Return of Kings, infamous misogynist blog, is going on hiatus

In this February, 2016 file photo, a "You Can't Rape a .38" banner is seen at Washington Square Park. Several dozen anti-rape activists mustered at Washington Square Park to protest a planned meet up by Return of Kings members whose leader, Roosh V, had argued that rape ought to be legalized. less In this February, 2016 file photo, a "You Can't Rape a .38" banner is seen at Washington Square Park. Several dozen anti-rape activists mustered at Washington Square Park to protest a planned meet up by Return ... more Photo: Pacific Press/LightRocket Via Getty Images Photo: Pacific Press/LightRocket Via Getty Images Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close Return of Kings, infamous misogynist blog, is going on hiatus 1 / 28 Back to Gallery

An infamous men's rights website — and digital mouthpiece for the manosphere — will be going on an "indefinite hiatus," the founder announced Monday.

Six years ago, Daryush "Roosh" Valizadeh, a self-described "pickup artist" launched Return of Kings, the blog infamous for its brazen misogyny and homophobia, "red-pill" pride and pious "neomasculinity." As is perhaps unsurprising for one of the most despised websites on the internet, site traffic and revenues are too low for the website to continue operations.

"We've been banned from Paypal and countless ad partners..."Roosh wrote in his farewell statement on the website. "This started a negative spiral of decline content quality, site traffic, and revenues...Currently, ROK receives half the traffic of its peak and less than one-fifth of the income."

Past articles on RoK included pieces such as "5 Reasons to Date a Girl With an Eating Disorder," "Men Benefit from Acting Potentially Violent and Explosive Around Women," and "8 Things That Make a Girl Stupid and Useless."

In 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center included Roosh in its list of "hateful and misogynist" manosphere writers. Roosh was also named the Web's "most infamous misogynist" by the Daily Dot magazine in 2014.

In 2015, Roosh advocated for the legalization of rape on private property, a take he later amended to have been satire, despite his having written multiple articles in which he boasted about penetrating a woman while she was half-asleep, and, on another occasion, an experience with an Icelandic woman so intoxicated it would have been labeled "rape" under U.S. standards.

In October, Amazon announced it had removed nine of Roosh's self-published books off its catalog, Gizmodo reported.

"I'm sure many of you understand that we are in the early stages of a censorship wave that will sweep through society. Scoundrels like myself get banned first, and then soon the hammer will come down on anyone who dares to share the truth," Roosh wrote in his final note.