuff. Just chill out. As you can read above, I’m very much NOT sexist. If I am for some reason, you can at least outline where and how, because I just don’t see it. But try to be a little respectful or it’s just going to be a bore, the kind of teenage phase we go through when getting angry in YouTube comments or something. I know you have a lot of time, and I work 2 hours a day, 3 days a week too, but I do have other things to be doing so let’s be a little more constructive.