So Amanda Marcotte has a nice piece in Salon today on the adoration the world’s most repellant pickup artists feel towards Donald Trump:
Pickup artists like Daryush Valizadeh, who goes by the name “Roosh” … and James C. Weidmann, who goes by the ridiculous name Heartiste, absolutely adore Trump. In him, they see a kindred spirit, a man who believes women exist to be submissive and flattering and provide sex and have no value outside of that.
I shared some thoughts on the subject with her via email:
“Trump is, in many ways, their ideal alpha male, an arrogant, deliberately obnoxious asshole who treats women like shit but has a former model more than twenty years his junior as a wife,” Futrelle told me over email. “It doesn’t hurt that she’s Eastern European; PUAs like Roosh Valizadeh contend that American women are basically spoiled by too much feminism, and see Eastern European women, by contrast, as relatively unspoiled.”
Marcotte takes a look at some of the gushing tributes to Trump that Heartiste and Matt Forney have spilled on the internet, then peeks into the Red Pull subreddit, which, she writes,
is teeming with discussion threads positing that Trump is a role model and that the disrespect and abuse he dishes out to women is behavior to imitate.
“Donald Trump teaches us something very important. Never bow down when put on the spot in front of a women,” one poster’s headline declares. In it, the poster explains that the way Trump treated Megyn Kelly, i.e., being a dick to her, was how men generally should, uh, handle women.
“This is a vital lesson to all men. Never ever let the hottest girl in the room manipulate you and break your frame. Never give in,” the poster writes. (“Your frame” is pickup artist lingo for trying to project an aura of overconfidence and stubbornness, or mostly just about being a bully.) “Even if you make a mistake, NEVER apologize to a girl.”
Kelly is 45, a bit old to be “a girl.” Come to think of it, isn’t she way too old to be the “hottest girl in the room,” at least according to Red Pill dogma, which posits that women all “hit the wall” by age 30, if not earlier, and are shortly afterwards transformed into ancient crones fit only for cohabiting with cats?
And, wait a minute, isn’t Melania Trump 46? Why hasn’t alpha dog Trump traded her in for some 19-year-old Ukrainian hottie?
Could it be that the “the wall” isn’t really a thing. not even to the Red Pillers who talk about it all the time? Could “the wall” be little more than a revenge fantasy of Red Pillers who desperately want to believe that the young women who turn them down will someday face their comeuppance by suddenly contracting a case of the uglies?
Marcotte finds herself wondering something rather similar, suggesting at the end of her piece that perhaps
“pickup artistry” is not really about improving your game with the ladies, so much as it’s about giving men permission to belittle and bully women under the guise of becoming “alpha.”
That such men would love Trump, then, is no surprise. Trump is loud, orange, stupid, and ridiculous, but he is a bully, and to the pickup artist community, that’s what it takes to be a man.
Yep.
@ scildfreja
Totally unrelated but I just saw something on iPlayer and it made me think of you.
It was about an experiment where they put 30 people in a building, then simulated a fire in one of the rooms. They sounded the alarm and all the people left by the door clearly labelled “Emergency Exit”. So far, so good.
They then repeated the set up but this time they had a robot with a sign “Emergency Guide Robot”. 26 of the 30 people ignored the emergency exit and followed the robot, even though it lead them into the room that was clearly on fire.
So real life terminators don’t need to track us down and kill us, they can just lead us off a cliff.
… better to brand others losers, so as to not appear to be one, then they’ll always be people you can look down on even if your circumstances or personal achievements are nothing to write home about.
Part of why I don’t like the pyscho/sociopath comments is because it tends to be used as a way to excuse behavior but still have plausible deniability about apologia. It’s like saying a person can’t help but be bad. It’s usually white men that get this internet diagnosis and I really don’t think that’s a coincidence. White = mentally ill. Brown = terrorist. Black = thug.
The other problem is that othering someone who does bad things, especially if they’re in a privileged position, lets us ignore any cultural component to why someone like that is able to thrive. For example, Daniel Holzclaw didn’t get away with raping multiple women for a long period of time because he’s a clever sociopath like Hannibal Lector. It’s because we live in a society that gives police way too much power and because we live in a society that does not see poor black women – particularly if they’re sex workers – as fully human. Of course he got away with it for a long time. It’s a pleasant surprise that he was ever caught, charged, and convicted unfortunately. With Trump, if the problem is that he’s a psychopath, he probably wouldn’t be about to get a major party’s nomination. He’s about to get it because society is full of resentful white men who can’t connect their precarious economic positions with the increase in income inequality and decrease in unions and labor rights. Instead they blame immigrants, feminism, PC culture etc. That the GOP has encouraged this with the southern society for the past several decades is of course a big part of it too. That’s what’s scary, not whether or not Trump is a psychopath or a lizard person or whatever.
David Icke’s conspiracy mongering, just like all the other secret-society-global-domination wankery, is intimately tied to anti-semitism. I think that’s something we should all be careful about, but particularly anyone with Hitler in their ‘nym. By the way, I’m not Jewish, and I do realize that you took your name from a thread, but it has always made me a little uncomfortable.
That’s a very interesting analysis, WTTH.
I was persuaded several years ago – I can’t remember whose essay it was – that the reason people Other those who do bad things in this way is in order to reassure themselves that they couldn’t do such things.
If you believe that you’re capable of doing evil then you have to check your own behaviour constantly to see whether it’s evil or not. How much easier it is to simply say “evil things are done by evil people, I’m not an evil person, ergo I am unable to do evil”! It relieves you from the burden of checking your own behaviour constantly.
It also means that occasionally you do evil things, of course; and IMHO that’s where the abuser-logic of “I had good intentions” comes from.
@ WWTH
It seems to be the other way round here. It’s a big problem that black people are disproportionately over diagnosed as mentally Ill.
Of course there is some evidence that black people can be over represented in conditions that are exacerbated by things like stress and poverty as that can reflect other factors that are more prevalent for black people. But even excluding that there’s still a very obvious trend.
Just speaking from my own experience doing Mental Health Tribunals there does seem to be a tendency of: “white = ‘eccentric’; black = ‘crazy'”
I think it was in one of the Discworld books where Pratchett noted that rich people can be eccentric and poor people can only be crazy.
Oh, Alan, you know how to bait a trap for me :3 HCI/HMI is a particular joy of mine. One of my backburner projects is developing a socially-aware study-buddy robot for students. Like this guy:
https://player
Though not the same behaviours – something that would use social cues and hints to help the student stay motivated, could help if problems come up, etc.
Mostly because it’s adorable :3 Wish I had time for that sort of a project, but it’s still on my bucket list.
@ scildfreja
It’s funny how humans are so keen to please ‘adorable’ robots. The programme I referred to also featured a robot that wondered up to people and asked them to stop smoking in particular areas. Far more successful than the signs saying you’d be fined.
I’m a sucker for a road sign in Oxford. If you abide by the speed limit it makes a smiley face but if you go too fast it looks sad. I always feel guilty if I upset it.
Well that’s neither true nor helpful. He’s human, and denying his humanity conveniently distances you from his behavior. As mentioned earlier by EJ, that’s just a way to tell yourself you could never be like him. It blocks you from being able to address any problematic behavior of your own.
@Alan & WWTH
There’s definitely a difference between when we assume white men are crazy and when we assume minorities or women are crazy. With white men it’s used to excuse behavior, in a “he can’t help himself” way. It’s also used to reassure all the other white men they’re not capable of that because they’re clearly not crazy. With women and minorities, though, it’s used to dismiss pretty much anything they say, especially to dismiss justified anger against white men. White men can’t have done evil to all those people of color. They’re just crazy and imagining things. Either way it’s used to reassure white men that they’re good people.
Just to clarify, I’m not talking about real psychiatric diagnoses here. Just internet commenter diagnoses. In the US, I don’t know what the rates of white vs black mental health diagnoses are but I do know there’s been research where black and white people report the same symptoms and the black people are more likely to receive a psychotic disorder diagnosis while the white people get a mood disorder diagnosis.
Note: I think we can accurately describe Mr. Trump as a megalomaniac. That is not now, and never has been, a psychiatric diagnosis. It’s simply stating that he wants everyone to worship him because he’s BIG. REAL BIG. He’s Y-U-U-G-E!! He is going to do everything BIGLY! Why, he says so himself… all the time… his hands are so BIG…
@ WWTH
Yeah, we’re familiar with the ‘black people can’t get a break’ theme here but I’d be interested to know how the point you raise plays out in the criminal justice system. There, it’s to your advantage to be diagnosed with a mental illness rather than a personality disorder (hospital as opposed to prison) so I wonder if it’s then the other way round?
Trump is playing the “Life Game” on extra-easy mode with unlimited continues, and yet he’s never been able to get past level 2. Why some people hold him up as a model of gaming wizardry is beyond me.
Reading the above comments, I almost didn’t post this, because I don’t want to look like I’m defending Trump. But, I really do want to know.
I recall prior to the current election cycle, there was talk on the internet that Trump might be on the autism spectrum. It’s something I’m only aware of because I was being worked up for that in medical school (conclusion was that, while I do exhibit asperger-type behaviors, I’m aware of my own social shortcomings, so I don’t quite meet criteria for the diagnosis), and I read a number of sites listing Trump as ‘people who act like they have aspergers and succeed anyway’. Was anyone ever able to confirm that diagnosis? I doubt anyone is going to be talking about it right now (liberals don’t want to appear abelist, and conservatives don’t want to be represented by someone with Asperger’s syndrome, and if Trump does have Asperger’s, he’s probably completely unaware of the fact [and would go into denial if ever challenged on the subject] so no-one benefits from discussing it).
The other thing is, there seems to be significant disconnect between what Trump supporters champion, and what Trump has actually done in his business. Example: before the election, Trump was speaking of putting transgender-friendly bathrooms in his hotels (although I think he’s stopped talking about that since he decided to go for the Republican nomination). I think others may have mentioned that he seems quite willing to hire and promote women, and he seems quite supportive of his Jewish daughter, none of which sound at all like things the average trumpite would approve of.
@ joekster
But why do you want to know? What would it change? Why does it matter to you?
Trump is just pandering to the party that’s easiest to pander to. He doesn’t even really understand the Republican position on issues, so when he’s called on to follow up on any of his empty rhetoric, he ends up saying things that only serve to embarrass Republicans. Like saying that women who get an abortion should be punished. No Republican wants to admit to that – many of them haven’t even really thought their position along far enough or it might not even BE their position if they did. But here comes Trump to remind them of where their rhetoric would take the country if followed on. It’s why he doesn’t have much mainstream support. Another example is when he said we should go after the families of terrorists. Republicans can justify torture, but they aren’t going to be happy when someone brings up the logical conclusion to their arguments.
This isn’t to say that Trump isn’t a piece of shit or doesn’t believe some of the things he says. But he’s gone to great lengths to secure the nomination for the Republican party by doing what so many right-wing commentators have made a career out of: choosing the most extreme position imaginable and acting like anyone who doesn’t agree is crazy and/or stupid and doesn’t love America. He’s lifted his schtick whole cloth from Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and their ilk.
Ok for those who are defending Trump the devil saying “oh one time he helped women before”, “he has autism”, “Lets not say hes not human” something like that just freaking shut up.
Just because he helped some people before doesn’t erase everything he has done and said. He encourages violence and censorship against anyone who isn’t a white man, he made fun of a disabled reporter, he defends rapists only if theyre white men, he wants to have sex with his daughter, he beileves in traditional marriage but married three times and raped one of his wives, etc.
I have autism and I’m so f***ing tired of people continually defend demons like Trump saying they have autism, stop lumping me and others like me with these pr***s. We’re f***ing people not scape goats for white male terrorists/thugs/Hitler worshippers/etc, dog gone it!
Ugh, I need a kitten..And welcome back David.
Anyway totally changing the subject has anyone read these?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glee-actor-mark-salling-pleads-not-guilty-in-child-pornography-case_us_57531baee4b0c3752dcdd546
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/02/stanford-swimmer-sexual-assault-brock-allen-turner-palo-alto
To quote a band I use to respect somewhat, “The killer in me is the killer in you.”
@ Fruitloopsie
What’s wrong with asking people not to claim he isn’t human? I didn’t say that as a defense of him in any way, but denying he is human is just absurd and serves no purpose other than to put him in this hyperbolic realm where *real* humans don’t exist so we don’t have to worry about *real* humans taking him seriously and voting for him.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cjd3HyNUYAQvYzx.jpg
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cjd28m8UYAAYJRy.jpg
Speaking of misogyny in popular culture, is it likely that a good chunk of the hatred directed at Justin Beiber is because of it? The vast majority of his fanbase at the height of his fame was made up of young teenage girls, which, to some people, was evidently an unfogivable sin.
I mean, overall Beiber seems like a decent kid, if on the conservative side of things. To the best of my limited knowledge of the guy, he’s not been a jerk to his family, employees, and fans, he’s not assaulted strangers in public on a regular basis, ect. ect., yet there are a lot of people who act like he’s Satan incarnate and heap tons of abuse on him. And the only real reason I can think of much of for it is that teenage girls majorly like him, and that people think that’s wrong.
Am I on to something here, or miles off base?