By David Futrelle
Why do human beings go to war against one another? It’s a question that’s been around as long as civilization itself, and perhaps longer. Happily, we now have an answer, and it comes from YouTube: According to Sandman, a popular MGTOW YouTuber, it’s all about men’s love of female butts — and the desire not to get nagged by the women attached to these butts. And also men’s desire to rape women from other countries. And then there’s something about killer robots.
It’s not a very coherent argument, frankly.
Sandman begins his 2000-word tirade on the evils of female booty by positing a uniquely ahistorical theory of war as a way to avoid nagging from the ladies. “I believe,” he begins,
that the majority of wars are actually fought because it’s really women’s nagging and never ending demands to creature comforts that light that spark. … My theory is that this is done so women stop nagging them long enough to get some peace and quiet.
So throw away all those history books purporting to explain the causes of war. Forget Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s unhappy demise. War is all about getting women shoes and fur coats so they’ll stop with all the yapping.
You may find yourself asking: if war is all about getting things, don’t men want things too? According to Sandman, not really. While women clamor for “shoes, coats, hats, purses, vacations on the beach” and other fancy swag,
most guys out there don’t really want all that much in their lives. They don’t need a giant mansion and fancy cars. The reason many them purchase those things is because it attracts the best possible women to them. …
I would wager that the majority of male consumer spending is on sporting events and video games. Those are things that take up very little actual resources to produce. Computer code is cheap to replicate and so is the television signal you get beamed to your house with the big game in it.
Just FYI, video games are expected to generate $152.1 billion in revenues this year; the net worth of the NFL, by itself, is nearly $75 billion. But yeah, men don’t spend money on themselves; they just give it to women so they’ll stop nagging.
After delivering this definitive explanation for war, you might expect Sandman himself to shut up. What more is there to say? Apparently quite a bit. Because, as it turns out, Sandman doesn’t just have a theory of war; he’s got several theories all smushed together into one giant ball of bullshit.
In addition to showing their “love of women” by giving their wives and girlfriends fancy shit to shut them up, Sandman argues, men also demonstrate this love by … raping other men’s wives.
[T]hroughout history, men would be sent to war with the promise of being able to rape the other side’s women. And in a time of ancient Greece and Rome, they were able to take those women home from those men that they conquered and turn them into sexy slave girls. Warfare was all about taking the enemy’s riches and giving them to your wife while taking advantage of the enemy’s wife …
The love of women drives men to do unspeakable things for the desire to reproduce.
I’m pretty sure raping women doesn’t have much to do with love.
Oh, but Sandman isn’t done yet. Sandman winds up his incoherent mess of a video with a strange fantasy about a dystopian near-future in which the women of the world have somehow come into possession of killer robots.
Yes, I’m serious, and so, evidently, is he.
[W]omen keep saying that if they ruled the world, there would be no wars. But in reality, if they ruled the world and had robotic armies, they would be more wars than ever.
Uh, what?
As women use technology to fight and conquer peoples in other countries so they could strip them of their resources and for what? So they could expand their shoe collections? …
[T]hat scenario is coming and if women are increasingly killing their own newborn babies and getting away with it in the courts, do you really think that women in the future that start World War Tampon are going to have to face any kind of war crimes for whatever they do … ?
World War Tampon.
We’re talking about handing over weapons of robotic destruction to the more irrational and emotional side of the species.
Well, to be fair, you’re talking about this. I don’t think anyone else is.
What do you think is going to happen if she’s having a rough period that week? Men’s love for women means that we will be willing to hand over the keys to our own robotic destruction to the women that we love.
Right now the only robots killing people are self-driving cars.
We gave women the vote and they helped vote in socialism into the West. … We wanted women to be equal, so we opened the entire workforce to women. And as a result, men’s salaries are no longer enough to purchase the most basic place to live as a single man in a big city. …
Now we’re going to hand over robotic weapons of mass destruction. … If you’re listening to this in 2030 than you are the resistance. Except you’ll be fighting against estrogen controlled killer robots instead of A.I. … You don’t see her face as she decapitates you with her remotely controlled TV 800. …
It’s our love for them that will actually be our downfall.
Well, ok then.
Sandman’s videos — and not just this one — are as bizarre and nonsensical as any Reddit MGTOW rando. But he’s got a smooth if weirdly chipper voice and a surprisingly large audience. His typical videos get tens of thousands of views apiece, with his most popular videos coming close to a million views, and he’s been churning them out since 2013. In total, according to YouTube, his videos have gotten more than 80 million views. 80 million.
This is the sort of propaganda that millions of YouTube viewers are feeding themselves on a regular basis, which is, I have to say, even more depressing than the thought of imaginary robots cutting off my head.
H/T — Thanks to @TakedownMRAs on Twitter for highlighting this video.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
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While this is certainly true for devs, when I was a game tester, crunch time was actually awesome, because testers were paid hourly, and back in CA in the ’90s, the overtime rules kicked ass. Time and a half for the first 20 hours over 40 per week and also for the first 4 hours over 8 per day, and double time for anything over 60 per week and 12 per day. One month, I was able to cover my rent, food, and gas with just 3 days’ work (at 16 hours per day).
…of course, once I moved into development, crunch time was exploitative as hell, and all the devs and coders basically slept in their cubes for the last 3 months of the project. One time I actually worked 48 hours nonstop to finish a level, which ended up getting cut the very next week.
I have mixed feelings about my time in the game industry.
Gah! My Sterling fandom has been exposed! Raistin! Fetch my smokebombs!
That I can imagine. I don’t know how different that is with companies around the world, though I’d guess it’d depend on the labor-laws of the specific country they’re in.
This. I tend to google a channel before I watch a video if it is about something controversial, or look at the channel itself. Or if they have collaborations with other channels that I trust. And of course vigorously using the channel-blocking option is one of the few things that makes youtube slightly less of a hellhole.
I get far right recs when I watch figure skating videos uploaded by Russian YouTubers. Because apparently watching a Russian video means I must love Putin and Trump.
@Paireon
I’ll have to check YongYea out. I’m always wary of alot of Gaming YouTubers, because YouTube loves to push right wing Fascists, so unless the title actually mentions being social justice focused, or non alt right, or something else, I tend to pass over them. It’s a bummer.
@Gaebolga
I was alot younger then, but it did seem like everything was better for many workers back then. Not perfect, but definitely better. The Video Game Industry still crunched alot, but you were rewarded for doing it generally. Now from what I hear it’s bad for everyone. Testers arent given enough time to do their work, rarely get overtime, and much more. Same with everyone else. Good ol California overtime… Should be standard everywhere. And yikes, I wish I havent heard so many stories like that. It makes me feel guilty, for my love of video games. I can definitely understand the mixed feelings. I was hoping that the Indie industry would help, but it seems they are using the same bad business practices as the AAAs…
For a second I read that as Raistlin, I can’t stand that nihilistic jackass, or for that matter most of the setting. I rather like the Kender though.
@Jesalin
Ahhh, dont like Mormon fantasy land? I do like it, but mostly because they tried to be different at least, without it feeling like so much cultural appropriation. Though I will admit that the Kender are unequivocally the best part about Dragonlance. I want to use them in my Homebrew setting .Just have to be careful not to use any Romany or Traveller stereotypes, which is something I have to look out for in my setting, it being somewhat based on the real world, so people can play what they want… I want to make it open to all people, so that everyone has a place there that’s not offensive, which is tricky because I’m a very privileged white person, well, in some ways. I just want a setting that allows all people to be able to play Herpic archetypes from their own culture. Sorry, I’ll stop. Feeling a bit talkative after having to deal with the comment section on a pro trans post.
Speaking of gaming youtubers, I’ve just watched Hbomb’s latest video, in praise of Pathologic (backers only at the moment). Our boi certainly has some skill, because I sat through a two-hour video about an ancient game I have no desire to play, and I enjoyed it!
The game industry is in desperate need of unionisation.
@Gaebolga:
I’m reminded of Sword Art Online Abridged, the parody video which mocked not only the original’s ending but also video game development cycles at the same time when they described at the end the way the whole ‘VR game can actually kill people’ thing was actually the result of a software bug caused by the lead designer being without sleep for several days during the pre-release crunch. “‘Oh, nobody will care about a few bugs’, they said. F***ing Bethesda.”
It elevates my heart’s temperature to see several followers of Sterling here (thank God for him).
Down with the “tree-puhl ayyyy” video game industry, and any industry that considers its workers disposable!
I still don’t know what to make of Jim Sterling’s wrestling, though.
@Lainy: You meant your husband likes lighters, right? ‘Cause sedan chairs, palanquins and the like *are* very cool but take up a lot of space…
@Nequam
I was picturing litterbaskets, and I thought that was a bit of an unusual thing to collect, but to each their own. I’d like a palanquin, but they are a bit pricey and unpractical these days. I don’t believe there are any litters available at WalMart, either.
@Sylvia Danielle Foxglove
Feel free to keep talking, if it helps you decompress. I tend to avoid comments sections elsewhere unless I’m feeling particularly masochistic. The exception, of course, is the comments here, where we have a wonderful community and we can take out trolls before they take over.
Oh, and does your Homebrew setting include the estrogen space robots?
I meant lighters yes
Ah! I was thinking he really liked to pamper your cat’s pooping time.
A guy I know told me he had it easy: the art team only does a few weeks of crunch on a project. It’s the developers who do months at a time.
And I was thinking: multiple weeks of crunch? That’s stupid!
No, Jessie never really figured out how to cover it anyways. :'(
The vet sent me a sympathy card and a little imprint of Jessie paws. It even had little lines in where his fur tuffs were. He had little fur tuffs in his ears and on his toes. he was a majestic three feet long maine coon cat.
Maine coon kitties are awesome. I have a pawprint from our beloved “Monsieur FLOOF,” aka Engineer Kitty and a few other nicknames. It’s a nice momento.
Jessie was big kitty because he was the runt of his litter and then one day boom he became a giant.
O/T, but did anyone else notice Trump’s unusual hospital visit yesterday? I’m wondering if the stress of the impeachment is taking a physical toll.
Meh. As long as it lives long enough to die in prison, I don’t really give a shit about its health.
I don’t want Trump to die in office. It will just generate another giant conspiracy theory to cause trouble for everyone. “Deep State murdered our President to stop him from getting Crooked Hillary and the Hollywood pedophiles!”
I’m always surprised by people expressing love for kender, because to me they are one of the worst things to be found in any D&D setting.
There’s a certain player type whose primary enjoyment comes from disrupting the game and causing party strife, and kender are a race that is designed to encourage exactly that kind of play, so that when the player drives a session off the rails and makes life difficult not just for the GM but for all the other players, they can just point at the rulebook and say “But that’s what my character would do! It says right here that kender do this kind of thing all the time!”
And even worse, the books constantly tell us that everybody finds these impulsive, thieving little assholes just so lovable, and that anyone who dislikes kender is a Bad Person. No, kender are Bad People, because no matter how many times you tell them “it upsets me when you get into my pack and take things,” they “forget.” That’s not “childlike innocence,” that’s a sociopath.
In any sane campaign setting, the combination of kender’s complete lack of concern for other people, their disregard for basic etiquette, and their biological lack of self-preservation instincts would have seen them wiped out long ago.
Oh Lordy do I hate kender.
@tim gueguen
I think things might be at the point that no matter how or when Trump dies there will be conspiracy accusations.
I have not yet received the keys to my army of killer robots. Who do I talk to to have this rectified at once? I don’t have periods any more and I’m not that into shoes but I’m sure I can find a reason to use them.