By David Futrelle
Check out my piece at the Globe and Mail today about shutting incel forums the hell down. Here’s a snippet:
[I]f appeals to shared humanity are out, is there anything else we can do? We may not be able to win back those who have plunged too deeply into the incel rabbit hole, but we can take steps to limit their ability to recruit new members. Incels aren’t born; they’re made. Sure, most new incel recruits start out embittered and lonely. But they are radicalized by their incel peers on a relatively small number of message boards devoted to the incel ideology.
So we should take a page from the anti-fascist activists who’ve done so much to kick back against the so-called “alt-right” over the last year – not only by confronting the fascists in the streets but also working diligently behind the scenes to take away their platforms online.
You can find the piece here.
The 2005 one were pretty bad. To be very kind indeed! 😛 Dwayne Johnson is STILL apologising for it.
Popping in to say well done, David!
This thread is a bit weird tho. Corrective bullying? Entitled millennials?
If someone starts opining about how back in the day they went home when the street lights came on, or they drank water from the garden hose, I swear I’ll throw smashed avocado at them until they shut up. I’m not even a millennial (GenX, apparently) but ugh. It was not better in ye olden times.
Also, did we need the extremely detailed breakdown of that incel Twitter thread? Maybe I’m just extra grumpy tonight. I’ll go hug my millennial. Or is he GenZ? Stoopid @#@$%!@ generational labels.
Ahahahaha I’m still here. Two pics that shd amuse mammotheers no end, if you’ve not already seen them:
You had streetlights? Sheer luxury, I’m telling you. We had to make do with a match between the twenty of us.
😛
Sleep well Mish. 🙂
@Aging Chad: Other people have already said this, but to hell with that. I was bullied for a long time in school, and it traumatised me. It didn’t make me a better person. Besides, if you’re going to argue that there was less violent crime (or whatever) back when school staff turned a blind eye on bullying, I want to see statistics.
The “entitled millennial” post has already been dissected enough, I don’t need to add anything further.
Feminism, particularly intersectional feminism is hardly an exclusive focus on women
As someone who was bullied a lot in middle and high school, I’ll just say that anyone who supports, condones or encourages bullying deserves to be fed their teeth.
@Cindy
While the sentiment is understandable, you may wish to rephrase that as it is against comments policy –
Step on all the legos is the generally accepted alternative.
It’s a part I have some difficulty with too. 😛
@Shadowplay
I apologize. It’s a little too late to rephrase it now, unfortunately… but yeah. Old chad can step on all the legos.
@Mish
Dress like the person you want to be: a posturing pretentious asshole.
Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
No your right. This is a strange thread and those things you brought up are all super weird.
Well my gut (and experience with how hilariously pathetic 4chan &a Reddit losers are) says that there’s a non-zero chance that at least a few of the randos who’re spouting off bizarre and horrific things are dudes from those places trying to get screenshots of feminists agreeing to terrible things.
Congratulations, David! It’s horrible why these articles are going mainstream, but it’s really nice that the public is finally seeing what we’ve known for years.
@Cindy
I usually wind up editing posts half a dozen times against the clock for that – it is something I do have problems with remembering!
It’s all good. 😀
I have one question. All this talk about “sexual parity” and “government sponsored visits to brothels” and “redistribution of sex” – those are all interesting phrases, but do the sex workers still have the right to say no to clients? Because my feeling is that all of these concepts kind of rely on them not being able to refuse.
While sex work can be framed as a health service (and personally I agree with this) doctors, nurses, even podiatrists all have the right to refuse to see patients who make them feel unsafe and I would expect the same rights for sex workers.
And if they have that right, that means they aren’t going to help incels of the Elliot Rodger mould, because they are going to be threatening, entitled, not very into consent, and quite possibly violent.
So…problem not solved.
OT: thinking about bullying. Here is a short film which reminded me of my own high school days as a frumpy fat virgin with a big mouth and the results thereof. It is a short documentary about a group of very cool little grungy proto-feminists in the 90s, whose high school classmates do not understand them at all. (Please note that some of the things their classmates say about them are horrible, so take care if you’re sensitive to that)
EJ and Scild,
Thanks for the information on Hanson! I always learn something on this blog.
Darling Mish,
“Why, back in my day…!”
*Cue the Four Yorkshiremen sketch; I can’t post vids on my phone.*
So a lot of people are pretty upset with my observation on peer-based social correction. I was inartful with my description – I’m talking about young men policing young men. I am well aware that adolescent girls practice this in a way that tend to leave mental scars (my daughters used to do shit to each other that left me in a spit foaming parental snit), but my own learning experience in a blue collar, left-labor dominated, urban Catholic all-male school left me with some impressions with regard to primate social behavior, pecking orders and peer correction that may have some light to shine on dealing with the toxicity of incels and the infernal stupidity of gamergate.
My take is that if a parent has a 14 year old son that is sitting inside on a video game console more than 2 hours a day, he should get signed up for soccer and the video game console should get a sledgehammer. Give the kid a flipphone. Make him learn a skill or trade, and confiscate the wifi after 9 pm.
In theory I totally agree Chad. But sometimes parents are just so exhausted with their workload and other things going on in life that letting their kids stay on consoles is the only way they get some peace, quiet and respite. Especially single parents who have the burden of everything on their shoulders.
Mish, that photo. All of them white and all of them very vocal. Like you couldn’t shut those people up if you tried. What are they complaining about? That not everyone agrees with them. Boo hoo.
I was a girl bullied severely by boys. At least one of the people objecting to your post is a man bullied by males. Only bullying done by girls leaves scars? Get out of here with this nonsense.
Once again: bullying does not punish misogyny, it enforces it.
I just… Is here a lot of hand-waving away of misogyny and male entitlement in this thread or is it just me?
Nah, I played video games a lot. Like, a lot. Like, I was addicted to an online text-based RPG to the point that I was staying up all night and missing classes.
I turned out okay.
Being forced to join a sport will just make it worse. Organized sports are horrific when it comes to things like bullying or humiliation of unathletic kids. Getting benched constantly, getting harangued for missing a shot, that sort of thing is murder on a nerdy kid’s self image and will backfire spectacularly.
What helped me was finding outdoor activities *I* actually wanted to do. I started hiking more. That was great because there was no competition, no “right” way to do it. I also started training capoeira. That was also very good, because it required social interaction (it’s played like a game, with a partner) while not being competitive.
It also taught me to dance, and to play the drums and other Latin percussion.
But if I’d been forced to do it, I’d hate it.
And if I’d had my video game consoles/computer sledgehammered, I guaran-fucking-TEE I’d have built it into a massive persecution complex with a side of violent resentment.
@Aging Chad
Men policing men, or boys policing boys is what gets us into this situation. Do you honestly think this is a good plan?
You think Mitt Romney forcibly shaving a classmate’s head in school is good? Because that’s what you’re advocating. Patriarchy doesn’t pit men against women, it pits men against men, and your suggestion is worse than nothing.
Sure, someone hypothetically might get pushed away from a bad path, but I guarantee more gay, trans, and queer youth would suffer than anyone could possibly benefit.
Aging Chad,
The problem with your whole premise is that misogyny and misogynist violence are not new phenomena. Incel is a new phenomenon. But it’s just a new form of the same old misogyny. And when young males police each other’s behaviors, it’s usually not for the good. They usually encourage each other to engage in toxic masculinity.
ETA: I should have refreshed before posting. I see I’ve been ninja’d multiple times!
anneliese, “There is a guy at my job like this, he glares at me in kind of a funny way and hovers around all the waitresses. Bullying isn’t going to fix him. We have a situation where extremely socially awkward men live in a society where community and local social networks have collapsed. These are guys who depended on their mother’s arranging their marriages for the past few thousand years.”
Are you talking about South Asian guys at your work? Many of them still have arranged marriages.
Seriously, can we get an update to the comments policy to not allow pro-bullying talk? FFS.
Edit:
That’s a hell of an assumption to make.