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.
Falconer
Theory: andy’s parents had a divorce
@fruitloopsie It was a bummer. Woody and Buzz still survive, though. Our household hasn’t quite graduated to the Caterpillar Room yet. They’re still learning to play nicely with age-appropriate toys.
@Falconer Now that Andy and Molly’s mom has hit the wall, she’s just collecting child support and government checks, waiting for a beta chump to come along and…oh gods, I can’t do this to Toy Story. I love it too much to view it through the horrible lens of MRA social theory.
Oh man, that sequence in TS3 where the tinies pound Buzz on things and get paint in Jessie’s hair … that gave me body horror vibes big time. Just, not being able to move and having to take whatever they did to you. Gah.
Oh, speaking of decapitating toys, I don’t think a single one of my Kenner Star Wars figures kept their heads very long. I had a bad habit of sleeping with them in my bed, and their necks were fragile. I had Headless Hoth Luke and Headless Darth Vader and Headless Scout Trooper and Headless Imperial Guard.
Oh, wait, I think C-3PO managed to keep his head, and R2-D2’s oddly off-model head was pretty sturdy.
Masters of the Universe was made of sterner stuff.
zarathustratheserpent | February 11, 2015 at 7:59 am
As a gamer, but not a #GamerGator, I would like to disagree entirely.
One, because no kid should ever have to deal with this kind of thing. This is abusive. Regardless of whether the parents bought the games or not. In that video, the kid is talking about how he wants to go into games for a living (I don’t know if he meant development, or what, but he says “This will be my job! This is what I want to do!”), and the dad ignores him and goes ahead and destroys it anyways.
I had something similar happen to me when I was a kid: I was reading my new Harry Potter book and I didn’t want to go to sleep, so I stayed up and read it. My stepfather at the time, instead of telling me to go to sleep because I had school in the morning, barged into my room, screamed at me, tore the book in half, and stabbed it with a knife.
There’s not going to be obedience there after something like this, only resentment and distrust. I don’t know if it’s because the dad saw games as “not a real job” or what, but this kind of thing is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, even Gators. Delete their twitter accounts, sure. Out them as being harassers, sure. But not this.
Two, this would fuel their desire to be seen as martyrs. They want something like this to happen. This is the kind of thing that fuels their “gamers are a minority who are discriminated against!” fantasy.
So, no. I don’t want this to happen to Gators. At all.
That dude mowing his son’s video games is fucked up. Like, not remotely funny you don’t do that cuz that’s abusive was levels of fucked up. Destroying hundreds of dollars of someone’s prized possessions isn’t cool, even if they are your lazy teenager’s video games.
Take the TV out of his room until he gets a job or something, destroying his stuff on camera while laughing about it… no, just no.
A Mighty Teapot | February 10, 2015 at 9:29 pm
Hello there, and welcome! Click the scented fucking candle on the sidebar for your welcome package!
I didn’t see anyone else address this (forgive me if I’m wrong), so I’d like to, if I may: I find that the difference between the novels you read (which I enjoy myself. I recently purchased a book called The Poet by Michael Connelly while I was shopping for Christmas presents for my grandma, who also loves detective stories) and books like 50 Shades is simply this: We know murder is wrong. There’s no grey area. There’s no “But [the victim] was asking for it!” unless it’s in clear self-defense.
50 Shades deals with rape and sexual violence, something which a lot of people aren’t aware of because our society is very stunted as a whole when it comes to sexual education (and bless the brave souls who are trying to change that). We have no clear definition of rape, and while people know “rape” is bad, most men still say they’d force someone to have sex, as long as it wasn’t called “rape”. It’s not the act that people think is wrong, it’s the word.
Add this to the extra level of people not knowing what BDSM actually consists of, and we get a whole ‘nother storm of ignorance brewing. Abusers are now getting another excuse to abuse people and make it seem okay, and women are getting into this as their first experience, not knowing what BDSM actually is, or doing any outside research on their own.
So, when people point to this and say “This is what women want!”, it’s stemming from a lot of topics of ignorance from not only MRAsshats, but from other women, which further confuses the matter.
Just for the record, the lawnmower video was a hoax. Part of a student film project, apparently. As for why… *shrugs* They just want viral fame and don’t care whether or not the abuse disturbs people, I suppose.
M. | February 11, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Huh. I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for pointing it out.
My point to zarathustratheserpent still stands though. That shit’s abusive in the context it’s presented in.
@ParadoxicalIntention
Ugh, that’s aweful, and such a drastic response to a minor thing. Hate when people destroy enjoyable books.
Only books I’d willingly destroy are those “how to beat your child in a proper christian way” or “how to cure autism by feeding people bleach” sort of books, books that actively hurt people by existing.
And if someone’s gonna take away their kid’s games, they could at least have the decency to donate them or resell them on the cheap so someone else can enjoy them. Destroying things is just meanspirited and wasteful at the same time.
ಠ__ಠ
wut
Spindrift | February 11, 2015 at 2:45 pm
I used to say that I’d burn the Twilight books, but now I’d willingly destroy 50 Shades of Grey. It’s far, FAR worse. Not only is it a terrible book with terrible “romance”, it’s a terrible author behind it.
http://jennytrout.com/?p=966
“You can’t point out that my books portray an abusive relationship! It’s mean to abuse victims and demonizes women who like BDSM!”
As someone who’s both: Wut?
Agreed. I’ve heard of plenty of parents who resold their child’s games to get them out of the house, and that’s fine. I read one story from a Gamestop employee where a mom called in and asked if they had the new Call of Duty game for her son. The employee told her about the M for Mature rating, and she was upset that her pre-teen son was getting games like that without her knowledge, so she went through all of his games on the phone with the GS employee, and sure enough, all of them were rated M. So, she came in to the store the next day with his XBox and all of his games, sold them, and bought a Wii and some kid-friendly games with the money.
Destroying them in front of them is just shameful and wasteful. Especially when you record it to laugh at them. What kind of sadist do you have to be to do that?
@Falconer That one toddler’s tongue….*shudder*
They really ought to give action figures thicker necks, being as how that’s one of the major stress points on a toy. Kids are going to grab, twist, turn, and try to make them talk. If they have little spaghetti necks, they’re doomed.
When I was a kid, we had a nutcracker Christmas ornament that lost its head one year. A few summers later, while it was in the storage box, red candle wax accidentally melted onto the neck stump. Not a good look. (We hung it on the tree anyway. Front and center.)
@Paradoxical
Oh, abso-freakin’-lutely. Frankly, the video’s still sick, fake or not, just for using abuse as “Humour.” Abuse victims are not a joke. -.-
@Falconer
Yeah, sadly, that one’s not a hoax (the existence of the book, I mean). Don’t click that link if you want to keep any sort of faith in humanity and not puke yourself to sleep.
@Falconer “wut”
I saw it on http://theworstthingsforsale.com
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989289001/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0989289001&linkCode=as2&tag=natdee-20&linkId=7F7CZF3J3OSPEDP3 is the amazon page for it.
Lots of presumably fake 5 star reviews.
Oh, oopsie, didn’t expect it to link the picture like that…
ParadoxicalIntention
That’s horrible I’m sorry that happened to you. You’re right taking someone’s stuff away is one thing but destroying someone’s stuff is way too far.
M.
A hoax? Oh good.
Spindrift
“Only books I’d willingly destroy are those “how to beat your child in a proper christian way” or “how to cure autism by feeding people bleach” sort of books, books that actively hurt people by existing.”
And
“You can’t point out that my books portray an abusive relationship! It’s mean to abuse victims and demonizes women who like BDSM!””
I think this calls for another ‘what?’ Gif.
http://cdn2.crushable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Kourtney-Kardashian-wait-what-GIF.gif
fruitloopsie
Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too. Like I said, this is coming from someone who was abused, and someone who currently practices BDSM.
http://i.imgur.com/kK69EfM.gif
Though, I imagine that if I did try to explain this to EL James, I’d only be blocked on Twitter for my efforts.
Did they just seriously rip off Autism Speaks’ puzzle motif?
Not that Autism Speaks doesn’t deserve it, stupid “charity.”
Sometimes, the Internet just makes me want to break things and throw a humongous tantrum at stupid people. But I’m an adult, so instead I use my words, like “fuck” and “them.”
Falconer — it would appear so, though I’ve seen the puzzle motif on all things ASD related. And it’s not presented as feeding bleach, that is obviously eyebrow raising, nope, mix these things and have them drink this stuff… that is actually quite dangerous mixed like this.
Combined with the idea that science ignores parasites in humans, but we all give our furred ones heart worm pills… selling desperate people a supposed cure for “the symptoms” (note the lack of acknowledging it as a real disorder) something that supposedly kills the parasites science overlooks… its either brilliant, or evil, depending whether you put money making or human life first.
Probably does kill any worms that might be hanging out in your kid’s digestive tract though, not much can survive at that pH… including human cells.
There’s just no bottom of the barrel, is there?…
The MRA movement in a nutshell. (Sorry I’m so far behind the thread, but this was priceless!)
ParadoxicalIntention
I dont know much about bdsm but I know an abusive relationship when I see one.
Falconer
“Sometimes, the Internet just makes me want to break things and throw a humongous tantrum at stupid people. But I’m an adult, so instead I use my words, like “fuck” and “them.”
It’s ok, breathe deeply and slowly and think of the kitties.
http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/16000000/Cute-Kitten-kittens-16096566-1280-800.jpg
If you like kittens, you may be familiar with ‘The Mighty Boosh” and Naboo’s therapy techniques….
Alan
Lol XD no I’m not familiar. If there was a book I would check it out. Better than those autism and ‘christian beatings’ books that’s for sure.