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:
https://twitter.com/TuckerMax/status/445631840133464064
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.
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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.
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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.