Breaking the Narrative Episode 80: Introspection and Self-Reflection. Are We Doing a Good Job?

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I’m sure many here have not only seen certain developments that been going for some time in relation to internet culture and interaction with what Raging Golden Eagle has called ‘meatspace.’ In fact I do kind of enjoy his approach to the subject of how society is evolving via ‘netspace’ interactions. As such, I figured now is as good a time as any to do an examination not just of the current state of internet activism, debate, and commentary but to look at my personal career of work on this site for the past two years. That’s right, I have been a contributing author and commentator on this blog for two whole years writing nearly weekly articles.

Also as part of ensuring I am trying to stick within ethics I will disclose right now that I have been a part of various Discords in addition to our own fan-based one and even been on the YouTube Saints Midweek Show a couple of times. Though to be fair it was done at a random draw and with the full understanding that Jeff Holiday (who is currently setting to show up on Dr. Phil for an unrelated subject) and Nick Goroff actually respect their fans as much as we do. Now, admitting we’ve all made mistakes in the past and I’m more than open to being wrong and corrected, I am of the mind that I have done better than most, trying to encourage people in actually leaving comments to address directly on here and on my Minds page when they have come about. Honestly, looking back on them I’ve had only one real rough spat in an article and one trolly set of douchebags. Going on for about 2 years and with what traffic this particular blog gets, I say that’s pretty good for a weekly contributor.

However, its not as much as I would like. I want more people to come to me about my articles, to discuss them. To disagree with me even. I don’t want to become complacent, lazy, or even bored with this. Sure I think I’ve taken enough short breaks to prevent such things to happen but I don’t want that to be the only reason I’m not burnt out. As such, I’m going to put this here: While I want comments on my more recent articles, don’t think that means you can’t go through my entire backlog and comment. If you are a new reader and trying to get to know me and my writing style then comment. I’ll check it out and try to respond if I think it will help test my mettle.

With that all being said time to get into the meat of this one, Let’s Hammer This In!

To start this off properly, I think we should go all the way back to what started to pique my interest in the internet activist realm of things. I guess it would be about the first time that I heard about Anita Sarkeesian in 2013. It would be about this time many of the commentators that comprise the Anti-SJW side of things started their careers, including Sargon and MundaneMatt. At this time, my wife and I were just getting to the point of having full internet access after two solid years of not having it. It was little after having moved to Benton Kentucky, as I had mentioned before.  Of course, having been so steeped into gaming for as long as I had, the mere mention of the Kickstarter that Anita put up and her entire premise made me cry out “bullshit!” because I could tell without having seen the infamous “I’m not a gamer” video that she was no gamer.

It was at this time I started following people like AlphaOmegaSin and ReviewTechUSA among other gaming channels, though to be honest I don’t watch much of Rich’s stuff anymore, not just because I’ve started to see his own issues, but because of the fact that he is so buddy buddy with Liana Kerzner. But that bit of review is for later.

Then I learned in January of 2014 that I was to become a father and the month after, that the baby was to be a son. We joked about my father in law jinxing us and hoping for a daughter but overall we were simply happy to have been starting a family, not yet fully realizing the dystopia we were bringing him into. This was the point also where I researched and learned the horrors of what circumcision actually does, though surprisingly enough this wasn’t when I got fully exposed to the Men’s Rights Movement as a whole. I did start seeing videos from Karen here, and the full red pill started to course through my system.

Even though I’ve been getting doses for years it didn’t start to fully boil within me until #GamerGate happened and my son was born a mere two weeks after it began, and after I was literally robbed of money for my son by a woman I should have been able to trust with my life.  Perhaps it was my don’t give a fuck attitude that led to this. In fact I wager if I never found my wife and just fully backed out of society and cut myself off from the world instead of getting married, I’d likely have gone full MGTOW. Keep in mind, I regret none of my actions, even my mistakes, as I take them as lessons to learn. I guess that’s part of my resiliency, the ability to not dwell needlessly on foolishness of the past. Claim it definitely, accept it assuredly, but regret it? That would be too exhausting, and unnecessary as long as you learn the lesson experience posits for you.

This is when the red pill broke through and I started to rage about things. I had just fully gotten integrated at the workplace I still work at today. By October I had started telling co-workers about this crazy internet shit that was going on, describing why it would become an issue and now even the eldest of those I work with listen to me on such things because ultimately, I’ve been proven right in their eyes more often than not. Its garnered me respect from those who had gotten to know me within that time. Even though recently one of my long running managers has left to start her own business, she got to the point where she has read my articles. (For that I have to say thanks again Miss P. We miss you.)

As time went on I debated starting a Youtube channel, but as MundaneMatt is finding out now, it’s rough to try to juggle being a full time dad and being a content creator. Imagine trying that while working a full time position and you get why the Troubled Gamers Radio I tried to start with my wife has gone nowhere.  Between writing these articles (which I view as a viable means of an outlet where I fully research things to write them,) taking care of my son, and helping out with my (for the past two years ailing) father-in-law, I’m all but swamped. What little free time I give myself is split between sleeping and gaming with the occasional artistic endeavor. Its a hefty plate to be sure, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Then 2015 and Calgary Expo came about. By now I had stopped listening to a lot of ReviewTechUSA and listened to more of MundaneMatt. It was through this like it was with many others that I learned about the Honey Badgers, as well as the Men’s Rights Movement as a whole. Sargon was in a huge upswing and it looked as if #GamerGate was truly starting to win the battle, but that it was a long road ahead. It was here that I would also switch fully to a smartphone after years of refusing to do so because I didn’t like texting. I realize how hilarious that is, believe me. I have never claimed to be a genius or any sort of heavyweight on the level of Professor Jordan Petersen.

Then came 2016, MundaneMatt was getting doxed, I wrote a little letter to Alison that got featured on the show. Then little bit after that I submitted a couple of articles which got me noticed by Hannah. To be honest, I was taken aback and shocked that she liked my approach. Like many things, I ran with it and didn’t look back. Being a stubborn and sometimes brazen individual does that at times. Hilarious thing about it just is, a bit prior to that Mark Kern suggested maybe I do some sort of pirate radio podcast thing like how a certain resistance cell got their message across. I sometimes wonder if I’d ever be on the main Badger shows or anything like that but I now realize that maybe my talents are more in the researching and tying together of ideas as opposed to espousing them.

That being said, if anyone thinks I should go for something like becoming a Men’s Rights Rose situation you know what to do. But enough bad jokes for right now. Here, the true scale of the windmill we had set ourselves against came into view, and it is a lumbering one. Though the cracks had begun to show, the entirety of the election season made that abundantly clear. If you ask me, I do think my first year was my strongest and I probably could be a bit harder with my punches now. As such, this is also when we started shifting so much from essentially intellectual guerrilla warfare to more full frontal bouts of ideas within the public eye, and started getting some real leeway. Of course, this was before the upper brass at YouTube really started to notice an attack on the hedgemony.

This is also when the attaching of a face seemed to enter this whole realm of things we see ourselves in now. It’s here when I started listening to Nick’s Wizard of Cause channel, having found out about him via Sargon. It was around this time that I talked with Liana K a few times as part of interacting with #GamerGate as a whole. Until this point it had been relatively peaceable, until I revealed to her that I had been writing for the group, and she thought that through me she could get the ‘apology’ from Karen that she has been bugging for since Nephanor called her out for some BS. If you’ve been following the group for a while you should very well know why this ‘apology’ is not only undeserved but will never come from Karen’s lips. I let both Brian and Hannah know about this immediately as this had happened and it was responded to I feel appropriately. Needless to say I hadn’t talked to Kerzner since.

Then Trump got elected. The impossible had happened, and conservatism alongside those who are more ideologically independent, conservative, or libertarian became more than simply a thorn in the side of the authoritarian feminist identitarian narrative. They responded by lumping us all in together. We had started to become a cudgel. What’s more, the leadership of the opposition started to lose face, big time. The Mainstream Media going into 2017 had no idea how to counter any of this because they ignored what the public really wanted for so damn long. But now they had to notice…. not so much because they figured out they were hemorrhaging money (honestly I think they could care less about that) but that they figured out they had lost influence. People weren’t listening to THEM like they used to. The fear I’ve posited they (rightly) have of video games had occurred…through YouTube! As such, the ‘fake news’ argument was born and they started to attack the funding of alternative news media and alternative activist routes.

Pewdiepie, Jontron, and even Philip DeFranco were attacked for mostly milquetoast jokes and easily taken out of context phrases that paint them as ‘bigots.’ To be fair Felix did drop that hard R, something which he had explained away as something rather benign, but to the outrage and scandalous legacy outlets that means Jack and shit. Guess who is skipping town… No @jack twitter won’t let you do that, especially after the boost you gave to Milo’s career.

The year of 2017, we saw that now revealed face of our end of activist work start to change. Little by little breakers of the narrative gained some prominence. At VidCon, the damsel mask was shattered with the utterance of ‘garbage’ by the very person who essentially started me down the rabbit hole. Anita Sarkeesian publicly outed herself as the obvious bigot we all saw that she was, not just by calling Sargon a ‘garbage human’ and calling security on Matt Jarbo and the rest… but by attacking and belittling Boogie 2988 behind the scenes. Boogie was likely already going through divorce proceedings and about to go into heavy surgery, and we all know he has gotten a lot of shit over the years, all for even suggesting male victims exist.

Now we have come to 2018… You know that line about staring into the abyss? That’s where our ‘community of shitlords and edgetards’ are now. The abyss is staring back and we are this close to becoming the thing we hate. Many have already crossed that Rubicon. What needs to be done now? We must discuss this among ourselves before we become the monsters that feminists have often claimed us to be, before the larger public actually sees us like that and decides to go back down the destructive path it was on before.

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If you haven’t realized by now the featured image for this week is myself in a Shotokan-ryu martial arts class that I was a part of as a child.  And here is a picture of myself now, so a depiction of change, growth and seeing how I’ve changed in both positive and negative lights. We need to keep ourselves balanced and mock any and all idiots where we find them, especially if they end up being OUR idiots. Because in the long run that’s what will kill us. As such I encourage you to discuss this below, in whatever Discords you are in, make sure we are all keeping a good critical eye upon ourselves and even our friends. Real friends don’t let friends become stupid cunts! Oh and Please Remember to Game Freely!

Alex Tinsley
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About the author

Alex Tinsley

A student of Fine Arts and Japanese culture of six years at Murray State University. Having never graduated due to difficulties with a specific teacher has gained a unique perspective upon the issues being faced by men and boys. A father of a young boy and loving husband.

By Alex Tinsley

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