We Hunted The Mammoth
So last night, courtesy of Twitterer extraordinaire @SuperSpacedad, I learned of a new catchphrase that’s apparently catching on (or maybe not) amongst the internet’s conspiracy theorists: the Fluoride Stare, which is the blank-faced, glazed-eye look conspiracy theorists apparently encounter quite regularly when they start explaining their favorite conspiracy theories at great length.
Those following the strange tale of Man Boobz’ recently crowned Troll of the Year for 2012 will be intersted to know that someone calling himself Mikhael_Varpole has done a self-post on the Men’s Rights Subreddit claiming that he’s not MRAL after all and declaring me a liar. Here’s his explanation, FWIW.
I’ll be keeping him banned, in any case; even if this serial liar and sockpuppeter is telling the truth about this (highly unlikely, in my opinion), he’s still a serial liar and sockpuppeter.
Also, for the record, he wasn’t using a “similar” IP as Scooby Doo/MRAL; it was the same IP. And he was using the IP before I called him out for sockpuppeting as Torvus Butthorn — which is what he’s referring to, dishonestly of course, when he talks about doxxing.
He’s clearly just trying to stir up more shit, but it looks like the folks in r/mensrights aren’t biting.
Anyway, I guess we can consider this his Troll of the Year acceptance speech.
The votes are in and the winner of the highly coveted Man Boobz Troll of the Year Award for 2012 is … MRAL!
Wait, you say, he wasn’t even on the ballot?
Well, no. The troll that got the most votes from you, my dear readers, was the verbose anti-Man Boobz crusader known as Steele — also known as Mikhael Varpole and, briefly, as Torvus Butthorn. Indeed, Steele cruised to victory, getting 47% of the vote, as compared with the 33% received by Tom Martin, his only real competitor. (Dr. Pell came in third, with a mere 6% of the total.)
But as it turns out we’ve been played, big time. The troll we know and love as Steele turns out to have been MRAL all along.
Yes, that MRAL – the long banned commenter who cannot seem to walk away from this blog. We’ve uncovered and banned many of his previous sockpuppets, but somehow he managed to slip his boldest sockpuppet right by us.
Oh, sure. I and others here often wondered if Steele was for real; it seemed pretty clear to me that he couldn’t possibly believe everything he said. But it wasn’t until I went back to some of “Steele’s” earliest comments here, in preparation for this post, that I discovered how justified these suspicions had been. Turns out that one of “Mikhael Varpole’s” IP addresses matched one used by an earlier troll, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, who had been outed as MRAL a couple of months earlier.
D’OH!
“Torvus Butthorn” really should have been a dead giveaway. But otherwise the highly dedicated MRAL did a masterful job of keeping his troll character consistently ridiculous yet plausible enough to not be an obvious phony, and of hiding his particular obsessions in such a way that he didn’t give himself away.
So, congrats, MRAL, and you’re banned again.
After this, the rest of the results are a bit of an anticlimax.
Sunshine Mary wins the Special-est Snowflake award for Female MRA Trolls, with 52% of the vote. Driversuz comes in second with 32%.
Tom Martin easily wins the Worst Human Being award with a stunning 73% to David K Meller’s 22%.
Some Guy Bored With Your Schtick wins Most Tiresome with 58% of the vote; Diogenes is a distant second with 24%.
And JudgyBitch wins Most Pathetic Vote Beggar.
I hope they’re not all MRAL too.
UPDATE: THE POLLS ARE CLOSED. Polldaddy pulled a little switcheroo on me, so I’ve got to pull a little switcheroo on you. I thought it was free, but it turns out that once you get more than 200 responses to a survey in any given month, you have to pay them $200 for a year’s memebership in order to see the rest of the results. Yikes! So I’m just closing the polls instead, and will announce the winners tomorrow. If it’s any consolation, all the winners won by large margins, so I doubt there would have been any upsets if I kept the polls open longer.
And the polls are open! Vote for Man Boobz Troll of the Year, and any of the other special awards you wish to vote for.
The polls will remain open until January 1, when I will write up the results and declare the official winners!
Feel free to campaign for your favorites in the comments below.
Merry Christmas, to everyone who celebrates it. To everyone else, Happy Tuesday!
After you’ve finished off your Christmas and/or Tuesday dinner, please nominate your favorite troll(s) for Man Boobz’ Second Annual Troll of the Year competition!
Also, there’s no reason why we can’t have more than one category for the troll awards. Suggest some inventive categories! Most Persistent, perhaps?
