I sometimes refer to A Voice for Men, the Men’s Rights hate site that has evolved into something of a hate group, as a cult. Up until now I’ve only done so half-seriously; while there are a lot of things about AVFM that are cultish, from the apocalyptic rhetoric to the constant demands for money to the organized harassment of its critics, it seems to lack some of the central elements of a real cult.
I mean, they’re not holed up in a compound in Idaho; they don’t wear funny uniforms; and they don’t talk, at least not publicly, about their single-minded dedication to serving the group’s leader — one Paul Elam of Houston Texas.
Or at least I thought they didn’t.
One of my readers has pointed out to me an interesting moment in a video posted on Youtube last year by a woman — known by her internet handle SworeByThePrecious — who had been talking to AVFM’s Dean Esmay about getting a press pass for AVFM’s conference last year. The video features the uncut audio from a long and contentious 4 AM phone she and Esmay had to discuss the matter. (Ultimately, she didn’t get the press pass; here’s her account of what happened when she caught up with some of the conferencegoers at a bar afterwards.)
The really interesting bit in the recording — which I somehow missed when I listened to this last year — comes just short of the 23 minute mark, when Esmay pointedly tells Swore that he and other AVFMers are “a group of volunteers dedicated to a cause, and the cause is Paul Elam.” Here’s the audio:
Yep. You heard that correctly. The Number Two dude at AVFM doesn’t say that their cause is Men’s Rights, or fighting the evil “hate group” that is feminism, or any of the other things that Men’s Rights Activists like to say that they’re about. He says, plain as day, that their “cause is Paul Elam.”
If you don’t believe me, you can find the quote in the original video here. (The link should send you directly to that part of the phone call; if not, it’s 22:50 in.)
Now, I’m assuming that this was a Freudian slip on Esmay’s part, but whether it was intentional or not it’s pretty damn revealing, huh?
I suppose he didn’t get the
marching ordersmemo that they’re ALL DIFFERENT. DIFFERENT, I SAY. TOTALLY NOT THE SAME THING. Etc.And hey, at least he’s more interesting than the boner troll/spambot in the comments policy thread. Or Bryce.
Ah, thanks, David! I thought McLovin was AVfM’s only remaining MGHOW. Tim must also be a fan of chicken jerky and Jell-O.
@Flying Mouse
What is the losing battle? I didn’t know I was fighting a battle. The winner of a battle is the side that is occupying the territory at the end of it – what is the territory here, and how will we know when the battle is over so we can check who is occupying it?
Indeed.
David, you’re right. Which is why I can’t actually sympathize with him. He just seems to have bought into the cult of Elam more than anyone.
Also wondering what is up with Tim’s comment. I wonder if he’s trying to say that the MRM exists to troll feminists. Therefore by engaging with them enough to mock, we’ve been lured into a battle. A battle we’ll surely lose because they have big manly STEM brains and we only have little confused lady brains. Or something.
Tim is a shitty marketing ploy for a website that’s about offensive humor. They posted a video and website address in the other thread,.
That’s the summary of the website they mentioned in the other thread.
I can’t say I take kindly to people fucking advertising websites by pretending to be trolls, especially when they fucking censor themselves in the fucking comments WHEN WE FUCKING SWEAR ALL THE TIME!
Or at least I fucking do.
Fuck him, fuck him hard. Kiss the brownest part of my ass, ya cheap ass human spambot.
@Jackie
I didn’t think Tim was posting that vid as an advertisement. It’ll be disappointing if you’re right and I’m wrong. I kind of want him to come back and tell me what MGTOWs are “winning” and how they know that they didn’t “win” it because it was such a shitty prize nobody else wanted to bother.
@PoM
No, Tim won’t be back, because they made that post to offend us, which is the whole point of their stupid, shitty website.
They fucking tailored their goddamn comment to offend us because we mock MGTOW and MRA and shit.
Fucking, Hell.
I’m assuming tim is sincere; the guy who does redonkulus is a friend of AVFM; he spoke at their one and only convention. he was the guy who talked about how his ex-wife was “cukoo for cocoa penis puffs.” Yes, that is the sort of high-caliber intellectual discussion that went on at that very inportant conference.
Here’s their website a la do not link:
http://www.donotlink.com/framed?719698
I didn’t click any videos because fuck them.
@David
Fuck them even harder. A fucking fan of AVfM and spammy out comments with their shitty shit shit ban them twice as hard.
wwth, I understand the impulse towards feeling sympathy towards him; he’s so clearly being exploited by Elam, devoting his life to promoting a charlatan who keeps all the
$$ for himself even though Esmay is working just as hard.
He kind of reminds me of some of those top ranking ex-scientologists who’ve left the group in recent years who (as scientilogists) went after critics viciously and denied that the leader of the group (David Miscavige) was abusive and then after quitting report that, “well, yeah, Miscavige used to beat the crap out of me and sent me to live in a virtual prison for months at a time.”
But at the moment Dean seems even more of a true believer than any of those guys.
Thank you, Random Incoherent Commenter! You’ve spewed a bunch of gibberish that refuses to be translated into anything making sense! The men’s rights groups owe you a pair of tearaway pants and a salami. You DA MAN!
I LOVE RANDOM IDIOTS ON THE INTERNET!
YABBA DABBA DOO!
Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: Fuck off! ‘Judean People’s Front’. We’re the People’s Front of Judea! ‘Judean People’s Front’.
Francis: Wankers.
Bina-He is spouting a whole of incoherent crap, isn’t he? I love random internet idiots, too! They are so entertaining! 😀 I wonder what shit he is going to come up with next!
&t=552&c=3qoZ8HRbum1vSA
Yeah, he’s getting into Manson family levels of adoration.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rc8k_D3yYoE/Tw4IyOKMysI/AAAAAAAAAls/awgasVzJMfA/s320/Stephen-Colbert-Popcorn.gif
Ah! That one’s better!
You know, every time they post here, I get another Monty Python image in my head:
Suicide Squad Leader: We are the Judean People’s Front crack suicide squad! Suicide squad, attack!
*they all stab themselves*
Suicide Squad Leader: That showed ’em, huh?
steampunked-lol! I remember that one! They are kind of like that, aren’t they? It is amazing how the MRAs can’t see that Paul Elam is ripping off vulnerable men and is a total fraud. They really do have a cultish thing going on there.
laughnwitch
Are they still arguing with a sock puppet smoking a cigar? I’m too afraid to look.
Ed the sock roasts everyone and everthing, that’s been his schtick for over twenty years.
He promises to roast feminism next week and these same idiots will be back in the comment section congratulating him.
Boycotting a sci-fi movie.
Arguing with a sock puppet.
Such activism.
Someone should totally write a Yaoi Fanfic with Elam as the seme and Esmay as the uke.
I can almost feel the hundred of AVFMers raising in future outrage.
@ryohji
That’s impossible. That would mean someone would want to sleep with these people.
Also it’s an insult to queer people, and I’d rather have those fuckers be the straightest goddamn men in history than have them even near my part of the rainbow.
“Fighting a losing battle” of course means that you don’t cancel your conference.