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.
You even Stroke bro?
I think gaters got their misogyny from the culture at large. Every predator and bully has some excuse where they refrain themselves as victims. It seems to me that more people were bullied at some point than not. I doubt gaters were more bullied than people in most other cultures. They’re misogynists because they never saw women as anything more than sex objects or mommies.
I can buy that not being popular and not getting dates exacerbated preexisting aggrieved entitlement, but I’m not willing to accept that not getting a girlfriend causes misogyny.
BTW, has anyone seen if the manosphere has reacted to the Josh Duggar thing yet? The Duggar family themselves represent the kind of traditional misogyny not covered here, but I’m betting MRAs and Heartiste and the like will be supporters of them now.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some guys think that the kind of star treatment that they enjoy at brestaurants is what all women should do for them all the time, everywhere. An awful lot of guys don’t feel any problem with demanding a perfect stranger’s attention if she happens to be female in public. I can see how some of the entitled dudes would take that to the next level be pissed that all women weren’t spontaneously doting on them for existing. The brestaurant waitstaff are merely fulfilling their natural role as nurturing sexpots while the rest of us stubbornly deny them their due.
@WWTH – Holy cow, I hadn’t heard about that and had to google it. Those poor kids. I hope that the victims actually did get some good, legitimate counselling.
I’m pretty sure that most, if not all people have been in at least one situation in which they genuinely feel victimized by someone or something else. I don’t know if anyone can claim to be without scars. The difference between these assholes and decent people is that decent people have empathy for others and choose not to become a victimizer, while these dudebros seem to believe that the only way they will be ‘ safe’ is if they aggressively and preemptively attack anyone that could possibly cause them any mild discomfort (well, if they feel like they can do it without repercussion, because bullies are also cowards).
FM,
I’m guessing not. In the quiverfull movement, girls are told they probably did something to deserve and then they’re coerced into forgiving their abuser whether they want to or not. Here’s a good comprehensive timeline. http://defamer.gawker.com/the-web-has-known-about-josh-duggar-for-years-when-did-1706258269#_ga=1.164639676.265643645.1410895214
The Duggars are full of shit when they act like they turned Josh in and got him counseling. At least TLC just cancelled their show.
No! That can’t be! The young, beautiful Asian women are traditional and submissive! They don’t want that! They’re waiting for all the American, white, MRA men to go get them because they are the manliest, manly-man men ever to Man!!
Bwahahahahahaha!
Ugh, Gators. Male supremacists the same as their MRA, MGTOW, and antifeminist cousins. I play games, and I refuse to call myself a gamer because of them. I’m not a gamer, I’m an electronic entertainment consumer. I’m not a gamer, I’m an interactive digital art appreciator. Oh look! I just added croutons to their word salad!
The viewpoints Gators have about prostitutes is about as sickening as the Honolulu police department arresting trafficking victims from Asia and charging them with sexual assault. Sexual assault! These women may not even be consenting to be prostituted, and they are charging THEM with sexual assault!? Jumping jesus on a pogo stick, has the world gone insane?
So the male supremacists are pissy about feminists defining rape to include sexual contact that has been pressured out of, coerced, or blackmailed out of a woman. But they do NOTHING about the fact that these Asian trafficking victims (I refuse to assume consent until I have proof that they actually have consented) have been charged with crimes that may have been perpetrated against THEM.
Surprise! Defining rape is all about what they think it should it should be! Nobody else is allowed to have a different viewpoint or closely examine the nuances of consent. That would look too much like freedom of speech.
… It’s kinda fucked up that the only thing that surprises me about the Duggars is which one of them turned out to be the molester. I could have sworn it was the father.
Ugh. Poor girls.
I have been following the Duggar news too and it is an understatement to say I am appalled. I am appalled that this young man was allowed to molest at least four of his own sisters and someone outside their family for OVER A YEAR until Jim Bob turned him into a cop that is now serving 56 years for child pornography. The “cop” gave Josh a good stern talking to, because isn’t that what all good upstanding young white men deserve? A second chance! Even after multiple crimes. A black kid would have been ripped a part by the conservative media for that.
While Ms. Duggar is proud to say that her son received treatment, it was a non-accredited road trip to Arkansas to help remodel a building. Yes, this counts as “work counseling treatment!” Sure does! Why are we all being so hard on them? Give them credit, they aren’t perfect! No family is perfect and obviously they know from experience which is why they presume LGBTQA people are just as fucked up as they are and stand in front of their basic human rights to get married and live openly in society without people hating them because beliefs.
And then to say nothing that Josh Duggar himself is a victim, because how else do we explain his bad behavior? It’s not like we live in a male supremacist, misogynist society that already treats women and girls like dirt and he is growing up in a family so extreme his mother popped out 19 kids for God. Sure, that had nothing to do with it! While I do think that Jim Bob being buddies with a cop that consumed child porn is cause to investigate the entire web of molestation and incest that probably exists under the Superior Christian Facade; once again the narrative revolves around poor Josh and to hell with his victims who were FORCIBLY molested, or the fact that he was executive director of an anti-LGBTQA hate group that also opposed abortion and progressive politics.
Republicans are of course, decrying Democrats and progressives for being appalled at this wholly fucked up situation by saying “Well you’re just as bad! Because I said so and therefore makes it magically true! But don’t you dare call me privileged!” Gee, where have we heard THAT before? #GamerGate.
Oh, and apparently, one of his victims is still a minor. Which means she was only four or five years old or it was a lot more recent than he’s admitting.
BRB, puking forever.
Blockquote Mammoth.
Why does it do that?
I know that I closed everything correctly – I’m on my laptop (notice, if you will, the lack of rampant typos) and double-checked.
My comment begins at “This, but I’d also add […]”
@SFHC
How did you come up with that brilliant name?!
How are progressives just as bad?
Is this another iteration of the Homosexuality = Pedophilia & Equal Marriage = People Marrying Their Dogs arguments?
There’s definitely this aspect, but I’d also argue that some of the “Why aren’t you smiling?” strain BS stems from a slightly less awful place: When you really talk with some guys, they seem to think that it’s their job to keep women happy. Like, if a woman’s not happy in their presence, it’s their fault, they’re falling down as men.
I mean, it’s still bullshit, but it’s BS that’s been produced after eating good-if-desperately-flawed-and-kinda-egocentric-in-a-toddler-way-intentions-and-motivations rather than the more festering kind that comes from pure, unfettered malignant narcissism and entitlement.
The first can be talked through once you get them to back away from the precipice of defensiveness. The second can’t.
I think it’s “progressives are just as bad” on the same level that misogynists think feminists hate men, when “hating men” = demanding that women aren’t treated like baby factories and fucktoys. Misogynist, on the other hand = viewing women purely as baby factories and fucktoys, but “we don’t actually HATE women,” they cry, “we love having sex with them see!”
I only have two hands but the double facepalm just isn’t enough…
And, you know – why didn’t they ask the girls if they wanted to play D&D?
I sure as hell would’ve loved to.
I grew up on the end of a dirt road in the sticks with no easy access to other kids/younger teens my age (by the time I could drive, I worked all the time to be able to afford my freedom…er, car) – no cable, no internet, but at least I had my parade of gaming systems – and I would’ve been so down with it if somone’s parents could’ve driven me.
As it was, I didn’t get to discover it until I was a young parent and all-night games were off the table 🙁 It was still fun, but not the same.
Gilashos, et al – THANK YOU for talking about The Goblin Emporer. I had an Audible credit hanging out. Now I don’t 😀
AJ – Aw, the 21st Century’s not been all bad. Animation’s been experiencing quite a boom. And there’s…quality TV series?
Exactly.
But then, they don’t ever seem to want a date with someone as awkward and invisible as they are. Nope, dad told them never to settle for second best and sure as fuck they won’t. So they go to PUA and redpiller dives and proceed to act like manipulative assholes because they feel entitled to date-up while condemning women for hypergamy. They want gorgeous models to look beyond their exterior and angsty attitude while simultaneously defending their right to use women as fucktoys. Oh the hypocrisy, it burns like a urinary tract infection.
I googled “Hooters waitress fired” and got article hits of a woman being 5’8 and 132 pounds called “fat,” and a black waitress fired for having blonde highlights. Because “black women aren’t supposed to have blonde hair.” FFS
That, and Hating Men = Leveling Criticism Against Any System in Which They Feel Vested – goes back to the whole hyper-personalization of criticism thing.
Feminists saying something like, “Traditionally, patriarchal societies and their institutions have manifested harm by X, Y, Z” = “MEN ARE AWFUL AND WE HATE YOUUUUUUUU!”
“But, no,” the feminists reply, “Patriarchy, especially standards of toxic masculinity, harm men as we–..”
“AND NOW YOU’RE SAYING THAT ALL MEN ARE TOXIC!!! HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!? NO DECENCY?!?”
I hadn’t heard the Duggar news. Christ, I feel sick now.
I used to frequent a site called The Wartburg Watch, a Christian based site that documents what is happening in extreme Christian circles. Like how David documents the worst/stupidest of what is happening in the manosphere, TWW tends to show the worst/stupidest of what is happening within Christian Patriarchy (usually. It does cover what happens in some other places e.g. homophobic churches).
This business with the Duggars is, I’m sad to say, part of an emerging pattern. David doesn’t document Christian Patriarchy stuff very often but there are a number of pastors of very large churches/organisations who are facing lawsuits for sexual abuse of women/children or cover up of sexual abuse within the church. More and more as time goes on. I feel that this scandal with Josh means that the connection between abuse and an obsession with “submissive women” is maybe more than just coincidence…
Like the Duggar friend Bill Gothard.