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.
If we’re talking about Pygmalion stories, the only one I really like is “Strictly Ballroom.” The female protagonist starts out actually plain, and becomes pretty, but in an ordinary way, not in a “suddenly a movie star” way, and because she starts a new skin care regimen and purchases new makeup, not because a boy suddenly starts liking her. She does discard her glasses (so it’s definitely not perfect), but it’s implied they’re messing up her dancing ability and depth perception somehow.
And by the end the male lead is still much more conventionally attractive than she is.
The movie isn’t problem-free, but for a romcom it’s remarkably free of girl hate, has no romantic rivalry and has two older woman characters who are somewhat sympathetically portrayed (even if one is an antagonist).
Oh, so he LIKES looking out at mud, then? Because that’s normally what one sees from a basement.
(Come to think of it, mud is sort of his natural element, so maybe he really does prefer it. Like a trog…)
The article is dreadful. David has been writing good level headed articles for years on roosh and it’s such a shame this is what the media latches on to. Sweat patches? Basement? Basements are roomy and everyone sweats. Journalism at its worse.
Have you people looked at the actual article of The Daily Mail and the actual pictures? Looking at his face and the overall situation, half of me is almost sorry, while the other half is laughing delightfully like a supervillain.
I absolutely am not in favor of what is being done to him. But since it’s happening… I am going to stay here in the corner shaking my head in disaproval while trying not to laugh too loud.
http://i.imgur.com/mHM3DMk.jpg
Ps: Yeeeyyy, I learned to embed images!
Amen. I have been rejected and humiliated to death in my teenage years, experienced all he did, and yet I felt no hatred. In fact, I just internalized the fact that it’s all my own fault. Probably because I never felt entitled to anyone’s love or attention. The real problem is men are socialized to believe they deserve women – not any woman. BEAUTIFUL women – only because they are thoughtful enough to be “nice” to them. the problem isn’t feminism.
Is the British government always this hilariously unprofessional, or just when potentially banning reactionary shitweasels from entering their country?
@Valentine: I’d be more tempted to agree with you if we weren’t talking about Roosh V. Don’t have a doubt in my mind he’d be the first to mock an adult male for living with his parents.
(not sure how to post pics, so hopefully this works)
have a really appropriate gif but have no idea how to post it in this comment section. can someone please help a poor n00b out?
have a really appropriate gif but have no idea how to post it in this comment section. can someone please help a poor n00b out?
Just drop in the URL by itself.
Totally agree about the teen suffering bit. The ‘woe is me’ guys don’t even perceive average-looking or lower girls as potential girlfriend material. ‘Beauty and the Geek’ springs to mind.
The vid of Roosh in his basement bedroom: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMNBQwvV0I
I just re watched it and noticed that he claims to have had sex with a 48-year-old neighbour!! There is hope for me after all. Oh joy.
He also says he doesn’t drive a car as he is protecting the environment! I wonder if he works for Greenpeace? Maybe he volunteers. That BMW is obviously not his and is just for the pics. Like the cash.
Beauty and the geek would have been an okay show if it they had done at least one season with female geeks and male beauties.
Okay. It still would have been shitty. But at least it wouldn’t have been shitty and offensive.
I’m a fairly average-looking geek woman and no man has ever flirted with me in real life. They don’t see me as girlfriend material–not even the plainer, geeky men. There’s definitely a huge disparity there.
This is the entire background to their “hypergamy” meme.
I tried to muddle through some of these issues & the way humans seem to all be just as bad as each other.
I don’t think many people we consider evil thought they were. They probably saw themselves as the good one.
One of the ideas I was left with was we as humans are all in some way prejudiced. What we seem to fight over is whether someone’s prejudices align with our prejudices. If they don’t heaven help them!
I think at the end of the day if we could look at ourselves objectively without emotion we would unfortunately realise that whatever size of the argument we are on we are pretty much all the same.
Here’s the thing about some socially awkward guys (not all, I’m sure) that I know from firsthand experience.
He might have a humble underdog vibe. And he might really, really like you and want to date you. And maybe you’ll overlook some issues of emotional inadequacy. Or grooming. Or inability to make a living.
And then maybe (remember, I don’t mean all awkward guys) he’ll try to flip the whole thing on you. Once you’re steadily dating or committed or in love or living with him, maybe he’ll turn out to be a power monger, aka an abuser. A batterer. Yeah, he’s an underdog in the world. But that won’t stop him from abusing you, emotionally, physically, sexually, or financially. Maybe all four.
That humble attitude? That was a sham. He just pretended to be humble to pull you into his orbit.
How do you avoid abusers? Respect your intuition. And your intuition might not tell you that he’s an abuser. It might just say, I’m not feeling it. I’m uncomfortable.
You deserve to be with a partner with whom you resonate. It’s something that you can’t see or touch, but you feel it.
Your intuition will help you to weed out perfectly fine guys who just aren’t your type. More important, your intuition will help you to weed out the abusers.
@Jarnsaxa
Is it possible that you just haven’t noticed guys flirting with you?
It could be just one word or just one look, but it counts.
I
Almost same. I mean, I do get sexual attention, especially if I am in a bar and visibly drunk, and I did get cat called, but I don’t call that exactly flirting. I have never been asked on a date in real life.( I have a boyfriend, but I met him online. A boy was interested in me when I was 15, but he was so creepy that the “flirting” consisted of him keeping constant eye contact with me for over a month. He incidentally grew to become a raging misogynist who complains about being an incel- wonder why – Other than that, nothing) My first (consensual) kiss was at 19 and only had one consensual male partner in my life.
Maybe we should write articles about how we deserve a rain of rich fit guys just because we THINK we are decent human beings. Society better give me a Jared Leto or I’ll get “rightfully” violent.
Obs: the last paragraph is sarcasm. Or better, it’s “satire”.
Hee. See, why do we need tabloid stakeouts when he posts his sad life for everyone to see? (I’ve lived in my share of miserable garrets, but I didn’t make videos of myself swaggering around like it was the Taj Mahal and making up macho stories about how it got that way.)
@chiomara
Same here, though I’m in my 40’s now. I have literally never been asked out–my last bf I met through martial arts and we got together after wrestling each other for a quite a while.
And I mean actually wrestling, no flirting.
Not a fan of Roosh but I’m pretty sure there is zero evidence that he lives with his mom. None presented in that article other than he was at his mom’s address.
I think at this point we can all agree that Roosh’s very existence is an insult to the name “Darius”. It’s still unbelievably hilarious to see someone like him so thoroughly humiliated. So few people who deserve it get it…
@Garrett
I agree.
The Daily Mail alleges that he lives with his mother. In the basement. How do they know? And how do they know what room he’s in?
The Daily Mail also points out his armpit sweat. It’s almost undetectable, plus maybe he was doing something strenuous. Big deal.
Also, how do they know why the police were called?
Maybe the Daily Mail has some amazing microphones that pick up conversations from a distance. Maybe everything that they say in the article was what they heard Roosh tell the police. But the source was not identified.
The Daily Mail is a right-wing sensationalist rag that tries to annoy people or make them angry.
One cute habit they have is to take photos of an aging celebrity and say how good that person looks when, in fact, that person has obviously aged or, alternatively, gotten a bad facelift. Then they sit back and watch the negative comments pour in: some commenters will say that the celeb looks awful and others will say, Why are you picking on my favorite actor? We all get old!!!
@thinker
Nope. Roosh goes out of his way to hurt, demean, and exploit women–and make a profit from it!
He tells men not to have a moment of morality when they are trying to get sex from a woman.
I suggest that you go to his website and take a good look around. If you still think that we humans are all pretty much the same, you’ve been hanging out with some awful, awful, awful people.