Today, the first in what will be an occasional series of posts on the Twitter activity — sorry, “activism” — of Men’s Rights Activists and other misbegotten misogynistic miscreants.
Sorry about the cheap alliteration at the end of the sentence there, but I’ve spent the last few hours reading Tweets from Attila Vinczer (@Alvhun) and I guess his penchant for tacky rhetorical special effects has rubbed off on me a little.
Attila, the “Activism Director” for Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, is an energetic Twitter “activist.” While not quite as hateful or vicious as his colleagues Dean Esmay or the now-banned Judgy Bitch (aka Janet Bloomfield), Attila has developed a Twitter style all his own, spewing forth minor masterpieces of overwrought incoherence that are the unintentional result of his attempts to pull off complicated literary maneuvers without a mastery of the basics. There is a kind of poetry to them.
I’ve written about Attila before; you may recall his not-altogether-successful attempts to dig up dirt on me. But I felt his Tweets deserved a more thorough examination. Enjoy!
As you read the following Tweets, keep in mind that this is not some anonymous rando spewing invective on the internet; this is the official “Activism Director” of AVFM, the most influential Men’s Rights site on the internet.
Attila is perhaps best known for “zingers” that are more befuddling than zingy:
As this last Tweet hints, Attila has a bit of an obsession with the bowels:
And a kind of horrified fascination with vaginas.
Indeed, when another Twitterer accused him of having a “littledick,” he responded with posts suggesting that her clitoris is essentially an even littler dick.
He makes the “clit = small penis” equation a little more directly in this attack on the “MICROPENIS aka CLITORIS” of a feminist whose blog routinely skewers MRAs.
Attila’s contempt for women leaks out in Tweet after Tweet. Aside from calling women “twats” or “t-wats,” he is not shy about calling them “bitches” and “whores,” a trait he shares with many of his colleagues at AVFM.
He seems to think that calling women “missy” is the sort of brilliant retort that ends arguments and wins people over to the Men’s Rights movement.
When men challenge him, he tries to belittle them as insufficiently masculine.
Attila, by contrast, sees himself as “all man,” and regularly boasts of his fighting prowess.
He must be quite a man! If you look at the dates of these Tweets you will see that he somehow managed to undergo two years of training between last September and this January. He hasn’t been able to keep up the pace, alas, and has somehow managed to lose a year of training in the last month.
He has this to say about Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia University student who carried a mattress around campus as a way to bring attention to the school’s unwillingness to punish the fellow student she says raped her.
And he apparently thinks that Albert Einstein was a bit of an underachiever because he allowed women in his life.
For someone who shares a first name with that of an infamous barbarian leader, Attila is quick to label his opponents “savages.”
Lately, Attila has been working diligently to introduce a new catchphrase. Can you guess what it is?
This catchphrase, you may not exactly be shocked to learn, is not catching on; despite Attila’s enthusiastic promotional efforts, literally no one else on Twitter has picked it up.
Perhaps he will have better luck with these alternate spellings:
Note: I plan to do a few upcoming case studies on several other AVFM staffers who are particularly energetic Twitter “activists,” as well as a couple of well-known PUAs. Please suggest any other Twitter heroes you think I should take a look at.
If you’ve done anything for more than 40 years, you’re definitely too old to be talking about how you “subdue enemies”.
I believe originally from Mark Twain, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. (Though obviously he could have been referring to an even older maxim.) Going from http://www.twainquotes.com/Stupidity.html
(I looked the source of this up for a story I was writing at one point. If I’m going to quote someone in a story, I like to know who and what I’m actually quoting. Unless there’s a good in-character reason for the person making the reference to be wrong, in which case I should still know the real quote myself.)
“ABOYNE (vb.) To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.” — Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff
That fencing/Mark Twain quote was a big feature of one of the episodes of an anime called Katana Gatari, where the main character found himself fighting an extremely strong young Eskimo-ish girl (long story) and broke an arm as a result. The idea was that her movements were so erratic that he couldn’t rely on his trained reactions.
It’s kind of a cool explanation for “beginner’s luck” in a variety of skill-based games and competitions.
Mirroring Moggie, this guy shouldn’t try to sound aloof and tough. He can’t pull it off.
For context, one of his “I’ve been a trained martial artist” tweets was in response to a really odd conversation. Someone said they’d have no problems killing someone that threatened their family, Attila pops in with “#lynchmob cult” and claims they’re murderous. After a strange back and forth, where Attila is called weak for not being willing to defend his family, Attilla brings up the whole “I don’t want to hurt anyone but I could” thing. Then it wraps around to him saying he could kill someone in defense of others.
Really bizarre. I guess his need to appear tough outweigh’s his need for consistency.
I imagine this guy’s martial arts classes going similarly to Bart Simpson’s.
That is, skipping them to play ninja-themed arcade games followed by running around threatening the “Touch of death” on his sister.
Is that him in the first photo? Why does he look like he wants to sell me a time share?
Wut?
@sparky
Yeah seriously. What the fuck does that “sentence” even mean?
I admit, I went kinda numb from the dumb after awhile, and just started power-scrolling. Especially when he started using more characters on addressing his bum mots than in actually saying them.
So instead, I’ll take a tangent from one of the comments I found interesting here.
My favorite example of this is in the Myth series by Robert Lynn Aspirin. The main protagonist, Skeeve, has been trapped into a very public face-off against an interdimensional champion of an exceedingly complex form of stud poker. Knowing that there’s no hope for him to actually win, and not wanting to suffer a humiliating defeat in a very public match, his training consists of being taught how to lose slowly. However, he realizes he has a second option. By raising the max every time another card is dealt, he drains both players’ stake-piles into a single pot on the first hand. Since stud poker games involve no opportunity to trade cards, he turns the entire match into a protracted coin-flip that could go either way.
I think it might be from something older, the guy I know who quotes it (he’s been fencing for like decades) never reads Mark Twain but does read old ass fencing texts; plus he’s a pedantic asshole so I figure he’d sooner die than misattribute a quote. But either way, good to know one possible source.
His graduate thesis basically consisted of getting his school library to buy books by every fencer mentioned in The Princess Bride.
‘can subdue my enemies without killing them’ – I guess the lack of space in twitter prevented him from adding “with the power of my MIND!”.
As several others have noted – on of the first thing you learn in martial arts is humility – you start with a white belt for a reason. That’s not meant to go away.
@sparky and dhag85:
If you have the time, try to find the original tweet and it’s conversation context. It’s rather illuminating.
Basically, Attila’s MO seems to be to jump in at the tail-end of any sort of feminism vs. mra twitter conversation, misinterpreting sarcasm as required to land a surprise accusation.
In one case, someone was arguing with Tom Martin (of misandric hard chairs fame) about Warren Farrell’s thing on incest, and the person made some sarcastic comment. Attila jumped in by declaring the person had a sick mind. In another case, someone made a joke about some mra sitting around the house in his underpants, and Atilla asked them if they often think about underpants, again insinuating they had a sick mind.
His “pace” seems to be just jumping around randomly with harsh insults, and when his target tries to back out he insults their intelligence. If his target doesn’t back out, he blocks them.
Lynch mob is a band but lunch mob sounds pretty cool too
http://youtu.be/1K3-FmBHFHg
He keeps including jackbarnesmra in his tweets. Is this because he needs this guy to back him up, or is he saying that jackbarnesmra is also part of the #LynchMob cult?
Well, was trying to make a joke, but now realizing that it really didn’t work…
Yup, that sounds like the Witless Hun’s “debating” style, all right. I’m still scratching my head over that “pace causing parasitic drag” garblish.
Also, I’m pretty sure his 40/41/42 years of “martial arts training” consists solely of taunting little girls on the playground in a futile effort to make them cry. The man’s all beard and no chin.
o__________o
Walp, I’ve done it folks. I’ve dug too deep. Like a fantasy dwarven civilization, I’ve dug too swiftly in my greed and uncovered something that never should have been. Sorry for the OT, but I’m pretty sure this is like that movie where if you don’t share it with someone before the end of the week a ghost girl will crawl out of your television. I mean, I don’t have a television, but… you know… better safe than sorry.
CW: Rape, running roughshod over the idea of consent, clever twists that are not at all clever, Janet Bloomfield
“I’m the serial rapist everyone’s talking about”
Is he claiming to be an ex SEAL?
If so I can get him checked out (if that’s his real name)
@Lea:
Your first comment. Yes. Add “calling things that aren’t rape rape” to that and I’m getting that printed on a t-shirt.
I am totally down for #lunchmob. We should try and make it trending just to piss off Attila.
I’m going to be really honest.
A lot of these manosphere people seem to want to be seen as intellectuals. Everyone I knew growing up who was like that was *incessantly* teased, and more than anything they were called fags, which is what our toxic society labels boys who like to read and learn. At least, it was and still is in the conservative talk radio-listening bible belt community where I live.
I know that childhood bullying often goes two ways, either making people predisposed to be little dicks when they grow up, or making them sensitive to the suffering of others. Supposing that these guys grew up being made fun of for preferring intellectual pursuits, and I realize that I’m being incredibly generous here but it’s just a thought, do you reckon that has anything to do with this projection of anger we’re seeing now?
I get the sense that some of them equate femininity with negatives because they’re lashing out against deeply personal attacks that they themselves have received. By no means do I think all of them are, but it’s something I’ve had a feeling about for some of them.
If it’s true, then it’s especially damning that they then go on to call other more cerebral men gay, or manginas.
/ramblerambleramble
Word salad because of cold medicine but hopefully my feels go across.
“Martial arts training” is awefully vague, that could range from training in various armed and unarmed combat styles to hitting a tree with a stick occasionally for 40 years. It could be 40 years of beginner’s classes. If he could boast some kind of belt or something other than time since he started it’d be less vague.
Holy shit, kirbywarp. I honestly didn’t think JB could any worse, but, holee shit. She basically calls herself a rapist, describes raping people, and is proud of it. And is all, “checkmate, feminists!” about it. What an awful human being.
Has David heard about this?
I wonder if he’s had this stitched onto his family crest yet?
We can’t decide between “From beneath we devour” and “You will be assimilated” for ours.
No amount of martial arts training prepares you for all kinds of fights at all times. It’s exactly that kind of attitude from which mall ninjas are born.