The most “shocking” quote pulled from the manosphere (“I really wouldn’t mind shooting a [expletive] dead in the face, they are evil, all of them”) was actually an example Elam posted to AVfM of things that might get a person banned from commenting. Compare with what Matt Forney”€”a manospherian “pre-interviewed” by 20/20 and the guy who leaked the identities of Julian Assange’s accusers”€”gets on an almost daily basis:

“I really hope someone he meets chops his dick off and feeds it to him.”

“People like [Matt Forney] need to be exterminated like the insects they are.”

“Hopefully this guy will get murdered in the next 12-14 years so that I can rip out his dead lungs.”

“Your mother should’ve aborted you, you piece of shit.”

Forney gets so many threats on Twitter that he’s made a special account just for reproducing them. Stay classy, femosphere!

It’s not terribly surprising that ABC didn’t give the manosphere a fair shake. This is the same news outlet that covered “devil worship” in 1985 with nary a trace of skepticism. Anyone who thought they were going to go on 20/20 and get a fair and honest portrayal befitting journalistic impartiality”€”I’m looking at you, Elam”€”hasn’t turned on a television or cracked a newspaper lately.

What is somewhat surprising is that in 2013, ABC doesn’t get it. The feminists are going to hate the manosphere; that’s a given. The “manboobs” (manosphere parlance for male allies and defenders of the prevailing feminist paradigm) are for the most part going to remain boobs. However, there are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of men who are grasping for the vocabulary with which to discuss the very same issues as people such as Elam, Roosh, and Forney: the changing face of masculinity in the 21st century, what women really want (as opposed to what they say they want), how to go a little bit Galt from the whole dog-and-pony show if that’s your thing, or how to be the kingly patriarch you’ve always wanted to be.

After all, fewer things are manlier than creating and rearing your own people.

Despite its original intentions and despite the protestations of some within the manosphere (and I sincerely hope that’s the last time I ever use this term for the rest of my days), all the 20/20 segment is going to do is infuse the whole project with a little bit of fresh blood.

ABC, which has apparently never heard of the Streisand effect, may well have just moved us into a new golden age of patriarchy.

I’ll drink to that.