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The character has a catch phrase which I think befits the underlying psychology of the internet’s sundry hate mobs perfectly: “You think you’re better than me?” Then he’ll stalk menacingly at you, looking like he’s carrying a massive deuce in his drawers. No offense to AHj, this character was supposed to be creepy and job well done.
 

 
There’s clearly a sense of aggrievement on their part. They feel upset at being scorned. Our side is motivated by compassion for the victims of abuse and the desire to make the world a better place. The less self-aware on their side might feel like they’re into these goals as well, but find that overwhelmed by the outrage that someone might be looking down on them. You especially see this in the response to things like Schrodinger’s Rapist. No matter how kindly or carefully parsed, any idea that could be perceived – correctly or not – as a criticism of them (or the kind of person they imagine themselves to be) raises this knee-jerk response. You think you’re better than meee?

So then they start doing the poopy pants walk while waving guns around (metaphorically and literally) and make things so much worse. To borrow a much more sensible catch phrase, guys, don’t do that. Seriously, even if you fundamentally disagree with social justice advocates on every issue, just agree to disagree and strut. If you honestly believe your position to be the right one, you have a million motherfuckers to agree with you and coddle your shared privilege. You wouldn’t feel the need to freak out about the fact someone else has a different belief unless – on some level – you think they might be right, and that their rightness would make you feel bad.

You don’t have to feel bad about yourself to accept the truths SJWs be spittin’ – at least, not much. Because no one has to be perfect, we can all learn from our mistakes, all try to be better people. And honestly trying is good enough. Doing something racist/sexist/transphobic/etc doesn’t make you a bigot, outside of that moment. Being unrepentant, being so chickenshit of the possibility of your own imperfection that you double down and make it worse – even make it a part of your raison d’être – this is deciding to wallow in bigotry.

Come off yourself, calm down, drop the fucking keyboard, take a day off. Even if your beliefs don’t change, at least recusing yourself from participating in a hate movement is a step in the right direction. Be cool. Get steppin’.

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OK, I know it’s best to avoid the political around here and that’s a good idea, to keep the comic love/hate as appealing as possible to as many as possible. It’s a M-Stew -styled good thing, so I’ll try to keep this analysis as neutral as possible. I’ll mention the sides & where I am, but not say anything about who is right or wrong.

It’s clear Pluggers are meant to represent GOP-styled values, as much as they stay away from the most contentious subjects, with their demographic pandering.

The Funkyverse, despite its senior skew, is a lot more ambiguous. But it does seem to hint at certain classic liberal values, even while it whatsamattas all over kidsdeezdays. I think it’s safe to assume they’re repping “NPR” styled liberals, very moderate and easily shocked by the radical left.

True radical lefties don’t get much love in the funnies, outside of The Boondocks and I’m not sure what else. In fact, my ilk don’t get much positive representation in media anywhere, but we are known. Mostly our beliefs are mocked under the auspices of hating on millennials, as if the ideas sprang out of nowhere (rather than going back to the 70s, 60s and sometimes much earlier).

Now people on both sides of our ideologically divided nation decry their opposites with phrases like “groupthink” and “echo chamber,” and this has especially become prominent in the current internet-based ideological rifts. Both mainstream media from left to right and their equivalent in cyber-tubes have found agreement that the youthful progressive partisans go too far, want too much, are too aggressive and sinister with their “call-out culture.”

So it looks like Funkytown is now poised to take that popular stance as well – to decry the colorful pants-wearing haircutty femi-something PC police. That is really weird to me, because what stake does team Funky have in that fight? Most radical youths don’t know what the hell a winkerbean is, let alone have opinions about it. It’s like picking a fight with someone who never did anything to you, who you will never actually meet, without bothering to go anywhere they will hear you.

In fact, the only interaction they will have with the targets of their ire is to whatever voice they choose to give them. Whose echo will this be, Mr. Batiuk?

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Prison for straight white boys and others who send dick pics. MAKE THIS HAPPEN, JEEZIS! ...Oh yeah. Shit. (2026 AGAIN: the part of the joke unexplained is that there are so very many dick pics sent from this demographic that the imprisoned population would be massive, as if that's a good thing lol. something else amiss, the ludicrous amount of flashing on the internet and elsewhere does not necessarily equal a huge amount of people doing it. sexual harassment enthusiasts are a prolific minority.)

Criticism of islam is essential, but right now it comes in a climate of terrifying hatred for members of that religion (in places where they are a minority). Therefore it NEEDS to be very carefully parsed and presented – and occasionally omitted from some venues altogether – to reduce the encouragement it provides to literal fucking nazis.

But still, it’s obvious that there is no justice and no peace coming from the authorities and corporations that should be working to stem the tide of abuse – at least, what’s happening is not fast enough and is too little, too late. If exposing someone to consequences of, say, bullying a teen to suicide can only be achieved through doxxing, what recourse do we have right now?

This is a classic problem faced by those who advocate for justice: fighting with your hands tied by compassion, when faced with enemies with violence in their hearts. We get beat, but it ain’t over yet, motherfuckers.

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...to which I say this same principle could very easily be drawn more broadly. It’s obvious in the treatment of African Americans – “I’m not racist against the good ones” = you’re still racist.

From Miri of Brute Reason, this:

“I think the problem goes beyond that. If we make a rule that says, 'Doxxing/abuse/harassment/threats/shaming is okay when the target did something really bad,' then everyone gets to interpret 'really bad' for themselves, and you may not like that interpretation. For instance, there are people online who earnestly believe that I am a threat to their livelihood and to the continued functioning of our society. Many MRAs also believe that feminists pose a serious and imminent threat to their physical safety. Surely by their standards I have done plenty of 'really bad' things, such as writing widely read articles about feminism.

I cannot overstate the importance of pointing out that they really believe this. They’re not just saying it to get some sort of Points online. They’re not lying. (At least, not all of them.) They believe this as truly and completely as I believe that inequality exists and must be fixed, that there is no god, that I love my friends and family.

Think about your strongest convictions and how real, how powerful your belief in them is. Now, imagine that someone believes with an equal conviction that I am (or you are) a terrible person who poses a threat to them and to everything they love and care about. Imagine that we have all spent years cheerfully promoting the idea that 'Doxxing/abuse/harassment/threats/shaming is okay when the target did something really bad.'

Now try to reason this person out of threatening me or you with death or worse. Try to convince them that if they obtain access to our silly Amazon purchases or private emails, they shouldn’t post them online. Try to convince them that if they have information that could destroy our lives if made public, they should keep it to themselves.

This is why I don’t feel safe in online spaces that promote doxxing, abuse, harassment, threats, or shaming against anyone, no matter how much I fucking despise the person they’re doing it to.”

Read the whole article. It’s the first time I’ve ever been given pause about the doxxing of bad people. I am not 100% convinced yet – I think any cyber-abuser who has threatened the life & safety of someone is unlikely to face justice except through extralegal means. I also think shaming is too effective of a tool for education to give up on, especially in a world lousy with injustice. But I could be wrong.

From Dean Obeidallah at the Daily Beast (someone I’m certainly in profound disagreement with on some major issues), this:

“People keep asking me why does Pam Geller spew so much anti-Muslim crap? Is it part of her work as a pro-Israel activist? Did she once get food poisoning at a Middle Eastern restaurant? Is it simply because she really, really hates Muslims?

Probably all the above, but one other thing is certain: Geller gets paid pretty well to demonize Muslims. I’m talking to the tune of $200,000 a year...

In fact, many of the people identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Center for American Progress (CAP) as the leaders of the anti-Muslim industry in America are paid well for their efforts. I’m talking so much money I almost want to start hating on Muslims—and I’m Muslim.”

As I’ve said, I’m certain islamophobia is real, putting me in profound disagreement (there I go again) with many of my fellow atheists. Whenever there’s a window for some jerk to try to achieve power, they do so by selling hate. And despite the good things possible with democracy, it’s ripe for that kind of exploitation.

From user Archaic (gone) on tumblr, this (not archived):

“v for vendetta is a film with a female protagonist that criticises capitalism, condemns pedophilia, encourages the viewers to question their governments, has a central plot about how LGBT people are condemned in right wing societies (more than three LGBT characters are in it) and was directed by a trans woman and her brother sister.

why has this become a fuckboy classic”

The Fedora Delusion. If something feels right to you, and you see yourself as super duper clever, then REASONS! Cognitive dissonance floats away and anything can be anything you want it to be. Same principle as people believing the bible advocates love, just being held by someone who hates religion.

And lastly – for now – tumblr user Bird Boned has this:

“...This reminds me of a discussion that I read once which said Lord of the Flies would have turned out a hell of a lot differently if it was a private school of young girls (who are expected to be responsible and selfless instead), or a public school where the children weren’t all from an inherently entitled, emotionally stunted social class (studies have shown that people in lower socioeconomic classes show more compassion for others).

Or that the same premise with children raised in a different culture than the toxic and opressive British Empire and it’s emphasis on social hierarchy and personal wealth and status.

And that what we perceive as the unchangable truth deep inside humanity because of things like Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment, is just the base truths about what happens when you remove any accountabilty controlling one social group with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and an inability to feel compassion.”

See also white dudes being serial killers, colonizers, etc. through history, just being as bad as humans can be. I don’t believe any other group of humans would have done differently if the situation was reversed – that there is something inherently evil in whiteness and maleness. But it’s something that needs to be more broadly acknowledged and worked against. Excessive privilege makes us prone to horrible behavior. Never forget it.

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In a place with very few non-believers, I had some sheisty company. The most likely people to express an atheist or agnostic lean were also likely to espouse libertarian political positions. They were the kind of guys that sound completely assured of their superiority, talking down being the only kind of talking they ever did. Real world class shitheads. I was passionately in favor of keeping drugs illegal back then, and I was poor enough to have been the beneficiary of the kind of social programs they oppose, so we didn’t get along. But clearly, I was of a kind with them. We were the face of atheism, and it was the face of a heartless, arrogant scumbag.

How did we become atheists, and how did that relate to being a pack of two-bit megalomaniacs? We had never met each other before, we didn’t receive this wisdom from a common cultural institution. We came by it of our own thoughts, as a reaction against the culture in which we were raised. And given this situation… …It comes as no surprise to me that dudebro-styled atheism is pervasive, endlessly replenished despite defections, and capable of arising spontaneously from nothing. Were all of the dudebros of the world winked out of existence in a moment, more would be born to replace them. They are an inevitable aspect of the human condition.

OK, to say that is to claim certainty where there is room for doubt. I am far from an expert. This is all my uneducated guesswork on display, but consider it if you will. Over and over again we are seeing that much of the human condition is a combination of nature and nurture – genetic and epigenetic causes, if I’m not using that incorrectly. Someone may have biological predisposition to depression and low self esteem, but they’re more likely to have a terrible problem with it in life if they have a neglectful and abusive childhood. Various cancers might be more likely by merit of genes, but the odds are increased by poor life circumstances (or alternately the affluence to spend too much time in airplanes).

So if we imagine dudebroism to be a condition with various symptoms – atheism, grandiose self-esteem, libertarian inclinations – then we can wonder at the cause. And if the answer is the same as it is for issues like depression and cancer, then there may be inborn inclinations that flourish in certain circumstances. Divide one by the other, carry the five, square root of talking out my ass, and it equals this: A dudebro is a type of human that will always be among us, always espousing atheism more vocally than the sensible nice person down the hall, always making closet atheists and compassionate human beings turn away from atheism in disgust.

If this is true, the only way to fight it is to make atheism so mainstream that it no longer appeals to the antisocial instincts of the hoary yellow-spotted throat-warbling dudebro. On that glorious day, we may just be able to reclaim the pride they have drained from us like filthy leeches. We’ll be able to think, “Damn it’s good to be an atheist,” without reddit-colored second thoughts, doubts, and qualifiers. On that day, we can say, “Atheism, fuck yeah!”

–As usual, do not take anything I say to represent the position of A+ as a whole. Have a nice day. :-)

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“I wish more people got this because some ‘low-empathy’ people are the most compassionate and sympathetic in the universe, and I hate it when that’s taken to mean ‘unfeeling and probably hostile’ when nothing could be further from the truth.”

“This is a great point. ‘Empathy’ is often used as sort of a catch-all term in the clinical nomenclature and doing so can be very misleading. When the professional texts refer to psychopathy as entailing an inability to feel empathy, most often they mean an inability to experience empathy, sympathy, and compassion. And I agree that it’s important to be more precise in the distinction in that individuals who are low in the spectrum of empathy can indeed by quite high in regards to compassion and sympathy.

This can be especially true in many cases where an individual is identified as being on the autistic spectrum, as well as cases of schizoid personality. In these situations, it’s a bit more rare for the individual to feel the same emotion of another, and yet they can still feel a great deal of caring and concern for that other person.”

“YES. Someone close to me is on the autism spectrum and when he mentioned it once a (confused) friend said 'but he’s so loving!'

Well yeah. You can be loving and compassionate without completely understanding why the other person is feeling that way.”

It’s weird to me to see sympathy and compassion separated, but it could be accurate. I’m no expert. To me the only reason to not show compassion toward someone you feel sympathy for is if the situation is too difficult, even impossible to engage with. Like seeing the aftermath of a disaster in a poor country when you have nothing to give, or see oppression happening that you are in no position to resist. But maybe for some it’s easy to feel sympathy without it automatically turning into compassion. I don’t get it.

It will be important to try to make sense of these concepts, because conscience and compassion are the lights that should guide humanity. The vulcan qualities beloved of shit atheists are terrible without them. I want to understand how to be a better person and the things that could get in the way, such as implicit bias and failures of my own empathy.

And I’d like to reduce the extent to which progressives are jumping to “empathy deficits” as an insult against regressives. There may be a correlation – being a “sociopath” may make one more susceptible to developing abusive and bullying behavior – but if a person lacks empathy by nature they deserve as much help and respect as anyone, and they do not necessarily have to engage in bad behavior. They can be steered away from it with early awareness, or learn to be better if they’ve already started. Just crying “sociopath” is a type of ableism that’s going to need to end. (NOTE from 2026: spoiler, it got worse)

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