Talk:Red pill and blue pill/Archive 1

Archive 1

Matrix Online

I've edited the portion of the entry that discusses the presence of the term 'Redpill' in The Matrix Online. Namely, I deleted the reference it makes about living in Zion, as no part of the game actually allows this (unless that's what you want to say, roleplaying-wise, if you let your account run out). I have, however, put something back in to make up for what I took out; a brief explanation of where things go once someone begins playing the game.--MythicFox 11:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Crystal Method

I've added a line to the trivia section to include the song from the Crystal Method titled 'Red Pill' 212.2.167.199 01:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Redpill AB?

The Redpill AB statement seems irrelevant. Should it be deleted?GlobeGores 01:39, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, no one seems to have any comment, so I will delete it. GlobeGores 03:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

There was less than two hours between the time you posted the request and the time you did the deletion.

Dossier

If anyone can read the information in Neo's dossier that Smith opened in the interrogation room, we may have our answer on what Neo's age really is. The range of 30-35 is logical, but it may never be determined without this visual record from the movie. I believe I found this information before, but its source now escapes me. Spencerian 00:00, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It is near on impossible to do so. The dossier is never displayed face-on to the camera, and when we can see it, it's at an angle. At those points, you can't even see any print, let alone try to read the information displayed on the pages. A Prodigy ~In Pursuit of Perfection~ 18:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Direction of this article

The lead section implies this article is discussing the term as a person aware of the matrix, but the bulk of the content is references to the red pill as an item from the matrix. It appears there is sufficient content to potentially justify an article on the latter aspect, but focusing on it's usage as a slang term (or a slang term within a fictional universe) has questionable notability for it's own article. I'm not quite sure what to do about this. I'm thinking it would be best to reorganize the article to be about the red pill from the matrix and move it to Red pill or Red pill (The Matrix). Opinions would be appreciated; I'd like to avoid just sending this article up for AFD, as it has some decent content, unlike the now deleted Bluepill article. -Verdatum (talk) 18:33, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

This section of the article:

" In the movie, a Redpill is the term used to describe a human who has been freed from the Matrix, a fictional computer-generated world set in 1999. Bluepill refers to a human still connected to the Matrix."

Is factually incorrect. While it is possible that within the wider Matrix universe this kind of terminology is used, at no point in any of the three films comprising the trilogy does anybody refer to a human using this pill metaphor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.34.227 (talk) 07:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

From what i see, in matrix revolutions, while looking for a colleague in the matrix, they say the line "Nothing but blue pills.", suggesting that at least the blue pill expression is used at least once. But I just got that from a google search on a line that stuck in my head, i've actually never seen the movie. -Verdatum (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Matilda

In Roald Dahl's Matilda (Danny DeVito) at 00:23:58 one of the students is caught eating two M&M's, one red and one blue. As this film was made in 1996, is it possible the The Matrix crew were making a subtle reference (Easter Egg) to Matilda? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smeacock (talk • contribs) 18:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Intro. Use of the term within the film

I have removed the last sentence of the introduction and replaced it with a more accurate representation of what happens in the film as the terms redpill and bluepill are only used a couple of times in the film (first by morpheus when offering neo the choice and later once by cypher) at neither time is either term used to refer to a person but rather literally a red or blue pill. The citation given at the end of this sentence linked to an opinion piece in a korean news paper about religion and the matrix and did not in anyway support the sentence (or any other part of the introduction). Loganrah (talk) 06:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Strange Wording

"Redpills appear to have either seen "glitches" within the Matrix (e.g. a book continuously reappearing on a shelf, regardless of attempts to remove the book)." This sentence appears to be missing a section; it seems to be prefacing more than one possibility, but ends in an odd manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chardansearavitriol (talk • contribs) 19:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

New Background Section

The existing background section was confusing and convoluted. I have rewritten it to be a more concise background of the terms in relation to their origins in the 'The Matrix' films. If anyone has issues with this current version please let me know and do not attempt to undo or rewrite without reason. I am flexible as to rewriting it, but anything is better than what was there before! Cyrus40540057 (talk) 19:15, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Move to "red pill"

I think the term "red pill" is probably more notable and widely used than the conjoined "redpill". –xeno^talk 20:31, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. ceranthor 21:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. 78.82.141.241 (talk) 18:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. --Wuestenschiff Dune-talk 19:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wuestenschiff (talk • contribs)

Agreed. "Redpill matrix" conjoined only gets 65,000 hits versus over 350,000 with the space. Thus "red pill" is more notable and widely used. If redpill is a sub-usage, that can be noted in the article. Cyferx (talk) 18:39, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Since everyone agrees I'll be bold and move the page from Redpill and bluepill to Red pill and blue pill and put a redirect. I wonder how the odd and unreferenced no-space versions of the terms got in here. --Kai Carver 09:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

OK done, moving pages is scary but pretty easy!

Also, I think the no-space version of the terms comes from the game The Matrix Online and probably nowhere else. --Kai Carver 10:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed some of the redirects.. Morphh ^(talk) 13:10, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

split out other uses

The "other uses" section should be split out as separate articles, with a disambiguation page. It makes no sense to have completely different meanings of red pill in the same article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.184.27.253 (talk) 07:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes there already is disambiguation page for Blue pill (disambiguation).

We ought to create a Red pill (disambiguation) page if there are significant unrelated other uses.

Also it would be good for symmetry :-) --Kai Carver 10:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

exoteric Stories

There is a story about Padmapani...

At the beginning of the creation of man the highest Buddha let a rose beam of light come out of his right eye and a blue out his left. The rose became Padmapani Bodhisattva..."heroic-minded one (satva) for enlightenment (bodhi)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.114.142.39 (talk) 08:59, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Follow the White Rabbit

One thing I've noticed in this wikipedia page, I'm not seeing any clear mention of the red and blue pills possibly relating to Alice in Wonderland in the song "White Rabbit."

One point about the red and blue pills that stick out to me is the reference to Alice and Wonderland as told by the group Jefferson Airplane.

In the Jefferson Airplane song "white rabbit", the lyrics start with "one pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small" and had a reference to "chasing rabbits."

In the film, Neo was told to "follow the white rabbit" follows a girl with a white rabbit tattoo to a club, where he meets Trinity for the first time. This ultimately leads to the encounter with Morpheus where he is offered the choice between the two pills.

Although the pills did not physically make him larger or smaller, it can be argued that this could be a metaphorical comparison. By taking the red pill he ultimately became a larger-than-life savior, whereas the blue pill would have allowed him to continue his life as a "small" insignificant person in the Matrix.

When watching these scenes in the movie, I can't help but see a slight resemblance between the pop-culture references between the movie and song. "Follow the White rabbit" and "Wonderland" are clearly references to Alice in Wonderland, and the red and blue pill seems inspired by the Jefferson Airplane song that was inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Especially given that Morpheus mentions Wonderland and the pills in the same scene.

I'm thinking that people that are old enough to remember Jefferson Airplane would get reference, but it may very well pass over the heads of younger viewers.

If there are no objections, I'm thinking this may be of enough value to include in the "other uses" portion of the article as an additional pop-culture reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by XG-Raven (talk • contribs) 03:40, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Accepting reality

This concept is not present in the movie. In the movie Morpheus just offers Neo the possibility to discover the true reality. And Neo is not alone is accompanied by a lot of people, and is part of a group. So there is no such a thing in the movie and in popular culture since accepting reality is something that implies first that you know what that relity is, second that you are alone otherwise how can you retreat when you are part of a group. In the movie it implies that the true reality is better for Neo, he even finds a girl, than "false reality" so the concept sohuld be : "the choice between blissful reality and painful unreality". SO I edit — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aufels (talk • contribs) 13:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

գրում է Neo-կետ, իսկ հեղուկ է 0.50 կարով ծննդյան քվեարկությամբ ավելի բաց կոդով pensamietos մյուս բոլոր մտքերն միասին — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.94.128.238 (talk) 19:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

"Manosphere"

I was reading some men's blogs (for PUAs, MRAs, that ilk) and keep seeing this term, specifically people talking about "red pill alpha men". Then I'm on Twitter and I see more red pill talk as if red pill is an identity of someone who knows "the truth" about the ways of life.

Can anyone add a bit about how these terms have been appropriated by this subculture and now have a different meaning? It seems now like it is a commonly used expression in the manosphere and the meaning has changed to imply superior masculinity or something. 24.188.185.162 (talk) 20:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

In that section of blogosphere and related sites, the central beginning of thought is that a wide swath of popularly held truths about Interpersonal Relationships are fallacious for various alleged social, economic, and political reasons. For instance, women cannot be taken at their word for what personality traits and appearances attract them to men. Blue pill in that context is accepting the popular societal truths, examples like good communication is the bedrock for relationships or sensitivity to each other's feelings grow a relationship. Red pill, in this environment, rejects those two in favor of other theories. These might include the thought that dominant men asserting their will in a relationship is supremely attractive/desirable.

The other tie-in is the perception that once the person has "swallowed the red pill," a whole host of incorrect preconceived notions are revealed and this person may learn from scratch the true rules of love, sex, and relationships. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.250.198.165 (talk) 01:10, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Other uses

Http://reddit.com/r/theredpill

Related to men's rights advocacy and the seduction culture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.142.15 (talk) 22:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

This is the meaning in 4 of the top 5 Google results for "red pill". The 5th one is this Wikipedia page. Politically correct or not, it's dishonest to not include it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.122.113.146 (talk) 22:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I doubt the MRAs would like being compared to RooshV's cult. So if you really wanna make that reference, do it without using it in reference to MRAs. I don't want to see a decent page become a war between two ideological fronts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:100D:B11D:4E92:8B0E:AC47:7345:B83F (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

More than The Matrix

I'm a little surprised that this article on "red pill" is limited to The Matrix. I got here by looking for information after hearing a lyric in a Daniel Lanois song entitled "Lotta Love To Give" were he sings "Sick of the red pills, sick of the dealer's grin." This song was written long before the Matrix was released so there must be another reference at work. I have a feeling there is an actual "red pill" and whether it's a downer or upper I have no idea. Any ideas?

Personally, I think your suggetions of the redpill's usage are pretty trivial. Red pill from The Matrix is practically a cultural icon, and a lyric in a song simply cannot stand up to it. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 07:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Reds = Seconal — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CDA6:D540:D06D:90C6:8225:958D (talk) 01:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Akira

At the beginning the main character is wearing a jacket with a pill on its back one half red other blue! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.114.142.39 (talk) 08:30, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's likely this may be the reference the Wachowski's are making with the colours, since their love of anime is well known and directly discussed as one of the primary influences on The Matrix trilogy. Arnifix (talk) 00:45, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

The whole question is a fallacy

Because of Matrix:Reloaded. That film shows even by the Red Pill you will remain stuck inside The Matrix, twisting, or even destroying the purpose of the question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.133.42.61 (talk) 19:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

It is shown that Zion and the free humans still exist within a system of control, but not within The Matrix itself. It is possible to escape the Matrix, both with assistance from others and through transubstantiation (as evidenced by Kid in The Animatrix). This fact is also not known to the characters at the time Morpheus poses the question to Neo in The Matrix. Arnifix (talk) 00:49, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Religion

There've been many articles (including some in mainstream media) discussing the concept in relation to religion. Sometimes, religion itself is equated with the blue pill and atheism with the red pill (this comparison is usually made by atheists themselves). Other times, comparisons are made between religions (for instance, Protestantism as red and Catholicism as blue). Some Christian critics of The Matrix have attacked the very concept of the pills, saying it (and the film) promotes Gnosticism-type thinking. There also seems to be a parallel with the left-hand path and right-hand path concept (left-hand = red, right-hand = blue).

If you want I could add a section to the article on the pills' relationship to religion, complete with sources. FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

This sounds fascinating, and totally in keeping with the religious themes of the films! Would love to read this. Arnifix (talk) 00:51, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the reference to reddit.com/r/TheRedPill

It's non relevant, and serves no purpose, other than to create controversy. Glenzo999 (talk) 05:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of how it's currently phrased, but there are several reliable sources, and plenty more available, linking the term to its wide-spread use in men's rights and pick-up artist circles. Controversial or not, it's absolutely relevant. I have therefore restored the info. Grayfell (talk) 06:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't exactly call one extremist subreddit "wide-spread", but, whatever. /shrug Glenzo999 (talk) 06:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The term, as used by men's rights groups, is not confined to Reddit. It's common among A Voice for Men users, as well, for example. See [1],[2], and others. Grayfell (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality

By omitting the primary popular usage of the metaphor from the lead, the article pretends that this is a wider and more encompassing cultural phenomenon than it actually is, thereby cleansing the popular usage of the term from the association with its principal users, especially right-libertarian MRAs. --85.197.63.205 (talk) 04:42, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Well it's not exactly an omission, this article's existence predates any usage of the 'red pill' as an MRA metaphor. You can interpret the cultural importance of the article however you want, but the article was genuinely made because of the notability of the red and blue pill imagery in The Matrix, which definitely was a cultural phenomenon.

But while I disagree that there is any intentional cleansing here, I will agree with you that the red pill terminology has likely been fully overshadowed in modern culture by the misogynistic metaphor. I would be open to modifying the article to include more information regarding the prevalence of the MRA usage and I welcome any contributions you might have. However, the lead does not include any other mentions of the metaphor's use in popular culture, the article is very specifically about red and blue pill metaphor itself. If you feel that the MRA 'red pill' idea deserves more focus on Wikipedia, I would personally suggest that it be given it's own page that is given context and linked to from here rather than stretching this into dual purpose article. Tegrenath (talk) 21:16, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I disagree that there is any overshadowing. The MRA use of the term is directly derived from the wider cultural use stemming from The Matrix, and is only used by a very small subsect of MRAs. The average person would be far more likely to know the term in reference to The Matrix. If MRAs wish to have more information on their use of the term, then it should be a separate article. Arnifix (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• I've killed the tag - this is BS. The term is in widespread discussion in mainstream philosophy sources. -- Callinus (talk) 04:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Derrida, Foucault

"As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader." (MOS:QUOTE#Linking)

In what way do you, Mitch Ames, think that linking the names of the philosophers clutters, violates, misleads or confuses anyone? Bear in mind that all Wikipedia articles must be written for the non-expert. Harfarhs (talk) 20:51, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Linking the quote to specific people tells the reader that Wachowski was talking about those specific people. However Wachowski said only "Derrida and Foucault" - she did not say which of the several people of those names she was referring to (note that Wikipedia has articles about at least two different philosophers named Foucault), and I don't see any citation of a reliable source tell us exactly who she was referring to. (If I've missed something, please let me know the exact time in the video, or other specific reference.) In the absence of something specific or a reliable source saying exactly who she's talking about, the links to specific people are original research.

Also, my understanding is that including any link in a quote suggests to the reader that the person being quoted is somehow pointing the listener (analogous to wiki-linking) to further information about the subject - which the speaker did not do in this case.

Mitch Ames (talk) 12:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Republican Convention

The following seems reasonable for inclusion as a other use in American Culture.

• Dr. Sebastian Gorka responded to President Obama saying the world has never been more prosperous or peaceful by saying it's "as if the president is living in the virtual reality world of The Matrix and he refuses to take the "red pill" that reveals reality." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Natwebb (talk • contribs) 03:29, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

References

I don't really see it. This is not part of "other uses", this is a direct reference to The Matrix. That reference is already explained here, so this doesn't qualify as 'other'. The article should explain references, not necessarily catalog every example of them.

This is also a single mention supported only by a closely affiliated source which fails to establish this as having any lasting significance. If other sources comment on this mention, then those sources could be evaluated and used to explain why this is significant, but otherwise it will almost certainly be totally forgotten in a few weeks time, making this quickly appear trivial. WP:IPC may also be helpful. Grayfell (talk) 03:59, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Isn't this backwards?

The terms were popularized in science fiction culture via the 1999 film The Matrix. In the movie, the main character Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill. The red pill would allow him to remain in the Matrix, a fictional computer-generated world. The blue pill will lead to his escape out of the Matrix and into the "real world".

68.33.119.43 (talk) 09:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

No, Red makes him wake up. Watch it again.

Hayaku (talk) 06:16, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

The Red Pill (2016) film

The term "The Red Pill" also refers to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3686998/ Chrisrus (talk) 19:33, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Feminist-inspired laws and culture as means of benefiting some men at the expense of others, and some women at the expense of others

Red pillers' views are often described as being, "There's a war between the sexes, and our feminist-inspired laws and culture benefit women at the expense of men." Actually, red pillers' views are closer to, "Feminist-inspired institutions and blue pill conditioning (1) favor alpha men interested in casual sex at the expense of beta men interested in marriage, and (2) theoretically favor older, career-oriented women at the expense of younger, family-oriented women."

These days, a lot of red pillers are simply saying that the abandonment of patriarchy and traditional sex roles has caused relations between the sexes to become dysfunctional.

Getting the wording right could be a bit tricky, since we have to work within the confines of what the reliable sources give us, but on the other hand, we don't want to be misleading. Compy book (talk) 15:28, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

All of this must be supported by reliable sources, and since few (no?) red pill sources are also reliable, those must be independent sources. Saying that they are "... coming to understand the true nature of women" is unacceptable, because it's stating in Wikipedia's voice that it's the "true nature" of women. This is, obviously, controversial, to put it mildly. Any AWALT pseudoscience needs to be specifically supported by reliable, independent sources. This CBC article does not support that; it makes it very clear that this is a fringe perspective which uses rhetoric and coded language to defend misogynist and anti-feminist positions. The source is about the movement, and doesn't support the movement's position. I don't think this is the right article to go into that level of detail, either. Grayfell (talk) 23:07, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

What I put in the article was, "The term 'red pill' is frequently used by people in the men's rights movement as a metaphor for coming to understand the true nature of women and relations between the sexes. This includes the belief that certain institutions (e.g. "marriage 2.0" in which no-fault divorce is available) are intended to benefit certain women rather than themselves, and that women's true preferences differ from their stated preferences."

(Actually, I just noticed, "men's rights movement" should be replaced with "manosphere".)

The professor, in the embedded video in the CBC article, points out that red pillers believe there's a difference between women's stated preferences and and true preferences. I'm not sure how many disclaimers we need to put in the text that this is all referring to how red pillers look at it, not necessarily how it actually is.

When I look at the Christian cross article, for instance, it says, "The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus, is the best-known symbol of Christianity." It doesn't say, "The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus (which, by the way, has not been conclusively proven to have ever actually happened), is the best-known symbol of Christianity." The words "seen as" already serve as a disclaimer that everything following may not actually be true, because it's just a perception or interpretation. To include more disclaimers would be redundant and maybe even give the article an anti-Christian bias.

By the way, calling it "pseudoscience" and "misogynistic" is rhetoric too. Red pillers usually don't claim that there's any "science" behind their ideas. They share some data from the field sometimes, but these observations are notoriously subjective (there have been lengthy debates, for instance, about the differences between HB6s, HB7s, HB8s, etc.) and the observers are not conducting double-blind experiments. Their attitude is, "I tried x, and it didn't work; but when I tried y, it worked, so I'm going to go with that." It's like a person who is depressed and finds that his depression lifts when he takes St. John's Wort, and says that he doesn't care if it's a placebo, as long as it works.

"Misogynistic" gets thrown around too much. If feminists call for the public to be taxed to support women's programs, is that inherently "misandrist" because it favors women at the expense of men? What about affirmative action; is that "racist"? Whether these policies try to restore equality, or create inequality, is a matter of interpretation.

A much stronger argument could be made that red pillers are "sexist". Yet, they usually acknowledge exceptions to their generalizations, and they point out that for every upside to traditional sex roles, there's a downside. For example, successful men end up being leaders and having the privileges that come with rank, but unsuccessful men end up in much worse conditions than the average woman. For exampe, objectively speaking, we know that the prison population is disproportionately male, and I'm not aware than anyone on any part of the ideological spectrum has a plan or an idea for changing that. The same goes for male suicides. So are we to conclude that men are simply inferior because they're more likely to have these problems, while the advantages that served them in prehistorical times (such as being physically stronger) are no longer so relevant to survival? Or is there still some way that the sexes can be regarded as "equal"? Again, a matter of interpretation. Compy book (talk) 00:54, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The sources are about the MRM specifically, so that's what's used as a link. The manosphere is mentioned later in the paragraph.

The symbolism of the Christian cross isn't a WP:FRINGE topic the way that the "red pill" is. The comparison is flawed in many ways, and the historicity of the crucifixion has very little to do with this point.

Stating that this is their belief is perfectly clear. Stating that this is an understanding is vague. It could mean that it's their perspective, or it could mean it an objective truth they have come to understand. I don't accept that this distinction is clear enough from the wording you propose. Wikipedia doesn't validate fringe perspectives, so we should use the clearer wording.

Some red pillers most certainly do claim there is science behind their ideas. AWALT stands for "all women are like that" and calling it pseudoscience was too generous of me. The use and misuse of behavioral and evolutionary psychology in these movements is well documented, and only slightly less well-debunked. Anecdotes are not evidence, and they are also not reliable sources. The commonness of anecdotes in red pill forums is no different from most other forums. Using those unverifiable (or false) anecdotes to make sweeping generalizations or derive some sort of cohesive philosophy is at best pseudoscience, and is a defining problem with MRM sites according to multiple sources.

"Rhetoric" wasn't the problem, it's that it was rhetoric in defense of misogynistic and anti-feminist positions. The article specifically says that the MRM is "anti-female". "Misogynist" is a synonym with that. Misogynist, as a term, rankles some red pillers, but to avoid a word for that reason would be, ironically, political correctness. Either way "misogynistic" is the adjective used by many, many news sources in their coverage of Robert Fisher's resignation, so your problem with that term is now a problem with sources. I've heard your counterpoints about misandry many times before and am completely unconvinced by them, but this isn't the place to discuss these issues.

As the CBC article points out, there are many legitimate, important points raised by the MRM, including but not limited to suicide, paternity, criminal justice, and others. Some people are working towards finding solutions. Yes, that includes male incarceration rates. The red pillers aren't really helping, though (again, as the CBC article points out, among many others). Pointing to a problem which affects men doesn't invalidate the points raised by feminism, especially when feminists are often the most vocal in raising those complaints. Grayfell (talk) 02:29, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

AWALT is hyperbole. It's an exaggeration to make a point. Maybe they should've said "Most Women Are Like That" or "Almost All Women Are Like That." It's just one of those maxims like "slow and steady wins the race" (untrue if you're running a sprint), "the pen is mightier than the sword" (depends on the situation; an ice pick to Trotsky's head did put a stop to his writing), "time heals all wounds" (not really; if it gets infected you might die), "the customer is always right" (nope; sometimes you have to tell the customer that he's wrong), "a watched pot never boils" (yes it does), that's intended as a generalization or to make a point about what you should pretend is true if you want to get the desired result.

What AWALT is getting at is that a man should be very skeptical if a woman says "I'm not like other girls" because in most cases, she's trying to make herself seem like a unique and rare catch ("special snowflake" is the term they use) so that he'll choose her, when in reality, she's more like other girls than she's letting on. (Red pillers also believe in AMALT (All Men Are Like That) but they don't talk about it as much because it's not as relevant to their decision-making since they're not gaming or marrying men.)

AWALT, though, is not so much about women's behavior (which varies significantly from woman to woman) but about their nature which drives their behavior. An example would be that if a man shows weakness, the woman he's with will tend to lose attraction for him. Different women will behave differently when they lose attraction, but the loss of attraction in that scenario is still pretty universal. The idea behind AWALT is that men will generally do better if they just assume all women are like that than if they act based on a hope that maybe the one they're with is different.

If a bunch of "reliable sources" say, "Donald Trump is a bad President" we still should not put in our articles that he's a bad President, because that's an interpretation, not a fact. It would be more appropriate to say that he's widely viewed as a bad President. Similarly, it's okay to say that the red pill is widely viewed as misogynistic (if that's what the reliable sources say), but we shouldn't state it as a fact. Objectivity and neutrality are different than political correctness. Compy book (talk) 04:33, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

As an aphorism, AWALT is a very vague, very poorly supported one, but as a psychological or sociological construct, it's even worse. Many, many PUA and red pill types take it very seriously as such a construct. A simple search found countless blog posts making specific, grand claims of AWALT. Is anyone in the cooking blog community making such specific, detailed analysis of "a watched pot never boils" AWPNB? If you've read their blog posts and still don't think a lot of them take AWALT as some sort of first principle, you're giving them far, far more credit than you're giving the movement's critics. That's not neutral or objective. Trying to pad-out poorly defined constructs and borrowing old, misunderstood scientific jargon ("alphas")... Dressing something up in the trappings of science and than calling it hyperbole when challenged... That all sounds a lot like pseudoscience to me. Regardless of if this is a mere aphorisms or mere pseudoscience, AWALT is an example of a misogynist viewpoint which isn't built on a solid foundation.

Non-opinion pieces routinely describe, as a statement of fact, the red pill community as misogynistic. Few, if any, reliable sources dispute this. This is fundamentally different from op-eds about Trump. Are we done here? Grayfell (talk) 06:00, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Ingesting the red pill in one moment

The Business Insider article notes, "The community's name is a tip of the hat to the truth-seeking attitude in The Matrix – Keanu Reeves pops a red pill to unplug his mind from a simulated world, freeing him to explore genuine reality."

Thus, even in the film, Reeves is not coming to a full awareness of the new reality all in one moment; it is just that he has been freed to begin exploring it. He has to be told about the harvesting of energy, the agents, and so on, before he understands completely what is really going on. It's the same way in the red pill movement; they speak of a process of ingesting the red pill, in which various blue pill beliefs are reexamined one by one.

This isn't like the Christian concept of salvation, where there's one particular moment in which you're saved and from that point onward officially considered a Christian. It's more like Luke Skywalker learning the ways of the Force from Yoda, but still showing some signs of his old ways of thinking while his training is in process. At what point does one officially say, "Okay, now you know enough that you can be called a Jedi"? It's a bit arbitrary. Compy book (talk) 03:03, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Why even invoke the red pill if that's the case? What kind of metaphor would that be? Nobody gradually takes a pill. Never mind, it doesn't matter anyway, because that's WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The GQ article, which is one of the two sources used for the part about the MRM, mentions a "red pill moment". If you have a reliable source supporting that this as a slower process, please bring it forth for discussion. Otherwise, the GQ article is specific and clear that this is a moment, and Wikipedia goes by sources. Grayfell (talk) 03:28, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe I should've said "digest" rather than "ingest". There can be a "pill moment" where you choose to take a pill, but then there's still a process of its taking effect. The Matrix, for example, had a bunch of exposition after the moment where Reeves took the pill.

The GQ article is quoting a few MRAs who talk about eye-opening experiences, but it's not like the ideas of AWALT, alpha fux/beta bux, etc. are all imparted instantaneously. Usually what happens, when someone has an experience that challenges their worldview, is that they either adopt a different worldview that they already know about, or they go in search of another worldview. Typically with red pillers, it's the latter, because it was their blue pill conditioning that led them into the eye-opening situation. That's why there's an anger stage of unplugging, in which they feel resentment at having been deceived. (It's one of the reasons red pillers are often described as an angry movement; the angry ones tend to be the most vocal because they're wanting to get stuff off their chests.) Compy book (talk) 05:22, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Again, that's WP:OR, and Wikipedia articles do not use OR. It's not up to you or me to say what "it's like". The red pill's jargon, like "blue pill conditioning", is inconsistently applied and subjective, but don't take my word for it. All of this would need reliable, independent sources to be included in the article. Interpreting the meaning of a movie scene as it applies to bloggers writing decades after the movie was written is definitely also WP:OR. Again, reliable sources are what's needed. Grayfell (talk) 06:14, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Political

I've removed the political cats and the POV tag. The primary complaining party was a blocked and locked sockpuppet. We should NOT be adding this to political cats unless it can be shown in the article, and by sources, that this is political. I highly doubt that will be the case as it is a very general topic about choices in general, and not some alt-right or alt-left philosophical concept. It predates them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:38, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Original research about Total Recall

That whole section on Total Recall looks to be original research that cites primary sources (the film's script itself) and unreliable sources (the IMDb). It should be removed unless someone can provide a citation to a reliable source that explicitly identifies this as an example of the trope. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:31, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Gödel, Escher, Bach

I could not see reference to colours in GEB regarding the pushing and pulling tonics, not on page 106 at least. Jonpatterns (talk) 08:16, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Revert [3]

I reverted this as I have reservations about the reliability of the sources as well as the appropriateness, as the source was comparing to the Matrix, not so much the Red and Blue pill as a metaphor. The reference to the pills were passing while the mentions of the Matrix was not. Seems undue for the article. Per WP:BRD, the WP:BURDEN is on the IP who complained on my talk page. There are other issues, but I'm in a rush. The short is, it doesn't seem supported here just because one doctor mentioned it in a blog like post. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:47, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Secret Life of Walter Mitty

I've removed the reference to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013 film). IMDb isn't a reliable source, per WP:ELPEREN, and none of the others were any better. If this really was parallel to the red pill/blue pill thing, it should be explained by reliable, independent sources, otherwise it's original research. If it was just a joke or brief homage, it's still not worth mentioning without reliable sources, per WP:IPC. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 03:14, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Recently added were two sources. Both are about the trailer instead of the film. One of which is a borderline blog, the other a local news outlet, and both of which were published before the film was actually released. Neither of these establish that this is central to the film, nor could they, since, again, published before the movie was released. Sources must do that, it is not up to individual editors, and sources about the trailer should only be used to support content about the trailer. Otherwise this is WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Grayfell (talk) 04:29, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

This review, from Daily Review, does mention the Matrix and the red pill, but only once, only in passing, and makes no mention of the two cars being a parallel:

The passage connecting reality to illusion is often visualised using tangible things and physical environments. Neo took the red pill in The Matrix; Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole in Alice and Wonderland; Nada put on the glasses in They Live; Dorothy got swept up in a tornado in The Wizard of Oz. One of the lovely touches in Stiller’s film – which ultimately deflates its sense of adventure by leaning too heavily on sentimentality – is a beautifully abstract moment bridging the two worlds.

This makes it appear to be one reference among many, and doesn't suggest it is central, or even vitally important, to the film.

Quora isn't a reliable source. It is quintessential WP:UGC, and cannot be used anymore than other Wikipedia articles can be used. I'm sure it is improperly used on some articles, but that's a problem that should be fixed, and not something which should be added to. Grayfell (talk) 06:05, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

You're right. I haven't found a single (reliable) source mentioning all together "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," "The Matrix," the two pills, and the two cars, although the web is full of this type of connections. So I fell into WP:SYNTH. I apologize: I tried, I failed. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 07:07, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

As we all seem to agree that this material is not reliably sourcable, I'm going to remove it. PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:07, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Do you think this could be a sufficiently reliable source? --Mauro Lanari (talk) 03:55, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

It's definitely better than Quora. Could you be a bit more specific about what edit you're suggesting? It's been a while, and I'm fuzzy on what, precisely, this was about. Grayfell (talk) 05:07, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I was looking for a source that would be considered decent to justify inserting this film in the article's list. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 05:27, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I'd suggest this version:

In 2013 movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, when Ben Stiller's character lands at Nuuk in Greenland, he asks the man in the airport booth: "Do you have any cars available?" "Yeah, we have a blue one and a red one", the man replies. "I'll take the red one", says Walter. "The choice between the red and blue car at the rental car lot is worthy of mention, if only because it almost candidly pulls the idea from the red pill of The Matrix. Two jelly bean, or pill, shaped cars [Daewoo Matiz], red and blue; the only thing missing is Lawrence Fishburne working the counter". "The passage connecting reality to illusion is often visualised using tangible things and physical environments [as] Neo took the red pill in The Matrix."

References

--Mauro Lanari (talk) 08:25, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

So, @Grayfell: what do you say? --Mauro Lanari (talk) 05:14, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Hello, sorry for the delay.

There are some problems with reliability and WP:PRIMARY sourcing for two of them.

I don't think Subzin is WP:RS. It's accurate in this case, but I don't think it's useful as a link. The Youtube link is WP:ELNEVER, and shouldn't be used at all, because it's copyrighted material uploaded without the users permission. It's arguably fair-use, but that's an argument for whoever uploaded it to make, not for us. We can, if needed, just cite the movie directly without including any links at all. This wouldn't, by itself, justify including any content, but it would work as enough reference for readers to research the scene for themselves. The exact time of the scene from a common edition of the movie would be helpful.

For the other two, it seems like those sources are not supporting the exact same point. As I mentioned above, The Daily Review mentions the red pill from The Matrix, but I'm not entirely sure why. It doesn't mention the car scene at all, and it's not clear that it's alluding to any specific part of the movie. Maybe I'm being dense about it, but it seems like it's just talking about the difference between reality and fantasy. That seems like an interesting, and related, topic, but it's way to broad to tie into this article without something more concrete.

My proposal would be to add this or something like it to the "Other uses" section:

The 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty included a scene alluding the two pills in The Matrix, where the protagonist Mitty chooses a red car over a blue one from a rental agency, symbolizing his choice to pursue real-life adventure over fantasy.^{highbrow source}

This might be a bit WP:OR, but it's explaining plot-points covered by the source as they relate to the red/blue choice mentioned by that source. Will something like that work for you? Grayfell (talk) 05:54, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Welcome again. Do you think this could be a useful source? --Mauro Lanari (talk) 06:34, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

No, unfortunately, I believe that is also a WP:COPYVIO. I do not think they have the legal rights to publish entire scripts, so that would also fall under WP:ELNEVER. Grayfell (talk) 09:29, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

And what about these two different sources?

In 2013 movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, when Ben Stiller's character lands at Nuuk in Greenland, he asks the man in the airport booth: "Do you have any cars available?" "Yeah, we have a blue one and a red one", the man replies. "I'll take the red one", says Walter. "The choice between the red and blue car at the rental car lot is worthy of mention, if only because it almost candidly pulls the idea from the red pill of The Matrix. Two jelly bean, or pill, shaped cars [Daewoo Matiz], red and blue; the only thing missing is Lawrence Fishburne working the counter". "The passage connecting reality to illusion is often visualised using tangible things and physical environments [as] Neo took the red pill in The Matrix."

References

--Mauro Lanari (talk) 11:31, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

This version doesn't seem at all to fall under WP:OR, WP:RS, WP:PRIMARY, WP:SYNTH, WP:ELPEREN, WP:IPC, WP:COPYVIO, WP:ELNEVER or anything else wrong: so what, @Grayfell? --Mauro Lanari (talk) 16:03, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Was it popularized by the Matrix or invented?

Seriously. There's no mention of it being used elsewhere before it. Did The Matrix "popularize" it or did the invent the thing? If they didn't invent the phrase then can someone give examples of when someone else used it before? I'm sure the ideas existed before, which begs the question should this article be renamed to accomodate for it?

Seems like a useless article. RocketLauncher2 (talk) 15:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Read again, it doesn't say The Matrix popularized it. It says science-fiction culture popularized it, and it derives from The Matrix. Gendralman (talk) 22:23, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

the concept has been around since the 1600's, this is just an evolution of the phrase "a bitter pill to swallow" the meaning is the same as the red pill, matrix just added colors and a second choice of the blue pill — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.216.48.142 (talk) 15:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

New political usage beyond Men's Rights Movement

It would appear that there is a recent but now very widespread (online, at least) usage of "red pill" with the same intended core meaning relating to "freeing [someone's] mind" that perhaps grew out of the MRM usage. In this usage "redpilling" someone means radicalizing them as far-right or alt-right or pro-Trump, politically. For example, this Fox News commentary by John Stossel says "Today, in the parlance of some political activists, “taking the red pill” means seeing the lies of mainstream media -- and learning the truth. “People don't care to watch CNN anymore: People pay attention to YouTubers,” says Candace Owens. Owens is a young black woman who created a YouTube site she calls Red Pill Black. “My second video went trending worldwide with 80 million views.”" http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/27/john-stossel-why-so-many-are-taking-red-pill-and-discovering-truth-about-mainstream-media.html

This Vice article explains the usage I'm referring to, as far back as 2016: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nnk3bm/how-to-tell-if-your-alt-right-relative-is-trying-to-redpill-you-at-thanksgiving

A few more references to establish this as current usage: http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/05/the-online-radicalization-were-not-talking-about.html and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/how-kanye-west-was-red-pilled-by-the-far-right and https://www.wired.com/story/kanye-west-red-pill/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Omgoleus (talk • contribs) 03:16, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Total Recall

Wouldn't the "path out" be a blue pill then, rather than a red pill? The story of Total Recall is that his memory of all prior events is fake -- the "path out" of being aware of that would make him oblivious to the farce, much like the blue pill would cause a person to disregard all the events that unmasked the fake existence in the Matrix. I don't see how this "easy way out" can be seen as analogous to the red pill. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 04:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You're mixing metaphors from different movies and hoping to find logic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.221.31.30 (talk) 11:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

You see, the point is that what Quaid is being told is that he is dreaming/experiencing an implanted memory; whether he actually is or not is irrelevant, just like what the pill actually does is irrelevant (we never find out either!) – the important thing is that, according to the doctor, the red pill will snap him out of his supposed dream and get him back to the real world. It is the only thing we are ever told about the pill and therefore it is the only fact about it we can use - anything else we read into it is conjecture. BigSteve (talk) 13:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

In the matrix there is a red pill and a blue pill while in Total Recall (1990) there is the red pill or not the red pill. By coincidence both 'back-to-reality' pills are red but the colour is not significant. I have often thought that the Total Recall option was the better because what if Neo had refused both, or taken both? Although I have no strong feelings on the subject I believe there should be a mention of Total Recall because of the identical symbology of taking a pill to return to reality, if only because Total Recall (1990) is a precursor to The Matrix (1999) by nine years.62.6.169.133 (talk) 19:13, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Miltary Slang

In current US military slang, and going back at least to the 1960s, "redpill" has a very different meaning, particularly among US Army artillerymen. A "red pill" is a tactical nuclear artillery shell, which may have a bright red band painted around it for identification. "Redpill," the verb, is the act of firing a tactical nuclear shell at the enemy. I don't know whether this is sufficiently noteworthy to merit a Wikipedia entry but it's actually what I expected to find in the article; the Matrix references actually surprised me.

this sounds plausible but the only reference I've seen is in older versions of this Wikipedia article, to David Drake's series of novels Hammer's Slammers, where apparently the term "redpill" refers to a nuclear weapon. If there were better evidence, but even Google Books doesn't show anything more: +redpill military --Kai Carver 10:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

When I was in the army (1963-65), it was a running joke that if you were sick, the military surgeon would either prescribe you the red pill or the blue pill, which then also split the realm of possible diseases in two ("Have you gotten the blue or the red?"). But as a matter of fact, I knew this joke already from my father, who had almost certainly learned this old chestnut in the army. In Germany you have a collection of jokes about the 2nd WW Corporal ("Sanitätsgefreiten") Neumann, who begins to dole out the blue pills when he's running out of the more popular red pills. Nientepane Solovino (talk) 14:24, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

A meme?

I disagree with the characterization of the concept as a Meme. To me, "meme" implies that it is transmittable, propagatble, mutable, etc. At least in the functions described in this article, the term is always in allusion to the Matrix films -- it hasn't taken on an extensive meaning of it's own. It hasn't been adapted and adopted. There origins are well known. Anyone have any alternatives? Maybe "cultural allusion"? CampWood (talk) 00:45, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

The "meme" in it is the young man who has to decide whether he wants to go the easy way to dance, wine and women (which, of course, leads down and ultimately to perdition), or the stony path to knowledge and truth (which, of course, leads up and ultimately to the light). In the European cultural sphere, the paradigmatic case of this meme is Hercules at the fork in the road (di-lemma). Whether you give him some symbolical pill and of what nature that "pill" is, is quite irrelevant. Even in the matrix, the pill better be a placebo, otherwise Neo would again be a slave, now at the mercy of the pharmaceutical industry.----Nientepane Solovino (talk) 10:44, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Red Pill/Estrogen

Presently the article includes this line: "Fan theories have suggested that the red pill may represent an allegory for transgender people or a story of Lana and Lilly Wachowski's history as coming out as transgender.[12][13] During the 1990s, a common male-to-female transgender hormone therapy involved Premarin, a maroon tablet.[14] Lilly Wachowski confirmed that this theory was correct in August 2020.[15]" I don't believe this entire statement is supported by the citation. Lilly Wachowski confirms that her and her sister's closeted transness influenced the film and that the film was subconsciously expressing an allegory, but she does not ever address "the red pill" specifically or say it is a reference to a certain estrogen pill, or estrogen at all. The assertion that the red pill is referencing estrogen seems to originate from a book of feminist film theory ("Female") by Andrea Chu.

Lilly Wachowski herself, in the Netflix interview the cited article is based on, says that the trans influence on The Matrix comes from a "closeted point of view", and gives as a specific example of that influence the character Switch (who is male in the real world and a female in the matrix). If the red pill is an overt reference to an estrogen pill, she didn't say so here. This line could be re-written.173.79.135.109 (talk) 09:27, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

First political use?

The article currently states that "[i]n 2007 the neoreactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin used the terms red pill and blue pill to describe certain doctrines regarding democracy, marking the first use of the terms in a political context." The source cited for this is the blog post in which Yarvin used those terms, which establishes that he used them as stated but not that he was the first to do so. Is there a reliable source that states that he was the first to use "red pill" in reference to a political doctrine? - 73.195.249.93 (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

This article claims that "Yarvin was the first to popularize the analogy from The Matrix of being “redpilled” or “-pilled,” suddenly losing your illusions and seeing the supposed reality of the world more clearly, as applied to politics." This could be a reliable source, assuming it's not just WP:CITOGENESIS with the author copying from earlier versions of this wiki article. - LaetusStudiis (talk) 17:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I too have read the Vox article on Yarvin and I cannot find anything to contradict this claim that Yarvin was the first to popularize the "red pill" in political discussion. Given the red pill is a very popular concept in political discussions, especially on the internet, I think it is absolutely worth including this information in the article. I cannot see anyone disputing this in the talk section either. However, when this information was added to the article it was removed under the grounds that it is from a blog. It's not clear to me why being from a blog should be disqualifying, provided the usage was authentic and relevant. Other uses listed include Tweets, which seem no better than a blog. Could someone of the opposing opion please provide some sort of justification here? Otherwise I will be adding it back.Scamperton (talk) 01:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

'Popularizing' isn't really a notable claim and does not equate to being the first use. MrOllie (talk) 01:53, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Setting aside the fact that I do think popularizing something is notable, and I would be happy to argue this point, here is another source from Tablet Magazine. It writes "In one of his earliest blog posts, Yarvin birthed the now-ubiquitous meme of “the red pill,” a metaphor he borrowed from The Matrix movies and turned into a worldwide catchphrase describing the revelation of a suppressed truth that shatters progressive illusions and exposes a harsh underlying reality."

I would say the term "birthed" is stronger than popularize and does imply being first. Unless you have further objections, I will restore the content and include this Tablet Magazine source as well. Scamperton (talk) 02:02, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

And This Atlantic article, for example, claims it was popularized in 2013 by redditors. It cannot have been a 'worldwide meme' (indeed, it obviously was not) in 2007 and then only became 'popularized' years later. I continue to object. This content does not belong in the article. And you can assume that I continue to object until I actually say otherwise - I don't have to renew my objection everytime you make a comment. - MrOllie (talk) 02:04, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Three problems with this:

First, the Yarvin post is from 2007, six years before the Atlantic article claims Reddit popularized it. Both cannot be true and I am inclinded to side with the origin claim with is both verifiable and earlier. Additionally, The Atlantic piece is from 2021, while the Vox piece is from 2022. I am also inclinced to side with the more recent of the two articles.

Secondly, I can find sources in addition to Vox claiming that Yarvin first popularized it including this.

Thirdly, you stated yourself that being first is what is notable, not populariztion. By your own standard then, Yarvin is the notable use, since unless you object to the Tablet piece he not only popularized it but birthed it.

Lastly, if you still have an issue with the fact that it is froma blog, could you explain that. Otherwise I will consider the blog aspect a non-issue. Scamperton (talk) 02:12, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I am inclined to side with the idea Yarvin wrote it in 2007 and nobody paid attention because it was an obscure blog post, not worth mentioning. At no point did I say that being first would be notable. The Matrix was obviously the first. Appropriating a metaphor and applying it in different contexts is routine, not groundbreaking. And we don't have good sources for that anyway. (Tablet is mostly notable for publishing inflammatory nonsense) MrOllie (talk) 02:17, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

"Yarvin wrote it in 2007 and nobody paid attention because it was an obscure blog post, not worth mentioning" Then your characterization of events is in direct conflict with three sources I have cited. Why should I believe you over them?

Your characterization of Yarvin as obscure is also in conflict with his Wikipedia page which includes "Yarvin's ideas have been influential among right-libertarians and paleolibertarians, and the public discourses of prominent investors like Peter Thiel have echoed Yarvin's project of seceding from the US to establish tech-CEO dictatorships. Political strategist Steve Bannon has read and admired his work."

As to your point that applying the concept of the red pill, originated in the Matrix, to other topics is not notable, I will draw your attenention to the fact that five out of seven bullets in the uses section are exactly that. Should we remove them too?

Finally, you claim that we don't have any reliable sources. I draw your attention to Wikipedia's reliable sources page which lists Vox, the original source, as reliable.

In otherwords, your view of the facts is in contradiction with a reliable source and your view on what is notable is in contradiction with existing inclusions in the article. Scamperton (talk) 02:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Since being first is so important to you, what do you think of this paper by Tierney? Note the date. MrOllie (talk) 02:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

If memory and record serves, you are the one who claimed being first is important. I claimed it was popularization that was important. If someone made a post that had little influence I would not consider that notable, even if they were first, or perhaps I would consider it notable simply for being first. At any rate, I cannot find a reliable source claiming that Tierney popularized it. Perhaps you can.

Regardless, that was not my original claim. My original claim was that it should be included because it popularized the red pill in political discussion. As I stated, I am happy to argue that popularization is notable. Scamperton (talk) 02:51, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Nah, I never claimed that. Also, nice shift of the goal post, there. At any rate, we have conflicting sources, several of which have clear factual errors. The only sensible solution is to leave it out. Anything else would mislead the readership. MrOllie (talk) 03:05, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

'Popularizing' isn't really a notable claim and does not equate to being the first use. - I took this to mean that you considered first use the notable criteria. Even if you don't that's not my point. My point is that popularization is what is notable.

I don't believe our sorces are conflicting. I point you again to the Atlantic article you cited claiming Reddit first popularized the red pill in the political context in 2013. Go to this article again. Read the line: "red pill, usually written as redpill, sprouted on Reddit. It was first popularized in 2013 in a Reddit forum called The Red Pill"

Notice that there is a link on the words "sprouted on Reddit". No doubt, this is their source for the claim that Reddit popularized it. Click on that link. This takes you to an article "Reactionary Wokeness: How Redpilling Became a Thing on Reddit." Control F and search for "Yarvin". You will encounter the following line:

"Curtis Yarvin AKA Mencius Moldbug, the neo-reactionary political theorist who is actually credited as having popularized redpilling in the first place (Sandifer 2018)"

In otherwords, the source you use to dispute my claim, actually upon further inspection supports my claim. Scamperton (talk) 03:18, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm replying to my own post here, but I think there is some additional information worth adding.

I read the Atlantic article more thuroughly and it seems to me that it is not actually claiming that Reddit popularized the red pill.

"It was first popularized in 2013 in a Reddit forum called The Red Pill, which is for men who aspire to seduce women using complicated manipulation; the term meant deliberately opening your eyes to the oppression of modern men. Then it made a run through almost every major reactionary space on Reddit"

I think what this actually means is that the Red Pill subreddit popularized it on Reddit from which it spread to other subreddits. This is not a claim that the subreddit popularized the term itself. This explains the disconnect between the Atlantic article and the research the Atlantic article is based on which itself claims that Yarvin first popularized the term. Scamperton (talk) 04:13, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

If you read the whole article, that is obviously not what is meant. MrOllie (talk) 04:31, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I did read it, care to elaborate? Also please address the fact the the research this article is citing itself supports the claim Yarvin first popularized it. Scamperton (talk) 04:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The rest of the Atlantic article details its spread from Reddit to the rest of the internet (and then offline). That makes no logical sense if you take the position that the term was already widespread in 2007. MrOllie (talk) 04:36, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Please address the fact the the research the article is citing supports my claim Scamperton (talk) 04:38, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

That the Atlantic linked to a post elsewhere is immaterial, they didn't use the claim in their own article - either they ignored it or they disagreed with it, either of which are telling. MrOllie (talk) 04:40, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Firstly, the line in the Atlantic you are basing your argument on links to this research, how can you in good faith call this immaterial?

Secondly, it is logicial to interpret what the Atlantic wrote as claiming that r/theredpill popularized the meme on reddit, but did not popularize the term itself. At best the paragraph sentence is unclear.

Thirdly, you're argument that because Reddit spread the term that means Yarvin didn't popularize it in 2007 makes no sense unless you accept a binary notion of popularization. Something can be first popularized and then further spread. Rick Riordan introduced many young people to Greek mythology, but he by no means first popularized it.

Finanlly, the fact that they don't mention Yarvin in the article is not telling. The article is about how the meme has been evolving in recent years. It does not present itself as a detailed history of the meme. Scamperton (talk) 04:51, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

So your position is that Yarvin popularized it in 2007, but also that people hadn't heard of it (that is, it wasn't popular) on reddit until 2013, and people in general hadn't heard of it until (in the Atlantic's words) the red pill exploded in popularity in the runup to the 2016 election. Is that right? MrOllie (talk) 13:03, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

No you are putting words in my mouth. You might as well claim I said that no one had heard of Greek mythology untill Rick Riordan came along, which would be clearly false.

Again, your are presisting in this binary notion of popularization. Scamperton (talk) 17:26, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I am persisting in the notion that Yarvin's blog post is too obscure as to be worth mention. MrOllie (talk) 17:35, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

To recap the sources, and mention a couple more, we have:

- This Vox Article claiming Yarvin "first popularized" it in the political context

- This UMich Journal Article Claiming Yarvin "coined the meme". I would also point out this source discusses your Atlantic article as well, so they must not have seen a contradiction.

- This Tablet article claiming Yarvin "birthed" the meme

- This Journal Article claiming Yarvin "first popularized" it in the right wing realm

- This Politico Article claiming Yarvin "deployed it influentially"

- This Atlantic article which claims the meme "sprouted on Reddit" and r/theredpill "first popularized it". However this wording can also be interpreted to mean r/theredpill popularized it within Reddit. When we click in the underlying research linked to the words "sprouted on Reddit" we are taken to the next source.

- This research by Open Intelligence Lab which includes the lines "the space within which it was supposedly first popularised: Reddit" and "Curtis Yarvin AKA Mencius Moldbug, the neo-reactionary political theorist who is actually credited as having popularized redpilling in the first place". In otherwords, it makes clear Yarvin, not Reddit, first popularized it.

- Yarvin's Wikipedia article which cites him as influential

Yet in spite of all this, you persit in the notion that Yarvin is "to obscure as to be worth mention." I cannot describe your view as anything but divorced from the view of the reliable sources.

Therefore I am going to be including this content. Scamperton (talk) 18:12, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting sources with clear factual errors (in light of the Tierney paper) are not adequate support to put this content in the article. It will mislead the readers. The WP:ONUS is on you to get a consensus in favor of including disputed content. Edit warring it in over my objection is not the way to do that. MrOllie (talk) 18:17, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

As I have repeated many times, first popularizing the term in the political context is what I am concerned about. The fact that Tierney has an earlier usage does not refute this.

Please at least concede that your characterization of Yarvin's usage as "too obscure" is not inline with the view of numerous sources. Scamperton (talk) 18:26, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I cannot. The plain reading of several of these sources, particularly the Atlantic, is perfectly in line with my view. I cannot concur with this interpretation that the source doesn't mean what the words plainly say. MrOllie (talk) 18:30, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Explain why you think the research the Atalntic article links to when making this claim is "immaterial" Scamperton (talk) 18:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

If you've forgotten what I said earlier, please scroll up a bit and re-read. Repeating ourselves is not productive. MrOllie (talk) 18:35, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Here is why it is material: It is the research they are cited to make the claim. Scamperton (talk) 18:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

No. It is a blog post they happened to link. If they don't repeat the claim they cannot be assumed to endorse it. MrOllie (talk) 18:41, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

We're obviously going around in circles here. You want to include disputed content, you've got to convince others of that. You're doing a very poor job of convincing me. It is time for WP:DR. I'll give you first crack at filing for a third opinion or a RFC or something. But if you don't want to or don't know how, I'll do it in a bit. MrOllie (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Creating one Scamperton (talk) 18:47, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Just don't try to open a WP:DRN until after the holidays, It takes forever and has deadlines to meet. - MrOllie (talk) 18:49, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

"They didn't happen to link it", they linked it on the very words making this claim, what could be more obvious. And it is not just "a blog post", it is a blog post made by a research lab. Even if we consider this immaterial, even if we accept the interpretation that the Atalantic is claiming Reddit, and not Yarvin first popularized it, they are still vastly outnumbered by the other sources I have presented. Scamperton (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

References

RfC on First Popularization in politics

Should the "Other Uses" section contain a mention that Curtis Yarvin popularized the "red pill" in the political context? Scamperton (talk) Scamperton (talk) 18:53, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

- Yes

Firstly, it is notable. The political context is one of the main contexts that the "red pill" is used, especially on the internet. It is therefore notable how this was first popularized as a political term. Secondly, it is verifiable. Below are a number of sources of varing reliablity, although some of them are explicitly classed by Wikipeida as reliable. These sources claim that Yarvin used the term infuentially and "first popularized it.

- This Vox Article claiming Yarvin "first popularized" it in the political context

- This UMich Journal Article Claiming Yarvin "coined the meme". I would also point out this source discusses the Atlantic article as well, so they must not have seen a contradiction.

- This Tablet article claiming Yarvin "birthed" the meme

- This Journal Article claiming Yarvin "first popularized" it in the right wing realm

- This Politico Article claiming Yarvin "deployed it influentially"

Additionally Yarvin's Wikipedia page describes him as influenctial.

There does exist an Atlantic article Atlantic article which claims the meme "sprouted on Reddit" and r/theredpill "first popularized it". However, if you read the article I believe this wording can also be interpreted to mean r/theredpill popularized it within Reddit. The words "sprouted on Reddit" contain a link, which is clearly their source for this claim. If you click on that it takes you to this research by Open Intelligence Lab which includes the lines "the space within which it was supposedly first popularised: Reddit" and "Curtis Yarvin AKA Mencius Moldbug, the neo-reactionary political theorist who is actually credited as having popularized redpilling in the first place". In otherwords, it makes clear Yarvin, not Reddit, first popularized it.

It is also the case that Yarvin was not the very first to use the term in a political context. We have identified at least one earlier usage: this essay written in 2006 by Kathleen Tierney applies the concept of the red pill to the politics of Katrina and 9/11. However, I cannot find any RP claiming that this usage popularized it. On the contrary I find many claiming Yarvin did. Perhaps it is worth including Tierney as well, on the sole basis that being first, even if not influential, is notable. However, that is not the question at hand, and we haven't actually established she was first. Scamperton (talk) 19:07, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• No. It is incorrect. Yarvin applied the metaphor to politics on his blog in 2007, Tierney did it in an article for the Social Science Research Council in 2006. That's the facts. As to secondary sources, they conflict. The Atlantic says it was popularized years later on Reddit. - MrOllie (talk) 19:00, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. I'm convinced by Scamperton's sources that this was indeed popularized by Yarvin. Ollie's rebuttal isn't convincing to me: while Tierney used the metaphor earlier there doesn't appear to be a lot of evidence that Tierney's article was widely read, so she didn't popularize it. And while the Atlantic article does conflict, it appears to be against the balance of the sources. Loki (talk) 19:20, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. As Loki said, differentiating between first use/popularization appears to solve MrOllie's first problem. As for the second one, the Atlantic article does appear to contradict the other sources, but given there's such a large majority of sources featuring a differing viewpoint, featuring that would likely fall under undue weight. ReadItAlready (talk) 18:23, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
• No matter how this is settled, let's give Tierney her due weight as the person who first used the political metaphor in a reliable source. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:31, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

  Randy, I am inclined to agree with you excpet as I pointed out above we have not actually established that Tierney was first. All we know is that she used it and it was earlier. Since her usage was not influential, if we mention it, it would have to be on the basis of being truely first. I'd love if you could check if there is RP to support this. But please put it in another talk section to keep this RFC on topic. Thanks Scamperton (talk) 16:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

• Yes – That Yarvin popularized the term being red-pilled in the political sense should be included. The reliable sources provided above indicate this to be the case. However, what is more important is that the "red pill" meme in politics is metnioend with this addition, and it is explained what the conservative sphere means by this metaphor. --Guest2625 (talk) 03:00, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
• Yes - and in general, the concepts of red and blue pill (and some of the other color "pills" as well) deserve more prominence in this article than just a listing in "Other uses". A section for the political metaphors would allow for more explanation of who first coined it, who popularized it, etc. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:24, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

"The Yellow Pill" (1958) by Rog Phillips

In the story "They Yellow Pill" by Rog Phillips (1958) a madman believes he is in a different reality but taking a yellow pill cures his delusions and makes him see the real world as it actually is. Snapdragon630 (talk) 02:28, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The Zygon Inversion

At the end of the Doctor Who episode the Zygon Inversion there are two boxes: a red one and a blue one. Not only that but each box has two different buttons. Pogeons (talk) 08:26, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

"Coconut-pilled"

As I have brought up on the talk page of You think you just fell out of a coconut tree, there is potentially a notable amount of usage of the phrase "coconut-pilled" as a metonym for supporting Kamala Harris's presidential campaign (both before and after its launch last Saturday).

(Potentially recent usage also follows more directly in the lineage of black/white pill, whereas it means something more specifically like "having moved distinctly away from a place of pessimism/doomerism" (that is "un-black-pilled") by the fact of Harris replacing Biden as the (presumptive) Democratic candidate)

Is this fact worth mentioning in the existing As political metaphor section of this article? Donald Guy (talk) 22:37, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably such discussion would make more sense if also including the fact of snowclones of the [noun]-pilled form, which I definitely have personally encountered a number of times,

often used in an ironic one-off basis (as I would say likely ~parody of the incel community usage specifically),

with the unfortunate only other repeated-example I can think of prior to coconut-pilled being the (not-particuarly-ironic, and probably more directly incel red/black-usage-subculture overlapping alt-right spheres) usage of "Jew-pill[ed]" to refer to whether or not someone has come to enthusiastically accept antisemitism and probably specifically a "Jews control the media" or "Jews secretly run the world" NWO type conspiratorial worldview

I can probably scare up citations for that^ one but I'm not eager to go on that adventure.

Does anyone have any other notable examples that might bare inclusion in such a subsection? Donald Guy (talk) 22:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

In more direct comparison to Coconut-pilled, I probably have also heard variations to the effect of MAGA-pilled, Patriot-pilled, Trump-pilled regarding support for Trump (especially amongst people with other conservative/GOP leanings or voting history) - but I wouldn't say there is definitely as strong a cluster there

(and extending from "Jew-pilled" probably "Q-pilled" to mean a believer/participant in the Q Anon conspiracy theory community; both of these examples perhaps also gain some traction or parallel-invention by virtue of rhyming with "Blue pilled") Donald Guy (talk) 22:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Other examples of red pill

Would it be acceptable to include descriptions of the red pill as other members of society have coined the term? They are many authors in this field that have written much about this subject. Authors like Rich Cooper and Rollo Tomassi. JonJ937 (talk) 09:09, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Only one person can 'coin' the term. MrOllie (talk) 13:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Let me re phrase my question. Would it be acceptable to include descriptions of the red pill as other members of society have used the term? JonJ937 (talk) 04:04, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps, but not with citations to 'Manosphere' self published books or blogs such as those authors produce. MrOllie (talk) 12:11, 31 July 2024 (UTC)