A Voice for Men triumphantly cancels its conference; supporters declare victory

Say it ain’t so, Paul! A Voice for Men’s second “International Conference on Men’s Issues” has been … cancelled!

No one could have seen that coming, huh?

Anyway, in a “Bulletin” on AVFM yesterday, AVFM “CEO” Paul Elam tried his best to explain away this little embarrassment:

At the outset it would appear that this is a piece of bad news, and of course it is, but it is news that we are taking in context here at AVFM.

The “context?” The conference was a failure waiting to happen from the moment it was first announced. And not because of opposition from the international feminist conspiracy. Nope. Even Men’s Rights Activists, normally a fairly gullible group, were underwhelmed by the conference lineup (consisting mostly of completely undistinguished AVFMers) and a bit stunned by the high ticket price. 

Elam will now be issuing refunds to anyone silly enough to have actually bought a ticket. Which shouldn’t take long. I can’t imagine there were more than three of them.

His explanation for this bit of bad news that isn’t really bad news, if you think about it: Apparently, organizing a conference is really hard — especially, I assume, when apparently no one wants to go to it and you’re left struggling to explain to your supporters why it’s not a total ripoff, honest!

Since last June we have been consumed with planning the [the now-cancelled conference]. We have the resources to do it well enough. However, we had to pull resources that we would normally use to take on direct activism, such as cases like Vladek Filler, and run the most prominent publication on men’s issues available.

So the conference was getting in the way of your ability to harass women on the internet do important “direct activism?”

We simply have not grown to the point to do everything simultaneously. … We found out by nearly burning out every member of our staff.

Poor babies. Announcing things is easy. Doing them is hard. Which is perhaps why AVFM is so much better at announcing than doing. Remember AVFM’s March on Washington to “Sink Misandry” by protesting the evacuation protocols of The Titanic? Oh, probably not; like a lot of things announced on AVFM, it never happened.

It was clear that the most reasonable one was to forego conferencing plans and return to what we do best until such a time that we have the ability to do more. We need some rest followed by a return to our roots which is precisely what we are going to do.

Rest as long as you have to, Paul. And then rest some more.

I realize fully that some of our opponents will view this as some sort of defeat for us or victory for them.

Huh. Why would anyone see this giant defeat for AVFM as a defeat for AVFM? It’s baffling!

Whatevs. We never let them define us to begin with.

Well, that’s certainly true, if by “them” you mean “people still connected to reality.” In the comments to Elam’s “bulletin,” the site’s supporters are … declaring victory. No, really.

To “Pinetree,” the cancellation is evidence of AVFM’s “huge growth” in its non-conference-canceling activities.

Partridge was if anything even more excited by this massive failure great victory.

To the strange and excitable fellow who calls himself Isaac T. Quill, the true extent of AVFM’s glorious victory could be seen in the fact that

after 15+ hours even Mr Desperate for Click Bait Futrelopath has not managed to rush anything into print! He’s still fixated on the launch of a trailer for “The Sarkesian Effect” …

It seems the poor lambs are all nonplussed and are unable to cope! So that’s FTSU++++ RESULT!

Huh. I will admit that I didn’t spend my Saturday night obsessively refreshing AVFM for updates. And that after making the little video masterpiece in my last post I kind of slept late today. So I only recently heard about your little bit of misfortune.

Sorry, your HUMONGOUS VICTORY. RESULT!!1!