This email from a non-fan was so thoughtful I thought I’d share it, and my responses to it, with you all. This is the whole email, by the way. No, “Dear David” or any other niceties at the start.
1. Why do you represent yourself as a head of a creepy fucking child?
Because the “creepy fucking child” in the picture is me? It’s sort of my favorite picture of me.
2. How can you honestly believe that we live under a patriarchy, at least in modern western society? I mean, men hold no where near as much power as they’ve had in the past. Women nowadays have pretty much all the rights and opportunities that men have (hell, they probably have MORE rights, privileges and opportunities than men have).
Huh. How on earth could I possibly have come to the conclusion that perhaps men have more than their share of power in society today?
3. So what do you think of the Amazing Atheist?
Why don’t you just go and read what I’ve written about him? Do you not know how to use Google, or the search box on this page?
You two do have your similarities to each other: you’re both fat, have beards, wear glasses, are very opinionated, and both enjoy insulting the people you don’t like (feminists/MRA’s) and naturally attract a lot trolls from those respective groups. But, you two are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to feminism and gender politics.
Huh. How could that possibly be, with both of us being fat and wearing glasses? I’ll have to bring it up at the next meeting of the Bespectacled Fat Elders of the Internet.
Also, there is a bit of a difference between bullying people you don’t like (a la Amazing Atheist) and QUOTING WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY SAY (a la me).
And no, DO NOT bring up his sexual exploits, trying focusing exclusively on his merits as a video blogger, and as a person who gives his opinions on YouTube.
I don’t give a shit about his “sexual exploits,” whatever they are. And I don’t have much to say about his “merits as a video blogger,” because I’ve only watched a handful of his terrible videos. What I do know. from what I have seen from him, is that he’s a nasty, hateful, misogynistic asshole who bullies rape victims online and mocked a teenage girl who was bullied into committing suicide.
That kind of outweighs (get it? get it?) any fat solidarity I might have for him because of his fatness.
Hope that helps!
Yours, in fatness,
David Futrelle
EDITED TO ADD: My correspondent has responded to this post! Here is his reply. You may notice certain ironies.
That’s fine, go ahead and post all my emails to you on your website. All it’s gonna do is show how much of a colossal douchebag you are. And nice job on having your army of worms and insects crawl from the woodworks to attack me. Just goes to show how much feminists and the people who support them DO NOT deserve to be taken seriously, when all they do is stoop to personal insult and just linking to articles when someone questions them.
On the abortion thing, yeah that’s a problem, but how does it prove that’s there’s a patriarchy in western society? How do you explain the states that do allow abortion, how do you explain the modern western countries where abortions are legal? All it proves is that , yes, there are some states that continue to live in the dark ages and are run by assholes. How bout next time, try to actually answer my question instead of linking to an article and hoping that I’ll be satisfied. But then again, I guess that’s too much to ask out the modern-day feminist simpletons in society.
Oh yeah, and about the Amazing Atheist, he actually bothers to refute what the feminists. It’s not like he just looks at a feminist and says “haha your ugly, your fat, etc.” You on the other hand, stoop to nothing but personal insults. Pretty much all you do is find people you don’t like, hold them up and say “haha look at these people I don’t like, now point and laugh my personal army of woodworms.” You don’t even bother to explain why you think they’re wrong. It clear to me that somebody doesn’t know how to use the search feature on Youtube.
Woodworms?
![The Amazing Atheist spits on the memory of Amanda Todd [TW: bullying, sexual shaming, self-harm, suicide]](http://i2.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/amandatoddscreenshot2.png?resize=50%2C50)
@SittieKittie
Birth control sabotage is eerie.
Back in college I was with a guy who said, “I want to get you pregnant so you’ll be all mine.”
What happened back then blows my mind now because I thought very little of it at the time.
sarahlizhousespouse, yeah, it’s never talked about. I guess I’ve known that sort of threat happens in the back of my mind, but the cultural narrative is so steeped in spermjacking rhetoric I was honestly shocked when I read that story, and more than a little creeped/grossed out.
The idea that reading is “feminine” and not something “real men” do is actually one of the things about current gender roles that I think is genuinely hurtful to men, and contributes to a decreasing percentage of men in higher education. Obviously this has a lot to do with class as well; the “reading is for women” is mostly a working class/lower middle class male thing.
So, if the MRA was really about improving the situation for men in society, this is one of the memes they ought to target; that you’re less of a real man if you spend time reading books. But obviously the MRA will never realize that. They’ll just whine about how there are more and more women in higher education because the educational system have been, in some totally vague way, feminized by the feminists.
That’s so odd to me, the idea of reading being feminine. When I was growing up. I was told that I should stop reading so much because that’s what boys did and I should be more sociable, like a girl. (Not those exact words, of course, but that was the general message.)
I can’t help but feel unimaginably sad for anyone who denies themselves the joy of doing something because it might not fit to a specific gender role.
@ Jessay
Being late to the comment party! 😀
I don’t know if he has ever specifically complained about her supposed “scamming”, but he did make strawman-laden videos about her in the past. I don’t want to watch his videos to find out though, both because I don’t want to give him the ad revenue and also because his smugness just makes me want to punch something.
What I have read (from people that support his point of view, so I’m going to assume it’s true) is that he said she made herself into a Damsel in Distress by talking about all the harrassment that she got.
Given this fact plus the fact that the general excuse these people give for calling Anita a c**t is that she totally deserves it for being a scam, I’m going to say it’s highly likely that he also complained about her scamming the donors at one point.
@sarahlizhousespouse- That is effing terrifying. I’m so glad you got out of that situation. It’s especially scary given the percentages of abuse that start when the woman in the couple is pregnant *shudder*
@M Dubz
I wasn’t too worried because I had an IUD.
He struck me as being very unhappy and desperate to find happiness in another person, hence the frantic attempt to keep me, or anyone else, from leaving. The whole situation made me very sad, not because I felt guilt, but because I recognized how lonely he felt and how his actions drove people away rather than brought them closer.
He definitely criticized Anita, saying she was the ultimate damsel in distress or something for getting that money I think. I won’t watch his videos unless they’re reuploaded by someone else because he gets paid for them. Plus, after seeing a few a while back and wanting to rage-vomit, I just can’t stand watching him.
@tooimpurenangel I totally agree about how off putting his thumbmails for his videos which youtube tries to shove down our throats are. I commented on it on tumblr and he reblogged it, causing his fans to call me a cunt
http://amazingatheist.tumblr.com/post/53549955875/if-the-amazing-atheists-bigoted-views-didnt-keep-me
When I replied to how I’ve made countless arguments against his bigotry in the past, and he had nothing to say, I heard crickets. Like, yes, draw attention to the cheap shots made at you, completely ignore all actual debate. His tag on tumblr showed that to be a pattern of his.
Also funny how he brags about never reading books, because one of his money fishing expeditions was a request for fans to send him amazon gift cards so he could buy books for his birthday. Also funny because he’s vanity published three of his own. Why do I know so much about people I can’t stand?
I could be mistaken but from the way that guy writes and the strange try to evoke a sense of kinship through similar looks (overweight etc.) I think that guy is the amazing atheist. XD