Why is this the image in everyone’s mind of the average Redditor/MRA/Meninist? Why is this the way these people get imagined, including in memes that circulate about them?

So much discourse and so many stereotypes about, specifically, MRAs and Redditors rely on stereotypes of them liking Mountain Dew, Cheetos (or other ‘unhealthy’/’junk’ food) and having neckbeards– a term that feels specific to fat people like in the image. This is the image a ‘neckbeard’ is meant to evoke, even though there are plenty of thin people who grow hair on their necks as well– and many fat people who don’t.

But what do these people actually look like?

A Google search of MRAs and Redditors finds few images of people who are actively, publicly self-identifying in either way. These are the closest I could find:

Yeah, a lot of these people are a little chubby. One of the people in the second picture even looks a little bit like the cartoon above. But they are all, for the most part, on the smaller side of fatness (fairly subjective). I also think it’s important to note they are all white. These are the only pictures I could find of real people identifying as anything resembling an MRA. Everything else was either a costume or a meme relying on fat-hating stereotypes that are too terrible to show.

And what does a Google search for Meninist show?

And really what is a Menininst but an MRA by another name?

I am really not here to defend any of these disgusting and evil misogynists, but rather to ask why is the stereotype for this mindset a fat, hairy, naked man rather than thin, young, white, affluent, suburban blond boys? A simple search shows that this is really the public face of the movement. So why the stereotype? Why the memes?

Because they easily buy into fat-hating stereotypes about fat people as lazy, ‘unintelligent’, unhealthy, bitter, and deserving of any misfortune that comes our way–including the ways we are treated by other people.

Again, I am not here defend the ideologies of MRAs, Meninists, or Redditors, but to merely point out the things that these stereotypes are implicitly upholding. They are informed by strong cultural messages about fatness and fat people at large– these messages that are actually hurting a population that is not representative of who seems to actually be being targeted.

Please, please, please hate MRAs, Meninists, and Redditors. Please defend yourselves and prove them wrong. But be accurate, and specific. Our words and actions have meanings and histories, and larger implications than we can sometimes see.