Say what you want about memes and meme culture in general, but the fact remains that the politically activated non-feminist sector of this civilization has been memeing its messages into reality quite successfully. This is interesting in many ways, not least because a Men’s Rights Movement has been around for more than 100 years yet it is this particular rendition of it, started a bit over 10 years ago, that has achieved the most cultural success.
Admittedly, the bar wasn’t too high. Previous renditions achieved essentially nothing in terms of practical results or cultural shifts, no matter how tiny. Sure, some would argue otherwise but it is nonetheless interesting to see an idea (an what are ideas if not memes, after all?) succeeding where dozens of previous attempts failed.
Older readers might remember the Don’t be that girl campaign of five years ago. The message (and ultimately the meme) of that campaign went far and wide in places one would expect the least. Over my recent tour in Jordan and Israel I met young men who got inspired to get into the hard work of influencing sexual politics after they saw a Don’t be that girl poster somewhere on the internet. They didn’t even remember that AVFM was part of that.
All of these campaigns by both this organization and many-many others have had a drip-drip effect on the culture. And some of that exploded during the hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. Suddenly a lot of people found their courage to speak up against the Always believe the victim narrative and, if one pays attention, many sounded like we’ve been sounding for the past 10 years. Indeed many of those who stood up for due process (but not necessarily for Kavanaugh personally, let’s be clear about that) do indeed mention having had flashbacks of the many comments and, yes, angry rants and memes they saw on the Internet about the dangers of false allegations.
Some noted gynocentrists who made a career out of putting men down under the guise of “making good men” have been shattered by the flashbacks of all the messaging they’ve ignored to such an extent they’ve publicly announced their joining to the wider non-feminist majority.
Now, does that mean the Don’t be that girl campaign is responsible for so many good things? No, of course not. But it does mean that the collection of campaigns done by many organizations and individuals, past and present, to raise the awareness have started to pay off.
Here’s another example: Four years ago, the Cathedral Media was writing dismissively about the issue of false allegations. GQ, covering the first ICMI back in 2014 was saying:
And don’t even get them started on all those “bogus” rape cases. It’s enough to make a certain kind of man join a revolution.
While GQ has remained the same militant gynocentric-subverted cesspool, the rest of the Cathedral has slowly moved away. Too slow for many in our ranks who are (understandably so) eager to see change. But moved away they did. To the point where the word redpilled no longer appears in scare quotes and its meaning is assumed to be known and understood even by the most ardent opponents of the non-feminist narrative.
Getting the opposition to speak our language is a huge win.
If someone had told me back 2010 that before the end of the decade even the opposition will speak in our terms, I would’ve called that person over-optimistic – but not crazy. Because this is largely the point. Changing the cultural narrative takes time and will, but it can and does happen.
Now what?
Now we meme harder. No, seriously!
Until we innovate a new strategy (which we will have to do at some point), sticking to what works tends to be the best strategy. Our predecessors from Ernest Belfort Bax to the turn of the 21st century failed in ways we didn’t because they were unsuccessful in memeing their way through. Much can be written about why this is the case but let’s not digress.
Our opposition is slowly catching up to this and is trying (for now rather inefficiently) to neutralize this strategy. In the European Union, for instance, one will soon need a VPN in order to meme.
And on American-owned social media, distributing anything other than fluffy kittens is becoming a nightmare. Even quoting the American constitution can be haram on… American-owned social media.
But when all is said and done, the constant push from our end has to continue.
The reason this article even exists is because the tendency to give up is quite high. Attrition is the first step to demoralization.
One example is the recent act of the Icelandinc parliament which decided to shelve its bill meant to ban male genital mutilation which sent a deeply demoralizing message to those who believe in the basic human right of minor boys to bodily integrity and autonomy. Of course, pro-mutilation activists celebrated this as a victory but nobody looked closer: the Icelandic parliamentary sub-committee shelved the proposal. That is to say postponed the issue rather than outright reject it. A similar proposal is on the table in the Parliament of Denmark. And Germany, a few years ago, was compelled to introduce limits on the practice. Limits that were completely unimaginable even for the most hardline intactivist 15 years ago.
Memeing our way into reality takes a long time. Most of us will not live long enough to see many of our ideas being implemented. But, just because it takes time, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.
The public success we just had on the issue of false allegations (and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – even our hardest opponents are having a hard time reconciling their narrative with the big dick of reality that hit them in the face in the last month) – that success will trigger a doubling down reaction. As always, it will first have to get worse before it gets better.
We won’t always win. And we won’t get 100% of what we want. But the last 3 months showed that, for all its shortcomings, we do have a proven workable strategy. It’s up to us to have the courage, the discipline and, yes, the will to keep on using it.
Don’t worry, they can’t meme, which makes the strategy better even than the archetypal sword.
