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By David Futrelle
The weirdly popular NoFap anti-masturbation movement promises men that they can have more energy, achieve greater mental clarity and even think more creatively if they can just manage to keep their hands off of their equipment for an extended period of time.
But I just spent a few hours looking through dozens and dozens of anti-fapping memes on NoFap.com, the NoFap subreddit, and elsewhere on the internet and I have to say that evidence of this alleged new creativity is nowhere to be found.
I’ve certainly looked at more than my share of terrible memes over the years from MRAs and MGTOWs and even incels, but I’ve never seen memes quite so relentlessly uninspired, and painfully earnest, as the memes the NoFappers pound out. The meme formats are tired, the cultural references are decades out of date; the jokes are nonexistent; they’re the meme world equivalent of Christian Rock.
I mean, seriously, look at this shit.
Apparently none of these dudes have gotten the memo that memes are supposed to be funny. Do they think that meme templates are themselves so inherently hilarious that you can just type out pretty much anything you want on them and it will automatically converted into humor if it makes some vague reference to the source of the meme?
It doesn’t help when NoFappers work their own weird acronym-heavy lingo into the memes, rendering them incomprehensible to anyone outside their little internet circle-no-jerk.
In case you’re wondering, PMO stands for “porn/masturbation/orgasm,” and PIED stands for “Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction.” And, yes, NoFappers actually do call themselves “Fapstronauts.”
Some NoFap memes are barely memes at all.
Still, there are a handful of NoFap memes that verge on funny, intentionally or possibly unintentionally.
That second one could be a joke, though.
This meme gets a point for having a funny picture of a cute animal in it, but loses two points for whining about porn like a fundamentalist.
Parody NoFap memes are about a hundred times as funny as the real ones.
Let’s just take a second to fully appreciate the level of failure in these memes — except that last one, and maybe the one about hands full of penis.
I mean, how unfunny and uninspired do you have to be to fuck up a masturbation joke? Masturbation is awkward, embarrassing, and almost always undignified, and yet it’s something that the vast majority of us have done (if we’re not actively doing it right this very moment); it’s pretty much the definition of funny.
It’s almost as though that whole NoFap thing about greater creativity and mental acuity is a bunch of complete bullshit.
Seriously, I’m starting to think that they’re just jerking us around.
They don’t think memes are funny, they think memes are propaganda.
… Is this an actual thing?
Sexual release is one of those secondary needs, like socializing. It’s important for mental health. I know it I don’t get off at least once or twice a day, my mind starts to get kind of fuzzy, and anything vaguely sexual is enough to get my mind on sex. As a result, I have trouble concentrating or focusing, my thoughts start to revolve around sex.
I think no fap started as a type of proto pua thing. The idea was that by not jerking off, you’d be motivated to go out and find a woman (or man) to either start a relationship with, or just fuck. Not necessarily bad advice, especially if you’re a porn addict or need a little extra motivation to get yourself out there. It targeted, and appealed to, lonely and sometimes desperate men.
of course if women made a bunch of unfunny memes and anyone dared to point that out, they’d be evil bigots.
why do you care so much about such an innocuous, harmless lifestyle choice?
@StarStorm
Yes, it’s an actual thing. It’s something the Proud Boys believe in, aling with many manospherians. Just curious, is there a reason you’re questioning it?
@samantha
Wow, those sure are a lot of bald assertions about the mental states of people you’ve never met, that you have no way of knowing anything about, and regarding which you have provided zero evidence. Good job demonizing a bunch of people who have done no wrong, and who bear no ill will towards you – for what reason, I can’t begin to guess. Always warms my heart to see lifestyle shaming on this supposedly progressive, tolerant, feminist website.
Allison I seen your zoe Quinn necro. you are a troll. why did you use that language? you are not here in good faith. no one has time for your nonsense. please go.
Hey cool, a troll/necromancer dual-class!
shorter allison kaas: “So much for the tolerant left!”
Everything Samantha said was well within feminist theory. You could try reading up on it. Your nofap “lifestyle” didn’t emerge out of the ether; it stems from cultural and social values.
I’m not sure why our bemusement and mockery of nofappers makes you think we care deeply. It seems from your gamergate necro that the only one taking themselves too seriously is you.
I’ve also lurked at the Reddit. They generally seem less toxic than a lot of other sexually fixated Redditors. I can imagine that if you’re in, say, your early twenties, male, and troubled by how much of your free time is taken up with porn and masturbation, this is an appealing alternative.
It shares certain taxonomic features with the bilious worldview of blatantly sex-negative proselytes (e.g., “Sinfest”), but the basic message is less disturbing. The missionary zeal can be off-putting, as can the frequent references to Fabulous Secret Powers.
While I don’t doubt there’s a core of the movement that’s sincere, for the most part it seems to be an excuse for men on forums—who are without doubt thorough and frequent wankers—to tell all and sundry what their penis feels about everything that passes by.
Someone posts a picture of an entirely normally dressed woman holding a cute puppy? “Oh no! There goes my NoFap pledge!”
@StarStorm
Nofap is very much a thing, and one that many of its adherents take VERY seriously. I once saw a post on the Nofap subreddit from a poster who described SAVING HIS ROOMMATE FROM HANGING HIMSELF BECAUSE OF A BROKEN TWO-WEEK LONG NOFAP STREAK. I realize that it could have been a troll post, but the tone of the post and the amount of description, plus knowing how far some fapstronauts take Nofap, led me to think it may well have been legitimate. The post garnered a bajillion replies, including from the guy who more or less invented Nofap.
As quirky and hardcore as the Nofap subreddit can get, r/SemenRetention is even more so. The users of r/SemenRetention believe that ejaculation is bad for the mental and bodily health of (cis) men, whereas on r/Nofap there is more of a difference of opinion on whether porn, masturbation, or orgasm/ejaculation is the worst. On r/SemenRetention the posters earnestly talk about “retaining” their daddy batter at all times, even when having sex with a loved, trusted partner. One of their sayings is “Your load is gold” and they share information about how to “defend against” wet dreams, or “WDs” in their parlance. Yeah, that subreddit can be extra-entertaining.
I
Someone necroed the gamergate thread? where? might be fun to read since I haven’t seen anyone try and defend it for awhile.
I
Someone necroed a gamergate thread? where? might be fun to read since I haven’t seen anyone try and defend it for awhile.
oppps double post,my bad
@Fabe
Right here: https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/comment-page-16/#comment-2358222
@kupo
what thats it? man that is some low quality weak sauce . trolls just aren’t trying any more.
I first spotted the NoFap-thing several years ago on 9gag, there’s a rather large part of the following there, who do tend to be from more conservative parts of the world, and that often came across in their memeing and posting, and these groups of people played a major part in peddling the Nofap/NoNutNovember-stuff there.
I’m quite convinced there’s all of the usual confluence between the major players in reactionary internetting involved with NoFap, from religious types, ascetics, Incels, Nazis and all the MigToes and MRAs and whatever.
Well, NORMALLY, I know that whatever weird bullshit something is, there’s something even more weird, or sometimes more bullshit, or occasionally even more weird bullshit a little down the lane, so this would not surprise me.
But reading through the memes that prefer a dude to mutilate themselves before thinking about putting their hand on a penis kind of dropped my Int a little. I’m not sure if this is a bad or good thing. Either it hit me really hard, or I’m just brainless.
I mean, if you don’t wanna that’s cool and all but I generally don’t understand making an obsession of it so far as to actually count the days since the last act. I mean, I generally don’t count how many days since I’ve played, say… Stardew Valley or Pokemon Go, and right now I’m pretty obsessed with the latter. I mean, sometimes I really want to play them, but I don’t keep SCORE.
Except that men routinely call women “humorless” and write 5000 word thinkpieces on Why Women Aren’t Funny, so no need to pretend like that’s a hypothetical.
Necroing a 4 year old Gamergate thread, though…now THAT’S 24 karat comedy gold.
Are you still the master of your domain?
Looks like our latest troll is another of that other kind of wanker.
Look, play with yourself or not — your prerogative, as long as you don’t do it where others can see you against their will. But build a load of bullshit theories around it, and you WILL be mocked. You will DESERVE to be mocked.
Same goes for everything else sex-related, come to that. (Pun somewhat intended.)
The idea that sexual activity saps your energy has probably been around for millennia. You occasionally see it mentioned regarding athletes, who will decide not to have any sort of sex while preparing for a big fight/game etc., or are told by their coach(es) not to engage in sexual activity.