"Nice guys" of okcupid

[Patrick Gerard]

Ska bands ruined fedoras long before hipsters found their way in.

Wait. What's wrong with ska bands?

[Patrick Gerard]

It's about pointing and laughing at horrible people, though. I believe the whole of reality tv is based on this concept. Again, it's not that this site makes fun of people that just innocently made some kind of mistake. They actively posted on a public profile that they are nice guys, and at the same time posted proof that they are quite obviously not. I'd argue that validates a certain degree of ridicule. Basically, if you want to be horrible on the Internet, don't complain about people making fun of you.

People sign up for reality TV and deliberately act horrible on there.

These guys are being vulnerable, even if they're also being jerkwads. You don't pick on vulnerable people or you're a bully.

Olney actively screwed over people and lied about it. So did Fisher to a lesser extent.

The guys featured on this blog are mostly guys in deep denial, venting from a place of pain. They don't deserve dates with strangers until they clean up their act but they also don't deserve mocking.

Anyone who hurts people who are hurting is a fundamentally evil person. That goes for some of the guys featured on the blog but it also goes for people mocking them.

[zemo]

I don't get what's wrong with hipsters or why they deserve scorn either.

They, in general, fall along the same line as emos: Their choice of clothes and other unifying aspects is not an expression of their individuality, it's rather to set themselves apart as better from everybody else. The poignant difference is their respective battle cry.

Emos: "Nobody gets me!"
Hipsters: "I liked this before it became famous!"

Seriously, hipsters ended up with an automatic post stamp to the fifth cycle of Hell the moment they started using casette players in order to be...whatever they want to be...

[C.B. Nerdlinger]

Yeah, after reading through it, I'm convinced too - cyberbullying.

[zemo]

People sign up for reality TV and deliberately act horrible on there.

These guys are being vulnerable, even if they're also being jerkwads. You don't pick on vulnerable people or you're a bully.

Olney actively screwed over people and lied about it. So did Fisher to a lesser extent.

The guys featured on this blog are mostly guys in deep denial, venting from a place of pain. They don't deserve dates with strangers until they clean up their act but they also don't deserve mocking.

Anyone who hurts people who are hurting is a fundamentally evil person. That goes for some of the guys featured on the blog but it also goes for people mocking them.

To be frank, your idea that they are only in denial and in a deep place of pain is as much an assertion as stating that they are probably mostly abusive pricks. Only difference is: Their own writing on a public platform rather supports the latter theory, while the former is just second guessing. In other words: The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Edit: Additionally, I'd think different if they were being made fun of in any way other than their own statements. But I haven't seen anything of that. Neither their appearance, nor their hobbies, nor their anything else is being mocked. It is all concentrated solely on their assholeish statements.

[zemo]

All this said: While I don't believe this qualifies as cyberbullying for the reasons stated above (i.e. being ridiculed for asshole-ish things you write on the Internet), if a mod arrives at a different conclusion I won't make a fuss about closing this thread.

[J.R. LeMar]

The guys featured on this blog are mostly guys in deep denial, venting from a place of pain. They don't deserve dates with strangers until they clean up their act but they also don't deserve mocking.

I disagree, I think they deserve mocking. And I will continue do so on my tumblr and blogs, but I'll stop it here, because I can see where this thread is going.

[Patrick Gerard]

I gotta go with zemo on this. If that tumblr is "cyberbullying" than so where the Rick Olney thread (which I was an active participant in) and, even more so, the J-Bolt thread on this forum and YABS before that. @ least the tumblr is directed @ general group, as opposed to just focusing on one single person like the threads were. @ most I could argue that maybe the tumblr should black-out their faces, or @ least put a bar over their eyes, but it's not posting the names or links to their profiles, and it's what these men chose to make publicly available in order evaluated by potential mates. So all's fair, I say.

I also agree with stevapalooza about the analogy about looking for a job. Taking out the issue of friendzoning and whatnot, why put such a negative trait front and center like that? "Hey, my life sucks, wanna date me?"

I'd also say that Patrick Gerard has a point about those phrases being over-used sometimes but, really, as the saying goings "stereotypes exist for a reason." And all these guys seems to fit that stereotype. I read through the whole site, so far, and you can see the same phrases being used repeatedly by different me. "I'm ALWAYS getting friendzoned." "Women ALWAYS overlook me to go for jerks." "I'm ALWAYS getting rejected because I'm too nice." "EVERY women I've ever had a crush on has put me in the friend-zone." I've known guys like this, and there's a certain level of narcissism involved to have something like this supposedly happening to you constantly and assume that problem has to be that something is wrong with everyone else. I also know women who fit what I consider to be the female equivalent of the "(too) nice guy." That's the woman who is rude, and conceited and therefor assumes that the reason she can't get a man is men are too "intimidated" by her personality, because she's so "strong and independent." No, it can't possibly be because she's a b***, she's perfect, it's just that ALL the men are scared of her. In both cases I say, guess what, maybe it's YOU?

It's not so much overuse. So much as they've latched onto an alternate meaning of friendzone and are pissing all over a valuable concept because some jerks use it to guilt people who turned them down. You might as well write alcohol off as "rape fuel" because some jerkasses misused it to badger for ill-formed consent (or bypass consent altogether) too. Nevermind that not everyone who has drinks with friends is looking to get laid or convince someone else to be the layee.

There's a lesson to be learned in the "friendzone" concept. It shouldn't be used as a verb to ignore one's faults and blame women who reject a guy. It should be used as a key to understanding that a guy shouldn't linger around a lady he wants to ask out, avoiding getting shot down. He should go for it and be prepared to move on. At a certain point, it becomes almost insurmountably difficult to change the tenor of a relationship... and it probably indicates there was an issue if the relationship didn't get there on its own.

Without the concept of a "friendzone" (not "friendzoning"; "friendzone" as a place where guys put themselves), my awkward ass would be in a world of misery and confusion. Because the idea that people get used to relationships being one way or that relationships don't just organically evolve out of friendships is NOT intuitive to me... and I think a lot of people... and is not how popular media often portrays it. You can't just ditch the concept that there are diminishing returns on delaying trying to ask out someone you're attracted to. That's what the friendzone is a useful illustration of.

I can look back and see a DRAMATIC difference between situations where I asked a girl out when I met her (in fact, I've never actually BEEN shot down this way) versus situations where I waited six months versus situations where I bottled up feelings for longer. It's not intuitive for a lot of people that it would work that way.

Using that concept to blame women is a jerk move. Using it to illustrate the idea of being clear about your intentions is not.

And for every asshole post these guys make about "men being the head of the house", there is a woman out there looking for a guy who thinks that. And these guys are not the high and mighty patriarchy. They're guys who don't know themselves and haven't thought through the world very well, who I can see a world of pain in.

And you know why women "creepshame" these guys and turn them down? Why they're caught up in the "nice guy" syndrome? Because they aren't clear about what they want. And that creeps women out. And 9 times out of 10, I think women will assume that what these guys want is creepier than what they actually want because they aren't being open (with themselves or others) about fairly pedestrian desires.

I think in our society, women get trained to shine a giant spotlight on someone who's creepy. And alpha males are quick to jump in and shove that creepy guy's head in a toilet, as a sign of their virility. And they continue to do it online. Whereas guys who aren't alpha males get trained to mix-up creepy and polite. And they deserve pointers, not ridicule.

Creepiness doesn't deserve punishment. It deserves education.

[Patrick Gerard]

They, in general, fall along the same line as emos: Their choice of clothes and other unifying aspects is not an expression of their individuality, it's rather to set themselves apart as better from everybody else. The poignant difference is their respective battle cry.

Emos: "Nobody gets me!"
Hipsters: "I liked this before it became famous!"

Seriously, hipsters ended up with an automatic post stamp to the fifth cycle of Hell the moment they started using casette players in order to be...whatever they want to be...

I get all that. Think it's adorable. Ditto emos.

[stevapalooza]

Part of me wishes I could ask follow-up questions to some of the answers they gave. Like I'd ask the guys who think women should be obligated to shave their legs, what other things they think women are obligated to do regarding their physical appearance, and if there are any obligations for me, too? And for the guys who answered yes, I'd want to know exactly what times to do think women are obligated to have sex with them. And I'd like a description of the circumstances when a woman means YES, even though she says NO? I'd also be curious exactly what being "head of the household" means to the men who said that the man should be it.

A lot of these guys definitely need to look in the mirror and ask the basic question "Would I fuck me?"