Had a ex-friend who went real hard last year about feeling his masculinity has been challenged. Went deep into the manosphere language. He was extra annoying. Every convo was about how he, a white man in America, was being repressed. He started labelling random shit as masculine/feminine. Got sick this and stopped inviting him.
A few months later, I learned the divorce was finalized and he’s been sending me invites to hang with him in his bachelor pad. Nah dog you suck now.
yeah and i bet that shit was the reason for the divorce. i got a friend who lost her husband down the right wing rabbithole and now she’s processing the grief of losing someone she loved to something so goddamn stupid
You could be mixing up correlation and causation. The divorce could have happened for any number of reasons and the ensuing loneliness and alienation could have been what led the husband to seek validation in manosphere bullshit
you may be right in this specific case. when i said “i bet” i was taking a gamble. i based my gamble based on the sequencing of events i watched my friend go through. i’m sure you’re right that it’s played out the opposite direction, and that even for my friend her husband becoming authoritarian leadind to their divorce made her husband even more entrenched in that mindset.
It’s also very likely the divorce was the reason for the behavior. Getting lost in the sauce of that nonsense is a tragic but not unreasonable reaction to the trauma of divorce, or just being hurt by a woman. That ideology and the people who make money from it prey on weak, lost men for a reason. Thats what its designed to do.
This could have been me. For the longest time I was watching right wing YT channels without really realizing it because they were hiding their messaging well under legitimate critique of the movies and shows I was no longer enjoying. My girlfriend and I got into multiple arguments over this and I could tell that this was something we’d never agree on, which makes sense of course. Eventually I managed to pull myself out by unsubscribing from these channels ocne the messaging became a lot more clear (around 2021, you can probably guess why) and since then things have been much better between us and in general.
i’m proud of you for waking up
I’m proud of you for realizing something was off and correcting course. I know how easy it is to get sucked into that garbo. I got sucked in myself when I was a young teen. I genuinely don’t remember how I pulled myself out of it, but I’m glad I did because I’m positive my life would be miserable if I hadn’t.
I have found the subtle messaging in tutorials for software. They’re good at hiding it.
Yeah it’s honestly insane how much of it there is. Even channels that appear to be completely innocent at first can suddenly start veering in this direction. I remember watching someone like CinnamonToastKen when I was younger and it always used to be very generic fun for everyone content. But the last few years I started catching on to him saying more and more right leaning, conspiracy theory type stuff.
He made comments about the US (where he no longer even lives) keeps giving money to Ukraine instead of fixing their own problems, the “stolen election” and of course about Trump winning again. I really don’t understand why you have to make statements like that, you (on average) alienate about half of your audience by saying stuff like that. But oh well, a quick unsub and moving on.
They may alienate half of the audience, but the other half starts dumping truckloads of money on their doorstep.
and they are locked in thanks to the power of sunk cost fallacy
It’s more like religious fervor, but later there is definitely sunk cost, or paradigm-shift lock-in.
Maybe a weird thing to ask, but could you provide an example video/channel? I find these kinds of things very fascinating.
Like I said in another comment, Cinnamontoastken is one of them. Other ones (with varied levels of “hiding their messaging”) would be:
- Critical drinker - he’s more in the camp of acting like it was a joke / satire butl it really wasn’t. Also, he made his own “good” movie which sucked ass :D
- Nerdrotic - he’s someone I turned away from very quickly, he doesn’t hide it at all and is constantly racist, bigoted and discriminatory. He kinda serves as a lightning rod for the others, as in “oh this guy is so bad but these other ones are okay”.
- Oompaville - bit of a different genre, mostly react content, he always seemed like a classic freedom lover Texan but seemed like a decent guy. Kinda went off a cliff once Trump got re-elected with his snarky comments and comment section.
- Baggage claim. Seemed like a slightly more feminist conservative but went off the deep end around the time of the election, spreading misinformation and diving into conspiracy theories about RFK and the deep state.
I’m sure there’s others but those were the ones I remember the most.
Edit: I just remembered another one, Asmongold. He’s close to being the worst one. He hides his opinions behind reaction content and video games, always acts like he’s a “neutral fencesitter” but deep down loves it that Trump won again and was full-on conspiracy clowning about covid vaccines and the election being “stolen”.
had ex-friend
B-b-but ToLeRaNcE!!!
Similar situation here (there is more than one situation, ofc), but wifey’s along for the ride too, and not in a trad wife way (they’re late 60s in age). Left them out of the pals’ xmas dinner because it’s become unbearable for everyone else.
It’s no fun losing decades-long relationships over whatever “this” is that’s happening.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
What’s weird about this broader “conversation” on masculinity is I feel more masculine than ever, despite not giving a flying fuck about any of this.
I never really struggled with it except as a teen, but the older I get the less I care.
—
I still say we made a mistake with communicating to men about feminism. We kind of left people who are terrible like Andrew Tate to dominate the conversation when people shut down men’s rights groups as de facto misogynistic, and now here we are.
What’s weird about this broader “conversation” on masculinity is I feel more masculine than ever
Same. The more I read stupid quotes from the Tates and Musk’s of the world, the more I feel like I’m doing something right with how I’m living my life, raising my kiddo, and engaging with my community.
Between that and a wider understanding/acceptance of neurodivergence, I’m feeling pretty comfortable in my own skin for the first time in a long time. And I’m ready to fight for women, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ communities to feel the same way.
He started labelling random shit as masculine/feminine.
FYI: This is totally normal in France.
Germany woke af by having a gender-neutral pronoun already
What does that have to do with a situation that’s not in France?
It’s a joke about le vs la
Any romance language country, really
TIL Klingon is not a romance language 😭
Zuck: “we never let gender play a role in our hiring process.”
Also Zuck: “yeah, we need to hire more men.”
It’s the old “Male is normal, Female is special” logical fallacy, he only wants to hire people who’d get hired under “Normal” circumstances
I don’t think he even cares. He wants to appeal to MAGA’s bosses.
In 4 years, if Dems take back power, he will make a vibrant speech about the need for diversity and to tackle fake news.
Agreed, he’s just picking which side he thinks is currently winning the cultural war… and “Woke” being universally considered a bad thing does point to the Right winning that war, but… there are Leftist Arguments against Woke as well so not really.
(Replace the word “Woke” with “Rainbow Capitalism” and you have the Leftist Argument against it)
I feel like tech and finance bros turn to the right because bad guys who think they’re good get tired of being told by educated people that they are objectively bad guys. And instead of changing, they end up seeking spaces that will reward them for being bad guys and will allow them to ignore or disparage those offering valid criticism.
In a culture that exacerbates hierarchy, exonerates ego, and exalts control, true humility is too painful to even consider.
dude that’s awesome… it should be a meme or something…
If your values and your behavior doesn’t match, you have to either change your behavior or your values.
What phase of cesar hair-do is he on? Goldy locks?
He knows he’ll never make up the loss of subscribers on the left since he’s burned those bridges so he has to double down on the far right to carry his platform.
This way he gets to compete with X for a race to the bottom and see who can gather the most shitbags to support their plateauing businesses.
Listen to the latest zuck episode of jre and he actually sounds pretty reasonable. I know that’s crazy but if you have a couple hours you can actually listen to the dude.
Edit: just to be clear I’m not saying I love the guy, or even like him. But listening to him talk for 2 hours he is atleast semi intelligent and is trying to keep free speech alive.
sitting through any length of jre is going to either waste your time or expose you to hours of garbage.
why?
Watched the episode. Completely disagree. His whole schtick was “yeah moderation is really hard yet super important to get right, that’s why as a cost cutting measure we are curtailing the entire operation lol.”
He explained it wasn’t even about the cost. Yes it’s expensive but he willing to throw billions at it for years. It’s not working and that’s the problem.
They are unable to read every single thing posted. So they use ai. But ai makes mistakes. So you can let the ai be more lenient and say ban accounts that it is 50% sure is a bot. But then the ai bans a lot of real accounts by accident. There is no winning and they were fighting a loosing battle constantly with no rock solid answer. Idk the answer to it but neither does meta. It’s not their fault a third of the population of earth uses there services everyday. It’s a lot to monitor and every step they take to make it better the bots/badguys take another step and are always on step ahead. It’s a losing battle for everyone involved except the bots. So they are gonna try leaving it up to the individual to figure out what’s what. It’s that or they try to be mommy and daddy and treat their users like babies.
I cannot think of a bigger cuck move than bending over to court bad faith actors and suckling at king maga’s sweaty little man nipples for $$
You’re on a website where people come out of the woodwork to defend “ethical polyamory” and the biggest cuck you can think of is a CEO trying to curry political favor with the current US president?
…, Being poly doesn’t make you a cuck
He’s right about one thing: There is a serious lack of actual masculinity among our leaders.
Most public figures who try to present some form of “masculinity” are just desperate and petty, willing to sacrifice nothing to earn their status, and eager to degrade others to look better by comparison.
A real man produces more than he needs, but takes only that much and ensures the rest goes to those who are less able to sustain themselves. They protect the defenseless, elevate those who are ignored, and invest in a future they won’t personally live to enjoy.
Show me a real man among you. It’s not femininity keeping you from finding one. It’s your own greed and hubris.
I hate this, because the idea comes from Hermetic spirituality, but from a very cherry picked version of it that basically says “Be as shitty a person as you want, give into your natural inclinations and vices”
I know because I’ve seen this A LOT!
Because the actual Seventh Principle of Hermeticism does not say to do this, it actually says to balance the masculine and feminine within yourself to acknowledge both as being geniunely within you. It also encourages that the two shouldn’t be seen as opposites but rather two endpoints on a vast spectrum, the same way we see hot and cold.
But sadly too many “Gurus” somehow warped this into
“Reject femininity, see it as weakness, and be a massive chauvinistic asshole.”
When that couldn’t be further from what it’s saying.
So I watched the entire three hour interview.
Technically speaking, Zuckerberg emphasizes the need for balance. He on multiple times either emphasizes that both men and women should feel comfortable in corporate environments, and explicitly says something like “there has to be a balance” on at least two occasions.
The issue is that other parts of the interview don’t really match that idea of balance. Zuckerberg and Rogan spent like a third of the entire interview talking about bro culture stuff. I’m not even talking about “bro culture in the context of corporate America”. Rogan spends like a full ten minutes lecturing Zuckerberg on the proper way to bow hunt.
Overall I think the media is focusing outrage bait while ignoring the serious implications of the interview. Zuckerberg is clearly lobbying the Trump administration to prevent meta and other US tech companies from being subject to EU regulatory security. It has serious implications both as a consumer and in terms of geopolitics.
I really wish CEOs would stop and ask “If I wasn’t the CEO, would I want this regulation to exist?”
But that requires them to have empathy.
I hate outrage bait, as you pointed out it makes us blind to the REAL danger, which is… Zuckerberg trying to get out of playing by the rules.
I agree. Ironically he also went on a bit of a rant about how the traditional media outlets whittle down interviews to the most salacious bits, and that’s part of the reason the American public is slowly losing trust in them.
While the reason for him saying this is to discredit his previous perception as robotic, he’s also not wrong. All the articles I read “highlighting” the interview hyper focused on a few lines, and in doing so left and incomplete or dishonest impression.
When I think of masculine energy I sure as hell don’t think of Marky Z.
Yeah, a tom of Finland character he certainly is not. Like he’s definitely masculine, but more masculine [pejorative] in the vein of a man having a midlife crisis and deciding to get into a sad pantomime of youthful masculinity. He definitely doesn’t seem the type to do hard labor to provide for his loved ones or to spend his evenings in a shed tinkering on his projects. His masculinity is not the presence of the traits our society positively associates with men and masculinity or of those that those who are attracted to masculinity find attractive or endearing, but merely a starker absence of the positive traits associated with femininity or neutrality and an absence of the negative traits of femininity.
Love the Tom of Finland reference I bet it went over most peoples heads
Thanks, I’m a woman who has friends who are leather men so whenever I see these guys going on and on about masculine energy my mind initially goes to leather men. Because the reality is these guys don’t want masculinity for its own sake, that’s leather men, or whatever nick Offerman is doing or wherever else you see people who are masculine because they like it. These men see masculinity as a vehicle for power and staving off their fears of aging. They clearly fear that they’re insufficiently masculine and rather than asking themselves what the root cause of that insecurity is and trying to be the person they genuinely want to be (which may very well mean they take testosterone supplements and get into martial arts) they’re just going to act like a 14 year old who thinks that going full silverback will get him laid, respected, and happiness.
I recently finished the fifth book of the stormlight archive and I really respected the way it dealt with toxic vs healthy masculinity and so that’s actually something that’s just been on my mind a lot lately.
So yeah I guess I’m just not impressed by this performative Rogan style masculinity, if you want to show me how manly you are act like someone with a secure and healthy relationship with his masculinity because as a grown ass adult this Zuckerberg bs is fucking sad
I assume by more masculine energy, Zuckerberg means:
- More posturing by Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Donald Trump, the US exemplars of manhood.
- Trolls, more trolls, trolls trolling trolls. People fucking with anyone else that makes them uncomfortable.
- People boasting about how rich they are, how fast their car goes, and how many women they bed. Comparisons. Leaderboards.
- Doxing. So much doxing.
- So much AI porn. So much futa AI porn.
- So much misogyny. All the misogygy. Al Misogyny. Misogyny leaderboards.
- Tons of hate speech against the targets of the week. Immigrants, trans folk, Jews Arab Muslims, libs (not liberals, neoliberals or left-wingers, libs )
Essentially Zuck wants Facebook to become 4chan/b… or 4chan/pol, only where everybody knows your name.
Probably. As opposed to what masculine used to mean and should mean:
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Taking responsibility for your actions
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Taking leadership if you see nobody else is going to
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Treating others with respect
Of course, in modern times, we’ve realized this has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity and rather with one’s role in society. If you want to be respectable, these are just some of the things you should be doing.
Why are those considered masculine traits?
I suppose it doesn’t have to be exclusively masculine. I’ll take what I could get if it could coerce some of these “must be manly” folks to actually aspire to good attributes versus what they seem to think masculinity means right now…
In the 1980s (when women just got to have their own bank accounts and credit cards, and we just invented no-fault divorce) there was still a lot of prejudice that women were too driven by emotions. My dad (a boomer) still believes this to this day.
The thing is, in the 1970s, we switched to two-income houses rather than the one-income houses of the 1950s. (Shit was evil then too, but that’s a different rant) and so women were required to do all this adulting that they allegedly couldn’t do. In the 1990s, women were regarded, at least by Gen-X and younger to be able to adult, and of which taking responsibility, being able to lead and / or follow without being a dick, and respecting others. If there was anything different, it was that men were expected to have higher incomes and be able to put more into rent, utilities, dating etc.
(I was dirt poor, but a solid friend so we went out less and ate in more. The VCR / DVD played the same role as Netflix in the Netflix-&-Chill paradigm.)
The way I put it came from the 1983 techno-thriller, Wargames, cut and pasted from a different thread, the man code was this:
🔸️ DON’T launch the LGM-30 Minuteman nuclear-tipped ICBM. Evar. Even if the President of the United States orders you to. (He’s bluffing.)
For most people it was allegory, but for some people, it’s a literal thing (also, I know of USAF missileers who admitted they would not launch even under orders, and they’ve been kept in the same post even during the cold war, so go figure.) Incidentally, women were assigned to missile posts, in 1977 in the USAF, so it seems that the US government trusted women with the decision to launch a nuclear weapon well before US culture got the memo.
Nowadays, we see masculinity as it’s expressed by politicians and pundits reminds me of Joffrey Baratheon insisting I am the king which I was specifically reminded of when Trump was strangling his own Secret Serviceman screaming I am the fucking president!
Any man who must say “I am the king” is no true king. – Tywin Lannister
I wouldn’t trust any of these bros not to abuse their lovers and kin, let alone with an LGM-30 Minuteman nuclear-tipped ICBM. But it seems seventy-seven million Americans trust that capacity to Trump.
My teachers were fierce about our capacity as fourth-graders to take responsibility seriously. Also to pronounce nuclear as NOO-klee-ur, so I had to cringe all the way through the George W. Bush era. It’s worse in the Trump era, watching my elders acting like overgrown toddlers.
Because in a traditional patriarchal society, good and honorable traits are expected of men while women are expected to be inferior to men.
However as we’ve realized that women are equal to men and should get equal rights, many men have become whiny bitches who yearn for the so called good old days. Said men don’t seem to realize however that “back when men were men” refers to standards they themselves don’t fulfill. They just want the gender inequality back and that’s it.
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He doesn’t even give off “human” energy.
Does he even give off heat?
He does when his cpu starts to overheat.
The gender identity of your work places energy is not the damn problem. Raise the damn pay. People will work in a sewer if you paid enough.
People working in a sewer should be paid the most.
