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!
@ ej:
Dear gawd that image is hilarious in a “LET ME SHOW YOU HOW NOT SEXIST I AM BY DOING SOMETHING OVERTLY SEXIST” kind of way.
@ej (the original one):
Isaac sounds so lonely. The fact that his idea of a great step up in the world is “meet up with some guys and have some beers and some laughs around a fire” is really quite heartbreaking. Then he, you know, goes and ruins all the sympathy I have for him by being homophobic.
Protip: if spending some time with some friends sounds like a gay sex act to you, then you have bigger issues than the Men’s Rights Movement.
And the image he chooses to illustrate a nice camping trip is…a screaming woman from a horror film. He literally can’t imagine any activity not revolving around tormenting women.
@katz:
Yes. Ugh.
Hmmm. Wait a second. That scream picture is from Hitchcock’s classic Psycho, which takes place in a hotel. Hotels are not campgrounds. In fact, they are almost the antithesis of campgrounds. However there is an equally famous slasher film, Friday the 13th, which takes place at a campsite.
Did Isaac intend to use an image from Friday the 13th and just confuse which film was which in his head? Wow.
Well, I overslept this morning and was late dropping my kid off at school.
VICTORY!!!
Because I showed that punctuality is not the boss of me!
And then I got home and found I’d left my door keys in my other jacket and had to wake my non partner up to let me in.
VICTORY!!!
Because I showed, um,……..give me a minute and I’ll think of something…
I too was confused by the use of the shower scene in Psycho to illustrate not having issues with women.
Pretty sure the idea behind the image is that the girls are all screaming hysterically like the woman in the picture because they think they’re not allowed to attend the VERY MANLY BUT TOTALLY NOT GAY camping trip. To which he responds with reassurance that they can stop being hysterical feeeeeemales because the VERY MANLY BUT TOTALLY NOT GAY men will take down the “no girls allowed” sign just this once. The movie and the setting thereof isn’t relevant.
Also, I think I may have just understood an MRA meme. Pls send halp.
The March on Washington was the one Dean wore his magical pants to, right?
What an original strategy! Show those feminists who’s in charge! I can hear them crying for mercy at the news now. Keep it up, guys!
(Come on David, let them believe this is victory? I can only see good from them staying encouraged on this track)
Pfft like any self respecting woman would want to come to a SUPER ALPACA (alpha) MANLY CAMPING TRIP with mras.
Any sad, angry or screaming woman but no they had to pick a scene with a woman being murdered from the movie Pyscho. Along with a dash of transphobia it seems.
@sevenofmine:
Have some helping ANZAC biscuits. They’re delicious and their honey content is high enough to make all memes everywhere incomprehensible.
@marinerachel:
wut. Do please tell or link to the story, because all that I can manage otherwise is a flat ‘wut’.
I would say that they were trying to save face by closing down the conference due to the obvious lack of ticket sales. However lets face it; if they wanted to save face, they would just shut down the website.
I got that impression too. They were trying to portray women as hysterical about being excluded, but nothing says “Come camping in the woods with me” like a murder scene from a horror movie.
Did somebody say ANZAC bikkies?
I’m always surprised by the number of Aussies here. Usually I’m the only one. =P
We could fly her to central Florida.
In the summer, it already seems to be a magnet for British people who don’t seem to realize just how hot and humid it can get and heatstroke-out in Universal…or right off of Disney property.
Srsly.
This goes back to my stance towards MGTOWs: I’d have legitimate respect for them if they actually went the f●ck their own way.
Buy largish houses in inexpensive areas and live in dorm-like settings (guys get their own rooms + shared space). This would allow for very low incomes and scads of free time – you could spend it all on self improvement and edification.
Or, hell, playing video games.
It could work, MGTOWs, if you pulled yourselves away from hating women long enough to actually practice what you preach.
So this is a case of “the enemy continuing its cowardly advance”?
Perhaps they could improve their small victory of no longer having a conference into a decisive historical one by closing the site and never saying anything ever again.
Oh, now I see. It’s SATIRE.
Also, “Futrelopath” (way to not be able to spell, there) sounds like some sort of alternative-medicine practitioner. Which is fitting, considering this blog does a lot to neutralize and detox the idiocy coming out of their movement.
On top of that, I keep anagrammatically misreading “FTSU” as “STFU”. They certainly are adept at fucking their own shit up.
Hah! Not only am I an Aussie, one of my daughters is on the committee of her CWA branch. And no, she’s not in the country, it’s a city branch. I’ll admit that they’re nearly all 30+ women like her, not at all the perms and blue rinses of the stereotyped CWA member.
(Unsurprisingly, she cooks up a mean batch of several dozen scones when needed, along with ANZAC biscuits by the trayload.)
“Greetings females! You may have heard that us MRAs are “misogynists”. Rest assured that isn’t true – we don’t actually HATE women, we just think that they’re dumb emotional bitches who manipulate men at any chance they get. Anyway, we’re having a lads’ camping trip in a forest and to try and prove we’re not misogynist we’re inviting women!* It’ll be super manly (in our definition of the word), we’ll be pissing against trees and making rape jokes and possibly showing off a bunch of shotguns but women**
are totes welcome! Want to join us?”
*only women who agree that other women are awful.
**seriously, we only want women there to give us a better public image and to stroke our egos. If you step out of line at any point, well…
@M:
Not an Aussie, a Sith Efrican, but I’ve hung around Kiwis long enough to get a taste for those biscuits. They’re delicious.
Hahahahaha sweet Jesus, the comments below the article on AVfM are full of endorsement and approval. I am not surprised though, anything that The Supreme Spiritual Leader of MRA Paul Elam says must not be criticized or questioned. I am now interested to see if people will actually get their money back.
Also, about the conference, how exactly are they helping men with putting ticket prices at 400$? Like, didn’t it occur to them that a father struggling with child support or a man working a dangerous, not so well paid physical job wouldn’t be able to afford the ticket to an event that’s supposed to deal with their issues?
marinerachel, nah, Dean wore the magical pants to the thing in Toronto. The March on Washington was even more poorly attended, with zero people at it. Unless they were wearing magic pants of invisibility.
Wow. They think rhis is a victory. How many excuses will the followers give them before the followers realize they are being duped.
Unlike Dean’s tearaways, under which he’s simply wearing shorts, when the attendees took their tearaways off they became COMPLETELY INVISIBLE.
EJ (The Other One) – it’s not as exciting as it sounds.Basically, Dean always wears short pants like Bobby Hill from King of the Hill. He was seen, though, in Toronto in LONG PANTS! Our minds were BLOWN! Strangely, later in the day at the same event, Deano was seen in short pants. What? Were the long pants tearaways? Or convertible pants with unzippable legs? Or maybe he changed? Except there were no washrooms at the event. Did he use a phone booth? All these possibilities are hilarious.
I offered to buy Dean a pair of long pants. He didn’t take me up on the offer. I think he was worried me buying him a pair of trousers would demonstrate to the world, in one fell swoop, a feminist doing more good for men than MRAs ever have.