1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
I feel like there's always been a culture of boys and young men who didn't respect women, there's just never been podcasters actively promoting it.
The internet allows idiots to broadcast their message worldwide and social media promotes the most controversial stuff in order to drive engagement and, more recently, to promote a culture war that keeps the populus divided.
there’s just never been podcasters actively promoting it.
Before podcasts, we had a bunch of AM radio, grindhouse movies, pulp fiction, skin mags, and incel blogs. Joe Rogan is an archtype that echoes through the ages.
A lot of young men are lacking role models and community these days.
More kids are growing up without fathers around now (single parenthood is up from 9% in the 1960s to about 25% today).
Most people's source of community used to be church, but since the advent of the internet, people are rapidly moving away from organized religion. I think this has disproportionately impacted men, who tend to be less social on average.
And I think in general, a lot of young men feel like nobody cares about their personal struggles.
So, even some toxic dude like Andrew Tate can show up and say "Hey, you're great. Here are the reasons why things are bad for you and what you should do, and here's a community of like-minded people to interact with." and these guys are going to dive in head first.
Something I rarely see brought up is specifically the edgelord to right wing pipeline. When I was a kid, it was essentially standard for any boy online to try to be super edgy. Adolescents and teens just have a natural urge for rebellion.
The problem comes when kids think edgy and shock value humor is their favorite thing, but more mature online users reject that behavior and exclude these kids. These kids feel misunderstood and are drawn to figures and role models that accept what they like.
I’ve met a bunch of younger, “conservative”, incel types recently and they’ve all been edgelords who found their own little community instead of growing up. They largely have no ideology in the beginning but slowly absorb manosphere bullshit and over time they become less “ironic”.
The thing that got me to stop being edgy was joining the swim team and having my friend group go from edgelords to gay swimmers. I developed a ton of respect for them and they were my teammates; it completely changed my mind without me having to “conform” to the things I wanted to rebel against. I don’t really know how to get that across to some many kids that get sucked up into this madness though.
I call this Shadow the Hedgehog darkness. When something wants to look dark and mature from the outset, but it's really a form of childishness. Same appearance takes effect for a lot of "dark" anime, where people are routinely betraying and causing pain, and "At its heart most of humanity just wants chaos" blah blah.
I do think there's a lot of horrible stuff in the world, but it's usually far more banal than anything these edgelords envision. When put face to face, people usually want to be kind to each other. But we're not put face-to-face often enough.
I think the answer is obvious: Tate tells them "you're awesome". No one else is doing that. People seek validation.
This is the short of it. Tate explains in no uncertain terms that society is to blame for the insecurities they feel, and provides an easy answer on how to fix it that kind of works, because it emulates self-confidence.
I think its because, to an extent, masculinity has been villainized, and people who are masculine (in appearance, identity or desire to be traditionally masculine) naturally look for people that pretend to value them.
This combined with reduction or even removal of shop classes, reduced PE, recess and physical activities in school, female teachers now far outnumbering male teachers, and strict attitude towards typical male behavior can easily build a huge amount of resentment in young men. Most public schools now are heavily tailored towards female students.
Doing normal boy stuff, like roughing each other up and messing with your friends got me and other boys detention, and it felt extremely unfair.
Most public schools now are heavily tailored towards female students
Schooling has become overly feminized to the detriment of boys. Graduation rates are the very clear proof
Lack of father figures mixed with a regressive world that is admittedly going to shit, whereas millennials and genx were raised thinking they'd be something, with teen angst and rebellion also in the mix. Don't forget a heaping-helping of Hollywood and mainstream media taking a focus entirely away from men in the last 20 years and replacing it with nothing. Fill in the voids with some toxic masculinity influencers and shake vigorously...
And there you have it, a misogynist that blames everyone else for their problems, with a good chunk of those problems actually being valid.
Because people in the far left attack masculinity as toxic. This is blowback.
Can you expand on what you mean?
The last decade has seen many people openly criticize masculinity like it's some form of toxic waste. This is what they grew up hearing. That there's something wrong with being manly or a man. When somebody like Tate comes along and tells them it's okay they gravitate to it to make them feel less worthless. Btw why do we never hear about toxic femininity? 😉
There are plenty of healthy ways to perform masculinity. If all you've managed to understand from that discourse is "all masculinity is toxic" then I'm afraid you just haven't been paying attention. Toxic masculinity is when young men are taught that the only way to be a man is to be strong, outgoing, possessive, stoic, unemotional and tall (among other things). Toxic masculinity is when men that don't fit those stereotypes are beaten down, verbally, but often physically, because they don't conform. Because they're gay, have "effeminate" hobbies, are short, weak, empathetic, dress sharply, you name it. It's also harmful to women, but more than anything it's men hurting other men for nonconformance.
Btw why do we never hear about toxic femininity?
Because it's not a deeply structural societal issue? Before I transitioned, I faced the effects of toxic masculinity every single day, dozens if not hundreds of times a day. Meanwhile, yeah, my conformance to femininity has absolutely been questioned post-transition, but nowhere near as much. Women and girls have spent the last two centuries working through the toxic and smothering nature of traditional femininity, as much as the patriarchal nature of society had allowed us too.
