The things I do for you people.
Over the past few days I’ve been catching up with the small flood of Youtube videos that have come out that deal with l’affaire Sarkeesian Effect Breakup. The result is that I’ve spent so much time listening to Davis Aurini explain his terrible side of the story that he’s invaded my dreams.
And I mean that literally: the night before last, I dreamt I ran across a grouchy and dispirited Aurini sitting alone at a table in McDonald’s. When he saw me he declared “don’t even think about trying to sit with me!” As if, dude!
Later in the same dream I was performing improv theater dressed as a hippie, but I doubt you’re interested in hearing more about that, so I’ll keep it confined to my dream diary.
Anyhoo, so I thought I would share a few of the more watchable Sarkeesian Effect videos.
I am aware that not all of you will have the time or inclination to watch all or even any of these videos, so I’m interspersing them with videos of tiny puppies trying to navigate stairs that are bigger than they are. Enjoy!
In this video, am angry Sarkeesian Effect supporter and Reaxxion writer laments that the implosion of the project might (gasp!) lead to Anita Sarkeesian having a good day. Well, her and “all the other SJW shitheads and all their little degenerate fucking beta cuck army of white knight assholes.” Skip ahead to 4:25 for that nugget. I’m tempted to make “Degenerate Beta Cuck Army of White Knight Assholes” t-shirts.
The videomaker later posted a lengthy interview with Aurini. So if you’re into that sort of thing — I don’t judge — you can take a listen. He followed this up with an exasperated and disillusioned third video in which he declared that the Sarkeesian Effect exes look like a couple of “squabbling children.”
Speaking of children, here’s an assortment of dog children — that is, puppies — facing stairs for the first time.
Here, Matt Forney, a leading contender for worst person on the internet, also interviews Aurini at length. The first seven or so minutes of the video, originally streamed live, are derailed by technical difficulties. So if you’ve ever wanted to hear an irritated and incompetent Matt Forney awkwardly try to avoid dead air while repeatedly trying and failing to connect to Davis Aurini on Skype, this is the video for you! (Next time, maybe get your interviewee on the line before going live?)
Here a tiny army of tiny puppies launch a tiny assault on a tiny set of stairs.
Here the clownish far-right pontificator Bernard Chapin suggests that the real lesson here is “never trust a leftist.” Because in his mind the libertarian Jordan Owen is a “leftist.” In other news, night is day and fish are birds.
Here a leftist six-month-old puppy teaches an 8-week-old puppy how to go down stairs.
Here, someone who supports the “messages” of The Sarkeesian Effect blasts both Aurini and Owen, declaring that “neither of you are qualified to do [this] project” and that Aurini is a “pseudointellectual windbag that spews word salad in an attempt to make himself sound sophisticated and intelligent.” As pleasurable as it is to hear a #GamerGater type launch into the two, there’s also some nasty stuff about Sarkeesian and some viciously transphobic crap about Brianna Wu, so be warned.
Here one fearless puppy and one nervous puppy tackle a set of stairs, with the help of an older dog.
Let me finish off with a little poll.
Of course he says that to keep up his tough guy persona, but really he’s hoping you’ll sit down next to him. He’s going through a really hard time right now and desperately needs a friend to comfort him while he cries into his McFlurry.
That’s exactly what that whole spiel is about. It’s not going to help, on the contrary. But other people don’t have to be confronted with your suffering.
@ Bernardo Soares and LBT
Agreed on the “positive thinking” thing.
For an excellent analysis of positive thinking and its toxic effects, I highly recommend the book “Bright Sided” by the wonderful Barbara Ehrenreich.
@LBT – Cancer risk reducing fringe benefits are awesome! 🙂
Thinking about men with breast cancer has also made me realize something about MRA’s and their concern with prostate cancer: I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them admit that some women can get it too. Do they realize that diseases don’t care about your gender, they just strike when the conditions are right? Or do they ignore the cases that don’t support their favorite arguments?
Ugh, Bernardo Soares, I hate that one, too. No thanks, well-meaning people. Laying cheerful guilt on someone for not being happy enough is not going to help anyone overcome anything.
I vote for Dog Poop; as the brother of Oscar-nominated cinematographer Dick Poop, Dog Poop already has more qualifications as a filmmaker than Aurini and Owen put together (especially if “Lust in the Time of Heartache” is any guide).
Anyways, I’ve always been perplexed by the intense need felt amongst Gamergate and Red Pill types to discredit Anita Sarkeesian and other ‘SJWs’ as human beings. In 1975, Chinua Achebe gave a landmark talk in literary criticism called “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Plenty of folks in the literary establishment were outraged, and many more rushed to defend the integrity of Conrad’s work.
But what I don’t recall any record of hearing about is attempts by academics to discredit Achebe as a person or scholar; professors and critics did not go about scrounging around for every last bit of evidence that might even hint that Achebe’s credentials as a scholar weren’t legitimate, or that he didn’t cite his sources correctly, or even that he had been affiliated with pickup artists. None of this is to say that Feminist Frequency or anything is of comparable significance to Achebe’s talk on Conrad, but that just seems like the grown-up way to deal with criticism of the things you love. But I guess if they were grown-ups, these guys wouldn’t be in the manosphere to begin with, would they?
If you want to learn more about cancer, the history of modern treatment, and why it is so difficult to treat, I recommend The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It is by turns depressing and uplifting. He intersperses a history of cancer research and treatment in with stories of his own modern patients.
He’s not a fan of “thinking positive” as a treatment for cancer.
One thing he mentions is that breast cancer has a decades-long history of activism behind it, and pioneered techniques used later by AIDS activists. Prostate cancer activism, if my perception is right, is much younger and is also borrowing strategies from the breast cancer movement–so basically, MRAs are complaining that women didn’t do all their work for them in the past, even when women are helping out now.
One of my mom’s cousins was diagnosed with brain cancer about a year and a half ago, right after the birth of her grandson–she’d been acting strange for months, but was saying really, really bizarre things while at the hospital after the birth, and her daughter managed to bring her to the attention of some nurses. Thanks to surgery and chemotherapy, she’s survived a year since. Her doctors don’t know if and when she’ll relapse, but she got to see her daughter marry and hopefully live long enough for her grandchildren (there is another on the way) to remember her.
friday jones:
O_O Holeeee shit.
Wait, Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy and a creepy human/dog hybrid? How have I not seen this movie?
I once dreamed that old Mammoth troll NWO moved in across the street from me, and it was really awkward.
During the Bush administrations, I periodically had dreams in which I met Bush and he wanted to be friends and I felt guilty about badmouthing him all the time. But only until I woke up.
Any dude who thinks breast cancer is a “scam” is cordially invited to go wipe his ass on a barrel cactus while strung out on crystal meth. My mom was treated for it several years back and has been in good health since her treatment was completed. I’m sure she’d be very impressed to learn that what she had removed from her breast, followed by radiation and chemo, was nothing more than a “scam”.
I’ve heard arguments that NFL’s endorsement of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is really a cynical merchandising scheme with very little of the money actually going towards breast cancer, but this might be the first I’ve heard that breast cancer itself was a scam.
Am I the only one who wants to hear more about David’s dream of doing improv while dressed as a hippie?
Am I the only one who wants to hear more about David’s dream of doing improv while dressed as a hippie?
I had a dream about Bush once that got turned into a Slow Wave comic.
http://orig10.deviantart.net/5e81/f/2015/068/7/2/slowwave_by_gckatz-d8l50lp.jpg
Bwahahaha omg the Matt Forney video.
4:20 he’s losing his shit “Christ. AUUUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
This is all too beautiful.
@Jorji Costava
Generally agreed on the Achebe comparison, although I want to add that his critics pulled out every other stop in the “white academic establishment reacting to criticism of their literary geniuses” spiel: you have to see Conrad’s racism in historic context, the book is still written beautifully and one of the most important examples of literary modernism (as if anyone had denied that), Achebe is attacking Conrad on personal grounds, and so on.
That reminds me of when my partner, still at Uni, startled her professor by arguing that Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset was thoroughly sexist (which should be obvious to anyone who has read two sentences of his work). The young, male professor, startled, stuttered: “well, he was still a genius”, as if the two could not exist on the same plane, and as if the whole category of “genius” wasn’t a problem for any analysis.
@Lady Mondegreen
I too am dying to hear about the hippy improv dream!
For crying out loud, men get breast cancer too.
Geez. I hate the way they routinely throw men under the bus just as much as I hate the way their attitude on women. For people who are supposed to be all about helping men they don’t really give a crap about a lot of men, either.
Indeed they do, including a close friend of mine – although thankfully they seem to have caught his at a sufficiently early stage. He said it was decidedly weird being the only man sitting in the consultant’s waiting room, but cancer is cancer.
It fits with their straw-clutching cries of “but but but, context!”
Want to highlight Aurini’s conspiracy theory about breast cancer? A direct quote, even with link and timestamp, is cherry-picking – that information should only be available to people who have the spare time to sit through the technical difficulties. If you skipped any part of the vid, your criticism is invalid.
Re Cancer – prostate and breast. What a lot of people do not realise is that for very old men prostate cancer is the norm, with about 70% of the over 80s having it. At that age cancer is very slow advancing, and the usual treatment is no treatment. That is NOT misandric negligence! The same medical decision is likely to be made with a very elderly person with breast cancer.
I am guessing that the reason this fact is not better known is because lots of people are still terrified of the C Word, and the thought that as an older man that you are more likely to have cancer than not is just not helpful in any way.
Their definition of men is almost as narrow as their definition of women.
Voted dog poop because I have two miniature poodles and I KNOW they’re more competent and would not just finish that documentary, but make an even better one from scratch – “Building and living in the poop mansion: soon possible or an unattainable dream?”
Yep, my father had it. His doctor told us – though admittedly in more careful language – “don’t worry about it, because something else will kill him first”.
I find it sad that trash humpers, and nixon and hogan films have better production quality.
Moggie and Ellesar, I’ve heard somewhere that more men die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer because more older men than younger men get it and it tends to be not as aggressive as other types