His popularity waning, Paul Elam tells MRAs who hate him that he doesn’t want them anyway

It’s not exactly news, at least to long-time readers of this site, that A Voice for Men’s tinpot dictator Paul Elam can’t take criticism — especially when it comes from fellow Men’s Rights activists.

But who knew Elam was so allergic to criticism that he would declare that MRAs who expressed any sort of uneasiness with that embarrassing video he posted to YouTube earlier this week, featuring a drunken Elam and a small group of equally drunken acolytes making crude sexual remarks about two prominent feminist writers, were a bunch of “cowards, cunts [and] concern trolls” who would no longer be welcome at AVFM.

Elam first responded to critics of the video with another video of his own, a 43-minute long rant mostly aimed at MRAs who dared to suggest that his earlier video might not have been a great PR move for the Men’s Rights movement. (I will likely have more on that in a future post; in the meantime I’d recommend checking out Laughing Witch’s two long but rewarding videos on the subject.)

But he wasn’t done. And so, on Saturday, he put up a followup post telling his critics that he was excommunicating them from the Men’s Rights movement, and would be banning them from AVFM forthwith. Naturally, Elam being Elam, he phrased it a good deal less politely.

The time for AVFM giving a platform, even in comments, to spineless prigs, feminists and pearl clutching “MHRAs” who want to play nice with feminists, is about to come to a very abrupt end. To put it more clearly, this is now hostile ground for cowards, cunts and concern trolls — the living refuse of digested gynocentrism. … this is not a place for pussies of either sex.

As Elam sees it, there’s only a tiny handful of real MRAs in the world; the rest are pretty much useless “deadweight.”

I estimate (very roughly) that there are about 300 actual MHRAs in the world, not including the very high numbers of activists in India. I also estimate (less roughly) that about a third of those 300 people are either on AVFM staff, write for us or are financial supporters. I also know a handful of people who actually cannot work on our staff and cannot afford to subscribe who nonetheless give moral and brotherly support that makes them as valuable as any working activist.

Here’s the deal. We have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people every day come to this website. If 2%, or even 1% of them either subscribed or volunteered, we would be ten times as powerful and effective today than we are.

Apparently the quickest way to become one of these “actual MHRAs” is to agree with Elam about everything — and write him a nice big check.

Instead of trying to win the hearts and minds of the MRAs who disagree with him, much less the broader public, Elam has decided instead to tell them all to fuck off.

And if they don’t get that not-so-subtle hint, he’ll just ban them from his site outright:

The sad fact is (and don’t be offended if this does not apply to you), our comments and emails reflect a way too large population of slacktivists who whine about the free beer not being cold enough and who think that sanctimonious armchair quarterbacking of the service others provide makes them an MHRA.

It does not. They are just people who agree with the actual activists but prove it by droning on about how “we” should do things differently, like we are some sort of fucking juke box that does not require any coins.

Yep, he’s really steamed that people aren’t handing over their unemployment checks to him any more. (Allegedly.)

Most of their suggestions tend to be around toning down and being a little less hostile, especially to feminists. They call it diplomacy. I call it gynocentric cowardice.

These clowns have been given free room and board at AVFM for far too long.

Therefore BAN. Elam hasn’t worked out all the details, but

gynocentric cowards who come here to tell us how “we” should be doing things better be damn sure that the word “we” actually includes them. If not, their armchair wisdom, along with their IP, will get shit-canned on the spot.

Not only will they be banned from comments; they’ll also be forbidden from reading all the articles, with “access to some, a good bit actually, of site content … restricted to activists.”

Huh. Seems like just the other day Elam was announcing that he was trying to broaden the appeal of the site by reposting articles from Examiner.com on “men’s interests” like eyewear of the future and the evolutionary history of the yeast.

Elam declared that the new outward-looking strategy was a sign of AVFM’s great success in changing public discourse, and “the future for how AVFM pushes the counter-theory.”

Now he’s done a 180 degree turn … and is promoting an inward-looking strategy as AVFM’s future.

AVFM’s strategic about-faces have gotten as dizzying as those of the US Communist Party in World War II.

So what’s behind this new approach besides Elam’s anger at the widespread criticism he’s gotten from other MRAs for his drunken video?

A cynical person might suggest that Elam is doing his best to put a positive spin on the fact that he seems to be reaching the final seconds of his 15 minutes of fame. His narcissistic rage-fits have alienated most of his potential allies and followers in the Men’s Rights world. And traffic to his site seems to be dropping, at least according to the highly imperfect metrics of Alexa.

Elam is already doing his best to spin a drop in traffic as a really good thing, honest, youbetcha.

Seriously, take a look at this desperate spin:

AVFM is taking another major, visible step forward toward the completion of our mission. We will see that evidenced by a drop in traffic to this site.

No, he really did write that. Comparing the future AVFM to a party after “the free beer dries up,” Elam declares that his new approach

will mean a drop in traffic. We don’t care. To repeat, AVFM used to live and breathe by Page Rank and Alexa. We worked by drawing in as many people as possible, regardless of who they were and we performed well at it. …

Now we are moving into a new mode, not caring so much about drawing in people but in drawing in activists.

With Elam’s version of”activism” essentially defined as “agreeing with him and sending him money,” it’s becoming even more clear that former AVFM Number Two Dude Dean Esmay was telling the truth when, in an unintentionally revealing slip of the tongue, he told one feminist that AVFM was “a group of volunteers dedicated to a cause, and the cause is Paul Elam.”

Best of luck with your little cult, Paul, as it becomes littler.