White guys playing D&D are terrorists no? Somebody get my pitchfork.
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I’m going to throw it out there that maybe, there’s a very interesting overlap between you guys and jack chick readers.
We’re talking about a very specific misogynist subculture. I don’t think Jack Chick ever wrote tracts about KKK membership leading to violence (or, if he did, I guess he got something right).
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We all need oxygen, food and water to survive?
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They just need a puppy. Or a magic wand.
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Would you care to elucidate the leap of logic that got you from what I said to your response?
Because I think that might make you a candidate for the Olympic longjump!
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I was thinking along this same line just this morning, only over a different group of people. “Christians” that don’t follow the teachings of Christ, but are so vocal about how Christian they are while grabbing all of the wealth they possibly can. Wolves dressing up as the sheep, even going so far to eat some grass every now and then, but are still predators beneath the fake skin.
In all these situations, why aren’t they actively and loudly called out by the groups they are masquerading as?
Until this week I hadn’t even been aware that incels were even a thing. Now my attention has been called to them through three different sources since yesterday.
My initial reaction was, “What? Seriously?” But yeah. Seriously.
I wonder if a solution can be found by making them into a laughingstock? Will it make them any more violent? If it doesn’t, will it make being identified as one any less appealing? Would that just get them to change to a different name, and the hate goes on?
I’m going to refer to them as “boys” from now on, no matter how old they are. They are not men.
Sexbots to the rescue! /s
Yesterday, one of the things I heard on a podcast discussing incels is how these boys are just foul to the core, and women pick up on that. Boys like this have been around for far longer than the term “incel” has. With the internet they are finding others like them and are organizing. These are the boys that, if they manage to attract a girlfriend, proceed to tear her down, abuse her, and treat her like shit. If she leaves, they may kill her, her family, etc. The one thing they will never do is respect her. They are damaged as fuck. But they think the damage is normal.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that their isolation is a self preservation tactic for women, and the boys are incapable of realizing the problem is really with them.
Considering the financial path America is on – more and faster wealth consolidation to the topmost tier of (hah) “Americans” – and crumbs for the rest of us; it’s time for a new American Dream. Ideally one that is more inclusive and less destructive. I’m open to suggestions.
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I think that Venn diagram is a little disproportionate in terms of the implied overlap, but there’s a contingent that’s very much of the white nationalist / GamerGate persuasion (they even have a mascot – a cream-colored pony with a penchant for military dress who is unsurprisingly and unsubtly named Aryanne). They’ve been told off by pretty much every member of the show staff on Twitter, past and present, but they still persist. I guess just goes to show that you can lead ponies to water, but you can’t make them drink. Their refusal to internalize the show’s message and instead focus exclusively on the surface “fun” of it seems to be par for the course with the rest of the toxic male attitude that we should really just keep politics out of the things these people like.
It seems like every critical-mass fandom is having to deal with these assholes, just as a matter of statistical probability. Some (like furries, especially via dogpatch.press) are doing a better job on the whole of addressing and ostracizing it than others (lookin’ at you, video games). It doesn’t seem to matter whether the thing they’re a fan of explicitly rejects their ideology at every turn. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a whole segment of the Marvel fan club who prefer Red Skull to Cap (I think one of them was recently in charge of Cap’s comic, come to think of it).
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You would have thought that Jesus would have said something about this
Matthew 5:5-6
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
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As a whole, no they (we) aren’t. But since there are a ton of young geeky men in the fandom, the usual pathologies associated with young geeky men also show up, unfortunately. And yes, there are unironic white supremacist and Nazi bronies (though the one I recall first was actually a woman…), which is rather baffling considering how the core message of the show has been, from day one, that friendship, acceptance, and diversity are not just nice and good, but make us stronger.
Yeah. Every sufficiently big fandom has its share of not just awkward losers and regular jerks, but also genuinely nasty people, sadly.
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My Little Pony: Fascism is Magic
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I’m not exactly sure how bronies are relevent to the conversation at all, it’s one of those olympic long jumps. I’m not sure if we’re talking about nerdy white guys, fandoms, or “packs” of b-words. I don’t know, maybe I’m not in whatever community you are an expert on.
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I would never call myself a Christian, and I will easily admit I have not read much of the bible. Just enough to get the gist: God turned on the lights, made a couple people in a garden with a fruit they shouldn’t touch, it was touched, God had them thrown out into the barrens, they got busy and made a bunch of assholes, God flooded out the assholes, kept a few thinking they would do better next time, still got an abundance of assholes, God sent his son down there to set them straight, son got nailed to death, got up three days later and said, “Best of luck, bitches, I’m outtie. Peace!”, the assholes wrote a book in which the son plays a part, and then proceeded to continue to be assholes while waiting for the son to return. Also a giant got stoned, some cities were burned, a dude with golden hair got a haircut, children were slain, incest and adultery was abundant, some loosely followed rules were established, a sea was parted, a woman was turned into salt. I’m sure there was more that I’m forgetting. It’s a pretty thick book.
I guess I would call myself a conscientious objector when it comes to religion. Taoism is the closest I’ve ever matched with, and I didn’t find that until I was in college. I’ve been to a few Christian churches when I was younger. I always left feeling like a lot of the people around me were incredibly fake. You could see it in their eyes.
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posted:
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I’m in the “former christian” category. I don’t believe anymore but I remember parts from when I had to go to church. Interestingly, the bits of the bible that I remember are not the same as the ones that the evangelical right like to quote.
Oh, and I am convinced that whoever wrote Luke and Acts was a proto-anarchist-communist, and those two books are about 25% of the New Testament. How Christianity got from that to the Prosperity Gospel? I have no idea.
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How is a tweet from 3 years ago relevant to the topic?
It can be problematic to put the onus of repudiation on people because others are using them as human shields, asking why not all Jews repudiate Zionism, or not all Muslims repudiate Islamic terrorism. Rather it should be on the rest of us to correctly identify the predators. Which isn’t to say they shouldn’t call out the people trying to use them, but ultimately responsibility lies squarely with the predators. Despite the popularity of the saying, silence is in fact not always consent.
That said, it’s incumbent on society as a whole not to do nothing in the face of evil, and privilege is power is responsibility for changing the culture to the world we better want to achieve. But the polarization of the political zeitgeist can result in individuals coming to believe that only those who are with them are against evil. And those who get used as shields and become caught in the crossfire quite rationally resent being told they own all the evil caused in the world by anyone with whom they have something else in common because they don’t identify with another particular group or individual opposed to the evildoers. In the long run, this damages the cause for meaningful change because it tends to reinforce the establishment and demonize any group that questions or opposes how the establishment opposes evil.
I was blissfully unaware of them until about two years ago. Bliss however isn’t very useful. Still, I feel your pain.
Ridicule is always a valid tool for demoralizing an enemy or oppressor. It can’t be the only solution, but not laughing at evil because you fear it only emboldens it. Think of it this way. Evil gonna evil, which is why it’s so important to hold those who do harm responsible for their own actions and not put their choices on anyone else.
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Sorry, I think I just misred this and it set me off.
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My daughter says I’m a Bronie. And since the few people I’ve met who’ve identified that way have all been admirably kind and goodnatured people without exception, I don’t care. But I’ve actually only seen the program two or three times ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well that is very disappointing, but I guess my infobubble had to burst.
One of the things that I stood by and watched during the heyday of the gamergate fiasco was how the neotribalism of the Internet pushed people into taking ever more extreme sides. If you’ve never seen a group of glib, well educated Internet posters verbally smack down a young, lonely, inexperienced geek who excels at computer games and other non-social skills (and who may be pretty far up the autism spectrum) you probably can’t imagine how easily such a person could be recruited into any group - no matter how objectively repellent - that shows a small amount of compassion and commiseration. Any welcoming community - should it be bronies, incels or the non-political areas of BBS - looks good to someone who has just had their feelings ridiculed.
OK you said that better than me.
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