This is just getting surreal.
The Daily Mail — yes, that Daily Mail — has tracked Roosh to his mother’s house in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he is currently living. In the basement.
The location of the pet shop has yet to be determined.
So, yeah. The Daily Mail literally staked out Roosh’s mom’s house, and snapped a few pictures of the man himself answering the door, looking a bit flustered, in a pit-stained t-shirt, after he called cops to the house to discuss the threats he’s been getting from people around the world unamused by his allegedly satirical article advocating the legalization of rape on private property.
Meanwhile, in the House of Commons — yes, that House of Commons, the one in London — Members of Parliament have been mocking the size of Roosh’s … following. As reported on Metro.co.uk,
Labour MP Chi Onwurah went a step further than this, suggesting he was ‘so insecure in his own masculinity’ that he felt the need to ‘augment the size of his… following’ – prompting giggles from around the Commons chamber.
Home Office minister Karen Bradley joined in, adding: ‘I join her in her comments about perhaps the reasons why this individual is doing what he is doing, ensuring he is getting publicity, in a way perhaps he needs for other reasons. I’ll say no more.’
Wink wink, nudge nudge. Say no more!
Oh, and Anonymous — yes, that Anonymous — now says it plans to dox Roosh’s supporters. Highlighting the many ironies here, their announcement of what they call Operation Glasgow Kiss borrowed most of its language from Roosh’s plan, announced several days ago, to dox journalists who’ve written about him in ways he doesn’t like.
Anonymous Operation all can participate in. #OpGlasgowKiss#TurnAwayReturnOfKings #ReturnOfKings #RooshV pic.twitter.com/dxIO4PzrYF
— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) February 3, 2016
Also, Roosh’s mom — no, not really Roosh’s mom — now has a Twitter account.
Have I missed anything? I’m pretty sure I have.
What do I make of all this? I’m frankly torn.
I’m certainly heartened to see so many publicly rebuking Roosh’s truly abhorrent ideas. Even if Roosh’s call to end rape by making it legal were absolute, 100% satire, he’s written literally hundreds of other things just as bad, if not worse, a point I made in my International Business Times piece yesterday. (For many more examples, take a stroll through my posts on him in the We Hunted the Mammoth archives, or read through the posts I highlighted here.)
It is also a little hard for me to feel much sympathy for Roosh on the doxxing question, given that he and his followers are simply having done to them what he has already done — or tried to do — to those he considers his enemies, including, well, me.
Does anyone remember the time he launched a campaign to “destroy” (his word) the life and reputation of a female journalist by falsely accusing her of (anti-white) racism?
“How far lost is Western society,” Roosh asked on Twitter, “if fat, ugly Indian [name and gendered slur redacted] has a platform to denounce a productive, intelligent white man?”
In a followup post, he explained that
Unless she’s applying for a position at Jezebel, no respectable company will touch a toxic individual who has been linked to racism. …
It’s a slow-burn attack that will effectively punish these writers and scare their co-workers , whose income is low enough that they need to depend on corporate employment indefinitely … It won’t work on the big liberal writers like Jessica Valenti or Naomi Wolf, since any attention they get just helps them sell more books, but it does work on the young girl out of college trying to win feminist brownie points by denouncing a man for being “creepy” based on a bad joke.
And then he compared it with something he seems to have a certain amount of experience with:
Having your name destroyed on Google is the internet version of getting raped.
That’s right. He was comparing the smear campaign he was launching to rape — in what he saw as a good way.
I discuss some of Roosh’s other harassment campaigns, (as well as a violent and creepy revenge fantasy he posted on his blog) here and here.
So, yeah, Roosh isn’t having anything done to him that he and his followers haven’t done to others, with the exception of having actual MPs make unflattering insinuations about his penis in the House of Commons. Then again, if some MP were to call the target of one of his harassment campaigns a “fat ugly” c-word, I’m sure he’d be cackling with glee.
But at the same time, the public shaming of Roosh makes me deeply uneasy.
The Daily Mail literally staked out his mom’s house in order to get photos of him answering the door. He’s been doxxed; no doubt some of his followers will be as well. And I also have little doubt that Roosh is indeed getting the threats he says he’s getting. The answer to Roosh’s internet bullying isn’t to bully him back.
While some of the ironies of the current situation are admittedly a bit delicious — the man who preens on Instagram holding wads of cash turns out to be literally living in his mom’s basement — let’s not lose sight of the real issues here. There’s nothing inherently shameful about living in mom’s basement, or having a small … following. Indeed, jokes about Roosh’s penis rather trivialize the issues at stake here.
We should be exposing Roosh’s noxious ideas and behavior, not his mom’s address.
The real issues here are, I think, fourfold:
Roosh is teaching an abhorrent, woman-hating philosophy that encourages men to bulldoze past a woman’s no’s in order to, as Roosh puts it, “get their nut.”
Roosh is preaching bigotry — against women, against people of color, against LGBT folk, even against that familiar scapegoat, the Jews. Already a conduit for many of the noxious ideas of the “alt right,” Roosh seems well on his way to becoming a literal Nazi.
Roosh is a bully, using his followers as his own personal army in an attempt to “destroy” individuals he doesn’t like, most of them women. He was a supporter and enabler of the roving internet harassment squad known as GamerGate
Roosh’s own writings strongly suggest that he may be a serial rapist.
It’s that last one that troubles me the most, as it probably does most of you. If it’s true, I hope that the police return to his door, not because of threats he’s been getting online, but to arrest him. Will the current media firestorm over Roosh encourage women to come forward with specific charges against him? We will see.
I’ve just been reminded of something. Any Brit Mammotheers of a certain age remember “Dear John”?
I’m thinking of the episode where Ur-PUA Kurt (albeit much nicer than Roosh) was finally revealed to not live in a swish penthouse apartment but rather at home with his mum. Even the clothing is the same.
I hope his mom is safe. People need to leave her alone. I wonder if his followers can now see that their emperor has no clothes.
Knowing what we now know about his lifestyle, I wouldn’t be surprised if his books are mostly made up, à la “Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life.”
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This. I take the hard line: If actions are unacceptable, they’re unacceptable no matter who the target is. The logic that it’s OK if the target is sufficiently terrible is the exact same logic that, for instance, Dawkins used.
I’d like to think we’re better than him in deed as well as cause. Doxxing isn’t cool. Public ridicule of his ideas is brilliant and great, and making it absolutely clear that they’re incompatible with civilized society and why is a valuable public service, but doxxing (especially his mom) is flat out not cool and the tactic of people who rightly get reviled for it.
I wonder if this is the real reason Roosh called off the meetings. He’s been the centre of controversy before, he loves it. In fact, I would say it is literally why he does these things, he needs the attention to fuel his little ego. But if someone got ahold of his dox, that might actually give him pause.
I’m not condoning doxxing, obviously, even if it is a little hard for me to feel bad for Roosh V. Doxxing is a pandora’s box that many of us wish had never been opened.
It’s so freaking hard to be the bigger person sometimes…
Roosh is holding a press conference (!!) tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. in DC.
https://twitter.com/rooshv?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Unless he announces he’s quitting the internet and getting a real job, who gives a fuck? I fully expect he’ll go all-out professional victim and I guarantee the word ‘satire’ will be mentioned.
I love the fact that big alpha he-man is living with his mom! He’s not in Poland but in Maryland which begs the question: how much more of his schtick is BS? Even before this happened I was puzzled by his on-air persona. He’s so wooden and unsure of himself. He has trouble looking people in the eye. It sure doesn’t fit the confident alpha personality he claims to snag women with. I guess it works as far as his followers are concerned. They must look at him and think, “If he can bag all these girls, I can, too.”
It would be nice to learn that all the women he describes in his Bang! books are simply products of his twisted imagination.
SFHC is right. I’m not against the occasional petty insult– they can be cathartic and tbh they’re just funny. But this sort of response to Roosh is not good, and I can’t think of a helpful way to elaborate so I’ll just repeat that SFHC is right.
He looks even older than he is. It’s actually sad to see guys like this trying to pick up girls in a 20 something bar.
Here’s my opinion: That this kind of backlash is necessary. Roosh has been operating more or less under the radar without any real mainstream attention (although he still received virulent opposition from the people who DID know about him).
People like him and the robots on 4Chan and the hateful, racist/sexist people on Reddit and whatnot only get as far as do they because they are in online communities that most people aren’t familiar with (I have friends who have never even heard of Reddit, let alone POL or TRP), and so they more or less exist without any real opposition, except from a few dedicated people/groups like this blog and SRS. On one Facebook thread discussing Roosh, a lady actually said “I had no idea people like this even existed.”
They NEED to be mocked and publicly panned, because otherwise they will continue to keep doing what they are doing- steadily growing into an online community that starts to spill over into actual, damaging real world consequences.
Making someone’s address public with the intention of getting people to harass them is always wrong. And I hope that this episode helps him to realize that himself (what are the chances?)
For the other stuff, he wanted attention, and he’s got it – I’m impressed with just how high awareness of him is now – I hadn’t known of any of this underground manosphere awfulness before I started visiting this site, but now everyone (including the horrific Daily Mail!!) is reacting with the revulsion to him that he deserves.
Yeah, I’m inclined to agree that dick jokes don’t belong in the House of Commons, even if it was funny to hear Roosh being ridiculed within such an institution. And doxxing his mother’s address is not cool.
But what I’m seeing unfold is Roosh creating a monster, made up his shameless attention seeking through trolling, and now that monster is chasing him around and kicking his arse.
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
Re penis jokes in Parliament, that was my thought too. On the one hand, I do understand the temptation to mock Roosh in a way he will find humiliating (oh boy do I understand it!), but on the other hand it is hugely inappropriate. In the first place it plays into gender stereotyping which I disagree with on principle, but secondly and more importantly, it’s sending entirely the wrong message, specifically to Roosh’s (current or future) followers. I’m thinking in particular of the younger ones, the ones who are really just socially awkward, cripplingly insecure teens, who still have the potential to become decent, happy, non-raping members of society. What message does two adult women, with the power of a political institution visibly all around them, mocking a man for the size of his penis send to them?
100% agree.
Also on the other benefit of their exposure, that of informing the public of their existence. Those familiar with the manosphere know what it is about, but most people have no idea it even exists; and now learning about Roosh, they are justifiably appalled and somewhat clued in about the nature of this hate movement, such as it is.
Reading the comments on MSM sites shows just how shocking this discovery is to most, if not all.
I agree with those above: It is absolutely high time that Roosh has to face some consequences (in terms of public scorn and/or legal action) for the awful things he’s said and done. But doxxing and threats are never cool, no matter who the target is.
I am so, so torn on this it’s ridiculous.
On the one hand, all “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” leads to is everybody being eyeless and toothless. I’m worried about Roosh’s mom, regardless of her personal opinions on this, because Roosh is his own man, and she does not deserve the attention on her because of him. Doxxing is, in my opinion, generally wrong.
On the other hand, I have trouble not feeling like Roosh (not his mother, mind you, but him specifically) deserves this. He is definitely a monster of a human being. He is cruel and cowardly, attacking women (and some men) in the worst possible ways, doxxing them and inciting his unruly mob against them. He is likely a serial rapist (assuming his accounts are true, which I do hope against).
In short, there’s basically nothing redeeming about him, and I actually think he needs to be stopped.
So I’m torn between not liking doxxing and bullying and being against them as an ethical rule, and feeling an overwhelming sense of glorious schadenfreude for what he’s getting and feeling like he deserves it.
Yes sorry, I should have added a bit about doxxing. THAT is never justified. I’m 100% against doxxing, it’s too close to the internet of equivalent of a mob with torches and pitchforks, coming to burn the witch…let alone the violation of privacy/personal safety.
But I’m all for the mockery. From what I know about hate groups, they love it when you get angry and upset, and HATE it when you mock them or make jokes at their expense. It basically deflates them of the power they want over you.
This… I don’t know exactly how to express it. The media backlash against Roosh just feels like that against Martin Shkreli, that safari dentist, or any of the many other villains-of-the-hour we’ve seen lately. It seems like viral-outrage as an entertainment product, rather than anything productive or the beginning of a dialogue.
Oh, man. It HAD to be Silver Spring, didn’t it. I work there. Now I’ll have to wonder if this asshole is around the corner every time I start my day.
Wonder how he felt that one of the police officers who came to his house (to respond to his claim of death threats) was a Black female. I can imagine he hated that given his sexism and racism.
Not particularly feeling sorry for him although I hope no one actually tries to physically assault him. It appears that he is simply reaping what he has sown. Perhaps this experience will lead him to temper his own threats against feminists.
@Alan
That’d makes you sound like Norman Bates.
I feel for roosh’s mom. It must suck to be saddled with a monster like her son.
Beyond that, fuck roosh so hard. Maybe I wouldn’t support his doxxing if authorities actually took the doxxing of others seriously.
So unless police are willing to deal with the doxxers of the likes of Zoe Quinn and a thousand other women online, doxx the shit out of roosh and his following
Here is an interesting piece by a Canadian journalist, Emma Teitel:
More, including her thoughts on the “ethics of Rooshgate:”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/02/05/teitel.html
Juicebro is trying to make this even worse.