It seems Tucker Max (of fratboy asshole fame) and Geoffrey Miller (who wrote Spent) are creating a male dating and self-improvement site. LaidNYC and D&P have detailed how they think Max and Miller are just going to rip off pre-existing manosphere bloggers and try make them politically correct.
That the new site will be politically correct is nigh indisputable given Max has written this:
@runsonmagic not just honest. Also scientific, actionable, ethical. Most sites in that space don't fit the bill. They're dressed up puas
— Tucker Max (@TuckerMax) March 17, 2014
It is highly unlikely that by ‘ethics’ he is referring to a rooted morality derived from religious principles. It will almost assuredly be shallow progressivist ethics in nature. I would bet a decent sum the ethics will primarily be focused on creating a kinder, gentler carousal. “Leave her better than when you found her.”
But somebody trying to profit off the manosphere by stealing ideas and making them more acceptable to liberals is not terribly surprising. It was bound to happen at some time and Max Tucker is well positioned to do so. In retrospect it seems almost inevitable.
Instead of lamenting the inevitable, which laidnyc and D&P did a good enough job of that, I would like to instead point to a comment by aramaxima:
From a paranoid reactionary perspective, it looks to me like the Cathedral is about to turn the Manosphere into controlled opposition. Stealing all its ideas, rebranding them to a “wacky pair of a bestselling author and an Ivy researcher!” and then (of course) ignoring that the Manosphere at all ever existed is exactly how I’d do it.
Some reformed asshole stealing ideas is, in the larger scheme of things, not that big a deal. What manospherians should be worried about instead is entryism:
Entryism is a small team of conspirators trying to manipulate and control another organization – usually a larger organization with a bigger mailing list and more funds. Thus for example a small group of political extremists, a team of half a dozen or so people, would naturally like to take over an big organization involved in some big money, moderately leftist, politically progressive task such as funding housing for the poor, if lots of funding for the poor flows through the housing organization.
In this case, the ‘big’ organization is the manosphere and its ‘funds’ are lost knowledge of the SMV and influence among disenfranchised young men. The mainstream progressives would definitely like to bring the manosphere to heel to work for its agenda.
How I foresee this working:
1) Max uses softened versions of red pill concepts (let’s call this the purple pill) that are more acceptable to polite society. These ideas will still be outside of the mainstream, but only slightly so. Max will become the David Brooks of dating advice; still kind of icky but acceptable enough for the NYT.
2) The purple pill is still more effective than the blue pill, so it still gets a following. Many disenfranchised, but liberal, young men who would be scared off by the harsh truths of the manosphere accept this new politically correct purple pill.
3) A new purple pill community for young men with its own set of blogs develops with Max being a key player. Maybe the community links up with existing purplish-pill dating sites like the Good Men Project, Hooking Up Smart, and Mark Manson, maybe not.
4) The purple pill community begins to link to and get links from some of the more “acceptable” manosphere sites like the Art of Manliness and MMSL. Overlap between the manosphere and the purple pill community begins.
5) The purple pill community begins applying the the manosphere and/or red pill labels to itself; either that or it develops its own label and beings applying that itself and the manosphere as a whole. Either way, the two communities begin to fall under similar label to most outsiders. (The same way those in the manosphere are still called MRA’s by a lot of outsiders). We’ll call this the new manosphere (NM).
6) Extreme feminists will attack the purple pill NM for some reason. Some red pillers will defend them (he’s one of “us” being attacked by one of “them”) and ties will grow within the NM.
7) As the feminist attacks happen, the NM will distance themselves from the “extreme” red pill community. They’ll post a few apologies and some politically correct claptrap to satiate their opponent’s bloodlust. This, of course, won’t work.
8) Purple pill types will start to concern-troll the NM, trying to dilute the message, purportedly for the good of the message. “Look how we’re upsetting others. We’re driving people away. We need to soften our language and maybe talk less about mean stuff so we can get more people into the red pill.”
9) Eventually, the NM will start cut themselves off from the red pill community and denounce them. “Those guys aren’t part of the real NM”, “the NM would never have anything to do with sexists like that”, etc. Red pillers will be shunned and excluded from the NM.
10) At this point the manosphere will have become completely controlled by the purple pill. The purple pill will be called the red pill, Max (or someone else like him) will be the centre of the manosphere, and Roissy will be that crazy crank who hasn’t evolved with the red pill. Old red pillers will either have to rebuild the community that was destroyed by the entryists or leave altogether.
Now it probably won’t be exactly this way, and will almost assuredly not be in the exact same order with such discrete steps, but the general thrust of the movement will be the same. The result will be the same, the conquering of the manosphere by the purple pill.
Also realize, Max and Miller do not have to be doing this intentionally. Maybe all they want is some easy cash from stealing others ideas. They may even be opposed to some of the steps. They may end up being simply tools of others. In fact, it wouldn’t even require anyone doing this intentionally, it may simply happen because that’s what tends to happen to large, unstructured organizations. They go left.
Also, even if Max’s site goes nowhere, which is possible, they are not the first (HUS) and definitely won’t be the last. There will be other entryists and the pattern will be the same.
****
So, how to stop it?
Entryism can only be stopped by vigilance. To keep the red pill from being subverted current people of the manosphere have to stop them from doing so.
Here’s some things that can be done:
1) Aggregates and other gatekeepers, such as RP Reddit and manosphere.com, have a special importance. They must make sure not to put Tucker Max’s site or other similar sites, into their rolls and must keep content from purple pill sites from infesting them. If some gatekeepers allow themselves to be taken with purple pill stuff, they should be abandoned for other gatekeepers.
2) Important manosphere figures must make sure to distance themselves from purple pill types sites. Mockery, such as Aunt Giggles, can work well for this. This already being done.
3) If a men’s dating or self-improvement group or community outside the current manosphere starts to take the red pill or manosphere label upon themselves, the manosphere needs to vocally reject their usage. As well, if purple pill communities create their own labels and try to apply them to the manosphere, the manosphere must reject those labels.
4) Concern-trolling must be ignored. Anybody who starts to campaign for making the red pill more accessible by enforcing language codes, political correctness, sensitivity, etc. needs to be shunned and delinked.
5) Avoid linking to purple pill sites for purposes other than mockery, rejection, or rebuke.
6) If purple pill commenters start concern-trolling your blog, make sure to either answer and reject their concerns or delete their comments.
7) Mockery works wonders against entryists. Use it.
8) Those manospherians who become to cozy with purple pill sites need to be warned, then shunned.
Those are some ideas I can think of immediately. If anybody else has others.
It should be noted to be careful not to go too far in enforcing over-rigid ideological control. It is counter-productive as the manosphere thrives on open discussion. There is a difference between keeping entryists out and keeping everybody out. A line needs to be drawn between acceptable disagreement and questioning and entryism.
****
The manosphere can listen, or not. It can take steps to protect itself form entryism or not.
But if it doesn’t, don’t be surprised to hear: “No true red-piller thinks hypergamy exists”, “every red-pill person knows the Dark Triad is unattractive to women”, “those sexists aren’t a part of the manosphere”, etc. in the next few years.
It’s sad that we have to be on the lookout, but in fact we do have to be on the lookout, so it’s just as well that you’ve reminded us.
Heh, there is a prong one missed,
The Manosphere thrives on a couple of things:
-Psychological studies
-Actionable advice..wait for it..that works..from Veterans of the dating and relationship spheres. This is one of the reasons why “PUA is no longer for me!” is the pebbles in the avoidance weasel avalanche (Hat tip to Krauser)
-Plane crash reports, meaning men whose relationship plane crashed into the side of the mtn and burned to ashes
-A growing sense of Males, mostly White Males (tho not always, Males in general, the Evil White male is merely a troupe atm, it will expand to all males) being targeted by the Cathedral
Now the more interesting thing is not that guy (why name him) it is more it will be very instructive to see the marketing channels they will use. The Red Pill and Manosphere, mostly spread via word of mouth, slowly, the Cathedral has no time for such things, watch for Social Media Campaigns and Interviews on important Red Pill/Manosphere audio/video media outlets.
Perhaps with a cash payment to be allowed to appear, one will know who is who and what is what merely by seeing where those counter movement types appear. A sort of picture is worth a thousand words, a video or audio is worth 10 thousand words, the Cathedral knows this and will offer $$ to subvert those outlets of influence.
Problem with the Manosphere and Red Pill is, if one is truly Dark Triad, the cash is taken, Judas like, only with no casting it into the Temple afterwards.
One advantage the manosphere has is it is a group of atomized individuals not necessarily working together at all. You saw that this month with all the in-fighting. This makes us harder for entryists to take over than say, a church. By all pursuing our self-interest and ADD we are inadvertently following Robert Greene’s Law #48 – Assume Formlessness.
But allow me to give a different take for defense against entryists.
In ancient times, walled cities were built to protect against invading tribes. As populations grew, walls were built outwards in concentric circles. If they were attacked, the people withdrew behind the outermost wall. If that wall was breached, they would withdraw within the next wall, and so on, until they were forced into the center, the most heavily guarded part of the city: The Citadel. The Citadel contained all the town’s treasures and housed the most important people: the king, nobles, officers. Defense of the Citadel was the key to the city’s survival: as long as it could be held, the rest of the city could be recaptured and rebuilt.
So what is the manosphere’s citadel? What must be defended at all costs?
Chateau Heartiste.
You may not like the answer, but there it is. Almost all other manosphere blogs do not matter in the least. Sturgeon’s Law defined. Now people always have some minor gripe about CH, but look at the cumulative: There is no greater entry point for the curious man, no better archive, no blog more skilled and entertaining at truth telling, nobody overlaps the various worlds of truth better, nobody reduces the opposition to point and sputter better than CH. He doesn’t sell products or ads or spam affiliate links. Nobody produces more value for so little cost.
I don’t know if the original Roissy is still involved, I don’t know if its one author or multiple authors, frankly it doesn’t even matter. The fact is the best thing you can do if you care about the manosphere or the “red pill” is to donate money to Chateau Heartiste so that whoever it is keeps writing, and link as many people to it as possible.
How’s this even: If you really want to advance the “redpill”, don’t write a dating or politics blog. Write about some other male interest: style, fitness, cars, and then start slipping in CH links to your readers. Don’t force it or preach, let them ingest it and then follow the clickhole themselves. That’s how everyone gets initiated. Almost every redpiller I’ve spoken to says they started with Roissy. The only other thing you can do is write so well that you move inside the Citadel yourself. Not everybody has that ability.
Now there’s a lot of egos but we’re hierarchists here, right? Part of that is humility. Accepting you have betters. It might be time to walk the walk. A good start for everyone would be sending CH a few bucks for all the good he/they have done over the years.
You do realize that the point of corruption is when liberty becomes self-protection, don’t you?
excellent post. my idea: we write a “ten fundamental tenets of the red pill” post and all sign it, sort of like the bill of rights.
so what are those ten tenets? well it would be fun to discuss them and hash them out. but for me, this is the first one:
1. women = children.
how’s that for un-pc.
Please don’t forget about shark at solvemygirlproblems or pook
The materials of:
no-maam.blogspot.com
Is also relevant.
You think we need a canon?
@laidnyc
“There is no greater entry point for the curious man, no better archive, no blog more skilled and entertaining at truth telling, nobody overlaps the various worlds of truth better ”
you make some good points, but when roissy left and the new writers took over, they forgot about the loving, romantic aspect of dating girls — to the point that i don’t even read the new blog anymore.
as a reminder, here are some quotes from classic roissy.
“Never compromise on love. It is the only thing in this world that isn’t bullshit.”
-Roissy in 2008
“Love IS life. Everything we do in our short lives is just prelude to the climax of falling in love.” -Roissy in 2008
“You will let her walk when her heart is closed to you.”
-Roissy in 2008
“Be aloof. Be indifferent. Be loving.”
-Roissy in 2010
Good rules of thumb.
Does it sound faggoty?
Does the message try too hard to be inclusive?
Does it lack an edgy, borderline racist, snark like CH?
(Note that this isn’t to endorse racism per se, but rather racial slurs and similar can be thought of as a kind of weeding mechanism against PC thought.)
On the other hand you might want to look out for messages that sound ‘over the top’ racist and sexist.
Usually these types sound like feminist caricatures of anti-fems.
I remember, back in 2011 on The Spearhead, a guy called “Boxer” who argued strongly (too strongly) against the political right as a potential men’s rights ally.
‘He’ would constantly shout down his dissenters with lines like “Shut up. I didn’t give you permission to speak!” “Keyster and Firepower are my bitches and they must keep their place!”
Looking back it occurred to me that ‘he’ was likely a she.
Basically the thing to look for in the genuine article is an attitude of ‘not trying’ thumbing of nose to all things PC.
Especially if this comes with demonstrations of wit (for as most know leftists are neither funny nor very bright).
The Tucker Max rhymes with the Goldman Sachs. They are the enemy.
It was inevitable. With the rate of growth the manosphere has seen it was going to happen. What’s more, there are more and more women coming in everyday as well. You mentioned The Red Pill reddit, but the Red Pill Women’s reddit is growing as well and the mods are working incredibly hard to stop this exact thing from happening there because it’s just natural that women are going to try to subvert that space. It’s natural that they will subvert the manosphere, as well. As they enter the manosphere, more men will try to also subvert it in their white knightedness or to continue to try to give women what they want. It will be (to borrow from Rollo) a big batch of build a better beta.
It WILL happen. However, there will always be those who are willing to go further, who want to know more and they will find the hub if people have the fortitude to continue it. Their numbers will be small, but it will be worth it to find them.
This post really spells out the battle that is going to take place. This is exactly the war we are fighting at RedPillWoman subreddit (and yes, I know reddit is an absolute cesspool, but I prefer to think of it as the Wild West and conquering a new territory – LOL, hamster on!) with two fronts: the big subreddits created specifically to mock and troll us and the subscribers wanting to make RPW “nice” and water down the message.
We slap down any attempts of trolling we see and we ban with a heavy hand, but have to be less heavy handed with the RPW because if we are too strict and controlling, they will go away. We have to temper keeping the message pure with retaining subscribers. It is a two front battle that will be fought this year; it would be helpful if the various factions of the manosphere were more cohesive, but I’m staying out of all of that! You men do what you need to do; I’ll be on the sidelines cheering :)
@laidnyc
“There is no greater entry point for the curious man …”
When I was a red pill newbie, I found the writing at Heartiste to be a little too crass and nihilistic for me to take seriously … for my money, I would pick Rational Male as the best starting point to the red pill (particularly his Best of Year One post) … Rollo is not a good a writer as Roissy and can be a bit pedantic at times but I think I actually put more credence to what he was saying since I felt he was sincerely trying to help and not just simply show off …
Also, inforwarrior1 mentioned No Ma’am — I would consider No Ma’am to be the most comprehensive online red pill resource … Rob Fedders has “retired” so the blog is no longer updated but his archives are pure gold to those who care to take a deeper delve into the red pill and he has also helpfully compiled the writings of other proto-manospherians like Pook and Zed …
Great Post!
We are all going to have to be a little more vigilant. For now it will be easy but as time progresses and more and more people show up to the party it is going to be harder.
It will be interesting to see if the Manosphere turns out to be genetically immune to left-side entry attacks. Don’t get comfortable, as we know the Tree of Liberty is watered with blood and such, but I have a strange feeling this will backfire amusingly.
The manosphere is, if anything, vulnerable to attacks from the right, terrifying theo-fascists such as myself.
@jackblack23
I agree that Rollo is an excellent source, perhaps the best out there on “average beta deprogramming” specifically, which is why he was so popular on SoSuave and why he is heavily linked on the redpillreddit. Extending my Citadel analogy, he is definitely one of the inner walls of the city, as is Roosh, and Krauser.
“So what is the manosphere’s citadel? What must be defended at all costs?
Chateau Heartiste.
… There is no greater entry point for the curious man, no better archive, no blog more skilled and entertaining at truth telling…”
I have to agree. It was February 10, 2012, I was reading this post at TLP (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/02/my_fiancee_is_pushing_me_away.html)
and Southern Man left this comment (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/02/my_fiancee_is_pushing_me_away.html#comment-23007) and I started reading Heartiste.
It was if scales had fallen from my eyes and I looked upon the world for the first time with eyes I’d never used before.
Exactly. This is why you can’t allow the Camel to get his nose in the Tent.
I just outlined to /r/TRP my take on what needs to go down.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/210g35/entryism_and_the_need_for_a_red_pill_oath/
the one thing CH could do is lose the glee over ‘whites win, mexicans/blacks lose’ type papers/research/news items. i don’t see how it compromises the message at all. that keeps me away to some degree, as i choose virtue, honor, and fairness as keys to live by. when CH gets giddy over black people doing stupid things, they’re being…stupid. the answer is to have nothing to be particularly defensive about. i for one would get defensive, were my paradigm conflated with anti-black/anti-mexican rhetoric…because i’m on board with all the rest of it. and obsidian is a damn good thinker. no rational reason to alienate black men, who are on the front lines more often than white men.
” that keeps me away to some degree, as i choose virtue, honor, and fairness as keys to live by.”
Gentlemen are over there in the pile with a sign saying “Couldn’t get the job done.”
Talking about fairness must be a joke, considering the ongoing actions of those you coddle.
“no rational reason to alienate black men, who are on the front lines more often than white men.”
Yes, against White men. Before you do more concern trolling, checked up on voting statistics lately? What about crime statistics and welfare stats? What about listening to them/you for ten minutes? The hour is late and it is time for RealTalk. Leaving out the truth makes the whole thing meaningless, no matter how many followers you gain. RINOs don’t change anything except when the Left’s media tell them to.
Good post but the elites have already tried this shit before under the guise of the Dark Enlightenment and that nobody Nick Land claiming to be a thought leader. Remember those debates about a year ago of whether the manosphere should be centralized so as to become more relevant. I have no basis for this but I strongly suspect the people pushing that centralization were agent provocateurs looking to control the manosphere and water down our message. Even now the truth is spreading despite the best efforts of opposition. Critical mass may have been reached. I just sit back with a smirk whenever someone IRL starts explaining red pill truths to me since I first stumbled across this stuff in ~ 2007 or 2008 when it was a true fringe movement.
For what its worth I would add the book of Pook (and his blog pooks mill) along with Vox Day (since he covers a wide range of topics) to essential manosphere reading.
NSR wrote a more general essay on this topic back in December:
Nightsky’s Three Laws Of Movements
http://nightskyradio.com/2013/12/11/nightskys-three-laws-of-movements/
Personally, I have always been really carefully not to ally myself with any movements or labels beyond Christ because I didn’t want to get caught up in exactly this kind of situation. But I can see how NSR’s explanation applies to what the manosphere is going through now. And it’s a bummer, but it’s also predictable I suppose. The other problem is that this kind of thing can stifle debate among true “red pill” types as everyone becomes afraid of being labelled entry-ist if they disagree with something, which creates the possibility of false orthodoxy (not saying that has happened or will happen in the manosphere, just that it’s a potential problem in this kind of situation).
If you drop race realism from the red pill, you dilute the red pill. Feminism and the leftist bullshit that races should and could get along are different sides of the same anti West, anti White man coin
If you drop race realism from the red pill, you dilute the red pill. Feminism and the leftist bullshit that races should and could get along are different sides of the same anti West, anti White man coin
——————————————————–
Absolutely.
Without race realism there’s no accepted intellectual differences between the races.
If such differences can be denied then gender constructivism is right around the corner.
Gender constructivism is vital for feminism to survive.
Because gender constructivism denies the intellectual inferiority of women, that if generally accepted, would hasten the demise of feminism.
At the end of the day, the internet is for chicks.
Selah.
If the past is any guide the purple pill will be aided by positive feedback from the mainstream media. The lure of respectability and the financial security that comes with it can be pretty strong. It’s all happened before. Watching conservatism implode in slow motion and the horrifying realization that none of it matters makes me wish for never being made aware of politics.
@infowarrior1 – I e-booked a bunch of the stuff on no-ma’am for posterity and ease-of-use. It won’t be lost.
“But somebody trying to profit off the manosphere by stealing ideas and making them more acceptable to liberals is not terribly surprising.”
The David Deida discussion list around 12 years ago was an interesting case. Deida is known for his book The Way Of The Superior Man. It was one of the first red pill books I had seen. But Deida wrote it for New Agers, so I didn’t know why it was considered a bible by PUAs at the time.
The discussion list was an email discussion group where men and women would discuss and ‘practice’ Deida’s ideas. Unfortunately, it was so feminized that calling it pink pill would be generous. In new age, the mind, head and thinking are satan. Kind of clever because that is what keeps you from giving your money and power to the guru. The only acceptable organ is the heart. “Open your heart! ” (and your legs and your wallet ;-)
Deida characterized the masculine as ‘gridhead’ ie thinking, analyzing, solving problems. Despite this, the feminine influence was so strong that even the top male guru, when asked a question by a fem, would never say ” I need to think about it”. It was always “let me feel into that and get back to you”. The worst accusation from a fem to a masc was “what are you, some kind of scientist?” In other words, despite Deida’s emphasis on the polarity of masculine and feminine, men were expected to function like women. It was a serious farce. Eventually the list was disbanded.
I guess a similar phenomenon of women commenters messing up manosphere blogs has been discussed. We must remain ever vigilant that the manosphere doesn’t slide into the ‘personosphere” ;-)
Sorry for the late comment.
Think of “The Overton Window”… as they attempt to corral the red pill and appropriate it “entryism” — remember, that means that certain red-pill concepts are now *acceptable* rather than *crimethink*.
We will have shifted the terms of the debate from blue-pill being ‘reality’, a little towards sanity and truth.
We need to repeat the process, gradually moving the frame, and terms, back off of feminism.
To do that, get the younger generation of women who married chaste and young, and get them to contribute. “I’m happy, I’m married. *You* are forty-five and own 11 cats, and the man you have now is not your husband. Who’s the victim?”
You’re not playing for the hearts and minds of the leaders: you’re playing to the fence-sitters.
And the stakes are personal, *sustainable* happiness.
“I *AM* happy” from a young, attractive woman, trumps any number of anecdotal, made up horror stories from old, sagging, overweight, shrieking harpies, right?