I will say it’s very easy to accept that victim attitude. I did. I don’t any longer, I’d consider myself a humanist with the belief we need to make society better for everyone.
I’m going to whine for a bit, I’m in my mid 30s now, and when I was in high school social media was new and Facebook was pretty much at its peak. I don’t know what growing up is like for kids these days, but I do know my 11 year old nephew is like the kids in the article and he knows all about “red-pill” alpha/beta/sigma shit (but not how incorrect it is).
As a teenager it felt like being a white straight male meant I was being pushed backwards to make room for helping push women forward (I saw felt like because sometimes how somethings feels outweighs reality).
As an example, to pay for university I went through lists of scholarships and almost all of them were focused on minorities and women, and so I was ineligible. I worked 30+ hours a week after school school and I worked really hard to get up to an A average so that I could get some scholarships to help afford tuition (and I still ended up with debt). It was a really tough time and I was filled with fear about the future. At the time I felt that that I had to put in more effort to get less than my peers did because I was a straight white boy. My girlfriend at the time ended up getting so many scholarships and bursaries that she could afford her tuition, and her residence, and fun money leftover, and she never had to take on any debt to pay for her even more expensive university. I only got one scholarship (not for lack of trying) based on my grade cutoff, and I ended up taking on debt which took years to pay off. It felt very unfair by comparison, and I know her experience did not reflect the average, but that’s what I saw as my comparison.
I also was a frequent 4chan user at the time, I joined for the memes, but there was a lot of commentary about how the education system had been changed to favour girls and that when it was more adversarial boys performed better. By then the statistics had already swung so that more girls were getting accepted into university, and they were more likely to graduate. I still have no idea how true the things I read on 4chan were vs reality, they definitely excluded the narrative of sexism against women in the old days, but they felt real, they matched with real statistics, and it was a cohesive narrative. I got sucked in, and I was bitter, and I saw all the ways in which I was the victim.
Obviously I never experienced any of the downsides of being a minority or being a woman. I never got the perspective of why things were harder for them and why they deserved help. I only saw there was help for them while I was struggling to keep afloat. I only saw the still present expectations on men to be providers, all the bad sides of patriarchy without knowing what patriarchy was (except meaning male and bad). Also at the time, there was stuff like anti-rape pledges that schools were making boys take, and it sorta felt like being treated like a criminal for crimes you knew you would never commit.
Anyways, I’ve meandered a lot. The discourse has evolved but I still don’t think men’s issues get the discussion they need, and I don’t think we’ve seriously focused much effort on the question of “how do we help boys too”.
Now that alarm bells are ringing and it feels like we’re still not adequately discussing men’s issues, and sadly it feels like the only people who actually are, are those alt-right red-pill influencers (who are massively warping the truth to fit a narrative) because they’re not afraid to get labelled over it.
And just to sign off, over 15 years after high school I now see a lot of the privilege I actually had, I’m more aware of the realities minorities and women face, and I know I was a whiny teenager with blinders on to all of the benefits and luck I actually had.
I remembered being the only Asian kid in school on Long Island. It was awful. The constant fights/bullying I was in were so frequent that my parents sent me to defense training.
My teachers would put me down and one of my teachers even physically abused me. The vice principal saw it and didn’t do anything either.
But I felt privileged because I wasn’t the only black kid in my school. He was my best friend. He had it way worse.
My point is that it is all about perspective. My life sucked because I knew what my friend was going through.
Obviously it’s not your fault. You’re the product of your environment. Racism is sorta built into everything in our society.
I’ll give you an example that relates to your post.
I work in a small startup and manage a marketing team. Our team is growing and I’m constantly hiring people.
Our founder plans to go public, but our diversity % is awful. We have 2000 employees, 8 blacks, 14 Asians and 80% men. The vast majority of them are white men. The head of HR is a friend of mine and asked me for help.
I told her one of the many reasons was the college graduate and masters preferred line we have on all our postings. It didn’t even matter that it’s a junior position. That was added because they wanted “educated” people. But we inadvertently homogenized all our candidates.
As a test, we changed all marketing positions to just say high school or GED. And with that simple trick, marketing is the most diverse department in the company.
The only thing we can all do as a society is to just try our best to bring diversity to our lives. I was a “don’t bother me and I won’t bother you” type of person when it came to LGBTQ people until I found myself living in West Hollywood and making friends with mostly gay people.
The scholarship thing, and lack of social support for men in general, is still a massive problem IMO. I’m all for lifting those up who need it, but many people, myself included, were too “rich” to get financial aid, too poor to afford anything other than community college (which is great, but it has challenges of its own), and too straight and white and male to quality for 95% of scholarships. I’m very aware I inherently have some level of privilege, and I’m sure there’s even more I’m unaware of, but the single greatest contribution to your chance of success in life is the zip code you were born in.
I’m extremely privileged and make more than enough money for a comfortable living, but the road here was very difficult, and it’s pretty damn easy to see why young boys are leaning right so hard. I’m left as fuck and id even be considered left wing in Europe, but the left in the US has alienated the fuck out of young men and provides almost 0 role models for them. The constant media messaging and sentiment of men are evil, they need to go die in wars, and #killallmen on social media being celebrated is super damaging. If I didn’t end up decently successful and couldn’t take a step back and get a top down view of everything I don’t know if I’d end up nearly as left as I am.
It’s only recently I’ve seen some sentiment change around this, but it’s going to take a long time as all social change does. We really ought to stop telling young boys what to not be and instead SHOW THEM what they should strive to be. This is why people like Andrew Tate get such a cult following. Despite being an absolute dog shit human being, he focuses on uplifting oneself and provides an ideal person who you should strive to be. By comparison that positive male role model who young boys should strive to be is completely absent on the left and leaves many boys, myself included at the time, lost as fuck and surrounded by what they should not be instead of what they should.
I really get this feeling. I remember at uni seeing adverts for scholarships and internships from huge and exciting companies that, in only a few more words, essentially said ‘if you’re anything other than a straight white male, sign up!’. I won’t speak to the value of effectiveness of these programs, but I can really understand how that could create a feeling of unwantedness that the alt right tries to give an answer for.
This is not a coincidence, this is the result of a long-term, political strategy. Anyone remember GamerGate? There has been an extreme backlash against feminism since the mid-2010s which GamerGate was a part of. (GamerGate in itself was part of a wider strategy that the far-right began to use on 4chan in the late 00s.)
Steve Bannon (then EIC at Breitbart) pushed GamerGate’s anti-feminism into the mainstream right-wing politics because he saw it as an opportunity to recruit young men. Unfortunately he was right and his strategy has paid off, forming an anti-feminist alliance that has become a core belief of right-wing parties all around the world. It has creeped into the mainstream with figures like Andrew Tate who fulfill the role of recruiting young men for even more extreme anti-feminist, far-right content.
This was the background noise that these young men grew up in. Many of the influencers they followed would tell them endlessly how feminism is to be blamed for bad games (during GamerGate) and - in general - how feminism is to be blamed for most ills of modern society. That young men were effed over by capitalism and patriarchy was - of course - deliberately omitted.
I agree with you. But I have another blame to this: the far right is the only political side that works on young men, especially on the romantic side of things.
Feminist is the other group that talks about sexuality and men/women relationships. Their fight is the good one, but they vomited men when it comes to #metoo and the consequences, and sometimes men were even excluded.
The outcome is that when you’re a men struggling with women, and this is especially a problem with gamers, long time single men, and young men discovering everything about this kind of things, when you’re struggling, feminism is basically abandoning you and sometimes even blaming you.
The only solution you can find about this is from far right with the most toxic and conservative philosophy there is. But it is the only one you can find, as a man, to try to get better about this. Or at least it was.
Those men were politicaly abandoned. And even here on lemmy you can easily read about people arguing that if a man can’t find a woman, it’s because he is a shitty person and not respectful of women.
So indeed on the one hand the far right led a political fight for this result. But on the other hand no one else was fighting on this ground. The left need to stand up and fight this fight too, rather than to send people seeking help to the far right.
feminism is basically abandoning you and sometimes even blaming you.
Yes, that’s because feminism is a movement for the emancipation of women. Why should a group that is fighting for its own emancipation waste its limited resources for another group that is not fighting on their own? For better or worse, there is no political or ideological group out there which isn’t prioritizing the interests of its own members first and foremost. So why should feminism be any different? Why should women have to do the work for the men who - for whatever reason - aren’t acting in their own interests?
Yes, the left has offered no coherent answer to the problems of young men, but it isn’t the case that they offered no answers at all: Brotherhood and comradeship, international solidarity, self-organization and the fight against the oppressors have been core values of the left for ages. Unfortunately the left was ground to dust by capitalism and the last remnants of unions and other such movements which were always meant to empower individuals are struggling. They recently saw an upsurge again, but it remains to be seen if they can make a difference in the long run.
Unfortunately as long as men, such as the gamers you mention, sit behind the computer screen and think that good things should come to them without them having to do something themselves, they will always fall for the far-right’s false promises of power and riches.
That’s true and I am a big fan of it, but in order to find a place within insectional feminism, men have to create them. Men’s Lib is one of those places.
I would agree that it’s on liberal men, especially ones who had a “toxic” past and therefore can relate to the experience, to reach out, create media and engage in conversations.
You see, that’s exactly the kind of discourse that leave a highway for fascist to convert those people. Your wrote all this text to basically say fuck you to these men, I won’t help you, help yourself.
Now the far right does tell these men what to do, unlike the left. Obviously they will go with them, because that’s the only support they get.
Feminist movement will not succeed if it doesn’t incorporate men. And women need to be involved in creating a model for men. Otherwise men will simply fall back on the conservative misogyny like they’re doing, and this model do have something for women. Feminist won’t like it though.
I don’t like it either. I like the feminist model. But there’s absolutely nothing for men within it. And this is causing the backlash we can see today.
BTW individual responsibility is the liberal philosophy. Phylosophy that is perfectly fine with fascism if it must come to it. Fascists understand it perfectly, and their misogynistic philosophy is full of individualism. Feminism will not win if it embrace individualism.
I am sorry that you do not see my POV and with the danger to repeat myself: In order to get help, people need to seek help. It requires action. And that’s the same for everyone: Men and women.
That’s why places like Men’s Lib exist: Some men took action and created a forum for men to discuss such matters, but these things will not come to someone who doesn’t seek it.
Hey, just look at the article. Those men are looking for help, and they are finding it. It’s just the far right that gives it. And here people are blinding themselves and pretending there is nothing more to do about it.
This place is a great start. It is what is needed. It’s late to the party, but better late than never.
I like the feminist model. But there’s absolutely nothing for men within it.
You seem to not be very familiar with feminism. Most obvious one is that feminism wants to give man and women a choice when it comes to their role in society. Like most liberal “leftist” movement it’s about empowering the individual to be able to live a life that makes them happy by overcoming societal structures.
I don’t know where you live to have such a narrow definition of it. And it certainly is true for some feminist groups. But feminism is a diverse movement. And some of them are definitely not open to men.
When you can read that the heterosexual couple must end because it’s based on domination and it enforces patriarchy, at best it’s a poor choice of words.
I don’t know where you live to have such a narrow definition of it.
I didn’t give you a definition of feminism to beginn with, so not sure what you are talking about. I gave you an example of an aspect of feminism that clearly benefits men.
And some of them are definitely not open to men.
Sure, and some feminist believe that all piv sex is rape and than some others that trans-women are not women. Like you said, feminism is diverse and there are fringe opinions and genuine crazy people. But don’t you think it’s rather biased to define the whole movement by the most fringe elements of it?
When you can read that the heterosexual couple must end because it’s based on domination and it enforces patriarchy, a
Do you think that is a popular opinion with people considering themselves feminist or do you think it’s rather radical extreme position hold by a few and refuted by the majority?
I don’t know the sociology of the people who consider themselves feminists. I read and talk quite some with people, women in fact, who are activists. A published article that defend or promote feminist is activist by definition.
I’ve never seen a moderate feminist article. Would you have one that I can read?
Notice that I didn’t say every feminist was extremist. Some are obviously more moderate than others. But by its nature, feminism is radical. The problem is that men are generally considered allies at best. They’re not included. They’re often excluded.
If some feminists include men, I’ll very gladly learn about them, because I’ve never have before. And I consider myself informed.
I’m curious where you live, since your experience is rather wildly different then mine.
What is a moderate feminism for you? Need to know before I go searching.
Also I’m curious what being included means for you - is considering men allies including them? What would satisfy for you the criteria of men being included?
These are the wrong questions. The question is how do men and women love each other after metoo? That is the question Andrew tate and the fascists are answering, in a reactionary way.
And Barby (the movie) is a good example of the feminist stance on this: feminists are basically saying “I don’t want to be your doll, fuck off, dont try to love me”. And while the first part is perfectly reasonable and sound, the second part is missing the point. And I realise here that it’s not just me that are abandoned but also women here.
The feminist stance is understandable I guess: they don’t want men to tell them what to be, so they won’t tell men what to be either. But that’s missing the point, the question that’s being asked: how do men and women love eachother after metoo?
People want models, both to understand what to aim for, and to have something to dream about. There are strong women models now all over movies and games. But men are still the old one, and there’s nothing but the old philosophy to answer the question of how do men and women love eachother after metoo. Because feminists abandoned this question.
And it cannot be either men or women to answer it. It must be discussed and agreed. Because women must like what men will be, and men must accept what women want. There is as much work to do on women than there is on men.
Final point: the answer cannot be a negative one. It cannot be “don’t be a dick”. Because after metoo most reasonable men understand that. The question is, if we’re not to be dicks, what will we be? And I’m talking about seduction and romantic relationships here. The question the far right is answering. The question that matter when it comes to men and women relationships. Because no one cares if you want to be an astronaut or a fireman.
The question is how do men and women love each other after metoo?
Sure we can switch the topic.
fuck off, dont try to love me”.
What the hell are you talking about? That has nothing to do with feminism and I struggle to understand how you arrived at the conclusion that after metoo women don’t want to be loved anymore. Women don’t want to be raped, harassed and then dismissed when they try to get help. That was the point of metoo.
how do men and women love eachother after metoo?
Respecting each other, here I gave you the answer.
But men are still the old one,
There are tons of positive role models for men out there that fit feminist bills. From Argagorn in LOTR to Aang in Avatar, if you are interested I can keep on going.
nd there’s nothing but the old philosophy to answer the question of how do men and women love eachother after metoo.
Yeah, because as I said metoo was about not being raped, harrassed and not dismissed - some rather basic things for a relationship. What answers do you exactly need?
And it cannot be either men or women to answer it. It must be discussed and agreed. Because women must like what men will be, and men must accept what women want.
But that is an individual question. There is no answer for everyone besides - respect others and their boundaries and then anything goes. There is no one archetype of men that all women find attractive and never was.
Final point: the answer cannot be a negative one. It cannot be “don’t be a dick”. Because after metoo most reasonable men understand that. The question is, if we’re not to be dicks, what will we be? And I’m talking about seduction and romantic relationships here.
You just misunderstood the answer. Again it’s not about not being a dick, no one cares. It’s about not raping, harassing and than dismissing women. And the answer the left is giving: consent. Make sure the other side is into what ever is going on and than you are free to do what ever you two want.
Sure, if pushback and arguments is not understanding and not caring in your book. You could also try to explain your opinion, if you believe I misunderstood you. That’s up to you buddy.
guess you’re left blaming men and social networks for turning young men mysoginistic fascists.
That is not my opinion at all. Except that social media is defenetly playing a role in spreading populist idea. But there is also an underlying reason for those ideas to become popular in the first place.
You wrote it yourself, you don’t understand what I’m talking about eventhough I explained at length. It’s not up to me. I explained at length already.
No, I wrote that I pushed back and made arguments. It’s your personal assessment, that I didn’t get your point. If you were genuinely interested in a conversation - you would try to understand my point and where the misunderstanding might be.
I understand the statistics the article is talking about. And I think I understand why. If you want to understand, you’ll need to make the effort.
And other people have other opinions on why and discuss those opinions. That’s why we are here. You can try making an effort to be understood and try to understand others or just be upset why nobody agrees with you.
For example you wrote:
guess you’re left blaming men and social networks for turning young men mysoginistic fascists.
Wich is clearly misunderstanding of my opinion. So I just corrected you. It’s not that hard.
You only answered one sentence in my whole comment and ignored the meaning of everything else. That’s what I mean. You even started with saying that I was sidetracking the conversation when I was actually refocusing it.
If you want to make this an actual discussion, write your point instead of making it a quote ping pong.
Sure, if you are interested in my personal opinion I will gladly share. Just to be sure we are on the same page: we are talking about why the new right and conservatives are able to reach young men and where and why progressives fail to do so? Agree or did I miss something?
We live in a time where everything is changing rapidly, which includes gender roles in society. Those stayed rather stable over longer periods of time, but industrialization and two consecutive world wars changed western societies rather drastically. Women became rather completely independent of men in economical aspects and simultaneously pushed for more rights and participation. But this also changed the relationship dynamic and what women seek in a relationship. While previous generation could look at their parents for role models, newer generation had to come up with their own. At the same time over the last 20 years people (in the west) started to grow up in a less certain and secure world. While at the same time internet arrived and changed a lot of ways we interact with other people, while at the same time providing populist with a perfect tool to reach their audience.
So to put it together, we live in a completely different and much more complex world form previous generations. It’s not just gender roles people are struggling with. And that is always a perfect time for populist to come around the corner and provide simple solutions. So populist and conman took on themself to sell the old romantic story of better times long gone by (conveniently their audience wasn’t alive back than, so they don’t know) just with modern tools. And easy answers that are sold in an entertaining way will always find buyers. Especially since it’s pushed by algorithms right down peoples throats.
Populism works since Caesar, and there wasn’t Internet back then… Napoléon? Hitler and Mussolini? Do you know how it went in antic democratic Athen? Populism goes with democracy. Internet has nothing to do with it.
The society is more complex than ever? I read it at least twice: in a XVth century book, and in an antiquity one.
But this is beside the subject. You’ve said nothing here to explain why the reactionaries (the alt right, the far right, populism) are benefiting from this more than the left. Are you saying that the left can’t win? Are you saying that we should shut down Internet?
You need to go farther in your analysis. There always were political forces opposing each other. The progressists were wining for women until recently. Why is it changing when young are so much more informed and educated than people were 50 years ago?
Populism benefits from new media since it offers easy solutions. While at same time it takes time for society to develop new rules and individuals to learn to handle new media. More complex ideas also need more time to be translated in a way relatable and entertaining to new audience.
Why men are seemingly more succeptable to the rightwing propaganda than women? Maybe because rightwing ideology has rather little to offer women even on populist level.
But than again you don’t seem to be interested in engaging with my arguments. So I will stop waisting my time.
What is this argument? I’m trying to understand. Here you’re not giving an argument though, merely an analysis. You don’t say anything about what’s possible about the problem. Except maybe explaining more and better then?
Men have nothing to win out of the Conservative ideology btw. It’s very harmful to them. Both physically and psychologically. But people don’t choose an ideology after a cost/benefit analysis anyway.
Last time: rightwing populism offers easy solutions to complex problems of modern world ( like for example gender: conservatives say there are two and don’t bother thinking more about that topic). Modern media allows for easy spread of populism ( algorithms pushing media that creates engagement and creating information bubbles). The right wing populism offers men a clear role and place in society. Right wing populism also offers a clear role for women in society, but it’s almost as bad as a deal as immigrants get. Progressive and feminism also offers solutions to modern problem, but they are more complex. ( For example a more complex understanding of what gender ist). Complex ideas are more difficult to sell.
If you feel like engaging with my analysis/argument/greating card what ever you call it, you are welcome otherwise have a nice day.
Dude I literally gave you an example. I obviously can’t retell you whole feminist and other progressive theories and what they offer as solutions to each one of the problems we are facing in moder world.
My example was gender issues:
conservatives - there are two and don’t think more about it, you feel like you don’t fit, we teach to ignore feelings anyway.
progressive - offer a complex ever evolving understanding of gender as combination of culture and biology.
And that’s true for a lot of topics.
One is easily digestible the other takes time to understand.
I understand this very well, but that’s not my question. This is in fact irrelevant to the subject here. I’m not asking you about the rights minorities should get. I’m asking you about the cis-heterosexual men and women.
I’m not asking about theoretical or abstract things. I’m asking a simple question.
If your answer is that it is too complex, then you now know what the problem is. And that’s exactly the problem I’m referring to.
If you can’t understand that, then the problem doesn’t come from the people who don’t understand your complex theories.
Until you realize that you are not asking simple questions, you will never understand why simple answers don’t work. The answer will always be complex, so it comes down to people being able to explain complex concepts in an entertaining and understandable manner, where we come back to the point I was making the whole time.
At least you almost understood me at the end. It’s something.
Thank you for proving my point: I ask a simple question, and you hide behind arrogance and disdain, abandoning me with no answer. This is precisely what I was saying.
Sure, everyone is free to chose to be ignorant. Nothing I can do about it. But it’s sure funny that after days talking with me - that is your take away.
If you feel like it sure. But than again I spend quite some time trying to explain my point and you spend that time not engaging with what I say. You think you are asking a simple question and that progressives have nothing to offer as a solution. But when people try to explain to you that it’s not that simple and progressives have indeed solutions to offer, but those are complex - you just ignore everything.
But than what are you doing here if you think progressives have nothing to offer for men? Seems like you are wasting your time here.
You are twisting my words. I understand what you’re saying. But you refuse to understand what I am saying. Just because I don’t say “yes you are right and I am wrong” doesn’t mean I don’t understand you. You’re repeating yourself since the beginning.
But the best: you repeat ad nauseam how the solutions exist but are complex, yet you refuse to even try to give the beginning of one to the question I ask. With all the messages spent repeating how complex it is, you could at least have the beginning of something tangible.
It’s very concerning that you don’t understand that you’ve just made an overall feminist argument.
Because feminists abandoned this question.
This is most certainly not true.
Because after metoo most reasonable men understand that. The question is, if we’re not to be dicks, what will we be? And I’m talking about seduction and romantic relationships here. The question the far right is answering.
The far right is answering with “let’s just be dicks”?
If some feminists include men, I’ll very gladly learn about them, because I’ve never have before. And I consider myself informed.
You are not. There is a long tradition of feminist thought that makes very clear that feminism is inclusive of men. What’s more, feminism very explicitly advocates for the betterment of men in the form of freeing them from oppressive gender roles. I suggest you check out works like Feminism Is for Everybody by bell hooks for an introduction into this pillar of feminism.
I’m still am apprentice, and I already make more than I ever did in my first career (20 years as a chef). Journeyman rates are over $40/ hour and once you included insurance and retirement theyre around $80/ hour. Oh and were among the lower paid locals in our state.
I walked off a jobsite because they failed to provide us with safe conditions, had the safety officer on site that day, had the local union officers follow up, contractors apologized fixed the conditions and paid me for my missed time.
If you let them joke about it, they will. If you make them follow it, they will. Safety starts and ends with you brother.
The “what happened?” part of the title implies that there has been a shift in how comfortable men are with hugging. But the study doesn’t show that there has been. Per the article:
We may here be seeing an age effect, rather than a generational effect: younger adults are generally much more likely to cry and therefore worry more about whether they should or should not.
This is my suspicion. I’ve become more comfortable expressing emotions and being myself as I get older. Is that the trend and the explanation for younger men not being as comfortable demonstrating their emotions? The study doesn’t tell us.
the morning light hit my stove’s greasy backsplash in just the right way to reveal a finger-traced drawing of a dick ’n’ balls spraying a few fingertip-dots of jizz.
Us mere mortals can only dream of writing this perfect, for indeed here we have an example of prose from an artist at the pinnacle of the form.
I think it’s hilarious that his praise of prose contains errors, perhaps intentionally, but pointing out the irony of such errors causes people to react negatively with down votes.
It’s like you’re the only one who got the joke and everyone else is mad they didn’t understand.
The only thing I wish men’s attire had that women’s has is thumb holes on hoodies. This article has to be bulkshit otherwise because, yeah, pockets are cool.
Super rare for men’s but almost standard issue for women’s. I was given a school hoody when I started my Masters program that had a thumb holes. I said, “wait a minute”, checked the tag and it was a women’s. Super bummed I spent $45k and no thumb holes when swapped for the men’s.
Women’s pants don’t have pockets because putting stuff in your pockets causes weird bagging on your upper thighs and ruins the silhouette of the pants. However, I do agree the utility of having pockets is hard to live without.
Women’s pants don’t have pockets because it’s a way to force them to buy purses.
Every person ever who has said that this is purely due to women’s choice needs to go shop for pants once. It’s a miracle to be able to find a single pair of pants that either isn’t 6 inches too long or 3 inches too wide at the waist. Women don’t have luxury of choosing pockets when most pants are either so long they drag through every puddle or too wide to the point of showing the whole ass crack when sitting down.
You say that as if altering clothing isn’t something that takes time to learn, time to do, risks of ruining your clothes, affect it’s durability, and difficult to do well. If it were so easy no one would pay for it to be done. Go to your local tailor and ask how much it is to hem a pair of pants or take the waist in.
Imagine everytine you buy a pair of pants you have to mentally prepare yourself to put the time and effort into sewing your own pants, something that most guys don’t have to do.
I have the exact same problems finding men’s pants. The leg length never makes sense with waist size. Not to mention being a skinny guy having one pair of pants in my size in the entire store, if I’m lucky. I almost always have to settle for at least one size to big.
My boyfriend occasionally watches YouTube shorts, mostly for the occasional good joke or cat video. He’s told me that the shorts algorithm seemingly goes out of its way to show him Andrew Tate type content as well as general Daily Wire/Shapiro/conservative ‘libs owned’ clips. More or less, if he doesn’t immediately close out the app or swipe to the next short when one of these videos comes up, his shorts feed is quickly dominated by them.
I think the big thing is that these algorithms are often trained on maximizing watch time/app usage, and there’s something uniquely attention-catching to a lot of men and boys about the way viral manosphere content is constructed. A random poor setup to a skit is likely to get swiped past, but if the next clip comes swinging out of the gate with “here’s how women are destroying the West” there’s a certain morbid curiosity that gets some to watch the whole thing (even out of amusement/credulousness), or at least stay on the clip slightly longer than they would otherwise. If one lingers on that content to any degree, the algorithm sees that as a sign that the user wants more of it—or rather, that it would achieve its “more engagement” goals by serving up more of it.
Plus, it’s grabbing ideas on what to recommend based on user data and clustered associations. It’s very likely to test the waters with stuff it knows worked for others with similar profiles, even if it’s a bit of a reach.
I’m inclined to believe it’s one of those things that, once it enters the recommendation sphere on your account, it’s really hard to get it to go away without manually removing profiling info via Google account settings. I just remembered now, at one point he did run a personal experiment to try and see how extreme the content would get if he let it play after it started showing up. After getting kind of disturbed with how bad it got, and bored of laughing at it for amusement, he tried training the algorithm to only show him cat videos and kind of settled on where it currently is. I’m guessing his account has a lot of those older associations still tied, and the algorithm tries to rekindle them from time to time.
YouTube has a setting somewhere to only hold your view history for 3 months. I can’t recommend that enough.
Been using that setting for a couple of years, and it changed a bit how the algorithm recommends things to me cause if I somehow get into the cesspool sphere, it will stop in about 3 months.
I can’t imagine being so beholden to a for profit company that I spend three whole months putting up with shit I don’t want to see in the hopes that eventually it will get better.
It’s just crazy to me how important YouTube is to some people.
I tried using NewPipe for a while on mobile, but the issue is that surprisingly, no algorithm is almost as maddening as a algorithm that went batshit insane.
I love newpipe for exactly that reason. I don’t like being suggested videos, I want to search for something specific and watch those videos about the specific knowledge I’m seeking at the moment. If I want to waste time then I take a moment to think about something I was wondering earlier that day, and look that up.
If I’m going waste time I might as well learn something about whatever.
I like being suggested stuff based on my subscriptions, otherwise I would not find anything worth to watch. This also helps when someone you are subscribed to releases a new video, but for some reason or another, you didn’t notice it.
There’s also the issue of not having an alternative on desktop, so you are going to use YouTube anyway
Using YouTube shorts myself I think the reason is that the algorithm is a bit janky. I notice that something it’s fond of is to continue pushing me these clips from podcasts hosted by random comedians (I’m sure you know the type of content I’m talking about.) probably because lots of that type of content gets generated every week. Sometimes it’s funny, usually it’s not, but it’s not something I swipe away from immediately. I think that these types of videos are pretty strongly linked to the right wing talkshows that follow similar formats. The algorithm just assumes it’s all similar content i.e. white men talking. I guess it’s just a speed run of the famous “alt-right pipeline”.
I tried youtube shorts a few times and it kept recommending me very right wing content including andrew tate. I always swipe away as fast as I possibly can and it still is very insistent on showing me that type of content. Youtube even knows that I am a woman and I don’t watch anything even remotely similar to what it wants to show me so I don’t really understand why it is so insistent on showing me misogynistic content. I guess they just don’t want me to use their platform anymore?
I’m pretty certain the shorts algorithm is kind of “its own thing” in a lot of ways. It’s a prime “your mileage may vary” system, and because so many right wing creators upload to it, it’s basically a numbers game unless you get lucky with the algorithm when it’s first getting a handle on your preferences.
While I don’t know this for certain, the only really effective way to get the algorithm to stop showing you something is to literally close the app for a while when it puts one in front of you. Combined with searching up shorts for the stuff you want, I think it’s possible but it’s really persistent if it thinks it should show you specific kinds of content.
At the end of the day, however, they’re machine learning models, and while we can gesture at trends, nobody knows the full ins and outs of how a specific model makes its decisions. Kind of scary that we trust them to the role of curation in the current environment at all to be honest
I just checked shorts on my phone and they have like and dislike buttons. Does it still show you that stuff if you press dislike? In the top right they have a … with options for “not interested” and “block channel” which should fully remove it if it’s the same channel being recommended. I don’t have any of that stuff on my feed probably because I blocked them the first time I saw them. If you didn’t know those options existed then they clearly have a UI problem.
If you don’t like a video you should just swipe away because the algorithm is looking for engagement and even though disliking it is negative it is still engagement and it will cause YouTube to show that content to more people. It can use your dislike to determine if that video is good or not for people similar to you, so your dislike might change who it is suggested to, but it won’t cause it to be suggested less. At least that is what I have heard, I don’t know if that is actually true.
Of course they will try and figure out what demographics like which videos, that’s not always a bad thing, some people are not interested in video game content, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just a different demographic. They’re going to use whatever signals they can find to figure out those clusters, if you don’t engage but another demographic engages heavily they’ll keep recommending it to them. Giving them less signal won’t make it less popular, it will just give you worse recommendations.
If the goal is to prevent this harmful content from being recommended at all then I think it is important to just ignore it. I don’t need to use youtube shorts and if it’s going to be terrible then I’m just never going to interact with it anymore.
YouTube is really bad with this. My algorithm’s “vibes” is leftist/queer video essays, urbanist content, and bestofs/clips from video game streamers.
Yet YouTube unironically and regularly puts Andrew Tate’s ugly-ass mug next to Alexander Avilla and I’m just like what the actual fuck. Of the young male population I’m probably in the top 1 % least likely to click on that shit.
Hanlon’s razor says this is just the shorts algorithm being insanely stupid (which it also is in other ways). But this is beyond a simple mishap, it is an incredibly dangerous and damaging ideology being (accidentally or not) sanctioned and pushed by YouTube onto impressionable youths. How is no-one freaking out about this?? (It’s a rhethortical question. The answer is it serves the interests of the patriarchy).
It’s not the algorithm being stupid. It’s the algorithm only personalizing a limited number of things. The optimal solution is to yet people stuck on things that are proven sticky, so after a few videos, they basically always start offering up bullshit that aggros people.
It just happens faster on short, because videos are like a minute long, not 15.
I am the same. At this point I hardly believe it’s a mishap. IMO the fascists are manipulating the algorithms, or they pay to promote them, or the platform favors them.
I can see a propaganda structure working to manipulate the algorithm or pay to get them better ranked. But I can also see the platforms, Facebook, Google, etc, to favor them intently.
I’d argue that a lot of content on YouTube is much more interesting and clic worthy that the mysoginistic crap they force feed us with.
There are some pretty weird-ass comments here, that’s for sure! I scrolled, but didn’t feel like engaging. I didn’t think “saying yes to unwanted sex can be harmful” was a hot take, especially in this community, but… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Good to know, I was not aware of that. I appreciate that folks on lemmy seem to kinda always have their finger on the pulse so to speak when it comes to the background of various organizations
Just so I’m reading this correctly, young women are almost at the turning point to becoming more right wing as well, right? With what appears to be only a .01 or .02 difference from young men.
Sounds like the article should be more focusing on why everyone in the world except the boomers are feeling more despair and the young are rapidly trending towards “control”.
I don’t think you’re reading it correctly. Men 18-34 were the only group that trended towards the control axis compared to 2014. Both women and men 18-34 went much lower on the despair axis compared to 2014, but women still moved towards the freedom axis instead of the control axis.
Look at young women, they went from 3.69 to 3.70, a rapid slow down and only 0.02 point off from a complete reversal.
The next age of women went from 3.45 to 3.55, a much larger move to “freedom”, but they also barely grew despaired.
Young women are almost at the turning point of being more control oriented as well.
In a few more years young women will be more to the control side as well.
What’s alarming is that both young age groups have a massive increase in despair and both are trending towards control, with men leading the path by only a 0.02 difference.
If you extrapolate from that, it will be on the control side in short order. That is a trend, we can predict what will happen based on the observed changes.
You could also interpret those results as young women hitting a wall on how much towards freedom they will go. Every other group was much lower on the freedom scale, so they had more room to move.
I'm not sure I follow. Freedom is a huge issue for young American women, which is why we lean so much towards freedom on the scale. I would imagine the lack of hope would move young women to push for freedom, since a lot of this 'control' stuff involves controlling women. I think it's just as likely if not more likely that the increase in despair didn't change the political leanings because they are already so freedom leaning rather than the young women are a few bad days away from embracing fascism.
Went toward freedom in any amount of time, extrapolated to any other time, will still be in the same direction, aka toward freedom. The direction cannot change when you have two data points and linearly extrapolate
If they went up 0.1 in 10 years, if you extrapolate 10 more years, they'll go up 0.1. If you extrapolate 5 years, they'll go up 0.05. They'll always go up at the rate of 0.1/10 years
Not if you look at the rate of change as well as the change. If it’s trending towards zero, it can be a curve rather than straight line. That can then trend negative.
Think of a car going fast, then applying the brakes. It slows down until it eventually stops.
Now think of a boat. It doesn’t have a brake. It has a reverse throttle. When you want to slow down, the motor goes backwards. When you hit zero, you start to then go backwards. That’s what they are extrapolating.
There's only 2 points, not 3. You can't look at the change of the change with only 2 points. For all we know, if they had done the survey in 2005, women would have been further towards freedom and moved towards control for 2014 and the change of the change would show they're accelerating towards freedom.
The problem, for the likes of Reuters (who is owned by the Thompson family, who are the richest people in Canada) that the problem is the very system that's enriched them and people like them over the last fifty or so years.
They'd need to admit they were wrong in their desires to dismantle the post-WW2 New Deal era, and that while neoliberalism has worked out just dandy for them, it's been a net loss for a lot of people and is only getting worse. And that admission would mean they'd have to make do with less. Not that they'd be poor, but they'd need to be less obscenely rich.
And because this is such a hard admission to make, and because neoliberal technocracy has been working great for them so far, they'll nibble at the edges of the problem, maybe scapegoat a group or two, or fret about culture wars or indulge in the macroeconomic version of bikeshedding instead of dealing with the core issue.
Upton Sinclair was bang on with "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
For anyone who read to the end of the comment above, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is one of the most powerful books of the 20th century. It is credited with the formation of the FDA and the growth of labor movements throughout the United States. If you have not read it before, read it now.
He also ran as a socialist, and it was the first time in history when the Republicans and Democrats banded together publicly to defeat a 3rd party candidate. They didn't care which of them won, as long as a socialist didn't win. He still won something like 35% of the votes.
Note that the younger generations here (18-34) are primarily comprised of people who were not in that cohort the last time this survey was done. Only 18-24 from the first dot is still in that cohort.
Most of that cohort moved into the middle aged group already.
That does not solve anything, since people are drawn to platforms with easy accessible content they enjoy. People will use those platforms. The problem is that algorithms will recommend you radicalizing content. And it’s an extremely complex task to solve. I would have no idea where to beginn, except better education - but that’s something that will take a generation to work out.
If the system is so fucked that it'd "take a generation to work out", maybe the system isn't worth saving in the first place. We're talking social media websites here, not something like hospitals or schools that are required for a functioning society.
It took us hundred thousand years to figure out that hitting children as education is bad. We might not be the brightest.
More serious - sure, but it’s not that it’s easy to get rid of social media. Sure in china you can just forbid them, but they go more the way of using them to spread state propaganda. And in most democracies, people won’t support a blanket ban - I wouldn’t.
Treat them like cigarettes. Systems designed to amplify “engagement” are rage-farms, and bad for your brain. Limit their marketing, de-platform the companies, and commit to public health measures that educate people on that fact.
You could outlaw for-profit participation in the sector. Facebook would suck way less if it didn’t have to increase profits for shareholders constantly.
That would be a marvelous solution for sure (if we manage to close loopholes), but you will need one hell of a salesmen to sell it to general population.
Not using the platforms is a personal solution for any individual who wants to escape, not a general solution. For “don’t use the platforms” to work as a solution for the masses, so few people would use the platforms that the platforms would cease to exist.
I’m genuinely failing to see the downside here of facebook, twitter, and the like ceasing to exist.
Me neither. I should have been clearer. Despite all the bad things they do to make things worse, the problem is not the existence of the platforms. The problem is people. I was alluding to the fact that if there were enough people who recognized the problems of these platforms and acted on that, those kinds of platforms would never have arisen in the first place.
The various nasty types have always found ways to spread their messages, convert people to their cause, and convince others to do the actual dirty work.
Throughout history, every time a technology was introduced to increase the speed and geographical distribution of a message, extremism founded on false conspiracy, propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation has at least temporarily increased. There are really simple explanations for why that is. First, we have the problems of human cognition. Our brains are really lousy at identifying cause and effect, separating meaningful patterns from useless ones, and creating and maintaining accurate memories.
Second, truth requires verification. Verification cannot happen without investigation and communication among investigators. This means that verification will always happen much slower than message distribution. That is why a lie can circle the globe before the truth can get out of the starting blocks.
As bad as these platforms are, it’s important to remember that their problematic algorithms are little more than codification of the methods that propagandists have used for centuries. Rush Limbaugh brought these concepts to a peak before most people had ever heard of the internet. Usenet was filled with the same stuff we see on Facebook, and there were no algorithms or central systems, just people doing what people do.
When it comes to social media … Regulate, regulate, regulate … at local, regional, national and international levels
Imagine if all newspapers, magazines, books, publications were unregulated and uncontrolled? What do you think would be published everywhere? Imagine if daily newspapers just had no regulations at all and just ran and published all kinds of nonsense every day pretending everything they said were true? Imagine if regular publications everywhere just published non stop lies and nonsense? Everyone everywhere would go crazy with all kinds of ideas pushed by whatever group to do and think terrible things.
Imagine if all TV news programs, media news shows and information TV shows all just blasted complete nonsense, conspiracy theories and broadcast it all far and wide?
When you don’t have any controls or regulation on the mass information that is being shared everywhere … it turns into the wild west and the world starts to run on rumours, lies, half truths and misinformation. Society breaks down because no one is able to trust anything any more and information becomes a poison that no one wants any more.
Imagine if all newspapers, magazines, books, publications were unregulated and uncontrolled?
You can actually write in a book pretty much what ever you want and I would appreciate if it stayed that way.
I don’t think that there is any benefit in pretending that regulating any media is not a difficult tusk. It’s a delicate balance act and with social media even trickier, since it’s an individual against the state situation.
As a once-angry young man who mellowed out somewhat (I am now an angry 30-year-old man), I do understand some of the prickliness involved, even if it doesn't apply to me anymore. I was always pretty liberal and anti-manosphere, but there is an element here that isn't "Men always have to butt in on subjects where we should be listening to women" (that definitely IS a problem, mind).
We, as men, are socialized to deal with othering in the most dogshit ways, and like rubbing salt in a wound, inevitably aggravate it. You don't talk about getting othered, unless you're getting angry about it, otherwise you're 'weak' and need to 'nut up' and 'stop being a pussy'. You can't work to solve it, because then you're a 'tryhard' and 'pathetic'. It's a kind of helplessness by being stripped of the natural tools that should be available to us, but generations of toxic masculinity have rendered anathema.
It's like being trapped in a cage, where you can see every piece of what is tormenting you, but do nothing about it except grind your teeth into dust trying fruitlessly to chew through the bars until some power, through no influence of your own, releases you. No one wants to be othered, no one wants to be seen as fundamentally contrary to participation in a common community - but many men have no way of dealing with that, and it terrifies them. The wounds never heal, but you become increasingly defensive and neurotic about it. It becomes a hair-trigger.
A lot of young men right now are probably reading the bear metaphor as more an incident of othering rather than an expression of the risk inherent to women when dealing with our current society. They aren't hearing "Jesus Christ, be a little receptive to the concerns of women, the risk calculus here is not the same risk calculus you are using", they're hearing "Women don't see us as equals, they see us as dangerous animals. We're not of a common community; we've been (or are being, or are realizing we've always been) cast out."
Obviously this gets the dander up on misogynists, but even many otherwise-feminist-leaning men will feel hurt by seeing it this way. And the reactions of some individuals - using that same 'nut up, pussy' toxic masculinity dialogue, but in 'defense' of a feminist metaphor - is twisting the knife, putting those who understand toxic masculinity back into the intensely frustrating position of trying to explain why that's a dogshit response, and making those who don't understand toxic masculinity double down in the natural, automatic reaction that they've been conditioned to embrace in response to being othered - pain. And from pain, anger.
tl;dr; The reactions of many men to the metaphor are problematic, but it's not as simple as "Bunch of sexists are unhappy that they have to consider other people" for all of them. A lot of is "Bunch of broken men are being given the exact scenario they are used to exercising their society-approved maladaptive coping skills in, with both sides effectively cheering their response on as it serves their own prejudices and preconceptions."
It's pretty difficult to come up with an analogy that could bring an understanding without sounding insane. If the thought process is feeling de-humanised then examples would correlate best with physical attraction but that makes you sound insane because it kind of is.
This story reminds me of an ex girlfriend that wanted me to open up. So I did. She left me after that. The end result was good though, as it made me realize I needed some professional mental assistance.
That’s my experience, too. Most of the times I’ve opened up to a girlfriend, it’s turned them off. They thought they wanted me to, but they regretted it, which made me regret it. Either that or they later used it to manipulate me. So I just stopped.
I’m a white, cis, heterosexual American male. I’m supposed to be privileged in every way, feel endlessly guilty over things I cannot control and try not to perpetuate, and never, ever dare suggest any kind of dissatisfaction with my situation.
I wouldn’t know how to express my feelings the way the author has. I’d feel like a misogynistic neckbeard, callous racist, or ungrateful whiner. If, somehow, I didn’t feel these things, someone would quickly, loudly, and condescendingly remind me that I should. They’d then be applauded for putting me in my place.
I can’t thank the author enough for writing this article.
I’m supposed to be privileged in every way, feel endlessly guilty over things I cannot control and try not to perpetuate, and never, ever dare suggest any kind of dissatisfaction with my situation.
Why are you supposed to e.g. “feel endlessly guilty over things you cannot control”?
It's generally just people not being able to accept being wrong about something. They take it as a personal insult and hit to their pride rather than just going oh? Verify? Oh shit, neat.
Instead it's I must be a piece of shit. Other people must not like me now. They must be talking about me...
Mother fucker nobody paying attention to you but MAYBE yourself and MAYBE your closest loved ones lol.
If you walk around in life with a chip on your back, everything becomes an insult though. It's the literal republican modus operandi primed mostly through religion via guilt.
Fortunately, it’s not anger in my case. It’s “just” poor self esteem and a tendency to feel guilt for things that I know (rationally, at least) aren’t my fault.
Yeah it's definitely a hard habit to break. Largely depending on how you were raised with a bit of natural tendencies here and there.
It absolutely is a mindset though. One which you can get out of given enough challenge, time, patience, and professional help if you're not good with executive function.
"Check your privilege" has only ever meant that people want others to understand how situations and histories might be different. White guilt is a thing white people made up to make it about them.
People who share some of my characteristics have historically done, and are currently doing, absolutely horrible things. Empathy with the victims isn’t enough for some. I’m part of the problem simply by being born, until I prove otherwise.
I can’t blame people who feel some suspicion and resentment, either. It’s justified.
But that doesn't mean you have to feel guilty. That's, usually at least, not what people are asking for either. Guilt isn't helpful.
Being aware of the social systems we live under, the power structures those systems create, and the blind spots we might have. That's what's being asked for.
No, it isn’t helpful. Part of that guilt comes from not being able to do enough. Yeah, I try to learn as much as possible, but that only goes so far. I’m not rich. I’m not powerful. There’s so much injustice that I want to change, but can’t.
I know logically that guilt is useless, but the feeling persists.
I’m part of the problem simply by being born, until I prove otherwise.
Again: who is saying that? I’m sure there are some people who do, but in my experience that’s a really tiny minority. And the majority of texts I read about e.g. (male) privilege explicitly state that being privileged does not mean you’re guilty or a bad person.
I can’t blame people who feel some suspicion and resentment, either. It’s justified.
I mean yeah, I can understand why a women might prefer to walk on the other side of the street from me at night. It hurts of course, but I understand it. That doesn’t mean I need to feel guilty about it though.
I’m not American but the minister for Family/Sexual Violence in my country publicly said that “it is white, cis men” who “cause[s] violence in the world”. Was pretty gutted to find out that my ex (cis woman) treating me like shit is entirely my own fault according to the MP who is supposed to represent all victims of family, sexual, and relationship violence.
Honest question, what’re your thoughts on the racial reparations discussion? I was surprised to hear that it exists tbh, mostly cause of how impossible it seems as a target. But my understanding is that there are people getting some real attention saying that white people should give enough money that they can’t pay their bills to make up for their privilege.
I haven’t heard of it. In Germany there is some discussion about reparations for societies colonized by Germany, the genocides against the Herero and Namaqa and every once about further reparations for the Nazi crimes - all of which make a lot of sense to me, especially the former two as they haven’t received any significant reparations that I know of.
feel endlessly guilty over things I cannot control and try not to perpetuate, and never, ever dare suggest any kind of dissatisfaction with my situation.
Because of things our ancestors did long ago that has nothing to do with us right now as people.
I didn’t feel these things, someone would quickly, loudly, and condescendingly remind me that I should. They’d then be applauded for putting me in my place.
Those people are racist, sexists. If they didn’t have you to target, they’d find another group. Don’t give them the time of day.
“When I was younger, I was cute,” he says. “When I got older, I became a threat in the eyes of others. To feel that you’re perceived as a threat – in school, walking down the street – it eats you alive. It’s soul-sucking. It’s draining. It’s anxiety-producing. It etches away from the love that you have for yourself.” I felt this in my bones
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