The VIS brand is dead. I killed it, and here’s why:
“Vintage In Stepford” started off with great intentions: the goal was to bridge the gap between Feminism and Men’s Rights Activists. It quickly veered off course as I fashioned an echo chamber for myself. And as we know, echo chambers can be warm and pretty, but they are chambers, after all, and chambers are nothing more than comfortable prisons. In creating echo chambers for ourselves, we create a literal prison of the mind and heart.
I’ve broken out of my self-imposed prison, and I’m not going back.
As I became an established writer on the topic of traditional gender roles, I was forced to defend my positions. Of course, I had plenty of allies, too. The problems began to arise when I started to listen closely to some of my allied readers and take their suggestions on where to take the blog. Instead of staying true to my original intentions of bridging gaps, I widened the chasm to appeal to a handful of readers.
Non-writers don’t understand the dilemma. How could they?
But established writers understand the equation – and always have. William Shakespeare wrote about selling his work and the compromises that are made in his magnificent piece, Sonnet CX [110]:
“Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.”
Let me make this perfectly clear: what you’ve read here is not the responsibility of devoted readers. It is 100% my responsibility. I took their suggestions and crafted the material myself. I am not some kind of victim of the arts here. I, alone, am responsible for the things I’ve written. My words may have been influenced by others, but they’re still my words, and my words are my responsibility. I wrote them, I’ll own up to them.
I’ve learned plenty of lessons from writing this blog, two of the biggest being “stay true to yourself” and “intentions mean nothing, results are everything.” Those who claim that their intentions are good and that only intentions matter ought to read about some of the biggest monsters in history: Stalin, Mao, and that Austrian painter guy. In their minds, they started out with good intentions, too, but the end result was tragic.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
And recognizing, in the case of the VIS brand, that my end result was creating more division than it solved, I pulled the plug on the whole damned brand – the books are gone, the website is gone, the archives are gone — everything. Any trace of the VIS brand that I could find has either been scrubbed or is awaiting deletion. Why?
Because intentions are nothing, results are everything.
Do I regret what I wrote here? In some ways yes, in some ways no. I regret that it may have caused people to create their own echo-chamber-prisons. And though I repeatedly stated, “get consent before you do any of this,” let’s face it, people only agree with that stipulation if it suits their echo-chamber – if it doesn’t, they’ll ignore it. And the result could be dangerous, and that’s precisely what I’m trying to avoid by killing the brand.
So am I legally responsible for what you did with the material on the VIS blog? Of course not. If you didn’t “get consent” as I repeatedly stated, that’s on you.
But there is an Objective Truth in this world, and the Objective Truth is this: it was time for the VIS brand to enter the dustbin. I’m not that man anymore and will no longer compromise the principles on which I was raised for anyone. I have a family name, and won’t see it tarnished because of my actions.
So, what don’t I regret? I don’t regret helping thousands of people to think outside of the foolish “modern life is the perfection of humanity!” echo chamber. In my time as VIS, I’ve received thousands of messages and mails from people who have thanked me for helping them to claw their way out of 3rd / 4th wave Feminism, or the Manosphere, or the Red-Pill Community, or whatever pretty little prison they may have been trapped in at the time. Those that got out of their prisons-of-the-heart asked me to help them break out. I did. And I will never regret that.
Nor will I claim, “this was all a joke.” It wasn’t. It was serious at the time, but I’m not that man anymore. Whatever you want to call the process of what has happened to me over the past several years – rebirth, being born-again, leveling up, awakening, whatever – the result is that I’m not that man anymore and I won’t try to pretend that I am.
So will I apologize for what I’ve written over the past decade? I could, but let’s be honest: an apology doesn’t mean anything if there’s no change in direction. Which is better? To hear “I’m sorry” repeatedly and see no change, or to see a noticeable change without the words “I’m sorry”?
Like intentions, talk is cheap. End results and actions are what matter. And the biggest action I could take was to kill the Vintage In Stepford brand.
So I did.
One final good intention that cannot be reversed or corrupted.
What it comes down to is this: if you’re in modern Feminism, or the Manosphere, or even casting the first stone for the crap I wrote on this blog, we all need to do one thing, and one thing only: we all need to grow the fuck up.
Including you.
Including me.
All the best.
Ex-VIS
A RELUCTANT WATCHMAN 