Thunderf00t / Phil Mason - Single manbaby, angry atheist/anti-feminist Youtuber, attention whore

[StraightShooter]

Didn't see any threads on this guy, so I'll start one. Thunderf00t, aka Phil Mason from the UK is a mildly popular atheist Youtuber. In his older days his shtick was pretty much just the stereotypical progressive, SJW, New Atheist schtick you could find on a shithole like RationalWiki; comparing Sarah Palin to Hitler, making awful "debunking young earth creationism" videos which could've been done better in a high school level science project, and getting into petty feuds with no-name creationist Youtube trolls such as "VenomFangX". He also apparently got into a feud with some Muslim Youtubers over some childish anti-Islam videos he made who ended up doxxing him, which is where his real name was discovered.

Basically this was him in a nutshell, except he's one of the few who isn't obese:

More recently though, he drifted away from his autistic obsessions over creationism, Glenn Beck, etc and into anti-feminism commentary, which has made him slightly popular in the manosphere (which has some tie-in with the alt-right - however he alienated some of his growing fanbase by attacking Brexit).

Apparently his anti-feminism phase started when he was booted off of FreeThoughtBlogs for alleged Islamophobia and criticism of feminism, which was affiliated with "Atheism +". (It includes the likes of Rebecca Watson, PZ Meyers, Richard Carrier). Basically a SJW got turned on by his own kind for being too "moderate", so he now spends most of his free time getting revenge and playing the victim card.

Plus most of his Youtube revenue is just the result of him making petty attack videos against popular channels (such as that of Anita Sarkeesian and Laci Green) to increase his viewership, since no one cares about his shitty science videos.

There's a bit of background on him on Encyclopedia Dramatica, however - and quite a bit of it is ironic. For example, several months ago he complained about a feminist Youtuber sending letters to his workplace trying to get him fired; almost crying about it in one of his videos and playing up the victim card for his fanbase - but it turns out that years ago, he urges his own followers to contact the employer of a creationist Youtuber over him handing out Christian tracks at his job.

Apparently Thunderf00t also once made false allegations over a Youtuber "HowTheWorldWorks" of using fake Youtube accounts to boost his subscriber base; but then played the 'poor innocent victim' card after his banishment from FreeThoughtBlogs over all of the "mean allegations" made against them.

Oh, and he also abuses Youtube's DMCA to shut down videos of critics, despite having made videos whining about the abuse of DMCA by creationist Youtubers.

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Thunderf00t

If anyone else has any more knowledge on this guy, feel free to share; my overall opinion of him is that he's a lolcow who takes on folks who are even bigger lolcows than he is.

 

[76LD910]

I'm pretty sure thunderf00t already has a thread somewhere on the farms.

Also he's recently become more salty over Trump and Brexit then he ever was about feminists/SJW's.

 

[StraightShooter]

I'm pretty sure thunderf00t already has a thread somewhere on the farms.

Also he's recently become more salty over Trump and Brexit then he ever was about feminists/SJW's.

Apparently it's in-part because he works for a public university funded by the EU.

 

[thismanlies]

I personally don't agree with his politics, but he's a far cry from Moviebob. Also his scientific debunking videos are pretty good.

 

[Cato]

Even with the 800 videos about Anita Sarkeesian and tendency to feud with absolute retards, I really don't think he qualifies as a lolcow.

More of a deliberate provocateur who occasionally is up his own ass enough to say some dumb shit and double down, but he's too much of a functional and reasonably successful and mentally stable person to be put in the lolcow category.

 

[StraightShooter]

I personally don't agree with his politics, but he's a far cry from Moviebob. Also his scientific debunking videos are pretty good.

Yeah, that is the one prop I will give him; he does do a good job debunking bigger lolcows than himself, however when he tries to put out his own original content is when it's complete shit.

The hypocrisy stuff is probably what puts him on my radar the most though; such as him threatening to file a lawsuit over someone making a satirical photoshop of his picture - while doing that on a regular basis himself in his own videos.

 

[LovelyParadox]

I've noticed he has had interviews with Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins which is kind of impressive. I'll have to watch his "Why do people laugh at creationists," videos because I laugh at them too.

 

[Cato]

Yeah, that is the one prop I will give him; he does do a good job debunking bigger lolcows than himself, however when he tries to put out his own original content is when it's complete shit.

Meh, his debunking of bad science in scam kickstarter projects and such is actually good content IMO, in addition to his takedowns of lolcows like laughingwitch, hannibalthevictor, Davis Aurini,, etc being entertaining in the same way that kiwifarms is entertaining. Some of his other science videos are just incredibly boring science porn, his understanding and ability to argue where politics is concerned is pretty inept, and the SJW (and especially Sarkeesian) stuff is played out and he's just shooting fish in a barrel.

Putting out some bad content doesn't make one a lolcow though.

 

[76LD910]

Even with the 800 videos about Anita Sarkeesian and tendency to feud with absolute exceptional individuals, I really don't think he qualifies as a lolcow.

More of a deliberate provocateur who occasionally is up his own ass enough to say some dumb shit and double down, but he's too much of a functional and reasonably successful and mentally stable person to be put in the lolcow category.

He was never so much of a lolcow as much as he drew lolcows to him, the whole Laughing Witch affair being the best example.

But with all his recent political sperging there might be hope for him yet.

 

[Assorted Nuts]

Thunderf00t says some dumb shit, but I'm not sure if he regularly puts out enough of it to be consistently funny. I never followed him that closely though. Did the Trump election finally break him?

There was this one time he went after Lauren Southern calling her the most dishonest reporter ever. Why? Because she called an anarchist anti-Trump protest anti-Trump. Not even kidding.

 

[Cato]

He was never so much of a lolcow as much as he drew lolcows to him, the whole Laughing Witch affair being the best example.

He's definitely a lolcow magnet, and even more the lolcows that go up against him always end up self-destructing in hilarious and ironic ways without fail.

There was Laughing Witch, after trying unsuccessfully to get TF fired, doxxing herself and getting her business inundated with trolling. There was Hannibal the Victor, who was a textbook white knight, being outed as a sex offender. There was Philip Moriarty calling TF a coward for hiding behind a pseudonym (even though TF's real name is well known and takes 2 seconds to look up) and then wiping all of his own accounts from the face of the Internet after getting backlash for putting all his information out there. There was Aurini making himself look like a complete pretentious idiot as usual while trying to claim TF was an "intellectual cosplayer." I know there are more examples I can't recall of the top of my head right now (EDIT - How did I forget Richard Carrier, white knight SJW feminist extraordinaire who accused people of rape on flimsy or non-existent evidence, only to get banned from conferences for sexual harassment).

It's been so consistent and so ironic that these exchanges have a surreal quality like they are a series of fables that teach a moral by having some ironic consequence for the characters.

And yes, I agree that lately he's done some dumb shit that borders on lolcow territory (notably going off on Lauren Southern on twitter accusing her of issuing takedown notices on his videos about her while she was like "dude, I have nothing to do with that," and then later casually acknowledging it wasn't her while pretending he didn't have a tantrum directed at her)...I don't think he's there yet but we'll see.

 

[76LD910]

He's definitely a lolcow magnet, and even more the lolcows that go up against him always end up self-destructing in hilarious and ironic ways without fail.

There was Laughing Witch, after trying unsuccessfully to get TF fired, doxxing herself and getting her business inundated with trolling. There was Hannibal the Victor, who was a textbook white knight, being outed as a sex offender. There was Philip Moriarty calling TF a coward for hiding behind a pseudonym (even though TF's real name is well known and takes 2 seconds to look up) and then wiping all of his own accounts from the face of the Internet after getting backlash for putting all his information out there. There was Aurini making himself look like a complete pretentious idiot as usual while trying to claim TF was an "intellectual cosplayer." I know there are more examples I can't recall of the top of my head right now.

It's been so consistent and so ironic that these exchanges have a surreal quality like they are a series of fables that teach a moral by having some ironic consequence for the characters.

And yes, I agree that lately he's done some dumb shit that borders on lolcow territory (notably going off on Lauren Southern on twitter accusing her of issuing takedown notices on his videos about her while she was like "dude, I have nothing to do with that," and then later casually acknowledging it wasn't her while pretending he didn't have a tantrum directed at her)...I don't think he's there yet but we'll see.

Yeah, Laughing Witch and a few of his other cow orbiters have their own threads here, but links aren't working for me for some reason so i couldn't edit my previous post to include them.

His "critique" of Lauren Southern was incredibly grasping for someone as clearly intelligent as he is, but i think Brexit kinda knocked a few of his screws loose and its only gotten worse since Trump.

 

[AnOminous]

Doesn't he have an actual job doing science?

 

[Cato]

Doesn't he have an actual job doing science?

Yes, he's an actual PhD chemist and works as a researcher.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

I'm pretty sure thunderf00t already has a thread somewhere on the farms.

Yeah, it was OPed by @jennymcpoopypants but it was sent to the spergatory because she provided no links or something along the lines. Also she's a crazy attention whore, so people didn't really believe what she was saying.

 

[76LD910]

Doesn't he have an actual job doing science?

He does, but he said a while ago that he makes more money on youtube.

Which makes his ass-hurt over Brexit kinda odd because when Laughing Witch and Co were trying to get him fired he actually offered to do his research without pay because he enjoyed it so much.

Then again his youtube prospects don't look as good as they did back then so he might not have that option anymore.

 

[Cato]

There was this one time he went after Lauren Southern calling her the most dishonest reporter ever. Why? Because she called an anarchist anti-Trump protest anti-Trump. Not even kidding.

His "critique" of Lauren Southern was incredibly grasping for someone as clearly intelligent as he is

Even better, he pinned this comment simply calling people "idiots" for responding critically to his first Lauren Southern video (he didn't pin it because it was a popular comment or anything; it only racked up "likes" after getting pinned).

 

[CatParty]

"I like this youtuber. Not a lolcow"

 

[Sanshain]

Even with the 800 videos about Anita Sarkeesian and tendency to feud with absolute exceptional individuals, I really don't think he qualifies as a lolcow.

More of a deliberate provocateur who occasionally is up his own ass enough to say some dumb shit and double down, but he's too much of a functional and reasonably successful and mentally stable person to be put in the lolcow category.

I agree with this, except I do think he is just about pompous enough to be a cow in his own right. I've watched a lot of his content, and while he does make valid points, he can also come across as extremely malicious at times. Despite being a learned man, he treats his audience like goldfish by constantly re-using the same pieces of footage over and over again, and it often seems as if he courts controversy just for the sake of self-aggrandizement. I don't hate him, but I don't particularly like him either.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Why do people call him a Nazi?