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Let's all take Blindboy seriously now...

Sky King

People do know this is a character right? And not an actual person?

Does it strike anyone else as strange that a made-up persona with a fake voice, parody accent and a fking plastic bag on his head is treated like a normal, regular person in debates and current affairs TV shows? And given the same credibility and respect as an actual real person?

Imagine Fr. Dougal Mcguire, Dustin the Turkey and Fortycoats appearing our incisive current affairs shows discussing mental health with Alan Partridge adjudicating.

Or discussing the 8th amendment and feminism with Mrs Brown, The Bottler and Podge and Rodge? It would be treated like a joke (obviously), but when the prank phone call making, glue-huffing, spastic hawk-toting Blindboy talks serious we all suddenly have to sit up take it seriously.

If I was asked to debate on the same show as a parody character I'd be more than a little pissed off.

By all means share your story on mental health or offer an opinion on our education system. But for fk sake would you give us and the other people on the show the respect of doing it yourself, in a real voice? Without a fking bag on your head?

Alternatively if you prefer holding on to the bag, you could try going back to... you know... being funny. And less preachy.

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nozzferrahhtoo

Silentcorner wrote: »

But what if Feminism is not the answer for these young men.

What if, what we are seeing with young males is a diminished sense of self worth as a consequence of a very narcissistic society we all find ourselves in

What if it's both? Again we have a few users above pretending that his statements mean he things ALL mental health issues in ALL young men with mental health issues in Ireland stem from this one source. But that is not what he said. People are just distorting it to sound like that to feed a narrative they really want to hold.

There are MANY reasons for mental health issues within that population. And the quote we are discussing focuses on ONE of them. I have heard him talk in other quotes about others ones.

Silentcorner wrote: »

Would it make more sense to tell young people, who are feeling vulnerable, to stay away from social media and the selfie culture? Would that not be valid also?

It would make sense on paper for sure, but none at all in practice. It simply is not going to happen I expect. So rather than try to keep young people away from it, I think we need to focus more on developing a maturing and education and so forth on it's use. And that is going to take time and effort. Especially since we are only really beginning to understand the effects of it as whole anyway.

Pandora's box on that technology has been opened and we are not going to close it I suspect. So we have to move forward on better ways to integrate it into our culture and lives in ways that are less toxic and damaging to the users, vulnerable or otherwise. And good luck to us all with that, as it is no small mountain to climb.

Silentcorner wrote: »

Feminism, is merely infusing a toxic sense of self entitlement in women today, as far as I can see, every day my social media feed is offering new ways that the "Patriarchy" are screwing women...how in gods name could that ideology help a young man?

Again the only thing that is going to "help a young man" is the description the speaker gave of what he thinks "feminism" means. You are coming in with YOUR different understanding of the word and thinking his position must be rubbish because what YOU mean by it does not seem helpful. And much of what you say, I agree with. So like I said to another user earlier, we likely disagree on much less, and agree on much more, than you think. But a single common word, that we each have different understandings of, divides us and makes it appear otherwise. Which is, of course, not good.

nozzferrahhtoo

Deleted User wrote: »

You should write his next book for him nozzferrahtoo..

Omackeral wrote: »

Yeah but he should MAYBE try to AVOID typing in CAPITAL letters in EVERY paragraph or POINT he makes.

DickSwiveller Returns wrote: »

plus the book would be about 1000 pages long...

Oooo look at you all getting petty and personal. Wie suss as the germans say.

nozzferrahhtoo

Deleted User wrote: »

Which is not Feminism.

To you.

But that is what HE defined it as WITHIN the point in which he used the term. So whether or not he used the word correctly is an argument you can take up with him. But it is a separate discussion.

Whether you agree with how he defined the word "feminism" or not, if you stop to parse the point he made USING his definition of the word, there is little in the point to take exception to.

Deleted User wrote: »

You and Blindboy refer to feminism as seeking equality, but where's the evidence to support that stance?

Again I do not need to, because that is NOT the point I am making. The only point I have been making is that to understand the point he made you have to parse it through the meaning of the word HE gave while making it. Only then can one consider the point, what he was saying, and why.

A linguistic argument about what YOU think the word means is a separate discussion. One you should by all means have, but not at the expense of understanding what his point was.

Deleted User wrote: »

So... how does Feminism help the mental health of men? (your rather limited example doesn't really cut it)

Except it does. But you just bypass that by making up other definitions of the word. AGAIN the point can be made without the use of the word feminism. Which is simply that one valid way to alleviate mental suffering caused from perceiving (real or imagined) differences between the sexes...... is to remove those differences or the perception of them.

There is nothing wrong in that point other than people getting triggered by that point being made using the word "Feminism". If he had made the EXACT same point without the trigger word, I doubt any of us would be here having this conversation at all. People are more interested in trigger linguistics than the actual substance of points made alas.

Deleted User wrote: »

However, defending his statements on Feminism as a way to help men doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

And as I said many times, including now several in THIS post alone..... I am not defending anyone's "statements on feminism". I am discussing the statement he made WHILE using the word feminism. A statement I have said numerous times could have been made without that word just as well, or perhaps even better.

But no one seems to want to discuss the actual statement in and of itself. They want to discuss the word feminism, through THEIR understanding of it rather than the understanding of it used in the context of that point. And I do not see that as an honest move to make. If you want to critique the use of the word, have at it. Not my problem. I have only been discussing the point he was making in which he used the word. A point that I have RE-made without using that word many times, only to have people contrive to keep making it about the word, and keep ignoring the actual point.

Lash Into The Pints

Writing PhD length dissertations to defend Blindboy? What are you at lad?

Pintman Paddy Losty

I think I'm not alone when I say Nozzferato, you actually have weird metal issues.

BadBannana

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

I think I'm not alone when I say Nozzferato, you actually have weird metal issues.

Metal issues

https://media1.tenor.com/images/bdd59efe9f215f24043c53bc43d0d738/tenor.gif?itemid=9219183

[Deleted User]

A linguistic analysis of the meta contextual substructure of the absurdist art nouveau of Blindboy Boatclub.

By nozzferatoh...

You could have it narrated by a homeless turtle named Timothy from Southhill who smokes a pipe and works part time as an Elvis impersonator..

They'd lap that sh*t up, the target audience..

nozzferrahhtoo

Lash Into The Pints wrote: »

Writing PhD length dissertations to defend Blindboy? What are you at lad?

Clearly you never wrote a PhD

I type exceptionally fast. Posts like the above take me very little time. Whatever you think it took me, half it. I also read huge tomes on many subjects daily. It is a shame the twitter generation find such things "long" with their curtailed attention spans. But for me a post that length is like Twitter might be to you.

That said though I am not defending Blindboy at all. I know very little about the guy and I care less than that. What I AM defending though is a single statement. And I would be defending that statement equally had a homeless person said it, our president, Trump, Clinton, Merkel, Dara Obrien, or David Beckham.

I am rarely (never?) interested in WHO said a particular statement. I am only interested in it's content. And when I see the content distorted, lied about, misrepresented and used to feed a narrative it never supports.... then THAT interests me.

[Deleted User]

I am VERY sorry for POINTING out that you have a WEIRD writing style. Random insertions of CAPITAL letters was enough to MAKE me comment. I've never REALLY seen it before.

Wibbs

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

you actually have weird metal issues.

Rust?

kubjones

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Clearly you never wrote a PhD I type exceptionally fast. Posts like the above take me very little time. Whatever you think it took me, half it. I also read huge tomes on many subjects daily. It is a shame the twitter generation find such things "long" with their curtailed attention spans. But for me a post that length is like Twitter might be to you.

That said though I am not defending Blindboy at all. I know very little about the guy and I care less than that. What I AM defending though is a single statement. And I would be defending that statement equally had a homeless person said it, our president, Trump, Clinton, Merkel, Dara Obrien, or David Beckham.

I am rarely (never?) interested in WHO said a particular statement. I am only interested in it's content. And when I see the content distorted, lied about, misrepresented and used to feed a narrative it never supports.... then THAT interests me.

Well then it seems you're defending a botched point.

Either he, like everybody arguing with you is saying, lumped a good point in with an overall toxic movement for the forwarding of some sort of agenda, or, he made a mistake in his execution by saying that "Young men need feminism", rather than "Young men need to abandon these stereotypes. Feminism, for example, teaches that....."

He threw the baby out with the bathwater. The explanation that he gave isn't ALL of what Feminism is, its just a small part to a much larger, much more toxic pie.

nozzferrahhtoo

Omackeral wrote: »

I am VERY sorry for POINTING out that you have a WEIRD writing style. Random insertions of CAPITAL letters was enough to MAKE me comment. I've never REALLY seen it before.

No need to apologize to me. I could not care less. I just do not believe making personal comments nothing to do with the thread make you look good is all.

It is not random at all, I am just too lazy to use italics like many people use them on the forum. But it is pretty much a 1:1 mapping. Where people use italics, I use caps. Simple as that really. And it is no more random in my writing than it is in theirs.

I do not mind having a different style though. Everyone has a voice. If mine is a little distinct then that is a good thing. I love the speaker VS Ramachandran for example. And he speaks with his R's like no one I have ever heard. And I love that it makes him so distinct.

If we all wrote the same, sounded the same, articulated the same.... I would probably have expired from the sheer boredom of it all years ago.

nozzferrahhtoo

kubjones wrote: »

Well then it seems you're defending a botched point.

No one seems to be able to explain why. The point seems perfectly coherent and valid. The only people who have an issue with it seem to have no issue with the point itself. Just that he used the word "Feminism" while making it.

I genuinely believe had he made the EXACT same point, only without that word, hardly anyone would be discussing it now.

But as I said before, which partially agrees with you, I think he could have done that. Made the point just as well, or even better, without using that word.

However since he included WITHIN the point the definition of the word he was using, I think you are entirely wrong to say he "lumped a good point in with an overall toxic movement". It is people with their own definitions of a more toxic variation of "feminism" that are parsing his point through their own use of the word. Rather than his. Which is a remarkably distortionary thing to do.

Is distortionary a word? I think it should be

kubjones wrote: »

The explanation that he gave isn't ALL of what Feminism is

Nor have I seen him, me, or anyone else claim it is. Which makes this somewhat of a moot point.

johnnyskeleton

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The inability of yourself and others to parse the point in isolation, word for word as it stands, is massively telling. Again ALL he has appeared to say essentially is "If a disparity between the sexes, real or imagined, is causing mental health issues in young men then removal of those disparities, real or imagined, will likely alleviate that suffering". Which is about as plain and obvious a statement to make as "IF a thorn in your hand is causing you pain then removal of the thorn is likely to alleviate the pain". And you and the cohort here appear not to able to rebut that at all. So you make it into something it is not.

Personally, I do not believe it is appropriate for someone who is not a qualified mental health practitioner to give out mental health advice.

I also do not believe it is appropriate for anyone, qualified or otherwise, to give out one size fits all mental health advice to a diffuse group of people.

I also do not believe that it is appropriate for someone who is clearly aligned to an ideological position to try to shoehorn that message into areas that it doesn't belong. I mean, it's no different to someone saying that the root of most people's unhappiness is capitalism and if they would just become socialists then they would be happy!

[Deleted User]

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

I think I'm not alone when I say Nozzferato, you actually have weird metal issues.

I stopped reading a while ago but thought nozzferrahhtoo was talking the most sense

nozzferrahhtoo

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Personally, I do not believe it is appropriate for someone who is not a qualified mental health practitioner to give out mental health advice.

I can see what you mean but alas that is the world we live in. Put celebrities of any strip in front of the camera and they are prone often to using the platform to espouse some kind of life advice. Mental, physical, diet, personal beauty products, politics and much more.

People do it here on boards.ie too. When we have a platform, we use it to express our opinions. I see nothing really wrong with that per se.

It certainly is low on the scale of awfulness though. At least he appears from what little else I have listened to to have studied the subject to some degree. Whatever you think of "Transactional Analysis" for example..... some people see benefit in it, I am skeptical of it highly......... he certainly can not be accused of knowing little about it. He is well informed.

Contrast that to a celeb giving medical advice, like recent examples of celebrities saying what they think is medically beneficial to insert and leave in the vagina and I think some perspective quickly comes up as to what is good and bad here for people to be espousing.

But really it is a stretch to class it under mental health advice. The statement itself if you strip away the word feminism is almost a no brainer that no one can take exception to really. Basically just saying that IF you are suffering because of a disparity between the sexes then perhaps your suffering would be alleviated if you realized that disparity is not actually there. Or, if it is, maybe a good life goal is to join those who are struggling to remove it.

But perhaps it is an issue you can take up with RTE if you feel they are giving a platform to people who are using it inappropriately. But do not expect them to listen. After all they have people on sometimes who claim that they hear the voices of angels, and espousing the idea that if you are hearing voices this could be a GOOD thing.

And that the voices have a divine origin at times. Not exactly the message we want people who are ACTUALLY hearing voices to get is it? To tell such people not only to give those voices credence, but that their divine origin means you might wanna do what they say! Yet thats exactly the kind of thing the Late Late Show has done.

DickSwiveller Returns

Deleted User wrote: »

I stopped reading a while ago but thought nozzferrahhtoo was talking the most sense

Tbf to Nozz he is right that we don't want Boards to be like twitter, where the word limit makes any sort of debate superficial and shallow. But I think he is over-complicating a pretty stupid comment by blindboy, and giving him far, far too much credit. I doubt blindboy he's ever even thought of any of the things Nozz has said.

nozzferrahhtoo

I do not think there is anything there to complicate, nor was the statement stupid. I think it was a pretty straight forward no brainer statement which was only rendered controversial by the use of a single trigger word while making it.

I honestly believe had he made the same statement WITHOUT that single word, we would not even be having this conversation about it, because the statement itself was so uncontroversial.

flookdgates

I used to think the RIDF (Rubberbandits Internet Defence Force) was just a myth. Nozz has proven otherwise.

kubjones

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I do not think there is anything there to complicate, nor was the statement stupid. I think it was a pretty straight forward no brainer statement which was only rendered controversial by the use of a single trigger word while making it.

I honestly believe had he made the same statement WITHOUT that single word, we would not even be having this conversation about it, because the statement itself was so uncontroversial.

That's the point.

The word Feminism is not what he claimed it to be. Either;

- He was ignorant to the upsurge of 3rd/4th Wave Feminism, which, knowing Blindboy to be a fairly intelligent man that's usually on the ball with Societal Phenomenon, makes this option seem unlikely.

- It was a disingenuous, ambiguous explanation of what Feminism actually is today. Not that I am sure of what motive he could have for this, but based the affinity he has shown in the past to Post-Modernist ideals, it does carry a whiff of agenda.

We're not arguing with you as to what he meant and to take what he said at face value to be what was meant is fine.

The argument is that it was the wrong way of expressing what he meant if that was in fact what he did mean.

An example: Post WW1 Germany needed Nazism because the cultural identity of the nation and hence the morale of the Country was at an all-time low. They needed a movement to preserve their history, art and overall culture.

This statement is disingenuous because, despite the fact it makes a point about the preservation of culture, it leaves out the fact that its a genocidal, tyrannical movement.

(I realize its a bit of an extreme example, not equating Feminism to Nazism, was just the most extreme and therefor most translatable example I could think of. No offense meant. :P)

nozzferrahhtoo

flookdgates wrote: »

I used to think the RIDF (Rubberbandits Internet Defence Force) was just a myth. Nozz has proven otherwise.

Yeah because defending a single statement someone makes, without hardly referencing the person who made it at all, you are defending some group that person happens to be part of.

Cause that makes sense.

kubjones wrote: »

That's the point. The word Feminism is not what he claimed it to be. Either

To you. It is to him. And, having typed "Define Feminsm" into google it is to the first definitions the results threw out such as "the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes."

I honestly do not care what you or anyone else thinks the word means. The only definition of the word important to understand the point he made, is the one he included in the point he made.

kubjones wrote: »

The argument is that it was the wrong way of expressing what he meant if that was in fact what he did mean.

Not so sure anything is THAT wrong with it though as he included his definition of the word in the point while using that word in the point. That is, as I said to someone a couple of days ago, the perfect way to make a point. If your point is self contained, and less common words are defined WITHIN the point, then you have made your point well.

But as I said a number of times now, I am not at all defending how well the point was made or not. If you scroll back to my first post on the matter a couple of days ago my position on this has been about what the point MEANS. Because I found a very disingenuous, to the point of being malicious, summary of it that was not at all representative of what the guy was actually saying.

Discussing what a point means, and how well it was or could have been made, are two tangential and interesting discussions. But it pays to be clear which one you are actually having at any given time. And the majority of my discussion the matter has been the former, not the latter.

That YOU have differing ideas of the word is a-ok. Nothing at all wrong with that. But they are totally irrelevant in parsing his point, and what he meant by it. Which is all I have been doing.

kubjones wrote: »

(I realize its a bit of an extreme example, not equating Feminism to Nazism, was just the most extreme and therefor most translatable example I could think of. No offense meant. :P)

None taken, but to make the comparison you had to NOT do what he DID do. Which is include in your statement a definition of what you mean by Nazism. Perhaps you, while making such a statement, might mean something else by it. Otherwise we would have to assume you DO mean the genocidal, tyrannical movement.

The problem here, which your example does not capture, is that he included a definition of what he meant by "feminism" and that definition carries the point. So what some people on here are doing are putting the label "feminism" on all kinds of OTHER things..... things his point was not talking about in any way..... and parsing the point through that. Which is not an honest or fair move to make.

It is 100% clear to me, to the point that it is confusing people keep feeling they need to tell me, that "Feminism" has come to be applied to all kinds of other things. Some of them quite toxic and harmful and sexist and maybe worse. But none of that has anything to do with this.

People are just more keen to discuss, and throw bile on, the word itself. Entirely ignoring anything the person USING the word might have actually been saying. And that is not a great direction for human discourse to take.

Dannyriver

kubjones wrote: »

Well then it seems you're defending a botched point.

Either he, like everybody arguing with you is saying, lumped a good point in with an overall toxic movement for the forwarding of some sort of agenda, or, he made a mistake in his execution by saying that "Young men need feminism", rather than "Young men need to abandon these stereotypes. Feminism, for example, teaches that....."

He threw the baby out with the bathwater. The explanation that he gave isn't ALL of what Feminism is, its just a small part to a much larger, much more toxic pie.

I think the point that Nozz has been making [extremely well fair play to his doggedness] is that he [Blindboy] made the point perfectly well for those that weren t emotionally triggered by the word feminism. Anyone that wasn t triggered understood the point perfectly well as was said. Because you don t understand something doesn t make it not understandable for everyone. And as we all know words such as Racism/immigration/feminism cause heavy emotional reaction is certain people thus bypassing the part of the brain that deals with logic and rational thought.

Cienciano

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Personally, I do not believe it is appropriate for someone who is not a qualified mental health practitioner to give out mental health advice.

I also do not believe it is appropriate for anyone, qualified or otherwise, to give out one size fits all mental health advice to a diffuse group of people.

I also do not believe that it is appropriate for someone who is clearly aligned to an ideological position to try to shoehorn that message into areas that it doesn't belong. I mean, it's no different to someone saying that the root of most people's unhappiness is capitalism and if they would just become socialists then they would be happy!

I like the show but I agree he talks a lot of shíte too but that bit in bold is definitely not true. He always states that different things work for different people and specifies that what worked for him might not work for other people.

nozzferrahhtoo

^ Actually that is a point I did not think to make. I listened to his podcast on Transactional Analysis approaches to Mental Well Being...... one of those areas I remain 1 part skeptical about and 1 part ignorant about. I know a lot but not nearly enough to be qualified to write it off.

However the entire hour he spoke about it, he did punctuate it with exactly that qualification. That it worked for him, hence his high level of interest in it and talking about it, but it will not work for everyone.

I would say the same about Mindfulness Meditation myself. I think it would help a LOT of people. I know a lot more about it than I do about Transactional Analysis. And I would recommend it in the same way he did his brand of feminism, as something that I think would benefit people with mental issues as a grouping.

But it will not help everyone, and in fact we are aware of people (rarer) that it positively makes things worse for them. So those qualifications are useful to make.

hetuzozaho

Cienciano wrote: »

I like the show but I agree he talks a lot of shíte too but that bit in bold is definitely not true. He always states that different things work for different people and specifies that what worked for him might not work for other people.

I was just about to say this, I've only listened to the podcast a couple of times. Its not really my thing. But he has always stated the above anytime I've heard him mention it. I'm starting to wonder about the people harping on about him here, have they even listened to him...

PlaneSpeeking

Despite all that - there has still to be ONE succinct point where it can be proved feminism will help alleviate a young man's mental health issues.

SSRIs, counselling, talk therapy, one to one or group therapy, hell - even colour therapy - take your pick.

But show how the modern day definition of "feminism" (i.e. the current third wave feminism) will alleviate the mental health crises of young men. Hell, let's make it easier - one man. One young man in a mental health crisis.

You've the choice to ignore every other therapeutic tool at your disposal and offer him "feminism". He asks "What good will that do ?".

Go.....

nozzferrahhtoo

hetuzozaho wrote: »

I'm starting to wonder about the people harping on about him here, have they even listened to him...

I wonder that about a lot of things. The revival of this thread followed the podcast he did with Louise ONeill. And one user called the entire podcast something like "The sh*t show you would expect".

So I listened to it and not one statement in it seemed all that objectionable.

So I questioned the user what the issue actually was, who then said they just meant it was mundane. Which seems like quite a different thing to me entirely.

I did not say it at the time, but part of me felt that the person in question did not actually listen to it, but thought they were on safe ground declaring it to have been what THEY expected it was going to be.

It makes me suspect people here are reacting to what they WANT him to have said, rather than what he actually did say. For example if you take something said to me yesterday you will notice the contrived vaugeness of it.....

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

what you fail to appreciate is that the users you are conversing with here are well versed on just what particular brand of feminism it is that Blindboy subscribes to, and so it is in that context people are showing their incredulity. I among them.

.... where the user does not in any way tell us what that "brand of feminism" is. They do not cite a single thing the guy said or wrote. They do not quote him. They do not define the "brand of feminism" and show how the definition links back to this speaker.

Nothing. Nothing at all. Basically they think if they say "his brand of feminism" in ominous enough terms they can instill the impression it must be something awful he subscribes to without every having to ACTUALLY discuss what he says, does, believes, writes or subscribes to. And that borders on a level of malicious desperation I really have no explanation for. Or even theories for to be honest.

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

But show how the modern day definition of "feminism" (i.e. the current third wave feminism) will alleviate the mental health crises of young men.

Why? Since neither blind-boy nor anyone on this thread, least of all me, has made such a claim, why would anyone want to spend time defending such a claim?

kubjones

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I wonder that about a lot of things. The revival of this thread followed the podcast he did with Louise ONeill. And one user called the entire podcast something like "The sh*t show you would expect".

So I listened to it and not one statement in it seemed all that objectionable.

I agree, I mentioned it before but the thread consists of mostly naysayers with some sort of grudge.

I only felt like arguing the point of why what he said was the wrong way to say it, but have similarly listened to the Podcast that caused a stir and found it grand. Not great, but certainly no cause for controversy.

Other than his propensity to be left-leaning, why do you think he attracts so much negative attention?

Sal Butamol

Have they gone vegan yet like their idol Russell Brand

Sal Butamol

Preaching is annoying. Stick to comedy