There is something wrong with you if you think that internet comments are somehow indicative of society and people. On the internet, people write to get the biggest rise, to get attention, sprout opinions and claims they never would in real life and ones they probably would not wish to see granted anyway.
I mean come on, seriously, you think one of the sister subreddits; RedPill Women is anything but people talking shit? Examples of some of the threads; “How do I hit on the high-value men at men at work”? “How do I be more feminine?” The most common answer, bake cookies. And the occasional person who takes it seriously.
It is harmless and will remain harmless if you start taking it seriously and giving it credence rather than pointing fingers and laughing or ignoring it otherwise.
I have tried, for some reason, I still get the sign-up page. Maybe its a regional thing?
What Stormfront used to be like? Roll that thought around in your head for a minute, will you? Stormfront, the most infamous white supremacist website, used to be made up much like RedPill. Even accepting that dubious premise, that it’s really just harmless satirists just like Stormfront was… Guess what. For some reason, Stormfront stopped being a joke. I wonder why.
But I won’t accept that premise, because that’s a dangerous minimizing of hateful and dangerous rhetoric, many of these people are deadly serious, and sites like this serve as active recruiting centers. You don’t go to a page like Redpill (or Stormfront, or ChimpOut, or anti-gay websites) if you’re a well-adjusted, tolerant individual. You go there because you’re sexist, or racist, or anti-gay, or a terrible fucking person. It’s not funny.
And even if people start out taking it like a big joke, they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t, at some level, racist or sexist douchebags. And now they’re surrounded by other people who constantly assure them that doing exactly that - being a racist, sexist, homophobic douchebag - is the right thing to do. That all their worst instincts are entirely reasonable. That all their nastiest ideas are barely scratching the surface. The community inherently self-radicalizes. When people from the outside can’t tell it’s a joke (and, by and large, they can’t, because it’s not funny unless you’re a terrible fucking person), the new people, the new members of the community, are people who don’t get that it’s a joke. They join because they think the people joking are serious, and they agree with it. And then the community does nothing to purge them, and over time, becomes more and more radicalized.
This shit isn’t funny. It’s not cute. It’s not just some kids having a laugh. It was never intended as satire or parody. The guy who invented it legitimately thinks men are oppressed, and has damn near a phobia of false rape accusations.
You are consistently one of the posters on this Board who comes across as misogynistic and contemptuous of women. This little “joke” and your comments in this thread are only the most recent examples. I point this out on the extremely small chance that you don’t know this about yourself.
Speaking of things that aren’t funny: this, coming from you. Are you sure it’s all “just a joke”? And if so, can you maybe dial it back for the purposes of this forum? See, here, blatant misogyny of this sort doesn’t mark you as edgy or cool, it marks you as a moronic tool better suited for… Huh, fancy that, /r/redpill!
There’s something wrong with me for believing that what people choose to write in a public forum (whether in seriousness or in “humor”) is indicative of society and people? Of course it bloody well is!
If people find that shit funny, it’s indicative of how lightly they consider the seriousness of the issues involved. If people are making such comments in seriousness, it’s indicative of how bilious their attitudes regarding gender relations have become.
Your own summary characterization of the Redpill subreddit presents it as a vile pool of shock trolling that I consider to be neither humorous nor defencible.
But please don’t alow me to distract you from the post you should really be addressing.
You know what. That’s a good reasonable post. And a fair argument. One I don’t totally disagree with. However, my view is different. It is a joke and should be treated that way. Redpill and MRA are objectively stupid. They deserve to be treated like a joke. Saying that people only go there because they necessarily adhere to those viewpoints imo is stupid. People go there for a variety of reasons, including curiosity, misplaced open mindedness and yes cause they are assholes. However most of the most hardcore egregious types are those who are provocateurs. Wannabe Milo’s. Who incidentally started the same way. They want you to react that way. You think Milo did not cream his trousers with joy when Berkeley riots occurred? You think the discovery that a politician is involved and the “tut tuts” is going to make them “see the light.”? Rather than feel validated.
These guys are not dangerous. They are good to be laughed at and that is all. Now compare them with the erudite, courteous bosses and politicians. Who would never dream as to say such nasty and offensive things. Who say women are awesome. But who would go and cut funding funding for reproductive health. Who are “horrified” at harassment, but whose old boy networks keep opportunities and connections from women professionals. You are seriously arguing that a bunch of guys with access to keyboards and too much time are more dangerous than that?
It is. And one you have failed spectacularly to address properly.
“It’s just a bunch of chuckleheads getting their lulz.” and “at least it’s not as bad as this other thing” are not valid arguments for defending blatant misogyny and general shittiness.
Lest you forget, the founder of this garbage site is an apparently anti-feminist lawmaker. And that Milo troll was given a national voice in a time and manner that may well have helped to shape the outcome of the US election.
Is that real-world enough for you?
AK48, the whole point of this thread is that the dude who started r/redpill is also a lying, courteous politician - ie, the guy you describe as being the real scary powerful person, lying about how women are awesome.
And you’re not fooling anyone with your lame “it’s all good natured tomfoolery!” shit. We all see you for the lying bigot that you are.
These are the guys who vote for those politicians, some of them are those politicians. Those who are “just there for the laughs” are the guys who vote for those politicians because they agree with some of their other views and don’t think “reproductive health” is an important enough issue to dump a politician over, and their very funny jokes shore up the ideas the rest have of being victims of a misandreous society.
You may think they’re “only good to be laughed at and that is all”, but they are dangerous voters, bad skirt chasers, bad boyfriends, bad husbands etc. They’re not dangerous because they have access to keyboards, they are dangerous because they are real people living in real society and either poison it directly with their behaviour, or encourage those who do.
No. Those guys vote for them because they think “he tells it like it is”. “He ain’t PC”. They approve of the form. Not necessarily the substance. And I have dealt with abusers. They don’t normally act the way these guys do. They don’t should loudly with spittal pouring like Hitler. They prefer to act and be seen as “reasonable”. Upstanding citizens. Why do you think so many men of the cloth were revealed as abusers? Not cause it’s an inherently bad profession, it’s respectability provided a shield. Everyone can look out for The boisterous drunk who beats his wife. Not so much the country club going businessman who gives to charity and has inflicted emotional and physical abuse towards his family for years.
Perhaps you missed the point of the OP. Those erudite, courteous bosses and politicians? At least one of them has access to a keyboard, and decided that a good use of his time was creating a site which has quickly become synonymous with online misogyny. Who knows how much more overlap there is?
They’re still assholes. Treating them like jokes doesn’t make them go away. It doesn’t magically erase them. It doesn’t make the harassment easier to tune out for whoever pisses off these malicious turds, although it does make it more likely for people to offer the (utterly unhelpful) “DNFTT” response.
If you’re a regular on /r/TheRedPill, you’re an asshole.
If you’re curious or open-minded, you go to the front page of /r/TheRedPill, and the rampant and as you put it, “objectively stupid” misogyny doesn’t turn you off the site, you’re an asshole.
If you go to /r/TheRedPill because you want to stir shit up and say something provocative, and you think the best way to do this is via feeding into a violent and hateful culture and giving the people there exactly what they want to hear… That doesn’t even make any fucking sense. If you’re the kind of person who just “wants to stir shit up and say something provocative”, then you’re an asshole either way, but if you go to /r/theredpill for the sake of saying hateful, misogynist things just to get a rise, then no questions asked, no dispute needed, you’re a gigantic syphilitic cum-spewing asshole with a blood-red cherry on top.
And you know what happens when you don’t react? They don’t always just quit. Sometimes, they push harder. Sometimes, they keep going, until the whole internet knows the names and addresses of you and your entire family, and you are getting death threats delivered to your front door. When you have an ideology this toxic with this many people ascribed to it, ignoring it is often not a solution.
And even if they back off, even if you don’t care, even if the whole world doesn’t care, that doesn’t stop the community from growing. It doesn’t stop spiteful, hateful little bigots from finding a community they agree with, and which will nurture and support their absolute worst impulses. “Don’t feed the troll” is relevant in online communities with lenient moderators. It’s not relevant to a situation like this.
What would you propose to deal with these “wannabe-provocateurs”?
And even if it was, that doesn’t do anything to exonerate the sheer vileness presented there. A kick in the balls hurts even if I explain how it’s just a joke, satire, or parody; so anybody who thinks that adding “j/k” after a hateful comment makes it OK somehow is very welcome to a controlled series of experiments determining whether a re-contextualized kick to the balls is preferable to one delivered as intended.
Did you check all of these abusers’ internet histories? Or do you hang out with all of the red pill posters in real life? And are you really this certain the abusers you’ve dealt with represent the totality or even a representative sample of people acting on misogyny in real life?
Seriously, you are citing Cracked? And are you saying that MRA and feminism are somehow equal? Because despite all the eye rolling feminists statements and writings might justifiably elicit, at heart they have absolutely genuine issues which need addressing. I can’t think of any issue that MRA’s can point to and say yeah that’s true at its heart.
The only thing facile is that extract you posted. Presuming the “Mike Woods” quoted in the article is the same as this guy, he is shilling a fucking book.