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Men’s Rights Activists Fight the Real Enemy: GQ Magazine, British Edition

MRA elder Paul Elam, totally reasonable guy
MRA elder Paul Elam, totally reasonable guy

In yet another stunning victory for their cause, Men’s Rights Activists have successfully infiltrated the comments of yet another article critical of them, leading possibly dozens of comment readers to mutter to themselves “Jesus Christ these guys again, honestly do they do anything else besides post this crap?”

This time, the target of the Men’s Rights raiders was an article on the website of GQ’s British Edition with the self-explanatory title “Men’s Rights Activists are cave dwelling idiots.”

Naturally, the comments from the MRA invaders tended to rather prove the author’s point, with regard to cave-dwelling idiocy.

There were accusations of gender treason:

Michel Famaey · Antwerp, Belgium Isn't GQ a men's magazine? No wonder your numbers are going down, traitors.

Bog-standard predictions of feminism’s impending demise:

James Chapman · Southern Business School Funny how these types of articles are surfacing more and more as the MRM is growing on A DAILY basis. Me thinks it is an attempt to ressurrect feminism as a movement, but unfortunately too many people are seeing through FEMINIST BIGOTRY. Regardless of what the dictionary definition of feminism is, its actions speak louder than words. It's a cult movement determined to acquire special privileges for women at the cost of their male counterparts. Feminism has overstepped its boundaries and it is slowly but surely dying.

Unique takes on women’s history:

Dennis Markham · Darien, Connecticut They were always female supremacists. At least the more successful ones. Every time feminism won a right for women, the consummate responsibilities didn't come for another 100 years. Women were able to keep their own income looooong before they were expected to be treated as financially responsible adults: to pay for their own upkeep, gambling debts, children, or even their own taxes. The "strong independent woman" was still entitled to the financial support of her husband like one of his children until about 1960. Look up Mark Wilkes.

Tampon jokes:

Zooper Duper Now I know why I never read gq magazine. Rupert can your next article be on how to and how often to change the male tampon?.

“Retard” used as an insult:

Balaji Narasimhan · Chief Executive Officer at Sahana and Daniya Narasimhan This article reads a lot like a spiteful four year old wrote it. I guess since your audience is feminist you have to write like a drooling retard to appeal to their simple brains.

Awkward turkey-related metaphors:

Jonathan Connett Disgusting that you try and position men as though they shouldn't have a voice. Equality is here, life will never be fair to everyone. You are like a Turkey voting for Christmas. Equality means all should be represented not blamed for everything as often happens today. You need to know when to stop sometimes and just get on with life.

And of course, Paul Elam:

Paul Elam · Founder and Publisher at A Voice for Men You idiots really think you are going to shut us up or even slow us down? Men have issues that are not being addressed. Publications like GQ would love to keep it that way. So you engage in a victim contest counting on the fact that your readers are so dumbed-down that they won't recognize the canard of that zero sum game. Magazine for men, my ass. Shame on the lot of you.

I should note that GQ seems to be moderating the comments fairly strictly; several I was intending to quote vanished before I grabbed a screenshot. I can only imagine what the rest of the moderated comments look like.

I should also note that Mr. Elam was so offended by the GQ article that he went and made a video about it.  

In it the angry Elam, occasionally sounding like one of the storytellers on Drunk History, denounces the article as “lickspittle journalism,” describes its author, Rupert Myers, as looking “kinda like Alfred E. Neuman with liver disease,” defends the infamous AVFM article in which he referred to Bill Cosby’s accusers as “a bunch of drug whoring star [expletive deleted]” and makes the preposterous charge that it is Myers who is the true misogynist for criticizing his Cosby article because this means that Myers thinks that, as Elam puts it,

talking honestly about the reality of drug whoring star [expletive deleted]s is hostile to all women.

You may have to run that through your head a few times until it makes any kind of sense, because it really doesn’t. 

Elam then declares Myers to be a “misogynist little [expletive deleted].

WINNING!

H/T — @idlediletante

 

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dlouwe
dlouwe
8 years ago

I feel like a new term needs to be invented for what the first sentence in Elam’s comment displays — perhaps straw martyring? There’s nothing in the article that indicates a desire to actively silence or slow down the MRM, yet there he is, nailing himself to that imaginary cross.

In contrast to the people that the MRM like to paint as “professional victims” (read: actual victims that speak up), Paul Elam is literally a professional victim. Given – by all accounts – how he pockets the majority of the money generated by his perpetual rage and spittle machine.

Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
8 years ago

You are like a Turkey voting for Christmas.

Wat?

msexceptiontotherule
msexceptiontotherule
8 years ago

Those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials are all I can think of right now…well that, and the fact that I was foolish not to jump on getting my own medical alert thing-a-ma-jig before this -ish caused me to collapse on the ground in a fit of giggling.

And Elam takes himself sooooooooooooo SRSLY.

Button
8 years ago

I feel like a new term needs to be invented for what the first sentence in Elam’s comment displays — perhaps straw martyring? There’s nothing in the article that indicates a desire to actively silence or slow down the MRM, yet there he is, nailing himself to that imaginary cross.

On the Slacktivist blog, claiming to be persecuted against all evidence to the contrary is called “martyrbation.”

dlouwe
dlouwe
8 years ago

@Button

On the Slacktivist blog, claiming to be persecuted against all evidence to the contrary is called “martyrbation.”

Ooooh yes, I do like that one too.

weirwoodtreehugger
8 years ago

Equality is here. Life will never be fair to everyone.

This is my favorite. He’s pretty much admitting he’s angry at feminism because it’s made being a woman a little less unfair and not because it’s any kind of threat to men’s rights.

cerebral_artery
cerebral_artery
8 years ago

I saw this and the comments. My favorite part was when they proved the article wrong with proof of all the help they’ve given men instead of only raging against feminism. Oh wait.

Snowberry
Snowberry
8 years ago

There are three different ways I can interpret “You are a turkey voting for Christmas”, assuming that it’s meant to be an insult. All of them suggest “you are a traitor to your own kind”.

1. You are a turkey voting in a popularity contest for a holiday. You didn’t pick the one associated with turkeys (Thanksgiving).

2. You are a turkey voting a holiday off the island, and you didn’t pick the one which is associated with your kind being killed.

3. You are a turkey voting for or against the existence of Christmas. There are people who eat turkey for Christmas dinner (instead of the more traditional goose or ham), yet you still voted for it.

Even if I hit the mark, it’s still weird. Because there’s no context to guess what they were thinking, so it’s not immediately obvious what they meant. And if you’re not the type who thinks that “people should support only their own kind, to hell with everyone else” and don’t normally deal with people who do, it’s just plain baffling.

Idlediletante
Idlediletante
8 years ago

“Do they honestly do anything besides post this crap?”

We all know the answer is no. He’ll Elam’s said that explicitly;

https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/03/13/yelling-at-people-on-the-internet-is-our-activism-a-voice-for-mens-paul-elam-declares/

Michael Shur
Michael Shur
8 years ago

Any time someone says “methinks”, I drink. And stop reading.

Ditto “lickspittle”.

dlouwe
dlouwe
8 years ago

@Snowberry

I think it’s supposed to be a simple “You’re advancing your own downfall” sort of message. It’s a men’s magazine that wrote a piece they’ve interpreted as anti-men.

It’s true that Thanksgiving would have been a better holiday choice, but since when has the manosphere demonstrated any skill with analogies? Or communication in general?

Rabid Rabbit
Rabid Rabbit
8 years ago

For a lot of people, turkey is the traditional Christmas food. Perhaps that person isn’t American, and therefore doesn’t associate it with Thanksgiving, as he may not celebrate that one.

dhag85
dhag85
8 years ago

@dlouwe

…or food, for that matter.

Paradoxical Intention
8 years ago

“There are so many men’s issues not being addressed, and we’re not addressing them either, so shut up and let us martyrbate* all over the place because MENZ!”

Yup, Paulie admits that he’s not there to do activism, until someone calls him out for being a seething puddle of primordial ooze that does nothing but spurts out the occasional bubble and leaves a mess wherever it goes.

*This word is so useful I’m adding it to my spell-checker. :3

newbie
newbie
8 years ago

The commentariat under that piece appears to be comprised of cave-dwelling idiots. It must be an unfortunate coincidence.

Aerinea
Aerinea
8 years ago

Turkey is more of a Christmas dinner thing in the UK, and this is the UK edition of GQ, so maybe the comment about a turkey voting for Christmas is British?

lightcastle
lightcastle
8 years ago

Like Aerinea says, Turkey is the default Xmas dinner in the UK and has been for over 100 years. It’s pretty much the default in the US and Canada, too, I think, but the Thanksgiving thing makes it more associated with that.) Add in that it is Yuletide now and this seemed a perfectly normal thing to say, actually.

weirwoodtreehugger
8 years ago

Now am I curious about how many Christian and/or culturally Christian USians do turkey on Christmas. On my dad’s side it’s usually ham or potato soup (or both). On my mom’s side it’s roast beef if my aunt is hosting and a spread of hors d’oeuvres if my mom is.

Leda Atomica
Leda Atomica
8 years ago

Every single thing they say about feminism could directly be applied to them. It’s astonishing.

http://209.160.41.119/d/347/386/chlc9cpbzd/fathertedcr.gif

Leda Atomica
Leda Atomica
8 years ago

Also, turkey and ham are regular christmas dinner guests here in Finland as well.

MexicanHotChocolate
MexicanHotChocolate
8 years ago

MRA babies whining about an article criticizing their “movement”. It must be a day ending in “y”.

DS
DS
8 years ago

@Dave Futrelle: Thanks for deleting the expletives. I think we all need a little less anger and outrage in our day and a little more level-headed examination of the MRM to see how best to facilitate its own self-destruction.

Kat
Kat
8 years ago

I’d hate to spread a rumor about Paul Elam (tee-hee), but in the photo above, his skin looks relatively unlined but most of all shiny. Very shiny. As though his face were packaged in Saran Wrap. That’s the way skin looks after plastic surgery. I think it’s because the skin needs to be moisturized pretty much all the time.

The eyes look the same though.

EJ (The Other One)
EJ (The Other One)
8 years ago

Oh look, Paul Elam telling us how this is good for bitcoin gamergate Ron Paul the MRM.

Quick reality check there, Paul: what would you consider to be a defeat? Because from where I’m standing all of your victories look like them.

Virtually Out of Touch
Virtually Out of Touch
8 years ago

David please do a write up about the latest BBC/Reggie Yates documentary!

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