UPDATE: The lawsuit has been dropped! Details at the end of the post.
A brave hero in Austin Texas has taken his fight against the evils of misandry to the courts, filing a suit against a woman who skipped out on a date with him after he criticized what he saw as her excessive texting.
He is asking for S17.31 in damages, the cost of a ticket to a showing of the 3-D version of Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Galactic Boogaloo, or whatever it’s called, I don’t have time for fact checking.
Let’s go to KVUE.com to hear his side of the story:
Brandon Vezmar met the Round Rock woman on Bumble, a dating app. They went on a first date to a movie theater to see “Guardians of the Galaxy.” During the movie, Vezmar claims that she opened her phone between 10 and 20 times to read and send text messages.
This, Vezmar claims, is in “direct violation of the theater’s police” and adversely affected “the viewing experience of Plaintiff and others.”
“I said ‘listen, your texting is driving me a little nuts’ and she said ‘I can’t not text my friend.’ I said ‘maybe you can take it outside to the lobby, I’ve seen people get kicked out movies for this,” Vezmar explained.
The woman took his advice and left the theater, but did not come back.
According to Vezmer, he is less interested in getting his 17 bucks back than he is in the “principle” at stake here, “as Defendant’s behavior is a threat to civilized society.” He thinks her behavior represented some sort of civilization-threatening abdication of “personal responsibility.”
Needless to say, the woman’s version of events is a little different. She told KVUE she deserted her date because he was creeping her the hell out. And he still is.
I did have a very brief date with Brandon, that I chose to end prematurely. His behavior made me extremely uncomfortable, and I felt I needed to remove myself from the situation for my own safety. He has escalated the situation far past what any mentally healthy person would. I feel sorry that I hurt his feelings badly enough that he felt he needed to commit so much time and effort into seeking revenge. I hope one day he can move past this and find peace in his life.
Somehow I don’t think that will ever happen. Especially since this may be Vezmer’s last date for a very long time.
Check out the video on KVUE.com to see the literally neckbearded (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Vezmer explain his crusade in a little more detail. The odds that he’s a Redditor seem extremely high.
UPDATE: Check out this interview, where he explains how he’s fighting for men who are being “exploited” by women on dates. The article makes even more clear what a creepy stalker he is.
UPDATE 2: The lawsuit has been dropped! She basically paid him off so he’d leave her alone. Here’s the AV Club on how this all shook out:
We’re saved everyone: By Inside Edition, of all things. Apparently as sick of this story as the rest of us, IE set up a meeting between Vezmar and his date, so that she could give him the $17.31 back. In return, she asked for him to please god, “just leave this alone.” Vezmar carefully counted out all the money, and agreed to drop his lawsuit. We’d like to say that this will be the last we hear of this, but we would undoubtedly be wrong.
H/T — @RemingtonWild and @ami_angelwings on Twitter
@ guest
Really? Wow, I didn’t even know that was a possibility. She would be perfect though. She’s got that otherworldly intelligence. That feeling that she’s operating on a different plane to the rest of us. Very Tom Baker in that respect.
At the risk of bragging I’m quite good at spotting potential Doctors. When I was a kid there was a show called Vision On (which I only find out 20 years later was aimed at deaf kids). Sylvester McCoy was on it, and I actually thought he was Doctor Who.
I’ve also been hankering for Don Warrington for decades. And that’s not “it’s time for a black guy” diversity box ticking. Even when he was in Rising Damp he again had that Time Lord vibe. And a nice sort of aloofness. Like he’s smiling to himself about the foibles of us ordinary humans. And then Varalys told me he plays Rassilon in the audio tales. So I did allow myself a slight ‘told you so’ moment. 🙂
Of course, the best black Doctor would be Noel Clarke. Just think of the possibilities.
@alan There was a segment on the news quiz after the last Doctor left where she was talking about how much she’d like to be the next Doctor, and said something like ‘hey BBC! Are you listening?’
@ guest
Ooh yes! Didn’t catch that one, although I do enjoy the news quiz (and I’m not even a middle class lesbian). First encountered Sandi when she had a TV show and gave a break to a mate, a ‘punk poetess’ called Joolz. She would be so spot on though.
It’s funny how some people just have that Time Lord thing going. You ever seen Withnail & I? I always imagine that bit where Withnail, Marwood and Monty are at Monty’s house as a multi Doctor adventure with the house as the TARDIS.
ETA: I also think Joanna Lumley could pull it off. I know that’s a bit obvious but I’m thinking back to her Sapphire and Steel days. She was practically Romana in that.
@Alan Robertshaw
I can’t help imagining Don Warrington as ‘M’ nowadays, or even James Bond when he was younger.
On Dr Who I’m enjoying Bill, and the way the character doesn’t seem to have quite grasped that the Doctor and Nardole are not just off – worlders, but actual aliens. (Check out her reaction to Dahh – ren ‘Darren’ in last week’s episode.)
@Alan: about the sea lion –
I’m not on the sea lion’s side because of her companion’s immediate response. She said something not super nice about sea lions, and he replies with what amounts to a wailing “nooooo” because he knows what is about to happen.
The way i read this, she isn’t saying this out of the blue. There are patterns of sea lion behaviour here that everyone knows, and avoids talking about because if they do they have to deal with said behaviour.
It’s kind of like being on twitter, being thought female, and having a negative opinion about MRAs. Or Bernie Bros. Or a video game. Or anything.
Everyone knows how that interaction will probably go. You won’t necessarily get a sea lion (as that is describing a specific type of troll) but you are more than likely to get trolls.
So if this comic were to take place in a vacuum, yeah. She said something not nice. But since these comics discuss social issues that we are having, there is context. And the opinion she has is probably as controversial as “MRAs don’t help men, and are only interested in being horrible to women.”
@ wolverine’s granddad
He is very suave; and does have that slightly callous aloofness. And we know from that episode where he goes to the posh do with Rigsby that he can rock a tuxedo. He’s very much in the Dalton/Craig mould rather than the campy silliness of Moore and, to an extent, Brosnan*. He’d be a great ‘serious’ Bond.
(* Two words: “invisible car”)
@ rhuu
I think that’s probably where I’m coming from. Now we can retrospectively associate him with the phenomenon he came to represent. But within the cartoon itself it doesn’t seem he’s done anything wrong, and it’s not just him the woman doesn’t like, it’s sealions as a class generally. And she never provides an explanation or justification for that, it does just seem to be an innate prejudice.
Three more words about Piers Brosnan:
Surfing Off Glacier
I was actually enjoying that movie as a “silly spy action movie” up until there. Such ridiculous CGI.
@misophistry Comments Policy, please no wishing serious harm to people.
Right, so, troll analysis.
Kimstu first came here and his first comment was, I suppose, relatively reasonable, although it did ignore the fact that the woman had disputed the account the man gave and I don’t think Kimstu really took that into account.
He then proceeded to wank lyrical about some abstract ‘etiquette principle’ that was ill defined but put in such a way as to make it clear that according to Kimstu, it was the only way to do so and was therefore prescribing an option to her. It came across as a little patronising. Also he started to answer people’s differing opinions as ‘irrelevant’ because they didn’t fit with his own ‘etiquette principle.’
He also started to tell one of us that they just simply don’t uuundeeerstaaand! They must have been mixing up the situation.
Kimstu also said the woman would look greedy and whatever, which I think was the strongest tell so far that they were talking bullshit. Even when it was pointed out that one does not lose self respect for doing whatever they needed to to escape the asshole, Kimstu did something which stood out for me- when
cornychips said:
“but if this were me, my fucking self respect isn’t lowered bc I kept myself away from a potentially dangerous dude by not paying him,'”
Kimstu replied:
“in this case, not paying him is not in any way “keeping herself away from” this dude. He knows who she is, he knows how to contact her.”
(Apologies, blockquote doesn’t seem to work on my device)
Kitstu here completely ignored the first part of cornychip’s statement (conveniently the bit that contained the actual challenge to Kitstu) and only dwelt on the second bit by mansplaining what not paying would be about. The fact it is mansplaining of course is particularly shown through the fact that he didn’t know how to contact her, he searched for similar names until he found and harassed her.
The main problem is of course that cornychips was pointing out that Kimstu thinks that the woman lost her ‘self respect,’ something that misogynists often use to put women down and make them feel ashamed for reasonable choices, and Kimstu did not deny that he thought this. He simply tried to escape the responsibility for facing up to the actual point cornychips was making. I didn’t even notice this on my first read through.
Then, he said “avoiding this repayment isn’t a safety issue” which is complete fucking bullshit. Although I didn’t spot this the first time round, the conclusions of Kimstu being misogynistic and immensely priviledge-blind I made from his later comments were actually indicated from the sentence I quoted. The whole point is this was a safety issue because he was a creep and is now stalking her!
He then repeated his bullshit ‘etiquette principle’ that I nor most people here seem to ever have heard of. Loses the privilidge of paying for a date’s side of the date? How is that a privilege anyway? ‘I’m paying double the money I need to, I’m so blessed!’ Nah, nope, um… no.
Cornychips then said “Well if you read the update, the scared and creeped out woman paid the guy”
Kimstu replied “Good for her!” which I thought was an odd reply. Partly because it doesn’t really make sense, and partly because that situation is in no way good for her. She was scared shitless of a real creep so she felt intimidated enough to give in and allow him to bully her via the law in order to give him the money he doesn’t deserve and shouldn’t have been able to reach her to request in the first place. Kimstu thinks this is ‘good for her.’ This was a point where I think many of us stopped being vaguely wary of accommodating him due to his faux politeness as he first arrived because he’d kind of show that he didn’t really care about this woman at all.
“I only wish, for her sake, that she’d done it as soon as he started complaining about it instead of after all this kerfuffle” actually sounds threatening. Kimstu wasn’t entirely clear on whether he wanted it to sound like this, but it was rather telling for me and likely for the rest of you.
Adding ‘not that the kerfuffle is in any way her fault, of course’ seems to be considered some magical set of words to Kimstu. He kept doing this throughout, adding this to try and get people to ignore the fact that he was in fact victim blaming. I think this is much like the Republicans who say PP being shut down is ’empowering.’ They think they can use feminist language to trick everyone into thinking they aren’t really just being utterly unreasonable to women, like that language magically makes any sentiment they make immediately not prejudiced. People with some degree of intelligence know that this is not how words or statements or context work. It annoys me because they are co-optinf our langauhr to trick us because they think we will fall for it. They think they can get away with giving us and the people we want to support any abuse or disdain they simply by using feminist-like language. It is a stealth insult, ultimately, and shows that Kimstu was not here in good faith.
“instead of looking as though she was possibly just scared of a lawsuit.”
Then, Kimstu said that, which is victim blaming. He literally used our terms and immediately contradicted himself. That is a rather trollish move. They at this point aren’t here in good faith but their faux ‘reasonableness’ may scramble some people, and I believe it did to me. This confusion of phrases along with them (almost certainly deliberately) repeating the same point in different, rather convoluted ways is effectively a smoke screen to try and avoid criticism.
I wanted to put Cornychips’s comment here in full because it is so brilliant and conveys a lot that needs to be said:
“@ kimstu
I think it’s interesting that you never address the fact that you find people like her “greedy and undignified”. That’s what is fucking disgusting. You are calling a woman greedy for ignoring a creeper!!! What the fuck!
And don’t think i forgot your shitty excuse for his stalking “he already had her number and info so it’s totes ok to send her messages after she bailed”
“He knows who she is, he knows how to contact her. Avoiding this repayment isn’t a safety issue.”
THAT’S NOT FOR YOU TO DECIDE WHAT IS A SAFETY ISSUE FOR A WOMAN WHO HAD TO LEAVE A DATE TO ESCAPE A CREEPY AND VENGEFUL GUY.
That is fucking gross”
How did Kimstu respond?
Denial. This is another classic troll move. He denied that he had said she was greedy and the like. He denied it completely.
Then he did what a lot of denial trolls do, which is repeat the accusation while trying to fudge it so it sounds more reasonable. He said in the same comment that she ‘seemed’ like that. It is equivalent to ‘people are saying,’ people trying to make themselves sound more reasonable by inventing a hypothetical ‘other’ who they project their own perceptions and therefore accusations onto. Also see British tabloid speak ‘a source close to the show says…’
IgnoreSandra’s reply then was fantastic. Kimstu’s tactic was to keep repeating their same ‘etiquette principle’ again and again as if y’all didn’t really have disagreements, you simply didn’t uuuundeeeerstaaaaand the situation at all, because when Kimstu has a perception that is WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT THE SITUATION WAS, while when we challenge it we therefore simply are just not understanding the REALITY that Kimstu can see about the incident.
Kimstu responded by (ironically I suppose) ignoring IgnoreSandra until she challeged him on a different point, and then he reaffirmed that his perceptions are WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT THE SITUATION WAS’ and that she just doesn’t understand that REALITY. Again he takes what he would hypothetically do and makes it the REAL TRUE REALLY REAL REALITY of what happened, like we are all utter dummies, dweebs and doo-doo dunderheads (Thankyou Plankton!)
(Is dumb okay by the way, or is it ableist? Just want to check in case I should refrain next time.)
Kimstu then stepped up the behaviours that one generally would notice to be in many a troll’s repertoire, by deciding that posting here isn’t a real social situation. Almost like he thinks how he acts online isn’t important.
It would certainly explain his complete ignoring of the methods the creep used to track this woman down.
“I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically rude about disagreeing or arguing with people, is there? A lot of people on this board seem to do it.”
This was him stepping the trolling up even more. What an expertly packed strawman. This is true strawman, mocking of people’s points. Kimstu really wasn’t listening to a word anyone was saying. He was here to force his point down our throats and make us accept that his perceptions were reality and that this woman acted soooo badly you guuuys, and she should have acted differently the greedy, dependent woman.
After another round of ‘repeat exactly what he said the last time, the time before that and the time before that’ as if we are just simple, we move on to the real stuff.
I think IgnoreSandra said this very well:
“They say “I respond to people because they keep talking to me”, but when… people like WWTH and me and a few others (have) conclusively demonstrated that kimstu’s points are… dreadful at worst, they ignore us.”
Kimstu doesnt like to hear any opposition. Classic trolling again: no one is allowed to challenge their way because only they understand the world and what they would do is therefore the only option and everyone else deserves to be ignored and talked to as if they are simple.
As I end this rather too long and probably incredibly boring analysis of how Kimstu resembles a classic troll in many ways, and how they used these tactics to expertly troll for so long (including being beaten at every turn because it wouldn’t be trolling without a pathetic failure to achieve the level of hate they want to receive), and I’m sorry I’ve made this so long and wish I could just telepathically give it to you all instead of taking up thread space with this stuff and… um… ramble over.
Kimstu
1. Went from disguising a shitty point with false politeness
2. Then repeated his points again and again instead of actual responding
3. Then they kicked it up by insulting the woman in the story while disguising it, seeding the ground for stepping up the misogynistic bullshit that we know they just were dying to spew out
4. They then continued treating us all as utterly silly and vague,
5. He then stopped to spout truly victim blaming misogynistic rubbish
6. While then continuing to dismiss us all as sheep by again repeating his patronising sillyness
7. Then he strawmanned, seeding the ground for insults.
This was rather typical trolling, which is my final point. They twisted and turned and tried every tactic in the book to gaslight us about this poor woman’s plight. They then found that they couldn’t break through, and so proceeded to insult everyone and thrash around. This is a typical abuser streak, which is what trolls use to troll. He may have seemed like a rather different breed of troll, but he was actually just another common one. I wanted to evaluate this because it interested me in a purely perverse way how these people and their minds work. They can’t accept that woman don’t have to do whatever they want them to, no matter how unreasonable the demands are, which they then try and resolve by trolling and ignoring everything in favour of portraying a woman in a horrible light.
Women cannot win with these people. They want to use social etiquette as a way to control women. I feel that I need to see it in action in order to be better at spotting problematic and downright abusive behaviour.
Note how he kept victim blaming us by telling us that it was our fault he was commenting rubbish by telling him to leave. Very, very telling.
@Alan
What retrospect? The comic was explicitly written about that phenomenon, which was hardly new when Malki published the Sea Lion comic. It wasn’t called sealioning yet, but it was a known thing, which Malki was mocking with the sea lion comic. The comic doesn’t and never did exist in a vacuum.
@ David
Oops, sorry, I didn’t see your comment there until after I’d posted my analysis. I probably would not have posted if I’d have seen your comment first. I hope it is interesting nevertheless, but yeah.
@ Alan Robertshaw
Thanks! Yes, I really do enjoy Doctor Who!
I really like Bill. I wasn’t quite sure when watching the preview before the series began, but I really like the character. Pearl is an incredible actor, she’s really believable and has emotional depth that isn’t too overt but also not too subtle.
I loved Clara so much that it really knocked me for six when Jenna left, but I think I’ll be okay! I hope Pearl does stay for more than this series. I’m not convinced the rumours of her leaving with Peter are sincere.
@ DW discussion in general
I’ve been loving this series so far. The first episode was okay and I kinda liked the idea of a ‘quieter’ season opener. The other episodes have been amazing! They are really well written, directed and acted. I think the ending of the Frost Fair was a bit of a CyberKing moment- Doctor Who generally doesn’t have massive public alien events in stories set in the past because they’d surely be talked about in the present, but I think they got around it by making it a bit ambiguous as to how well it could be seen by the attendees to the fair.
Oxygen was great. The whole idea of using the Doctor’s being able to breathe in space for longer as a central part of the drama as opposed to its other uses as a more whimsical light moment in other episodes. The cliffhanger though!
The haunted house story was so much in the vain of more paranormal stories in the same vein that I like. Haunted places just interest me so much, and reading about that kind of thing excites me, so seeing those tropes once again in a great Who episode was wonderful.
Extremis looks good, I’m gonna be watching it soon. The Pope! A secret library under the Vatican! Oooh…
@nparker: i enjoyed your recap, except for one thing. I don’t remember kimtsu ever indicating their gender or pronouns. You referred to them as ‘they’ a few times, but used ‘he’ a lot.
I agree that the argument could have been made by someone socialised as male attempting to force strange rules on women.
But it could also be someone socialised as female parroting back rules they have learned, without understanding their privilege which lets them feel as safe as they apparently do.
@Dalillama: Yes! I agree! It is nice to have a name for things that exist, it really helps the shorthand.
@Rhuu:
Just for clarification, I believe I’ve sometimes indicated my female identity in occasional comments on other posts on this blog over the past months/years, but I wouldn’t expect other commenters necessarily to remember that in a casual discussion.
At this point, though, to avoid continued confusion or potential misgendering if you want to go on talking about me, it should be noted that I’m female and use she/her pronouns.
@ Rhuu
You’re right of course.
I did consider that but others here were also using male pronouns to refer to Kimstu. Therefore I thought that meant she had identified in that way somewhere so did the same.
@ Kimstu
Apologies. I shall use the correct pronouns.