Just days until the infamous Roosh V meetup day, ROK announces that plans have been cancelled for the safety and privacy of members. It's incredible, the media storm that he was able to create. (Side note: there are many who plan to go to the meetings anyhow, and are making arrangements via PM)

I really can't fault him for the play that he made. Some clever statements about rape that could be played off with the plausible deniability of satire, but gaining international attention on the sound bites. He was able to scare feminists and women in every major city, convincing them that big, bad rapists were coming to town to meet, plot and fester in the underbellies of their streets.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he said this was his plan all along, to get the attention and then cancel. If there's one thing Roosh is good at, it's harnessing the power of the media.

Regardless of the bad rap he has on TRP, I respect him for his work and his strategy with his brand. I can't say we see eye-to-eye, especially on this thoughts of my subreddit, but that doesn't mean I can't respect his strategy and wit. For the Machiavellian among us who see his ends, we could easily take a page out of his book of means.

The subtext of this battle isn't about rape, or the feminist continued narrative that it's the biggest issue facing women today. The real battle is about men who do not seek the approval of feminism, meeting and discussing information that acts as a key to escaping the power feminism holds over them. The very subject of rape is not only a great marketing gimmick, but acts as a badge that says "your system has no sway on me." They identify as the worst thing feminism knows to demonstrate how little they care about it. Like gays owning 'fag,' when society loses control of a group of men via shame, that group of men gains power.

But when gays get together and talk, they talk about equality in marriage. When men get together and talk, they talk about revolution. And that scares women. It scares them because they know, unlike their sisters, men are capable of actually doing something. Every revolution in history, every war and battle known to man was decided and fought by men who congregated.

This is the real threat that TRP poses to society. It is not that we are truly misogynistic, or that we actually support rape. It's not that we're hateful, or that we are potentially abusers.

No, if you listen to each of these complaints against who we are, you will realize quickly that we are not the intended audience for these accusations. Many here participate on a subreddit dedicated to the supposed "rational" debate of these very accusations. (purplepilldebate) To argue it misses the point entirely.

There is no merit to the claims because the claims themselves are intended to shame, to ostracize, and to scare red pillers into conformity. They don't exist because of a logical, thought-out, idealistic disagreement.

The red pill gives a notion of powerlessness to society and the feminine culture. It represents men congregating, plotting, and discussing how to break free of the power over us, to steer our lives how we see fit, and eventually identify as those who are unable to be controlled.

And while we may not be starting a revolution in a classical sense, we are starting a revolution of culture that gives the middle finger to responsibilities traditionally shouldered by men. The number one responsibility having been the well-being of women.

The State of the Subreddit 2016

I realize I'm a bit late with my address to the forum, January came and went. But there's good reason I've been delayed. We've been putting together some massive new plans for TRP that will give us the proper protection we need to ensure the future of our brotherhood.

As I've mentioned, the congregation of men is the biggest threat to feminism (and by extension culture at large), and that makes us a target. We've known we were a target since the inception of the sub, and have only become more aware of this as we gained popularity.

As a target, there are a few problems we face.

  • Trolling has gotten more intense. We've been working harder than usual to stem the trolls, as many of you may have noticed by some of our recent sticky posts, we've had to put together some clever solutions to root them out. We remain steadfast on our policy on trolls, and I'm happy to report that I believe we're doing quite well at keeping their exposure to the sub minimal.

  • Concern trolling has gotten more intense. These guys are a little trickier, because they pose as well-meaning individuals who just want what's best for TRP. They mention that they feel certain qualities are missing from posts, or that moderator actions seem heavy handed and that we should be more transparent for the good of the community. Make no mistake, we will not be letting up, not an inch. The people who liken us to Hitler or claim that our moderation is akin to censorship are nothing but concern trolls. They seek to derail discussion and attempt to make enemies of the volunteer staff rather than help curb the problems the mods are attempting to fix. It is entirely clear to me that these people are here to destroy discussion, and as such will continued to be banned with prejudice.

  • Our future on reddit is unknown. This is probably the biggest variable we've faced since the beginning. With each new round of subreddit banning, the question is raised, will TRP survive this time? The call for our removal is omnipresent in any admin thread, and the justification for it seems undeniable given the social climate. So how long do we have, and what are our options?

Some here may have already know that I've been hard at work ensuring that TRP has a future and that our legacy will not be lost in the annals of reddit history. So we set out to solve a few fundamental issues.

  1. The content, the posts, and conversations taking place here are priceless and should not be lost.
  2. There are very few places for red pill men to socialize openly, without fear of retribution.
  3. There is an enforced signal to noise ratio on our forum as we have strict rules to keep discussion on topic. Unfortunately this cuts down on possible socialization between members who simply want to catch up with each other's progress.
  4. There is no room on the forum for smaller, albeit interesting, pieces of information that are relevant but not necessarily ground breaking.

I started to notice the last three points on this list when I visited the IRC chat room. It was more than the nitty, gritty, cold details of theredpill discussion. It was guys helping each other with workout and diet information, it was chatting about a date from the night before, about personal strategies, and about personal failures and successes. The guys go there regularly for the comradery.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure this subreddit has brought many of us sanity when we realized we couldn't discuss these things in real life. It's nice to have the guys here to bounce ideas off of and to connect with. But there was little personal aspect to it, our focus here discourages chatter that does not deliver insight to sexual strategy.

But part of being a man, and becoming a man, is ensuring a positive social circle that encourages growth. We need encouragement and the ability to bond.

For some, a local fraternity is a great option. The promise of Roosh's meetup is proof that men worldwide are in need of role models and friends.

We realized that all of these problems could, and should be solved.

So we've been working on a new platform for the better part of the last two years to solve these issues.

  • First and foremost, the most important aspect of this platform is an archive of our top posts and discussion, in case we get shut down. I didn't just want an html backup, I wanted to be able to switch to a new platform seamlessly without missing a beat. So we wrote a script to emulate reddit's interface, and we backed up the major red pill subs. And it functions fully as a replacement for our subreddit.

  • Secondly, we did not want to leave reddit unless we needed to. Which we won't. The sub will remain here until and if a move is made necessary by reddit admin. One of our strengths is the reddit platform and the ability to reach those who are looking. We will not leave here, nor will the backup boards be opened unless we are forced to. The backup boards will be accessible but read-only until that point.

  • Third, we wanted a platform that allowed members to interact on a more casual level and connect in an environment that was more socially driven and less topic driven. We also wanted the ability to connect with individuals instead of the entire community. We have created this platform and we're excited to unveil it soon.

  • We wanted a way to elevate positive contributions based on merit rather than social standing. Not everybody can have a name like /u/gaylubeoil. So we brought in a board of curators who will be helping us feature high quality posts on TRP and our new platform. The full board will be announced at launch, but it includes such names as Rollo Tomassi, Ian Ironwood, Private Man, Illimitableman, and a number of others.

  • We wanted a way for people to contribute content to our community and be able to anonymously receive thanks from the community, rather than the current setup, which rewards reddit's bank account when we purchase reddit gold. We will announce more about our plans soon, but I liken it to buying a friend a beer, but being able to do it anonymously.

  • We wanted to ensure security, and have spent countless hours pouring over the code and framework to ensure that everybody's privacy will be preserved. Donations by members on our board and IRC have purchased SSL certificates, and security-minded individuals have assisted in code audits. Passwords are one-way salted and hashed, all inputs are CSRF protected, and all inputs are scrubbed properly.

  • We wanted to ensure people could preserve their reddit account if they wanted. The registration system allows you to claim your reddit account as long as you have access to it on reddit.

  • And finally, we wanted to make sure not to change the focus or topic of the main sub. This new platform allows us to expand and extend the conversation without detracting from the original purpose of /r/theredpill: Discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.

We are very close to launching this new platform, so I wanted to address it here today in our state of the subreddit address, to let you know what our plans are and what our future is looking like. Our plan for this platform, when we launch, will work in combination with our red pill subreddit, not take place of it. We're very excited to see what happens. We've worked very hard on this platform and we think it will be a positive addition to our community.

Thanks to everybody who helped. We will announce this platform as soon as our finishing touches are complete. We expect a launch end of Feb/Early March.

-RPS