Cancelling Mike Boudet
There is something to be said about the power of social media. It’s utility as a way of quickly spreading information across the globe. Mobilizing the masses has gone a long way towards “righting” many wrongs in the world, and sparking activism towards noble causes. From the Arab Spring to the recent Hong Kong Protests, social media and namely Twitter, have been a source of undeniable good.
But like many inventions throughout history, once in the hands of human beings, tools like this are often corrupted and bastardized to perform harm. The very utility of being able to spread information quickly that makes them powerful, can be used to spread misinformation instead. The cause of defending human rights and social justice can often truly be a smokescreen for bolstering egos and attacking those you simply don’t like. The tribalism and mob-mentality inherent in us as a species, doesn’t just go way when you link everyone together through an invisible communal tether. Instead, those flaws become amplified and propagate like wildfire.
I was born into a world that didn’t have Internet, that didn’t have social media. In what is now considered this archaic time period, if you wanted to do good in the world you would contribute your time or money to a charity, maybe distribute some food to the homeless or visit with a lonely elderly person at the nursing home. Nowadays, almost an entire generation that grew up in the Internet age believes that activism is about tweeting your disapproval for behavior and getting those who don’t abide by that behavior “cancelled.”
That’s the environment that led to the celebrity-created #MeToo movement.
This movement started as a seemingly well-intentioned way for women who had been raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed to come forward in solidarity. A lot of good has come out of this movement. I have personally heard from rape survivors that said that #MeToo was the reason they decided to finally come forward and tell their stories after years of misplaced and unnecessary guilt and shame.
But soon, and almost immediately, the temptation for some individuals out there, who had other agendas, became too great. Suddenly there was a great way to “take down” any man, in any position, that you don’t like simply by making an accusation. The accusation itself no longer had to have any element of truth behind it. Nobody would have the courage to check, because the movement itself demanded that you “believe all victims” and anything short of doing just that is “victim blaming” or “gaslighting” (a very popular term these days).
The target was now clear: men. All men are shit. All men are pigs. All men are cancelled. Time’s up.
This is the perfect storm for creating an animosity and distrust between the sexes, much like the #BlackLivesMatter movement promoted a distrust between law enforcement and the general public. Perhaps that was the goal for a particular misandrist contingent of this movement all along. The focus on the victims or survivors at this point lost in the larger goal of yet again “taking down the man”, in some cases with unfounded and outright bizarre accusations by some who just wanted to be included, and some that wanted to take advantage of this movement for their own selfish reasons.
In some cases, such as that of Ryan Seacrest, the #MeToo movement was used as the perfect backdrop for outright extortion, with the so-called “victim” of this case allegedly demanding $15 million in hush money. Garrison Keillor, the folksy personality behind Minnesota Public Radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion” had his show cancelled after being accused of sexual misconduct in the form of what he called emails of mutually “romantic writing” with certain members of his staff. Comedian Louis C.K., one of the most successful comedians of our time, is still a pariah in Hollywood for asking female peers for consent, which they gave, before masturbating into a potted plant. Weird, I know, but the keyword there was “consent” in case you missed it. Even America’s favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, was caught up in this fervor to “cancel” all heterosexual men before an embarrassing investigation cleared him of the seemingly bogus charges.
And that’s just a small sampling of the massive list of men ensnared by #MeToo’s subsequent witch hunt. Staunch advocates for the movement dismiss the multiple examples of overreach and even mock the fear some men have expressed in working closely with women in today’s environment. They say things like, “if you don’t want to be accused of sexual harassment, then just don’t be a creep.” But clearly, this assumes the obviously naive notion that everyone tells the truth all the time, and that nobody could possibly ever take advantage of a situation to enrich themselves or take revenge upon someone who they feel have slighted them.
The reason i know all of this is because I’ve seen it firsthand. It’s in this #MeToo environment that various flat out lies have been posted about me online doing inappropriate things and spread like wildfire, because again, nobody’s checking facts or perhaps the facts simply don’t matter. Every victim should be believed, because every victim always tells the truth… allegedly.
Needless to say, at this point I’ve been called everything from a sexual predator to a pedophile by some of the more unhinged. Those with low intelligence and eager to believe everything they read online (of which there are a surprisingly high number) take statements like this and perpetuate them in several other places. They post in private Facebook groups of other podcasts. They gossip about me at podcast conventions. They even interrupt coworkers’ conversations in the workplace, when they hear someone mention “Sword and Scale”, so they can interject their opinions about me based on an anonymous Reddit post, Tumblr blog, or parody Twitter account like @fakemikeboudet. @mikesbidet, or even @MBCumsOnBirds (Yes, that account name is “Mike Boudet Cums on Birds” and it comes complete with its own Tumblr account.)
This has been happening for over four years now, predating the #MeToo movement by several years, and to be honest it’s highly disappointing, emotionally draining, and extremely exhausting. I’m often told that it’s my fault, that I play into it by simply trying to defend myself.
If at this point you’re thinking to yourself “what a whiner” or “he’s so not a victim”, then feel free to stop reading, put on your yoga pants, and go get yourself a Kombucha while angrily tweeting some more about the orange guy in the White House. However, if you’re still interested, I’ll tell you how it all started...
One late afternoon, sometime in late 2015 or 2016, Marissa Jones from The Vanished Podcast sent me a private message to tell me that there was a large group of people “fangirling” about me on the official “My Favorite Murder” Facebook group.
Of course, being someone with a pulse, I was curious.
I joined the group, was immediately accepted, and it didn’t take me long to see what she was talking about. The top post with hundreds of comments was about me. Well, it wasn’t just about me, it was also about “how sexy my voice is.”
I commented “hello” in the group and was immediately swarmed with comments, some of which could be labeled as PG-13. If you must know… one of the ladies in this group commented that my voice was so sexy she wanted to sit on my throat while I talked.
For someone who had largely been ignored by the opposite sex all his life, to suddenly be treated like Elvis, is a bit confusing. Nobody ever gives you a “How to be a Pseudo-Celebrity for Dummies” book when you start a popular podcast. So I engaged in some playful retort with the majority-female audience of this group. Keep in mind, the entirety of these exchanges were publicly posted in a group with thousands of members. There was no harassing of anybody. Everyone was there by choice and the entirety of the thread, at the time, was available for anyone who wanted to see it.
At this point some of the more “uppity” mods in the group decided to publicly scold me for playing into the behavior that was already quite underway before I had gotten there. I told them to fuck off. Of course, these are not the type of ladies that take kindly to that kind of language coming from a man...
Needless to say, I got booted from the group at that point and the entire thread was deleted, and along with it any evidence of context. Some of the more easily offended in the crowd captured “receipts” in the form of screenshots which they would use years later. Let me reiterate that… these screenshots (or “receipts”) were kept on someone’s hard drive for YEARS, only to be cleverly edited (to remove equally sexually suggestive comments by members of their own group) and improperly paint me as the disgusting man-pig they want to continually claim that I am.
What I wish I had known at the time, but didn’t, was that this group had a significantly large population of what can only be described as “The PC Police.” The very subject of the group, the highly politically correct podcast known as My Favorite Murder, would eventually become the target of these same “defenders of Political Correctness”. This occurred when it was pointed out, by one of these group members, that a t-shirt in their store featuring the motif of their catch phrase “stay out of the forest” included a depiction of a teepee (or “tipi” ...not sure which spelling is correct). “Cultural appropriation”, they called it, and immediately began tripping over themselves to see which one of them could be more offended.
The campaign to label this seemingly benign piece of merch as “problematic” had begun, leading to several new-wave feminist blogs writing their typical similar-sounding hit pieces. Eventually the pressure by this sensitive crowd of virtue signalers pressured the hosts of the show to remove the shirt from their store and donate $10,000 to an unnamed Indigenous charity. At least, they said they did. I never saw “receipts” of that. Even then, some of the more extreme SJW “fans” continued to insist that this was not enough of a correction and that it took too long for the shirt to be removed, yet again exhibiting even more faux outrage.
You’ll hear this language a lot online these days in regards to “holding someone accountable for problematic behavior.” It’s the new mantra of the left and lumps in serial rapists with someone who designed a so-called culturally insensitive t-shirt. It dilutes the actual effectiveness of any online activism with an overreach that turns off those that would otherwise support a clearly worthwhile cause.
This extremist behavior is almost never based on ACTUAL social justice. It’s based on ego. Who’s the bigger virtue signaler... who finds more things to be offended about... who’s more “Woke” than everyone else. It’s spearheaded by attention-seeking celebrities and propagated by the bored masses who think that retweeting a call to “cancel” someone they don’t like is actual activism. Even within the most liberal of communities, this race to see who’s most offended can be exhausting because it’s clearly, in no way, productive towards fixing society’s actual important issues.
This is the psychology behind someone who would actively take part in a Facebook group like “The Society for the Re-Education of Sword and Scale Fans.” Yes, that is an actual group. Despite its obvious arrogant name, this group boasts over 5000 members and its sole purpose is to “cancel” me simply because they don’t like me. The fact that there’s a group of people who think it’s their job to target a true-crime podcaster due to feelings being hurt by a comment they heard on a FUCKING ENTERTAINMENT PODCAST, should tell you all you need to know.
Pinned post by the moderator of “The Society for the Re-Education of Sword and Scale Fans” Facebook Group.
The multiple daily posts on this group, that was started by a former fan that I said “mean words to”, feature commentary on everything I do online and speculation about what I do offline; Everything from mocking Sword and Scale episodes to reposting images from my personal Instagram, gossiping about my personal life, to creating disparaging memes featuring homophobic imagery or body shaming me. The group has even gone as far as to repost slanderous allegations about me regarding underaged girls, which I am currently pursuing legal action against.
The obsessive nature of this group is downright creepy, and the fact that it seems to have become a hodgepodge of “all things anti-mike” has attracted a plethora of characters who have either felt slighted by me at some point in time in the past; More specifically… competing podcasts that are envious of my success. Yes, Rabia Chaudry from the moderately-successful podcast “Undisclosed”, who sent her mob of 100k followers ofter me and my advertisers last year, is a member and frequent contributor to the group.
This same group continues to try to push this narrative that the incident in March, where the Wondery Podcast Network decided to cut ties with me, wasn’t about a few sensitive people taking offense to a reposted joke meme with the word “cunt” in it. Instead, “this is just one incident in a pattern of behavior” they say again and again. Apparently, these brilliant minds think jokes, dark humor, and playful online banter make you worthy of being looped into the same category as Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, and Bill Cosby.
The allegations which continue to be irresponsibly regurgitated throughout the podcast community, and all over the Internet by this collective, are completely fabricated and have zero basis in fact.
Let me be 100% clear...
I have never made any inappropriate sexual remarks, either online or offline, to any underaged person.
I have never sexually harassed anyone I’ve ever worked with or has worked for me. There is no intern or ex-employee that has ever made any such allegation.
At no point have I ever continued to pursue anyone romantically after they’ve expressed that they are not interested in me.
I have never grabbed, groped, inappropriately touched anyone in any situation, and certainly not anyone who I wasn’t already in an intimate relationship with.
I have, on the other hand, been grabbed, groped, and even photographed in a men’s room by others at meetup events. I expressed my clear verbal objection at the time, extracted myself from the situation, and left it at that.
I have never sent anyone a “dick pic”, solicited or unsolicited, ever.
Finally, I have never even cheated on any intimate partner IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.
Is that clear enough for you? Does that sound like a sexual predator?
At worst, the only thing I’ve ever done is compliment an attractive adult woman online that was already talking about me in a complementary fashion. Once again, I was not in a relationship at the time, and when the interest seemed to not be mutual, I immediately refrained from any future interaction. I have never, and would never, harass anyone and I find the allegations of this behavior personally abhorrent.
I’ve also, while we’re being honest, been an asshole to certain people. I think we all have, unless you’re Gandhi or Mother Theresa. In addition, when you’re running a business you can’t be nice to everyone all the time. Occasionally someone is going to get upset at you because you didn’t let them take advantage of you. It’s part of life, and the human experience, to occasionally be a dick to someone at some point in time. Some of those instances I regret, and some I do not.
Yes, I’m an asshole. Is that a reason to condemn someone and try over and over again to get their livelihood stripped away and their reputation destroyed?
To give you an idea of how far these people have gone to target me in their “cancel” quest, let me tell you about a little project called Surviving This…
Back in 2017, I produced and recorded Episode 99 of Sword and Scale, which featured multiple stories from male sexual abuse survivors including Jim Clemente, host and creator of the show Real Crime Profile. In exchange, I agreed to be on their podcast as a guest for the ninety-second episode. Immediately, the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) started targeting Real Crime Profile’s Facebook group and spreading lies about me. One of the show’s co-hosts immediately decided to take all the false allegations as fact and started apologizing publicly for taking part in the interview exchange. “Believe All Victims”, they say...
Fast forward to a few months ago when I decided to visit the often ignored topic of male sexual abuse on Episode 147 featuring a story that a listener sent in. This ACTUAL victim had done so only after being inspired by listening to that first episode with Jim Clemente, and he had not really shared his story before apart from his immediate family. He’s a big burly dude, a truck driver who you wouldn’t want to mess with. Listening to his story you could hear the cracking of his voice exposing the young boy who’s innocence had been stolen by someone else’s perversion. There were so many elements of his story that sounded so eerily familiar to my own past that I felt the need to take an extra step and try to use my platform to help other survivors out there like him who may still be suffering in silence.
I set up a website called SurvivingThis.com with a call-in line so that anyone could leave their anonymous story and share it with others. I promoted it on my podcast and we immediately began receiving dozens of heartbreaking calls, all of which are now published anonymously on the website. A few weeks later, I decided to consolidate all the calls into an RSS feed and make them available as a podcast to further expand the reach of these survivors’ stories.
Almost immediately, the “social justice warriors” that are behind “The Society for the Re-Education of Sword and Scale Fans” decided to target it and start posting their anonymous one-star ratings and libelous reviews about my character on Apple Podcasts in an attempt to make the project fail.
This is a perfect example of the evils of virtue signaling.
This not-for-profit venture was nothing but an attempt to give abuse survivors a voice and a platform; a safe space to tell their stories without ridicule or blame. The “podcast” if you can even call it that, was just a collection of voicemail recording by survivors telling their stories. That’s it. No narration... No Production… This was never meant to be about me in any way, but those that always make it “about them” don’t know how to tell the difference. The only people these defenders of social justice effectively hurt were those that had already been brutally victimized.
If that doesn’t make you mad, I don’t know what will. It certainly pissed me off.
Anyone who falsely weaponizes a movement meant to protect sexual abuse survivors should be ashamed of themselves. But they won’t be, because “shame” is only something they know how to dish out, not experience themselves.
So as things currently stand, “The Society for the Re-Education of Sword and Scale Fans” is still highly active and continuing to try to remove me from various platforms such as AdvertiseCast and the Himalaya app, as well as targeting anyone who has the audacity to advertise on the show of such a horrible monster such as myself.
Despite this, I am not as of yet “cancelled”. You can bet that I will continue to defend my character both by being outspoken publicly and through legal channels.
I continue to fund SurvivingThis.com out of my own pocket and will continue to host and produce Sword and Scale, and produce other shows like Sword and Scale Daily for the foreseeable future.
And I’ll continue to hold out hope that as a society, maybe one day, we’ll finally grow a pair of balls big enough to “cancel” Cancel Culture and “re-educate” the Re-Educators.