Milo Yiannopoulous — the Gamergate icon and reactionary Breitbart “journalist” — has some exciting personal news to report. In a Breitbart post today, he proudly announced “I’ve just been appointed the first visiting professor of Men’s Studies at Oberlin College.”
You may be wondering why Oberlin college would hire a far-right hack journalist with no academic credentials to head up its new “Vladimir Putin Global Centre for Masculine Awesomeness”. And that’s because Oberlin didn’t. The post is an obvious, albeit gratingly unfunny, joke from Milo.
Don’t tell that to the folks in the Men’s Rights subreddit, who are convinced his appointment and the Putin Centre are totally legit.
In his post, Milo quickly “clarifies” that he’s not being hired by the real Oberlin Colllege in Ohio, “home of hate crime hoaxes, false allegations of rape, and the shameful treatment of feminist professor Christina Hoff Sommers,” but by a Polish college with a similar name, the “the lesser-known Oberlinksi [sic] College, established, according to legend, by the great educationalist Czesław Benedykt Oberlinski.”
Needless to say, “Oberlinksi College,” the correctly-spelled “Oberlinski College” and Mr. Oberlinski are all wholly imaginary.
Milo’s post couldn’t be a more obvious joke if it had the words “obvious joke” superimposed over the text in 96-point type. I mean, the “Vladimir Putin Global Centre for Masculine Awesomeness?” And his promise that
on the first day of class, the illegitimate and oppressive myth of the “gender pay gap” will be symbolically burned on a campfire, the manliest bonding activity we can think of.
While some of the commenters on Breitbart seem to have gotten the joke, such as it is, the regulars on the Men’s Rights subreddit actually think that their beloved reactionary Milo is going to be a real professor.
In two separate topics on the front page, each with dozens of upvotes, some of the more gullible regulars are enthusiastically celebrating his imaginary appointment to an imaginary school:
One hailed the imaginary appointment it as “good news for genuine egalitarianism.”
Oh, Milo has his detractors. Some commenters noted they were none too happy about his pro-circumcision stance; another wondered a little about his lack of qualifications for teaching imaginary classes at an imaginary school.
But no one there — at least as of this writing — seems to have realized that Milo’s “appointment” and his “Vladimir Putin Global Centre for Masculine Awesomeness” aren’t real.
Finally, “Men’s Studies” gets the perfesser it deserves.
Sarah Palin: ““People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans,”
Other than being a fairly obvious attack on Obama’s manliness, it is also part of the right wing’s adoration of Putin’s tough-guy image. Oh, for a President like Vlad!” they swoon.
They always do that dumbass “not your shield” thong with Milo even though he said that he “chose” to be gay and regrets it, and is unsurprisingly homophobic himself.
I’ll admit I’m not an expert, but Putin smells like fascism to me–the cult of masculinity, the demonization of foreigners, the scapegoating, etc.
In happier news, here is a livestream of baby pointed kittens–too young to have developed their points:
http://livestream.com/FosterKittenCam/CloneTroopers
DonVoyage, what? If it’s a choice he regrets, why doesn’t he go straight again? Is being gay like joining the mafia?
@YoullNeverGuess
Just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in!
I agree. One can use Umberto Eco’s checklist on him with considerable success, and Eco’s checklist has always been my personal definition of fascism.
In fact, let me post a link to Eco’s famous essay for those who are not aware of it.
http://www.thephora.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-91353.html
I highly recommend that you read the essay; it’s not only by a stone badass but is one of the best short examinations of a very complex topic. Try the game of seeing how many you can match to your favourite misogynist ideologies (GG, MRA, etc.)
Regarding the Putin-Superman thing, some people make fun of how he replaces actual policies with cheap masculinity. Others just fall for it.
“Finally, “Men’s Studies” gets the perfesser it deserves.”
Men’s studies can be (and I understand, usually is) compatible with feminism. Promoting the idea that men have gender and aren’t default humans is a good thing.
@wordsp1nner Eeeee!! I didn’t know he had a new batch of kittens…POINTED ONES! I’m the devoted human slave to THREE Siamese (two mixy brothers and a purebred [my first, the boys are pound kitties] lady cat..and she IS a lady), I’ve been involved in Siamese/colorpoint breed rescue. My Dad grew up with Meezers and so did I, so I think it’s genetic. I’m not a breed snob, if it looks pointed and has blue eyes, I’m ecstatic. I love black kitties as well, and ALL other kitties too. Damn, I just love all the cats^.^ Delurking (I’ve been around a LONG time…the early days of ManBoobz even) to squee over pointed cats. It’s a nice break from scratching my head at the manosphere’s bizarre new antics. Seriously, they were so excited to see what they wanted to see that they missed a terrible obvious, unfunny joke. Ugh. So thank you fr the bleach, it’s massively appreciated, as I’m outta spoons^.^
a non article from a non journalist. Sounds like you’re jealous of Milo and his successful carrier. Don’t be so rough, I mean you work for wehuntedthemammoth.com that’s clearly a success LOL
Thanks for the Umberto Eco thing. I hadn’t seen it before. It made me think very much of ISIS, but then I’ve thought for a while that they are very much Nazis with “Christianity” swapped for “Islam”.
I’d like to make it quite, quite clear that I don’t belive most muslms support ISIS any more than most christians support Hitler.
I have to admit I fell for this, it seemed oddly plausible – probably helps I hadn’t noticed it was supposed to be Milo writing about himself, I’d assumed it was someone else.
Off topic – I really need to get some work done but the weather’s so nice here right now I’m just enjoying the sun.
“Does this mean I can call myself a horse and no one can challenge me on it then?”
Yep, we’ll just listen and believe.
@lith: I guess the fact that you fell for it speaks volumes about the quality of the writing in the MRA sphere. As somebody else mentioned, Poe’s Law is in full effect here
He got a modem working? No wonder Gamergate looks up to him.
Congrats Milo!!!!
In related news, I have been chosen to head up the new “Elizabeth Bathory Global Center for Feminine Poopiness”!
I have always perceived the Putin meme as a mockery of his “hyper masculine” image and thought it was quite funny. Interesting to hear others perspectives.
On another note: since Milo was joking… what was the point or goal of the joke exactly?
“I mean you work for wehuntedthemammoth.com that’s clearly a success LOL”
David created and writes the blog. You don’t tend to ‘work’ for your own blog. Unless he interviewed and hired each of those multiple cats in a David suit …
Lol.
One of the few times I seriously disagree with certain fellow lefties is when they draw false equivalence between Putin and Western leaders. I can list major criticisms of the domestic and foreign policies of the USA and UK going back decades (I became politically active in the early 80s) and they are real and serious. But to go from that to a position of ‘Putin is no worse’ or ‘all leaders are equally bad’ is to ignore a sustained assault on human rights and a dire approach to historical and current foreign relations in current Russia. For what it’s worth, I’m a Russophile with regards to the people and culture, which are amazing, but the current leadership is so much worse than anything we could possibly have in the west.
No. Do you even know who Milo fucking is? He is proudly anti-feminist.
Milo should start a GoFundMe to create this Oberlin College and start a Men’s Studies course. I’m sure gullible GGers would fork over thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.
Milo’s brand of “Men’s Studies” would not be doing this. This is not a good thing. Legit academic programs may exist, but we are trashing “Men’s Studies” as presented by this guy.
Your incapacity to understand that comment, Snuffy, is impressive. Read the article and the comment attentively before writing. Tip: The commenter is not talking about Milo.