I always enjoy it when weirdo ideological alarmists try to write about pop culture. There’s something that’s just so, well, adorable about someone spewing forth angry, pompus tirades, full of bluster and overwrought prose, on the alleged culture-destroying properties of, say, Miley Cyrus.
The recent Return of Kings post “5 Things Wrong With Modern Music” is a lovely example of this genre of criticism, even though one of its points, that modern pop music is too clinically perfect for its own good, and could use a few more rough edges, is actually pretty much on the mark. But even when what author G.W. Rees says is more or less correct, the way he says it is risible. Also, he’s wildly incorrect most of the time.
So without further ado, here are My 5 Favorite Overblown Pronouncements from the Return of Kings post “5 Things Wrong With Modern Music.”
1) “Have you ever seen a room full of women in their twenties singing along to filth this shameless, while grandmothers stare catatonically on in horror, parents guffaw and smirk in direction of the floor, and the more “enlightened” boomers laugh delightfully as if the behaviour their daughters are displaying is of no significance at all?”
I’m going to go with “no” here.
2) “Whores, whores, and more whores. It seems like every other contemporary popstar parades herself with more zeal than a common street hussy.”
“Hussy.” Haven’t heard that one in a while, but then again I don’t usually spend a lot of time hanging out with 90-year-old misogynists.
3) “A dystopia where all things sexual have been reduced to an amoral form of childish amusement, and the segment of the population who have historically been the nurturers and caregivers of a society have decided to shirk the honourable traditions of their forebears and turn feral.”
It’s true. Most female pop stars are not socialized to humans and do not feel comfortable around them. They do not like to be touched. They are unlikely to “meow” in their attempts to communicate with humans. Many live in colonies with other feral pop stars.
4) “Blue jeans, fast food, Walmart, Hollywood, suburbs, and…”sick beats.” These are all emblematic of the colossally hideous Jabba The Hut-like behemoth—known as globalization—currently devouring tradition and genuine cultures.”
So you’re complaining about Hollywood colonizing the world … using a metaphor based on Jabba the Hut, a character from a blockbuster Hollywood movie that colonized the world?
5) “[T]he broadcasting of such content via mass media in conjunction with the female proclivity towards herd mentality spawns a toxic synergy. Such a combination ultimately results in debased sexual moral standards for young women and the normalization of slatternly behaviour, in turn sowing the seeds of cultural rot and the decline of our once mighty civilization.”
Ok, but it’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it. I give it a 72.
Oh, and speaking of Miley (which at least one of these quotes was doing), she’s not the only one destroying culture.
I’m confused, why is Roosh complaining about women being “sluts” and “whores”? Isn’t he a PUA? Doesn’t he basically thrive off of the — supposed — promiscuity of women? If anything, you would imagine he would want women to be more “slutty”. He goes around trying to sleep with with women and when he succeeds he denounces all women as being promiscuous, but when he fails he gets all indignant and blames modern society for making women uninterested in him. It’s as if Roosh himself doesn’t even know what Roosh wants.
Bear:
Well, I know Jeans have been around for 140+ years… So maybe this guy is immortal!
GRAW!! That should be from me! Ignore the elephant! Ignore it!
-sings- My heart says yes but my vajayjay says no
So let me be sure:
-They Don’t like women.
-They don’t like modern pop music (What will happen the day they listen to very experimetal genres? Will they explode listening to Aphex Twin?).
-They don’t like to sex for the fun of it.
-They don’t like modern pop culture and all it stands for.
Welcome to the 50’s… the years 1850’s.
The main message I got from Roosh’s ‘article’ (or rather a long, drawn out, whiny rant) was that it is ok for men to objectify/sexualise women and make degrading songs about women (which a lot of music did in the ‘olden days’ and still does), but it is wrong for women to sexualise themselves. And that feral cats are pop stars, of course.
There’s only a contradiction between RoK’s advocacy of ‘traditional morality’ for women and RoK’s advocacy of PUA game for men if women’s consent and agency is taken seriously. Discount that and the contradiction goes away.
I think the apparent inconsistencies may be due to an unwritten assumption that rooshie is talking about the women he isn’t interested in sleeping with here. The women who should be settling down and raising kids, to his way of thinking.
Or, he’s just getting old.
Didn’t bluejeans, Hollywood, and suburbs exist in their fully appreciated glory during the halcyon days of yore known as the Golden Fifties? Could have sworn that the icons of the time were all over that stuff. James Dean and John Wayne worked in Hollywood AND wore jeans! Misandry!
For the eclipse, try sitting in a place where the Sunlight is coming through a bunch of leaves, like under a tree, because a really cool phenomenon happens where all of the holes that the Sunlight is shafting down through become natural pinhole cameras, so you see thousands of little eclipses all over the ground.
Erm, it’s late here and I am tired. What I mean is that it’s a dig at average looking women. Because beer-commercial good times are for the alpha Dudebros and the HB 10’s.
Well, my husband was born in 1942, so I suppose that counts as “old”. (He was 41 when our youngest was born.)
And yes, he does have some serious reservations about modern music. In his old, curmudgeonly view, the deaths of Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin signified the death of the “great” period of rock music. (That would mainly be because he more or less ignored modern music for twentyish years until our kids got to their teens.)
Anyone who thinks that a person who regrets missing out on Woodstock would agree with these killjoy opinions needs to have a quick review of modern music – from Bill Haley onwards.
I get the sense they want as much sex as possible, but they want the women to all be virginal all the time. Lots of misogyny in the idea that women become tainted by sex, but also lots of misandry in the idea that men are so vile and corrupting that any woman who’s had sex with a man is devalued. Also, it’s literally an impossible setup without doing something drastic like killing or cutting the penes off tons of men so there’s less competition for those virgin women, or aborting male fetuses to ensure a future where there’s less competition. The numbers just don’t play out for their obsession with “purity”. But it’s easier to blame women than it is to do basic maths and drop their toxic obsession.
Also, complaining about modern music and comparing it to the greats of the past is kind of silly. The reason we remember things from the past is cause they were worth remembering, time was less kind to most of their contemporaries. Similarly, most modern music will fade from public conciousness and a few songs and artists will be remembered. Music is art, but it’s also a product created for consumption, and much of it has a short shelf life.
@viscaria “Did I do it right? Can I write for RoK now?”
You did alright, but points deducted for calling them women and not girls/females/etc.
I’m so annoyed with this pop music complaining. When my parents were young, The Beatles became famous and were, according to the older generations, destroying the youth. In my teens, my parents hated my choice of music. ATM, I don’t particularly like new songs either. My point is, it’s an endless cycle: kids rebelling and elders grumbling about music. This is nothing new.
May we feed the feral pop stars, or will that encourage bad behavior?
It would be nice if humans and wildlife could live in harmony, but we all know what happens if feral popstars start losing their fear of people. They’ll start raiding people’s trash and they wont migrate to hollywood at the right time, causing ecological disaster. Luckily, animal rights groups and environmentalists have started a Feral Popstar Relocation Program–to bring problem popstars to a new habitat where they will live out the rest of their life in bliss, safely away from humans. It is by far considered the most humane method of dealing with such feral popstars, as the previous method used by Fish and Game was euthanasia.
Some say that feral popstars may carry off small children, but this claim has never been verified. We assure you, most popstars, even feral ones, are typically peaceful creatures; but should you be attacked, we recommend you play dead. The feral popstar is likely protecting his or her kits. Once he or she realizes that you are too pathetic to pose any threat he/she will likely let you go. If not, no popstar has ever been observed eating human flesh in the wild, so your loved ones will probably have a corpse to recover. We believe in looking for the silver lining. =)
Cats, bears, popstars, they’re all becoming a conglomerate in my mind right now. 😛
(I don’t really live in an area with a lot of feral cats, wolves and bears on the other hand…)
@ Dreadnought
When people like Roosh talk about sluts and whores, etc. they mean women who won’t have sex with them specifically. Similarly, when they talk about how women always go for assholes, they’re defining “asshole” as “man who is not me”.
Also, I think that even in wider culture the words “slut” and “whore” are just labels you assign to women who don’t behave in a manner you consider appropriate. Ask someone to define “slut” for example. You’ll get something like “has a lot of casual sex” but then they won’t be able to put a number to “a lot”.
Further, I really don’t think these people are actually doing anything that could accurately be called “reasoning” about this stuff. It’s as if “rational” isn’t a thing you do but is, instead a state of being that they’ve achieved. Therefor, everything they already think is correct by definition. They’re actually just not ever checking any one of their beliefs against any other to see if they’re consistent.
All those baby boomers reminiscing about the times when nice girls would only sing along to nice songs, like “My Sharona”…
The most depraved song I know of is The Good Ship Venus – I’m not sure its possible to top – and thats been around for at least a hundred years.
Off topic I know but Robert Lindsey ‘jumps the shark’ for about the 20th time. Actually ‘jumps the moon’ would be more accurate.
In his belief system women can’t love men for reasons like: they because they are best friends, sexy lovers, wonderful partners, great parents together, that person that you want to be with and hold when something goes wrong, that silly smile you give each other doing ordinary things together and all the rest.
Now misogyists only want women because of their ‘hole’ and, for some of them, (male) children. But Lindsey has a theory than women only love men because they are ‘cock addicts’.
https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/the-fatal-flaw-of-feminism-cock-addiction/
“The fatal flaw of feminism is the cock addiction. Many feminists are simply addicted to dick. Those that are addicted to dick simply love men. If you love dick, you love men. They go together you know. Of course I have known many feminist cock addicts in my life and I must say that they do truly love men a lot. There is a large part of them that really loves men. There is another part of them that is mad at us, but that is true of all women. Feminist cock addicts can never really hate men all that much. They love cock and hence men too much for that. Hence there is a contradiction that results in all sorts of cognitive dissonance.
I have never known a truly cock-addicted feminist whose hatred for men ran all that deep. Perhaps they would have wanted to hate us, but that cock addiction results in a deep fondness that all of the rhetoric in the world finds difficult to penetrate.”
And even if he’s right, if this was Adam’s agenda… if in the end it is all about reducing abuse of women – rape – why is it then a bad thing?
Is he actually saying that paleo-zealot manly meat eating men ARE misogynist monsters who rape more… but that this is a *good* thing (because biotroofs, I assume)?
My paternal grandfather got expelled from school for wearing pants that didn’t come up past his navel. My maternal grandmother wore lipstick (*GASP*) and ran off to L.A. as a teen and got a job as a soda jerk.
That was before the time of sock hops.
Young people having been scaring the shit out of their elders since time immemorial.
One point out of millions: Even assuming that he thinks male feminists are just “Beta cuck manginas” or whatever, what about lesbian feminists and asexual feminists? Oh yeah, we don’t exist. *rolls eyes*
Vanir – these guys want women to be virginal with respect to everyone else, but succumb to the awesome power of their *own* maleness and be whores *for them* (thus affirming their fragile sense of their own power-oriented masculinity). Women don’t have any agency unto themselves, of course – their entire existence is one of reaction to male intent.
And:
“I have known many feminists who talked a great line when it came to fear and hatred of men but when all the chips were down, they fell prey to the cock every time.”
Maybe they actually liked you as person (sod know why) and then felt free to ‘let their hair down’ sexually with because they liked and trusted you…..you moron . And then he abused that trust.
Only women who like cock can love men? So lesbians and asexual women can’t love their male family or friends? Wives can’t love husbands who lose the ability to sustain an erection or who never had cocks in the first place?
That guy’s head sound like a horrible place to walk around in.
Sex does not equal love. Liking sex is not being addicted to cock. Sex is not all about piv intercourse.
Kee-Rice-st, these guys could not make themselves sound more miserable, ignorant or worse in bed.