This post is in two parts. The first is my attempt at an objective analysis of what lessons we should take from this.
The second part is my subjective introspection of why I feel the way I do about it. I'm still not sure if sharing that part is a good idea; but I wrote it to gather my own thoughts and feelings, and maybe it can help someone else. Or maybe it is just a giant wall of text that no one wants to look at.
First, the analysis:
The story with the bear hypothetical has almost nothing to do with gender dynamics. Sure, there is a gender politics point to be seen. A lot of women fear men. However, that is not a new insight. That observations has been a major part of the gender discourse for as long as I have. Almost no one is being introduced to that concept through the bear hypothetical.
Having said that, if you, dear reader, are part of todays lucky 10,000, then congratulations! If you are interested in learning more, then I would suggest avoiding anything that mentions "bear", and instead start with metoo. That was another time this type of gender dynamics conversation went viral, and produced a much healthier discourse.
In an ideal world, the bear hypothetical would have been made, and quickly forgotten about; either because someone was venting, or just struck out on a rhetorical point. These things happen. People who hear them see the context in which they happen and everyone moves on.
However, this hypothetical was posted on TikTok. TikTok is an amazing app. An unironic triumph of artificial intelligence. It is capable of turning humans into engagement with an efficiency that we thought was impossible just a decade ago. And this bear hypothetical is great for engagement. Toxic engagement, but engagement none the less. It then spread to other social media, which have similar (although less advanced) algorithms designed to create engagement. I don't think it is a coincidence that the lemmyverse was late to the bear party. Or that when the bear party reached us, such a disproportionate amount of the content has been at the meta level. We do not have the same toxic algorithms here. The meme only made it here as spillover after the big social media sites made it such a huge thing.
Regardless of how this meme came to be so large, is it useful? I would argue not. Look at all the discourse it has generated. How much of it has been productive? How many problematic men do you think listened to the discourse and took away the lesson you want them to take away? How many problematic men do you think listened to the discourse and took away that the entire movement you are trying to advance is stupid? Sure, plenty of men understood what you are trying to say; but those are not the ones that you need to reach. The ones we need to reach took away the other meaning. Beyond simply missing the point, many of them are now inoculated against the point.
Now comes the introspective part of the post. This is about how the meme and surrounding discourse made me feel and why. I don't claim to know how it made most people feel or why. This is just one person's feelings, motivated by their specific perspective and lifetime of experience. And that is the first point: there is a huge landscape of possible thoughts someone can have to the meme, of which I had a few. The meme, however, forces me to project all of those thoughts into a single decision: man or bear.
This is not a criticism of the discourse around the meme. The meme itself pushes me to pick a side before I read any of the discourse, before I even think about responding to it, before I even start engaging with it on a conscious level. The first thing I need to do is pick a side, and all of my subsequent thoughts are colored by that initial binary.
I picked man. And that hurts; because my tribe picked bear. And so, I find myself being "part of the problem", and being in the camp that is identified by an ideology that I do not like and is against my values. And that hurts.
I recognized that engaging with the meme was not healthy, but the algorithms are too powerful, so I kept reengaging and disengaging as it kept getting shoved back into my face. And the meme picked at a lot of other scars I have.
Many commentators have described the dichotomy as man=literal thinking and bear=metaphorical thinking. I have nothing novel to contribute to that analysis, but it is a good framing for this point. Growing up, I was very much "literal thinking" kind of kid. I still am a "literal thinking" kind of person, but it is my childhood experience that matters here. It was clear to me from a young age that my kind of thinking was not welcome, and so I learned to keep my thoughts to myself. When I did share them, they were beated down, and I never quite understood why. The discourse around this meme pokes at those old scar, and that hurts.
Growing up, I never really understood this whole boy vs girl thing. Sure, I understood that there were some clear physical differences, and could easily classify people into boys and girls. And I understood that I got classified with boys. What I didn't understand was such a big deal. Why did the girls get one room, and the boys another. Why the girls have their set of cliques and the boys have theirs. Why the girls got to wear nice clothing while I was stuck in a stupid suit and tie. For a long time, I thought everyone was simply acting. That no one wanted to be the one to say that the emperor has no clothes. And so, I acted. The few times I tried talking about, the adults would just say that I am trying to "be difficult"; that I do not actually believe what I was saying. In high school, I learned about transgender people. That was enough for me to logically convince myself that gender must be a real thing. After all, if everyone was just acting anyway, why would so many people insist on acting as the wrong one. I never really internalized that lesson, but the logical knowledge was enough to let me compartmentalize it and just go along to get along. Most of the time. This kind of gender essentialism discourse forces those boxes back to being the center of conversation, which pokes at those old scars, and that hurts.
Several months ago, there was a very moving article posted in one of the trans communities. Musings of a trans man wrestling with many of the same issues I talked about. How he had to spend his childhood acting a gender he didn't feel. How the exact same aspects of his self would have been received so differently if he was born a different gender. How he had to deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes from believing in, belonging to, and benefiting a movement that is in many ways between oblivious to and hostile of anyone who is not cisgendered [0]. In reading that article, for the first time I can recall, I felt heard. Someone put so many of my own thoughts and experiences down on paper. Someone else read that and thought it was so good that they had to share it with their community. And that community was unanimous in accepting it.
And so, I opened up. I shared my own thoughts. Not all my thoughts. But there was one thread running through all of the original article that really spoke to me that I wanted to crystallize and explore. Overall, I was agreeing with the same piece that everyone else was agreeing with, just doing so through my own lense.
Then, this happened (direct quote from the 1 response I got. Spoilered because even copying it was lightly triggering for me):
spoiler
Oh come the fuck on. Just shupt up, dude. “Not all men” is just a generally shitty response that shifts conversations about toxic masculinity, SA etc. away from those affected. It centers men in a conversation about issues that disproportionately harm women and nonbinary people. It is the telltale sign of men refusing to take responsibility for their own participation in coercive patriarchal structures, a horribly dumb behavior as patriarchy is provably harmful to men. Yet you folks can’t stop defending it and downplaying your complicity in it.
Notably, this is a thread about transmasculinity and the difficulties of having masculinity as a transition goal in a culture that has deeply contaminated masculinity to create oppressive structures and you dipshit barge in here to NOT ALL MEN this. You walk into a trans space and turn it into a platform for liberal antifeminism. Fuck you, you disgusting debate pervert, crawl back to reddit you stupid shit.
Also fuck yourself doubly for being a cis shit that tries to have an opinion about trans issues AND COMPLETELY IGNORES ANYTHING TRANS REALTED ABOUT THEM, i’ll file another report of your shitty post. We never should have federated with your shitty instance full of wehrmacht apologists, fuck you.
I reported that poster. Some time later, I discovered that I was now banned from the server. I had finally found my tribe. The most my tribe of any my tribe I had seen yet. I came out of my shell, spoke a little bit of my thoughts. And I was pushed back down, exiled from the tribe, and told to go back to the others. And that hurt. Also, getting called "cis" as a slur really pokes at the non-binary scar I talked about earlier, and that hurts.
And so, in comes the bear meme. Almost surgically designed to poke at all of those scars. And it hurts
What am I supposed to do when somethings hurts? Do I go to my tribe and vent? I can see a few brace (or stupid) posters in the various comments section expressing some thoughts similar to my own; but overall my tribe was united in saying that those posters were "the problem". And that hurts.
[0] I really do not want to go into the merits of those criticisms, as I do not think it is actually relevant to this post. Also, the original article does it better than I can.
I won’t lie, I don’t share a lot of experiences with you and others who are generously taking part in this post. But as this all has played out I recognized the absolute need for a post like this — separate from the memes, separate from potentially speaking over women, because there is a lot of unspoken pain.
This comment made my cry, friend. It is obscenely and heartbreakingly ironic the level of lashing out men can receive for simply stating their lived truth in the world of today. And your story is certainly a brutish example of that. I hope that you found some catharsis and relief having expressed your story here, and I hope that this can be a start of some continued recovering and healing both for you and the others in this community.
It’s kind of hard to summarize, it really is “Patriarchy 101” (or maybe 102) with the Barbie movie as a narrative base. It was good to hear things I’ve intuited explicitly stated
This is a very thoughtful discussion of “incels” and the unique challenges men face today.
It addresses male loneliness and the colossal changes in society—in terms of economics and sexuality—that have greatly affected men over the last few generations.
It also highlights many of the ways in which incel identity is misunderstood, presenting the phenomenon in a wider context—allowing space for greater understanding and empathy.
I’m not sure I understand your second sentence but the background is that he is famous for being on a team that has won multiple Super Bowls. He was invited to give a commencement address at his Alma mater and said some crazy shit.
I'm happy to see someone express that opinion. I have so much in common with this guy's stance on things (and even a lot of the bitterness) but I just can't stand watching him. I really, really don't like the "I'm hungover and angry" schtick and it makes it hard to watch.
Also in this camp. The news he covers is depressing enough without purposefully making it more gloomy. I've liked him just fine on things like Behind the Bastards where he's just been regular Cody. Robert will beat some things into the ground, but for the most part it's tolerable because he's just trying to lighten the mood.
I wish some of these podcasters and YouTubers would just be themselves and let the content speak for itself. They do a great job and don't need bits to get attention. I'd think anyone watching it for the bits doesn't really care about the message anyway.
I don't mind a good takedown video but I'm not big on alcoholism as the punchline. "I drink because I'm so angry about this" just doesn't resonate with me
But in his defense, his fans LOVE that presentation style and he's catering to them.
I also had no idea he was in the Behind The Bastards crew! I wanted to check it out but I only drive for like 20 minutes twice a week (and that was my podcast time)
Robert has the same substance abuse jokes, which are the ones in particular that annoy me also, but it's generally just at the ad breaks when I hit skip anyway. They were together at Cracked, and many of his guests are former Cracked employees. I gave up on Cody's show with that Wormbo puppet thing becoming a regular feature. That on top of the downer mood was too much for me.
The actual Behind that Bastards show is my favorite of the group's work, but if you're interested in their product but also interested in social activism and learning about political movements, unions, immigration, and civil rights, perhaps give their It Could Happen Here a listen. I listen to it in the big weekly compilation, but it's a series of 20-30 minute stories, each hosted by a different person on the team.
He has the occasional show on happy things, too. I like the shtick but it did take me awhile to warm up to it, and I could see how others couldn't get to that point. Tbh, I think the puppet helped me, too. Muppets automatically add silliness and happiness to any show. Except for maybe the Dark Crystal lol.
I enjoy it in some moods, not as much in others. I generally like it for 20 minutes but can't watch an entire episode at once. My ex would just screech "WHAT IS THAT TURN IT OFF I CAN'T TAKE IT" but well, that's sort of how I feel about her.
In defense of his exasperation, the topics he discusses generally are infuriating and deserve such treatment.
In general, good points but I'm seriously annoyed by glossing over education gap. It has diasterous effects on building relationships and in the long run on fertility.
Absolutely captivating read, I almost backed away just from the sheer length of it but now I’m sending it to others lol. Vivid and powerful, you can really feel the knot twisting around in her stomach. Interesting too that it was written so long ago, and looking back at her perspective now seeing how the social phenomenons she wrote about have evolved
It's an interesting read - a lot of her experiences she's discussing boil down to feeling she was ignored or her voice minimized because of her perceived gender identity and assumptions about how she was raised and what she would feel.
I liked her discussion and thought her perspective on purposely not transitioning was an interesting view. This was a really good analogy and drove home the point for me:
Imagine, dear reader, a cis-woman evenly saying:
“I wish I looked like that but I don’t and can’t. It sucks and it makes me feel really awful if I brood on it. That’s why I focus on my writing—I’d rather make things. Investing in and building things that aren’t my body helps me cope with the body issues I’ve been saddled with against my will.”
She doesn’t sound like she needs advice on how makeup will actually fix her core problem, does she? She seems like she’s doing alright. I’m her and I’m trans. That’s all.
Some big quotes that hit home through this post were
Do I need to be inspected and dissected by the people who laughed at me in order to receive my credential?
“I play along,” one of them told me, “because in the queer community the only people who defend cisboys are cisboys. I don’t want to give up finally being read as a girl.”
Oof.
I don't know if it's just the sections of the internet I frequent these days, but this intense, misandrist views don't seem to be as common as they once were, and not as accepted.
I was born into that shitty town, maleness, in the remains of outdated ideals and misplaced machismo and repression and there are some good people stuck living there. They are not in charge. They did not build it. And I don’t feel okay just moving out and saying “fuck y’all — bootstrap your way out or die out, I was never one of you.” I want to make it a better, healthier place—not spend all my time talking about how shitty it is and how anyone who would choose to live there deserves it.
the misandry has become less acceptable over time, probably as more "cis" girls like i was realized we weren't so cis or girls and made some of those actually cis girls confront the things they'd said and thought during that time
but also we've become a lot more aware of how the patriarchy hurts men, and we've also become more broadly aware of feminist authors like bell hooks, who have been writing about how men need feminism too all along
Cis woman here. I run in pretty leftist circles and whilst I don't see open misandry as much anymore, I also don't see as many people speaking about men's issues as I'd like. If I do see people speaking about men or masculinity in a problematic way, it's usually people who are receptive to being challenged, once I've pointed things out.
I appreciate that you call people out on these things. My experience with pointing things out or seeing online conversations where someone else pointing it out has been very different. That's not to say what you're saying doesn't happen. It's probably just different based on where exactly on the internet we've been. Granted, leftist areas of the internet has this issue less, but it's not zero.
Like let's take a conversation about men that are virgins. The more comments there are, the more likely it is that at least one person will make fun of this category of men. And in the cases I've seen, any attempts to counter this is met with "Lol the virgin outed himself". Very rarely does an actual conversation happen (again, in the cases I've seen), because any arguments brought forward about why we shouldn't shame men for being virgins is shot down as invalid because the person bringing these arguments is a virgin. Or heck, he might not even be one, but the other person has already made up their mind on the virginity status of the commenter.
And the fact that it's present, albeit not as often, in leftist spaces as well is really harming and it can push people in the other direction. I'm in my 20s, a leftist man and a virgin, but I was fortunate enough to form my opinions on a lot of issues without encountering douchebags like Andrew Tate. But what about someone that's a teenager right now, doesn't have any opinions on political stuff yet, but sees the left that's fighting for no discrimination, making fun of virgins, which he is? He goes to see what the other side is saying, and boom, he's trapped in there now. Of course, the past couple sentences is my idea of what might go through this hypothetical guy's mind. So it's not that I think the left as a whole makes fun of virgins, but from where my example guy is standing, it could seem that way when a lot of people say those things and they go unchallenged.
Sorry for the long rant, but it's basically a really long way of saying: I'm glad you're calling this shit out and keep at it!
I wish this person a sense of belonging and if being loved for what they are. Even by themselves. It does really make clear what kind of handicap gender dysphoria is, it reads like a irl purgatory.
I worked with some 50yo gay black men who shared how deeply that had to hide who they were for decades. Even in the 90s, there was violent assault because you were gay. Police frequently turned a blind eye.
People say things like "Just leave people alone" and yet someone come out of the closet, and they want them removed from society.
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