Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos is less a journalist than a professional attention-seeker, building up his notoriety (and his Twitter followers) though an endless series of calculated outrages designed to delight his fanbase of garbage people while offending pretty much everyone else in the world. But even he seems to have gotten bored with this increasingly stale schtick.
His latest attempt at outrage — a Breitbart post titled “Why Women Should Leave The Internet” — is so predictable and pro-forma I wonder if he simply farmed the whole thing out to his alleged army of interns. Or cut and pasted it from some 4chan thread. It’s Internet Outrage by the numbers.
Milo and/or his minions start out with an old chestnut, sniping at women for allegedly “invading” the allegedly male spaces on the Internet.
Time for some honesty. Women are — and you won’t hear this anywhere else — screwing up the internet for men by invading every space we have online and ruining it with attention-seeking and a needy, demanding, touchy-feely form of modern feminism that quickly comes into conflict with men’s natural tendency to be boisterous, confrontational and delightfully autistic.
“You won’t hear this anywhere else?” Actually, you’ll hear it everywhere else.
Here’s my suggestion to fix the gender wars online: Women should just log off.
Aw, but Milo, then who would your fans have left to harass?
Given that men built the internet, along with the rest of modern civilisation, I think it’s only fair that they get to keep it.
We Hunted the Mammoth to Feed … Ourselves?
And given what a miserable time women are having on the web, surely they would welcome an abrupt exit. They could go back to bridge tournaments, or wellness workshops, or swapping apple crumble recipes, or whatever it is women do in their spare time.
I guess we have to give him a point for not mentioning cats in his hackneyed list of Dumb Lady Things That Dumb Ladies Like Because They’re Dumb.
I, Donald Trump and the rest of the alpha males will continue to dominate the internet without feminist whining. It will be fun! Like a big fraternity, with jokes and memes and no more worrying about whether an off-colour but harmless remark will suddenly torpedo your career.
And this would be different from the currently existing internet how?
Milo and other right-wingers love to go on about how “political correctness” is killing free speech, even as they make careers out of spouting “politically incorrect” blather designed to appeal to the Internet’s worst people. Meanwhile, harassers of women worry so little about having their careers “torpedoed” by saying something offensive online that they often post literal death threats under their own names.
Milo goes on to suggest that women should get their own separate-and-unequal internet, adding that “[w]e could probably throw in all of the low-T male feminists too, since they haven’t got any balls anyway.”
Evidently in Miloland this counts as some kind of EPIC BURN.
Apparently afraid he hasn’t offended enough people, Milo tosses in this random swipe at trans folks:
Transgender people won’t be able to use the internet at all because they won’t know which ethernet cable to plug in, but they’re generally too busy hacking away at their forearms to remember to check Gmail.
Oh, Milo, this is just plain embarrassing.
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT.
H/T — Thanks to @JoeKlemmer for the tip.
Kit Fowley –
Nah, Iago was at least intelligent. They’re more like Proteus from two gents: jealous, deceitful, disloyal, misogynistic and completely insipid.
@WWTH
Well, Lady MacBeth did die offscreen. We got swerved. Katie’s immortal! She walks thru time, living many lives and taking the roles which suit her nefarious will, discarding misandrist aliases as necessary. Mwahahaha!
Also, officially my new headcanon, Lady Macbeth’s name is Caitriona (Gaelic Katherine) ?
ETA: this fuckin guy… Yeah, that’s pretty funny 🙂
@testicular manslaughter
Yeah, “Hey! Autistic people! Join our group! We conflate being autistic with harassing women off of the internet!” doesn’t make sense to me as a recruitment pitch.
Also, my sympathies to you on the cruelty and lack of understanding. Society doesn’t accept neuroatypicality in women in the same way it does for men.
I was happy to see the TV show Elementary introduce a neuroatypical woman as Sherlock Holmes’s love interest at the end of this last season. I wouldn’t say they’ve handled her character perfectly, but at the same time, it’s generally a smartly written and researched show, so I’m optimistic.
Iago may have been intelligent, but he was certainly a misanthrope. And would have fit in well with some of these folks.
This is the man who went to get Desdemona’s father riled up against Othello by saying ‘An old black ram is tupping your white ewe’, after all.
@wwth
I was amused. And disturbed.
I just heard from my mom today that one of her former co-workers replied to a post she made on Facebook about Ken Burns’ recent focus on racism in America by using the term “racial Holocaust” to refer to what is “happening” to white people in the U.S.
This is someone who works in the public school system, and while conservative, would not strike me as a “white genocide” type.
But yeah, racists are some of the most determined people in the world. That was a weird discussion. Why on earth would you have had a problem with the show if the creator were white? Just, what?
I kind of agree with what others are saying in terms of “ignore Milo”, but at the same time, he’s looking for a specific brand of attention: Outrage.
So, I say instead we just point and laugh. He can think he’s getting attention, but he’s only a prat with an over-inflated ego, and we’re just making a mockery of him.
I also like “wench”, it does have that nice old-timey ring to it. Though, getting called a “whore” by that caliber of person really is nothing short of hilarious, considering I don’t give a fuck what a Milo fanboi thinks of my sex life.
And considering they’ll never experience it, their opinions are meaningless.
In marginally better news for women, it looks like Germany might be about to drag its rape law into the 21st century.
Currently the law over there states that it’s only rape if you put up a fight. Merely expressing you don’t consent isn’t enough.
Now though there are proposals to allow verbal expressions of lack of consent. So ‘No’ may* finally mean ‘No’.
Still won’t be rape if you’re not conscious though; or can’t indicate lack of consent.
Charming eh? I’m only getting this from the legal journals though; any German Mammotheers able to fill me in on how things happen in practice there?
(* I use ‘may’ deliberately, it’s not that simple even under the new proposal)
@Alan
Consider this basic faith in humanity (naivety), but, if that isn’t considered rape, it’s still criminal… right?
Also, are Merkel and CDU the ‘good guys’ here, or what?
Also, how is ‘this is rape, don’t do it’ not already universally applied, legally binding, EU law?
@ dangerousaxe
At the risk of reviving all the Brexit stuff (that referendum seems a 1000 years ago now) there isn’t a universal EU criminal law.
Criminal law falls under what is called ‘the margin of appreciation’. That means that each state can have its own laws based on its own legal system, mores and traditions.
(One of the complications over the European Arrest Warrant was how to apply the concept of ‘dual criminality’ that normally applies in extradition. That’s the requirement that the act would be an offence in both the extraditing and rendering country)
ETA: your first two questions are beyond my competence 🙂
Attention-seeking? Needy? Demanding? Touchy-feely?
Milo, are you sure you’re not referring to yourself and your repulsive little sycophants in GamerGate and the rest of the Manosphere? ‘Cause you guys are all that and totally lack any self-awareness.
@EJ:
Mea culpa! For all we know, it could be one of these sentient hairpieces:
@Alan
Yeah, let’s not, but…
Then what’s even the fucking point!? Bare minimum shit! Not that hard! Argh! You’re letting me down, Europe!
I figured. Worth a shot 🙂
Speaking of international cooperation, Obama, Trudeau, and Peña Nieto had a summit in Canada recently. It was pretty cool. Best part, watching Obama try not to go nuclear on Trump. More stuttering and pauses than usual
COOL STORY, BROZO. I’m sure your generous contribution to her alleged whoredom was sadly missed!
(Shyeah. Promptly filing this under Things That Really Happened™!)
And back in MY day (i.e. much more recently, onaccounta I’m not an Old Fool), we called this sort of shit slut-shaming, and those who advocated it, anti-choicers. Because, of course, they didn’t (and still don’t) give a damn about the poor widdle unborn baby, only with teaching the mother a “moral” lesson. Even if she was raped. Because only shameless jezebels get raped, as everyone “knows”. Never “good” girls who don’t even know what the word sex means, because their purity-obsessed parents thought that teaching them about it = teaching them to DO it.
I look forward to the day that men who think like this are laughed out of town and forced to live in uncharitably-run Homes for Idiot Men for nine months or until they repent, whichever comes first.
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-if-men-could-get-pregnant-abortion-would-be-a-sacrament-florynce-kennedy-15-60-90.jpg
That’s right. Because I’m autistic, I have no clue how to be a decent human being. Quit making ableist comments and go educate yourself on autism. I get so tired of people thinking we’re some kind of subhuman creatures who act like animals.
“Given that men built the internet, along with the rest of modern civilisation, I think it’s only fair that they get to keep it.”
If Grace Hopper were still alive, she’d have you keelhauled.
Sometimes, it feels like the entirety of western conservatism in the 2010s has devolved into little more than a bunch of 13 to 20-something men being obnoxious, narcissistic and abusive on the internet because they think it’s funny…
Milo and his goons call us misognistic slurs, invade and steal our spaces, take credit for everything women have made and discovered, threaten and harass us, excuse themselves and each other for their actions and they call us ’emotional’ then they turn around and get mangry when we call them misogynists. So who’s the emotional ones again? So no pr**ks You move.
Now who wants a kitty?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-01X7quzDcag/T5ce7z3Os_I/AAAAAAAAAoA/rVnMGrXWTVQ/s1600/cute%2Bcat%2Bhugging%2Bkittens%2Bkitty%2Btoy%2Blove%2Bfriends%2Bpet%2Badorable%2Bkawaii%2Binstagram%2Breddit%2Blolcat%2Baww.jpg
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/b/bf/Audience-clapping.gif
As an autistic woman thank you. You took the words right out of my mouth.
abars01
Not just 2010’s but even further and not just 13-20 year olds, anyone can be bigoted at any age.
The autistic people I know think these MRA assholes are full of shit. So… yeah, no. (They’re also some of my favorite people… the autistic people, not the MRAs.)
And I know she’s been mentioned already, but Ada Lovelace!
Little Milo feels he hasn’t had enough attention lately. Yawn.
@Becky Hopkins
I love it. I think I’ll be using that a lot from now on, thankyou. XD
@runsinbackground
Yeah, I meant Ada Lovelace. ^^; Hell, though, that just proves that my point, doesn’t it?
@troll stuff
Schrödinger’s Asshole strikes again!
@autism stuff
http://i.imgur.com/KsPuM8U.png
(Both me and my brother are autistic, so, thankyou from me as well.)
@Lichen Craig
Oooh, irony! A literary device, you say?
Well, I will look it up.
(Consults Webster’s.)
“the use of words that mean the opposite of what you really think especially in order to be funny”
Hmmm.
This shit sounds like the same shit that Milo wrote the day before and the day before that.
Choose one:
1. Milo never means a word he says.
OR
2. Milo has had a sudden change of heart.
Either way, I’m completely down with it. But the man is in desperate need of better writing skills because no one understands that he’s kidding!
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I’m some kind of liberal feminazi who limits you to two options. So feel free to choose a third option:
3. Write an essay about Milo’s use of irony. When did he begin to use irony? How can you tell? If he doesn’t want women to get off the Internet, what does he want women to do? Use examples to illustrate your points.
Our internet will have cat videos, witty banter, and Dramatic Chipmunk. The Manternet can have goatse, captchas, phishing pages, pop-up ads, autoplay videos, clickbait, spam, and “Drill Time” by Slim Jesus. Seems like a pretty equitable division that caters to everyone’s interests.
Oh, and they can have all the trolls. We’re generous that way.
The Manternet will also not have this:
(if you go to http://www.pstewsings.com/ you can order a sample CD with the proceeds going to charity)
If I had the ability, I’d be tempted to make some kind of twitter bot respond to everything Yiannopoulous tweeted with something along the lines of “Lol, these impostors are taking the cake with the ridiculous stuff they’re spewing. Luckily there’s no check mark or I might think that Milo BELIEVED this shit! That’d be a laugh!”
So. Tell me how the online press will function without it’s female writers? Wouldn’t it suck if a large portion, if not half of a website’s user base just logged off and never returned because teh menz told them to?
Who the fuck uses an Ethernet cable? This trans person doesn’t. Wifi, dude. Even if I did, I can still function despite my self harm issues. My self harm issues that exist because of abuse and rejection rather than being trans. Just because I have gender dysphoria doesn’t mean I literally haye my body enough to harm it.
Quit trying to take language from the autistic people you obviously hate. Just. Fuck off, I’m done.