For many years now, a dark question has haunted parents, teachers, the internet, and media institutions: What’s wrong with young men?
Why, people ask, are boys so politically extreme, spouting misogynist rhetoric, and increasingly drawn into risky crypto schemes and online gambling? How did they become so lonely, with their depression symptoms often overlooked? The male youth vote broke for Trump in the 2024 election following a GOP campaign built on naked appeals to meathead machismo. Yet there are signs that his second term in office has done little to stem the anger of Gen Z men, whose support for the president is now plummeting.
The most common explanation of these interrelated phenomena is that younger men have banded together online under the umbrella of something known as the “manosphere,” usually conceived as an organic right-wing rebellion driving the culture wars. A new study, however, suggests that this is entirely backward: The digital ecosystem that produces red-pilled men is less of a movement than it is a pyramid scheme.
Have we considered the necessity of properly socializing men from childhood on? From my own personal experience: I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t know how to find a relationship. I almost went down the incel pipeline at one point, but realized I can’t really blame anyone else for my own failures.
I also have no idea how to even start working to change that.
The article points to research leading us to believe young men aren’t as critical of their information sources as they should be, which allows them to be algorithmically driven into the manosphere.
The article doesn’t touch on socialization, so I’m wondering what that means or what it entails?
It means exactly what it means: people with access to diverse opinions tend to not uncritically accept whatever bullshit comes with someone offering an answer.
In other words, if young men were easily able to find social support outside the manosphere, maybe they would be more critical about the information they come across in the manosphere.
I guess the question comes down to where to find that social support outside the manosphere? The article concludes that young men need to help mobilize their peers to leave these manosphere echo chambers and help point out how they’re being scammed. Men need to help young men by creating these more positive spaces for them.
A while back I saw a video by…I wanna say hbomberman, but its been like 5 years, so maybe it was someone else. Their main point was that the left is generally bad at messaging with specific, actionable advice. In comparison, the manosphere is extremely good at providing actionable advice, mixed with right wing propaganda.
Edit: there was an interesting study I came across in a zoebee video recently, where they had an actor dress up like a professor and give a nonsense lecture in an academic setting. Much of the (academic) audience came away thinking they learned something, when there was no content to learn. Point is, charismatic presentation is extremely important. That’s why people like Jordan peterson have huge followings.
I think in this case you can split men into three categories: the guys that get it and don’t really think about guys that don’t, the guys that get it and realize there’s potential for grifting the guys that don’t, and the guys that don’t get it.
The recommendation provided by the article is a little bit of a the blind leading the blind situation. If I knew what to do I’d do it.
How do we get the guys that get it to care about the guys that don’t? There’s the actionable part that’s needed right there.
Well, you need people who are well adjusted and happy in their lives to choose to wade into the garbage dump of inceldom and deal with the toxicity. That’s a pretty big ask.
It’s an ask that is demanded of women pretty often when this problem is brought up as a discussion point.
You’re right though. It’s a big ask.
I know, and I’m explicitly trying to avoid that. That’s kinda why I point at socialization. The implication is that some base level of social skills development should probably happen at a young age, and our schooling system is very much under equipped for the task.
Personally, I went to school elsewhere, and my schooling was very much focused on science and math. This was good from a career perspective, not so much everything else.
“It means what it means,” followed by your specific interpretation. Don’t be a dick, I was asking in earnest.
They meant what they said. They said it’d be nice if there were good opinions outside of the BS pipeline. Why does that opinion offend you so much?
It didn’t? Why did you get so upset you needed to jump in?
lol I jump in often… Just look at my comment history… Most of the time I’m bored or procrastinating, so it’s interesting that you view it as anger…, Is that why you engage with topics, angry boi?
What.
I’m not attempting to make light of your situation, but the answer is counseling. A good one can help you figure things out and come to terms with your feelings and help you process them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counseling_psychology
Eh, over a decade of counseling would disagree.
Tbh I probably shouldn’t have spoken up.
Yes, you should have and it’s good that you did.
It’s the first step to being heard and we can’t improve this for anyone without it.
Everyone involved has to speak, listen, think, and act, and do those things in proper proportion and direction in order for us as a species to address the problems that make the manosphere look appealing to anyone.
Individual work is important, but there’s group work, too.
Part of the problem is that it’s more difficult to do the latter part when so many if us are barely keeping our daily lives in order due to the rising cost of everything necessitating more work and fewer outings, and the elimination of third spaces for most, but we still need to:
1: Try
And
2: Keep hope alive
I think there is value in knowing when to walk away from something that clearly isn’t working.
I wasted a lot of time and energy in my teens and twenties trying to find or form that group. That’s when, in retrospect, I was most susceptible to manosphere content. It was much less interactive back then, which I think is one of the reasons I was able to get myself out. It didn’t yet have the discord servers, and what communities they formed had not yet coalesced into single-subject forums. I imagine it’s a lot harder to get out of that.