Many Such Takes: Fancy Treat Boy, The Trad Polycule, Menswear Guy Fake-Doxxed, Fertility Fearmongering

The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free

Welcome to Many Such Takes! I stay up to date with the latest and most chaotic Twitter discourse so you don’t have to. If you see yourself featured here and you don’t like it, simply send me a Substack message and I will happily remove, no matter who you are or what you said. Right now I generally abide by censoring usernames if the person’s ideology is something I consider dangerous, or if the person is a small or small-ish account who said something controversial and who has the potential to be overrun with too many negative comments if not kept anonymous. Generally, I do not censor large accounts or accounts who said things that I don’t think will open them up to undue criticism. This week…

Fancy Treat Boy

If you’re active on liberal or leftist twitter you’ve probably seen Ben Gross posting. I don’t know his specific political leanings, something on the left certainly (progressive? social democrat? liberal? Something uncontroversial.) He likes to read. He’s posted about fitness. He was excited to see Twitter darling Menswear Guy post a thread of cool backpacks. He is, for lack of a better word, a normal guy. But if you saw his profile for the first time today, you’d see that he added “fancy treat boy” to his bio. Why, you might ask?

Well, earlier this week, Ben posted a dessert he received as a birthday surprise when he went to a restaurant. The worst thing about this post was that it was banal and unremarkable the way all restaurant food photos are; otherwise it was hard to imagine what anyone could take issue with. Well, according to one Twitter user, he’s nothing but a dirty, good for nothing, fancy treat boy:

Like many weird Twitter arguments, one can safely assume this poster had preexisting hatred or annoyance (in this case, for Ben Gross aka Fancy Treat Boy) although from discussions I saw, it doesn’t look like the two of them have previously interacted in a meaningful way. Things got unnecessarily dark when Ben was inexplicably edited into a Nazi-themed meme that apparently took a decent amount of work and multiple font decisions:

Generally, most of Twitter sided with Ben on this being a pretty weird reaction to a photo of a dessert:

Posting_forever defended herself by pointing out that Ben is a “zionist” (a quick search on his profile shows no evidence of him supporting Israel). When asked for proof, she was able to procure a few screenshots of him saying that he didn’t think Hamas was good. Ultimately, she took a cue from the Nickname Mastermind Donald Trump, and coined the name Ben ‘Treat Boy’ Gross, which I…kind of love?

Ben Gross hit back when posting_forever posted that she planned to treat herself to some admittedly “fancy” beers:

Other Twitter users joined in on the pile-on (it felt a lot like “wordy comics 2.0” but more insane.) Ben was hit with increasingly bizarre accusations, from an peculiarly-worded comment about him being “effete” and “limp-wristed” (“Just say the F-slur,” another user responded) to another user saying that he held more institutional power than Benjamin Netanyahu, who, unlike Ben, is at the beck and call of the Israeli people and isn’t truly responsible for his actions.

Calling Ben “Little Lord Fauntleroy” opened up a whole new gimmick for amusing tweets:

But ultimately, Ben seemed willing to forgive and forget, like a true poaster:

If you’re sad that the Fancy Treat Boy segment is ending, fear not, because we wound up getting a sequel just hours later, involving completely different people and a sunburn instead of a dessert. I present to you: Fancy Treat Boy 2: 2 White 2 Complain.

This was a fun mashup of Twitter insanity because the drama started on parenting Twitter, not leftist/liberal Twitter. It started with a woman posting that her daughter had gone to day camp and the counselors had failed to reapply sunscreen for outdoor activities, despite this being part of the camp’s policy. Unfortunately, a particular Twitter user (whose username I’ve censored since it’s a very small account) felt this was a frivolous thing to post about in light of the fact that worse problems exist:

We have so many questions. First: how did these people even find each other? Unlike the original Fancy Treat Boy, these are two fairly un-famous accounts that were unlikely to have any preexisting beef with each other or even each other’s “groups.” So what the hell is going on? This take sums up my feelings on the subject:

Thou Shalt Have Hoes in Different Area Codes

Right-wing Christian account DCtheCapital recently posted a mega-thread about how he practices his faith, as a devout Christian. Conveniently, his faith specifically requires that he “court” multiple women, some of whom are his wife’s friends:

The thread went on to borrow from common pickup artist slop, such as describing his wife as having “friendzoned” him in high school, and saying that jealousy is the “fountain of female arousal.” Honestly, the entire thread reads like he enjoys fucking around and his wife maybe has some kind of cuck fetish, but like the trads who insist they are serving God by spanking their wives, this guy seems unable to just be like, “This is our kink:”

You’ll notice he is still anti-fornication, somehow. His argument is that he is “committed to his concubines” and thus having sex with them isn’t fornication. Cue Richard Nixon: when the President does it, it’s not illegal. DC Capital has come up with a loophole that has me wondering if he would make a pretty good tax accountant:

Now, for those of you who have just lost faith in marriage, never fear. Christian Twitter (and secular Twitter) wasn’t cool with this, given the obvious hypocrisy. Honestly, if this guy wants to justify this lifestyle, he’d have an easier time starting a cult.

Anti-Woke Proposal

When a man proposes to a woman, many thoughts run through his mind. Will she say yes? Is the hidden photographer capturing our moment perfectly? Is this how she wanted me to do it? Will I remember this day as I’m on my death bed surrounded by my grandkids? But especially, Aha, I have defeated The Gays.

That’s exactly what conservative commentator Addison Smith thought when he proposed to his now-fiance. More specifically, that by proposing in the month of June, he had “defeated Pride Month.”

Responses to this incredibly bizarre caption ranged from the incredulous, to people body-shaming Addison or insinuating that he was secretly gay himself. Things got a bit crazy, and he locked his account. That was probably a good decision on his part, given that the story wound up on the Daily Mail. Given that he’s a conservative commentator, this is unlikely to damage his career, aside from it being spectacularly cringe.

I’m going to say what nobody else was brave enough to say about these photos: I need to know where she got her dress.

Menswear Guy Fake-Doxxed

Continuing last week’s drama of Menswear Guy feuding with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, somehow Gavin got his hands on an image of a person he believed was Menswear Guy:

Only a few problems: this guy looks great, Menswear Guy being of Asian descent is not a surprise (he’s said so himself) but most importantly…this isn’t Menswear Guy at all.

In fact, this is a completely different fashion influencer, as one of my replies pointed out to me:

Despite the image not actually being of him, Menswear Guy used it to once again make fun of Gavin McInnes’ linen suit:

Some naysayers pointed out that Foo, aka Fake Menswear Guy wasn’t actually dressed that well because he was wearing square-toed shoes and his pants were cuffed. I think this is one of those things where you’d need to be a serious menswear aficionado to notice or care. From my perspective as a woman who likes woman’s fashion, he looks great. Not that it matters—he’s not Menswear Guy. But still.

Fertility Fearmongering

If you’ve never seen Veronica, aka celestialbe1ng before, then here’s a brief overview: this is a right-wing coded account (although I haven’t seen her post much about politics, you can just…tell right away) who posts a lot about natural nutrition and skincare. Sounds harmless enough, except that most of what she posts is questionable, such as the idea that “carrot salad” cures PMS, the fact that she believes menopause is unnatural and brought on by various toxins, and most baffling, she refers to sugar (as long as it’s “clean sugar” being the “ultimate biohack.” In case you’re imagining pineapples and coconut milk, she’s talking about Dr. Pepper.

It’s easy to see why her account is so popular, though. I just scrolled through to get content for this article, but even I was not immune to her charms: first of all, she’s extremely pretty, and if you read enough of her posts you can be tricked into thinking her beauty all comes down to using beef tallow as a moisturizer, drinking lots of orange juice and avoiding various “toxins.”

In addition, she has done some impressive world-building to convince her followers that most bad things can be traced back to lifestyle choices, from premature aging to cancer. While this means anything bad that happens is your fault for eating what “they” want you to eat (I’ll give you one wild guess as to who the nefarious forces probably are), it also means you can basically prevent all problems by doing things that are actually kind of fun. I mean, eating gelatin-based desserts? Drinking coffee? Not fasting or doing cold plunges? What’s not to love? It’s easy to see why she has such a following. She regularly criticizes modern punitive and monastic wellness culture and extolling the virtues of eating steak and orange juice, going outside, and living life in abundance. She is, for lack of a better word, a bizarro Andrew Huberman for young right-wingers.

Typically, Veronica exists in her own space on Beef Tallow/Ray Peat Twitter. But recently she went viral for blasting a bunch of beauty products as having a “significant chance” of causing infertility:

Other users were quick to point out that the vast majority of people use products like these (or at least, products other than beef tallow and various non-seed oils) and manage to have kids. Or the fact that lower-class people, who are less likely to use fancy all-natural remedies for their skin, have more kids than middle-class people who are neurotically obsessed with clean beauty. Some of my favorite QTs from this drama:

The most unhinged response to Veronica’s post was this guy, who went so far as to say that abstaining from perfume is actually a question of faith. Who could forget one of the ten commandments, Thou Shalt Not Use Pink Sugar?

Best Tweets of the Week

• This wholesome and extremely useful thread of every recipe that Adam James Pollock has made.

• This take on blocking:

  

• Being serious for a moment: this thread breaking down Project 2025 for those of us who don’t want to read 900 pages

• This nugget about Travis Kelce:

• Comedian Dan Hentschel posted this satire tweet, which multiple people (myself included) believed was real:

• This tweet about men getting turned on by clothes they consider modest:

  

• Adults believing the book Lolita was pervy fetish art based on the anime lolis

  

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