By David Futrelle
A little over a year ago, with traffic at the preeminent Men’s Rights website A Voice for Men plunging as its old-school MRA “activism” was eclipsed by a younger and in many ways nastier breed of antifeminism, AVFM head boy Paul Elam made a dramatic announcement (which I wrote about here): AVFM had won the cultural war, so he was retiring from Men’s Rights activism altogether to take up a new life as a $90 an hour Skype life coach for bitter men.
Now, with the site’s traffic even more anemic, Elam is once again declaring victory, hailing AVFM’s alleged “profound success” in a post yesterday — and announcing that he’s coming back to take over the site he started in 2009. If at first you don’t succeed, simply declare that you have succeeded and quit. Then return a year later when things are even worse to insist again that you’re still the champ you never were.
Here’s a video from Elam explaining the new direction:
Oh, wait, that’s the scene in This is Spinal Tap in which the band, having lost one of its key members, attempts to rebrand itself as a jazz fusion jam band, declaring to a sparse festival crowd that they “are witnesses at the new birth of Spinal Tap Mark II.”
But it seems like that’s pretty much what’s going on at AVFM — right down to the belabored rebirth metaphor. The title of Elam’s announcement post is literally, I kid you not, “Welcome to the rebirth of A Voice for Men.”
Elam is truly a man beyond parody.
Anyhoo, after celebrating AVFM’s supposedly “profound success” in “changing the cultural narrative,” Elam tries his best to portray the site’s increasing irrelevance as evidence that AVFM is TOTALLY WINNING.
AVFM and a small handful of others (mainly the Honey Badger Brigade) have spawned a legion of social commentators … Feminism has rightly become a dirty word. Feminist ideologues are back on their heels trying to defend their hateful ideology to a world that has grown weary of their corrupt message. We have been so successful, in fact, that antifeminism has become a cottage industry, with the new purveyors taking in huge audiences.
He evidently forgot to add “while AVFM chokes on their dust.”
Elam’s new plan for the site? Basically, he’s taking it back for himself, seemingly hoping to use what remains of its popularity to drive traffic to his An Ear for Men ersatz male therapy site. The new tagline for AVFM: “Men’s Health – No Apologies.”
Apparently Elam is convinced that devious feminists are trying to keep him from going to the doctor. (No, dude, that’s the Republicans. And your own stubbornness.)
The unapologetic Elam explains the new direction:
With AVFM’s thousands of internet backlinks in place, assuring a permanent, healthy flow of traffic to the site, we will leverage those assets to further a message addressing men’s overall health, sans the traditional gynocentrism, and sans the unhealthy paradigm of feminist ideologues who see masculinity itself as a problem in need of correction.
He follows this with a lengthy plug for An Ear for Men, where he charges anyone deluded enough to sign up for his coaching $90/hour to talk to him on Skype even though he’s neither a doctor nor a licensed therapist. It’s Men’s Health without Apologies … and without professional training. You will, however, need a credit card.
Oh, and he also boldly declares that from now on no one will be editing the posts that go up on AVFM.
AVFM will return to a very select group of contributors, by invitation only, who will have permissions to enter articles into the WordPress editor, and with solid self-editing as a standard. No more passing articles through a series of people to get them on the site. And no more need to burden editors with the tedious (and quite thankless) job of correcting spelling and grammar. Those who can’t or won’t provide well-edited material simply won’t see their writing on these pages.
Given that the site now seems to struggle to get even poorly-written articles up, I can only assume that Elam’s new insistence on KWALITY posts will mean perhaps one or two new posts per year.
What the new non-editing procedure has to do with men’s health — with or without apology — is anyone’s guess.
Looking forward, Elam offers this bit of inspiration for the troops:
This will be a somewhat challenging phase as we downshift to crest another hill in the journey of A Voice for Men.
I suspect AVFM’s journey going forward will look something like this:
H/T — @TakedownMRAs
@WWTH
I’m trying to dare to hope that maybe, just maybe in the next few years there could be some more “huge and diverse” resistance to the culture Thatcher ushered in, and we get a socialist government in the UK. It’s going to inherit one hell of a fucked-up situation, though. And there will be vested interests ranged against it all the way from the rich to the super-rich, trying to cut their term as short as possible. But it might happen. It would be nice to live that.
Paul Elam free association exercise:
Dodgy facial hair
Diarrhoea medicine
Deadbeat Dad
Disseminating violence (and charging by the hour)
Depressingly still around
Desperate for attention
http://i.giphy.com/EZfbIY63gBZxm.gif
@Dalilama
I agree it’s fair to say someone is racist or sexist based solely on the effects of his or her behavior (they actually use The Daily Stormer and Richard Spencer as foils who they disagree with on race). But I think many people got drawn into pro-Trump propaganda on Breitbart, RT, and Infowars, though of course they’re still responsible for deluding themselves.
I don’t think Trump = Hitler, but he’s in the same tradition as fascists who started organizing in the US in the 1930’s. IIRC, the German-American Bund had a platform that supported ending Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, harsher penalties for race laws (like death for miscegenation), stricter race-based immigration quotas, ending all civil rights policies, restricting “abuses” of the First Amendment by journalists, etc.
Nazis had an impact on the postwar far right and various conspiracy theorists, including anti-communism and UFO research. Jack D. Ripper on Dr. Strangelove was a parody of far right military officers, plus it’s clear that Dr. Strangelove is still a Nazi.
What’s really frustrating is that Trump is a globalist neoliberal kleptocratic authoritarian shill in almost every imaginable way and people don’t want to see what’s right in front of them.
@History Nerd
Thing is, pro-Trump propaganda consists entirely of white supremacy, misogyny, queer antagonism, and Islamophobia. In order to be drawn in by it, one has to already be heavily sympathetic to all of those things.
Um, yes. There’s always been a strong fascist current in U.S. politics because of the whole ‘founded on white supremacy, genocide, and racial chattel slavery’ thing. I have no idea why you think this makes supporters not raging bigots, though.
Most of the Trump supporters I know are racist older men. They are effectively anti-feminist because yeah, they’re voting for a party that makes misogyny part of their platform. But they don’t explicitly identify as anti-feminist and it’s not anti-feminism that drives them as much as it is the racism and Islamophobia. They probably are the types of people who would agree with the notion that feminism has gone “too far” and I’m sure they have all sorts of terrible opinions about consent, but they also almost certainly don’t even know what an MRA or the Red Pill is.
Of course, none of that makes it any better that they voted Trump. Being okay with misogyny is the same as being a misogynist in my eyes. But if the manosphere thinks that Trumpism = MRM is now legitimate, they’re wrong.
They see perfectly well. An authoritarian kleptocrat is what they want.
I guess I’m acknowledging that there’s a spectrum with a degree of nuance, and that there’s still a glimmer of hope that you can reason with certain people by educating them and being “nice.”
Any bets on how long before Elam gets paranoid that his AVFM inbox is being infiltrated by feminists writing parodies of MRA articles? And then, like Andrew Schlafly before him, starts turning down all of the legitimate contributions until only the Poes are left?
Are you tired of all this W I N N I N G ?
@Katz
Welcome!
@Dalilama
A few studies show lots of people have Dark Triad personality traits, so probably some people want a kleptocratic authoritarian (or feel comfortable with him).
@History Nerd
Because it’s worked so fucking well before, right? Please articulate, to yourself at least, why you insist on making excuses for fascists. You might find the answer less than palatable.
And these people include all Trump supporters, including the ones you personally know.
@Nerd
Incorrect. A fascist can be reasoned with, fascists as a whole simply can’t. They haven’t been, they won’t be. We need to stop with this idea that the answer is winning them over. No, the answer is shunting them off to the asshole of society where they belong. Powerless, voiceless, meaningless. Quicker the better
Yeah, I’m pretty sure my MIL, who voted for Trump, will be dying off pretty soon, because she’s nearly 84.
One less fascist, right?
The whole fascist ideal is that they don’t need to listen to any of these other people. Which is one of the (many) reasons trying to logic with more than one fascist is pointless. They have been trained not to listen to anyone other than whoever is above them. They have been encouraged to use, and agree with, logic that has no place in reality.
It’s like trying to reason with an air force unit that’s bombing you by saying “No, we’re really nice people, please stop bombing!” on the radio to the pilots. Listening to the other side is considered an ideological error of the First Order.
@History Nerd
You know documentaries where a hardcore racist slowly changes to be a decent person and works towards helping others and righting wrongs? A common theme is that it’s an individual case by case basis.
Fascists deserve be stomped back into their holes where they belong.
@PeeVee
Uhm… Buddy?
@Axe,
Yes?
History Nerd,
I think I may understand what you’re trying to say. Indeed there are some people who got sucked into these bizarre conspiracy sites and went that way.
But there are other examples of people who are intelligent and are not bad people – and you have to wonder – WTF are they thinking?
I don’t know what to do about it, or what to tell them, either.
@BoinkBoinkBoinkBoinkBoink
I has missed you 😀
Also, it’s Men’s Health Week here. Lots of activities nationwide aimed at raising awareness of the mental and physical health issues that particularly affect men. All done without a hint of anti-feminism or misogyny. I know who I’d prefer to listen to about men’s health, Mr Elam.
@PeeVee
Ya know? Nevermind, ignore me. Not even sure what I’m thinking. Sorry 🙂
@Axe,
It’s all good, darlin’. ?
Mainstream healthcare is gynocentric?
Studies show that married men live longer than single men, and one of the main reasons is that their wives hassle them to go to the doctor when they’re sick.
The Patriarchy says that Real Manly Men don’t need to bother with no doctors. They shrug off pain, and carry on with their jaw set in a Manly way like a Clint Eastwood character with a bullet wound. They are permitted a shot of whisky as their sidekick fishes out the bullet with an unsterile knife, and they are allowed to sew up their own wounds with an ordinary sewing needle and cotton, but that’s the extent of it.
The Patriarchy says eating healthy, moderating alcohol intake and exercising regularly are Bad. Real Manly Men live on meat (especially steak and bacon) and beer, and sneer at vegetables as “food my food eats”. Bourbon and scotch are also acceptable, as long as they’re regularly drunk to excess. The jury is out on martinis.
Hard-core EXXTREME exercise like playing football or power weightlifting is Ok. If you’re not strong, fit or well enough to do such Manly exercises, you can’t settle for something “girly” like Pilates or walking in a swimming pool. Better to become a couch potato and boast about the size of your beer gut.
As for mental health…god help men who listen to The Patriarchy. Men don’t suffer normal human emotions like loneliness or grief. There is no emotional state that cannot be cured with alcohol and sex. Actual psychiatric illnesses, like major depression, don’t exist and you’re a pussy if you claim they do. PTSD or severe psychological disturbance channeled into violence against others is welcome, however – in fact, it’s AWESOME. Look at Batman.
That shit is in no way the fault of the medical system, Paul.
I agree it has only ever worked on an individual basis. This person likes me and has agreed not to use certain types of oppressive language (including “crazy”) around me. In general, I’d recommend denying fascists any legitimacy as a movement and not giving them a “marketplace of ideas” or any sense that people have an obligation to read or “debate” them.