NOTE: This page is in desperate need of revision and expansion. In the meantime, I suggest you use Rationalwiki’s Manosphere Glossary.
For newcomers to this blog, here’s a handy guide to some of the strange acronyms and lingo you’ll encounter here and in the “manosphere” in general. (For a definition of that term, see below.) I will update this entry periodically as needed.
First, the acronyms you’ll see most often here:
MRA: Men’s Rights Activist
MRM: Men’s Rights Movement
MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way MGHOW: Man Going His Own Way.
Ok, so what do those terms mean?
MRM: The Men’s Rights Movement: A loosely defined, but largely retrograde, collection of activists and internet talkers who fight for what they see as “men’s rights.” Unlike the original Men’s Movement, which was inspired by and heavily influenced by feminism, the self-described Men’s Rights Movement is largely a reactionary movement; with few exceptions, Men’s Rights Activists (or MRAs) are pretty rabidly antifeminist, and many are frankly and sometimes proudly misogynistic. Those who oppose the MRM are generally not against men’s rights per se; they are opposed to those who’ve turned those two words into a synonym for some pretty backwards notions.
MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way: As the name suggests, MGTOW is a lot like lesbian separatism, but for straight dudes. MGTOW often talk vaguely about seeking “independence” from western and/or consumer culture, and a few MGTOW try to live that sort of zen existence. But most of those who embrace the term have a deep hostility towards and/or profound distrust of feminists and women in general. Many MGTOW refuse to date “western women” and some try to avoid women altogether. I think the Man Going His Own Way acronym MGHOW adds another layer of confusion to an already awkward acronym, so I use MGTOWer instead.
Some other terms and acronyms you’ll run across here:
Anglosphere: Countries in which English is the primary language, or, more narrowly, those countries that used to be British colonies. They are full of evil Western Women (see below).
Incel: Involuntarily Celibate. A term, and identity, adopted by some dateless guys (as well as some women, but it’s the men we’ll focus on here). While there is nothing shameful about being dateless, or a virgin, or having a really long dry spell sexually — most of us have been there at some point — the term “involuntarily celibate” seems to suggest that the world owes incels sex, and that women who turn down incel men for dates or sex are somehow oppressing them. For those (male, straight) incels who are genuinely socially awkward or phobic, this can be a self-defeating stance that can lead to bitterness towards women. And often does.
Mangina: Derogatory term used by MRAs, MGTOW, etc. to describe guys who disagree with them — e.g., me. You can figure out the various connotations of this term yourself.
The Manosphere: The loose collection of blogs, message boards, and other sites run by and/or read by MRAs, MGTOW, and assorted friendly Pick-up Artists. The primary source of material for this blog.
NAWALT: Not All Women Are Like That. Dudes in the manosphere make so many ridiculous and untrue generalizations about women that they’ve come up with their own little acronym to describe the most common reaction to their nonsense: “not all women are like that.” Remarkably, many seem to think that making a reference to NAWALT is actually some sort of clever rebuttal of their critics.
PUA: Pick-up Artist. PUAs are obsessed with mastering what they see as the ultimate set of techniques and attitudes — known as “Game” — that will enable them to quickly seduce almost any woman they want. There is a vast literature on “game” online, though PUA (insofar as it is not complete bullshit) is at its essence simply a male version of the age-old ploy of “playing hard to get.”
Western Women: Also known as WW. Evil harpies, at least according to many in the manosphere. Contrasted with “foreign women,” a term that (in the manosphere, at least) sometimes refers to all women outside the Anglosphere, but often refers to a subset of these women from poor and/or Eastern countries, mostly Asian, who are regarded as more pliable and thus more desirable to haters of “Ameriskanks” and other WW.
@EJ
Thank you~~~
@WWTH
Maybe you should try to give them a listen again? 15 years of material, might have some new favorites, lol
I watched an MGTOW that was being mocked here once. For a couple of months Youtube recommended GWW videos 🙁
@kp
My personal life never tells me a darn thing, it’s not much of a talker.
Is the Amazing Atheist an ass channel? We should probably list some ass channels while we have that tip on the same page.
@Spindrift and (the other) EJ
I hate those recommendations too. It’s amazing how one video sparks so much hate. I really want to give those guys hints sometimes, though. For example, no one will take your argument seriously if the thumbnail for your video is Anita Sarkeesian with a butt instead of a face.
I tried watching one of the response videos to the video I posted. It was a 20 minute response to a 5 minute video. I turned it off when he told me that feminism was about making women superior. I really didn’t feel like listening to that guy fight strawmen for 20 minutes.
Pandapool
“Is the Amazing Atheist an ass channel? We should probably list some ass channels while we have that tip on the same page.”
*Sargon
*Warcorpse666
*Athiestgamer
*Repzion
*Sandman
*Bane666
*Thunderfoot
*The Amazing Atheist
Good channels
*Sequester Zone
*Andrew Norton
These are so far all I could think of.
Mark | June 6, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Here’s an edited version of Mark’s first post, with the classic MRA two period ellipses lovingly left in.
Here’s Mark’s second post with the naughtier language edited out.
Hmm, it looks like someone hasn’t quite made it over “the anger hump” yet.
Too bad, I’m looking for the peace and prosperity MGTOWs will bring about after they evolve humanity. I’m less excited about the “restoring population and order back to it’s right place” part, because it likely involves punishing disgraceful and disgusting women, and kind of has a racist vibe to boot.
@Fruitloopsie
Figures. If there’s “atheist” in the title, they’re likely an ass. 😐
I wish that wasn’t fucking true. That or “rational” or “skeptic” in the title though and I start to worry.
If being an atheist is such a big deal to someone that it needs to be in their name, I……. likely don’t want to know that person.
TheRationalAtheistSkeptic is actually a pretty good guy.
…
And would totally make a good parody account.
I’ll give TheRationalAtheistSkeptic a chance.
Does that mean Thunderf00t fans actually watch Sarkeeeesian videos? I’m surprised since they all parrot the same criticisms (She lied about Hitman!, etc), I always assumed they got the Anti-Anita talking points secondhand.
Or does this mean supporters of Watson and/or Anita are masochistically watching these assholes out of some misguided sense of due diligence?
I know it’s probably neither and just the unfortunate result of some YouTube algorithm.
@brooked
David watches these guys. There are response videos on both sides that have similar keywords and titles. It’s a clusterfuck.
I tend to avoid any videos from people with the word atheist in their name, there’s just too great a chance It’ll be a waste of my time and offensive to boot.
If their channel description starts with “I look at things only through the lens of rationality”, I tend to assume the opposite is true. Kind of a corollary of the internet rule of “if someone feels the need to declare they won an internet debate, the opposite is probably true.”
I honestly doubt they’ve actually seen her videos. I’ve had a hilarious amount of trolls try to argue something which was disproven simply by quoting her video (transcripts make that easy). Good grief, they love to talk about that stupid Hitman example.
“she says the hitman game encourages you to kill strippers but you lose points!! CHECKMATE ANITA”
“um, no, she never actually says that, she says the game provides the player with a situation that begs for them to act in violent ways and consequences are slim at best.”
Gotta love how much they pin on that specific example. As if dismantling a single example means the whole premise and all other examples just ‘suddenly’ are proven wrong. Now, I actually do disagree with one specific example in the Tropes vs. Women series: Bastion. She criticizes it for featuring a single female character who’s only personality is being ‘the girl’. Problem is, Bastion only has 4 characters to begin with (2 of whom may actually be the same person) And although Zia is passive in terms of her role, she is fleshed out with a backstory and clear motivation for her character (she was ostracized by her peers for being different, music became her escape, and actively does not want to go back to the time before the calamity, unlike the other characters). Definitely not a ‘great’ character, but I felt she wasn’t representative of the problematic sexist tropes in video games. Of course, I could easily be biased because I fucking love Bastion.
Also, I figured some of you might enjoy this if you haven’t already seen it; a fun point-by-point rebuttal of Thunderfoot’s shitty video:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thunderf00t/Criticism_of_Tropes_vs._Women
@Spindrift – I avoid Disqus comments by people with “Truth” in their username, for much the same teasons.
Or reasons, rather.
Oh thank God. I once hate-watched an Amazing Atheist video (barely got past the first minute of it before shutting it off) and now YouTube has CONSTANTLY been recommending his videos no matter how many times I click “Not Interested”. Thanks for the tip.
Read Mark’s vitriolic diatribe…woah. The MGTOW shows his true colours. Why am I not surprised that they look like acidic, angry misogyny.
So I guess by Mark’s own admission he hasn’t attained MGTOW nirvana yet, huh?
Keep seeking, Mark. Preferably far away from feminist blog comment sections.
I still think Mark was drunk and never meant to let all that vitriol slip out. They love to pretend that they aren’t misogynists, the problem is just feminists and “gynocentrism.”
Providing a motivation for a female character to behave like a stereotype isn’t any better than providing a female character who is a stereotype for no given reason. Characterization is a choice. Zia is not passive because of being ostracized by her peers, etc. etc. She is passive because one or more of the game developers had a misogynist idea about how female characters ought to act. The backstory is just after-the-fact excuse-making for the original misogynist decision.
Most of the best atheist speakers – Greta Christina, JT Eberhard or Alex Gabriel, for example – are too busy being real activists to maintain a youtube channel. There are some excellent TEDx and conference videos of them doing talks though.
Two atheists worth following on there are Rebecca Watson and Hemant Mehta (aka The Friendly Atheist, aka The Atheist Voice.)
” Thats so laughable because my personal life tells me women need me all the time. More specifically my bank account.”
Dude, some women are assholes. If those are the only ones that YOU choose to associate with, that’s on you. Maybe you need to get out a little bit more, and/or stop being an asshole yourself; I’ve noticed they do tend to flock together.
@The Other EJ
I was totally behind the Friendly Atheist until I ran across a blog post of his on Patheos that essentially said that anyone who was offended by Richard Dawkins’ stupid, stupid statements about pedophilia and Rebecca Watson just didn’t understand Dawkins and needed to interrogate the text from a different perspective.
I put him down at that point. I can’t stand anything he says. He tries but he doesn’t get it, and he’s not (at this point) willing to listen to the people who tell him how he isn’t getting it.