Skepticism

19 is the new 14

You remember being 14, bragging to your peers about how totally wasted you are (“Yeah I can actually drink three strawberry Maddog 20/20s before I puke, it’s pretty awesome”), lecturing about how stupid adults are and how you read half of the Fountainhead and ‘Ayn Rand totally had it all figured out, and no, it’s pronounced “Aye-enn,” you socialist dipshit,’ etc. You remember that. You don’t admit it but you remember it.

Jimmy Zinn remembers it, because it is happening to him right now. The only difference between you and Jimmy Zinn is that Jimmy Zinn is 19 instead of 14 and you never wrote your moronic opinion in a letter and mailed it to the local paper so everyone would laugh at you.

[sic] (throughout)

Dear Rebecca;

In advance I’d like to apologize for my writing in this email being below my usual standard- I haven’t sleep for 48 hours and am completely smashed on 100% pure California nightrain express wine…but anyway:
My name is Jimmy Zinn and I’m a die hard MRA and hard rock fan. I’m 19 years old, and I’m not to happy with the current state of affairs. I’ve decided to dedicate my life to what I’m calling the three revolutions- the hard rock revolution, the Men’s rights revolution, and the life extension revolution(concerning promoting the developments of medical technologies to radical extend the human lifespan.)

Two of these are indirectly pointed at people like you- bigoted feminists who marginialize and trivailize* the male gender, promoting sexist and discrimination attitudes, and fighting vivaciously for the very thing you vehemently claim to be so against- gender inequality.

* yes yes, spelling mistakes. great. idfc. im wasteeeeeeeeeeeeeed motherfucka!

See, over the last 20 years, 2 terrible things have happened:
1. Music sucks.
2. Discrimination of males increases at an alarming rate.

Now I’m not particularly happy with either one. Things at home weren’t going particularly well- girls with lower GPAs and poor extra ciriculars were getting scholarships that boys with perfect 4.0s were not, and since I’, one of the poor privileged white males, I couldn’t afford college. Getting a job was tricky to- I was told on more than one occasion “we aren’t hiring white males right now.” Indeed, it did appear that 90% of those waiting in the unemployment office were male. After 23 interviews/applications, I was left still jobless. I also become of the privileged white males who developed heart problems at age 18, but of course, couldn’t afford a doctor. I was going to go to a free heart screening at a local college, but whoops…. “FEMALES ONLY”, courtesy of the “Women’s radical feminist men hating Heart association of a women-only America”, or whatever it was called.

Well, I decided “this sucks”, and decided to set out to star ta revolution and become the next great American (and global) icon. So, I jumped on a slow moving freight train as it passed*, which started a journey hitch-hiking to Los Angeles.

* I’m sure you’ll be quick to point out on your blog that this is a felony and I am a criminal…whats interest that if a woman did the same you’d laud her as a “bad-ass heroine” or “kick-ass chik” or some nonsense.

but anyway, here I am.
Rebecca, I am going to radical alter our society in the next year. I am going to start the greatest hard rock 1986 GNR-esqe band the world has ever seen. There is an army, millions strong, of angry people, and especially young males seething at the lack of justice and outlet for their rage. I fear a violent revolution is near, and I’m not in favor of that idea at all. Instead, why not give them a kick-ass 24/7 rock n roll party, tearing through the country with blistering blues-based rock, finally giving red-blooded masculinity a place in American culture again. I am going to fight the bigoted feminist you propagate, and start the largest social movement since the 60s…the Mens rights revolution.

I’m in hollywood right now, partying, crusin’ down sunset strip, spreading the MRA message, rockin out at the whiskey, troubador,

We’re coming, Rebecca. The walls of mass social delusional, ignorance and apathy will crumble down as justice and non-autotuned music will triumph in the streets. You will fight back, I’m sure, but you will lose, and you will lose badly. In 3 years time, you WILL live in an American of true gender equality, but I’m not sure it’s going to take the direction you expect!

Feel free to post this on your blog- in fact, I might even start a daily blog of my own to illiustrate what the legitmate MRA issues are. While I concede there is an unfortunately population in the MRA community who are misogynistic and who don’t hold true gender equality in high esteem, I am very sure that the vast majority of MRAs are far less bigoted than yourself.

For example, why is it wrong for men to seek correction in the heavily women-favored family and divorce court system? Why is it wrong for fathers to want equal access for their children? Why is it wrong for men to want equal enforcement in gender equality laws, eg title IX where schools with heavily disproportionately high female athletes are ignored by the NCAA, but schools with a 1% proportion disbalance favoring are forced to cut the male indoor track team for “budget issues”

Our scoiety is incredible anti-male…we are vilified, insulted, exploited.

I will have intriguing enticements such as “why the wage-gap is the myth”, “why violence against males goes encouraged”, “why women support abuses of male reproductive rights”, and hundreds of other subjects I’m sure you’ll love disecting with your other misandrist friends.

Why should my life have to be a punishment just for being born male? I see as 95% of the homeless here are male, and feminists dont give a shit, and it pisses me off. i hear stories of men who lost everything, houses ans pensions included, to an ex-wife who divorced out of spite. and it pissed me off. i read stats that the fed. gov. spends 15x more of women specific health issues on a PER DEATH RATIO (meaning for every death, maternity issues excluded.)

But don’t worry, we’ll be getting to all of that. In the mean time, you can brood over one question- as a woman, what is ONE constitutionally legal right you don’t have, that I do as a male? (There’s only one right non-stupid answer, lets see if you get it right!)

You’ll be seeing the name Jimmy Zinn quite a lot, feel free to follow my twitter….its the one called “jimmy zinn” thats been spamming you earlier this afternoon.

Sincerest regards!
-Jimmy Zinn
Hard Rock Revolution
Mens rights revolution
life extension revolution.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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169 Comments

  1. I hope that people won’t get a negative association with life-extension technology from this drunk idiot also being a proponent of that too. Relevant cliches about broken clocks may apply here.

    1. Whatever the merits of life-extending technology in general, I get the strong impression that this individual is one of the people who favors it because he strongly believes that it would be a tragedy for someone as awesome as he is to vanish from the earth.

      1. That’s very common in the life-extension fans. The main thing that makes some of them bearable is that they are empathetic enough to then decide that every life is awesome. I get the feeling that Jimmy hasn’t made that step.

    1. This. I remember the t-shirt I wanted to have printed up when I was at college. It would’ve been… an ugly, ugly thing to have thrown back at me now.

      1. This is all making me proud of my teenage Marxist views. (I’m still sympathetic but no longer a strict Marxist due to some issues with how power is used and enforced. If I had a choice of leaders Marxists definitely wouldn’t be at the bottom.)

        I even had a shirt from the Communist Party. It was the only piece of political apparel I ever got- any more would have been materialism/commercialization which I wasn’t down with- but I did get one shirt with a big picture of Marx’s head that said “Workers of the world, Unite!”, along with some other stuff. In a way it was funny looking but I was proud of it and happy if it made people see Marxism as a real thing.

        This is kind of like how my first CD was by the Blues Brothers. I feel like I sound so much cooler in retrospect than I actually seemed to literally anyone back then. People literally refused to speak to me.

        Oh I guess I better say something about the post instead of just being nostalgic. This guy sounds like an asshole even though I’m sympathetic to some of the stuff he’s dealing with? Like healthcare should totally be available to everyone and it sucks if he didn’t qualify for the free care. I hope there’s not some kind “men’s revolution” like he’s talking about though because it would actually alienate most men, not to mention everyone else.

    1. I don’t think he’s mentally ill (I wouldn’t have posted it if I thought he was). He sounds exactly like a hundred other immature, self-obsessed MRAs I’ve heard from in the past few months. He just wrote his thoughts down in a more entertaining manner than the other jackasses.

    2. Speaking as someone who actually does have a mental illness, it’d be great if you could stop instantly making links between “stupid opinions” and “mentally ill”.

    3. I hate to tell ya doc, but you can’t determine if someone is mentally ill because of one e-mail, no matter how awful and fucked up it is. Especially after he’s already admitted that he was drunk as a skunk.

      You’re not a REAL doctor, are you? O_0

  2. why is this guy so concerned with magnetic resonance angiography? seems like a bit of an odd cause. or, wait, the manitoba runner’s association?

  3. Hahahahahahaha

    That was awesome.

    But seriously, he probably should quit drinking so much, it can’t be good for his heart condition. I would be sad if he wasn’t well enough to create the “Greatest hard rock 1986 GNR-esqe band the world has ever seen”.

  4. “we are vilified, insulted, exploited.”

    Well, this post have proven him two-thirds right…

    1) Rebecca insults the guy by calling him a moron in her lead-in; and,

    2) Considering that Rebecca earns income selling web ad space, and seeing as how nothing on this website indicates any waiver of copyright to any correspondence, she has exploited him and his written work for her own financial gain.

    You’re doing his work for him, Rebecca. Don’t give this guy a platform, eh?

    1. Considering that Rebecca earns income selling web ad space, and seeing as how nothing on this website indicates any waiver of copyright to any correspondence, she has exploited him and his written work for her own financial gain.

      Someone didn’t read the e-mail very thoroughly, specifically the part where he said, “Feel free to post this on your blog.”

      And lol @ blog ad revenues.

        1. No, copyright law doesn’t work like that. Posting a comment gives the site implicit permission to display it, but the site owners and operators gain no explicit rights of any kind without a formal written notice.

          To put it in other terms, copyright licenses can only be granted by the owner (or licensee explicitly given that right). Other people’s statements have no effect on your writings. If this were not the case, it would trivially possible for anyone to gain legal rights to any work simply by posting it on their site and affixing a few declarations to it. (Or the equivalent in the dead tree world: printing it out and affixing the declarations & signature to it.)

          1. Comments on websites that are accessible to the public without any barrier are considered public performances (in the same way as speaking on a street corner is) and therefor public domain. Usually.

            So no one has any copyright claim over them technically, but the original poster is still legally liable for them under Safe Harbor clauses. Though it’s not like the RIAA/MPAA isn’t trying to change that.

          2. That’s mistaken, Luarien. Comments such as these are still copyrighted and ownership rests with the writer. A work can only enter the public domain in two ways, either through the expiration of the copyright term (life + 70 years) or by explicitly being played into it by the copyright holder.

            Comments on a publicly accessible website, assuming there are no barriers to entry, do qualify as public performances. However, performances are still automatically copyrighted so long as they are “fixed” (recorded) into a tangible medium. Computer records qualify for that. The owner of the record (copy) should not be confused with the owner of the copyright, as they are two completely separate things. The webmaster may take any action with the copy given to them — even sell it — but they may not produce or manipulate further copies unless doing so would qualify as a fair use.

            Note that the situation can be modified by the use of implicit licensing agreements such as EULAs and terms of service. However, this site has no contractual obligations which would be relevant to the copyright of comments. The legality of EULAs and terms of service have also been challenged at various times in several jurisdictions for imposing a legal burden without the explicit and unambiguous agreement of the natural person being asked to agree to it. However, no key court case has rendered them ineffective, hence their widespread use (especially by corporations).

            This is only meant to be an assessment of the facts, in case it is not clear. I happen to think copyright law is deeply unbalanced to the point of near unilateralism on the part of author/supplier, and is in desperate need of deep reforms.

    2. If Rebecca ever does decide to exploit someone for financial gain, I hope she aims higher than $0.50 of adsense money. I’d be expecting Jimmy Zinn t-shirts at the very least.

  5. Oh god, this is the future of the Men’s Rights Movement?!?! Welp, someone hand me an apron. No way I can counter that work of brilliance.

  6. I’m always impressed when somebody starts off a semi-coherent screed with the declaration that it will be poorly written and contain lots of spelling errors. They are literally saying “I am going to totally half-ass this one, but I expect you to take it whole-ass seriously because I’m so cool.” Sorry, but I’m not particularly impressed with the intellectual acumen of someone who can’t work the automatic spell-check in their fucking browser. They might as well tell me that they regularly soil their pants once or twice a week out of laziness/drunkenness.

  7. I cannot wait for this 1986 GNR-esque band!

    Seriously though, if this isn’t a joke, it’s the saddest thing ever. If it’s a troll, it may be the best troll ever.

    1. I’m pretty sure he’s not a troll/poe. He has a you-tube video series documenting his trip to LA. No stupid rants though, I was a little disappointed.

  8. The walls of mass social delusional, ignorance and apathy will crumble down as justice and non-autotuned music will triumph in the streets.

    Hey, we already had non-autotuned music. Heard of live performance?

    In 3 years time, you WILL live in an American of true gender equality, but I’m not sure it’s going to take the direction you expect!

    How do you live in an American, I wonder?

    Anyway, it’s all too hard for my weak intellect to understand all that cogent writing. I think I’ll join Jen in donning an apron. Anyone want some sammiches?

    </snark>

    1. How do you live in an American, I wonder?

      It involves having your head really far up your own ass.

    1. I think Dean Wormer had a point when he said: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

  9. This guy must be high-fiving his friends so hard after sending this email, given how he TOTALLY STUCK IT TO THAT WHINY FEMINAZI EH BROS AMIRITE. I wonder what he’ll do when his 1986 GNR-esque band gets shot down for a contract. Probably blame it on all the clearly bigoted feminists and white knight manginas who are obviously using the record companies as a vessel to shut down his TOTALLY RIGHTEOUS MASCULINE MESSAGE. Seriously though, when are people going to realize that shit music and good music have always existed. There was awful music in 1986 and there is great music now. No need to get all hipster about it and decry how all the good music (which you discovered when you were 12) is gone and everything now is processed crap..

  10. Plus, and not for nothing, but starting a kick-ass rock band requires learning to play an instrument really well. Driving drunk past the places where real musicians got their start isn’t starting the greatest rock band ever, any more than slowing down a little as you drive past the Gold’s Gym counts as Olympic training.

    1. You can start a kick-ass rock band without first learning to play an instrument really well. Two of the kick-assestingest rock bands ever didn’t bother to do that first: The Ramones and Joy Division.

      Maybe when Jimmy sobers up, he’ll also grow up to realise that perhaps some small modicum of responsibility for his life lies with him. And that GnR were shite.

      1. No, natural musical geniuses can start kick-ass bands without really knowing how to play. Care to lay odds on whether or not “I know I can’t spell, and I can’t work the included spell-check either” is a natural genius at anything? :)

  11. Jimmy was that you playing in the Guns N Roses tribute band in the apartment on Yucca street last night?! IF SO, YOU ROCK BRO! Sounded JUST like Axl. I totally hear you, copying music and re-appropriating styles that my generation rocked CAN totally change the world! It’s such a unique concept!

    Anyway, see you at the Rainbow Room!

    1. homg! I think you’re on to something, chief. You were totally sans-pants rockin’ to that young gent’s dulcet tones last night.

  12. I’m sure getting shitty on bum wine is totally in line with the life extension revolution. I mean, most of the winos I know look at least 200 years old, rite?

    I also wonder if Poe’s law applies in this case.

  13. I would tell him to come apply for work at my company where out of the last six hires in our department five were male and five were white, but basic literacy is a requirement to work here.

  14. Hahahaha. So many good bits. I love it when people get on slow moving trains, it is so kick-ass.

    There are a handful of genuine ‘men’s rights’ issues, especially as the number of single Dads is increasing. In the ’90s my Dad (a single Dad at the time) struggled with things like baby changing facilities that were only located in female restrooms etc. That has been sorted now, in most places anyway. But these are uncontroversial things that are largely slight inconveniences when compared to literally everyone else’s issues. So, no need to make a loud fuss about it.

    1. Also, the ‘genuine’ men’s issues are ones that are best solved by… MOAR FEMINISM. They arise very directly from patriarchal views, and if the patriarchy goes, they go with it. Even the ultimate stopped-clock issue of Cosmetic Infant Male Circumcision would be best dealt with by increasing support for the ideal of bodily autonomy.

  15. Is it wrong that I wanna see a picture of this kid? It probably is.
    But I just want to see what kind of house those opinions live in, you know?

  16. “I’m 19 years old,…”

    “See, over the last 20 years, 2 terrible things have happened:”

    His precocity at -1 years old must have been astonishing back in the olden days of 1993. I actually have a t-shirt that’s as old as he is…’The Wall’ shirt I picked up during the Pink Floyd concert at Giants Stadium in 1994. Hilarious. I feel tired.

      1. Yes…because she went to see ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ when he was just a bun in the oven, and thus he was scarred for life.

  17. I know this guy was (allegedly)drunk, and I would’ve just considered this just a silly temper tantrum rant except for the fact that all his arguments are the exact same points brought up by the many MRAs I’ve met, they are nonsensical statements aimed at the wrong group of people. This leads me to conclude one thing, ALL MRAs are drunk ALL the time… that’s the only possible explanation for all the stupidity.

  18. “I was told on more than one occasion ‘we aren’t hiring white males right now.’ ” ~ shit_that_didnt_happen.txt

    1. It’s pretty safe to say that nothing in that paragraph happened. The free women-only heart disease screenings (which he needed *after* being diagnosed with a heart condition because I don’t know, I’m too sober for this to make sense) are my favorite part.

      1. $10 his “heart problem” was some heartburn/indigestion, and he assumed he had some sort of incurable heart disease. I’m a chronically ill person with a legit cardiovascular conditions (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome + valve issues from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome), and I call bullshit on that, too. You don’t go to a basic heart health screening after you’ve been diagnosed by a specialist.

  19. Am I the only one who sees this being painfully recited in a smoke-filled coffee house accompanied by a snare drum played with brushes and followed by the finger snapping of numerous frat boys in popped collars?

    If this is all the brainpower they can muster I feel better about the future.

    1. Reading your post I had a vision of Tim Minchin performing this letter in the style of “Angry (Feet)” and I think it would be totally fucking awesome…

  20. Is it wrong that I hope Jimmy Zinn is his real name. Just so this is still hanging around him in ten years?

  21. Let’s see:

    “[being] told on more than one occasion “we aren’t hiring white males right now.””

    Perhaps Mr. Zimm would be so good as to provide details? Saying they weren’t going to consider him because he was a “white male” is absolutely a violation of federal law.
    http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html

    “90% of those waiting in the unemployment office were male”

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2011 male unemployment was 9.5%, female unemployment was 8.4%; 53% is somewhat less than 90%, though I suppose Mr. Zimm could be forgiven for this error as it seems we was merely counting heads at his local unemployment office and not actually trying to figure out the real rate of unemployment among men in the U.S.
    http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat02.htm

    “I see as 95% of the homeless here are male”

    At this point Mr. Zimm is talking about Los Angeles. So: homelessness, location, percentage, filtered by gender? This is *easy* to check! The city of Los Angeles itself places adult males at 59% of the homeless population in 2011, a 1% decrease since 2009. adult females consisted of 28% of the homeless in 2011, with a drop of 4% since 2009. Males under 18 were 7% in 2011, a 2% increase since 2009. Females under 18 were also at 7% in 2011, a 4% increase since 2009. So not only is 95% not remotely correct, but the real at-risk demographic based on change in homelessness rate among Los Angeles homeless are female children!
    http://www.theycountwillyou.org/resources/Doc/Report-W-Exec-Summary.pdf

    “fed. gov. spends 15x more of women specific health issues on a PER DEATH RATIO”

    This is one that should have been easy to look up, until I realized that “federal spending on women specific health issues” is far to vague to actually take seriously without a source citation. The problem is how do you define “women specific health issues” and “federal spending”? Without those defined, you can find data to support this in countless ways that could or could not have any real meaning.

  22. “After 23 interviews/applications, I was left still jobless.”

    There’s your problem, dude! You let them get to know you.

    1. I mean, someone with his “qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.”

      It’s amazing that he’s lasted so long after 23 WHOLE INTERVIEWS/APPLICATIONS! (*no breakdown given on that ration).

    2. This is what gets me. I have friends who have sent out 120 applications and gotten 10 responses and they are absolute geniuses at what they do. 23 applications when you’re in a generation where your unemployment rate is about double what the average is and of those employed there are a whole lot of people that are underemployed it seems like he’s expecting a hand up without working for it. Dude needs to network outside of bars.

  23. Why do I get the feeling this email was written from his bedroom in his Mummy’s house?

    I could be wrong! I’m so wasted on chai tea.

    (Seriously though, if he typed anything like most people I know do when drunk the email would have been entirely incoherent. I smell a rat.)

  24. When I was out on a walk today, a tiny knee-high terrier started growling and barking at me. Somehow, reading this e-mail brought that image to mind.

  25. The absolute worst result of affirmative action is that it lets assholes assume they didn’t get a job because they’re white, rather than because the non-white person was thought to be a better choice.

  26. If this isn’t Dunning-Kruger, I don’t know what is. I can only imagine that this person has such a limited grasp of the real world that confirmation bias is all he’s got. Like simple facts and principles we take for granted are literally inconcievable to him, so he’s built up this nutty fantasy about being the Men’s Rights rock star. I almost feel like that level of fantasy could be fun… except that when Jimmy wakes up, he’ll probably have a serious hangover, and he’ll definitely still be a nasty idiot.

  27. As a rule, when a text starts off by telling you how drunk the writer is, a jewel of coherence and literacy will follow.

  28. When I was 14 Rebecca, I never even heard of Fountainhead or Ayn Rand.
    That age was one of many that was of a time I’d much rather forget. Never mind why.

    Anyway, this guy cracks me up.

    Makes me wonder just how many women (or feminists, even!) have personally and acutally wronged him.

    He comes across as a spoiled bastard that needs new lessons in life.

    And life extension revolution? Seriously?
    Has this guy even studied history?
    Or was he too busy dreaming of a revolution?

  29. If 19 is the new 14, what is the equivalent of posting someone’s drunken rant to wide-spread internet review? It looks like giving the note that you were supposed to pass on in class to the teacher instead. How old is the tattle-tale, or is this a slow news day?

    This looks like the equivalent of, “OMG!! Scott totally likes Heather!” and other useless teen blather (and I mean the original post, not the drunk blather from Mr. Man).

      1. Oh, I’m all kinds of light, but I’m interested in how my analogy is stupid ( remember, specific details are important, or are you a gen-Y person?). Also, in my experience, R.W. does not need anyone else to stand up for her if she feels scolded. Believe that I feel that she is most awesome and quite funny, but this OP seems to me to be a bit of a low blow. It looks like taking advantage of a lapse in judgement.
        On the other hand, I am not in a position to get regular hate-mail (but I expect that R.W. does). Therefore, it is easy to write from the perspective of shrugging off some dumb-[expl del]ed comments. I can see that there would be a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back element, but still… The blathering posted in the OP looks like a stupid, drunken rant. In this web 2.0 (or 2.5 or 3.0, whatever) culture it seems a bit petty to post a person’s asinine blathering, just as (in my school days) it was petty to rat out a note-sender to the teacher.

          1. Oh, he “taunted her” did he? That’s so sad. Despite the pretty obvious drunken blather this person dared “taunt” RW? In a pre-adolescent rant? I’m sorry that she has to sort through that kind of crap, but why post it on? There have been other, misogynistic , not obviously drunken rants, that were appropriately cited.

            Iris: you miss the point by so far it seems pointless to point it out. The “note recipient” does not get to post to the world the contents of the note. RW is here posting some jerk’s e-mail to the world. And look how here I am not defending the jerk. The message to RW is asinine. Going on to post it to the world is what? Righteous? Noble?

            Marilove: yawn. And yawn again.

          2. So nineteen is pre-adolescence now?

            Well, I can see why you feel the way you do than, we should just leave this kid alone.

            It’s not like he’s old enough to get drunk, or follow some other prats spouting hateful bullshit and spout that same bullshit himself, or believe that a crap 80s band is the end-all be-all of musical achievement.
            He is acting like a pre-adolecent, I’ll give you that, but that is not reason to give him a wholesale pass.

            I have things from my past that I wouldn’t want broadcast, but then I wasn’t so full of myself to think it was important enough to send to someone who had the ability to publish it. If I did I would have deserved the derision.

          3. Wow. You’re really defending this asshole. Projection, much?

            He’s a douche bag. An ADULT douchebag. Not “pre-adolescent.” I know many 19 year olds who are not terrible human beings.

            I am tired of the “Oh he’s so young! Boys will be boys!” attitude. It’s bullshit! He should know better.

            Being young and immature is not the same as being completely hateful, not to mention incredibly ignorant, which this man is. MAN, btw. Not pre-adolescent.

        1. I’ll bite. Your analogy fails primarily because in your note-passing scenario, Rebecca is the not the teacher but the intended recipient of the note. She isn’t showing that note to the teacher, but to her classmates. And that’s after the nitwit — who by the way seems quite sincere — taunted her to do it.

          Further, I disagree with your assessment that this is “a lapse in judgement.” By my count, it’s over one thousand discrete lapses in judgement, also known as “words.” The rant is coherent enough to display the typical pedestrian MRA blather, narcissism and delusions of grandeur, and also long enough that the person writing it, no matter how drunk, would have had many opportunities to consider that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He didn’t.

          Last, I believe Rebecca when she says that the sentiment expressed in this email is representative of a hundred other emails she received, albeit slightly more amusing. Therefore, mocking it is not only a perfectly appropriate response but in my opinion, a necessary one. At the very least it serves as a cautionary tale to other woman-hating dirtbags with delusions of grandeur.

          (See also: Internet Man Does Not Want To Be On The Google Anymore for another excellent example of well-deserved ridicule.)

          By the way, this whole “low-blow,” “slow news day” judgmental crap you are peddling? It is a well-known silencing tactic. And duly noted.

        2. Random realization when I read your “I bet you’re a Gen Y-er” comment. Whenever someone says that on the internet I picture them as Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace, only instead of yelling at kids to get off his lawn he’s impotently telling them to get out of his comments.

          Made my day! :D

  30. Of all the current affairs he could choose to not be happy with he chooses a lack of subordinate women and hair metal? Only a white, middle-class male could think that these are the most important issues of the day. He’s just as clueless about his third “revolution” – interventions with medical technologies are possible but since we can’t overcome aging or the complex comorbidities patients have due to lifestyle factors today (diabetes, heart disease etc) they can be unneccessary and cruel, prolonging death rather than life.

  31. Wait a minute Rebecca. I was NEVER into Ayn Rand. Quite honestly, like most people outside the U.S., I had never even heard of the woman until she became popular again recently, and I was a huge Sci-Fi fan and a total nerd in my teens. Ayn Rand is very much an American phenomenon; I think if I had encountered her in my teens, I would have felt pretty much the same revulsion I feel now; my momma didn’t raise no selfish asshole.

    As for this nutter, well, he’ll be entertained by his only friend, his hand, for quite some time to come.

    1. Likewise, I had never even heard of Ayn Rand until the “modern” Republican party started holding her up as a glorious icon with the ideal concept of society.

    2. I should point out that a lot of 14 year olds aren’t even this immature. Being young is just not an excuse for being an asshole. Never was, never will be, never should be.

  32. As others have observed, I’m seriously glad I got through my overly earnest/dickhead phase at a time my rants couldn’t be immortalised for all time. I shudder to think what could have come back to haunt me now.

    I think posting this is fair (given his suggestion you do just that) but maybe on the basis that if/when he sees the error of his ways – and apologises, obviously – you’ll remove it? He may be a douche, but he’s a douche that’s only 19. And drunk.

  33. “After 23 interviews/applications, I was left still jobless”

    Oh, Jimbo. Send *them* your letter and they will soon see you as the Totally-Rocking-Future-King-Of-The-World who they let slip through their fingers!

    Don’t drink and type kidz!

  34. On a completely unrelated note, what happened to the formatting buttons (bold, italic, blockquote, etc) in the Leave a Reply box?

      1. Does this apply to the subscribe button as well? Because I sort of loved the hell out of that feature.

  35. At least I learned a new vocabulary word: misandrist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misandry

    At age 19, the brain is still a work in progress. It is very possible that our friend Jimmy will do a 180. It happens all the time. My brother was a John Bircher at that age. I was a Jesus freak. It would be fascinating to follow up on this guy in 10 years!

  36. The problem with the MRAs is that they are morons. Of course there are areas that men are discriminated against the poster child example being child custody. The European Court of Human Rights recently declined biological fathers the right to access to their children. But what the MRAs are not getting (among other things) is that it is men that discriminate against other men. It was mostly men who made the current child custody laws and it is in the majority male judges that enforce these laws.

    And to show that this really is discrimination against men just this: Where I live the law is going to change to grant biological fathers more rights to see their children. And the Secretary of State for Justice responsible for that change is a woman.

    1. ” The European Court of Human Rights recently declined biological fathers the right to access to their children. But what the MRAs are not getting (among other things) is that it is”

      Still solved with MOAR FEMINISM, as someone said above. This kind of thing is generally due to strict gender roles and the belief that women are the primary care givers, period, which then leads to fathers being unfit to be primary care givers.

      This is still a feminist issue. An important one.

      1. To preface: Feminists really don’t have to fight against the discrimination of men they really don’t have to. But if other people fight against the discrimination of men and then the feminists come along and argue that they have been against said discrimination all along then that is pretty dishonest. And I would appreciate if you’d stop that.

        1. What the fuck? This comment makes zero sense whatsoever. Are you sure you’re replying to me?

        2. And you DO realize that sexism against men does not exist, right? That’s not how this works.

          I’m not entirely sure why you didn’t reply to my actual points, though, and instead chose to babble incoherently about the pooooor discriminated menz (‘cuz of course we can never, ever, ever have a post about sexism against women, in a blog for women, without being reminded of the poor, poor, poor menz out there! That would be bad! Terrible! Those poor menz! We must be reminded how terrible they have it!).

          Care to try again?

          1. Yes it does! When I was as mature as the author (at about 14) my favorite author was Valerie Solanas. Her vision didn’t include a terribly nice fate for me but I was really misandrist and figured it was a small sacrifice to make. Women are perfectly capable of being sexist toward men. I was great at it!

            I don’t really think it’s at all helpful to define sexism with the assumption that one group has power but the other one doesn’t. It invalidates all the women that do have power. If aliens landed on the white house lawn and refused to talk to anybody but the first lady I doubt you’d invalidate all the sexism against women, no matter how much a minority those three and a half billion women turned out to be.

    2. I also get a little skeeved out by the construction of the phrase–“the right to access to their children”…I dunno, but from a very conceptual framework the idea of having a right to another person is troubling to me. I mean, I’m sure in most cases the sentiment behind it is appropriate and applicable, but there are a lot of other concerns, especially with regard to abusive parents, or severely limiting how the custodial parent can work or travel to accommodate the wishes of the non-custodial parent.

  37. Damn it, Laika made my point for me. Ah well, I’ll reiterate, but make it all about me – THEMATIC TIE IN

    I went top college early – I am a high-school dropout with a Bachelor’s Degree. I was easily the dumbest student at this school. All of my peers were brilliant, amazing, thoughtful people. And when we were 15-19, we were all, to the last one of us, assholes. Our assholery took on different casts, but it was a common theme. Rebecca states it in the first part of this post – you finally have everything figured out. The world holds no mystery for you anymore – you define “worldy”. It is your sacred duty to educate the seething masses and slay the dragon of ignorance.

    I was there. I played that game, wore that t-shirt.

    This too shall pass. Based on his writing I predict a turnaround in the next decade. And we won’t know because he will have learned the value of shutting up.

    And speaking of “HEre’s To Shutting Up”, anything put out by Merge Records is worth a listen. If you think music sucks these days, YOU ARE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH.

    1. How many men DO change, though? That’s kind of the point. Some guys grow up … but not all of them. In fact, considering the world around us, maybe a good majority hold on to some or more of these ideas.

      This is a lot of hatred toward women, and it didn’t just come from thin air. Where did he pick up on this kind of crap?

      Do you honestly think he has some big chance to grow up and become a feminist? Because I don’t see that happening. Maybe he’ll learn the art of “shutting up”, but that’s not the same. One doesn’t have to be vocal about it to still be a misogynist dick-head.

      It’s possible he’ll grow up. One can hope that in a decade, he looks back on this behavior and cringes, or he’ll talk about it with shame to his therapist. But I don’t know how realistic that really is.

  38. This is the first time I think an idiot crossed both of our paths. After you retweeted my “Keep the Thor in Thursday” picture he spammed my twitter account wanting us to sign the band he hasn’t even started yet for the hard rock revolution. Something like 20 tweets all with the same message. Moron indeed.

  39. The thing I noticed when I read Ayn Rand was that there was this message in there about working your ass off to be the best at whatever you’re good at and how this would make for a great society.
    Then there was bit right after it where Ayn Rand, via her characters, concluded that the solution was for everybody to be completely selfish assholes to each other. I could never make that leap.
    And then, of course: http://xkcd.com/1049/

    1. I always feel weird when people talk about Ayn Rand because there is honestly a lot that she says that I found philosophically interesting, but I also get kind of stuck with the whole “let’s leave for our utopia and let everyone else suffer without innovation”, even though I do think that her villains/bad guys are painfully hate-worthy.

      I also think not all of her writing is absolutely horrible, because I found some of her descriptive prose to be fantastic, but it certainly is very long and exhausting to read in large pieces.

  40. Aw, this totally made my day! I was somewhat bored doing some school’ish work, and I consideret looking up the fucking BRILLIANT piece Colbert did on that MRA person who was completely enraged over… bars that let girls in cheap? But then this came along, and made me laugh so hard.

    But to be honest, the part that made me laugh the most wasn’t the weird fake-fact arguments he made, it was the grandiose statements of how he is gonna be like.. iron-man, hulk and ford all rolled up into one changing the face of the earth one rock song at a time. I wish Louis Theroux would do a piece on this man and MRA in general.

  41. I feel the need to point out that “Jimmy Zinn and the Life-Extension Revolution” would make an awesome name… for a Grateful Dead cover band.

  42. Okay, all else aside, this guy needs to win some sort of mad points for threatening to destroy evil feminism with THE POWER OF ROCK!

  43. The intellectual heft he brings to his arguments is typical in my experience of the MRA movement. Late adolescents or older men still stuck in late adolescence with little or no awareness of reality. I don’t get to enervated about their ranting most of the time because they’re simply the dying bleats of an archaic paternalism.

    Music is not a monolithic thing. “All music sucks today” is the declaration of one who is desperately clinging to a time in life when they were happier or a time that they believe against all available evidence was ‘better’ in some way. In minutes on soundcloud or indiefeed or pitchfork or any one of thousands of music blogs one could easily find examples of fine artists of any genre imaginable (including high quality clones of 1986 era GNR, if one is so inclined). The gentleman has no interest in the music itself, but rather what his idea of the era (Reagan 80’s) was and a desire to return to an idealized past that he’s too young to have any direct knowledge of.

  44. Wait, wait, wait.

    After all of this discussion I don’t see anyone boggling at what I boggled at.

    He expects to do this in three years.

    Three. Years.

    1. It’s so naïvely ambitious–to put it charitably–that I just skipped over it.

  45. Ok I was real stupid when I wrote this but here it goes

    I’ll expose the evils of the MRM with Country! I hereby dedicate my tunes to three revolutions; the American revolution, the Pokemon revolution [I’m very conservative when it comes to Pokemon, only the first 150 are REAL Pokemon] and the Creamy Peanut Butter revolution [screw you I hate chunky].

    1. Ok, I don’t care much about Pokemon and/or America, but I’m totally with you on the PB thing. Chunky peanut butter is an abomination unto the lord. Do you want peanut butter or do you want peanuts? Make up your mind!

      Also, Firefox spell-check recognizes “Pokemon” as a word.

  46. Ok, first of all, GnR is not the epitome of good music. Bob Dylan’s original version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is much better. While I enjoy most kinds of music and enjoy GnR well enough, I have little respect for anyone who thinks they are the ultimate in music.

    Also, this guy gave up his job search after 23 applications? 23? I applied for over 200 jobs before I found one, and a sucky one at that. That’s an order of magnitude different! And I’m a woman so I would love to know where all these places are that are searching for women to hire. I’ve certainly never found one like that. His expectation to find a job easily is a sign of his privilege. I could never expect to find one after only 23 applications. Hell, I usually can’t even get an interview after only 23 applications.

    1. I know! He’s got this master plan to “become the next great American (and global) icon.” and yet he couldn’t stick to a job hunt effort for more than 23 applications?

      I’m starting to think this is someone trolling Rebecca for the purpose of trying to get such a ridiculous letter posted to the site in the first place.

  47. Maybe they didn’t hire you because your spelling and grammar is at a 6th grade level.

  48. Well, we lost another POWER ALLY from the “unfortunately population.”

    Maybe we could help by forwarding his email to anybody and everybody in or vaguely related to the music industry?

  49. “…I’m not to happy with the current state of affairs.” Look kiddo, it’s called being alive, and dealing with it is called being a grown up.

  50. Has Jimmy Zinn taken up blogging?

    http://immyzinn7.blog.com/

    Welcome!

    My name is Jimmy Zinn, I’m a 19 year old MRA, hard rocker, and transhumanist. It’s unfortunate that I find myself intoxicated on the infamous cheap, fortified wine immortalized in this kick-ass song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssTJuEDeikI

    Note, he’s a transhumanist. e_e

    And later on in that post, you get a mention, Rebecca! How cool is that?

    Now, I’ve had an interesting start with Miss. Rebecca Watson of Skepchick, one of the many subconsciously misandrist so common in the feminist community. I sent Miss Watson an email this morning which she was only to happy to repost on her blog.

    Unfortunately Jimmy is too hungover to work out how URLs work, so his link to this post doesn’t actually link.

    h/t: David Futrelle at ManBoobz received a comment from someone claiming to be Jimmy Zinn, so we’re all wondering whether it was Jimmy or an impersonator – do would you like to compare notes?

    1. The latest blog post on Jimmy’s site is very telling – RW is playing into his hands posting the letter as all he wants is notoriety. Perversely I think he will see this article as a win for him as he has some validation that his hate figure in RW is taking notice of him.

      Q Jimmy stalking RW and any other feminist types on the blogosphere for mentions.

      1. I don’t think Rebecca cares if he sees it as a “win”. It was an amusing e-mail that we’ve all had a fun time discussing. The likelihood of her engaging with him again is slim to none.

        She gets this kind of emails ALL THE TIME. She just wanted to highlight this one because it is fucking hilarious.

        1. I think that RW is really entertaining, has insightful opinions, and I love reading her posts.
          ## Begin sarcasm//
          I just wish that I *knew* what she was thinking just like marilove does. Since marilove sees fit to post ex-cathedra for RW I must be in awe of marilove. Other people can make pronouncements of RW’s opinions. That would not be like religion at all…
          //end sarcasm.##

          1. Do the words “I don’t think” and “I know” mean the same thing now?

            Finn, you are turning my world upside-down. Is black now white or merely gray?

          2. I’ve been here a long time and she herself has said, in the past, that she gets a lot of this shit email and that sometimes it’s fun and cathartic to share the more hilarious ones. Because it is.

            She has said this. I mean come on. This isn’t rocket science.

            If you don’t like it, you could just, you know, not read it. How hard is that?

          3. And what the hell does having a pretty good idea of what Rebecca’s intentions were with this post have ANYTHING AT ALL to do with religion? People like you are so aggravating. Talking with you is hopeless. Even my casual observation about someone I’ve been reading here for a long time had to be attacked.

            “That would not be like religion at all…” is a prime example. Come on, seriously, man?

      2. Yeah oolon, Jimmy’s new post (well, there are only two posts on the blog: not much goin’ on there) admits that he screwed the pooch with his missive to Rebecca:

        shit, i should have included the blog URL in the first email…i would have 300 followers by now.

        That’s what you get for drunk Internet blogging and e-mailing. NO FOLLOWERS FOR YOU!

      1. Ummm, it turned out to be a 150 mm Styrofoam statue of Horus. Not so impressive, so they bailed on it.

  51. WOw. Just wow. But seriously, i like hard rock. And life extenstion seems pretty cool. I hope people don’t associate hard rock fans with this guy’s of attitude.

    Also, can’t wait to se your talk tomorrow Rebecca!

  52. As a fan of hard rock and heavy metal I certainly do not want to be associated with the likes of this character. Yikes, what an idiot.

  53. My politics at 19 were… vague, but I am not ashamed of them currently. Plus I was nicer and a better writer, even when intoxicated.

    Also, music these days sucks? Never heard of Janelle Monae? K-Os? Or does music made by POC not count?

    1. Same here. They weren’t perfect, and I even have completely opposite opinions on some, but I wasn’t a doucehbag about it.

      It’s interesting that everyone who has defended this guy so far has said something about, “But he’s so YOUNG!”

      It’s this thought process that young ADULTS are idiots and morons and assholes no matter what and we should give them some slack. Which is crap. While sometimes young kids make stupid mistakes, this isn’t just stupid. This is pretty hateful and offensive stuff.

      It’s also really close to the “well, boys will be boys!” mentality which is also crap.

  54. I can’t even begin to say how much that post fills me with hope and peace of mind.

    Not only I am not upset about his arguments, I find the way he makes them… inspiring. It truly gives me hope to see someone supporting Men’s Rights in such a manner.

    Why? because, if that is the kind of people they have… they are done. If THAT is the brainpower they can bring to bear, they are much more hopelessly lost than I thought.

    I am relieved to see clear proof of the immense idiocy of the people who oppose us. It is inspiring to read your opponent and confirm he has all the brains and self control of a prepubescent chimpanzee.

    Also, I have seen evidence that 14 may not be the age for immaturity. All right, I am willing to admit it tends to be so for most men (including myself), but it is not so much the case for the people I see posting here.

    I confess I have recently arrived at this blog, and I am already impressed by the writing skills and intellectual coherence of people much younger than that. I think Xe’nedra would find it amusing that someone sets the bar for intellectual immaturity at 14 years old, and I believe she is not the only one in her age group around here.

    We have 11 year old writers who outsmart this guy ten times over. If that’s all they can bring to the fight, they almost deserve pity. Almost.

    Indeed, that post fills me with hope. Thank you for sharing.

  55. Quote: (Marilove): “She gets this kind of emails ALL THE TIME. She just wanted to highlight this one because it is fucking hilarious.”

    First part is a simple truth claim. I expect that it is correct, but the claim comes from the wrong source if it comes without some kind of citation. The second part ascribes motives to a person. Perhaps Marilove knows the innermost workings of RW’s psyche. That kind of claim is like that made by people with a religious world-view. For example, I was a fan of Christopher Hitchens. However, I would not dare to speak for him or to ascribe motives to what he said or wrote. I would quote him… Christopher Hitchens wrote, “X,” or, Christopher Hitchens said, “Y.” I would not presume to claim, “Christopher Hitchens believed Z,”or, “Christopher Hitchens thinks Z.” When you go down that path. You enter the realm of religion. In case you missed the reference (since education has so degraded), the reference to speaking “ex cathedra” means speaking in the place of the Pope of the Catholic Church and using the implied authority and infallibility of the office to bolster one’s own claim. What part of that behavior is skepticism?

    The whole, “men are bad,” meme is old and tired by now. This was an interesting website when it was skepticism with a feminist bent. If it turns into, “men are pigs…. and anti-vaxers are stupid,” then not so interesting.

    1. Rebecca Watson: “He sounds exactly like a hundred other immature, self-obsessed MRAs I’ve heard from in the past few months. He just wrote his thoughts down in a more entertaining manner than the other jackasses.”

      Is this the evidence you were looking for? Right on this very site?

  56. Love his letter. He’s got some valid points and the rest of it just made me smile and laugh and wish him all the best. I have a 19 year old of my own and I can only WISH that he wrote so eloquently…albeit with better spelling.

  57. I can’t tell if the fact that he wants to start a band based on music from the year I was born makes me feel old or young…

    I used to work in a high school and I had these kinds of comments from 14-year-old boys all the time. I guess there will always be bigots, but it’s certainly a true testament to how much we still need feminism that this person has convinced himself that he’s the one who’s oppressed.

    Hey, Jimmy, you fear men’s oppression because some people say mean things about you on the internet. I fear women’s oppression because it may lead to the rape, murder and loss of bodily autonomy of me and my loved ones.

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