Since I’m on vacation this week, I decided that maybe it was time for a Man Boobz Summer Video Fest, featuring enlightening videos from some of the Men’s Rightsers and assorted freelance misogynists on YouTube. My idea was that this would take very little work on my part yet produce many lulz.
Unfortunately, I sort of forgot why I almost never watch MRA videos on YouTube – that they tend to be completely fucking boring and interminably long. Well, to be honest, any MRA video longer than about three minutes seems interminable to me, and I assume they would also seem interminable to most of you.
Nonetheless, after much painful and tedious searching, I have found a few gems to share with you this week – all of which are shorter than 5 minutes, and most of which (I hope) will be entertaining and enlightening to you all.
To start off, here’s an adorable little MRA robot thing talking about the evils of feminism and why it’s unfair to Nice Guys.
Courtesy of SomeGreyBloke, here’s a cartoon depicting one man’s — well, more specifically, one grey bloke’s — moment of Man-lightenment! And ladies, if you find yourself irresistibly drawn to this grey man with the yellow teeth, you’ll be pleased to know that he’s single!
Happy Fourth of July! At least for my readers who live in the US. The rest of you can have a happy day as well, but yours will probably involve fewer fireworks. Anyway, no misogyny today. Instead, here’s a kitten making its own fireworks with the help of an iPad. Consider this an open thread.
You may not have realized that you wanted to hear dramatic readings of comments from NiceGuy’s MGTOW forum. But, trust me, you do. And so here you go, courtesy of the folks behind Troper (a series of dramatic readings of terrible shit from the TV Tropes message boards). There are two episodes of the NiceGuy series so far, with more (eventually) on the way.
Do you remember the Conscious Men and “Dear Woman,” their little video manifesto/apology to women? If not, please go read my post on them and/or watch at least a minute or two of their creepy, cringeworthy video – you may not be able to take much more. Then watch this: Will Ferrell’s spot-on parody of their video.
Sometimes, you just have to post cat videos. This is one of those times. The theme today: Cats making adorable noises! Please discuss which of these cats is the most adorable. Or any other topic you wish. Open thread! Kitty videos! Two great tastes that taste great together.
Do MGTOWers get their notions of modern romance from old Smurf cartoons? I’m beginning to think they do. As you may remember, the world of the Smurfs was an all-male bastion until evil Gargamel created the creature he called Smurfette from a mixture of
Sugar and spice but nothing nice…A dram of crocodile tears…A peck of bird brain…The tip of an adder’s tongue…Half a pack of lies, white, of course…The slyness of a cat…The vanity of a peacock…The chatter of a magpie…The guile of a vixen and the disposition of a shrew…And of course the hardest stone for her heart…..
Initially an evil, deceitful brunette, Smurfette was transformed by Papa Smurf into a glamorous (and less obviously evil) blonde. At which point Smurfs young and old began falling in love with her, supplicating themselves before her Smurfy beauty. Even Papa Smurf himself had the Smurfs for her, as you can see in the video above – even though, as her co-creator, he was basically her father. Ick. Sometimes Smurfette played her smurfy suitors against one another, inspiring them to even greater depths of supplication.
MGTOWers, and a lot of MRAs, basically see this as the basic paradigm of romance: men jumping through hoops to even get noticed by stuck-up women who need do nothing but exist in order to garner male attention. In the Smurf world, this was because there was only one Smurfette in a village full of lonely Smurfs. In the real world, in which men and women balance out more evenly, well, MGTOWers and MRA recreate the weird Smurfy imbalance by simply declaring most women undateable – too old (if they’re over 25 or 30) or too fat (with BMIs over 25). Hey presto! Now men, much like Smurfs, can compete against one another for the same small number of women, making almost everyone miserable in the process, especially themselves.
In Smurf world, of course, Smurfette is chaste and pure; she may kiss the boys but that’s about it. This hardly comports with the MGTOW notion that women are all slutty sluts, bedding down with every thug-boy and alpha male who makes their ‘ginas tingle, to use the peculiarly offputting parlance of the misogynist set. Natually enough, a few creative internetters have reimagined Smurfette as a Smurfslut. Warning: this video may destroy your image of Smurfette forever. This one’s worse.
Oh, and for an interesting discussion of the misogyny and apparent anti-Semitism of Smurf creator Peyo, see here.
Poly Styrene, the legendary lead singer of the punk band X-Ray Spex, has died of cancer; she was 53. Her searing vocals, her feminist politics, and her general take-no-shit attitude helped to inspire and influence several generations of female rockers from Kim Gordon to Kathleen Hanna to Beth Ditto. (The NYT has a nice obit.)
Her most famous song was the band’s first single, “Oh Bondage, Up Yours,” a wailing protest against consumerism and misogyny and other forms of modern bondage. “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard,” she announced at the start of the song. “But I think” — and here her quiet voice modulated into a shriek — “oh bondage, up yours!” Here’s a video of her performing the song. (NOTE: If you’re having trouble with the video loading properly below, here’s a link to it on YouTube.)
Fast forward to about 13 minutes in, and start watching. All seems lost for the intrepid neanderthal hunting party, but wait! Could it be? Is it? It is!!!
