Step Away From the Keyboard

A few days ago, Roosh V wrote an ostensibly serious piece, "The Internet Is Doing You More Harm Than Good" in which he points out that "The internet has solved the cost barrier to idea distribution... [but]... This ability, upon closer inspection, is actually causing us harm. We would all better off limiting our internet usage than expanding it further."  

He goes on to say, "There used to be a dearth of reading material for humans but now there is too much, and we are wasting time on content that we shouldn’t just to be entertained, just to feel a little emotional rush that we may not be getting through our normal lives. Consider that people now purposefully read content they hate just to stir their emotions. They do this as part of their daily routine."

This is an excellent point, one which even I have addressed.  We won't point out the irony that Roosh has made his living by publishing provocative material on his blogs, has crowed with delight when a particularly vile post goes "viral", and retweets every tweet that references himself (positively or negatively).  Let's not look at the way his example has inspired hundreds of men to beg for donations on their own little blogs.  Perhaps what he is really saying is "Quit talking and listen to me."

I will also refrain from pointing out that long before the days of "yellow journalism," much less the internet, the public managed to waste a lot of time on idle entertainments that included dog fighting, gambling, public executions, and mystery plays.  

A couple of days later, Matt Forney announced he was "unfollowing" people on Twitter in preparation for a social media blackout.  The "addiction" was too much and was interfering with his "productivity."  I think this is a good step for Forney.  Like Roosh, he wants more than anything to be taken seriously as a writer and an intellectual, an aim that is incompatible with "click-baiting."

It occurs to me that, besides being hypocritical to the nth degree, Roosh misunderstands the nature of the manosphere.  It is not a place to exchange ideas, obtain information, or engage in serious debate.  It is a place where disaffected men go to experience a sense of community and belonging.  The element they have in common is their hatred & desire for women; bashing "feminism" is just a pretext for bonding with one another.

And to be honest, the same could be said for the "anti-anti-feminist" bloggers like myself.  It's a place where we go to be reassured that we are not alone;  we have "friends" out there in cyberspace.  Of course these are not "friends" in a conventional sense.  We might find, as Eseld Bosustow has mused, that we actually have little in common besides a shared disdain for misogyny, bigotry, and ignorance.  And yet that is not an insignificant basis for friendship either, as it suggests a number of shared core values, a certain sympathy of perspective.

I have experienced and observed real acts of support -- the sort of reaching out I associate with friendship -- amongst complete strangers on the internet.  The fact that, as of today, Karen Stollznow's legal fund has surpassed its goal by over $10,000 is an example.  (I'll bet she's feeling the love right now!) The fact that a very busy man like P.Z. Myers agreed to help "rescue" my name is another example:  I can never not consider him a good friend although we will always remain "strangers."  And because he inspired others to champion me, I now feel much less alone.  There are a handful of readers here that, should the opportunity ever present itself, I would be delighted to meet in "real life."  Maybe we would find out we didn't really care for one another -- but somehow I doubt that.

Meanwhile, there is no question that when the internet starts interfering with the opportunity to mix and mingle with flesh-and-blood people, it's high time to step away from the keyboard and (in my case) toddle down to the Eagles for a round of bingo.

Feeding the Beast

A Facebook friend posted today a link to some new Fox-promoted lie about Obamacare with the comment, "I'm always surprised people continue to believe this stuff."  I was surprised that she was surprised.  After all, she is a successful psychologist who specializes in treating addiction. More than most, she should understand that "believing" is not what drives the audiences of Fox and other media outlets that rely on people's insatiable appetites for outrage.  The fact is, most of us enjoy being outraged.  It's fun to get mad.  Anger makes us feel strong.  It motivates us.  That's because anger releases a cascade of stimulating hormones that make us feel more alert ("alive") and energetic.  No wonder many of us get addicted to these powerful mind-altering chemicals that we can manufacture ourselves, right in our own heads, in the privacy and convenience of our own homes.  (And by "us," I mean "me" because, being of the XX persuasion, I am hopelessly solipsistic.) 

There have been a number of articles about "feeding the beast" of public outrage, and I expect to see more about this as people start to feel trapped in cycles of frustration and helplessness that are relieved temporarily by experiencing a dose of righteous anger, only to result in a "crash" -- that is, until the next scandal engages our attention and pumps us full of adrenaline once more.  It's exhausting, though, isn't it?

There is a lot of anger addiction in my family, and I am an anger addict myself.  I was taught to fuel myself with my own anger the way other people are taught to use coffee, as a routine stimulant in response to fatigue, fear, stress or any event that I find excessively taxing.  That doesn't mean I walk around in a state of simmering rage or am prone to public melt-downs.  But it does mean I can be rather unpleasant to be around when I am girding my loins for battle with some unpleasant or tiresome task such as cleaning the house or tackling a mountain of paperwork.  I have long been conscious of how I manipulate my own brain chemistry in order to energize myself with a goodly dose of anger.

Ironically, by feeding the anger beast I often wind up depleting my reserves.  Instead of actually harnessing that anger to effect real change (such as actually re-grouting the tub), I pursue the "high" like the junkie I am, seeking more "hits" of outrage.  For better or worse, like everyone else I live in a media-rich environment where there are endless opportunities to divert myself, and endless opportunities to be outraged.

I suppose this came to mind today when I found myself idly peeking at Matt Forney's twitter feed instead of cleaning the bird's cage.  Yesterday, he had tweeted something about me, to the effect that reading my blog was "like watching a nervous breakdown in slo-mo" and that I should really be put on "suicide watch."  Both comments made me laugh, and I wasn't offended by either.  To be honest, I wanted to see if he had tweeted anything more about me!  ("Vanity, thy name is woman!")  Instead, he was on an entirely different toot, courting new sources of outrage by virtually dancing on the grave of Nelson Mandela.

Forney's post about why girls need less (or was it more?) self-esteem has already faded from collective memory.  These things seem to have a half-life of about two weeks. Now he is left with the unenviable task of keeping attention on himself with nothing but his internet connection, smartphone, and nastiest impulses to help him.

Not for the first time I am thinking that in terms of grinding, mind-numbing, thankless vocations, the endless pursuit of internet notoriety must be the worst.  And it isn't even like "trolling for a living" fetches up much of a "living."  One of my mild but persistent obsessions is trying to figure out how a guy like Forney manages to stay as porky well-fed as he does.  I can only speculate that even though he's long since dropped out of college, his mom is still sending him "care packages."  (Or is it that, in the words of Shakespeare, anger is his meat and he sups upon himself?)

When I first stumbled into the "manosphere" I couldn't believe my eyes.  I would never have guessed how many Angry White Men were out there.  I felt compelled to read boatloads of these blogs in an effort to grasp the depth and breadth of it, to accept that the resurgence of a "new" misogyny was real.  I started with Roosh (hence the name of the blog), but soon discovered he was only one of many men who really, really hate women and don't hesitate to express that fear & loathing with shockingly contemptuous and even violent imagery (from safely behind their keyboards of course).  And they had fans too, and many of those readers had their own tiny terrible blogs and tiny furious twitter feeds.

I'll admit that these guys (and a few of these gals) scared me.  I hate to admit that because that's exactly what they want to do: to control women by playing on their fears.  And then I got very angry, which is a natural coping mechanism, because anger makes the fear manageable.    

OK, I now see this New Misogyny really is a thing in our world (not in my own small "real" world, mind you, where I have never met -- or at least never had reason to recognize -- any guys like this).  I've entertained my worst fears about what it represents, and have come to the conclusion that it does not represent a serious social threat, at least in its current incarnation.  

So what's my excuse for continuing to immerse myself in the toxic morass that constitutes the "manosphere"?  Is there a 12 Step program for people like me, who are addicted to feeding their own internet-fueled anger?  And what are the salient differences between "people like me" and "people like them" anyway?  In terms of our respective anger addictions, it seems very few.

It strikes me that on some small level I have been engaging in a symbiotic relationship with the manosphere bloggers, a sort of "dance of anger" in which we take turns outraging each other.  Maybe there is more in common between, say, Matt Forney and me than meets the eye.  Like many dysfunctional relationships, we are each getting some pay-off, feeding some addictive and self-destructive need.

Anyway, enough about Rush Limbaugh-wannabe Matt Forney for now (and in a reasonable universe, enough about Rush Limbaugh and Matt Forney forever.)  Time to watch once more "The Marriage of Maria Braun" (yes, I'm still on my WWII Germany kick) and pull my Christmas lights out of the attic because God forbid I be the only house on my cul-de-sac without lights on it.

Being Outrageous

If anything characterizes The Way We Live Now, it is the cult of celebrity.  It seems like almost everyone wants to be famous.  We crave recognition so badly that many of us don't care what it takes: better notoriety than anonymity.  And because we live in a day of unparallelled opportunities to self-publish and self-promote, people often have to scream to be heard above the din of competing sources of input.  One way to stand out above the fray is to be Outrageous.  

One recent commenter on Manboobz alluded to this as a way of explaining the "manosphere."   For the most part, it's an internet phenomenon, which has linked various and numerous unhappy and disenfranchised white men.  Unable to form a coherent platform, they have united behind a common enemy, which they call "feminism" but which really is femininity in general (including, as we have recently seen, female children and transsexual women).  Much has already been written about this elsewhere, and much more eloquently than I could.

 Members of the manosphere post, for the most part, anonymously.  They have to, because to openly espouse the views they claim to hold would be to commit social and professional suicide.  

A handful of leaders do identify themselves (Roosh V aka Daryush Valizadeh, Paul Elam, Matt Forney aka Ferdinand Bardemu), and a few have had their true identities made known against their will (Roissy "Heartiste" and the guy who went by "violentacrez").  Of course, any semblance of a "normal" life is over for them: they are now officially and irrevocably married to their online personae.  In some ways, they have paid the ultimate price for their narcissism (or "martyrdom" as their acolytes might frame it).   

Yet in order to maintain readership, they must keep producing more of what their readers want, which is ever more outrageous material.  The "outrage" comes from the overtly hateful nature of their ideas, the hateful expression of these ideas, and sometimes from a potent and disturbing stew of fantasy, entitlement, resentment, and violent retribution.  In other words: hate porn.

Then there are people like JudgyBitch, who is torn between the demands of her compulsive exhibitionism and the need to protect her personal life.  From what I have seen, exhibitionism usually trumps prudence in these cases.  Hence, she uses pseudonyms, but "vlogs" on YouTube; being recognized and outed is but a matter of months.  And that is not a threat, since I have neither the means nor the interest in doxing her.  It is simply a prediction and perhaps a warning.  We may enjoy the anonymity of the internet, but we are foolish indeed if we think that it is guaranteed.

Personally, I'm not sure the threat of exposure is an entirely bad thing.  Perhaps it's a reflection of my age, but I don't hold anonymity to be sacrosanct.  The internet is not the confessional.  A blog is is not your analyst's couch.  Writing about, or for, other people affects them. Words can be as influential and powerful as actions, and they should be treated as such.  People should be held accountable for what they say.  Free speech is not free of consequences.

Right now the Internet is The Wild West and anything goes, so naturally it is a fertile ground for the worst of people and the worst kinds of people, but in time I am confident we will develop some respect for its power; we will demand and adopt standards of behavior and responsibility.  Meanwhile, we are left with vigilante groups like Anonymous, which is perhaps better -- or perhaps worse -- than no moral order whatsoever.

At the same time -- and getting back to the title of this post -- I do understand the merciless thirst for recognition, and how blogging plays to that.  That's because I understand The Quest for Immortality and The Denial of Death.  What's more human and existentially poignant than to counter the inevitability of death by howling in protest?  Of course, ranting and raging avails us little -- often makes everything worse in fact -- but it makes us feel powerful, and distracts us from the unbearable knowledge that all of this -- and all of us -- will be dust in a hundred years.   

As one hostile commenter unkindly and needlessly pointed out, I have a very "obscure" blog.  Indeed, I'm thrilled if five people look at it a day.  I'm pleasantly puzzled by the number of visitors I do get. I'm not trying to make a name for myself here, much less a profit. I'm just practicing my writing skills, and I find it more motivating to write for an audience (even if it's only an imaginary, potential audience).  

Like Hansel and Gretl, I've littered my blog with so many crumbs that it would be fairly easy to figure out who I am, if anyone cared (and I am very, very sure that no one does).  And not that it matters because it really, really doesn't, in part because I am not only old, but also (like my heroine Jane Eyre) plain and poor and obscure and have no family or reputation to protect.  Also, when I write critically about the New Misogynists, I only write what I would say to their faces, given the opportunity.  I would be happy to meet with Roosh V or Janet Bloomfield in person and tell them what I think. Hell, I'd buy the first round!

However, a few years ago, I had a very different blog.  It was a kind of confessional, recounting with humor and some salacious detail a year spent pursuing casual encounters on craigslist.  (Frankly, I was more than a little inspired by A Round Heeled Woman by Jane Juska.)  Well, as you know, Sex Sells, even sexual escapades as weird and pathetic as I was often describing in my crazy little blog.  

As my readership took off, I found that more and more I was living my life in service to my blog.  Consequently, I was engaging in behaviors that were increasingly humiliating and risky (both to my physical and emotional well being) just to have something to regale "my readers" with over their morning coffee.  It got a little out of hand.  Sometimes I said and did things I didn't really believe in or feel good about, just for the "copy."  Inevitably, I got more than a little burned out.  And, as fun as it was to shock and delight a lot of random strangers in cyberspace, I had to let it go.  (Also, I happened to meet someone I loved, thereby putting the final kabosh on pursuing or reporting what I might call "My Slutty, SluttyYear.") 

This experience gives me a little personal insight into -- and real sympathy for -- why and how a phenomenon like JudgyBitch is born.  I imagine she's been bored and flailing about for something beyond family responsibilities to give her life meaning and purpose.  Maybe she's always been the kind of gal with plenty of outrageous opinions, the kinds of opinions that are offered more for shock value than real insight ("the life of the party" so to speak), and now she's found a way to get a lot more attention for them.  The validation comes from making people gasp (Oh no she didn't!) rather than making them reflect or engage in honest debate.  She's found a forum where she is made to feel exceptional ("A woman in a man's world") and is accorded special recognition and privilege as such.  As she is egged on, she goes farther and farther out on the limb, she exposes more and more, her position becomes more and more tenuous, she seems more and more deluded...  But that attention!  That masculine attention!  It is as addictive as crack, and she just can't stop.