Wednesday 2 April 2014

Blogging Motivations

An interesting piece over at Thumotic, re the whole Tucker Max/Geoffrey Miller debacle:


It's worth the read. One thing jumped out at me though: the reasons why people blog in the Manosphere. He states:
Dear Red Pill blogger, if you write to educate and inspire the young men of our generation to greater heights, you should be relieved that others are taking up your burden. If your blog is a conduit for self-expression, or a tool for tracking and organising your own thoughts, The Mating Grounds will not interfere with either of those goals. 
However, if you write - as I suspect many do - out of a prideful desire to be regarded as an authority figure, out of a hunger for the anonymous status boost of being regarded as a 'guru' by other men, then The Mating Grounds is an existential threat to your blog traffic, and the ego you derive from it. Which is fine by me.
My first thought was to check that I wasn't as accused: doing this for my own ego. Since I make zero cash from this blog, since I'm not remotely mainstream in the Manosphere, and since I have zero plans for a "Best of Black Poison Soul" book (all done already) - then it seems that there is zero applicable there.

In fact while I'm interested in making money via the internet, as yet I have not thought of anything that would seem to be of great value. To make millions, make something of value that will impact millions. At a buck per, you're a millionaire. I've got about a month of holiday coming up, will take a bit of it to passively and idly churn through a few ideas in the back of my head. Enough on that subject.

Now, my second thought was triggered by rereading the second paragraph. Here is where in my opinion Thumotic missed the point of this furor.

Yes, some of these people are authorities - they make money from their blogs. Danger & Play in particular has gone professional along the track of juicing, and is not impressed by the way somebody else ripped off his entire juicing website almost word for word (that was not Tucker Max and co, btw).

Rightfully so, he sweated blood and learned to get that together - make it a coherent whole - and put it up there for others to benefit from. He made the effort, he put the stuff together, he deserves the credit and accolades (including making money from it). Some other jackass (Vivalamanosphere) should not be ripping him off practically word-for-word and making money off it.

It was nothing to do with a new entrant going mainstream-media into The Manosphere with headlights blazing and horns belching out the 1812 Overture at 150-decibels:


The more the merrier, we WELCOME people with new insights and ideas and the like. Bring it. With glee. We may or may not agree with you, however you are at least making us think. When we think, we refine and define and reveal what is truth. That's what we're here for: to reveal the truth of reality to others.

This makes us more mainstream than the so-called mainstream media. We deal in reality.

What caused the furor though was not this. It was what was seen as copying other Manosphere writer's articles word-for-word and claiming that they were their own. It was this seemingly deeply unethical behavior which made the Manosphere blow it's collective top.

Me included. These are MY thoughts, not to be lifted wholesale so someone else can make a buck from them. If someone wants to use them as a basis for their own (free) posts, then great: it then becomes an enhancement or discourse. If someone wants to use them as a basis for an "OMG this guy is such a turd" article in the (free) mainstream media then what the fuck - and by the way show me your tits girl (manboobs are not an acceptable substitute).

So there you have it: that's what touched off the Manosphere into hate-hate-hate mode. The idea of someone else ripping off our thoughts for money. Deservedly so: no academic in the ivory towers of academia would ever dream of pulling that without at least attribution, so Max and Miller (an academic) seeming to say that there was nothing even like it out there and they were gonna make bucks off of it - then seemingly ripping off someone else's content - wheeeeeee-ew!

Smell the (righteous) anger.

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