#as if the fedora was somehow a thing MRAs declared was their symbol and not some arbitrary thing projected on to them by their detractors

[ferventfox]

The way I remember it, and I could very well  be remembering it wrongly, is that neckbeard fedora wearing guy (the idea, not necessarily attached to this photo) was originally a 4chan (or 4chan adjacent) stock character first. It was this caricature of a guy who was awkward and physically unappealing, but thought a cloth pinstripe fedora from Target and speaking to women like he was from a different century would make him some sort of sophisticated gentleman that women would be interested here. (The underlying ‘joke’ I think is that this guy took ‘it’s actually about personality and not about looks’ seriously and that was foolish of him).

This was naturally adjacent to the ‘Nice Guy’ archetype that neither 4chan adjacent or sjw tumblr people liked, the former because they thought he was pathetic and the latter because they thought he was an entitled misogynist. So at some point, sj people just started uncritically attaching moral value to people’s appearances. Because the repulsion they felt toward overweight men who dress bad was definitely because those guys were misogynists and bad people and absolutely not for any other reason.

apologize to him