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.
#GlasgowKiss
Sharon@MissDaisies asks Roosh,
Hahahah – the zoo talk always reminds me of M.O.D.’s “don’t feed the bears”. Yeah they have some particularly repugnant things as the subjects of their songs but this one is funny as hell, short in length, and surprisingly the lyrics aren’t about something that offends most people. But you may want to quit listening after the first song ends. 😛
Øcoleyote
Yeah it’s true that Roosh V would definitely jump all over this if the article was about someone else or one of his enemies. But we all know it’s not an arguement. It’s meaningless because it disputes nothing about him. You don’t win against people with bad ideology by mocking their living conditions or appearance. I think it’s pretty poor the article cos it’s making those kind of ‘look how shitty and weird he looks’ points and David has been methodically desputing Roosh and manosphere for years without nearly as much readers as this article has got. At least not in the mainstream. I wish this whole situation had ended up with not new articles but with more people coming to WHTM and also sharing the stuff. That would certainly be a victory for logic and also show we don’t drop to his level of personal attack. Plus as a geeky looking skinny guy this lumps me in with him! Cos of the way I look we must share an ideology, which makes 0 sense. -_-
@Chiomara
“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.”
Sometimes I fantasize that these guys will come back as lesbians. Let them have a few crushes on straight girls. It’ll do them good. And somehow I don’t think “creepy entitled asshole” will play out as well when they’re not twice the size of their targets. Female creepsters get their assess kicked. Well, at least in my experience.
I’m pretty sure that bmw picture was taken in the parking lot of the leisure world shopping center, not exactly the most happening meet up place.
I hope his mother’s alright.
All the snide comments about mom’s basement, and how shitty and weird he looks are well deserved. Granted, for those who live in mom’s basement and have been accused of looking shitty and weird, they may move to defend Roosh from the those comments, but it isn’t necessary.
For one, Roosh portrayed himself as an ALPHA and alphas, don’t look shitty, don’t look weird and certainly don’t live in mom’s basement working as an Internet Lothario for ad revenue. He sold an false image of himself to take advantage of Internet misogynists.
Being shitty and weird looking while living in Mom’s basement is okay.
Being a MISOGYNISTIC shitty and weird looking person living in Mom’s basement is not okay.
And making money off of misogynistic shitty and weird looking people living in Mom’s basement by pretending to be a globe trotting, wealthy, rapist when in actuality you are just another misogynistic shitty and weird looking person living in Mom’s basement is not okay.
As a geeky guy, all the geeky ladies I meet are invariably in a relationship, and therefore off limits. I think I’m doing it wrong.
I’m torn. Doxxing is not right. Bringing his family into it could be downright dangerous to them. But on the other hand, he’s spewing his hatred all over the internet and in other public forums, plus it’s not like he’s taken the high road and not doxxed or harassed anyone who’s spoken out against him.
He put his views out there and no matter who are you are, when you do that, you open yourself up to your critics. And there’s no guarantee that those who disagree with you are going to play nicely, especially when your views on something are downright disgusting.
Does his mom know what he does for a living and how much he hates women? Because if I had a misogynist for a child and I knew about it, I’d sure not allow him to live with me. My response to that request would be, “Son, I love you and I always will, but I find your views on women to be very disturbing. I’m afraid I cannot allow you to live here as long as you think like that. I’m here for you when you are ready to have a serious discussion about changing.”
I wish this were true. Intuition isn’t magic, though.
I just finished reading Childhood Disrupted which talked about, among other things, how people who grow up in abusive families aren’t able to identify safe and dangerous people reliably. Their intuition doesn’t work. Speaking from personal experience, mine doesn’t–and every time someone tells me that I need to “listen to my feelings” or “trust my intuition,” I want to say that I am–that’s what I’m doing–and my intuition is telling me that this awful person is the man of my dreams. Intuition gets broken when it’s been fed bad information for a long time, and it takes another long time and a lot of hard work to fix it.
Nope. I’m pretty socially sensitive. The only people who have ever been interested in me have known me online first.
The problem is, I’m not just plain. I’m fat and opinionated too. Neither one of those is a killer by itself, but when you pair them together you’re pretty much sunk. I’m not even actually ugly, it’s the “opinionated and fat” parts that really end your prospects.
I have never been asked out. I have never been bought a drink. I have never been catcalled, not that I want to be, although I have STILL been shouted at by strangers from cars (it was more of a “free willy” type comment about how fat I am).
I don’t want a rich fit guy. I want a nerd guy, preferably at least slightly chubby, with a job or career *at all.*
And I really am very angry about it. The thing is, my anger isn’t directed at men, it’s directed at society for teaching people fat people aren’t human or dateable, it’s directed at myself in a huge way for not being able to pretend to be agreeable and passive, it’s even directed at my parents for passing me the fat, opinionated genes instead of the skinny, quiet genes.
It’s not directed at the men because I see men as individual people with individual reasons for not being interested in me, and they have a right not to be. And the ones I like who aren’t are good people, so why would I be mad at them? I value their friendships.
That’s the problem with the manospherians. They’re angry with women because they don’t see us as real people who are individuals. Fat women they don’t see at all, unless it’s to call us whales.
They did. I thought I remembered seeing one on the commercials, so I checked wikipedia. Starting in season 4 apparently they did have such a team.
I’ve come to believe that valuing logic over people’s feelings is also part of the problem with the manosphere, partly because I have actually studied logic.
Logic is a tool, and it can just as easily be used to justify something vile as something positive. Sophistry is a real thing and playing logical games so that you can pretend a vile opinion is good is very common. Eugenics comes to mind, but virtually every murderer and shitbird in the world has had “logical” reasons for what he or she did too.
Also, we do drop to the level of personal attack. This blog is about mocking misogyny, it’s right in the header graphic. It’s not about patiently, kindly, methodically and gently picking apart arguments; we do that too, sometimes, but honestly, it shouldn’t be our duty to be sweet and kind and gentle and nice and help the poor benighted mens figure out exactly where they went wrong without bruising their pwecious fwagile egos.
That’s always been women’s job and it’s an exhausting, fruitless one. And thinking it’s still our job is part of misogyny.
I just think doxxing people is wrong. Roosh V, maybe, but then his life is a matter of public record. His mom’s address ought to be left out of it, and so should some of the names and addresses of the sad, sad dudes who go around looking for the pet shop today. Let’s not descend to their level.
I am more than cool with someone infiltrating one of those meetings and taking pix of the back of the meeting, say, something to preserve identities–so we can look at the no doubt mighty crowds and laugh and laugh and laugh.
Garrett and Kat, when you look up Roosh’s White Pages (for example) info, it shows that he lives with his mom at that address, basement or not. That’s how DM people found him. I’d say that’s evidence.
It is possible that his mom could have left the townhouse to him and moved out, but her name (and phone number) is associated with that address as well.
As others said, there is nothing wrong in and of itself in living with one’s parents. But when one proclaims himself the King of Manly Manliness, spreading the philosophy of it to the knowable universe, it kinda becomes relevant, if for nothing else than PR. It is particularly relevant if that Manly Manliness is based on contempt for women, and it turns out that our King lives with mom. (Yay for meatloaf Fridays!)
The reactions to this “revelation”* are sweetly predictable. Roosh is being mocked world over, and even his acolytes are shocked to discover that their emperor has no clothes. Thank goodness for popcorn.
*This of course is no revelation to anyone who’s somewhat acquainted with the sphere. Spearhead, Tomassi, Minter, Elam, and who knows how many of the “gurus” are or have been fully or substantially supported, financially and otherwise, by women in their lives. Not needing to go out in the world and earn a living allows them to spend hours online playacting Manly Men, full of Real Knowledge (TM) (read: contempt) of women, on whose kindness and mercy their lives depend.
To think of it, some of that contempt may be in part related to the fact that they — grown, physically healthy men — are financially dependent on women. The permanent feeling of emasculation engendered by this humiliating dependence finds its outlet in their overcompensating misogynist “philosophy.” They would certainly not be the first to act this way. But I digress.
@wwth
I’ve noticed similar issues with Cracked were the writers are generally really good at talking about feminism and similar issues but then in their columns they’ll have rather sexist statements. Overall I think our society has an issue of ignoring girls and women who aren’t conventionally attractive and assuming that conventionally attractive girls and women get everything handed to them–just because someone wants to have sex with you isn’t a guarantee that they’ll treat you well. I agree Chiomara, that the issues that MRAs have is their sense of entitlement, not that they’ve been rejected, I’m pretty sure everyone in the world has been rejected at least once.
@History Nerd
I’ve noticed the same thing–people who use “tumblr feminists” and “tumblrina” as insults tend to be the people with tons of privilege and don’t get why people who don’t have their privilege are complaining and people who complain about “political correctness” and how it’s limiting freedom of speech, tend to be the people who feel like they get to dictate what speech is and isn’t acceptable
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you think anyone will trust his super L33T alpha male skills knowing that he lives with his mama? More important question, does his mama know all the terrible shit he does ( or claims to do)?
@jarnsaxa
You’re right about there being no need for women to educate men on misogyny just in the same way that it’s not the job of the black community to teach how not to be racist. But this article is a pile of shit and even though David mocks he at least uses actual evidence and is smart and amusing at the same time. His articles deserve the attention that the daily mail have stolen.
No doubt this is all part of the ‘problem’ that MRAs have. If only women would go back to having no access to birth control or jobs they would be forced to marry us and get back in the kitchen where they belong. And there would be twice as many jobs available for us menz to do, without all that pesky competition from nasty wimminz. And we’d be able to afford to buy our own houses because those pesky wimminz wouldn’t have forced up property prices to beyond the reach of us poor forcibly-single menz.
Andrea,
That’s an important point. Thank you for bringing it up. As someone who has intuition that works well it’s easy for me to forget that there’s just a certain amount of privilege in that and just think that women should trust their guts more.
Jarnsaxa,
Spot on. Women are taught to internalize their anger. Men are taught to externalize theirs. Yet we’re somehow supposed to feel sorry for men who are angry at our whole while simultaneously beating ourselves for our flaws. Nooooope!
Sparkalipoo,
It seems like a lot of men are feminists or agree with feminism on a personal level. Until they have a personal problem. Particularly with dating or sex. Or until a woman challenges them on one of their opinions. When they get emotional or angry, they revert back to the misogyny they were socialized with.
You know….this kind of reminds me….isn’t Paul Elam basically living off his girlfriend too? So, the two biggest, most violent, virulent, dickwad woman haters who teach other men to be the same….are both living off of women.
……
But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. They behave like spoiled brats, which is likely what they are since these women allow them to suckle from their teets forever. If that was my son or boyfriend, you bet his ass would on the street! Hell, the street would be too good for either of them!
@Valentine
Journalism at it’s worst is pretty much what The Daily Mail is famous for. It’s their jam. In defense of the author of DM article, the “ha ha Mom’s basement” aspect comes from the headline which are typically written by the click bait-obsessed editorial staff.
@Garrett
I actually agree with you, if Roosh has been living abroad then it’s understandable that he uses his Mom’s place as his primary US residence. He needs one for IDs, tax purposes, mail etc.
Love this comment.
Oh, you meant the Daily Mail article? Sorry, I thought you meant this post.
For the record, it is shitty to mock someone for being sweaty and for living in a parent’s basement, and doxxing is straight up wrong.
However, none of us doxxed him, so I don’t feel the need to apologize for it. Its results are deplorable.
And if being mocked for being sweaty or living in a parent’s basement is the worst thing that ever happens to a self-admitted rapist, I’m not going to cry for him, either.
As far as I can tell there’s not much evidence he does live in a parent’s basement. If he does, it certainly goes to his credibility and is worth revealing for that reason. No excuse to give his address to people, although if it’s on the white pages I’m not even totally sure it qualifies as doxxing since it’s publically available online already.
I’m too full of schadenfreude to figure out how wrong doxxing Roosh is, but a couple or so have brought up a risk of violence to him. Is this a real risk? Has anyone actively threatened him? As bad as people around here think him, I haven’t seen anyone advocate violence against him.
Dunno if you’ve all seen this yet (or if it’s been left on another thread), but you NEED to follow this tweeter NOW:
https://twitter.com/rooshsmom
Sample: “Any other Moms with precocious boys out there? How do you handle the “stiff sock” problem, can’t work out where the starch is coming from”
@jarnsaxa
Sorry yeah I meant the linked article. I seem to cause confusion wherever I go! XD but I also agree with you no need to pity him ot apologise just I think David deserves he recognition on this one. He did all the work here…