The internet was aflame yesterday with commentary about a prospective Brisbane startup space/gym named Nomadic Thinkers, which was designed as a ‘men-only’ space. Nomadic Thinkers pitched itself as a space that encouraged men to work and express themselves, dealing with depression and learning to be open – kind of like a Men’s Shed but with a tech twist.
Buuuut once people dug deeper into their site/blog/whitepaper, initial fears were vindicated: it wasn’t so much about the community and mental health concerns – it was mostly weird mens rights/redpill/anti-SJW/anti-feminist Reddit voodoo cooked up by a couple of neckbeards. Which is a shame, because a men’s only startup space that actually focused on being a kind of tech Men’s Shed wouldn’t be that objectionable.
This tweet sums it up:
Australian tech bros skipping the “build stuff” step and going straight to the awful politics stage, very agile
— Mike Lynch (@bombinans) November 1, 2016
One one page nestled deep on their site, they used a photo of the Bondi Hipsters to represent a kind of emasculated man who hasn’t yet been energised into dominance by a startup/gym co-working space. The Hipsters noticed, and left a now very popular Facebook post on the Nomadic Thinkers page:
The post reads, in full (in case it gets deleted or whatnot):
Hey Brahs,We’ve been working on a new male-only cologne called “Masxulinity Toxiqué” and your new male-only work space sounds like the ideal place for us to set up shop and work from… We need more spaces for men to be men, because society is crushing our masculinity from every angle – what with our getting paid significantly more for doing the same thing as women, being able to take up whatever opportunities we like in whatever fields we choose, and the fact that we literally run the whole world and all that, but whatevs.Before we sign up, we’ve just got a few quick quezzies:1) Given the office will have a 1950’s vibe, in terms of the whole “whisky-drinking casual mysogyny aggressively ignorant male entitlement” will there still be other modern things like Wifi?2) Will the office be made entirely of those easy-to-punch gyprock walls so that if our testosterone makes us angry whilst doing our jobs, we can punch a hole in a wall without breaking our fists?3) How can you ensure that the office remains so stress free that I’ll stop punching strangers? I can’t control my emotions because I’m emotionally five. I also bite people, and poo my pants occasionally.4) Is there a fight-club that happens at lunchtimes where we all stand around in a circle pretending to be our sexy alter-ego’s and fist-fight each other topless to make up for the approval we never received from our fathers?5) Is there an underground lair beneath the offices where us and our fellow mouth-breathing neckbeards can all jerk-off over tentacle-porn and cry over the fact that our Mum’s didn’t hug us enough?6) How can you guys guarantee the entire office complex won’t collapse in on itself as a result of all that insecurity in the building?Just kidding… We don’t wanna work there. But get our photos off your website or we’ll sue you and buy a cheeky baggy with the entire $350 your sausage-sizzling business idea is worth.Yours sincerely,Two men.
Lovely.
Source: Facebook.
Photo: Bondi Hipsters.
