Jonathan McIntosh, banished co-creator of Feminism Frequency and the inspiration for the “Never go full McIntosh” meme, has decided to start his own uh… I never know how to describe these things, video series, I guess? Yes, in his brand new video series he will look at popular culture “through a critical lens with an emphasis on depictions of men and masculinity in popular culture!” Because “the messages pop culture sends to men and boys about our own manhood are consistently both limiting and harmful.”

I have no problem with that, although the second quoted sentence smells to me like a circular argument (i.e. he already knows the conclusion, so he will search everything that will seem to confirm it.) The problem, of course, is that people who do these sort of popular culture analyses fail miserably because they don’t know how to do them. They use preconceived ideological concepts, so what they do isn’t really an analysis, it’s a culling or a trawling, an exercise in inquisitorial purges: Cultural material is dissected without regard to their meaning, context, internal logic, or “reader’s” understanding of it until the inquisitor finds the problematic and heretic thought he KNOWS it’s there. And because all of them embrace, consciously or not, postmodernist interpretation of well, interpretation, they believe a “text” can be whatever you want it to be.

Also, on a more personal level, his project will fail, and I will quote Lucien Maverick to explain the reason:

The reality is that Josh is not going to do well at this.  Why?  Because he has a penis.

Yes. It’s unfair, especially since Jonathan speaks way better than her female version (Anita Sarkeesian), seems to actually believe some of the things he says, and although he says silly things, he doesn’t seem to be an aggressive, attention-seeking con artist. But it’s the truth. He has no vagina. He will fail.

It’s important to note that Sarkeesian succeeded because she was a walking, breathing, damsel in distress trope. She profited in real life from the trope she criticizes in fiction. #GamerGate was basically the same, too. Very few people have the will to resist a high-level spell like Damsel in Distress [and remember, INT doesn’t give you a bonus for those things,  WIS does ;)] That means that if you have a penis, your odds of success are much lower.

To see how unfair this is, compare the patreon (or Kickstarter) accounts of popular social justice media warrior advocates, some of whom create absolutely NOTHING to deserve such money…

to what Jonathan McIntosh is earning, even though he actually seems to be making something, and at a faster pace than Anita et al:

Sure, his project is new and I’m sure it will grow a little, but unless he starts doing 10 videos a month (he won’t,) I doubt it will be a profitable venture. Besides, who the hell wants to see a man talk about Steve Universe’s (whatever the hell that is) range of emotional expression. And the clumsiest and coarsest expressions: a boy crying. Oh, so subtle.

Let that sink in, the co-writer (and many people say the “brains”) of Feminist Frequency goes solo, and that’s how much he can get, while Randi Harper earns 3800$ a month for doing jack shit. Why? Because Josh has no vagina and he can’t be a Damsel in Distress. And no, it doesn’t matter how many “threats” he retweets, that isn’t going to earn him pity money, that only works for women. It’s unfair, yes, but unless it’s extreme cruelty or violence, men & women  (I’d say, especially women) react with disgust to men screaming “I’m being harassed.” Don’t blame me, blame evolution or something.

Of course, he could always do like Brianna Wu and become a transgender, which may not bring him/her to the level of True Patreon Woman, but somewhere close (1800 per month isn’t bad)

And that brings me to the title of this post. How long until Jonathan McIntosh realizes the injustice of it all and becomes a raging, unhinged Men’s Right Activist? There is a subset of MRAs that are inverted feminist (they moan and whine about popular media all the time, too) so that could be a perfect fit for him.

I’m not joking (well, not just joking.) Pay attention to what he says about his video series:

“The messages pop culture sends to men and boys about our own manhood are consistently both limiting and harmful.”

“My videos will be made for everyone, but they are very much geared towards speaking to men. I really believe there is a need for media criticism that speaks directly to young men about masculinity in pop culture.”

“With all the conflicting media messages out there, it’s not surprising that a lot of young men are confused about what it means to be a “real man.”“

And the examples he gives in his videos: Men are supposed to be violent or bumbling buffoons (shows an image of Homer Simpson.)

Let’s ignore for a moment the problems and errors with those examples. The point is that MRAs have been saying that for decades, and one of their best arguments is the “idiot dad” trope, especially Homer Simpson and the like. Of course, it’s a gross misunderstanding of those characters, but that’s beside the point I’m trying to make.

He even compares his video series to other projects by people that have (sometimes) been described or classified as MRA or something close to them (anti-feminist, at the very least.) Unlike them, however, he says he will use a “feminist lens.” The problem? You may use the tools of feminist, but you will not reap its benefits because you have a penis. JOSH, YOU HAVE A PENIS, NOBODY WILL GIVE YOU THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO SPEAK FEMINIST MANTRAS.

So, when will Jonathan McIntosh make his final epistemic somersault and realize feminism has ruined his life, abused him, it’s now ignoring him, and that he could make much, MUCH more money as an ex-feminist who saw the light? He also probably knows A LOT about the inner workings of Feminist Frequency, Anita and the like. He just needs to do a small change of mindset and philosophy… he is almost there. Almost.