5 ms·

I’m just happy I had no idea who this person was. Turning into my dad has been a blessing…

Zigurd 4y ago
Hear hear! I had heard the name but had no idea why until he was murdered on Twitter and shortly after busted for being casually criminal in a predictably misogynistic way, as a mere facet of his total worthlessness. May all our encounters with influencer douchebags be so brief and yet satisfying.
fmajid 4y ago
I wish I could say the same. A few months ago, my daughter's girl school used his as the poster boy for misogyny in their anti-bullying training program, so I looked him up. Distinctly unpleasant person, and according to Wikipedia he claims to have converted to Islam, so now he is also tarring my religion by association. The problem is, trolls like him thrive off publicity, presumably ad impression revenue-sharing from Youtube et al is how he managed to get the expensive cars he was bragging to Greta Thunberg (although pimping is also highly profitable, so who knows?). The correct response is ostracism and damnatio memoriae. Don't get upset about him, let the law deal with him if he's committed actual crimes, but just ignore him and starve him of the oxygen of publicity. I'm lucky that I mediate the news and everything through my own RSS feed reader that has extensive filtering capabilities, so anything that mentions the Kardashians, football, the Olympics, unfunny April Fool's pranks and other topics of utter uninterestingness is automatically deleted and doesn't waste a nanosecond of my time. I just added him to the list.
- david38 4y ago
  I find it telling that he is branded a troll or worse, yet the mirror image of his message, where women are propped up is spread far and wide. People should ask WHY he is so popular. People prefer to try to shut someone down and then are shocked, shocked I tell you when a huge number of people retaliate. See the Trump election as an example of demonizing a large percentage of people and trying to make it politically incorrect to defend anyone who isn’t a minority.
  - foreverCarlos 4y ago
    He is popular because he is a populist like Trump. He offers simple solutions to complex problems. Solutions that don’t work but empower people unwilling or incapable of committing to more complex solutions.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    1. Mirror message of "propping women up" is empathically not "encouraging violence against women". 2. I think it's broadly understood why he and the like are popular. You artificially divide population into groups, then persuade one that the other group is somehow at fault for your ills. It's a phenomenally successful strategy - as much as it is abhorrent. It particularly prays on the various kinds of downtrodden, angry, frustrated, unlucky or poor,because it distracts with easy and oversimplified answers. The hard part is not understanding why it's successful. The hard part is learning how to save humanity by fighting it, because that movement / strategy only leads to distraction and ignorance. (This is not saying we shouldn't work hard to understand that strategy, on the contrary. I strongly feel you cannot fight something if you don't understand it.)
    - NikolaNovak 4y ago
      P. S. Fwiw, I've oscillated significantly re trump election and voters over last 6 years and still do : On one hand, it is important to show empathy, engage in conversation, focus on common points, and truly try to understand someone's circumstances, thoughts, reasons, and goals. We are all humans and we have needs and there's probably more that we have alike. Isolation and shunning and snooty patronizing are not productive. There are reasons 46mil people voted and would still vote for him and those reasons, to your point, should not be ignored or dismissed. Everybody should be heard, thoughts should not be silenced. I believe in marketplace of ideas and don't like censorship so I agree that we are trying too hard to supress discussion with offense and Twitter outrage. On the other hand, at some point one has to hold adults accountable for their own opinions, decisions, actions and world frameworks; and someone voting for trump has framework completely different then mine and, I feel, completely counter productive and destructive (this is not a "conservative" framework. Trump is not a conservative. Trump is a narcissistic Bully which overrides any ideology). I recognize that 46 million of people felt exactly the same ("he is the devil") about Obama. However, one telling difference is that they have to make up increasingly incredulous stuff about Obama eating babies with his Jewish owners etc to support their opinion, whereas I need only point to Trumps actual documented and proudly owned words and actions to support my disagreement. Basically, 20 year old me wanted to change the world and engage with everybody and be profoundly philosophical. The 45 year old me with kids and job and mortgage has no patience to go through same tired self contradictory, self defeating internally inconsistent crap with people who think putting "fuck Biden" and "fuck Trudeau" signs on their car, house and faceboom are meaningful ways to engage in political discourse.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > anything that mentions the Kardashians, football, the Olympics, unfunny April Fool's pranks and other topics of utter uninterestingness is automatically deleted and doesn't waste a nanosecond of my time That sounds like a fantastic setup. As a suggestion: I've found that blocking all images on the news works wonders as well not to get sucked into clickbait.
cykros 4y ago
I literally only heard of him because Greta's burn was big enough to trend across my screen. He's apparently a big enough loser to make her look cool by comparison.
- tim333 4y ago
  >... “students” are told that attracting “comments and controversy” is the key to success: “What you ideally want is a mix of 60-70% fans and 40-30% haters. You want arguments, you want war.” [Guardian] Seems the publicity thing was working. The arrests maybe less so.

Hear hear! I had heard the name but had no idea why until he was murdered on Twitter and shortly after busted for being casually criminal in a predictably misogynistic way, as a mere facet of his total worthlessness. May all our encounters with influencer douchebags be so brief and yet satisfying.

fmajid 4y ago

I wish I could say the same. A few months ago, my daughter's girl school used his as the poster boy for misogyny in their anti-bullying training program, so I looked him up. Distinctly unpleasant person, and according to Wikipedia he claims to have converted to Islam, so now he is also tarring my religion by association. The problem is, trolls like him thrive off publicity, presumably ad impression revenue-sharing from Youtube et al is how he managed to get the expensive cars he was bragging to Greta Thunberg (although pimping is also highly profitable, so who knows?). The correct response is ostracism and damnatio memoriae. Don't get upset about him, let the law deal with him if he's committed actual crimes, but just ignore him and starve him of the oxygen of publicity. I'm lucky that I mediate the news and everything through my own RSS feed reader that has extensive filtering capabilities, so anything that mentions the Kardashians, football, the Olympics, unfunny April Fool's pranks and other topics of utter uninterestingness is automatically deleted and doesn't waste a nanosecond of my time. I just added him to the list.

david38 4y ago
I find it telling that he is branded a troll or worse, yet the mirror image of his message, where women are propped up is spread far and wide. People should ask WHY he is so popular. People prefer to try to shut someone down and then are shocked, shocked I tell you when a huge number of people retaliate. See the Trump election as an example of demonizing a large percentage of people and trying to make it politically incorrect to defend anyone who isn’t a minority.
- foreverCarlos 4y ago
  He is popular because he is a populist like Trump. He offers simple solutions to complex problems. Solutions that don’t work but empower people unwilling or incapable of committing to more complex solutions.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  1. Mirror message of "propping women up" is empathically not "encouraging violence against women". 2. I think it's broadly understood why he and the like are popular. You artificially divide population into groups, then persuade one that the other group is somehow at fault for your ills. It's a phenomenally successful strategy - as much as it is abhorrent. It particularly prays on the various kinds of downtrodden, angry, frustrated, unlucky or poor,because it distracts with easy and oversimplified answers. The hard part is not understanding why it's successful. The hard part is learning how to save humanity by fighting it, because that movement / strategy only leads to distraction and ignorance. (This is not saying we shouldn't work hard to understand that strategy, on the contrary. I strongly feel you cannot fight something if you don't understand it.)
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    P. S. Fwiw, I've oscillated significantly re trump election and voters over last 6 years and still do : On one hand, it is important to show empathy, engage in conversation, focus on common points, and truly try to understand someone's circumstances, thoughts, reasons, and goals. We are all humans and we have needs and there's probably more that we have alike. Isolation and shunning and snooty patronizing are not productive. There are reasons 46mil people voted and would still vote for him and those reasons, to your point, should not be ignored or dismissed. Everybody should be heard, thoughts should not be silenced. I believe in marketplace of ideas and don't like censorship so I agree that we are trying too hard to supress discussion with offense and Twitter outrage. On the other hand, at some point one has to hold adults accountable for their own opinions, decisions, actions and world frameworks; and someone voting for trump has framework completely different then mine and, I feel, completely counter productive and destructive (this is not a "conservative" framework. Trump is not a conservative. Trump is a narcissistic Bully which overrides any ideology). I recognize that 46 million of people felt exactly the same ("he is the devil") about Obama. However, one telling difference is that they have to make up increasingly incredulous stuff about Obama eating babies with his Jewish owners etc to support their opinion, whereas I need only point to Trumps actual documented and proudly owned words and actions to support my disagreement. Basically, 20 year old me wanted to change the world and engage with everybody and be profoundly philosophical. The 45 year old me with kids and job and mortgage has no patience to go through same tired self contradictory, self defeating internally inconsistent crap with people who think putting "fuck Biden" and "fuck Trudeau" signs on their car, house and faceboom are meaningful ways to engage in political discourse.
jacquesm 4y ago
> anything that mentions the Kardashians, football, the Olympics, unfunny April Fool's pranks and other topics of utter uninterestingness is automatically deleted and doesn't waste a nanosecond of my time That sounds like a fantastic setup. As a suggestion: I've found that blocking all images on the news works wonders as well not to get sucked into clickbait.

cykros 4y ago

I literally only heard of him because Greta's burn was big enough to trend across my screen. He's apparently a big enough loser to make her look cool by comparison.

tim333 4y ago
>... “students” are told that attracting “comments and controversy” is the key to success: “What you ideally want is a mix of 60-70% fans and 40-30% haters. You want arguments, you want war.” [Guardian] Seems the publicity thing was working. The arrests maybe less so.