Salon Thinks They've Identified the NYC Serial Puncher. And the Guilty Party is All Men, Everywhere.

By now you're no doubt aware that women have been randomly getting punched in the face as they walk down the sidewalks of Manhattan. Including, though not limited to, the area around Barstool's New York headquarters:

And there has been four criminal complaints lodged in these attacks. Given the state of public discourse in times we find ourselves, it comes as no surprise that one is a former candidate for Mayor of New York:

But in no way does this mean we should let down our guard. One suspect being charged does not mean this case has been cracked and women are once again safe to walk the streets of NYC. Not by a damned sight. It's possible whoever has been committing these attacks did not act alone. Odds are there are probably other perps still walking free. And be assured our traditional media outlets will rest until these men are identified. 

So much credit where credit is due goes to Salon. Their crack team of investigative journos have done the research. Examined every possibility. Looked into the forensics. And they've been able to winnow down the list of possible suspects to a mere 3.5 billion. Basically all the males on planet Earth:

Source - Women report being assaulted by men of different races and ages. Still, across the different stories, a couple of similarities pop out: The alleged victims are mostly young and pretty, and most of them say they were minding their own business when they were attacked. Some were on their phones or reading on tablets. Others were speaking to friends or daydreaming. Whatever they were doing, they were just living their lives, and that, it seems, is what enraged their assailants. …

While it rarely turns to violence, most women who spend much time walking around in public have experience with men who berate them for paying attention to something other than the man who is now, often out of nowhere, spewing invectives. In our modern era, that often manifests with men who are infuriated at women for looking at their phones. But I'm old enough to remember when I would get yelled at for reading books in public. 

Whatever the excuse the angry man concocts, the impetus is always the same: The eyes of a woman are directed at someone or something that is not him, and he is indignant over it. So he will make sure she has no choice but to look at him, either by getting in her face or — in these alarming New York cases — punching her. If he cannot capture her adoring gaze, well, he will make her stare at him in fear. 

These stories resonate, as well, because the nation is having a moment of increasingly unhinged male fury at women for daring to have lives that are centered around something other than catering to a man's every whim. Unleashed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, there's an upswell of loud male entitlement shouting at us from every corner. 

We see it in the male fans of Jordan Peterson, who clamor to his events to hear him croak out a just-so story about how lobsters justify their faith in male dominance. Or the rise of "tradwives" online who make a living pretending they're unemployed and housebound. Or Ben Shapiro setting fire to a Barbie doll because he can't stand that a blockbuster comedy starring a woman is about anything but her quest for male affection. Or MAGA pundits telling lies about birth control, in hopes of tricking women into having babies before they're ready. Or conservatives writing op-eds that blame women for male loneliness, telling women they must self-sacrifice to relieve male pain by marrying Donald Trump voters. Or right-wing men yelling because Taylor Swift has cats or because she dates a hunky, vaccinated NFL player instead of, I dunno, having babies with a guy in ill-fitting cargo shorts. 

Well there you have it. Roll the credits and the promo for next week's all new episode. Because this case is closed. 

I think a lot of us were assuming the perps were mentally unstable, drug addicted, repeat violent offenders who keep being put back out on the streets by a broken criminal justice system, or some combination of all three. But nope. Salon pulled the mask off this phantom and uncovered the real phantom.

It's men. Not any particular man, mind you. Just the male species writ large. The guys (to use Sam Kinison's line) who turn Mr. Hand into Mr. Fist on innocence pedestrians are different races and ages. They have the diversity of the people at a football watch party in an NFL Shop commercial and are multi-generational. The one thing they share is a hatred for pretty women who mind their own business, live their lives, stare at their phones, or read books. Whom they feel should be giving them, their "adoring gaze." I'm sure when the NYPD got that mayoral candidate in the interrogation room and asked why he did it, that's what he said. "That influencer should've been giving me some of those sweet, sweet 'Come hither' bedroom eyes and catering to my every whim, not checking the likes on her Instagram post."

Hell, I'm sure they'll find he had just come from a Jordan Peterson lecture about hierarchies among lobsters. Perhaps he'd probably just scrolled a bunch of tradwife TikTok accounts and was listening to Ben Shapiro's podcast where he was bath mouthing movies about dolls. At the very least - at bare minimum, this suspect was enraged about Taylor Swift's fur babies, her choice of boyfriend and her unwillingness to get impregnated. And in his toxic, masculine rage, he took his male rage out on a stranger. 

Again, these men commit random acts of violence not because they belong in a psych ward or because they suffer from crippling addictions. They do it because that's what dudes do whenever chicks aren't giving them their full, undivided attention. 

That must be the case. It has to be. Othewise Salon just published an insane theory that's nothing but a laundry list of ridiculous grievances with absolutely zero evidence, facts or data to substantiate a word of it. While ignoring the actual fucking creeps doing the actual punching. And America's journos are better than that. 

So all we have to do is round up every man and charge them all for their unhinged male fury at women. But I'd still strongly recommend every one stay safe and keep their heads on a swivel.