UPDATE: Roosh has announced that he is cancelling all the meetups. For more see my post here.
Roosh Valizadeh may be getting exactly what he wants. The scuzzball pickup artist and would-be philosopher of “neomasculinity,” best known for his semi, demi, sort-of-satirical article advocating that rape be made legal on private property, has ignited a firestorm of controversy in the media and online by announcing plans to hold meetups for his fans in 165 locations worldwide this coming Saturday.
As someone who’s been watching Roosh for many years, I can certainly understand the outrage. Roosh is a thoroughly despicable person — a misogynist, racist, homophobe, and anti-Semite who has self-published a series of books of pickup artistry that many observers see as rape manuals.
He teaches his followers that a “no” from a woman is usually just an indication to keep trying; he fills his books with “field reports” of his own sexual experiences that often seem indistinguishable from rape. (That’s why some people describe him as a confessed serial rapist; he’s never been charged much less convicted of rape, as far as I know.)
And then there is that piece of his extolling what he sees as the benefits of legalizing rape on private property. (He now claims it was satire, but was unable to explain to the BBC what exactly he was supposedly satirizing.)
Unfortunately, some of the media coverage of Roosh and his planned meetups has been sloppy and misleading; assorted rumors about the events are flying around online.
This post is intended to give you solid information about Roosh and his meetups and to correct some of the misinformation floating around.
If you need more information about Roosh himself and his beliefs, please take a look at some or all of the posts of mine listed below. The headlines are pretty self-explanatory, and I carefully document every point I make in them.
Pickup guru Roosh V: End rape by making it legal
Are Roosh V’s “Bang” books how-to guides for rape?
Roosh V has a little trouble with the concept of “no.”
Roosh V: “Women Must Have Their Behavior And Decisions Controlled By Men.”
Roosh the PUA dude: Women are “lubricated holes that exist mostly for a man’s sexual pleasure.”
Why pickup guru Roosh Valizadeh is dangerous to women
Domestic violence laws are a crime against nature, according to pickup artist Roosh V
Roosh V: Gay marriage is part of “a degenerate march to persecute heterosexuals” and destroy society
Roosh V denounced as degenerate “muzzie” by white supremacists he’s trying to woo
Roosh V Is Angry That the BBC Has Portrayed Him as the Monster He Is
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
Roosh V: It’s just a matter of time before one of my fans commits a mass shooting
And these are just some of my posts detailing many terrible things about this terrible man. See even more here.
Now that we know what sort of person Roosh is, we can move on to asking just what exactly he’s trying to do with all these meetups he’s scheduled around the world. I can’t answer that completely, but let me offer several caveats and warnings.
Whether you are planning something to counter a meetup in your area, or simply trying to understandwhat’s going on, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Roosh loves to troll
While it’s abundantly clear that Roosh means most of what he says — including the horrific things he’s said about rape — he is also a bit of a troll, and he’s clearly stoking the fires of the current controversy in order to get more attention for himself ad his noxious ideas. He’s also using the controversy in order to find new “SJW” villains that he and his followers can defame and harass.
Roosh is almost certainly NOT coming to your town
Roosh is planning 165 meetups; there is only one of him.
He originally said, in a FAQ on the upcoming meetups, that he plans to attend the one in Washington DC. But after the Australian media got wind of his planned meetups, Roosh stoked the firestorm by tweeting that he had booked a plane ticket to the land down under. Later, he followed up with tweets suggesting that he might instead travel there by boat in hopes of avoiding the authorities.
https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/694327787889528832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
He was almost certainly trolling. My guess is that he will indeed be going to the DC meetup, but only Roosh knows for sure.
He is not planning “‘rape should be legal’ meetups,” as the Toronto Sun claimed in a headline
The meetups, as Snopes.com has pointed out, seem to be informal get-togethers for his fans, not demonstrations or seminars or pickup bootcamps or anything much beyond a way for his readers to meet in person. Roosh no doubt hopes that the events will help solidify his fan base and make them more committed to him. They are also pretty clearly intended as a publicity stunt, and in this they have succeeded wildly.
The truth about Roosh is damning enough; there is no need to exaggerate or invent.
Roosh wants his critics to overreact and embarrass themselves in public
In a FAQ for the upcoming meetups, Roosh urges his readers to record any “crazy feminists” who show up
with your camera, upload the footage to Dropbox, and then send it to me at [email protected] afterwards so we can tear them up. …
I will exact furious retribution upon anyone who challenges you in public on that date (remember to record them).
Roosh is also planning “retribution” against journalists and presumably anyone else whom he thinks have maligned him
Earlier today, on his forum, Roosh announced the start of what he called “OPERATION BULLHORN,” a “counter-operation” against “lying reporters” who have presented him as “pro rape.”
Where did this worldwide mob get the idea that we are meeting to discuss rape tactics? Through the media. Dozens of reporters have now blatantly lied about all of us being “pro rape” and have a “rape advocacy platform.” They have frothed up a crazy mob that is ready to dox and assault. We must hold journalists fully accountable for their incitement.
For this operation, locate all media articles written in the past week that contained the lie that we support rape and harm against women. Then collect as much as you can of the following information and post it in this thread:
-Name of reporter
-Name of media outlet he/she works for
-Most likely city of residence (don’t publish addresses but save them for possible future use)
-Twitter account URL (if available)
-Their Facebook profile URL (if available)
-Their photo (uploaded to a service like imgur.com)
In the forum thread — now locked to all but forum members, but still up on Google cache — Roosh’s fanboys have started tracking down and posting info on a number of journalists. What Roosh intends to do with this information is not yet clear.
Roosh and his fans will almost certainly try to track down the personal information of any anti-Roosh activists they manage to capture on video as well. Roosh recently announced that he had finally identified the woman who so famously dumped a beer on him during his visit to Montreal last summer. So be careful.
Roosh is making the meetup locations for some of his events private
In a post today on his Return of Kings site, Roosh declared that “the world is moving against us,”and announced that he would be making a number of the planned meetups private.
Since this meetup was never intended as a confrontation with unattractive women and their enablers, I’m moving to save as many of these meetups as I can before Saturday so that men can still meet in private away from a loud, obnoxious, dishonest, and potentially violent mob. …
In the next 24 hours, many meetups will be made private. …
We’re not going to be able to privatize all the meetups that are being threatened with protest, but we’ll save the ones that are in the most critical danger.
For those organizing against Roosh, this may actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of a potentially ugly confrontation with a handful of Roosh fanboys looking to provoke a fight (that they can capture on video), the protests can be reframed not as a protest centering around one guy and his followers but as a public rebuke of the rape culture they embody.
At least that would be my preference. If you have other and possibly better ideas, feel free to post them in the comments below, or share what you’re already planning.
Whatever you’re planning to do (or not do) on Saturday, be prepared.
Be safe! Lock down your social media presence online. Doublecheck your privacy settings, and don’t reveal anything you wouldn’t want Roosh’s fanboys to find. If you’re going to protest in person, go with friends.
Know what you’re talking about! Accusing him of things he’s not actually doing plays into his hands.
Be aware that whatever you do may get recorded and posted on Youtube; avoid tactics that may not play well on camera.
Again, if you think I’m wrong about any or all of this, please share your thoughts in the comments below. Unless you’re a Roosh fanboy; we don’t really need you stinking up the place.
With regard to Australia, our law allows for anybody to be denied on “character grounds” which is loose enough to cover anything.
Even an Australian resident who leaves the country on holiday can be denied re-entry on these grounds.
Hi David,
many thanks as always for a thorough round-up on this pestilential nuisance’s latest publicity stunt. Did this sentence of yours lose a hyperlink where a word like ‘visit’ or ‘trip’ should be located near the end?
MsMockingbird : Some countries have stricter laws than the US about hate speech, and public gatherings that aim to share hateful opinions about a group of people can be banned by the authorities. It’s the case where I live : holding meetings or speeches that are openly antisemitic, racist, sexist or homophobic is forbidden by law. I myself don’t think this is particularly fascist.
@Jimbtho
I LOLed when I saw the Irish one is at the Naas County Courthouse.
(For those who don’t know, that’s a small town about 20km outside Dublin, out in the boonies, where unusual gatherings might be hard to hide)
http://www.thejournal.ie/daryush-valizadeh-meet-up-2581796-Feb2016/
@Bryce – My understanding is that he could be barred from Australia sans criminal record. There’s a general requirement that people entering Australia be if good character, and this requirement has been used to deport PUAs in the past.
Details of the character test are here.
https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa/Char
IANAL, bur it looks to me like several categories apply to Roosh.
This is neither here nor there though because it looks a lot like he was trolling.
Today my boss at work Read about roosh and told me people who want to ban or arrest him are the same sorts who would have joined Hitler in the thirties.
He’s not a “bad” man, he’s just ignorant and seemingly has no desire to read up on things.
Honestly just hearing it frustrated me to no end so I’m venting because I need my job and can’t slap the guy
::eyeroll::
While these meetups haven’t been advertised as pro-rape rallies, given Roosh’s support for rape and his status as a PUA, it’s not a stretch to believe rape tactics will be a topic of conversation at some point. Speculation, yes. But it’s speculation based on the things Roosh has said over the years.
…Does he know that Roosh is a literal white supremacist?
@Dan
That really sucks. It would probably be a deal breaker for me if my boss said that.
Everyone covered the question of whether Roosh could be barred from Australia, but another thing to note is that he hasn’t even applied for a visa. When I visited Australia as a tourist it took a couple of months to get one. That was over a decade ago, so the time frame may have changed, but I doubt you can get one in just a few days.
@Tony!
Roosh knows perfectly well why the media would think that, because if there’s one person who constantly profits from victimhood it’s him.
Objective journalism goes out the window in this article. First, there is name calling without any proof to back it up till you talk about the bbc. I don’t even know the guy at all it sounds like slander.
He does have the beer throwing woman’s info. She herself confirmed it. There has still been talk of trying to get her arrested for assault. Normally that would be laughable, but since she is an activist who has an antagonistic relationship with the police, they might be happy to use it as an excuse to make her life difficult.
@Alan
I don’t know if I’m a Twitter expert, but I’ve used it for years (mostly to keep up with friends or to talk about knitting). As far as I know, getting more Twitter followers or hits doesn’t have much material benefit. You get a bigger audience and plenty of egoboost (if you care about that sort of thing), but not much more than that.
@Lightcastle
Is there anything we can do to help the woman?
All lifeboats are orange. That’s an IMO regulation. Just to clear that up! But talking of boarders they’re very strict. I once couldn’t get into NZ because I didn’t have a visa for Australia. I knew the immigration guy dealing with me by first name before I even got on my first flight. I’m surprised that NZ hadn’t said the same about roosh as Australia.
FWIW, the beer-tossing woman has said that she’s not worried about Roosh having her info, and that she made no effort to keep her identity secret.
Kimberly, if you would like evidence for any of my assertions about Roosh, try clicking on some of the older posts of mine I linked to in the piece, which go into great detail and which are very carefully documented.
For example, if you want proof for my statement that
… just click on the link to my post titled “Roosh V has a little trouble with the concept of “no.””
Ta da! Proof.
He likely doesn’t. He’s probably just overestimating his numbers.
I mean, remember the Star Wars debacle? Or the Boys and Men’s thing that I’m too lazy to find an article for? The manosphere overestimates their numbers all the time.
He’s trolling.
For a start, no one with google is going to think coming into Australia from the North illegally is a good idea – local towns take Australian dollars, and after that, it’s desert for thousands and thousands of miles.
Also, the government attitude to ‘boat people’ makes those thousands of miles of desert look hospitable. Not that I want him to end up in Nauru. The poor refugees there don’t deserve it.
Getting a visa can be pretty easy if you are from a country we have reciprocal ties with – it’s mostly electronic so it’s about 48 hours and automatic. But if anything flags up, it’s just denied until it’s examined, and Roosh has had so much fun trollin’, that his name will almost certainly now be on the list.
He doesn’t have to have committed any crimes, he just needs bad character.
Amazing, accusing his enemies of doxxing and instructing his followers to dox his enemies in the same breath.
And even if he wasn’t, why would anti-rape activists/protestors join up with a guy who was probably an incestuous child rapist? That comparison makes no sense on multiple levels.
http://gif-finder.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/yeahrightsure.gif
Thanks for posting this David, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated by the scaremongering I’ve been seeing in the British press, and the over the top reactions of people who had never heard of Roosh until now. I think some people are being led to expect a night comparable to Cologne last NYE, judging by the angry comments I’ve been seeing on Facebook.
There are three meet ups occurring in my home city, but I’m not inclined to stake out any of them.
Unattractive women have “enablers?” What does that entail? Telling unattractive women that they don’t have to hate themselves and that it’s totally ok to go out in public if you’re not a supermodel?
BTW, if anyone here is involved in roller derby, I think that Saturday seems like a good day for a roller derby get together.
…or boxing team get together.
…or Rhonda Rousey fan club get together.
Etc.
The ‘coming by boat thing’ Is almost certainly bull too. ‘Australia has weak/porous boarders’ is a straight up racist dog whistle.
Not to mention a complete lie. The way our government (both parties) treats illegal immigrants is so vile it’d make Trump pop a toupeed boner.