About the interpocula Substack
I am a philosopher who is just finishing a thesis that began in Berin. I am one of those lefty post-structuralist types, but I was initially trained in analytic philosophy. I wrote my Master thesis on Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. Foucault was also a major influence on my work. My thesis is on Nietzsche’s Project of the Incorporation of Truth. So that is my PhD, but what is this Substack about?
The main aim of this Substack is to expose a feminist network targeting men in a violent campaign. I am not a men’s rights activist, and this is not a critique of feminism per se. This is about the overreach of whisper networks. Originally listing men accused of committing sexual harassment or sexual assault, these networks are now taking retributive justice on men for cheating. Many other accusations may follow in the smear campaign online. The campaign is run on secure anonymous group chats. This is where the scripted abuses are organised and where the video footage of the victim is posted.
This phenomenon serves as a case study in current political and cultural crises. interpocula makes enquiries into the polarisation of society, misinformation online, the manipulation of moral emotions on social media. It problematizes the use of public shaming to enforce new moral codes and ideologies. The consequences of the manipulation of anger, resentment, and disgust. Including how these emotions function as a call to action and how they can precipitate violence. The Substack also reveals how these networks spike their victims in cafes, bars, and elsewhere.
The Rumours series on interpocula, which can be found on the navigation bar, addresses accusations circulated on whisper networks. Despite the sinister consequences of the smear campaign, the Rumours series presents the victim’s side of events in light-hearted short stories. See Rumour 1 here: The Retribution of Lies: Whisper Network Rumour 1
The Overview
The weaponization of whisper networks is propped up by a cynical interpretation of the slogan ‘Believe Women’. Thousands of members believe what is posted on group chats by strangers. Meanwhile, the administrators believe that all masculinity is toxic, and they feel justified in helpfully fabricating evidence to prosecute cases in camera. The network organises acts of retributive justice which include harassment, coercion, sexual harassment, and sometimes sexual assault. Most pervasive and sinister is the networks ability to spike the victims. So, whisper networks are now a means to smear and attack vulnerable men.
Thousands of people follow the instructions of the anonymous group chat administrators. However, the core group does not share their role in fabricating evidence to prosecute cases in camera. I rejected two such activists for almost 2 years while working in a bar. They were trying to entrap me to prove I cheated. However, the ‘girlfriend’ I was supposed to cheat on was also an activist. I was with this ‘girlfriend’ for over two years, and she was the second activist to play the role of girlfriend as part of the campaign.
The activists sexually harassing me in the bar coordinated scripted scenes of abuse and gas-lighting with the activist playing ‘the girlfriend’. Their feeling of rejection fuelled a campaign of hatred, sexual harassment, and coercion. They created ever new reasons to disguise their hatred. They claimed, for instance, that British men hate German women and that’s why I rejected them. The women who owned and worked in the bar were on my side. Most women in Berlin view this as a xenophobic campaign. They know that German men are not any better than the rest, that they cheat like the rest. Targeting some vulnerable British men in Berlin is just racist and opportunistic.
I did not just reject the advances of these feminists; I told them that I would not spike anyone’s drink for them while working in a bar. I also unwittingly criticized their feminism. They were boasting that ‘toxicity’ was a medical sickness. I reminded them of Foucault’s critique of ‘diagnosing’ people with a ‘moral sickness’ like laziness and putting them in confinement. “He gets it”, they said. I did not know how literally they have taken over these Victorian strategies. But that’s another story. After they had divulged information about their campaign, and I had refused to spike people for them, they became convinced that I was going to write a book about them. I had no such plan. At that time I could not see past my PhD. They might have thought that a British man getting a PhD from a prestigious Professor in Berlin could write about their campaign and end up with a platform to expose them. I think this is another reason they wanted to ‘cancel me’ and ‘bury me’, even though I refused to cheat on my girlfriend.
They gained access to my mobile, laptop, hard drives, and email accounts to garner material for their smear campaign. They passed on my PhD research to someone who published the work in another language. As far as I know, they did not get much more material than that. Except for what I might have recordings of what I said in response to the harassment and abuse I suffered for 2.5 years. Only then did I cheat on the girlfriend who, by that time, I knew was part of the network. A common response has been: “But no one forced you to cheat!”, “Why didn’t you leave that job?”, “Why didn’t you leave Berlin if it was that bad?”. This suggests that I could have just said ‘no’, and moved on. However, after you have been enveloped in this coordinated harassment for years, it becomes reality, and your behaviour changes accordingly.
I said no to one abusive relationship only to be entrapped in another months later. I cut contact with a friend who had set me up with her and kicked me out. I rejected the activists at my work for years. I rejected other activists at the bar besides them. I tried to find another job, but I was targeted there. So, I quit my job. I confronted my second girlfriend about her gas-lighting. I kept moving flats because the flat-shares were a set up. I kept changing cafes and bars, and libraries. Eventually, I stopped going out. Even my language class was openly abusive towards me, all apart from one Swedish woman who I rejected. I sensed the hostility towards me everywhere I turned for years before I mis stepped. All this time, I desperately sought out some human contact. I kept trying to reach out beyond the feminist network to reality. However, their plan was always to suffocate and destroy my personality, and my mental health.
A lot of the abuse was built around scripted harassments that were based on research in the social sciences and psychology. Gas-lighting, shame, guilt, stereotype threat, sexual humiliation and emasculation were named as tactics by women in the bar. Much of this was designed to damage my mental health and change my behaviour. Other parts were attempts to illicit a response that would be recorded and used against me in a smear campaign online. It is impossible to paraphrase that much abuse.
Whisper networks also employ methods to shut down jobs and career paths. This is what you might call a ‘cancelling’. After all, people do not want to employ a sexual predator or racist, especially once they have been warned that a network is watching them. This is one of the Stasi tactics that the two feminists in Berlin boasted of. What the GDR called the “systematic organisation of professional and social failures”. These campaigns were designed to exhaust the “psychic power’” of the target to leave him with no time or energy to challenge the state. Everyone in Berlin has stories about the Stasi from their family. Many of the victims did not know until after the wall came down that the Stasi was behind the disintegration of their family and their career.
How did the Stasi do this? In the GDR, ‘Unofficial Informants’ would gather information that might help pinpoint the vulnerabilities of their target. In my case, I confided in the two regulars in the bar, and two consecutive girlfriends. To borrow the words of the Stasi, this feminist network organizes the “systematic discreditation of reputations”. That is, they spread “credible, untrue, irrefutable and thus also discrediting statements” about enemies. In spreading false rumours about affairs, the feminist network has taken over a Stasi staple. Where the Stasi choreographed events to set the target up to be photographed in compromising situations, feminists share choreographed videos in group chats.
The women also boasted of taking tactics from colonial uprisings that were used against the British army. Chief amongst them, is the psychological warfare of, first, making the enemy feel like they are always being watched, and second, of depriving the enemy of sleep. This might sound like child’s play, but the ‘Black Spartacus’ who beat the British out of Haiti, ascribed the majority of his victories to these two forms of psychological warfare.
The network controls an online group chat with many young members working in bars and coffeeshops. Bartenders and baristas spike the victim’s drink, while bottles of water are tampered with in local shops, and his colleagues are instructed on how to spike his drinks at every opportunity. 9 Ways Bartenders Can Spike You, If They're Asked to (substack.com) Young bartenders and baristas announce on the group chat that the victim is in their bar. The group can then send people to the bar and give them instructions on what to say or do in some scripted harassment. The bar offers people free drinks, just in case the cause of social justice is not sufficient motivation. I have been told that the group chat is so popular that bars fear that there could be reprisals if they do not participate.
After years of such abuses, I arrived back in Berlin after the funeral of the Grandmother who raised me. One of the women who had been harassing me for 1.5 years, sexually assaulted me in the bar. I left my job, but I cannot properly account for the two years after. While working in the bar I was encouraged to apply for social housing. I did not wait years like everyone else. At my first flat viewing I was offered a private viewing of another place in the Neukölln district, a trendy part of Berlin. I was drugged in this flat for years. Most people have been led to believe that the drugging only makes the man anxious, or it exhausts him so that he has heavy legs and even falls asleep. It says a lot about the power of gender stereotypes that even when women house a man to systematically drug him over years, the drugging is thought cute. It just makes him sleepy. The truth is much more sinister: Spiked by Gone Girl Feminists? - interpocula (substack.com)
I was not promiscuous in Berlin. Only 2 years after the sexual assault, over 4 years since the abuse started, did I try dating apps. I was met with the abuses awaiting British men- drugging, theft, sex footage, sexual assault. This phenomenon is pathological and not political. These women in Berlin suffer from projective displacement. They project what they do not accept in themselves onto men. They are promiscuous, and they are racist, they cannot accept rejection, and they are sexually violent. Despite putting up no resistance, quitting my job and moving flat, the abuse did not abate over 5 years. Even when I left Berlin the abuse did not stop.
In the end, all these lies are circulated to enrol as many people as possible to protect a small group of women in Berlin that drug, abuse, rob and sexually assault British men. The campaign is not called off if the man rejects the women. It was not an honest mistake on their part to think I was cheating. After years of abuse and attempts to entrap me, the network inadvertently proved that I was not a cheat. However, to accept this, these women would need to accept rejection and the network would need to accept defeat. In truth, the victims are attacked because they reject these women, because they reject their views on some topics. The victims are attacked for refusing to drug men for them.
Why this network is so damaging for all of us
I have concentrated on some private details of the abusive campaign because I wanted to have some input into my story. However, there is another way I could have approached this. I could simply have said how this campaign against men is wrong in principle.
So, for example, the accused should be allowed to know exactly what he is accused of. He should be allowed to prepare and offer a defence to the accusations made. Putting the accusations in writing prevents the prosecution from constantly changing the goal posts. It would prevent an endless series of unfounded accusations being made which would leave the accused playing whack-a-mole indefinitely.
Women are not pure innocent helpless victims. This is sexists and it is unfair to hold women to this standard.
Group chat administrators are acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Even those who have demonstrated sound judgement in law and public service are not trusted with such responsibility. Compare this then to the group chat administrators online who are anonymous and totally unaccountable. Almost all the people who join the group chat online, all the people who execute their orders, do not even know the people acting as judge, jury and executioner.
You might want to believe your wife or daughter when they promise you that they have seen recordings online that prove the rumours. However, once it has been pointed out to you how people use misinformation online to stoke shame, disgust and hatred, you have no excuses. Ultimately, you cannot pass the responsibility on to others. You must admit that they could be wrong. You could be wrong.
Spiking is always wrong. Sexual harassment is always wrong. Sexual assault is always wrong. Hacking the emails, laptop, and mobile of someone, and listening in to their conversations through their mobile phone is wrong.
Medical professionals should not use their privileges to punish patients for alleged moral misdemeanours/wrongs. Medical professionals should not be facilitating crimes, especially violent crimes, by writing the victim of as delusional to foreclose his access to the justice system.
To detain someone without evidence and without trial is contrary to human rights. Threatening to detain people indefinitely without a trial is a serious abuse of human rights and human dignity. Using the threat of detainment on medical grounds to silence a) political opponents, b) those seeking justice for crimes, is a serious structural threat to democracy and the rule of law, respectively.
Making an example of one person so that the spectacle of their pain and suffering acts as a deterrent to others is wrong. The problem here is the strategy will work as a deterrent to anyone from doing whatever you accuse the victim of, whether the victim is guilty or not. It is the demonstration of the power to cause pain, humiliation and dehumanization which is wrong, but punishing innocent individuals to deter others from any opposition is another wrong.
There is an argument that when men claim to be innocent, that only means that they are guilty, but they are too ashamed to admit it. So, these men should suffer more pain and violence. If they admit they were wrong, without believing they were wrong, only to escape the incessant pain and suffering, “that is not unusual or, for that matter, problematic… most people choose to avoid the pain” (p133). The activists are torturing innocent people with physical and sexual violence, and with shame, for things they have not done. In their view, the political end justifies the means.
Toxic Masculinity as pseudo-scientific discourse of public sickness.
In the aftermath of 2016, feminism did not reassess its goals. Instead, feminism doubled down on the politics of personality, sexuality, and identity. Trump’s personality was to become symbolic of a collective personality. A collective personality that betrayed a physio-moral sickness that threatened America and moral decency- toxic masculinity.
The concept of toxic masculinity was introduced by a psychiatrist in 2004 to describe how prison dynamics effect therapy treatments for men. The British Psychologic Society advocates dropping the terms altogether because it could be a misdiagnosis of trauma in the prison environment. More generally, they warn it “almost inevitably imply that all men are dysfunctional in some way” p4). It was over a decade after Kuper’s findings that ‘toxic masculinity’, began to appear in political discourse. The first appearance was on April 14, 2016: “How Trump’s “Toxic Masculinity” Is Bad for Other Men”. Soon the term explained a whole demographic of Trump voters: “The men America left behind” (Feb, 2017). Later, feminists would argue that “All Masculinity Is Toxic” (July 26th, 2018).
Gradually, more symptoms of toxic behaviour were detailed on a spectrum of toxicity, with rape at the extreme end. While not every man was toxic, minor infractions would place one on the spectrum. Sitting with legs to far apart on the underground, or old men expecting women to laugh at silly jokes, would place a man on the spectrum that ends in rape. All such behaviours were seen as fostering rape culture, if they were not a direct precursor to rape: “Sexism is part of a continuum of violence and when any individual is dehumanised, they become vulnerable to violence.” (Guardian, Oct 29,, 2021). As more clues to the real personality/sexuality were codified, more of society was construed as rape culture. The polarization of politics, that became acerbic with uptake of social media, was co-opted by feminism with a politics of personality and sexuality.
The Figure of Feminism Since 2016 - interpocula
The weaponization of whisper networks
Whisper networks are informal chains of gossip about people in a community (frequently a professional community) alleged of being harassers or abusers. The networks were popularized during the #MeToo movement after some lists were published outside of private networks. There are two main reasons for their proliferation. Studies since the #MeToo movement have shown that more than 1 in 3 US women say they have experienced unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances from male coworkers. In most of these environments women do not trust formal systems for reporting sexual harassment. They have thus been left to deal with this problem on their own devices.
Now some networks are reaping retributive punishment on the men, and the punishment is severe. The reach of the violence goes beyond any workplace or industry. The networks now harass, coerce, sexually harass, and potentially sexually assault the victim. There is a pervasive invasion of his privacy in the form of mobile and email hacking, along with easy access to his apartment which is ‘a set up’ for that purpose. The new victims are not men with power and influence. Indeed, they are chosen for their vulnerability, and this is by necessity.
The Feminist Figure & the Spirit of Revenge
The genealogy of retributive dehumanization
All this started when everyone had smart phones with cameras, around 2013. The murder of George Floyd sparked a campaign for racial justice because the police brutality was filmed by bystanders. Protests peaked on June the 6th 2020 and by that point they were thought to be the largest movements in the country’s history. Over half a million people protested in nearly 550 places. This was a huge step forward for social justice. Soon, other racist incidents were caught on camera as people were being called out for racism. Now it was not just male violence. Videos went viral of other women appealing to an authority (police, manager, building control) to harass innocent black men. This phenomenon gave birth to the ‘the Karen meme’.
Soon, small groups of activists decide not to wait for wrongs to be caught on camera. Rather than wait for that unlikely event, they harass and abuse the target to provoke a reaction. Online harassment had now crossed over to meat space: Gamergate: the Dark Precursor to a Violent Feminism (substack.com) A mobile phone or voice recorder is always on the ready. The reactions can be posted online as the cause of their abusive campaign, when it is in fact the effect of years of abuse. Thus reversing cause and effect: The metonymy in modern activism - interpocula (substack.com) This tactic may have begun haphazard at first, with people provoking any sort of violent outbursts, but it soon became guided by research and perfected in practice. The feminist analysis of psychological, physical, sexual abuses serves as a repertoire of abuses to turn against men: The Feminist Turn from Alienated Object to Retributive Subject (substack.com). Everything took a more sinister turn when social media platforms started to offer people complete anonymity online.
A Genealogy of Structureless Activism - interpocula (substack.com)
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Social Media and the Myth of Structureless Networks
Social media creates echo chambers of personalised news feeds, rather than forming an autonomous society of communication. People contend for likes and shares with ever more extreme content. As psychologists have pointed out, the moral emotions that garner most likes and shares- hatred, shame and disgust- act like a call to action. What emerges are small groups who know how to construct a disgusting Other with online content to provoke anger, hate, shame and disgust towards a scape goat. This call to action coincides with instructions on how to practice scripted abuses on the scape goat. This calls members to the hunt, to drug and otherwise harass the totemic creature and chase it out of public spaces around a city. Thus combining the enthusiasm of totemic cults with the frivolity of Pokémon. Pokémon Go and Social Justice Games: Online Hate Groups and Offline Violence (substack.com)
One of the central roles of activists is to keep people angry and engaged in their campaign. In the case of Gone Girl Feminism, their exploits are only validated to the extent that they are seen as political activists, and not as pathological abusers. Projective identification- is a pathology taking over the political? (part1/2) (substack.com) They know to present the reaction they provoke after months or years of abuse as the prior justification of the abuse. Meanwhile, the multitude that follows their instructions are happy to outsource their moral and political judgement to the network. The Tyranny of Leaderless Activism - interpocula (substack.com) The group chat offers members security in numbers, and allows them to hide their own lack of interest in feminism, post-colonialism and ethics. Are All Swarms Good? - interpocula (substack.com)
The Shame Machine
I recommend reading the shame The Shame Machine by Cathy O’Niell: The Shame Machine - interpocula (substack.com) The first section O’Neil deals with fat-shaming, addiction-shaming, and poverty-shaming and shows how shame is used to create a target market for cruel industries. In the central section, ‘Network Shaming’, she turns to men. Men, it is explained, think they are good and when the world informs them that they are not, they suffer from painful cognitive dissonance. Men only say they are innocent because they are ashamed. So, the argument goes, when a man claims he is innocent, he does so because he is guilty of something that causes him shame.
If a man admits he was in the wrong only to avoid more pain and suffering, “that is not unusual or, for that matter, problematic… most people choose to avoid the pain” (p133). Shame, in their words, “refers to another dimension of pain”. The spectacle of suffering online intimidates and deters everyone from doing what the victim is accused of, whether the victim is guilty of doing what he is accused of or not. The ends justify the means, after all, “there’s no greater power than shame to bring people in line” (p155). The rest of the book celebrates the campaigns of abuse by Gone Girl Feminists by trolling their victims The Shame Machine trolls abused of victims - interpocula (substack.com)
The online shaming of the Karen’s in the world was an opportunity for women to reassess their moral superiority in the face of racism and sexism. It is impossible to acknowledge the subtle forms of institutional racism without also acknowledging that women wield these powers and privileges. Instead, Gone Girl Feminists use this power to appeal to authorities and outraged multitudes online. They make false accusations and post the reactions to scripted scenes of harassment to smear their victim, and then employ an army of hundreds of thousands to harass and drug their victim.
The Medical Discourse and Intimidation
I was warned that when the victim searches for a flat share in the UK he is sent on a wild goose hunt around fake offers. After this he is ready to grasp at an offer which is too good to be true. This flat share he is offered is in the catchment area of am NHS Mental Health practice where a medical student who is in on the campaign is ready and waiting. He gaslights the victim and signs his claims off as delusional. Henceforth, the victim’s reports to the police or accident and emergency ward can be written off as a product of the victim’s delusion. I was further warned that if the victim persists in complaining, a one-night stay in the mental health ward is usually enough to get their message over. They did say, he could be taken in for a longer stay if necessary.
Footage of the victim’s therapy sessions is shared to humiliate the victim. They even used my what I had said about my mother to wound her and drive a wedge between us. Which is to say, they attacked my mother and hurt her, to get at me, and to isolate me. I took my complaint to the clinical director of that centre, I told him I had heard about every detail in Berlin from feminists, and he sounded concerned, but no investigation was undertaken.
When I persisted with complaints I was taken into a mental hospital on an emergency detainment order. To put this in context, I had had a decent full-time job for about a year and a half, and I had just been accepted into a PhD program. I had done nothing but insist that my complaint was taken seriously. This involved writing two polite emails. I was kept over night and the next day the clinical director at the hospital told me, in front of my father,
“I hope you do not need to see a psychiatrist again. You just need to remember that you think a bit differently than other people, a little bit more to the extreme and just remember, if you attack the system, the system will attack you.”
My father acknowledged the threat and said I should shut my mouth and get on with my life. My mother had been bullying him and threatening to leave him. He does what he is told to do because he is dependent on her, and he is going into retirement. I hesitated whether post the threat on my Substack. I did a week later, and a few days after that, I was taken back to the hospital against my will with another emergency detainment certificate. Nothing had happened in the interim period to warrant a second traumatic interruption in my life. The doctor in Scotland told me I had not been sexually assaulted in Berlin. How could he know? How your therapist might gas-light you, if asked to (substack.com) I was confined for a week and told I would not get out unless I took medication. I have since been threatened with permanent confinement if I do not keep my mouth shut: The modern confinement of 'difficult' men - interpocula (substack.com) To this day I am harassed by people think I am a cheat, or a racist, or a misogynist, or a transphobe, or a wondering hand. I am treated like an animal because of smear campaign online.
As you can imagine, my Substack is being shadow banned and it is a struggle to write while I am being spiked at every opportunity. Please subscribe for free and share my Substack for justice, if not for the exhilarating prose!
