Oh, people. I would really like to take a little vacation from all the A Voice for Men posts, but as it turns out I have found the most A-Voice-for-Menny AVFM thread ever, and I must share it with you.
Ok, so a couple of days ago, AVFM’s Dear Leader Paul Elam posted an uncharacteristically brief video titled “A 41 second lesson for Adam Serwer and the mainstream media.” It consisted of a 41-second snippet of Elam’s phone interview with Buzzfeed’s Adam Serwer, one of the authors of that scathing expose of Elam, in which Elam boasts to Serwer about how much traffic AVFM gets every time there is a news article reporting what an utterly terrible person he is. (I’m loosely paraphrasing here; as far as I can tell, Elam is not actually aware he is a terrible person.)
A few of the AVFM regulars sprinkled some comments below Elam’s offering when he put it up on AVFM, and there are some utter gems amongst them, demonstrating some of the ways that AVFMers try to magically stave off the collective realization that the reason virtually every real journalist who has ever written about them thinks they’re terrible is that they are indeed terrible.
One commenter gamely repeated a familiar truism that is not actually true:
Then a self-described Man Going His Own Way suggested that Serwer is not a real man at all:
AVFM’s “Activism Director” then stepped up with a colorful comment that, among other things, cleverly transformed “Serwer” into “Sewer”:
Vinczer was evidently so proud of the phrase “axe-grinding bandwagon” that he decided to paste it, and some further thoughts on the subject, over an old cheesecake picture of a woman grinding an axe. (See above.) Unfortunately, she is not actually seated upon a bandwagon, so I cannot award Mr. Vinczer full credit for his efforts here.
But my favorite comment of the bunch came from AVFM’s “managing editor” and “director of operations” and “possible buyer of fake Twitter followers,” Dean Esmay.
I can see that some of you are a little baffled, possibly because Serwer, who is both Jewish and a feminist, has never given any indication that he hates either Jews or women.
But Esmay, like many in the Men’s Rights community, seems to be fond of an argumentative trope that most of us outgrow in childhood: the old “I know you are but what am I?” ruse.
If you call an MRA a sexist, chances are good that he (or in some cases she) will call YOU a sexist — because, say, your insistence that rapists should be vigorously prosecuted is said to somehow infantalize women.
Or something like that; the details aren’t any more important to the MRAs making these accusations than they were to your jerky sibling when you were both kids. What’s important is that this little rhetorical maneuver puts you on the defensive.
But if AVFMers don’t have any good reason to say that Serwer hates Jews and/or women, they have come up with an excuse: Buzzfeed chose to illustrate Serwer and Katie Baker’s piece on Elam with a caricature of Elam modeled after a famous poster of Rosie the Riveter.
And so, apparently because the caricature of Elam was mildly unflattering and slightly exaggerated the size of his nose, the great minds at AVFM decided that it was equivalent to the viciously anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews featured in Nazi propaganda. And also somehow demeaning to women. It doesn’t make much sense to me.
Here’s how one AVFM fan tried to explain the accusation on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/tigerclaud/status/563888703026634752
Oddly, I don’t recall Esmay, a fervent supporter of #GamerGate, ever taking fellow #GamerGaters to task for literally repurposing neo-Nazi propaganda in their attacks on Anita Sarkeesian.
The “I know you are but what am I” attack can be confusing even to MRAs. Pity poor Suzy McCarley, AVFM’s “assistant managing editor” and head comment moderator, who, in her response to Esmay’s question, tried to attack Serwer as an anti-Semite who’s simultaneously sexist towards both women and men.
So Serwer hates Jews more than women, because half of all Jews are women, whom he hates, and the other half are men, whom he also hates, but possibly more than he hates women.
Driversuz, be careful: you might sprain something.
Now now Falconer, MRAs can’t let mere facts get in the way of their outrage. Don’t you understand that there was a movie 24 years ago about two women who shot a man?! That’s serial killing! And it glorified it by existing! No-one would ever make movies glorifying male serial killers, much less two whole television series about male serial killers (which merely by existing would glorify them). Don’t you understand the terrible INJUSTICE?!
Not really sure why I feel the need to bring this up (I’m a huge Psycho fan but not a big TV watcher) but there’s also Bates Motel. So added to Dexter and Hannibal that’s three whole television series about male serial killers.
David Lisak’s undetected rapists study found that 5% of college men admitted to committing rape. By Janet Bloomfield’s logic, ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS! It is laughable to posit otherwise!
@suffrajitsu You’d think MRAs would be more outraged that there are three TV shows about male serial killers and none (that I can think of) about female serial killers. Why that’s almost like saying serial killers are only ever men. But no, Thelma and Louise is the only thing they can come up with.
I’m told they prefer to stash it in old sweatsocks, where no one would ever think to look for it.
Lol! Dwight Schrute: MRA icon, apparently.
I still can’t understand the accusation of anti-Semitism…because it was a parody of the “We Can Do It!” poster featuring Rosie the Riveter. It doesn’t take much effort (due to the subject) to see what the point behind it is. Even if Elam is made to look unsightly, it was for the purposes of exaggeration. Given these people love to use “satire” as a shield – you’d think they’d get that. But, no, it’s just proof they don’t know what that is or even Art in general.
@Cyberwulf: there’s a true-crime show on Discovery Channel called Deadly Women about real life female murderers ( but not necessary serial ones). But of course, the very reason that show exists is because female murderers are a minority. A show about Deadly Men wouldn’t be all that different from a true-crime show about murderers in general.
Don’t know if this is true, but I’m morbidly curious what to make of this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/charles-manson-wedding-off-after-it-emerges-that-girlfriend-afton-elaine-burton-just-wanted-his-corpse-for-display-10034793.html On one hand, it’s quite an interesting twist on the “gold digger” stereotype MRAs are so fond of; on the other, it’s a really interesting twist on “women want bad boys”.
@Bina
Ugh, I wish they’d remember to clean them out before sockpuppeting.
that Dwight Schrute one really is perfect
Guys! Y’all remember the guy who came here to inform us that Manson was engaged to a 26 year old? I don’t remember if his point was that women love assholes, old guys still have it, or what exactly it was…
but it turns out, the young bride-to-be may just want him for his body.
http://nypost.com/2015/02/08/charles-mansons-fiancee-wanted-to-marry-him-for-his-corpse-source/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=facebook
I know, I know, it’s the New York Post, but I saw this and thought of you guys immediately. 😀
oh, sorry, lemme try link again
http://nypost.com/2015/02/08/charles-mansons-fiancee-wanted-to-marry-him-for-his-corpse-source/
Aw, ninjaed by suffrajitsu!
The Hive Mind…
HA ceebarks! Great minds think alike ^-^ (see earlier)
Haha, i look forward to seeing the new conspiracy theories about “corpsejacking”.
Also, I suspect no one mentioned this because it was just too obvious, but Thelma and Louise…weren’t *serial* killers.
suffrajitsu: but the number they killed is higher than 0, which by MRA logic means it’s a serious problem. Like how 1% of women buying 50SoG = lots of or even most women love it (and by extension love to be abused – ick). Don’t even start on their delusional ideas about how “common” false rape allegations are.
Thelma and Louise were running away because one of them killed a man for trying to rape the other, right? I don’t think MRA’s actually watch the movies that they put into their memes I mean look at this one. https://www.facebook.com/102001393188684/photos/a.392418540813633.89052.102001393188684/774964302559053/?type=1
Oh man, the comments, a special snowflake saying: “I know a lot more than most women do” and MRA’s pretty much saying that it’s ok to present women as stupid and evil but don’t present men that way or that’s misandry.
@fruitloopsie – Wow. Why am I not surprised that they do nit get the point that the Scarecrow was always intelligent, the Tinman always loving and the Lion always courageous – they only had to realize it? Are the MRA’s really THAT stupid, vapid and venal? To say nothing of mean-spirited, cranky and in bad need of a LOOOOOONG time out?
Guess so. (howling to the moon and facepalming at the same time) Sigh.
I must defend the honor of the Soviet Union by pointing out that they legalized abortion in 1920, before any other European nation.
(Okay, yes, they walked it back later.)
@sunnysombrera
Or the way they think women who speak 30% of the time in a room full of people are “dominating” the conversation.
Apparently, there’s a gal-multiplier that magnifies everything women do by a factor of ten.
….Also, I don’t recall people clapping and cheering as Thelma and Louise’s car sailed over the cliff, and saying “That was OKAY!”
Spindrift | February 10, 2015 at 11:04 am
I thought they put it in Mountain Dew bottles.
quantumscale | February 10, 2015 at 11:40 am
This was all I could think of. Damn you Gilbert and Sullivan!
___________________________________
As for the article:
That meme isn’t that great. The text is scattered and it makes it hard to read, the font’s a little thin, which would make it harder to read from a distance, and really? Stealing cheesecake photos to throw your shit at? Shame on you.
And I still have to ask, again: Is Paulie even Jewish? Because to jump immediately to “Antisemitism!” because they made your nose a little big is a little more indicative of YOU pointing out harmful stereotypes instead of the artist of that image. Especially when the person you’re accusing of being antisemitic is, in fact, Jewish.
It’s like Buzzfeed put out a list of reasons why Elam is a bad person, and he just responded with “Well, you’re a poopyheaded meanie-face!” It makes as much sense to anyone else looking at this, I’m sure.
https://www.facebook.com/102001393188684/photos/a.392418540813633.89052.102001393188684/777064755682341/?type=1
Well, looky who’s the REAL antisemite. The “human rights activists” who put a swastika on the forehead of a JEWISH woman.
@Bina But don’t you see how cunningly they’ve blended the swastika with the female symbol to make a feminazi symbol?! It’s not anti-semitic at all!
Exactly. Everything else that happens on their spree is an outgrowth of an episode of self-defence followed by panic. So they’re not ACTUAL serial killers. In fact, being as the movie’s only fiction, they’re not ACTUAL, period. But all the manly-macho-masculine dudebros soiled their pants when it came out, thinking that all the women were going to USURP MALE PRIVILEGE!!!! and come gunning for them next. What actually happened? Uh, NOTHING.
But if they want to talk real female serial killers, there’s just one that I can think of: Aileen Wuornos. Who, being VERY sexually abused as a child, and prostituted from puberty onwards, and impoverished all her life, had every reason to hate men and want them dead. (Not to condone what she did or anything, only that her motives were understandable.)
I think the reasoning is that one dead man = 2 or 3 dead not-men.
@ParadoxicalIntention
Ooh, I love me some Mikado, even though it can get a bit problematic from a race point of view, especially when they use yellowface. I remember seeing a version with Eric Idle in it that avoided putting a bunch of white people in kimonos etc, so it can be done more tactfully, but the majority of performances I’ve seen are at least a little problematic. Still love it though.