#ExtremelyOnline — Facilitating Online Communication with the Moderators of /r/Menslib
This is part one of an interview that was originally featured in the Future of Masculinity zine. Get a print or digital copy here.
Reddit is an online message board and news aggregator where users from around the world have discussions in forums, or ‘subreddits,’ dedicated to subjects ranging from meal prep tips to racial justice. Reddit is one of the most visited sites in the world, earning it the moniker: “The front page of the internet.”
Unlike other social media websites, Reddit users talk online with pseudonyms instead of their real identities and is moderated by a collection of community volunteers who help curate and maintain their specific spaces.
Today I sat down with a collection of Reddit moderators for the subreddit /r/MensLib, which stands for Men’s Liberation.
Before we begin, do you mind introducing yourself, how you became a member, and what you do for the subreddit?
CA: I’m /u/Ciceros_Assassin, and I’m the founder. Before we started up, I had gotten into the habit of following the ‘Gender Wars’ (read: Men’s Rights Activists versus Feminists) online for fun, but over time it stopped being funny and started being some- what distressing: on one hand, there were legitimate men’s issues that were being drowned out by a sea of toxicity, and on the other, there were all these young men who were searching for some community that could address the issues they found important, and all they were finding was more of that same Gender Wars us-versus-them runaround.
I grabbed the /r/MensLib subreddit and posted in a couple of places that I had an idea for doing things differently, and shockingly quickly found a bunch of other people who were looking for the same thing (some of those early members helped found the community and are still mods to this day). I think the fact that we’ve been able to build a community of almost 150,000 involved and active users in about five years speaks to the broad appeal of our approach. I still help with the day-to-day moderation somewhat, but the dedication of the amazing team we’ve built means I can also take a step back and help guide MensLib on a more strategic level.
FCI: This is /u/FortuneCookieInsult. He’s the only dad among the active moderation team. But, that also makes him incredibly busy balancing that with his family. That’s why he was only able to answer a few of our questions.
IP: My username is /u/InitiatePenguin, I live in Texas and work in the entertainment industry. I’ve been moderating on reddit for two years and I am kind of the go-to-guy for discussions about Toxic Masculinity and the current organizer of our periodic book club in our sister sub. I found the subreddit through a recommendation of another user online, and upon arriving, I found a lot more people who shared my views, something that I’m accustomed to working in the arts—but doesn’t exist as much outside of that bubble living in the south.
ND: My username is /u/narrativedilettante, I live in California and work in an accounting-related field. I first found /r/MensLib by comment elsewhere on Reddit, but the specific context escapes me. I am very glad I found this space and am able to contribute to productive discussion for and about men. I do a lot of day-to-day modding on the sub, which can take up a lot of time and energy! I’m glad others are around who are able to configure AutoModerator (note: an online bot that performs tasks based on scripts) and deal with other technical aspects of running the sub, because that stuff intimidates the hell out of me.
MT: My username is /u/Megatomic, I live in the rural Midwest USA and work in technology. I have been part of the MensLib moderation team for almost two years (I joined alongside IP). I have been following MensLib since it was pretty small. I don’t remember how exactly I found it the first time, but I would assume it was recommended on either a support group subreddit or a feminist subreddit to which I was already subscribed. Like ND, I do a lot of day-to-day modding. It’s a very time-consuming task, and we try to keep all the work from falling on one moderator.
UQ: I’m u/UnicornQueerior, a New Yorker currently based in Taipei, Taiwan. I’m queer, physically disabled, and a third-culture kid (TCK). (IP: Represent!) I found MensLib through a post on the front page back in June 2018 (Pride Month). Like many others, I was excitedly shocked that such a community exists. I initially boarded as the resources wiki mod to help reorganize the list of resources, since it was outdated, but ended up being promoted to moderator at the beginning of 2020. It’s a time-consuming job and I have a newfound respect for moderators on all social media.
And what exactly is Men’s Liberation?
ND: Men’s Liberation is a men’s movement that began in the 1970s. There’s a book, called, aptly enough, Men’s Liberation, by Jack Nichols. Our subreddit isn’t a direct continuation of the Men’s Liberation movement, but more of a modern movement that sees the original as an inspiration. The world we live in today is different in many notable ways from the world of the 70s, but the core issues that early MensLibbers were trying to address are still with us.
Men’s Liberation seeks to address the societal wrongs that disproportionately impact men, and to create a world in which men are nurtured from boyhood to become healthy, well-adjusted adults, free from harmful stereotypes and expectations. The Men’s Liberation movement is complementary to and works in parallel with feminism, to create a better world for people of all genders.
CA: ND says it well, and I’ll add that our approach is to view these gendered issues as often being complementary, or flipsides of the same coin. For example, women’s issues-based feminism might focus on disparities in career advancement for women, while a complementary men’s issue is the stigma around being a stay-at-home dad and not being the breadwinner. These issues are hand-in-glove, but you can’t see that if you’ve already decided that it’s one or the other. Starting from the position of advocating for men’s issues but also looking for solutions that help improve the situation of all people, rather than viewing those interests as antagonistic, is fundamental to how we view men’s liberation as a movement.
UQ: Men’s Liberation is a movement aimed at de-stigmatizing and challenging all the long-held views and norms of what it means to be a man, which is something that has been changing throughout the last few generations. Instead of perpetuating attitudes like, ‘man up,’ ‘emotion is weakness,’ and ‘toughness equals strength’ it is subverting the status quo, instead challenging us to ask ourselves, ‘what does it mean to be a man in a changing society?’ or ‘instead of a singular masculinity, what does masculinity mean to me?’ as well as fostering vulnerability in our shared humanity so that we can collectively work towards living in a better world.
Q: What pitfalls do you discover when having these conversations online? How do you navigate that?
IP: I think one of the most difficult things in moderating these discussions is that it’s a free-for-all with way more than a 100 people at any given time. That comes with a lot of varying experiences but also past trauma. It’s really important to me that when we’re talking about serious subjects that we thread the needle just right so some men can talk about the problems they face in their lives or in society without lighting up another part of the community who disagree and then invalidates those feelings. What works one- on-one in the real world simple doesn’t translate onto the internet. It means we have to steer away from a lot of specific individualized advice and talk more about the general direction.
ND: There are a few common refrains that show up repeatedly in these conversations and which ultimately don’t lead to any new or productive insights. Sometimes well-meaning comments will unintentionally lead down well-worn arguments, and some comments show up frequently that are only tangentially related to the issue at hand and merely drive the conversation to the commenter’s pet issue. It helps to be proactive about removing these comments before things can start to spiral. Sometimes I’ll remove a comment that is on its surface benign, because I’ve seen scores of comments just like it that lead down a rabbit hole of harmful discourse.
MT: I think there is a tendency in internet discourse to attempt to turn everything into a debate. It’s not new nor unique to the internet, certainly, but the internet generally tends toward it, and reddit is particularly egregious of it. A major purpose of our community, to me at least, is to help men speak their feelings and hear from other users that they are not alone. My hope is that by monitoring those conversations and enforcing standards of courteous behavior, and encouraging constructive engagement, we can create an environment where everyone feels heard, where we can learn from each other, and where the dignity of all people is respected.
How do you distinguish yourself from other communities online?
IP: First and foremost, we are unapologetically feminist and intersectional, and with some heavy criticism for capitalism. Our philosophy is predicated on the fact that gender is a social construct, informed over time and by our environments and culture and that the issues we discuss intersect with many identities such as race, class, gender, even disability, simultaneously. That means we’re inclusive
of LGBTQ people, pro trans rights, and even women are welcome into the community. Other spaces online tend to want to define what make a man, provide scripts as to how to perform their masculinity, or are simply against women or trans people outright.
ND: In one cliche, quality over quantity. Our subreddit isn’t as active in terms of posts per day as other subreddits with similar numbers of subscribers. We require all links to come with an accompanying submission statement describing the post’s relevance to men’s issues to spur discussion. That’s not to say we require our users to write whole essays if they want to post something; a submission statement can be pretty brief and simple. Having that requirement, though, means that users have to put some thought into what they post, and commenters, even those who only read the headline before responding, have something to bite into.
We’re also careful to curate the posts and comments on the sub to maintain productive discussion. We disallow memes and image posts because they are definitionally low-effort. Most importantly, we strictly enforce our rules against bigotry and anti-feminism. Not all MensLib subscribers necessarily consider themselves feminists, but we do require people to at the very least not post anti-feminist content on our sub.
CA: ND is being very politic here and didn’t use a certain phrase we use in the back room a lot: ‘outrage porn,’ (IP: or ‘rage bait’) which is what we call one-off outrageous stories that don’t lend themselves to any kind of structural and thus actionable critique. Nobody here disagrees that sometimes the status quo produces very bad outcomes; all we ask of our contributors is ‘can you tie this to a broader societal issue, hopefully one that suggests avenues toward a solution?’ Sometimes people can’t do that, they’re just fishing for fake internet points, and that isn’t productive. We’re unapologetically not a click farm.
We’ve also found that taking strong positions on certain hot-button issues, and communicating those positions to our community members on a fairly regular basis (for instance, our welcoming of trans and nonbinary community members), helps to weed out certain bad apples. We’re not afraid of people who want to hide their bigotry under the guise of ‘free speech;’ I think the first time we posted about the yearly Trans Day of Visibility we ended up banning about a thousand users, and we’d gladly do it again to maintain the integrity of our mission and the wellbeing of our community members.
Interview by Chris Ringeisen, NGM friend and r/MensLiberation moderator.