ThinkProgress has gotten hold of an inadvertently hilarious internal document from the “breastaurant” chain Twin Peaks that provides an interesting glimpse into what those who run the company may actually think of the customers who pay their salaries.
Twin Peaks, as ThinkProgress writer Tara Culp-Ressler notes, is essentially Hooters on steroids, and the chain has been spreading like ebola; in 2013, it was the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the US. It also seems to be quite popular with Biker gangs; the gigantic biker shootout last weekend took place at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas.
The document — which the company insists was never distributed to employees — was leaked to ThinkProgress by an anonymous Twin Peaks employee. And it’s kind of a doozy, describing the company’s “target” demographic essentially as a bunch of insecure narcissistic manchildren desperate for attention from young women with gigantic bazongas who are required to smile and put up with their bullshit.
According to the document, the restaurant wants to target guys “who love to have their ego stroked by beautiful girls,” and promises to provide an environment “that feeds their ego with the attention they crave.” They describe their typical customer as someone who likes “attention from beautiful girls and being recognized in front of the guys,” as well as someone who doesn’t want to be asked what he’s thinking.
If you leave out the bits about the “beautiful girls,” this strategy sounds an awful lot like the ego-stroking approach of some of the more influential figures in the Men’s Rights and GamerGate movement: pander to insecure men’s fantasies of victimization, tell them that they’re right to hate and fear feminists and women at large, and assure them that the nasty comments they go around leaving on every site that doesn’t ban them are actually a noble form of human rights activism. As GamerGatey YouTubers and Men’s “Human Rights” activists alike have learned, pandering to angry dudes can be a surprisingly lucrative money-raising strategy (at least in the short term).
Like the patrons of Twin Peaks, MRAs seem to especially like getting this kind of validation from women — hence the absurd popularity of Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan’s sophomoric and soporific YouTube videos; hence the enthusiastic embrace of the female-fronted Honey Badgers as free speech martyrs by GamerGaters and others, who have happily sent along $30,000 in donations for a lawsuit against the Calgary Expo that seems highly unlikely to go anywhere, if it even happens at all.
I’ll have more on the Honey Badgers in a bit. In the meantime, I would like to remind you, my readers, my big handsome readers, how totally cool you are and would you like some wings with that?
Er, no, I meant that I would like to remind you that my Spite the Honey Badgers fund raiser is, last I checked, only $39,529 short of its completely reasonable goal of $40,000, which is what all the economists I consulted* told me would be the amount of money I would need to make the Honey Badgers really annoyed.
Click here to donate. You don’t need a Pay Pal account. All you need to have is a little bit of money and a desire to Spite the Honey Badgers.
Thanks, hon. I’ll be right back with that giant mound of nachos.
NOTE: “All the economists I consulted” add up to zero. I did not actually consult any economists. Also, you’re not getting any nachos.
CORRECTION: I originally wrote that the Tara Culp-Ressler piece was on Talking Points Memo; it was on Think Progress.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the post but I’m going to leave this here for anyone to enjoy.
The comment section has been overrun by gators. Nothing new.
Who Knows,
That was awesome!
So men make these women wear scant outfits to work so that other men can leer at them and be served by them, yet a woman dressed like the waitresses are required to are “asking for it”.
Head they win. Tails we lose.
There’s been at least one attempt to do the ‘host club’ thing in America, too, but they tend to be considerably higher-end places, price-wise, rather than the comparatively low-rent Hooters.
And Buttercup, you’re correct–strip clubs are far more honest in terms of making it clear what’s happening. There is a fairly precise transaction going on, set rates for a specific period of time and an explicit definition of what is and is not acceptable behavior on the part of the customer. At Hooters/Twin Peaks/Tilted Kilt and other imitators, the lines get blurry, in no small part because the women are working for tips, rather than a clear price, and the tips come at the end of the encounter, not the beginning (thereby putting all the power in the hands of the customer).
Overall, I think I’d have less of an issue if these restaurants were higher-priced, with tipping being less of an issue, and with the waitstaff receiving much higher salaries in exchange for both the physical self-maintenance and the social ego-stroking that’s expected of them. (I’d say they should be paid a base of at least $25 an hour, with food and drinks priced accordingly.)
@ Who Knows,
I watched that earlier, because slam poetry is the best thing ever. Fortunately I successfully resisted the urge to look at the comments.
@gilshalos:
Amongst my real life friends, The Goblin Emperor has attained an almost mythic status. It’s the book so good that even the Puppies had to nominate it for a Hugo. We tell Chuck Norris Facts jokes about it. It’s an amazing book and I hope Addison does something great again in the future.
@Moggie:
I really, really loved Inland Empire; and while I can’t imagine a boobs-themed restaurant styled on that film, I can imagine a hotel based on it all too clearly.
To clarify: I am not saying it’s a good idea, because it’s really really not. I would travel a long distance to avoid that hotel. However, even now, I am unable to prevent my brain forming images of what it would be like.
Back on topic: Lea, Buttercup and freemage really manage to describe the reason I find such places distasteful and wish they did not exist. However, they’re a symptom of how our culture works and so I’m not sure what I can do to work against them. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
I don’t think I’d be comfortable with a beefcake restaurant. I like to look at hot guys in states of undress, but I’d rather do it by watching True Blood or something. I have no desire to be flirted with by a man who has no interest in me. I know it’s fake. They know it’s fake. What’s the point? I’ve never understood how men manage to delude themselves into thinking bresteraunt servers actually want them.
I mean, I do understand. I guess. They see them as objects. The motive of “I’m going to flirt with this creep because my job requires it and because I need the tip money” never crosses these men’s minds because sex toys don’t have thoughts and motivations. Unless that motive is boner pleasing of course!
Just FYI, the article is from ThinkProgress, not TalkingPointsMemo. 🙂
If the only place conventionally attractive women flirt with a man is at bresteraunts or strip clubs, wouldn’t that just highlight to him that conventionally attractive women aren’t interested in him unless it’s for money. I wonder if places like those just ultimately make men more resentful of women?
That would be an interesting experiment. Take one group of men to Hooters and a control group to a regular restaurant. Then put both groups in some other situation where they’re either rejected or ignored by conventionally attractive women and then measure misogynistic attitudes in the men afterwards.
@ Who Knows:
That poet hit the nail on the head about misogyny in gaming. I watched Anita Sarkeesian’s series on it awhile back. Her criticism was completely reasonable. There was nothing she said that wasn’t true, she wasn’t cherry picking, and she wasn’t being hyperbolic. That misogyny is there, and it’s front and center for a lot of games.
The folks that ended up being hyperbolic: gamergaters. They were the ones getting all ruffled about the criticism. They were the ones getting all emotional about it. You would think that at least some would say: “okay, you’ve made some good points here.” And maybe some did, but their voices were drowned out by the attacks, the threats, the doxxing.
It just seemed like they were using this whole “integrity in gaming journalism” thing as a ruse, a way to distract from the serious issues that are present in video games. Instead of facing the criticism head on, they manufactured some “problem” so that they can direct the attention away from misogyny and towards this false issue. And then, the sum result was that they showed their true colors with the rape and death threats. It’s like: “no, we’re not misogynists, but if you dare to accuse us of misogyny, we’ll rape and kill you–to prove that we’re not misogynists.”
Maybe I just have the “woman hive-mind” thing going on, but that sure looks like a whole lot of hamstering to me…
@A. A. Wils:
If you have the woman hive mind going on then I must count as a woman.
I mean, I get gamergate. I understand why it happened. The ‘gaters are by and large people whose early experience of the rest of the world was fairly negative, and who sought refuge in the escapism of video games. At the time, very few people played video games and so that became their clubhouse. Now that the rest of the world is getting into video games too, it’s no longer their clubhouse and they’re terrified of that; and because this is a very big deal to them psychologically they respond in a way that seems out of proportion to anyone with perspective on the matter but to them is entirely fair.
They hate women because when they were growing up, the only girls they saw were the girls who hung around on the shoulders of the guys who beat them up; they didn’t see the girls who stayed at home and read books or knitted. As a result they learned that the presence of women is an indicator that a space isn’t safe for them.
I get that. I am sympathetic to their pain. I was also a scared kid once upon a time. However, there are many people in this world who are terrified and who nonetheless manage not to lash out in pain; and there are even more people who are terrified and manage not to build an ideology out of their lashing-out. Therefore, while I get where they came from and am sympathetic to their pain, I cannot summon any sympathy for their actions.
So fuck them. If they speak for all gamers then I’m evidently not one; and if they claim to speak for all men then they can back off, because this is my gender and I get to choose what that means to me.
Apologies for ranting. I didn’t realise that I was that angry.
@EJ
I thought it was a good rant. I liked the bit at the end, and the way you said it reminds me of why women and feminists frequently ask men to help them and appreciate those that do. MRAs and other douchecanoes simply don’t listen to women because they don’t care. Yes they call feminist leaning men manginas and disregard them too, but since those pricks hold the fact that they’re male as the highest value in their lives, if enough other blokes tell them “this is not cool and not acceptable as “masculinity” and you don’t represent us, fuck off”, the MRM might be more inclined to listen. Maybe. It will at least show them that they do not, in fact, speak for everyone with a penis.
P.S thanks for being one of those dudes EJ. 🙂
I second what sunnysombrera said, EJ. Thanks for being one of the good guys.
Trigger warning for those of us who were picked on and bullied when we were kids:
I concur that a lot of these gamer gate fellows were the invisible, the picked on, the “undateable” boys in high school. I understand where they are coming from, because I was a geeky, awkward girl (probably now just a geeky, awkward 38 year old woman–some things never change). I was picked on and made fun of and called “butter face” and was told I was so ugly I should just put a bag over my head or I should just kill myself–by boys, the jocks and the awkward ones alike. Kids can be pretty damn cruel. But I didn’t develop a hatred of men because I was picked on by them, and never had a boyfriend or was kissed until I was almost 18 years old. They don’t have an excuse for their hatred. They don’t have an excuse for seeing women as just props, things to be used.
They may have sat there in their room playing video games every night thinking of the girls that were hanging off the guys, and think “why not me?” Didn’t anyone ever tell them they aren’t entitled to have a girl hanging off them? If they developed a grudge against women because they didn’t have a girlfriend, well, no one promised anyone a rose garden. My own adolescence was anything but.
I also agree that they see their games as a “no girls allowed” clubhouse, where they could hide from the world, and now their “sacred space” is being invaded. Well, that’s not anything new. As a kid, I was playing video games and RPGs like crazy. D&D, Vampire the Masquerade, Star Wars–those were good times. I was the Mortal Kombat champion in my group of friends, and I also kicked butt at MechWarrior, Doom, and Wolfenstein. I was playing some of the RPGs online–via BBS. That really dates me, doesn’t it? Back in the days of BBS and Sysops. Myself, and tons of other girls were doing that. So either the ‘gaters had their heads in the sand all that time, or it was a voluntary ignorance.
In any event, yes, they’re still those boys who fear girls because they’ve been hurt by the girls not wanting to be with them. Deep down inside, they’re the lost boys who never grew up. Only difference now, their misogyny is dangerous. They have all the rights of an adult so that they can spew hatred with little to no consequences (because mom isn’t around to ground them for being nasty little boys anymore).
I have empathy for anyone that had a rough adolescence. It’s hard on almost everyone except those few people who seem to have it all. But, there’s no excuse for hatred.
@EJ
I think that’s spot on. I was very much like that. I was constantly bullied and had the hardest time making friends, so video games became an escape for me (Pokemon, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, and Metal Gear Solid were and still are some of my favorites). My biggest issue was that too few people shared my interest (most of whom were just depressing to be around) and my parents HATED video games to the point of mocking me and shaming me for playing them… it was not cool…
I never got the whole blaming women thing though. Sure, there were plenty of girls who made fun of gamers but there were also a lot of guys. And although I did assume that video games were not a ‘girl’ thing, I was pleasantly surprised in highschool to find girls who did play video games (a good friend of mine lent me Final Fantasy X and I completely fell in love with that game).
And yet, when I watched Anita’s videos, I was like “Yeah, those are fair criticisms”. I couldn’t believe the vile reaction she got…. I was completely disgusted to the point where I almost didn’t want to associate myself with video games at all. Fortunately I found this website and the mockery has been very therapeutic. 🙂
I think another part of the problem is that, since many of these Gators have been bullied as kids, they cannot fathom the idea that theymight be bullies. To them it’s not logikal. Obviously you’re either the bullies or the bullied, and they believe themselves firmly in the bullied camp. Hence why, to them, Anita is supposedly bullying them.
I feel compelled to point out that if they hate women for this reason, then they already had a misogynist mindset and only needed an excuse for that hate.
On the other hand, I wonder how many HarassGaters have re-framed and/or repressed good memories about women in their childhood /teens.
I’m already used to this claim being the background noise of any GG “discussion”, but I’m having a hard time believing it’s as true as they would wish – what are the chances this stereotype holds true every.single.time?
Maybe some of them were ok at school but it bothered them that their parents made them share their videogames (maybe even with their sisters)
Maybe some are preferring not to think about that one (maybe nerdy?) girl who was sort of a companion for them (after all it was long ago and we all decided our story is that we’ve been bullied, period!).
Maybe if we look closely to their real stories, we’ll find many cases of victims of bullyingand many others of people who were not. And I’m betting this last group mostly mingled among the other and used them as shields.
After all, HarrastmentGaters think lying is a totally legit way to interact with others, why wouldn’t they also lie to themselves?
Also, the whole movement looks way more identified with bullies than with victims.
Maybe I just can’t believe the slightest stuff they claim, with all the sock-puppeting and “infiltrating missions” and constant flow of bullshit.
It’s not sex that sells, it’s women’s bodies, so I propose that all advertisements and media featuring scantily clad women be replaced with cute animals from now on. Get rid of the breastraunts too, or at least hire transvestites just to piss these men off.
Like Hooters I wish they would just call it BOOBS, and stop being so coy about it.
Lynch is back in?
Okay. Still processing…
This is completely messing with me. I thought I’d achieved equilibrium with the 21st century simply by accepting everything was going to be consistently awful. This is an alarming outlier…
I’m gonna wake up any minute and discover that actually I’m still trapped in the black lodge, right?
@RoscoeTCat
Or he’s thinking something so horrendous that he knows it shouldn’t be uttered in any kind of public setting…
Awwww, you guys. I’m blushing, and I shouldn’t be because I’m on the way to a retro Mage: the Ascension one-off. Glad I struck a chord.
@Luzbelitz:
I definitely think a lot of people choose to frame their story as a victim narrative and/or forget the nice bits in order to fit the story they’re trying to impose on it. In that sense I agree with you. I also agree that there’s certainly some underlying misogyny going on there.
However, GG came from somewhere. While their self-narratives are meandering and absurd, they didn’t spring from nowhere fully formed as soon as Gjani had a bad breakup and wrote a novella about it. There was a preexisting movement there waiting to erupt, which is why it quickly moved on from the initial spark and started going after people like Sarkeesian, Alexander and Totilo. If Gjani hadn’t ignited it, it would have happened elsewhere. Maybe the Hugo awards would have been the spark.
Which does not excuse the GGers for their actions at all. Fuck all of them.
Now I must away. My Forces/Correspondence rotes call.
sn0rkmaiden
“I expect RazorBladeKandy would have that exact POV about it, I once trawled through one of his videos where he concluded that prostitutes are worse than paedophiles because they ‘exploit’ men’s sexual desires by making them pay for sex. Uh-huh.”
http://i.imgur.com/JfX8Rig.jpg
Thanks Who Knows that was awesome. Gamergaters are hyprocritical terrorists that’s all they are. Ethnics in terrorism.
I’m going to point out that, unless these guys were homeschooled, they ‘didn’t see’ these women in a more sinister way than this suggests. They didn’t see them because any girl who wasn’t a cheerleader or homecoming queen candidate wasn’t on their radar. There’s a lot of social programming these guys bought into that led them to the point where they would rather be miserable and alone than possibly seek happiness with women who were their ‘conventional beauty and popularity peers’.
The fact is, maintaining that sort of social standing takes effort and work and interest in a lot of things that these guys had no interest in–fashion, beauty techniques, social networking, just for starters. The guys these women were ‘hanging off of’ had at least compatible interests, and so were genuinely attractive to the girls and vice-versa. But the GG crowd were so fixated on whether or not the girl was ‘hot’ that they ignored all of that other stuff–and then didn’t understand how the lines were being drawn.
Moocow:
Even if I vehemently disagreed with Anita Sarkeesian (I don’t, I’m a supporter), I would still be appalled at the reaction. Look at Jack Thompson: he has said ridiculous and reprehensible things about games and gamers, and his goals were/are more harmful… but never once have I thought that it would be justified to threaten him with death or rape.