A King and His Fools Take Court

It started November 19^th at 12:44AM with the forum headline All Hell's Broken Loose on Return of Kings

The Forum Moderator, who calls himself Tuthmosis, had just received a lot of press for an article he wrote for an on-line women-hating website. His article was snarky, controversial, and shock-jocking for attention from the mainstream. It mocked women with eating disorders. It was idiotic.

I was inside the forum, reading the notes passed back and forth in this all-male virtual locker room. It was pretty much what I expected. This conversation took place over the span of 4 days and contained more than 500 comments. Here are the highlights from these low-lifes. My comments will be in red. Additional info in blue.

It begins. 

Nov 19, 13    12:44 AM  Early Tuesday Morning From Tuthmosis

I'm sure a lot of you guys saw my piece on ROK titled 5 Reasons to Date a Girl With An Eating Disorder. When it hit last Wednesday, people in the comments immediately predicted a shitstorm. I figured I'd get some reaction, especially since I went after upper-middle-class white girls--who aren't accustomed to being attacked in any way--but wasn't that surprised when things remained relatively quiet. That silence held until today.

This thing's gone viral, mainly though Facebook, it seems. It took down the ROK server for a while, and has kept it running sluggishly since. Twitter is sizzling with hate tweets, outrage, and general female hysteria (and the attendant white knighting) over the whole thing. It's gotten something like 11,000 likes just today. The rage comments are piling up. I'm getting hate emails in a variety of tones, ranging from pity to rage.

Some little articles and Internet mentions are starting to pop up, but I expect more in the coming days.

I know the forum enjoys this kind of popcorn drama with the outside world, so I thought I'd share my moment of lulz and humblebrag with you all. If you go over to ROK, try not to crash the server again.

(At this point there were lots of virtual high five’s and ass slaps.Tuthmosis, who is rated and scored by his fellow macho bro’s, receives more cool points. Since joining in January 2011, he has posts 6,872 times to the forum – averaging 6.53 posts per day or 1.21 percent of total posts. His reputation is 130 – which, I assume, is stellar.)

11-19-2013 01:07 AM - Some older classics like 24 Slut signs are getting more traffic too.

11-19-2013 01:11 AM - The 'war' has just begun...

1:46AM - I'm reading the comments right now, pure fuckin gold man. What these dumb bitches don't realize is the angrier they get more popular we get and the larger our ranks will grow and substantial change will soon follow because reasonable men will find our site and forums and agree with our message.

2:34AM - there's no such thing as bad publicity. I wouldn't be surprised if Roosh makes it really big, 8 figures big.  (This is the first comment about money. The moderators want me to donate money. This is, in my opinion, part of the main directive of this group... to squeeze a one-time donation or a MONTHLY donation from the readers. They talk about it quite a lot.)

2:46AM - Over a 1,000 now. Even actresses like the young ChloeGMoretz are tweeting about this. Golden.

2:48AM  (they post image of her tweet)  - She has 800,000 + followers. Thank you, Chloe.

3:25AM - holy shit... you guys are mastering the art of viral content marketing  (this is another common theme. Those horrid articles are marketing gimmicks to pull in traffic. So every time you share one of them, go to the site, or make a comment - you are making these assholes money.)

6:37AM - The Internet rage machine is a funny thing. It is not like someone put a billboard in the middle of every city in America. It's a web site. I cannot think of anything easier to ignore than a web site. And yet, these people cannot help but to spread te very thing that outrages them so much. There is simply no logic at work here... well, other than hamster logic.

ROOSH V, founder of the website and forum, finally steps in at 7:44AM. Reputation from Members: 143 He labels himself an “Innovative Casanova”
I've been in the internet game for a long time, but I've never seen anger like this. Tuth's article has created a black hole of rage. I have personally escorted Tuthmosis to the ROK safehouse where he can moderate the forum without interruption.

8:07AM - Someone started a petition to get it removed:

8:27AM - I knew this would go viral. Congrats Tuthmosis!

9:22AM - Aaaandd....... RoK is down. You guys need to buy up more server capabilities to handle these shitstorms you're inciting.

9:54AM - This is awesome. Were just becoming more popular by the day.

2:33PM - here is a list of triggers. an article for each would bring all the girls to the yard
[A member posts a list of Trigger Warnings that cause outrage on the internet. List includes: animal abuse, eating disorders, incest, porn, breastfeeding, self injury, rape, blaming and shaming others, suicide, racism, sexism, talking, victim blaming, phobias, stalking, humiliation, slut shaming, rape play, etc ]

3:21PM - [in reference to one of the girls with the video response] Can anyone verify her age before I start trolling her? [They ping back and forth – some say 16 and others say 18]

4:03PM - A suggestion for stage 2 trolling/inflammation would be to pretend to respond to requests that the article be taken down Tuth be 'fired' etc and post something like "The board of directors of ROK takes the feedback on this article very seriously and will be presenting an official press release on the matter at XX:00pm central time". Then post such a press release essentially saying "go fuck yourself, private ownership, free speech..if you don't like it for god's sake stop retweeting it..."  (They apparently have the trolling and flaming down to an art form... stages and all)

5:55PM - Approaching 7000 comments, not bad.

6:42PM - Well it's obvious the articles are written in such a way so as to get a rise out of people and thus drive traffic. …

6:54PM - I am doing some twitter hit and runs now. I am doing some reverse trolling and telling them that they are idiots for giving the site more traffic and that it's the truth haha.

6:55PM - Do a google search on "eating disorder." The rage over this article is at the very top of the news.

7:32PM - Tuth, strike when the iron is hot. You need to release another article fast to keep the momentum going.  ROOSH responded: With a crippled server?

7:53PM (ROOSH) - We use caching, but not a CDN. It's too expensive for the bandwidth we move. (No worries! His followers start discussing how much money he will need to keep the site up and offer to start donating money!!)

9:07PM    187 Comments on the forum - Over 7,000 comments...wow. That's some Yahoo level shit. Great job Tut.

10:18PM - I, for one, am looking forward to Tuth's next ROK article entitled "Relationship Game: Domestic Violence = Domestic Bliss"

10:50PM - The comments include some malware threats against Tuthmosis. He should definitely be careful to make sure that nobody finds his identity.  (They start getting paranoid about being found out. This conversation continues on and off throughout the thread. Lots of tips on how NOT to be found out.)

11:08PM - Yeah, this is a big deal. This amount of exposure is unprecedented and it comes at a good time. There will be some problems but it's all worth it.

11:14PM - Earlier today the comments were at 1200 or so. Pretty epic traffic spike. I'll assume most came from the huffpo article?

11:22PM - The 5 reasons article now has its own Reddit.

11:26pm - Social herd instinct. Once it's obvious it's a thing that girls are getting offended by, every girl will have to jump in and say her piece, because everyone else is doing it, especially if celebrities are involved.

I'm starting to realise just how much social media has changed things in terms of just how damn easy it is now to manipulate the media and public opinion. The possibilities for the scope of trolling are now enormous, given the voracious demand for online content to fuel advertising dollars at media institutions staffed by lazy journalists who won't challenge their biased-preconception ony any topic by actually researching it, and the near-hysterical emotional fragility being generated by educational institutions and a life of middle class comfort, whom forget to moderate their public face due to their supercilious arrogance that everything they believe must be correct. (I put the interesting stuff in bold. They really look at this as a social media marketing win)

11:49PM - After 5,000 comments, I'm amazed that 2,000 more people decided to also comment. Who do these people think are reading their drivel? Do they really think the first 5,000 didn't already cover it?

NOVEMBER 20^th, 2013  (Wednesday)

12:26AM - A lot of Traffic also came from Tumblr:

1:26AM - Holy shit, look at the ROK forum here on RVF. The number of views for Tuth's article are at 9,000+ compared to just a few hundred views for other articles. RVF seems to be getting a lot of spillover from the article. Expect a tidal wave of trolls on the 1st. Might even be a good idea to suspend new signups till Jan 1st.

1:44AM - Times of Israel OPED now, 

1:57AM (Tuthmosis) - … Without even intending to, I may have pulled off one of the greatest quote-unquote "negs" of all time. If #fatshamingweek put the eyes of every fatty in the West on us, Tuthmosis brought the talent to the party.

4:37AM (ROOSH) - The massive deluge of commenting on one article broke the wordpress database. It racked up 7,000 comments but I had to delete 5,000 of them and shut down the comment thread just to get the post loading again. Yesterday we served 575,000 page views. I expect today things will simmer a bit. So far there hasn't been any coordinated attack, just mob anger. If things do get serious I will report it here. Tuth's article has been the viral thing to come out of the manosphere... ever. It's completely unprecedented, and may god have mercy on all of our souls.

5:54AM - Make sure that any PMs that contain anything linking to your identity are deleted from the forum messaging system. It would only take either the recipients account, sender's account or the forum software itself to be compromised for that to be uncovered. Same goes for all forum members who value their privacy: delete PMs that contain identifiable info from the forum messaging system.

7:36AM - Roosh and Tuth, do you guys have any plans or protocol for the upcoming troll invasion? Not asking for you guys to announce any specific tactics here.  8:03AM ROOSH - Yeah... not worrying about it. This happens every time something goes viral, where people here say "The trolls are coming on the 1st." And guess what, it never happens. We have our dedicated trolls and that's it.  And if they do come we ban them. It really isn't a big deal.

8:13AM - Let's be honest. Most girls would be extremely intimidated from posting here.

9:21AM (ROOSH) - Scorpion is quoted on a Washington Post blog

9:38AM - Oh no!!! Maybe the women will get mad and stop buying the products advertised on RoK.  ......oh wait.   Seriously though, I think the funniest part is that they think their outrage will have any impact on a site by men, for men, that only advertises products for men.

10:24AM - "Guys! Don't share the article! Btw here is our article on it..."  The USA media is a complete joke.

10:25AM - This is actually a great Social Media Marketing Case Study.

 10:45AM - I wonder if we'll break mainstream US media. The more people see our antics, the more guys will discover us.

10:59AM - I'm actually considering writing an article titled something along the lines of '5 reasons every man should be a rapist'. Ha, I'm serious. Of course, it wouldn't be actual rape, but feminist rape. So, telling men some very basic caveman-game principles, like not zipping your pants back up and putting your tshirt on just because a girl shows mild resistance during sexual escalation, not asking permission to initiate etc - all packaged nicely with an incendiary headline to ensure the march to the point where RoK becomes incredibly well known continues!

11:04AM - I'm still laughing now. In fact, I think I may donate. So funny seeing that tweet standing alone amidst a sea of outrage.  (mentioning money - again)

11:32AM - We talk about the trolls arriving on the 1st—but don't forget about the converts.

12:26PM (Roosh) - Iceland media. Site looks small but it's sending more traffic than Huff Post.

This is where they mentioned my little article... (I put all mentions of our article in pink, plus facebook responses and so forth down the road.)

12:32PM - I found this link about the "king of mean" roosh. http://ifeeldelicious.blogspot.com/2013/...mment-form. I don't have time to do a proper ribbing but anybody who writes on the top of there webpage. That they should "feel" delicious is probably a landwhale with multiple anti-psychotic prescriptions. I don't know if it's a feminist blog or a cannibals' with a tag line like " because every women should FEEL delicious".

12:41
Trying to push them back into the ignore phase I see. This forum and RoK helps to improve the members' lives, we've been at it for far longer than they've been pissed off at us, but ignoring us will definitely make us go away.

12:41PM
Were not the landwhale owner of that blog the world infamous "Fridge Raider"?  <with Caitlin’s photo)

ROOSH Posts the article to his personal Facebook page, not to the ROK page

I've been called the king of mean :( http://ow.ly/r05Tf

1:02PM - Twitter will immensely help the movement…. Everyone needs to go make a twitter and follow tuth and Roosh it's a fireworks show.

1:26PM - I'm upset nobody has taken me up on my rape article.   I'm back on twitter giving our opponents hell. Oh and I'm also now a proud supporter of RoK via monthly donation. Do it fellas, it feels masculine. (Mentions money again... and it makes him feel masculine! lol!


Now ladies, do you want to know what these men look like? I've gathered some facebook photos of those who made comments pertaining to the link that Roosh shared on HIS PUBLIC AND OPEN site of MY article. I feel these men are fair game.

Pete McKenna

Alex HLamarche

1:33 Steven Bennett Long live the King!   (FB) 

Steven Bennett

1:37pm Pete McKenna Three cheers for for our king! All hail Roosh V!  (FB)

2:19PM Alex HLamarche I see you've refine your pickup tactic: "This guy here sits next to you and start throwing insults. He thinks that since you're a woman, you're beneath him..."   FB

Ryan G

4:33pm Ryan G Hate is love in the antifragile realm. Long live the king!   (FB)

James Wasser

5:07pm James Wasser OK you need a makeover, shave and haircut to look less Charles Manson-ish. That would take some of the wind out of their sails.  (FB) (This is by far my FAVORITE of the Facebook comments. One bro telling another bro to give himself a makeover to knock the sails out of.. women? The critics? Me? Not sure... but this has me laughing every time I see it.)

(Back in the virtual locker room... we have this) 

7:39PM -     How much of the rage is actually coming from "feminists" anyway?

Roosh responds with:  Good point. They have been eerily silent.

8:04PM - This made Alternet. The article there is titled "Disgusting Article Recommending Dating Girls with Eating Disorders Triggers Massive Social Media Backlash" and mostly addresses Roosh's response to the controversy.

8:28PM    So personally I think the ROK is a bit too far on the hating-women side, but instead of complaining, I just don't read it and stick to RVF. But.. what I really dislike is anyone trying to trample on freedom of speech, as these haters seem to be doing.   Roosh: How much money do you need to keep your server up and running with all this new traffic? Post a link so we can anonymously donate to it. I may not agree with all you write (especially the anti-American stuff), but I do believe in your right to do so. (Just so you know, there was a little bit of "You may have done too far" and "I hope this is just for laughs" chit chat going on inside this forum, plus online with comments and such. So, I think it was pretty smart to include one of these fellas into their cry for donation strategy. I honestly doubt there was really a guy who said this.Honestly, it's just too much of a coincidence. I believe it was more likely that the moderators started to see a little bit of a backlash from those who are on the site for a laugh (several compared it to The Onion and their satire comedy articles) .. and so to address those who are questioning the piece, they brought in a new donation sales tactic - which is IF YOU DON'T LIKE ALL THE HATE STUFF WE'RE SAYING, PLEASE STILL DONATE TO US BECAUSE THESE PETITIONS ARE TRYING TO SUPPRESS OUR FREE SPEECH! SO DONATE MONEY IF YOU'RE ANTI-FEMINISM, IF YOU THINK WE'RE FUNNY OR IF YOU BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH.) Well played, Kings, well played. You keep trying to pull in money from all your little supporters... no matter what.

9:22PM - Is this thread is only visible if I'm logged in to the forum? If true. Awesome. (Nope, I got in and I'm not on the forum.)

 9:37 PM  - http://www.returnofkings.com/tip-jar   is linked to the forum thread  (A link to the "tip jar" so morons can donate some cash.)

10:34PM - I notice the ROK twitter tag repeatedly comes up from women saying "ugh! I can't believe this site exists!" It's like they don't know how the internet works - you reblog it to your twitter audience, you drive traffic to it, and you encourage more of it. What you give your attention to you get more of.

Mark Infiniti

NOVEMBER 21^{st (Thursday)}  

2:00AM  - Tuthmosis is a god-tier puppetmaster. All the dumb bitches who commented on his article are just dancing to his song, just like he expected them to. He's pulling their strings and they can't help but bounce around, like the mindless little marionettes that they are.

5:50am    Mark Infiniti      Roosh is not a king. He is a fucking GOD.   (FB)

12:22PM - The one good thing about all this, aside from the awesome entertainment value in watching these chicks go nuts, is that some guys out there have stumbled across this site and ROK and, it is safe to say, at least one dude's life got changed for the positive because of Tuth's article …

1:58PM - I for one do think the article was in poor taste. It's not that I'm offended, it just seems mostly irrelevant to guys learning game or advocating for men on substantive issues. That said, ROK is a great site so I don't mind this kind of thing from time to time. And the female blogger patrol really fell for this one hook, line, and sinker — they have no one but themselves to blame. I donated $5.00 and I suggest everyone donate something since I'm sure their costs have gone up with all this traffic. (And yet ANOTHER mention of donations. Geesh! This one goes after the fellas who think the article was in poor taste... and still suggests everyone to donate $5. Like I said, I will assume these are the moderators using a fake name to pull in more dontations and tell the participants what they want to hear. It's too coincidental for me.)

3:50PM - Be careful out there man. That's why I have scaled back my twitter trolling. Instead of getting into prolonged discussions, I now usually just engage in hit and runs. Tweet once or twice and get out of the conversation. I had a couple of people tell me too that it would be nice if I wasn't hiding behind my twitter handle and they wanted to find out who I really was. I doubt most people will be able to do anything but it only takes one white knight to bring you down.

5:23PM - Maybe I'm one of the only guys who doesn't give two shits about this returnofkings drama, I guess some of you guys really love that stuff though.

5:25PM (ROOSH) - Yesterday we served 950,000 page views. Over half a million people (543,000) hit the site.

5:31PM (Joined Oct 2013) - I'm 45 and married. Women usually look at me like I ought to be institutionalized. Watching the femocracy get carpet bombed may be near the last of my remaining great pleasures (and it could last 30 years).  I plan to savor every moment.

5:36PM (ROOSH) - What you see as drama is the biggest viral event in manosphere history.

6:45PM - Cosmopolitan Magazine took a bite also. They have 700k followers on Twitter.

NOVEMBER 23, 2013 (Saturday)

 

10:18PM (referring to stats) - haha average page view is under 2 minutes. Looks like everyone who is angry just read the title and looked at the pretty pictures

4:02AM - Tuthomosis   (insert photos of his teweets and responses)
At this point, I've taken to periodically roasting a twitter hater a little bit. They don't realize they're fucking with one the great shit talkers on the Internet.

 # The End

So ladies, as  you can see, this whole thing has 3 basic goals:

1. Get women enraged so media attention is brought to the website.

2. Get the men to join up for one of three reasons 1) entertainment & satire 2) true anti-feminist views or 3) freedom of speech

3. Get me to donate money and buy their pathetic pick-up books.

And every time you share an article, comment on it, express your outrage or go to their website - you are benefiting them! You are giving them what they want!

So please, please... just ignore them. If you see a friend sharing or commenting, direct them back to this website.

The only way to bring an end to this game is to refuse to play it.

Stay beautiful!

~ Terri Jean