It was just as bad as I had heard, with what seemed like thousands of extremely bitter young men all endlessly bolstering each others' misogyny, like a fusion reactor of sexist hate. The threads they wrote were some of the most dreadful things I've ever seen. /2
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The general gist was that they blamed women, entirely and completely, for their lack of sexual experience. It had *nothing* to do with them at all. No, it was all the fault of 'women', as a collective. /3
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They held extreme bitterness that women had rejected their advances, and rather than learn from the experience like everyone else, they *immediately* cried foul and began concocting fanciful reasons for their rejection. /4
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I suppose in any other age it would end there. I suppose many men may have felt a certain despair when inexperienced and young, but they get over it and mature. But these days we have the Internet. /5
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So now, these initial negative thoughts are shared online, picked up by others, whipped up by others, multiplied and strengthened until it coalesces into a toxic stew of resentment that quickly congeals into rampant misogyny. /6
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And I'm almost tempted to not use the term misogyny for what they develop. Somehow it's too tame a word, if you know what I mean. It hides the reality in Classical language. It's pure hatred of women. Utter hatred. It's disturbing as hell. /7
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But they're in an echo chamber, and they're feelings just get worse and worse, with nothing and no-one to say 'dude, what the fuck?' or challenge them. By the time they've been in this 'community' for a whole they're probably lost. /8
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I think the Internet has had a devastating impact on the darker elements of the human psyche. It's allowed fringe views that would have had no means of communal support to come together and grow. We're not set up as a species for this. We aren't prepared for it. /9
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And now (it would seem) these childlike, spoiled, entitled, foolish men are actually killing people. Extremism is taking so many different forms.
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Incels, the alt-right, flat-earthers, pizza-gaters, gamergate - all of these are products of our new ability to find allies in our most extreme beliefs, people who will agree and bolster our ideas and never challenge them. /11
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In the early 2000s the Internet seemed to be the great democratizer, but in practice it has helped a sickness spread in our discourse: extremism of opinion in general. /12
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We're reaching a point where any opinion, no matter how bizarre, foul or misguided, can find companionship online. I am not optimistic about the fallout from this. /13
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And if this thread is picked up by that community, I'm sure I'll get lots of hate but that may help shine a disinfecting light on them. Hope so. /end
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