Honey Badgers lose their lawsuit against the Calgary Expo and some of their fans think it could lead to civil war

By David Futrelle

The Honey Badger Brigade’s infamous lawsuit against the Calgary Expo and The Mary Sue has ended, not with a bang but with a whimper. Well, rather a lot of whimpering, really.

The Honey Badger Brigade, as you may recall, is a collective of mostly female antifeminist weirdos known for their endless YouTube videos and their amazing ability to raise many tens of thousands of dollars from their gullible supporters on the flimsiest of pretexts.

They raised something on the order of $66,000 — as far as I can figure it based on the limited information currently available online — to fund a lawsuit against the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo after said Expo tossed them out in 2015, accusing them of “actively disregarding” the Expo’s efforts to provide “a positive and safe event” for attendees.

In the same lawsuit, the Badgers also went after the online publication The Mary Sue for allegedly contributing to Calgary Expo’s decision even though the publication didn’t weigh in on the Badgers until after they were expelled — apparently forgetting that time, as you probably know, moves forward not backwards. And did I mention that they hired  a disbarred lawyer to represent them in the case? 

Anyway, given the Badgers’ open support for the harassment campaign known as GamerGate, the expulsion seems pretty reasonable. And while I’m not a disbarred Canadian lawyer, their case against The Mary Sue always seemed utterly ridiculous to me.

Last Wednesday, the judge in the case finally handed down his decision, ruling against them on all counts. This evidently came as a giant shock to the Badgers, who had somehow managed to convince themselves — based on some things the judge had said earlier — that they were on the verge of a famous victory.

In a rambling, tendentious, and often quite baffling statement on the decision, Honey Badger Hannah Wallen complained that the judge had ignored “physical evidence” that the Badgers had presented and made other “errors in … reasoning” that could open the way to an appeal. Maybe a lawyer could make sense of her claims; they didn’t make much sense to me. Among her charges:

The judge indicated that his ruling was partly based on a misreading of the evidence regarding Calgary Expo personnel’s tweeted promotion of The Mary Sue’s claims about us, which he described as if they had come from an uninvolved 3rd party and not the Expo, and had been published on the Expo’s Twitter account by said 3rd party and not the Expo. 

Clear as a bell, huh?

In any case, the Honey Badgers haven’t yet decided whether to appeal or not, which I imagine will have less to do with the merits of their case than with their fundraising abilities.

The reaction from their fans has been, well, revealing. In the comments to a YouTube video on the Badgers’ defeat from MundaneMatt — one of the originators of GamerGate and a big Honey Badger fan — various commenters have suggested that there must have been some nefarious conspiracy behind the ruling.

“Miscarriage of justice right there,” declared someone called Yosharian, “and I wonder how much money TMS [The Mary Sue] paid that Judge?”

I’m going to take a wild guess and say zero?

Someone called Bulwark AC declared:

I was thinking … the judge was going to go in favor of Allison and the Honey badgers but that some Form of outside influence pressured the judge … to find for CalExpo. It could also have been political influence from the mayor or governor of the province that nudged the judge to give such a drastic reversal against even himself. Heck it could have been Trudeau’s office that heard an MRA group was in court. You know how profemale he is.

One “Harry Beaver” had some more incendiary accusations:

Judge is another satanist. Wake up people. We are fighting against pedos who rape babies and eat human flesh. That´s why they all stick together.

For chrisrus1965, the problem was a cultural one:

Never underestimate the power of innate gynocentrism to override anything.

Over in the Kotaku in Action subreddit — a former GamerGate hub that has basically continued on GamerGating without the label — a few commenters suggested that this terrible injustice against the Badgers was the sort of thing that could lead to vigilante action or even outright civil war. No, really.

According to someone called crystalflash,

This is how you get Vigilantism. Seriously. The Judge can just say, “nice evidence you have there, too bad I don’t care,” tosses it into the trash bin and goes off to instead (incorrectly) cite “evidence” the judge acquired on his own outside the courtroom. Like, holy fucking shit, why fucking bother with the courts at this point when a judge can just go off, cite his own “evidence” that was never entered officially a part of the trial, and ignore everything that has happened in the court room? Seriously, for the sake of the Canadian justice system, appeal the ruling, because if that is allowed to stand, justice is dead in Canada. When the fucking courts operate like this, how could I fault any Canadian citizen for putting justice in their own hands?

You honestly think it would be ok for someone to, I guess, go shoot people because a judge said it was ok for a game convention to toss the GamerGate-supporting Honey Badgers out for flaunting the policies they’d agreed to when signing up to sell stuff there? (While he Badgers argue they didn’t flaunt these policies, the exhibitor agreement they signed said that the Expo “hall have the full power in the interpretation and enforcement of all contract regulations contained herein.”)

PessimisticPaladin went further:

That or civil wars. If people think the government will let others abuse them, or abuse them by themselves then if you can get enough people they will make a new government.

I don’t like the option but if this shit keeps up so often it may well happen.

Dudes, do you people ever listen to yourselves? This is Special Snowflaking raised to the level of an Olympic sport.

Not all the commenters were on the Badgers’ side. Back on YouTube, some accused the Badgers of looking for an excuse to scam more money from their followers for yet another pointless legal battle. One commenter mocked them for hiring a “DISBARD LAWYER FOR THREE YEARS!!!”

But the most outspoken criticism came from someone who had formerly been a big supporter of the Badgers, especially in their early days; hell, by his account he was one of the founding members. I’m talking about a certain excitable ex-A Voice for Menner who now goes by the name Max Dean Esmay, aka Max Kolbe. Take it away, Dean Max Dean:

As the man who co-created the Honeybadger Brigade, who recruited Karen Straughan and Alison into it (they both hated the name when I pitched it at them) and who was instrumental in bringing in the fraudulent Hannah, all I can say is I’m hoping this is the END of their fraudulent case.

Well that’s quite a start.

They never had one and they’ve been playing their donors on it for two or three years now. The Expo owes them no more than a refund and what the contract specifies, plus maybe some minor damages at most.

Esmay, it turns out, has been railing against the Honey Badgers for months now — making videos of his own attacking his former friends, going on other internet shows to yell about them, and dropping who knows how many comments like this on YouTube and elsewhere.

These women ARE NOT Men’s Human Rights Activists, they’re money-hungry frauds pushing a ludicrously stupid ideology–and they’ve BACKSTABBED countless early supporters and countless current donors. They’re losing popularity because Alison Tieman, Karen Straughan, Hannah Wallen, Mike Stevenson (Stephenson? I forget) ARE FRAUDS. They’re also bullies EXACTLY like … Anita Sarkeesian–they deplatform, smear, lie about mischaracterize, mock, and lie about ANYONE who calls them out–especially anyone who was ever a supporter who began to question or criticize them.

That last bit is no doubt a reference to Karen Straughan’s attempts to rebut his various charges by questioning his mental stability.

Karen Straughan is a ripoff artist. So is Alison Tieman. They may seem nice. They may have even given you good personal advice. But they’re typical Delilahs, typical manipulative women.

The Biblical reference there is no fluke. Esmay has now more or less set aside his Men’s Rights “activism” in favor of promoting his own brand of militant Catholicism, which seems to involve a lot of yelling at and about atheists (and not just this dickish ones like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris).

But anyway, back to the Delilah Brigade:

They serve only themselves and have thrown COUNTLESS men who once supported them under the bus. We have testimonials for many and many of the Red Pill Religion volunteers and supporters are part of our team–because the Badgers screwed everybody, except their most cultish inner circle devotees.

The Honey Badger brigade does seem more that a little culty at times, but it’s a teensy bit ironic to see Esmay of all people attack them as such.

They’re not even the full Honeybadger Brigade that was in The Red Pill by Cassie Jaye. These three women and their male enablers are con artists and have been since before Red Pill Movie was released. And they’ve set back the cause of forwarding men’s human rights by years, with their antics and their VILE behavior towards so many men.

Here’s a thought for the Honey Badgers. Forget appealing the Calgary Expo suit. Sue Dean Esmay instead. And Dean, sue them right back. Fight amongst yourselves, you terrible people, and leave the rest of us alone.