By David Futrelle
He said the thing! I always enjoy it when I run across an example of the exact very thing I’m mocking in the title of the blog: some dude claiming that men today deserve a grateful “thank you” from the women of the world because, in the old old old old old days cave men (allegedly) hunted mammoths to feed their lazy cave wives sitting idly at home eating prehistoric bon bons and dreaming of cave Chad.
Never mind that this is, anthropologically speaking, nonsense; in hunter-gatherer societies everyone works and it’s the gathering, not the hunting, that provides most of the calories. And never mind that there’s no clear evidence that men were the only ones who hunted. Or that whoever hunted back then (everybody?) probably mostly hunted much smaller game that was less likely to gore them to death with their mighty tusks.
Anyhoo, today’s Dude Who Said the Thing is ranting YouTube misogynist Warcorpse666 — real name Dave Nordahl — who presumably earned the right to that internet nickname by besting Warcorpses 1 through 665 in hand-to-hand combat. His recent rant on the subject was brought to my attention by the guy who does the Angry White Men blog, which is incidentally very good. Take it away, you big woolly beardo:
I swear I didn’t hire him to say that as some sort of sneaky guerilla marketing scheme for the blog.
Warcorpse666 is not the first person to SAY THE THING. In addition to the anonymous internet rando who provided me with the name for the blog, there have been many others over the years, some of whom I’ve covered here. Enjoy these MAMMOTH CLASSICS featuring ACTUAL MAMMOTHS.
You Nagged Us to Hunt the Mammoth to Feed You: A new variation on an old misogynist tall tale
This one deals with a slightly more novel thesis:
We Extincted the Mammoth to Male-Genocide You
Enjoy! I’m going to go eat some meat that I did not personally hunt.
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@Paireon
2,000 years from now, future archaeologists will find some angry GamerGater videos and will watch them and think “we don’t have much information about this ‘Anita Sarkeesian’ person, but she must have been really cool because she angered all these people into expending time and money making these videos.”
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
They’re also very ambivalent about individual civilizations. They’re very much into the Roman treatment of women, but not so into the accepting gay people. Or they’re very into purdah but really don’t like Islam as a whole.
@BQS
That reminds me of a boss I used to have- he was notorious for being the “creaky stair” man to avoid in work-related social situations. He was always giving people unsolicited back rubs at happy hours, and just couldn’t keep his hands to himself for some reason. Once when he was touching me, I told him to stop- no sugar-coating- and he just sneered at me and said “you’re nasty when you’re drunk.” (Mind, this was before being a “Nasty Woman” was reclaimed.) Once he told a dirty joke at the welcome lunch for a new entry-level female colleague. (She, shockingly, did not stay with the company very long.)
And yet, somehow he felt free to police the behavior of others. Like Naglfar mentioned, the whole thing reminds me of the lengths Gamergaters went to because they didn’t like Anita Sarkeesian’s ideas, or style, or way of communicating. She threatened their idea of how civilization should be, so they felt perfectly justified in invading her privacy, doxxing her, threatening her livelihood and her bodily autonomy, you name it.
@Naglfar
Oh definitely. Somewhat counter-intuitively, though, I also see it from the left on occasion–i.e. the notion that Stone Age people lived in an idyllic state of gender equality and overall egalitarianism and harmony with each other and with nature, and that all our troubles are due to straying from those roots.
I don’t know if I agree 100% with this. There are ways in which our modern lifestyle demonstrably runs counter to our natural instincts and biological/psychological rhythms–think “monkeysphere,” circadian cycles, etc.–and that’s why it’s such a goddamn pity that the potentially helpful field of evolutionary psychology has been hijacked by the Petersonians.
@Karalora
Fair point. What I more meant was that this is an effective rebuttal to the people who claim that having a strict social hierarchy one way or another or some set of repressive norms is our natural way of being. You are right that technology has changed the way in which we live, in ways positive and negative.
I don’t know about any of Dave’s grandmothers, but I know that I’ll not only remember this blog’s existence in 3 years, but I’ll remember jackasses screaming, “I know how to use sua sponte in a sentence!” and sea shanties and 500 great posts on gamergate and a whole lot more. I might even remember Lainy’s testimonial about wanting go fly folks out for their wedding.
And I’ll also remember the last time I had dinner with my various grandmothers, in Santa Barbara, Fort Worth, and Portland (from least to most recent).
Wow, it’s almost like a full life can include grandmothers AND kicking sexism’s ass with humor and love.
These sorts of guys always seem just sort of sad and pathetic.
Like, if they somehow fell in a time portal and ended up in a pre-modern society, they would become just the same as they are today, just sad sacks sitting around whining about how unfair life is because someone isn’t making them a sammich.
As someone else commented, actual living hunter-gatherer societies still exist and we know quite a lot abut how they work.
And how they work is every bit as complex and nuanced as contemporary American society. Men and women cooperate, there is appalling levels of injustice and cruelty, but also loving and kind behavior.
@Chip Daniels
Though, since Reddit didn’t exist in premodern societies, they’d be somewhat limited in who they could reach with their annoyingness.
Writing: not an ACTUAL thing.
Making a difference in the world: impossible.
Your lonely grandma doesn’t need you to defend women’s rights. She doesn’t care about laws protecting her right to vote, run for office, have a credit card, inherit property, or keep her body safe from rapists. Nah, she needs you to visit her instead.
This person Fil is a genius.
… sorry I thought the obvious context of me literally saying he sounded like a 14 year old had made it ABUNDANTLY clear that the reason he wouldn’t be able to drive to see his grandmother was solely due to AGE, and not disability or poverty or the fact his grandma might be dead or he’s snowed in right now or any other reason for not driving that I didn’t make any reference to in the slightest, because last I knew 14 year olds were legally not allowed to drive in any state in the US whether they have access to a car and are able bodied or not, so at that age it’s pretty much an equal opportunity lack of capability… but okay, sure.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Yeah, that sort of tactic of ‘debate’, if you can call what these guys are trying use; is pretty much just one great big “The Card Say’s Moops” maneuver.
It comes across that these stances they take are not sincere ideas of belief but merely a sort of moving of chess pieces across a board in order to “win”, to feel superior” and to push an agenda of self interest.
@ Fil
Visit my grandmothers ? I’m closer to sixty than fifty myself. Can you recommend a good medium ? (Sarcasm.)
@ footprints in wet clay
Huh! TIL that Alberta is the only place in North America that lets you get a learners! (G7, you can only drive with an adult in the car, no alcohol in your system, and only during certain hours, iirc)
I thought everyone was allowed to get their learners at 14, that is… It was an unquestioned fact of life. Isn’t it weird how those sometimes pop up?
(Only province in Canada, according to this site)
Re: whever made the neckbeard comment – (too lazy to scroll up, I ADMIT IT) could we not? People can’t help the pattern their facial hair grows, after all. There are other things we can make fun of, like their terrible ideas.
@Rhuu
In South Dakota you can get an instruction permit at 14.
Then again, the state of South Dakota might not be making the best choices, since they’re on meth (link courtesy of Crip Dyke).
Two places in North America!!! Thanks for the info, Naglfar.
@Rhuu:
And for me it was just an unquestioned fact of life that you couldn’t even get your learner’s permit until 16, and I didn’t know anyplace else did it differently.
(Granted, I got my learner’s in B.C. before the graduated licensing scheme was introduced that added a ‘novice’ license that you had to have for two full years.)
Then again, being in Canada, I learned early on that different places had different drinking ages, since most of Canada was 19 while the U.S. was 21. I also knew it was younger in Quebec, though didn’t realize that it’s apparently 18 in Alberta and Manitoba as well. (Also at the time B.C. high school went to grade 12 while Ontario went to grade 13 if you were planning on going to University, so I was one of the rare freshmen who couldn’t legally drink at the time. Which was perfectly fine with me.)
The folk wisdom I heard about why we let kids get their learner’s licences so young here in Alberta is that there’s pressure from farming families who want to put their kids in the seat of a tractor ASAP. But that doesn’t really make any sense, does it, since they would need a licensed driver with them anyway, so it’s not like you’re freeing that person up to do other work. Maybe this rumour was just something that felt right to cityfolk who consider themselves just a little superior to people from rural areas.
Anyways I’m 30 and I still have a graduated licence which I am embarrassed about but not embarrassed enough to rectify.
I had a note about how I myself was cityfolk but the way I wrote it suggested I too think I am better than people who live in rural areas so then I deleted it but then I worried that it looks like I’m trying to pretend I’m not from the city so here is a follow-up comment. Inhales
Yes, driving ages vary widely. In the UK it’s 16 for a provisional, (then full if you pass the tests) moped licence, 17 for cars and certain other motorcycles, and when I got my full car licence at the age of 23 it covered cars and mopeds and also counted as a provisional (learner) licence for other classes of vehicle. I realized how much I’d relied on being able to drive when I surrendered my licence (clean for my total driving era of 37 years) for safety’s sake in 2017.