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Trillby wearing "pick up artists"/Gamergate are they a "community"?


Shryke

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Well, after reading that I still think use of the term "community" is unwarranted.

The Duggars would seem to be part of a "community" in terms of their participation in a religious movement which involves people interacting with one another in real life and developing relationships where they have long term commitments to one another (not just marriages, but the sort of commitments that go along with being members of religious congregations and organizing actual real life events.)

Both the fedora wearers and the fedora mockers mentioned in the linked article seem to me to be a short term fashion phenomenon which does not really make a "community". The group identifications, if any, would seem to me to constitute a fake sense of community rather than a real one.

"Fedora wearers" is a pejorative term for an actual community based on alot more then just a wrongly-identified hat.

The whole PUA/Gamergater/Men's Rights/etc nexus of movements is very much a community. In fact most of the investigative journalism done on them has identified that as their primary purpose. They are a support group for lonely men.

Of course, they have absolutely nothing to do with the Duggars or what is going on with them and sexual abuse and oppressing women and everything else they are horrible about. I guess beyond the fact that both are examples of the patriarchy in our society.

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To get this out of the Duggar thread. Here's the article I linked:

http://boingboing.net/2012/10/02/why-the-fedora-grosses-out-gee.html

From the article:

Says Forever Alone Fedoras: a fedora speaks volumes about ones character. It implies that he is a basement dwelling, live action role playing, no social skills having, complete and utter geek in the worst sense of the word.

Harsh.

So, some of these guys are a little awkward. But what's with the virulent derision? Especially since these Tumblrs and Fedora-memes tend to take a knowing tone, curated by people who come from the same world as the people they're mocking.

Just a glance at Forever Alone Fedoras, for example, generally requires you know what a Brony is, or at least net-literate enough to know what duckface means, to get the jokes. Why hate on your own kind? Hasnt everyone been picked on enough? Shouldnt geeks unite?

Well, yes, but that was before a great war in geek culture began. The internet has long been famously hostile to women: well past the turn of the millennium, an entire genre of online humor relied on the idea that there were no females on the internet.

Type there are no women into Google and see the results. Many of Googles suggestions relate to baseline geek culture stuff, presumed to be closely associated with the average geeks online experience. Like the internet, comic books, video games and lore-packed science fiction/fantasy also have a spotty record when it comes to being safe, or welcoming, for female participants.

So, do these "alphas" who see women as conquests who are screwing up their games consitute a community, or not?

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Yikes, my 10 year old just bought a fedora. He saw it while we were picking up summer clothes and it has brightened his week. He is prancing around the house with this new sense of style and purpose (in his mind) and it's damned adorable. I didn't know I was setting him on this path to online shaming. Of course, I have already started teaching him about the ills of posting photos of yourself online so hopefully he'll listen to me on that. I'm pretty sure the hat isn't to "get girls" though. He just likes to be his own guy and around here he is his own guy in that hat.


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Why does it matter whether you can call them a "community" or not? What's the characteristic of a "community" that you would want to argue that they have, and what's the purpose of doing so? What point is served by deciding this issue one way or the other? Is there some broader point that it enlightens?


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I think it would be a stretch to call pick up artists and gamergate a single community, assuming you can call either of them a community.

"Fedora-wearing" and pick up artistry or "alphas" is as big a stretch. A stretch the article doesn't really deign to perform, strangely.

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the phenomenon is the manosphere's preference for the trilby, i.e., the frequency of trilby-wearing within the manosphere is vastly higher than without; also, the trilby is used by those in the manosphere as a symbol of the movement. it does not follow that a person seen wearing a trilby is especially likely to be associated with the manosphere. we can presume, based on objective fact that trilby is uggo, that anyone outside the manosphere would prefer a fedora, but this is only presumption. a counterpresumption is that the manosphere is not large and probably does not outweigh people who simply enjoy wearing bad hats.

compare to shaven heads among white men: also famously used as a symbol for a group of despicable persons, but we do not see a white man with a shaven head and assume that he is a member of such, nor does the idea necessarily even cross our minds.

i often eschew capitals and disdain capitalism but do not like communism either; where does this situate me in this proposed community?

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st? No, really - who gets what out of this claim and out of this argument?

assuming that scot's main client is a lobbying firm for a millinery trade group, it's fairly obvious that he's using us as an ad hoc focus group in order to advance the interests thereof, no?

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the phenomenon is the manosphere's preference for the trilby, i.e., the frequency of trilby-wearing within the manosphere is vastly higher than without; also, the trilby is used by those in the manosphere as a symbol of the movement. it does not follow that a person seen wearing a trilby is especially likely to be associated with the manosphere. we can presume, based on objective fact that trilby is uggo, that anyone outside the manosphere would prefer a fedora, but this is only presumption. a counterpresumption is that the manosphere is not large and probably does not outweigh people who simply enjoy wearing bad hats.

compare to shaven heads among white men: also famously used as a symbol for a group of despicable persons, but we do not see a white man with a shaven head and assume that he is a member of such, nor does the idea necessarily even cross our minds.

i often eschew capitals and disdain capitalism but do not like communism either; where does this situate me in this proposed community?

Maybe it's just me but the trilby is strongly associated with places like reddit and r/atheism, who are not in the "manosphere" as far as I know.

They stereotypically fit the "average frustrated chump"/nice guy narrative the article is partly talking about but a lot of these "manosphere" places would outright despise them and what the trilby or fedora (which they say when they mean trilby) stand for.

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Maybe it's just me but the trilby is strongly associated with places like reddit and r/atheism, who are not in the "manosphere" as far as I know.

They stereotypically fit the "average frustrated chump"/nice guy narrative the article is partly talking about but a lot of these "manosphere" places would outright despise them and what the trilby or fedora (which they say when they mean trilby) stand for.

The two groups you are talking about have HUGE overlap.

Where do you think the PUAs or Gamergaters or whatevers come from and never really left?

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I think this should dissolve into a picayune argument as to the exact differences, and social implications, between the trilby and the fedora. I've never been clear on the issue.


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