My girlfriend loves their nasty-smelling line of soaps. I presume that’s her secret to pulling chicks.

this is just hilarious

Someone ought to send this study to every company who targets MRAs and Nice Guys (TM). 
If you market yourself to assholes and douche bags, you shouldn’t be suprised if your product becomes associated with assholes and douche bags so that no one who doesn’t want to be seen as either would buy it.  Assholes and douche bags are legion, but even enough of them don’t want to advertise that they are what they are, so of course the sales are going to eventually suffer.  Seems to make sense to me.

On the other hand, from the body wash angle, you’re associating bathing with getting laid in the Nice Guy psyche, which I see as a net positive.

Hah, and now I’m getting ads for Axe as well ad some kind of magic words women can say that will make men fall “madly in love”.  Oh, targeted advertising

There was a report from classrooms over in the UK.  The week after ads of this sort came out, teachers started complaining that the entire male body in their classes went out and bathed in teh stuff, leaving the classroom smelling like a chemical warfare experiment…

http://youtu.be/pHH3brmhPyw To the motherfucking douche!

Axe was always the brand of pathetic losers. Their marketing problem was when it became associated with the wrong kind of pathetic losers. It smells like goat ass and everyone that buys it bathes in it. It was going to be a product for pathetic losers no matter how they marketed it.

wrong kind of pathetic losers

Which pathetic losers should they have aimed for, out of curiosity?

Some poor redhaired freshman fellow here ended up in the hospital with a severe skin reaction after dousing himself in Axe.  Chemical burns are the new black, I guess.

Which pathetic losers should they have aimed for, out of curiosity?

Presumably the insecure people who don’t hate women that Amanda was also referring to.  “Pathetic losers” might not have been the kindest phrasing of course.

I’ve known guys who had solid principles and generally good attitudes on socio-political issues but suffered from terrible depression and painfully low self esteem nonetheless.  I can imagine marketing things to them kind of like how marketers of bubble baths and scented candles go for women in need of a mood boost (and marketers for all personal hygiene products try to appeal to people’s insecurities about/desire for social appeal), but Axe might not be the product to do it.

That was an interesting article.  I wonder what gender the researchers were and if the categories would have been different if more women were involved.  Would they have identified the NiceGuy profile? 

But this?
Despite its few stumbles, the wild success of Axe’s ad campaign just goes to show what can happen when a brand and its clever marketers probe and plug into our most private and deeply rooted sexual fantasies and desires.

How is “guys like to get laid by lots of different hot women” one of our most private fantasies?  That notion is so heavily promoted there is entire arm of evo-psych devoted to propping it up.

I’ve known guys who had solid principles and generally good attitudes on socio-political issues but suffered from terrible depression and painfully low self esteem nonetheless.

Me too, but yeah, “pathetic losers” isn’t the word I would go for there.

Phrase, sorry.

Geeks and dorks everywhere were now buying Axe by the caseload, and it was hurting the brand’s image.

So that’s where the term “axehole” came from.

So Axe is to the 2000s as Drakkar was to the 1990s?

Drakkar at least managed to smell kind of nice, or at least I thought it did.  I’ve never met anyone who really thought Axe smelled good, as opposed to believing that other people liked the smell of it.  You know, because the inscrutable female nose somehow finds it appealing.

So Axe is to the 2000s as Drakkar was to the 1990s?

I was thinking Calvin Klein’s One. But since that was more expensive and not sold in drug stores I guess it would be Drakkar Noir. (To get the full douchebag effect you need to say the whole name.)

carovee - the researchers here are undoubtedly working in the industry, not academia.  Either for Unilever’s marketing department, the ad agency, or a market research firm hired by the ad agency.  Based on my knowledge of the field, if there had been female researchers involved and they picked up that the product appealed to “Nice Guys,” their response would be to try to see how they could increase the NiceGuyTM share of the population.  If that isn’t your response, you get weeded out of the advertising/marketing field pretty fast.  I know some of this because I was told by someone who recruits for the industry that I’d be good at it, but that I probably wouldn’t buy into it completely enough.  One of the problems with huge income inequality is that it means you can pay enough money for reasonable people to abandon their humanistic principles if it will mean having a fancy life rather than academic penury where you might not even get tenure (and it would be too late to sell your soul at that point).

I’m looking forward to reading the book, Brandwashed. Remember the TV producer (50s? 60s?) who complained about the lack of Blacks on TV and was told “Remember, racists buy laundry detergent too.”

I associate AXE with “teen boys with impaired ability to smell”.  I didn’t know any grownups ever bought the stuff, and I’m VERY happy that neither of my sons want anything to do with it.

I did tease the guy who works at Taza Chocolate and rides my bus about the “Chocolate Man” ad, though (you can tell when they were roasting beans by the scent this guy trails behind him ... mmmm)

carovee, I think the deeper fantasy is “a certain kind of guy with unexamined misogyny issues wishes there was a way to get laid without treating women like people”.

I love Axe!  Not the product itself, which is terrible for all of the reason y’all have mentioned, but the fact that it exists.

Before Axe/Old Spice/whatever, there was soap and lady soaps, which underscored women as different and “special” when compared to normal, default men.  I think the more spots on the gender spectrum companies want to market to the better, because if there is feminine soap, neutral soap, and masculine soap that looks like equality to me.

After all, insecure guys who are actually nice and/or intelligent don’t see women primarily as unfortunate obstacles between them and the Pussy Oversoul.

Fixed that for you.

@junk science: The pathetic losers they desired were apparently the PUA community. The pathetic losers they actually got were the guy that plays a 4 day WoW marathon and uses a can in place of a shower.

Boysoap as a counterpart to girlsoap is nice in theory, but the problem is that you apparently have to market boysoap by hating and/or creeping on women.

Junk science:

It seems like they tried that and it didn’t have the desired outcome, now maybe they will try something else. 

Or maybe not, a lot of girlsoap is advertised in offensive ways, or ways that should be offensive, ie, this soap will scienterifically keep you from getting wrinkles because the worst thing a woman can be is old and therefore ugly and therefore unloveable.

I mean, how does the male consumer know a product is meant for him? If he’s six years old, it has racecars and airplanes on it, and when he gets older, it’s girls in bikinis and more racecars and airplanes. How do you brand a product as masculine or feminine without resorting to the simplest stereotypes?

  This might just be me, and I might be an outlier as far as heterosexual men go, but my ultimate fantasy was never being irrestible to several sexy women. Althoguh I prefer to say that I never really fantasized about being Don Juan or Casanova. You really do not get much in the way in emotional affection that way and thats just important as physical affection IMO.

Ugh, I actually like the texture of the Axe Snake Peel soap (it’s has all these gritty minerals and makes me feel all exfoliated and shit), but I’ve stopped buying it because I don’t want people seeing an Axe product in my bathroom. I’m 31 years old, man, it’d be like taking a business lunch at Chuck E Cheese’s.

huh, i have such a different memory of drakkar.  probably b/c i was a pre-teen/early teen in the early ‘90’s.  were there really dudes older than 10th graded wearing that shit? my experience w/ drakkar were friends of mine begging their moms to buy it for them so they could pretend they were all grown & sexy.  in middle school guys wd douse themselves in cologne, thrown on their button down silk shirt and go to the school dance and work up the nerve to ask someone to dance with them.  the girls all way wore too much make-up and the guys all wore drakkar. and by the time we were seniors in we looked back fondly at how silly we were.  I’d say the guys i grew up who were all about drakkar back in the day grew up to be pretty decent dudes. at least the ones i’m still friendly with.

My brother-in-law who just started university uses the stuff. I don’t understand. He’s a smart kid, pretty with-it socially, okay upbringing. I think he just uses it because he doesn’t know about other products, though he now is living where roads are all paved… perhaps the ease of access to well-stocked stores will improve the situation (my wife’s father lives in a very rural environment).

huh, i have such a different memory of drakkar.  probably b/c i was a pre-teen/early teen in the early ‘90’s.  were there really dudes older than 10th grade wearing that shit? my experience w/ drakkar were friends of mine begging their moms to buy it for them so they could pretend they were all grown & sexy.  guys in middle school wd douse themselves in cologne, throw on their button-down silk shirt and go to the school dance where they wd work up the nerve to ask someone to dance with them.  the girls all wore way too much make-up and the guys all wore drakkar. by the time we were seniors we looked back fondly at how silly we were.  i’d say the guys i grew up who were all about drakkar back in the day grew up to be pretty decent dudes. at least the ones i’m still friendly with.

oh darn, sorry about the double-post. i thought i was in preview & there were lots of silly typos. apologies!

I’ve only known one person who used Axe products; he was a housemate of a friend of mine, and he was a total loser and douchebag. He was so pathetic that he would place used condoms conspicuously in the bathroom trash in an attempt to make my friend think that he was getting laid by all sorts of women all the time, even though the guy never had anyone over the entire time he lived there. The dude would actually masterbate into a condom to make my friend think he was cool. My friend called him out on it and the dude moved out shortly thereafter.

Way to go, Amanda Marcotte!

I’ve always known that people who buy things which I have no desire or use for are necessarily pathetic losers.  It’s great to know I can judge and berate people for the crap that they buy. Makes me feel sooo superior! And for years I’d labored under the delusion that it wasn’t any of my business.

So clever of you, to get Unilever to prove with their own market research that assholes buy the product in question!

Something to bear in mind:

The reason that middle school boys douse themselves in blecch is that 1) they are just getting on to this whole “stinky body” idea that means daily bathing and 2) their sense of smell is actually dulled by adolescent hormones.  Not only can they NOT smell how rank they get, or that they get nasty quite quickly, they can’t really smell how much air pollution they are emitting when they douse themselves.

I’ve got two teen boys at home, the younger of whom is a late bloomer and is, well, in need of some motherly honesty about body odor before he goes out the door.  We use fairly scent and gender neutral products in our household, however, and they have yet to ask for cologne (thankfully!).

@Lee

My elder son would agree with you.  We had the pain-in-the-ass situation when he started high school that groups of 3-5 girls would just show up at the door looking for him ... or pelt his window with pine cones ... or Occupy Front Porch.  The neighbors were amused, but it got to be pretty goddamn annoying.  Then he paired off with a girl and these visits ended after a while.

It would seem like a male fantasy, but it put him in the difficult position of balancing his desires for friendship with their persistent desirous attention.

  Ms. Kate, well I never had the experience of 3 to 5 girls and/or women looking for me unless they were clients that needed me to do something for them as a lawyer.

As amusing and satisfying as the story is on the corporate advertising side, it’s difficult to get too much joy from the misfortunes and ostracism of socially awkard and insecure thirteen or fourteen year olds.

As far as the whole Axe/Lynx thing goes, I think a lot of the time it’s just the default deodorant for young men since it’s by far the most heavily advertised - they don’t so much think it will literally attract women as make the subconscious connection that guys who are sexually successful are also the kind of guys who wear it. They eventually realise it smells foul and ditch for something less offensive, but not until a while later.

This might just be me, and I might be an outlier as far as heterosexual men go, but my ultimate fantasy was never being irrestible to several sexy women.

While I wouldn’t call it an ultimate fantasy, I’ll admit that at a younger age, this was one of several fantasies I had.  I’d guess that after a breakup or the like, I’d think the feeling of having everyone eligible want you would be affirming.

Of course, reality and fantasy are wildly different… 

Hah, and now I’m getting ads for Axe as well ad some kind of magic words women can say that will make men fall “madly in love”.  Oh, targeted advertising

“Hop on the back of my motorcycle and I’ll take you to a pub that sells bacon-flavoured beer” would pretty much do it for me.

 
  aiabx: The concept of bacon-flavored beer is approaching sacrilige. The pork taste would ruin the beer taste.

IDGI. I always thought those ads were cleverish parodies of other aftershave ads, and of “marketing to men” in general, and quite liked them at first, though the idea got old fast.

And I’ve seen complaints about Axe ads on feminist blogs before, but it’s got a different brand name over here, so I guess I thought it possibly wasn’t quite the same ad campaign that was being discussed, while not thinking about it much at all.

But it is. It’s the same. The idea that people seriously believed the premise of those ads has just done terrible things to my faith in the human race. In fact I’m finding it incredibly difficult to process this information.

    huh, i have such a different memory of drakkar.  probably b/c i was a pre-teen/early teen in the early ‘90’s.  were there really dudes older than 10th grade wearing that shit? my experience w/ drakkar were friends of mine begging their moms to buy it for them so they could pretend they were all grown & sexy.

Well, nowadays I think your typical Drakkar user is probably a NASCAR/Dale Earnhard Jr. fan, as they’ve been one of his sponsors for years now. While Dale Jr. himself seems like a pretty likeable guy, a lot of his fanbase are the same assholes who cheered for his father, so I imagine the current customer base is “Loudmouth assholes”, as opposed to dumb teenagers.

Re #31: @Matthew it could just be your brother in law likes the smell.

Seems 100% of bath product ads are about sex. What is wrong with smelling like a human being, and if you are buying a deodrant/perfume/aftershave wouldn’t the best thing to do is to take a friend or your significant other (who actually cares what you smell like) and do a blind sniff test?

Ps Love this post, and the song fits beautifully.

Whoa.  I think you could have made this post 23% more entertaining by linking to people arguing that “Axe works.”  The notion is staggering.

When I was in school, I used to keep a couple bottles of axe in my gym locker because it would terminate any residual gym-odors before I wen to class.  I was fortunate to have a friend that regularly advised me on the ways of avoiding douchebaggery.  One day she saw me with a shopping bag with new bottles of Axe meant for my locker and she laughed in my face.  That was the end of axe.

On the other hand, she never noticed the “Axe” until she saw the bottle, even though I had been using it regularly for probably a couple of months before that.  Humans generally have shitty sent glands.  My guess is that the vast majority wouldn’t be able to separate Axe from better products with any reliability in a testing scenario.

The ridiculous myth-making add campaign is enough reason to avoid the product, though.

The pork taste would ruin the beer taste.

I understand these words individually but I cannot parse the full sentence.

It’s a bit like someone complaining that chocolate-covered shit would be bad because the chocolate taste would ruin the shit taste.

For some strange reason Axe is the product of choice for young transmen which I think is really unfair. I got out of high school before Axe hit so the boys tended to drown themselves in Abercrombe & Fitch which at least had the decency to smell like cheap tequila when combined with the pot smoke they were trying to cover.

So let me get this straight:

1)  a man who goes to a bar in hopes of meeting a woman is a horrible person.
2)  a man who purchases a consumer good—cologne, a shirt, sunglasses, etc.—in hopes of improving his chance of meeting a woman is a horrible person.
3)  it’s ridiculous to suggest that women take a dim view of men who are awkward and inexperienced with women, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a pathetic loser like the kind mentioned in comment #8.

and finally

4)  the researchers mentioned in this article put the men they watched into one of several categories—one of which was called “the Predator”—but the categories this website has chosen to mock and belittle are not “the Predator” but “the Insecure Novice”. 

And men think that women don’t like shy, socially awkward guys!

Amanda tends to a sort of dim view of men who don’t have social skills. She’s smart, attractive, popular, so who is she to spend post after post mocking those who aren’t? I get that you can defend yourself by saying you are only pointing to a specific subset of men that are creepy and that objectify women, but your language is always so inclusive you might as well be talking about half the men on earth.

Lee at #44, Smoked beers, particularly those from Brauerei Schenkerla, do indeed taste pretty much like smoked pork products in beer form.  It’s not as bad you might imagine.  Or it might be gag-inducing.  Smoked beers tend to be a love or hate thing.

Amanda takes a dim view of people who don’t have social skills, make no effort to acquire them, and expect friends, lovers, and fun times to fall into their laps anyway.  That there are more men than women who feel entitled to these things without any effort on their part is just one of the many manifestations of privilege.

@Comment #51: The Real Peterman

I think the only thing you got right was the order of the numbers.

1: just wrong, nothing in the post remotely suggests that.
2: Bizarre interpretation.  The discussion focused on Axe’s add campaign and their “research.”  A man who purchases a product thinking it will magically turn women into compliant sex toys are probably closeted douchebags, their outward awkwardness inhibiting their real desires.
3: Huh?
4: This one is just pure reading failure.  The issue is that “the Insecure Novice” is really someone who wants to be a predator but lacks the necessary je ne sais quoi.  They aren’t actually different from the predators in terms of their opinion of women, they’re just not very good at getting laid.  When presented with a magic elixir that transforms them into cock-weilding hunters, they rush for it, hoping that oiling themselves down with “tsuanami” or “Dark Temptation” (there’s a wikipedia page with all the scent names, read for your amusement—“Cool Metal”) will transform them into Tucker Max.

There are shy, socially awkward guys who are good people, there are shy, socially awkward guys that are bad people.

aiabx: The concept of bacon-flavored beer is approaching sacrilige. The pork taste would ruin the beer taste.

I’ve had bacon-flavored beer…it was a mostly bacon-smoky tasting dark beer (in Germany, no less).  And I would follow a man around like a puppy if he offered me such a beer.

And if the fellas want the ladies trailing them, I think bacon cologne would work far, far better than Axe.

“The issue is that the Insecure Novice is really someone who wants to be a predator “

First of all, once again the chance to attack the Predator is passed up in favor of attacking the Insecure Novice.

Second, there is absolutely nothing in this article to suggest the I.N.s want to become predators.  What, they use cologne so they must be the next Jeffrey Dahmer?  How about using soap—does that make one a horrible person?  In fact, do we really think the men who buy and wear Axe really think it will turn women into their slaves?  That may be what happens *in the commercial* but TV and reality are different things.

“There are shy, socially awkward guys who are good people”

Until they put on some cologne, at which time they apparently become monsters.

“3: Huh?”

In comment #7, we learn that awkward, inexperienced men are “pathetic losers”.

It’s fascinating how many whiny Nice Guys literally think that there’s no difference between being a well-meaning but somewhat awkward guy and an asshole who hates women because they’re full human beings instead of video games that come with cheat codes.

But keep whining, guys! I hear that whining about how women don’t throw pussy at you really works with the ladies.

As for me being “popular”, eh. My nickname in high school was Cousin It, if it wasn’t Mar-twat. Somehow I got over it.

It’s fascinating how many whiny Nice Guys literally think that there’s no difference between being a well-meaning but somewhat awkward guy and an asshole who hates women because they’re full human beings instead of video games that come with cheat codes.

But keep whining, guys! I hear that whining about how women don’t throw pussy at you really works with the ladies.

As for me being “popular”, eh. My nickname in high school was Cousin It, if it wasn’t Mar-twat. Somehow I got over it.

“1: just wrong, nothing in the post remotely suggests that”

A)  The title of this post:  “Dangers of marketing to douchebags”
B)  Who were being marketed to?  The “Insecure Novices” who go to bars tring to meet women.  (“So with the Insecure Novice as the primary target…”)

“It’s fascinating how many whiny Nice Guys literally think that there’s no difference between being a well-meaning but somewhat awkward guy and an asshole who hates women”

It’s *men* who do this?  It isn’t men in this thread conflating (over and over) predators and well-meaning, awkward men.  The Insecure Novices might as well be in jail since they wear cologne, according to the train of thought presented here.  I mean, seriously:  a man who puts on cologne is a horrible person who wants to turn women into blow-up dolls.  I’ve never seen that opinion presented before.

“My nickname in high school was Cousin It”

I’d be interested to hear the story of how you went from someone who bullies pointed at and mocked for being socially awkward, to someone who points at people and mocks them for being socially awkward.

@#55 Amanda might say she only means misogynists, Men’s Rights Activists or whatever, but anyone who would read her posts not having a preconceived opinion would think that’s not what she means. How about the implicit idea that anyone who buys Axe or anyone who might identify with “insecure novice” is a pathetic loser and misogynist in disguise? It’s not only this post of course, it’s a pattern of attacks on shy and insecure people that are defended as that they are only meant to target the evil portion of them. But that language never makes that clear very well, so that you might as well read it as an attack on them in general.

For what it’s worth, I’m fully on board with the feminist agenda, but I can’t help but read a sort of hostility and complete lack of sympathy to any men who have no success in dating and might be seen as nerdy or whatever. Amanda /is/ popular, her high school experience not withstanding. She has no problem meeting people. Yet she feels it’s okay to lecture men to “get over it”.

I am a well-meaning but somewhat awkward guy, I don’t have any ill feelings towards women whatsoever, yet why do I so often feel targeted by Amanda’s language? I don’t think it’s my fault she comes off at hostile.

You’re in way over your head, Peterman, and by that I mean your head’s so far up your assininity that you probably can smell the Axe meme you’ve internalized. Are you still in middle school, btw? Or is it just your reading comprehension?

Hey, everyone, can you believe it?  We’ve got a Nice Guy here who’s merely an argumentative dunce. Why, that’s never happened before!

Laika, see my note about Peterman. Consider it about you too. Despite your being “fully on board with the feminist agenda”, which will keep me chuckling for at least an hour now. Oh, and no one would’ve ever guessed that you were a “well-meaning but somewhat awkward guy”.

For what it’s worth, I’m fully on board with the feminist agenda,

Aware of all feminist trraditions, one might say…

News Nag, why are you so scornful? I really do believe very strongly in what feminism stands for, how else should I have worded it to prevent you from chuckling hysterically at how wonderfully cliche I am?

Yeah, I am a socially awkward person. In fact, I have autism, so I really can’t simply “get over it” and fix myself. I wouldn’t bring my background up, but Amanda’s posts are sometimes worded as to be specifically targeted at people like me. She can be very uncompromising and way too general in her criticisms. She is a feminist blogger, she should know better than to be sloppy with her language.

And it’s quite pathetic how one disagreement with Amanda is enough to turn me into some sociopathic Nice Guy, according to you.

  Emmet: I generally prefer pilsners or Belgium beers like lambics and sour ales over smoked beer. That might be why I find the idea of pork flavored beer offensive to my taste buds. That and I’m not a particularly big fan of pork.

  Amanda in 59 and 60, yes I know its a double post, pretty much explains the difference between kind but social awkward people and Nice Guys. Nice Guy have a sense of entitlement and want the world to work according to strict formulas. Kind but socially awkward people know better but are having a hard time dating for various reasons. I consider myself to be in the latter category but getting better at social situations.

Hey, laika:

Get the fuck over it.

Some people are socially awkward. Some people are socially awkward and misogynist. Some people are predatory misogynists who disguise their predatory behaviors as social awkwardness.

If you are one of the first, then this post wasn’t about you. So shut up.

Love,

Sally

Can’t you read? It’s not enough to “not be about me” when Amanda is so sloppy distinguishing between your categories.

Why do you need Amanda’s approval, laika? She’s not for the faint of heart. Why don’t you live your life and be happy and not care what she thinks?

I’m not ‘faint of heart’, unhappy, unable to ‘get the fuck over it’. I’m just saying Amanda’s language is bad and she comes off as a bully on this topic being unfair to a number of people. Not even this post specifically, but some others more so. Isn’t that enough of a reason to ‘complain’? Do you really need to invent psychological issues I might have to explain my behavior?

Amanda has taken great pains to say over and over that she’s not talking about all socially awkward people. If you refuse to see that, or want to believe she has something against you, then I guess you’d better go ahead.

She does not take great pains. She just occasionally adds it as a disclaimer to her post. Along the lines of “if you identify with this, feel free to pretend it’s not about you”. Where did I say I believed she has something against me? Again, some of you are putting words in my mouth. I am saying her language targets people like me. I don’t know why that happens, maybe she just generalizes too much, but don’t insult my intelligence to act as if I - and I’m hardly the first to accuse her of this - am just making this up and can’t tell when she talks that way.

Along the lines of “if you identify with this, feel free to pretend it’s not about you”.

That, right there? That’s you feeling persecuted. If Amanda wants you to think it’s about you, she’ll damn well make sure you know it’s about you. She has no interest in preserving anyone’s illusions.

I’m hardly the first to accuse her of this

No, lots of men get flustered when women refuse to pat them on the head or hold their hand when they feel insecure. That’s the world we live in, and the world we’re trying to make better.

You’re working under the assumption that Amanda can’t be wrong. It’s not about what Amanda wants or thinks, it’s about what she writes. I don’t see how that’s such a hard concept to understand. You write as if I’m some child that can’t think for itself. I “feel persecuted”, I must be a paranoid wreck I bet! And I guess I get flustered when women don’t pat my head and hold my hand too!

I don’t know why I waste my time.

Laika, if this many people are arguing on Amanda’s behalf, then it would probably be more valuable to understand their arguments than buy the idea that you’re going to convert some or all of them in their own space.  You’ve said your piece, and now either it will resonate or it won’t.

In other words:
http://xkcd.com/386/

Also, social skills are skills.  If you’d like to develop them, or would like to have resources for your friends, seriously, ask Amanda for my email address and hit me up.  I know some excellent organizations.

But just to clarify the obvious, the way most of us get insight into what other people want and think is through what they say and write. I now realize you’re capable of gleaning far more from Amanda’s writing than an ordinary mortal, so I’ll leave you to it.

When I lived in the post-industrial wasteland I used to carry a travel-size can of Axe body spray in my purse instead of pepper spray.

I only used it once, though, which was actually on a roommate’s feet*, because the geeks and dorks I lived with were not the kinds of geeks and dorks who are quite that susceptible to advertising quite Axe’s level of blatantly ridiculous and misogynist. (Which meant we had to do the whole heavy lifting routine of politely (and, occasionally, passive-aggressively) training them to take regular showers, but I think that is preferable to the alternative of living in a chemical warfare zone.)

Axe did have one body wash that smelled kind of like gin and tonic; one of my female roommates used to use it because she really liked gin and tonic.

*Roommate was gravely, gravely insulted, and I kind of felt bad, but I had warned him to take his feet out of my face or there would be consequences.

Junk Science, every post you wrote directed at me contained either a veiled or direct insult.

Damn skippy.

Axe had essentially become the brand for pathetic losers

Bahahahahahahahaha.

To me, and most people in my social circle, Axe is associated with immature, insecure young teenagers who are trying way too hard. It’s the olfactory equivalent of saying “Hello, ladies” and squinting your eyes because you think it makes you look smoldering.

Immature, insecure young teenage women have their own version of this, which is usually using way too much vanilla- or fruit-scented “body splash.” I think Ms Kate has the right of it—teenagers of all genders are just coming to grips with the concept of body odor, and I’m not at all surprised to learn that teenagers literally can’t smell themselves very well.

(When I was in middle school, the teenage-girl scent was vanilla. Recently my husband told me he likes the smell of vanilla, so I tried using some vanilla body wash. The instant the smell hit me, I was catapulted back to being thirteen and miserable and putting on vanilla perfume in the desperate hope that someone might treat me like a human being if I smelled right. I’m afraid I’ll have to do some serious re-conditioning before I’ll be able to feel attractive wearing a vanilla scent.)

But as for Axe advertising—I like to contrast the Old Spice ads, which parody the whole insecure masculinity thing. They’re still hammering the association between their product and masculinity, sure, but the way they do it is by exaggerating all those “manly” stereotypes to the point of absurdity, so the audience can laugh at how silly it all is. Then the audience feels validated and secure in their own masculinity—and they associate that good feeling with the product. Products like Axe define masculinity in opposition to femininity; Old Spice is defining masculinity in opposition to its exaggerated stereotypes.

(That angle is doubly clever advertising because it doesn’t turn off women. Old Spice is smart enough to realize that women do most household shopping—so if a man lives with a girlfriend or wife, she’s most likely the one who will be buying his soap. You might get a guy to buy fast food or soda to “rebel” against his girlfriend’s opinion of it, but not soap, not if he lives with her and she does the shopping.)

P.S. thecynicalromantic @ 82: I really want some body wash that actually smells like gin and tonic. I had some body wash that smelled like a margarita (Lush Slammer) and that was pretty great. But a juniper-lime scented body wash would be even more awesome.

but the way they do it is by exaggerating all those “manly” stereotypes to the point of absurdity, so the audience can laugh at how silly it all is.

Except those stereotypes are already completely absurd beyond all parody, and no one “really” buys into them. They’re just kidding around, ladies. Why can’t you have a sense of humor? It doesn’t smell that bad, does it?

Incidentally, Axe is the kind of affectation that actually is cute and charming on naive teenagers. It’s the ones who grow up to be bitter, hardened, hateful adults who make the whole maturing process look bad. If you can grow up and laugh at yourself for the Axe-level mistakes you made, you’re probably a pretty levelheaded person.

The pathetic losers they actually got were the guy that plays a 4 day WoW marathon and uses a can in place of a shower.
You forgot “living in their mother’s basements eating Cheetos with a face so full of pimples, it looks like a pizza.”  Have I ever mentioned how incredibly tired I am of stupid stereotypes?  Yes, I get it; some videogamers have severe personal hygiene problems in a higher proportion to the general public.  Really, you’re not being as clever as you think you are.

As for these products, I don’t like them at all.  It seems to me that it’s all an effort to get men hooked on overpaying for cosmetic products of limited or no personal benefit, much like women are often hooked on them (buy this product and use it or you’ll smell bad, be ugly, and old and no one will like you).  The original invention of girlsoaps didn’t make much sense to me in the first place.  It’s not like female skin chemistry is significantly different from male skin chemistry, and the difference between individuals would dwarf the sex-based differences.  In other words, men and women with oily skin are likely to have similar hygiene needs versus that same women compared to all women everywhere.

I suppose between having somewhat sensitive skin, and a nose that can’t stand heavy perfumes, I think I’m well outside the target market for these things.  It’s just as well.  I wouldn’t likely be buying them anyway.

For fuck’s sake, Amanda has never made a blanket dis on all people who are socially awkward, have social anxiety, or lack social skills.  The mockery comes in when those aforementioned people start acting whiny and resentful because others find them unappealing and will not dispense with the pity-fucks.

I have always found social interaction stressful and, unsurprisingly, this has lead to me having a lot less sex than I’d like.  But the difference between me and the insufferable douchebags that Amanda is insulting is that I don’t blame everyone else for my misfortune.  I don’t spend my time concocting feverish conspiracy theories about why those evil bitches prefer those horrible socially confident people to deserving sensitive types like my own special self.  As such, I never feel burned by the nice-guy mockery over here.  Perhaps you recognize a piece of yourself in Amanda’s legitimate criticisms and that’s why it hit such a nerve, hm?

I don’t know if anyone’s still reading, but oh well.

So people who play WoW a lot are pathetic losers. People who ever had anything to do with the PUA-community are pathetic losers. People who ever used a deodorant are pathetic losers. If you might identify with “Insecure Novice” you’re a pathetic loser. If you disagree with anyone here you must have deep-seated issues that require the rest of the posters to make up psychological theories for things that might be bothering you.

Take the WoW example. It’s not enough to tell how you’re only using it as a joke or you only mean a few bad examples in the WoW-community. Because you’re using a stereotype that plays on how badly respected people that play the game are. I play WoW and honestly it wasn’t surprising to me to hear a bunch of you mock it, but it’s still hurtful to me. Similarly, some of Amanda’s language may explicitly not be about “good shy people”, but the manner she writes about it still draws on language that considers those people pathetic (losers).

For instance, a lot of her posts are framed to be about “socially awkward people should stop whining and fix their personality flaws before blaming women”, and then if anyone disagrees with anything in there they’re attacked and called a Nice Guy (another problematic notion).

The problem with the statement is that if you can’t find girls you must have a personality flaw. Like I said, I have autism, I do not consider that a personality flaw, much less something I can fix and I do not appreciate a framing that says it is. Especially when it comes from someone popular and attractive like Amanda, who has no problem meeting new friends. After all, she does speak from a position of privilege. It’s like Herman Cain telling black people to shut up about unfair circumstances and just try their best.

The other flawed (underlying) assumption is that if you ever mention your situation at all then you’re whining. You can see this already in this comment thread where you’re mocked and derived as another cliche whiny Nice Guy whenever you are critical. In fact, I haven’t ‘whined’ about lack of social success in any post so far, but just about every reply to me told me to stop whining and “get over it”.
Finding a partner is very important to the happiness of most people, for some it is their core goal in life. I would think it should be alarming and worrisome for any one that subscribes to this if they can’t find a partner. And in some ways it is unfair: some people are simply more attractive than others. The difference is where you direct these emotions, do you become resentful or do you try to make the best with what you’ve got. I’m honestly not resentful, even if I’ve read about five posts now insinuating I am. (thanks for that) But I still do think that oftentimes you people don’t stop at insulting Nice Guys, but go further and start associating anyone who ever mentioned anything about his dating life with Nice Guys.

For fuck’s sake, laika, let me break it down for you.

1.)  Not, everyone has to agree with your assessment of the worth of video games. But generally, people only mock the kind of person who spends every spare minute playing games, not the person who plays games in moderation, so if that doesn’t refer to you, ignore it. And even if it does refer to you, get over it. Guess what? There may be people who don’t like you or your hobbies. It’s not the end of the world.

2.)  Amanda doesn’t simply argue that you should fix your personality flaws.  Her argument is that no one owes you sex or a relationship just by virtue of your existence. If you have trouble forming relationships, your options are to either fix yourself, or live with it. I’m sorry if you have autism and that makes it difficult for you to relate to other people, but that in no way obligates other people to spend time with you.

3.)  Tying in with number two, mentioning your situation is not verboten, but angling for pity or attention by doing so is. I know that several commenters here, including myself, have moderate to severe social anxiety, mental illnesses, or other personality traits that are generally unhelpful when dating, but we don’t drag them out when they’re not relevant to the conversation or when we just want attention. Get over yourself.

And last but not least:

4.)  Yes, many people find intimate relationships validating, and derive happiness from them, but to be cliche, if you can’t be happy with yourself, it’s not really in someone else’s power to make you happy. The first step is to be happy with yourself. I’m a Nice Guy in recovery, as are a couple others here. We generally got over ourselves when we realized that other people didn’t owe us anything just because we were “Nice”.  Basic kindness is the default position. If you feel like someone owes you sex or a relationship just because you were able to muster the bare minimum of treating them like a human being, then I really don’t know where to begin.

@Comment #40: Stubborn Kind of Fellow on 11/04 at 02:28 PM

As amusing and satisfying as the story is on the corporate advertising side, it’s difficult to get too much joy from the misfortunes and ostracism of socially awkard and insecure thirteen or fourteen year olds.

Then you’re not trying hard enough.

@Comment #91: progrocker on 11/05 at 08:23 AM

Not, everyone has to agree with your assessment of the worth of video games. But generally, people only mock the kind of person who spends every spare minute playing games, not the person who plays games in moderation, so if that doesn’t refer to you, ignore it. And even if it does refer to you, get over it. Guess what? There may be people who don’t like you or your hobbies. It’s not the end of the world.

Word, progrocker. I’d make that point stronger: there are almost without a doubt people who hate you just for being you. Not a pleasant thing to realize, but that’s life.

I give up. Apparently saying it a dozen times wasn’t enough. Yeah, I’m a Nice Guy and think women owe me sex and I can’t get over my social awkwardness and I keep bringing it up endlessly to invoke pity. Congrats on defining me so well.

And if you take offense to a really dumb cliche about videogamers that barely has any basis in reality than either you must feel it “hit a nerve” or “if the shoe fits…”, or you’re obsessing about people not liking your hobby. That’s so stupid honestly, I don’t mind people not liking WoW, I mind people mindlessly insulting it with cliches that demean gamers.

Amanda tends to a sort of dim view of men who don’t have social skills.

Nope, she just finds those who feel they’re entitled to a relationship without developing or demonstrating any social skills to be idiots.

, it’s difficult to get too much joy from the misfortunes and ostracism of socially awkard and insecure thirteen or fourteen year olds.

In general, yes. But once they start using Axe, though, mocking them becomes hilarious.

Generally, Amanda has herself confessed to being drawn to/identifying with the sort of person who’s loudmouthed, brash, possibly obnoxious. So when it comes to these Nice Guy™ threads, she does tend to conflate, “behavior/beliefs which are morally wrong” with “people I find inherently unattractive.” Plus she’s discussed at length going from a place where she used to pine over men who didn’t like her and heartbreak to a place where she just doesn’t give a shit if someone doesn’t reflect enthusiastic interest in her, so people who haven’t made it to the same place she is and people whose experience is not one in which there’s just another relationship just waiting around the corner get a bit of short thrift in the sympathy department here.

Just keep in mind the perspective the author is coming from and, most of all, don’t come here looking for validation, sympathy, etc. You want a blog where your feelings/perspective/identity/beliefs are paramount and validated? Start your own blog.

I mind people mindlessly insulting it with cliches that demean gamers.

Once you start defending “gamers” as though they’re a “community,” you start missing the point entirely. Maybe if you identified yourself more as “someone who likes playing computer games” rather than “a member of the gaming community,” these descriptions wouldn’t hit so close to home.

I might add that the Atlantic article doesn’t explain the source for the supposed enthusiasm of “geeks and dorks” for Axe, at least insofar as it found a special niche among geeks and dorks. It actually mentions that a Minnesota high school faced so many guys drenching themselves in the stuff that the school wanted to ban it—now, I find it hard to believe that an entire MN high school is full of “geeks and dorks.” Rather, it seems that Axe caught on among all teens, which is kind of the branding problem—if Axe were to survive in the market, it would have to be known as a scent for actual grownups.

@Comment #94: laika on 11/05 at 09:26 AM

I give up. Apparently saying it a dozen times wasn’t enough. Yeah, I’m a Nice Guy and think women owe me sex and I can’t get over my social awkwardness and ...

Don’t give up—you’re coming along OK. It might help to realize that many of the folks commenting here were, at one time, also socially awkward/geeky teen boys and girls who felt owerwhelming yet thwarted desire for someone, and were also attacked in all kinds of unfair ways. These other commenters may have even become self-pitying, or even acted out angrily about it. And when we did that, we became ridiculous.

@Comment #97: Tyro on 11/05 at 10:04 AM

now, I find it hard to believe that an entire MN high school is full of “geeks and dorks.”

I don’t.

“socially awkward people should stop whining and fix their personality flaws before blaming women”

What the hell could possibly be unreasonable about this notion?  Don’t blame women for your own fucking problems.  (Hell, don’t blame women as a class for anything.)  If you want attention / validation / orgasmic nirvana and nobody is giving it to you, then you’re the one who needs to change.  Nobody owes you anything.  If you refuse to change your own behaviour, then you have a lifetime of dissatisfaction to look forward to and it will be nobody’s fault but your own.

Also, just let the stupid WoW thing go.  Getting so petulant and sulky about the fact that people make fun of your favourite game is a guaranteed turn-off.

Laika, you’re not dealing with your troubles, you’re trying to get other people to deal with them for you.  That’s not a way to have success and happiness in your life.

Again, if you are genuinely interested in taking this on, there are organizations such as Toastmasters which are FANTASTIC for this sort of thing. 

This post is directed at LAIKA, if he is skimming.

Separately, Amanda is a total fucking douche about a lot of geek culture, but I let it pass, because the rest of her writing is so good.  There are good reasons why Amanda acts like this—she’s from Texas, she’s a hipster, and a lot of geek culture is brutally misogynist.  But the nastiness and classism does detract from Amanda’s overall point.

Classism:

A disease acquired from growing up in small-town American.

Igglanova, I never said I feel resentful or blame anyone. It’s really quite infuriating some of you keep outright saying this. At least try to be more subtle about it. In fact, I really do not feel resentful at all. I used to feel that way a little bit when I was a teenager and it pretty much ruined a potential relationship. That’s why it’s quite upsetting to hear some of you so easily accuse me of it, when I’ve really tried very hard to become a better person and never let that get the better of me ever again.

The problem with that sentence is the causation between personality flaws and attractiveness. “I’m not in a relationship even if I would want to be, therefore I must have personality flaws.” That’s what you’re defending. I think it’s a lot more sensible and less insulting to say that some people aren’t as attractive to women, it’s not because they have ‘flaws’, but simply because.

Punditus, thanks. I’ve followed various programs like that and they’ve honestly helped a fair bit.

Last post here (promise), so I want to say I’m sorry if I come off as hostile, but it’s really hard not to when some people are trying so hard to be insulting to me. In fact, I’ve read Amanda’s blog for months and have occasionally commented. I usually agree with what she says, but I simply thought she was framing this issue in a way that was unfair and too generalizing. I thought a feminist forum would be more responsive to criticisms about use of language, so I guess it took me by surprise to see some of you turn on me so quickly.

@Comment #105: laika on 11/05 at 12:48 PM

Last post here (promise), so I want to say I’m sorry if I come off as hostile, but it’s really hard not to when some people are trying so hard to be insulting to me. In fact, I’ve read Amanda’s blog for months and have occasionally commented. I usually agree with what she says, but I simply thought she was framing this issue in a way that was unfair and too generalizing. I thought a feminist forum would be more responsive to criticisms about use of language, so I guess it took me by surprise to see some of you turn on me so quickly.

Who “turned on you”? We’re just messing with you because you’re being oversensitive about a video game, dude.

@Comment #69: Chet on 11/04 at 08:33 PM

The real feminists have a bed full of bimbos, right, News?

EGG-ZACTLY!

You are in the process of discovering why,  despite the usually insightful main posts, I mostly avoid the comment threads here.

As in the present case.

I recommend Greta Christina’s blog and BlagHag for feminist social spaces where it’s possible to have your actual misconceptions corrected, misunderstandings clarified, legitimate disagreements explored, and the things you actually said responded to.

Passive-agressive much, Alex?

Cry harder, ckitching (and Laika). It’s not a stupid stereotype if it’s true. I’ve heard, from what I consider a reputable source (yeah, yeah, I have no links, whatever) that one hotel had to have the gaming room professionally cleaned after a con to remove the gamer funk. That said, computer gaming is so common nowadays that I’m sure plenty of regulars here play too.

Snowmentality: In my day, the female equivalent was Love’s Baby Soft. Gag.

Comment #61: The Real Peterman

Look, I explained this once in detail.  Your response is a reiteration of the same dumb mistake you made in the first place.

If you are awkward and buy Axe because you think it will trick women into fucking you, then you are a douchebag.  That’s why the title of the article is what it is.

There are socially awkward people who don’t think that, and they’re possibly nice people.  They aren’t the subject of this discussion.  Among the points being made is the assertion that just because someone is socially awkward, that doesn’t mean they’re good people.

It’s *men* who do this?  It isn’t men in this thread conflating (over and over) predators and well-meaning, awkward men.  The Insecure Novices might as well be in jail since they wear cologne, according to the train of thought presented here.  I mean, seriously:  a man who puts on cologne is a horrible person who wants to turn women into blow-up dolls.  I’ve never seen that opinion presented before.

Good lord, I think you have some serious issues.  There is no “conflation.”  If an “Insecure Novice” purchases Axe thinking it will turn them into a “Pradator” (and remember, these are the terms Axe created, not Amanda), then those people are fucking douchebags.

Now, that’s not the only reason to purchase Axe, but the subset of people being discussed were specifically identified by the motivation for purchasing the product.

Amanda: “Insecure Novices” that buy Axe thinking it will magically trick women into fucking them are douchebags.
The Real Peterman: why are you saying all “Insecure Novices” are douchebags?

This is a very stupid response to the blog.  I get the feeling that this could be explained to you 1,000,000 times in 1,000,000 different ways and you will never get beyond the personal offense you’ve experienced.

If you are an Insecure Novice who purchased Axe but didn’t do so because you thought it would trick women into fucking you, then nothing said applies to you.  The blog was aimed at a specific group, and you’re upset based on your own application of the argument to another group not contemplated by the initial post.

People who ever had anything to do with the PUA-community are pathetic losers.

That’s the damn truth, it is.

Amanda tends to a sort of dim view of men who don’t have social skills.

You believe that about Amanda as well, Alex?

What color is the sky in your world?

The problem with that sentence is the causation between personality flaws and attractiveness. “I’m not in a relationship even if I would want to be, therefore I must have personality flaws.” That’s what you’re defending. I think it’s a lot more sensible and less insulting to say that some people aren’t as attractive to women, it’s not because they have ‘flaws’, but simply because.

What’s the difference?  If people don’t find your personality attractive then it means you have an unattractive personality.  Sorry if that hurts your poor little feelings, but jfc grow up and deal with it.  You can try to soften the blow by changing the words around, but the core idea remains the same, so what’s the point?  Should I stop using accurate terminology just because it upsets you?  This is just one of many ways that you are broadcasting massive entitlement.

Also, you just…seriously need to learn to read.

Igglanova, I never said I feel resentful or blame anyone. It’s really quite infuriating some of you keep outright saying this. At least try to be more subtle about it.

Did you miss the part where I quoted your comment and responded directly to the fact that you brought up blaming women for one’s dating woes?  Thanks for the strange little douchebag neg, too - looks like someone’s been taking their pointers from the PUAs.

Really, at this point arguing with you is like arguing with a coffee table.

I guess I promised to not post again, so just very shortly then: igglanova, I never said what you’re implying I said. Read the post you’re referring to again. I never ever said I blamed anyone. I just think going to the other extreme and blaming men for their personality flaws (unattractiveness?) is bad too. Attraction is complex and I don’t think it’s fair to talk about blame.

And I don’t even know what a neg is (had to look it up), but okay. It was just meant as an insult, sorry if you took it the wrong way. >.>

@Dark Avenger: you are not kidding, man.  Again, I love Amanda Marcotte to pieces, and she is one of the most perceptive and effective writers on Teh Intertoobz, but boy howdy is she classist when it comes to leisure activities.

I was being sarcastic, PM, like Amanda, I grew up in a small town and if anything, that makes one anti-classist, not more of a classist.

I give up. Apparently saying it a dozen times wasn’t enough.

Protip: things do not get more true with repetition. If your argument was stupid the first time, it will be stupid the twelfth time.

Igglanova, I never said I feel resentful or blame anyone.

Given that the mockery here is specifically directed at dudes who feel resentful and blame women, your defensiveness is either misplaced or telling. I leave it to you to decide which one.

Laika.  Seriously.  I’m not accusing you of blaming anyone.  I didn’t even imply it.  I addressed something you said.  Is the confusion coming out of some ambiguity in the word ‘you’?  When someone says the word ‘you’, it does not always mean LAIKA.

I grew up in a small town and if anything, that makes one anti-classist, not more of a classist.

That’s not a given: some of the most resentfully classist are those who are really intent on proving that they’re “not poor” or those who insts “I learned the correct way to adopt middle class norms, and anyone who hasn’t/doesn’t is a bad person!”

How is it that whenever someone needs to be told “it’s not about you”, it’s because they’re identifying with some truly unpleasant people? It’s like I like to say about rednecks: you may walk like it, talk like it, even enjoy the culture, but unless you’re a willful racist moron with no desire to be any better, you’re not a redneck.

(And to clarify: even having a “live and let live” attitude instead of reflexive tribalism pulls someone out of the redneck category. Not begrudging other peoples’ ambitions even if you don’t share them is very anti-redneck behavior.)

Yeah, upon rereading your post I noticed I misread it the first time, sorry.

Yeah, my experience is a lot like Tyro’s.  No zeal like the converted.

Let me restate my proposition:

I grew up in a small town and if anything, that makes anybody with an ounce of sense and any compassion anti-classist, not more of a classist.

@Comment #117: igglanova on 11/05 at 04:47 PM

like arguing with a coffee table.

“All you ever do is lay there!”

As with all NiceGuy threads, the sticking point seems to involve everyone’s views of the apparent prevalence of this as a type.  “Awkward self-pitying loser guy who feels entitled to sex from hot chicks” is the target.  Then, pretty much every time, someone will say, “Wait, I’m a guy who is or used to be awkward and self-pitying, and I never act/ed like this.”  The standard response is, “Fine, it’s not about you” or “You’re lying to yourself” or “Truth hurts.” 

But how many people out there _really live up to_ this supposed stereotype/threat/butt of jokes?  For the joke/critique to work, it has to be a lot.  I’m not a straight woman, so I don’t know.  I recognize the confused and awkward man who has no idea what to do around women as a type, and I recognize the man who thinks women like assholes as a type, but the leap to the notion of “cheat codes” for pu$$y—which is extremely funny—is not something I personally find familiar.

So the logic really is awry, IMHO.  If every few months there was a story about Green Bay Packers fans who date-rape, and Packers fans said, “Hey, wait, I don’t do that,” and then the response was, “Well, then, it’s not about you,” but then the next few hours were devoted to how stupid the cheese-head hats were and that “frozen tundra” was a suck-ass nickname for a football field, and then the Packers fan said, “What the hell?” and then the reaction was “How many people have you date-raped, cheesehead?”...  That would start to get old.  Because the whole bit requires the association between the one attribute (awkwardness) and the other (misogyny and entitlement) to be clear.  And mocking collateral attributes to the former (video games, BO, etc.) isn’t really helping make the point about the reprehensible nature of the latter.  YMMV.

Also, that band you really like is corporate swill. 

Cry harder, ckitching (and Laika). It’s not a stupid stereotype if it’s true. I’ve heard, from what I consider a reputable source (yeah, yeah, I have no links, whatever) that one hotel had to have the gaming room professionally cleaned after a con to remove the gamer funk.

I suppose it makes you feel better about yourself to shit on others, right?  I mean, you’re sure showing those dweebs who’s a big man.  I don’t even spend much time playing games anymore, and this still pisses me off.  It’s goddamned bully behaviour.

Thank you very much for doing your part to make sure this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Too many of these people don’t bother with personal hygiene because they’ve been told for years that they’re pathetic losers, and will always be pathetic losers, so they’ve just stopped trying.  I want to see the gaming industry and the cultures it feeds grow the hell up, but this crap just feeds those who would like to maintain the misogynistic, racist, homophobic status quo. 

And stereotypes don’t need to be completely unsupported to be stupid stereotypes.  Racist thugs may tend to listen to country or classic rock, but that doesn’t mean that it’s fair to characterise those who listen to that kind of music as racist thugs.

  Too many of these people don’t bother with personal hygiene because they’ve been told for years that they’re pathetic losers, and will always be pathetic losers, so they’ve just stopped trying.

You talk about bathing as though it’s some path towards impressing people, rather than a necessary, basic part of person hygiene.

But to be vaguely related to the tread, these aren’t the guys who are using Axe or trading tips on how to “get women.” Take manboobz, for example. When trolling through the web for misogyny, it doesn’t profile lots of misogynistic “Nice Guy™” gamer geeks. Rather it find more MRAs and PUAs, and it’s the PUAs and their wannabes who try to portray themselves as “Predators.”

I question the very premise of the Atlantic article to begin with: I simply don’t buy that Axe’s downfall was that it attracted “geeks and dorks” far out of proportion to other teens and young adults.

But how many people out there _really live up to_ this supposed stereotype/threat/butt of jokes?  For the joke/critique to work, it has to be a lot.  I’m not a straight woman, so I don’t know.

In threads on this topic that haven’t gotten massively derailed to tend the feelings of a couple of dudes, plenty of women have shared stories about being bothered by these guys.  Off the top of my head, I’ve had three.  Two of them—whom I actually dated briefly when I was young and stupid, at 17 and 19—continue to track me down online and write to me about our non-relationship.  I’m 24.  It would not surprise me at all to still get late night texts from the one I dated seven years ago if I hadn’t changed my number when I moved to Chicago.

Feminist arguments about Nice Guys mention several characteristics beyond “shy”: belief that women like assholes, belief that “women” are even a category whose desires can be generalized about this way, belief that just being “nice” to a woman is difficult and special and way beyond what other people normally do, belief that the proper reward for “niceness” is sex even though (see above) women are theorized not to want it.  I think they get conflated with other unsavory types such as PUAs, MRAs, and general douchebags because feminists further observe that Nice Guys grow this oversized sense of entitlement by being men in a patriarchy.  Tropes like “women love assholes” and “nice guys finish last” are actually quite common—they aren’t some miraculous insight of the individual Nice Guy.  Acceptance of these tropes actually shields some men from self-insight, at women’s cost.

Dudes like laika who roll up into these threads to whine and defend themselves are acting out this entitlement, and for the most part being rewarded.  Every time this topic comes up, sooner or later a thread full of (mostly) women drop the interesting conversation they were having about their own experiences to pay attention to the feelings of one or two men.  I’m guilty of it too—laika has pulled the thread so far over into “thoughts and feelings of laika” that my three on-topic stories about guys like this are only an aside in my own comment.  So no, some dude who comes into a feminist conversation and expects—and receives!—the refocused attention of the group is not exactly credible when he claims not to be a Nice Guy.  The characteristic sense of entitlement is all over his endless comments.

laika @ 104:
Read the following statement that you made.

I think it’s a lot more sensible and less insulting to say that some people aren’t as attractive to women, it’s not because they have ‘flaws’, but simply because.

Why should anyone here continue to take anything you say seriously when you just seperated women from people?  Women are people.  Men are people.  Unless you are going to pretend you were including lesbians (pretty obviously not), you are not much along the trail of leving Nice Guy(TM)ism.

Tyro wrote:  You talk about bathing as though it’s some path towards impressing people, rather than a necessary, basic part of person hygiene.
Then I’m not expressing myself well.  Most of the people I knew that had these kinds of personal hygiene problems also suffered from depression and extremely low self-esteem.  In many cases, they just didn’t care anymore.  Not about themselves.  Not about others.

themmases wrote:  feminists further observe that Nice Guys grow this oversized sense of entitlement by being men in a patriarchy. 
There is certainly a lot of this.  But there’s also a fair bit of self-defeatist attitude, which is somewhat distinct from entitlement.  “I can’t win; why even bother?”  The ones writing “Nice Guy” complaints on the internet definitely seem to fall into the entitled douchebag category most often, although most will claim to fall into the defeatist category.

Some of the tropes even originated from some limited basis in reality.  “Women love assholes” isn’t precisely true, but “confidence attracts attention” definitely is.  This is true within dating, workplace advancement, and just about any endeavour that involve interacting with other people.  Confident men and women tend to excel in all of these.  The assholes might get some temporary wins because they have more confidence than they actually merit, but spectacular explosions usually result when the interested parties finally have all the information.  Likewise, “nice guys finish last” isn’t true, but “assholes will cheat to win” is, and again, it isn’t limited to dating.  When you interview for a job, you don’t minimize your own contributions to your achievements on your resume and speak about them meekly.  You make it clear to the interviewers that you can defend every item you listed.  You may not be able to beat the cheater’s list of accomplishments, but many interviewers are going to pick someone they feel is honest over someone who’s achievements are questionable.

@ themmasses:

Feminist arguments about Nice Guys mention several characteristics beyond “shy”: belief that women like assholes, belief that “women” are even a category whose desires can be generalized about this way, belief that just being “nice” to a woman is difficult and special and way beyond what other people normally do, belief that the proper reward for “niceness” is sex even though (see above) women are theorized not to want it.

That’s the theory.  It’s an interesting theory.  But it’s virtually impossible to determine from the outside.  And Amanda makes the relevant leap partway through the OP.  The article says that Axe decided to market to “insecure novices” with a fantasy of irresistibility; from there Amanda turns to discuss how the “insecure novices” see women as unpleasant symbionts inconveniently attached to the real goal, pu$$y.  But that’s not really in evidence.  Maybe “insecure novices” think that dousing themselves in Axe will get them _girlfriends_, not just let them Tap That. 

And just to turn it around a bit, it’s not like marketers don’t target insecure women with promises of becoming irresistible to men.  Those commercials for tooth-whitening toothpaste suggest to women that gleaming white teeth will get them checked out by a superior class of man.  But no one makes the leap to saying that Crest is trying to sell insecure women “cheat codes” for c0ck.

My sticking point in all of the NiceGuy threads is the presumption that there exist in large numbers this particular cluster of toxic attributes—not just the frustrated socially awkward dude, but the frustrated socially awkward dude who thinks he’s entitled to sex.  I can imagine such people existing.  I have a hard time imagining them existing in large numbers (although anecdotes do arise, and they’re enlightening).  And when they come up as a subject of discussion here, talk turns to experience with creepy socially awkward dudes.  But the idea that the creepiness of this class of people arises from misogyny and objectification strikes me as a leap. 

If what the NiceGuy really wanted, and was resentful he didn’t have, was a relationship rather than a piece of ass attached to an irksome woman with “needs” and “desires” and “preferences” of her own, would that be any more or less creepy?  It seems to me it would be differently creepy because it would still be treating women as rewards, but it would be less on the continuum with rape, conquest, and violence.

Anyway, it just feels to me like there’s a piece of logic missing in going from “these guys resent not having women and are willing to try anything to get one” to “these guys resent not having pu$$y and are willing to try anything to defeat the woman who controls access to it.”

It would still be creepy because it treats women not as people.  The relationship as goal fails in merit if some entitled dude thinks/says “If I do x, y, z, I am supposed to get a girlfriend” is only the other side of “If I do x, y, z, I will get pussy.”  In both, the woman involved is not treated as a person, but as an object.
If we go by what the guys in the anecdotes often actually say, basically some paraphrase of: “I did this for her/you, why wont she/you have sex with me?  What a bitch!” we don’t have to make any leaps.  The woman involved is being treated like an object.  Pretty fucking straight forward.

If we go by what the guys in the anecdotes often actually say, basically some paraphrase of: “I did this for her/you, why wont she/you have sex with me?  What a bitch!” we don’t have to make any leaps.  The woman involved is being treated like an object.  Pretty fucking straight forward.

Yes, those cases are straightforward.  But when the case is more mopey/brooding/can’t-let-go-ish, is that reducing a woman to her genitalia?  I’m not so sure about that.  It’s still creepy and entitled but less aligned with “rape culture.”

Even here I’d want to make a distinction:

if some entitled dude thinks/says “If I do x, y, z, I am supposed to get a girlfriend” is only the other side of “If I do x, y, z, I will get pussy.”

Both are bad and both treat the woman as an objective or reward for the “right” kinds of behaviors.  But the second is IMHO _much_ worse.  In the first there’s at least the possibility that the guy finds the woman interesting, autonomous, and deserving of respect.  He may see her as a trophy for his good behavior, but he also sees her as a complex human being.  In the second case even that’s gone.

At any rate, I have no issue with the notion that there are guys out there, millions of them, who see themselves as “nice” and even feminist, and yet at the same time are proceeding with an approach that they do the right thing, the nice thing, and thus deserve—are entitled to—a partner of their choosing.  That deserves critique and mockery in its own right.  I’m just hesitant to sign onto the reduction to “pussy.”  I’m not sure sexual contact is foremost in the NiceGuy mind.  I’m less certain about the connection between the NiceGuy and “rape culture,” which is implicit in the long-running Pandagon discussions.

Also, @ helen w.h., in case it wasn’t clear in my earlier post, I wasn’t saying “not creepy,” I was saying “differently creepy.”

To be crude, I think there’s a difference in the _level_ of entitlement between “She should be with me” and “She should be with me so I can fuck her brains out.”  Both are statements of entitlement and even resentment.  Both show destructive attitudes towards women.  But the latter is far more loathsome.

    The root of the Nice Guy problem is that Nice Guys (1) take media tropes about what heterosexual women want seriously, i.e. that they really think that women want bad boys/badasses (which is a better way of viewing the complaint/trope than saying women want assholes), (2) they feel that they could never be a bad boy/bad ass for various reasons, and (3) they believe themselves entitled to romance and sex. The cure is basically to prevent boys from taking media tropes about what heterosexual women want seriously and to have a society where the presumption is that nobody is entitled to romance or sex but that these things must be earned individually through the consent of other people.

    Another issue is that the rituals of heterosexual courting are set up in away that makes this sort of thought process inevitable. Its still generally expected in the heterosexual context that men would ask women out and be the initiators of all romantic and sexual encounters. Women have more leeway in letting men know that they like them but its still considered a bit strange if a woman asks a man out on the date. This sort of courtship naturally favors men with more self-confidence. Men without much in the way of self-confidence will find it harder to ask a woman out and are likely to denounce the men with confidence as assholes out of jealousy. If heterosexual courtship allowed both men and women to initiate romantic/sexual encounters than the Nice Guy thought process would be rarer because men whose confidence is a bit lacking might at least get asked out on dates by women. This will at least allow them to know that they are desired by at least one person and hopefully curtail the Nice Guy thought process.

  FlipYrWhig, I agree with the distinction that you are making at 140 in so far as “she should be with me” implies that the man at least sees the woman as more than a sexual object but he is still seeing her as possession rather than an independent person with her own needs and wants. This is still objectification.

I realize that I’m ranking badnesses, which is kind of perverse, but I’m still curious about the grand unified NiceGuy theory, and I’m just not sure about the specific _sexual_ dynamic at work.  Objectification, possessiveness, reduction, sure.  But is it specifically contemptuous and predatory?  It strikes me as more a case of warped fantasies and sometimes even misbegotten efforts at feminism.  But IMHO NiceGuys wouldn’t be on the verge of “hatefuck” territory; if that’s where a guy is mentally, he’s something other than the “insecure novice” that the OP begins with.

By “misbegotten efforts at feminism” I mean thought processes like, “She’s with a guy who treats her badly, and she deserves better, and I would treat her right, like an equal with desires of her own, so she should be with me instead.”

  FlipYrWhig, that isn’t a “misbegotten effort at feminism” you described in 144. Thats straight out jealousy combined with justification for the jealousy.

OK, but it’s jealousy rationalized with a quasi-feminist cover story.  The justification borrows the language of proto-feminism.  IMHO that’s extremely common among young self-identified liberal men, some of whom are trying to impress chicks with faux sensitivity and some of whom are just blundering around unable to balance real sensitivity with libido.  But this is kind of a digression…

“Even Nice Guys are individuals with differing levels of the various odious traits.”

I’m sure Ms. Marcotte saying that in some future post will assuage all their various needs to get her attention and approval, and cause them to argue among themselves as to which amazing mathematical formula would best measure the chance that such a statement proves she just might want to suck their cocks. It’s probably in the Appendix of some willpower manual somewhere.

Sheesh, folks. If Amanda says something that offends some basic part of you and your lifestyle, there might be a chance that she’d be a poor match in the relationship chemistry department. So what if she doesn’t like your hobby? And maybe she isn’t even entirely consistent in her likes and dislikes! For that “crime” you can gently mock and risk offending her, which doesn’t seem to be something these whiners would dare to do. Or they could realize she’s not entirely consistent in her likes and dislikes. You know, she’s like 98% of people who share a lot of opinions.

You doofuses aren’t going to win her over! Proving she isn’t consistent isn’t going to make her submit to your will. And if you think it would, you’ve just proven yourself too stupid to understand. Give up! Argue all you wish about the points, but when you make it personal you lose.

Also, laugh a little. It’s good for you.

That’s the theory.  It’s an interesting theory.  But it’s virtually impossible to determine from the outside.

It might be impossible to determine if none of these men ever wrote about literally believing that women like assholes, or don’t know what they like, or enjoy being abused; or that they are being punished or overlooked for being “nice”; or that other, less deserving men were being rewarded with female attention at their expense.  This particular post doesn’t quote men like that, but many posts about Nice Guys here and elsewhere do.

If what the NiceGuy really wanted, and was resentful he didn’t have, was a relationship rather than a piece of ass attached to an irksome woman with “needs” and “desires” and “preferences” of her own, would that be any more or less creepy?  It seems to me it would be differently creepy because it would still be treating women as rewards, but it would be less on the continuum with rape, conquest, and violence.

I think you just answered your own question regarding why this distinction isn’t relevant.  In my previous comment, I specifically said I knew three men like this, two of whom continue to bother me.  My “needs” and “desires” include not being in a relationship with them, or even interacting with them.  In their best-case scenario, I’d date them anyway, which would include sex.  A fantasy about a me who isn’t me—who wants things I could never want—is actually very creepy to me.  And I know a few people who have felt entitled to have me play along with it.  I know this because I know them, and they told me so.

Look, this particular post doesn’t quote any Nice Guys.  Many, many posts here and elsewhere—including comments from people here—do.  These threads are regularly brought to a halt by some defensive dude who may or may not even fit the definition.  The real problem, to a lot of these guys, is that women are passing judgment on how some dudes—any dudes—conduct themselves.

So while it’s nice, I guess, that you want to bring some rigor to this discussion of a random Music Friday post about an ad campaign, I’ll point out again the direction this conversation has gone: away from on-topic commenters with knowledge of the product or the people who buy it.  Towards that one guy having some feelings we need to know about, and an earnest discussion of whether we really have enough evidence to start criticizing any men anywhere just yet.  Since the huge array of posts on this topic and the personal experiences in the comments you presumably read aren’t enough, maybe Google it and see if you can find some more dude opinions on the topic.

After having read just about every thread on this subject here going back _years_, and participating in a few, I have also seen the patterns.  Yes, there are many toxic men with terrible habits who emerge in the comments to defend themselves.  Yes, worse, there are many intimidating stories about men who act like stalkers, like the ones you have shared.  Those are themselves real problems and real instances of how men should never act.  (And BTW my putting “needs” and “desires” in quotation marks was to deprecate men who objectify, not to call into question the reality of those needs and desires.)  The point I raised was smaller than all that and based on the whole long trajectory of these discussions, and it was about the prevalence of the NiceGuy as hung up on separating the woman and the “pussy.”  That one aspect seems to me more like a sub-type than a hallmark of _the_ type.  It should go without saying that a NiceGuy with all the distinguishing characteristics _but_ that one would still be highly mockable, all too common, and for many women highly threatening.  I’ll say it anyway for the sake of clarity.

Also, wouldn’t Axe round up even more NiceGuys by targeting the “Always the Friend” segment?  I thought that was part of the dynamic:  awkward guy who gets stuck in the friend zone and resents it, so he fantasizes about using his “friend” skills—which put the “nice” in the “NiceGuy” label, he thinks to himself—to convert his female friend into a sex partner via psychological manipulation.

In the first there’s at least the possibility that the guy finds the woman interesting, autonomous, and deserving of respect.  He may see her as a trophy for his good behavior, but he also sees her as a complex human being.  In the second case even that’s gone.

No, he is not seeing her as a complex human being and he is not considering her wants andneeds.  It is equally creepy, or even more creepy.  He doesn’t just deserve to have sex with her because he “was nice” or did x, y z, but should be able to monopolize her time and tie her down to him as long as he wants?  How is that not as creepy as the other?  How is that not as objectifying?
I would go so far as to say it is less frightening and likely to be violently enforced, but still equally creepy in the same kind of way.
Creepy /= Scary, at least not exactly.

How is that not as creepy as the other?  How is that not as objectifying?

IMHO there’s a difference between the kind of objectification and fetishizing involved in a man wanting to have a woman in order to rescue/save her/treat her “right,” on the one hand, and the kind involved in a man wanting to have a woman in order to reduce her to a fucktoy, on the other.  The former is over-idealizing, the latter is straight-up degradation.  Again, they’re both bad news and nothing I would defend.  Maybe no one really ever openly thinks the latter and always glosses it up as an instance of the former.  But while condescension and brutality are both bad, brutality is worse.  This is all an effort to grasp the NiceGuy concept, not to justify it.

Oops, I started writing before reading your last paragraph (about the element of violence).  Yes, I think that makes sense.

The point I raised was smaller than all that and based on the whole long trajectory of these discussions, and it was about the prevalence of the NiceGuy as hung up on separating the woman and the “pussy.”  That one aspect seems to me more like a sub-type than a hallmark of _the_ type.

I agree with that.  In these discussions, women often share experiences of guys who are actually doing different things and don’t all fit into what I think of as the original definition—a guy who pines after a female friend, believes she only chooses assholes, and takes a pretty sexist, self-pitying view of his own situation.  The men I brought up don’t fit perfectly, either—except, of course, that I don’t consider Nice Guys’ claims to be “friends” with women very reliable.  I’m sure that, wherever those three are whining on the Internet, they’re telling people that we should have been friends or were a lot closer than we were.

I’ve also noticed that if these topics go on long enough people start using terms like PUA/MRA/Nice Guy interchangeably, and throwing in guys who are definitely jerks, but maybe not that precise type of jerk.  The casualness with terms makes me twitchy, but I think even then most of the participants are appropriately describing a combination of entitlement, manipulation, and sexist assumptions that is always interesting to talk about, no matter what we call the people guilty of it.  And it’s obvious the discussion is cathartic.

Oh, I totally agree that there’s some kind of phenomenon out there that the “NiceGuy” shorthand helps to specify, and to establish that it’s not at all cute or sympathetic.

Maybe “insecure novices” think that dousing themselves in Axe will get them _girlfriends_, not just let them Tap That.

Really? Have you seen any Axe ads?
http://www.designyourway.net/blog/inspiration/66-axe-print-advertisements-and-tv-commercials/

I think that ” Tap That” is the whole point.

Whig, what it seems you’re looking for is an umbrella term under which all these assholes can congregate.  Then you can separate them by type of objectification, how they manifestation entitlement, etc.

How they manifest entitlement, even.

You know I just thought of something really gross, and I hope it wasn’t intentional on the part of the marketers, but an Insecure Novice is looking for a tool to get him access to the p****, and an axe makes an “axe-wound”...if they meant to imply the association, they’re some pretty sick fucks.

@ Emmett, honestly, yes, that’s what my instinct is—to classify.

@ allison, IMHO the ads are gross.  But I don’t think the Insecure Novice who buys the product thinks it’s literally going to give him supernatural powers, the way insecure novices in the ‘50s might buy X-ray specs thinking that they’d be able to see through women’s clothes.  I think the idea is, “Smell me, girls, I’m being cool!  Not a loser after all, like you probably think!”

@ Emmett, To put it a different way, I think that Awkward Dork Entitlement is different from Dane Cook Douchebag Entitlement.  Although both are forms of entitlement, one is more hung up on nailing/tapping/conquering, while the other is more hung up on moping/brooding/passive aggression.  Of course if you’re a straight woman you’d be well-served to avoid both, and if you’re a straight man who’s like either one, you should fucking stop.

Although the “pick-up artist” stuff seems to be about turning awkward dorks _into_ Dane Cook douchebags, or helping them get in touch with their inner doucheweasel, so maybe it’s a continuum rather than a contrast.

I cannot recall ever seeing an ad for any kind of personal-care product that did not allude to how it would purportedly make the user more attractive to the opposite sex.

@ Bitter Scribe:  What about digestive products?  (Why are so many of those—Activia, Metamucil, etc.—marketed exclusively to women, incidentally?  I’ve never understood that.)

  FlipYrWhig: This is why I’m skeptical about the entire idea of dating coaches. As far as I can tell, dating coaches are attempting to teach men how to pick-up artists than really helping men who are having a hard time navigating the dating scene because of whatever reason.

    Part of the problem is that boys aren’t taught how to socialize romantically in the same way that girls are.
Many girls are educated in their role in the heterosexual courting process from before the time they are really interested in sex. Its why romance plays a huge part in media aimed at elementary school level girls but not so much in those aimed at boys. Think of all the Disney media and shoujo manga aimed at girls that certain around romance. When heterosexual boys start getting interesting in romance/sex a lot of them have no idea what to do and aren’t really given much in the way of direction. What direction they are given tends to be not helpful. The more socially aware manage to pick up what is necessary relatively early. Others do not and lack a dating life because of this. This doesn’t necessarily end their desires though. This frustration leads to nice guyism.

Flip, I didn’t mean thatpersonal.

(BTW, is anyone else seeing an ad for…what else…Axe Deodorant at the bottom on the thread?)

I see one for Axe Hair product at the top of the thread, but then I’m using Mozilla Firefox.

I’d disagree that female-targeted romance media teaches any valuable courtship advice to girls.  They’re ultimately fantasies, and usually the girl is just sort of selected by her boyfriend without having to do anything to win him over.  It’s not especially common for the female lead to take romantic initiative, though that is slowly changing.

  igglanova at 168: It isn’t really that much common in real life for women to take the intitiative in heterosexual relationships. At least this is true in my experience and the experience of heterosexual couples I know. It might be different elsewhere. Like fiction, its changing but slowly.

Ah, for the good old days, when you watched a film at school to learn how to date.

I know, Lee, but my point is that women are not actually getting their advice for how to succeed in dating from romance comics and whatnot.  ‘Just wait to be picked’ is not a viable strategy - if you actually do nothing and just wait for a dreamboat to fall into your lap, it isn’t going to happen.  The girls and women who end up acquiring romantic partners either have some significant status advantage (e.g. high popularity) or they actually do take more of an active role in courtship than we give them credit for - it’s just that certain rituals, like actually voicing the request for a date (even after all the mutual work of romantic buildup), are traditionally initiated by the male partner.  (Although that is quickly becoming dated practice already.)

My larger point is that the origins of nice-guy-ism have got to be more complex than a simple lack of male-targeted romance media.  If the problem was as simple as a lack of adequate dating advice in their entertainment, then you would expect to see just as many sexually frustrated girls turning into nice-guy-creeps as boys.  The resentment of an entire gender, and the entitlement factor, do not simply form out of frustration.  IMO those two factors are the most important things to target.

 
  igglanova, I’m not saying that this is cause of nice guyism so much as it faciliates and exasperates it.

I’m speaking up in defense of Drakkar. I turned 19 in 1990’s, prime clubbing and meeting guys time, and Drakkar smelled nice on most, and most importantly, I WASN’T ALLERGIC TO IT, like almost every other inexpensive cologne out there.

Nothing ended getting to know someone faster than getting a whiff of Polo and suddenly being unable to breathe.