Wokefishing is the act of pretending to have ultra right-on opinions in an effort to get social justice warriors into bed… because, apparently, some people want to do that.
A new problem has hit the left-wing dating world, and the problem is ‘wokefishing.’ The phrase is a play on ‘catfishing,’ which means pretending to be someone you are not online to lure someone into a relationship. The issue is apparently enough of a problem that Vice, the achingly SJW online magazine, has devoted a lengthy article explaining what the problem is and interviewing “victims” of this cruel political dupery.
Vice describes the phenomenon as “masquerading as holding progressive political views to ensnare potential partners,” I know, the horror. Apparently, techniques of these “wokefish” include pretending to be a “protest-attending, sex-positive, anti-racist, intersectional feminist who drinks ethically sourced oat milk…but in reality not giving a sh*t”. Quite why you would be disappointed that your partner was actually less of an insufferable arse than they originally appeared to be, I don’t know, but then again, I’m not woke, nor am I trying to sleep with anyone who is.
The Vice piece is written by a woman who says that when she was 17 she decided to become a vegan, this apparently prompted the chap she was seeing at the time to ask “Oh god, you’re not going to become one of those vegan feminists are you?” Our narrator tells us that this left her “confused” for her paramour had not come across like someone who “hated vegan feminists.” Alas, their dalliance ended shortly thereafter, whereupon she deduced that he had “reeled her in with an outwardly woke persona.”
Wokefishing, we are informed, is apparently on the rise, particularly in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the coronavirus. The article goes on to detail the experiences of yet more “victims”of this cruel deception. We hear from one gentleman who tells us that on his first date with a chap “they talked about racism in the UK.” Call me old fashioned, but that seems like a pretty heavy topic for a first date. As an opening gambit: “Hello, you look lovely, tell me, what should we do to address white supremacy in society?” wouldn’t exactly be a “move” I’d go for.
Anyway, apparently this chap’s lover didn’t put his words into practice, he was just presenting as a social justice warrior but he didn’t mean it. Lucky escape I’d say, for the lover.
More stories flow about the perils of dating while believing neo-Marxist codswallop. A woman tells us how she had been with her ex-boyfriend for a year before she realised he “never acknowledged his own privilege” and ended it with him. Another girl reveals she had dated a man for six months before he told her that he “used to be a Nazi” (okay, I will give them that one).
This sort of tripe has Vice’s stock in trade. There are endless articles about whether it’s okay to date/kiss/shag a Tory interspersed with the best queer quarantine hairstyles and how pegging (don’t Google that at work) is the latest TikTok trend.
But I can’t help feeling sorry for these people who think that they can’t date someone unless they completely agree on everything. This just sounds like a recipe for being alone, being bored or both. It is almost cult-like to demand intellectual conformity from potential partners, but that is what these perpetually single ideologues seem to want.
As one of the girls interviewed says of an ex who’d “wokefished” her, “he didn’t accept that some things are fundamental to people’s identity and not up for questioning,” she has literally just outed herself as a fundamentalist and yet it is her former boyfriend who is at fault?
Also on rt.com Next up, conversion therapy: The new left says you’re a bigot unless you have sex with EVERY genderWhile ‘wokefishing’ is a catchy phrase which makes it sound like the perpetrators are being particularly duplicitous, is it really any different to the time-honoured tradition of people pretending to be interested in things to get their end away? Is pretending to be ‘woke’ any worse than pretending to like the theatre or football because you fancy someone?
In fact, given the prevalence of cancel culture and people being hectored for being not woke enough, could their revelations of their true feelings about issues not be seen as a sign that they feel comfortable with another person? Maybe this is them dropping the mask they have to wear every day at work or college and letting someone else in? Surely being able to make unguarded comments is the only way any relationship can hope to flourish?
The one good piece of advice this article does give out is “if a dude describes himself on Hinge as a ‘feminist,’ pay close attention to how he actually treats women.” That is stellar advice, how many times have we seen these ‘woke’ men turn out to be hideous predators using feminism to get close to women? Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray have both made this observation, likening the male feminist to weasels and cuttlefish respectively. Even the Guardian has spotted that too often these #MeToo, #TimesUp, #TheFutureIsFemale beta-males turn out to be creeps in woke clothing.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.