Never let it be said that Men’s Rights activists can’t accomplish great things. Oh, sure, in what the old fogies call “the real world” their victories are pretty much nonexistent; they can’t even manage to organize conferences for themselves two years in a row.
But online, their brilliant strategy of “running around being dicks to everyone” has been an amazing success, causing numerous websites to shut down their comments because they were so sick of all the MRAs gumming them up with endless blather and abuse.
And now it appears the Men’s Rights movement can claim another victory: They have knocked the IMDb rating of the show Sex and the City down more than a point!
Take that, show that ended its run twelve years ago, but that MRAs and other manosphere dudes can’t stop talking about for some reason!
A statistical analysis by Walt Hickey of the data-driven site FiveThirtyEight suggests that men are swarming the IMDb profiles of shows aimed at women in order to give them low ratings.
One of the shows most obviously affected by this new form of cyber-activism is Sex and the City, a show despised more less equally by MRAs, MGTOWs, Roosh, and right-wing mass murderer Anders Breivik.
As Hickey points out, women collectively rated this show at 8.1 out of ten. But so many men gave the show bad ratings that they were able to drag the final score down to 7, which, as Hickey notes, is a below-average rating for the site.
And we’re not talking about a handful of statistical outliers taking down the score. More tha 78,000 people have rated the show. So there are thousands if not tens of thousands of guys out there taking out their anger at women by downvoting one of the most influential recent TV shows aimed at women — often, I would guess, without ever having watched an episode.
It’s a man’s world on IMDb, where, Hickey notes,
[s]eventy percent of IMDb TV show raters are men, according to my analysis, and that results in shows with predominantly female audiences getting screwed.
Why is that? It’s not just that men outnumber women on IMDb; they are also far more likely to give shows not aimed primarily at their own gender terrible ratings. As this chart shows pretty clearly, the more a show appeals to women rather than men, the more likely it is that a man will rate it a rating-killing one star.
“The overall effect of this imbalance is profound,” Hickey notes.
Among shows with 10,000 ratings or more, the average rating of the top-100 male-skewing shows was 8.2, while the average rating of the top-100 female shows was 7.4.
Is it possible that shows aimed at women are just objectively worse? Hickey thinks not. “Everybody watches crap,” he points out. “Men, women, everybody.”
Women may watch more than their share of terrible reality shows like “Say Yes to the Dress,” he notes. But they didn’t make up much of the audience for Beyblade, which, Hickey notes sardonically, is a show based around spinning tops. Spinning tops that fight each other.
Nope. The real reason for the difference is that men are far more likely to poop on the ratings of shows aimed mostly at women than women are to poop on shows aimed mostly at men.
Women rated only two shows appreciably lower than their male raters did. Men, by contrast … well, just take a look at this chart that Hickey put together:
Are the men who make up the Angry Man Downvote Brigade all card-carrying MRAs? For the most part, probably not. And I haven’t run across any evidence of organized IMDb downvoting anywhere in the manosphere (though I haven’t looked all that hard).
But if you’re a dude who literally devotes his evenings to giving crappy ratings to TV shows that women tend to like — just to show those ladies what’s what! — I think that makes you pretty much a de facto MRA. The MRAs should send you a little thank you note, at the very least.
Dad, what did you do in the culture wars?
Son, I gave The Mindy Project a one star rating on IMDb.
EDIT: Hickey made that last chart into a handy gif:
Men Are Sabotaging The Online Reviews Of TV Shows Aimed At Women https://t.co/cc6DsQf7hi
My point, in one gif: pic.twitter.com/GWKFr9Cv36
— Walter Hickey (@WaltHickey) May 19, 2016
Thanks, Katz, for the link!
EDIT 2: My favorite misogynist response to Hickey’s post:
https://twitter.com/Coondawg68/status/733298158202032128
@Mooscow
Beyblade actually came out around the same time as Yu-Gi-Oh, at least the first series. I remember my cousin and I enjoying both Yu-Gi-Oh battles and playing with Beyblades.
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
IMO, it’s that — and the fact that she’s spunky, resilient, assertive, and beautiful. Can’t have that!
The Nanny is absolute genius, Clone Wars is damn solid, Beyblade is YuGiOh without the staying power, Scandal is an utter abomination, and BBT is hilarious
You’ll never see me make a scene about people thinking differently about any of that tho. 1.2 points difference, fellas? A 14-15% drop, guys? Really?
I’m going to cast a vote in favor of Sex and the City. With reservations.
On the negative side, all four characters worship at the altar of Capitalism. And they are pretty obsessive about men — in that sense, they have something in common with the MRM.
On the positive side, they were, uh, extremely frank about their issues with men, which I found hilarious, dispiriting, and reassuring — often all at the same time.
Also on the positive side, Sarah Jessica Parker, who played the lead role of Carrie Bradshaw, is one of the most charming people in all the universes, known and unknown. I could watch SJP all day long. The fact that she’s not conventionally beautiful just adds to her charm.
Continuing on the positive side, I’m in love with (at least the concept of) New York City, and that show is a Valentine to that sophisticated multicultural place, home to Broadway, off-Broadway, Lincoln Center, Greenwich Village, the publishing industry, etc.
And finally, the show is a poke in the eye to jerky men. It was always so clear to me that men who hate&fear women would hate&fear the show.
Before I ever watched the show, I read at least one interview with SJP in which she mentioned that she would never do a nude scene on SATC — not her thing, not something that her husband would like. It was actually written into her contract. When I finally started watching the show, I thought that her contract stipulation was overkill. There was no nudity in SATC! And then I saw the show on cable TV and realized — Oops! I’m watching the show in syndication and they’ve cut out the really racy parts!
On topic, Sorta-kinda surprised to see Empire on that (I wonder if racism has anything to do with that). Great show btw (aside from shit like Jersey Shore, this whole list is like a ‘recommended movies’ list)
@Handsome Jack
Oh wow, didn’t realize it was just as old. Although I remember seeing a beyblade tournament on TV! Sadly no dragons were summoned 🙁
I stop by here a couple of times a week, but this is my first time commenting. I actually pay attention to imdb ratings, though not as to these kinds of shows because, actually, I don’t really watch these shows. Not that there’s anything wrong with these shows, I just watch more British mystery stuff and British comedy. (I know, who cares?)
But I am in sympathy with this site, and I also like to support anything out of Chicago that’s good, so, two birds.
I guess I just wonder on what planet people (men, in this case) have the time to waste going around torpedoing shows for shallow, sexually political reasons? You have to be extremely insecure and petty to waste time screwing up other people’s pleasure for such a ridiculous reason.
It really was so much simpler before the Internet.
Keep up the excellent work.
I’m just going to leave this here, and also drop some commentary on it by Fashionista (For those who don’t want to or can’t watch it):
http://i.imgur.com/MzTkpvB.png
(JK JK I’ve just really wanted to use this. Well, kinda kidding. [Nah I am haha.])
@Moocow
Oh, yeah, it’s actually pretty old, aired between 2001-2005. It has a 6/10 score while, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, and Digimon have a 7/10.
Also:
Jackie Chan Adventures, Codename: Kids Next Door, Xiaolin Showdown, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Chowder, Powerpuff Girls and Ben Ten also have a 7/10.
IDK, I’m beginning to think these ranking systems are just arbitrary at best for some reason. Probably shouldn’t let rankings on a website where only people really care about a show, whether expressing how good or how bad it is, define what it is.
http://i.imgur.com/BgxJhRW.jpg
@Brony
http://i.imgur.com/k54yiQv.png
Arbitrary system is arbitrary.
Average internet scores are completely meaningless, that the average score is 8/10 is proof of that. People have different standards, different preferences and the show/movies biggest fans and biggest haters are disproportionately represented.
I’ve got a giant pet peeve with the tomatoemeter for the same reason. A movie can get a high score from every critic saying “meh, it was okay I guess” and a middling score from half the critics saying “That was amazing, best movie of the year!”
There’s also a fan theory that the friends on SATC were just different aspects of Carrie’s personality…
Anyway, are we all forgetting that it was quasi-revolutionary at the time to show women over thirty as beautiful, sexual, protagonists?
@HJ
There was so much clever shit in there and EVERY kids show is formulaic on some level. It’s like they don’t get that the target audience has to approach things on a different level that will seem different when you are older. Personalities are simplified and some are supposed to be annoying. But most of what they find annoying in there is not even connected to anything reasonable. And that next to last one really has no idea how many boxes HIM broke.
Some people just seem to have the depth and perceptiveness of ostrich with a crossword puzzle.
@PI
that commercial can fuck off… but that was a pretty awesome mantage
@HJ
Wow, whoever wrote these reviews on PPG must be really awesome to hang out with.
It’s not like they’re offensive buzzkills or anything like that….
That, and the dreadful, dreadful hypergamy. Not only was Fran a Jew, she’s a working class woman who marries far above her socioeconomic status.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mebjuatsxq1r3ifxzo1_500.gif
Tee hee.
But, yeah, the one that got me the most was “Had it been aimed at boys and had blood, I may have liked it”. Dude goes off on his violence fetish, bemoaning how “the most violent Cartoon on Cartoon Network is aimed at girls”. Like…okay…calm down, dude. This is a kid’s show, it’s not meant for…that…not that the internet cares.
I think four of those reviews use the r-word so you aren’t wrong. Hopefully those 9 years since, they’ve learned a bit, grew a bit, and aren’t voting for Drumpf.
@SFHC
‘That one’s a lot easier to figure out: They’re paedophiles. Seriously. 4Chan in particular’s hated Full House ever since the Olsen twins grew up and “Got old.” ‘
I never take anything serious from 4chan; there’s too many LULZ. 😉 Besides, the twins were like 8 when full house ended, which is still well within paedophile territory.
If 4chan trolls are the sole reason for these trends, then David’s entire post is wrong. Because these trends are only interesting *if* they can’t be explained away with “trolls are trolls”. 🙂
I’ve noticed MRA types are also fixated on comment votes. On a Finnish forum I used to visit this angry MRA was always really angry his misogynistic posts were downvoted and opposing views were upvoted. He’d always say “Yeah I bet sisters are going to upvote this stupid comment of yours too!”
Like, it’s not the gender elections.
@WWTH
Different strokes and all that, but this is a big strike against it in my book. The “New York City is the center of the universe” attitude is way too pervasive already.
@HJ
Oh I bristled when they started dropping the R word. As someone on the spectrum, I just simply won’t abide by that nonsense anymore. I used to keep quiet about it for fear of being scolded for being too “thin skinned” but recently, I’ve started to let those close to me know that it bothers me.
Also, wow, not the only who thought it was weird that the dude wishes there was more blood. For a kid’s show, it’s pretty damn violent as it is.
Admittedly, when I was a kid, I went through a phase where I said the r-word. A friend of mine had a brother who had down syndrome and ask me to stop. I did. I slipped up a few times for a few weeks afterwards but haven’t said the word sense. I will never understand how a 12 year old who hated being told what to do could grasp that concept while teenagers and adults can’t.
Just…don’t be an ass. Simple. Easy. But people sure like to push people’s buttons for no reason. IDK. Maybe it’s because I respected my friend and her brother, maybe I just want to make sure I don’t hurt people on accident, especially people I care about. I don’t understand how people can have it explained to them that some words hurt yet they keep using them.
Mortals.
I think Daria might be the first thing I really got into that probably wasn’t “for me” as a straight dude. I always thought Bevis and Butthead was kind of stupid, but I loved the hell out of Daria.
@SFHC
Are you saying they retroactively hate Full House (in which they are quite young) because they NOW are “too old”?
i mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect logic out of either 4chan, or MRAs… some of these people are the people who claim the new Ghostbusters is “ruining their childhood” when, obviously, the original movies still exist and are exactly the same. But still, that’s a new level of nonsense.
@Handsome Jack, @katz
It’s okay. More for me.
Also, Handsome Jack, I miss Pandapool because I always liked “the species that endangers YOU.”