Ariel Pink Gets Maced "By a Feminist"

Can you imagine getting maced on a first date? Ariel Pink's story about how he got maced on a smoothie date makes both himself and the mace-ee come off badly: the unnamed macer, a woman, may seem a little unhinged, but Pink comes off as a casual misogynist (and this is coming from someone who gets "Kinski Assassin" stuck in their head on a regular basis).

Which is surprising, because Ariel Pink (also known as Ariel Rosenberg) generally has the kind of attitude towards women you'd expect from a thirtysomething lo-fi weirdo pop musician. He wears genderbending clothing and he calls out people on Fox News' Red Eye for adhering to the gender binary.

But when Pink went on actress and podcaster Alexi Wasser's show Alexi in Bed to tell the story a mysterious tweet from July of last year, he had a completely different attitude. Ariel Pink tells the story of a woman he went on a date with who got really angry with him when he didn't pay for their lunch date and proceeded to spray mace in his eyes, smash his windshield and rearview mirrors, and scratch "asshole" into the side of his van.

He says a lot of cringe-worthy things, which is strange because he didn't really need to say any of them. No one is trying to defend this woman's actions. But Ariel Pink's comments put the story into question. Watch the video below for the whole story, but here are some of his most questionable comments:

"I got maced by a feminist. #hatecrime."

This is how Ariel Pink introduces the story, somewhat jokingly looking into the camera. He identifies, not a woman, but a "feminist," as if the modus operandi of all feminists is to go around spraying mace into the faces of bad dates. Let's be clear: these two facts have absolutely no connection. Wasser rolls her eyes in reaction, as women around the world watching this video do the same.

"She talked about her dad all night. And I listened. Whatever."

Pink actually mentions this several times in the video, complaining that although the two never got to "do it," he had to listen to her "daddy issues" all night. This is another conception that many "nice guys" have, that being nice to women means that they owe them something. Even if Ariel Pink simply means that he's surprised at how she treated him after he listened to her, the point remains that no one made him listen to her in the first place, so why complain about it?

"Girls don't eat, by the way."

This is one of these generalizations about women that are, for some reason, supposed to be inherently funny but usually cause a physical reaction in me where my eyes automatically head for the ceiling. Besides being obviously untrue, these kind of statements make light of the many women who actually have serious body issues.

"She didn't know who I was, by the way."

There's this really strange part at the end of the video where Ariel Pink explains that he went home with this girl because she didn't know who he was and he was just "a piece of meat" to her. Ariel Pink then goes onto explain that he's never met anyone who doesn't know who he is (really dude? I mean, you may be famous among weirdo twentysomethings, but that doesn't exactly equal national fame). He then says most people sleep with him because he's a genius, then he says that genius really means idiot, and we all walk away from the video thoroughly confused and vaguely disappointed by in-person Ariel Pink.

So take from this story what you will — We'll never look at a smoothie the same way again.