Amongst the more outlandish of ideas going around about yet another mass killing (at least the second one of it’s type in the past five years, with at least one similar within the next 24 hours), Fox News decided to bring one of their psychological experts that blamed it on gay people. Because that seems to be the only thing Fox News psychological experts are able to blame for anything.
In an unsurprising show of solidarity, masculinist anti-trans hate site Gender Identity Watch (run by a failed writer for A Voice For Men), was tweeting all day about the killer possibly being/resembling a trans women. Because to a special kind of person, seeing a blatantly obvious racial/misogynist inspired tragedy is a perfect time to direct more vitriol towards a completely unrelated minority.
It was their only related original content the day of the tragedy, other than some half-hearted reblogs that seemed to glorify the violence, and/or help distribute his videos/blogs messages. You’ll note I won’t be posting that asshole’s picture or linking to his blog, his “My Twisted World” manifesto, or his Youtube channel because fuck him.
This is all only slightly less absurd than claiming it was a conspiracy to discredit the Men’s Rights Movements or gun rights or whatever, but of course MRA assholes , washed up punk rockers and other assorted clowns are doing exactly that as well. But if you think about it, how much difference *does* it make if he had been gay? Unless you buy FOXNews/Gender Identity Watch’s archaic and long ago discredited notions that being gay or trans is rooted in deep-seated misogyny, not much actually. It’s not like gay men and gender-non-conforming folk don’t find themselves under the crushing pressure of toxic hegemonic masculinity and coercive heteronormativity. The shit certainly manifests in gay male relationships, I’ve seen it firsthand.
And it’s like, it’s no secret dude hated women. Like, loathed and resented them through the lens of his sad impotent desire. Better writers than I have spelled that shit out in detail. And it’s not like online echo chambers of mewling racist/misogynistic/homophobic shitheads hadn’t already driven creeps to commit mass killing just a month ago. I’ve mentioned on my blog a couple times already the similarities between far-right wing ideology, the Men’s Rights Movement, and white supremacy, and fuck I’m just getting started. But yeah, shithead creep finds similarly minded shithead creeps that warp his perception with their creepy viewpoints and terrible Matrix references (seriously, wtf is the deal with imagery from Wachowski sibling movies getting co-opted by the worst humanity has to offer?).
Even flecks of human garbage that have the audacity to identify themselves as “incel” (involuntarily celibate) feel the need to simultaneously laud and distance themselves from Rodger’s particular brand of narcissistic entitlement. So like, there’s literally no question there was/is a culture out there willing to nurture this troubled kid into eventually acting out their collective hateful fantasies. I mean, by no means was he mentally stable, but keep in mind this was a kid from an impossibly rich family, who claimed he was seeing multiple therapists. I think it’s more about how society and psychology treats hypermasculine performativity, even hugely overcompensating, as synonymous with “high-functioning” in cases of mental illness than any ridiculous notion of him not getting the help he needed. If someone like that can’t “get the help they need”, we’re all fucking doomed.
But I have to wonder if there isn’t something even deeper than that, this sort of fundamental malfunction in the way society builds those designated at birth. Like, toxic masculinity is a great term for the result, but what particular limb of that great octopus of the patriarchy can we cut off so we’re not breeding more of people like this? These “artless, empathy-devoid, posturing obelisk in trousers and sensible shoes” I lamented the possibility of even so-called-“radical” society turning us all into. Alienated from self, alienated from romantic and sexual partners, barely present in their mule of a body, compulsively pursuing signifiers of achievement and pleasure without the capacity to enjoy or even recognize them. People who, at best, have to spend most of their adult lives unraveling the messages literally beat into them since childhood.
“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.” – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Just this stony, but fragile thing, a statue of Ozymandius unto oneself. Unable to confide, unable to care, so puzzled by the idea of approaching others not as conquests or on the basis of what you can gain from them, but as just actually people.
Fuck that, and fuck the Red Pill. Hell, fuck the Blue Pill too, unless it contains at least 2 milligrams of estrogen.
In case you forgot this part, I’m totally not joking here.
Totally wasn’t joking about that either.
Rani Baker Digs You. 