Earlier today Jack Barnes, one of A Voice for Men’s most energetic attack dogs, popped into my Twitter mentions with a link to an AVFM post accusing me of … threatening Cassie Jaye, director of the upcoming documentary The Red Pill, in the open letter I wrote to her the other day.
The post, written by Jack Barnes with assistance from AVFM head boy Paul Elam, was filled with the incisive writing and clear thinking we have come to expect from that site. A sampling:
David Futrelle, publisher of the online supermarket tabloid We Hunted the Mammoth, appears to be suffering from enough stress to wilt a buttercup. ,,,
The Red Pill, filmmaker Cassie Jaye’s documentary on the MHRM and gender politics, appears to challenge his worldview, thus the crying and stained diapers.
Yes, it apparently took two people to come up with those oh-so-cutting insults.
Later in the post, Barnes and Elam described the flood of money that MRAs and Milo Yiannopoulos fans sent to Jaye with a rather peculiar metaphor:
Jaye’s fundraiser burst through the finish line like David Futrelle through the doors of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
When he was done with that last box of chicken tenders, he started typing – allegedly after wiping the grease from his fingers and chin with a napkin.
There’s more, lots more, but the real point of Barnes and Elam’s post was to smear me by declaring that I had threatened Jaye.
Oh, at first they danced around the accusation by phrasing it in the form of a question: “Did David Futrelle threaten Cassie Jaye?” They then declared it ” a threatoid … not an actual threat.”
But they followed this up by declaring flat-out that what I had written
is as clearly a threat as it is in the stereotypical mafia movie where the mobsters says, “Nice family. Be a shame if something happened to them.”
So what is this terrible threat they claim I made? The two quoted me as saying this:
I suspect you are doing far more damage to your reputation than you even know….I suspect, sadly, that you will ultimately learn this lesson yourself, the hard way.
You may notice that Barnes and Elam snipped out a bit in the middle there, as indicated by the ellipsis.
That’s because what I really wrote, in its full context, was this:
Against my better judgement, I continued to hold on to some kind of hope that you would live up to your reputation in the end.
And now, frankly, I feel like I’ve been played.
Unfortunately, it looks like you have been played too, much more spectacularly than I have. I suspect you are doing far more damage to your reputation than you even know.
One thing I have learned in five years of watching, and writing about, and dealing with, the Men’s Rights movement, is that if Paul Elam is happy about something, that thing is almost certainly terrible.
I suspect, sadly, that you will ultimately learn this lesson yourself, the hard way.
That’s right. My “threat” was that … she would eventually realize that when Paul Elam gets excited about something, that’s generally a very bad sign. Because Paul Elam is terrible.
I will stand by that assertion. Which is not, by any stretch of the imagination, actually a threat or even a “threatoid.”
Neither Jack Barnes nor Paul Elam are famous for their honesty, but this is pretty flagrant on their part. And they made a point of not linking to my post (or even an archive of it) in their post, presumably so no one would notice what they cut out of my quote.
There is an added irony here, as alluded to in my headline: My (false) accuser, Jack Barnes, himself threatens feminists all the time. Indeed, he has admitted plainly that he harasses and abuses them. Those are his words, not mine, and for once he is being honest here.
The Men's Rights Movement is about harassing women, hating women, hurting women and only harms mens real issues. pic.twitter.com/L3agciVA3j
— TakedownMRAs (@TakedownMRAs) January 28, 2015
And if that’s not direct enough for you, try this Tweet (archived here in case he deletes it).
https://twitter.com/Jackbarnesmra/status/623269403799482369
In this recent Tweet, he alludes to the vicious harassment inflicted upon feminist Youtuber Laughing Witch, and wonders if similar harassment could be brought down on two Twitter feminists he often tangles with:
MRAs stop at nothing to silence people exposing their little hate group. pic.twitter.com/fQCKfpCW3Y
— TakedownMRAs (@TakedownMRAs) October 27, 2015
Oh, but there’s more:
Any of my U.S. or Indian friends care to correct this ridiculous MRA? pic.twitter.com/JgactHLBRh
— TakedownMRAs (@TakedownMRAs) October 20, 2015
MRAs actually think like this. Like, for real. pic.twitter.com/xYyI4Gj1mP
— TakedownMRAs (@TakedownMRAs) October 30, 2015
But this Tweet, posted in response to a murderous shooting rampage carried out by an angry misogynist at a Louisiana theater, is perhaps the most chilling.
https://twitter.com/Jackbarnesmra/status/626838268173283328
Barnes actually took a lot of flak from other MRAs about that last tweet; he stood by it.
Cassie Jaye, if by chance you are reading this, take note: this is the real Men’s Rights Movement. Not what they tell you, all teary eyed, when your camera is rolling.
How is he still on twitter.
There are lots of babbling boys out there, and many connected to mra in some way are only that. Just block and move on. They aren’t worth the breath.
It’s refreshing to see one of these MRAs tell the truth about their harassment campaigns for once, but just as tiring to see them continue to wallow in the delusion that THEY are the good guys.
I’m surprised they were honest enough to even use the ellipsis there. but even with it that’s crazy dishonest. you can’t replace a whole paragraph with an ellipsis and pretend the parts before and after were all together. they at least should have a paragraph break, the ellipsis on its own line, then the rest of the quote, so everyone knows a whole paragraph was cut.
But David, you don’t understand. When MRAs harass feminists it’s a *good* thing because, erm, MRA logik reasonz.
When you say something they can take out of context and twist to make it look like a threat that is the worst thing EVARR.
Even taken out of context the quote doesn’t look like a threat. Not even a mafia style threat. These men stretch more than the most advanced yogi I’ve ever seen.
Well that certainly reeked of desperation.
Have you noticed that the key evil shits in the mra movement seem to not understand the concept of “hypocrisy?” Oh it’s fine if they do something, but if they even get a sense you’re doing that exact same thing to them then OH MY GOD HOW DARE YOU??? You’d get more sense from talking to toddlers.
They really, really love characterizing you as an irrational person prone to throwing tantrums, huh.
For people who always scream that they’re being taken out of context, even when they weren’t, they sure do love deliberately taking David and anyone else they dislike out of context.
My 7 year old daughter will often complain that something is ‘not fair’ when what she means is ‘I’m unhappy that this didn’t go my way’. She will find all kinds ways to turn a conversation from ‘Why did you do that?’ to ‘You did something bad once’.
I guess what I’m saying is MRAs have the maturity of a seven year old.
What is the future of the MRM and the Manosphere? The online Manosphere seems to be like terrorist cells. One collapses, 3 others spring up. They collapse, 6 others spring up. The Manosphere pretty much “died” a few years ago or at least that’s what some Manospheres themselves asserted when their own blogs went “galt”. But we see new ones popping up.
Wow. Just… wow.
I just read over the the AVFM post and found some interesting “quotes” from Jack Barnes.
I’m not sure Barnes is as self confident as he seems at first:
“Jack Barnes and Paul Elam…are not…sane rational…people…and… have…no evidence whatsoever to support…their talking (read lying) points”
He’s not much of a fan of Milo Yiannopoulis either:
“Milo Yiannopoulis…(unfortunately) continues…his…Shameless pandering…to the…MHRM”
But this apology was the most surprising part of the article:
“David Futrelle…is…Nice…and…Kentucky Fried Chicken… is…Nice…and…We’re sorry… David Futrelle”
It seems Jack Barnes is a pretty conflicted guy.
Wow! I have read the whole letter and I see absolutely nothing that could be read as threatening. Just a warning about the true nature of the MRAs and Paul Elam. I think he was just looking for an excuse to harass someone. He does seem to get off on it.
I read a study that liberals consider hypocrisy the biggest flaw and conservatives consider inconsistency/flip-flopping the biggest flaw — but the interesting part is that each doesn’t consider the other thing a flaw at all. So if Paul Ryan wants parental leave, that makes him a good family man, but if you do, that makes you a lazy moocher, and they don’t see that as a problem because he’s a good family man and you’re a lazy moocher and you therefore don’t deserve what he gets.
Conversely, conservatives consider changing your position on an issue to be a big flaw, whereas the rest of us consider it “being a reasonable human being who is capable of admitting to sometimes being wrong.”
Not sure how you do it – engage with people who clearly aren’t intelligent enough to think before speaking. They’d be funny’ish if I wasn’t convinced the bravado and threats were genuine. I just don’t understand where the hate comes from. I mean, I can explain it, but I can’t understand it on a personal level. But good on you for keeping these dickfaces occupied. By engaging them, they end up making the crucial mistake of publicly confirming what we already know. Cheers.
I think I read the same study. It’s very interesting when you see that behaviour manifested in bad-faith internet arguments: liberals will concern-troll on conservative websites by pointing out hypocrisy in conservative leaders, and conservatives will concern-troll on liberal websites by pointing out inconsistency in liberal leaders; and both will get instantly spotted as the trolls that they are.
Changing your position is not in itself a flaw. Changing your position all the time on everything, in whatever way would benefit you at the moment, is a different story.
CaptainWacky, I will confirm that I …. am …. Nice …. and…Kentucky Fried Chicken… is…Nice.
Jack Barnes is scary.
I dunno, I read once that Kentucky Fried Chicken…includes…human DNA and also…causes cancer. But then another article said that it…contains 2 of your 5 a day…and is a significant aid to weight loss.
…Messed up the blockquote, obviously.
In a way I respect Jack Barnes honesty. I mean he’s repugnant, but there’s something refreshing about seeing one of these misogynistic twits dropping the trappings they’ve stolen from actual civil rights movements and openly revealing the blistering hate that drives them for all.