Pathos gambit

Take your feelings, roll them up, and shove them up your ass. That's the problem with you SJWs; you think your feelings trump everything else in the universe.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

The pathos gambit (also reverse appeal to emotion) is a pathetic logical fallacy in which one debater falsely claims that their opponent is using emotional arguments ( rather than factual arguments ( Emotional arguments are quite obviously not logically sound, and are a whole class of fallacies themselves. However, the pathos gambit poisons the well by painting an opponent as too emotional/biased to approach a subject rationally — while, presumably, the gambit-maker is a bastion of Vulcan reason. Unfortunately, it is easier to paint someone as emotional/biased than to scrub off said paint.

The gambit is an informal fallacy. It is valid only in circumstances below:
 * 1) The opponent is so emotional/biased that they cannot step back and examine facts rationally. This is very difficult to prove in most casual encounters and the burden of proof rests with the accuser — not the accused. It can take years for people to truly get to know each other. Assuming that a few minutes of interaction (especially text-only, online interaction) with someone are sufficient to fully understand their intentions and their thought process comes dangerously close to fallacious Bulverism. Or:
 * 2) The opponent's arguments are substantially based on how certain things make them feel. Notably, this is not the same as mentioning one's feelings on an issue (i.e., "X is dumb because Y and makes me feel sad") — this is saying that one's feelings necessarily prove some conclusion, independent of the facts (i.e., "X is dumb because X makes me feel sad").

In short: If someone makes an argument and mentions their feelings, saying "feelings bad!!" or "facts trump feelings" is not a sufficient rebuttal.

This fallacy is disproportionately common among atheists and skeptics (likely because each face disproportionately more emotional appeals for gods and pseudosciences). It is also common amongst the modern anti-"SJW" crowd — which, somewhat ironically, appears to have desensitized actual SJWs to emotion-based arguments.

Alternate names

 * Feels not reals (or vice versa)
 * "Pushing the narrative"

Form
Strong form:

Whether the argument is fallacious rests on whether P1 is true. If P1 is true, then [X] has committed an appeal to emotion and their arguments fall. If P1 is false, however, then accusing them of an appeal to emotion is fallacious.

Weak form:

This form is very difficult to uphold. There are very few cases (especially in terms of Internet debates) in which someone is so extremely emotional that their testimony can be completely discounted for that reason alone. This is even more true if the person has factual, sourced statements around which they are basing their emotion — in which case, their emotions shouldn't even be the substance of the debate.

Explanation
Reexamine all you have been told … dismiss that which insults your soul. Gwyfyoung, author of "The Ethics Of…", outlines the basic problem behind use of the pathos gambit. Stephen Fry objected to a group of students at Oxford College who wanted to tear down a statue of extremely pro-imperialist because he thought that they were doing it on the grounds of being "offended":

In other words, it is not sufficient to merely call out your opponent for being emotional — you also have to contest their facts, or else you, too, are acting based on emotion alone.

One could also argue that the point of a statue which glorifies any particular individual is intended to evoke an emotional response, as it is, after all, a work of Art. In such a situation, the emotion which the statue is intended to evoke is part of why its removal may be considered. Since the context is less neutral than if, say, the statue was in a museum, it makes less sense to claim that not actively promoting Rhodes is a form of censorship, since it's essentially a way of convincing someone that Rhodes wasn't quite so bad (an objective lie).

Another means of battling the fallacy is to argue that feelings have physical effects on people, something which the field of psychology has demonstrated time and again. Calling someone a racial slur may not physically harm them, but it sure as hell will hurt them emotionally (and it makes you a racist asshole).

Parodies
The underlying logic of the pathos gambit is often clearest when used in parody — though said parody is often not seen as such.

Evidence is a white cis male invention: the SJW parody personality Godfrey Elfwick made fun of "SJW" logic:

The Tweet was then widely used as evidence of "SJWs" preferring their feelings over fact.

Scientific evidence that obesity is harmful = lies: The "Truest Feminist" (Tumblr), which is an open parody, posted this: posted

In turn, this was widely taken as serious, and roundly condemned.

Fat = omniscient: The "Feels not Reals" Tumblr has a personal description:

Others

 * @Eris_1_: "SJW gem from @_gretchie: my feelings trump scientific evidence".
 * In general, anything posted under #SJWLogic on Twitter.
 * This beautiful vandalism, which caricatures its enemies as easily-defeated emotional wrecks and its supporters as objective, unemotional, and unstoppable: