I keep seeing posts mentioning this phenomenon more and more often.
For instance:
‘Andrew Tate phenomena’ surges in schools - with boys refusing to talk to female teacher
Like, why? Why now? Why even? I really wish I had a time machine where I could go to the future and ask them what the general reasons were for this social development. But I feel like I’m looking for the specific thorn on a cactus that popped my balloon.
Fyi, not just men, on tinder here i see a scary amount of women, looking for an Andrew Tate kind of guy. And i’m not saying they don’t pivk the nice guy and shit, they literally quote Andrew Tate or will only date someone following tateism. I think a lot of it has to do that they don’t want to pay for shit and not work, so they loon for that alpha male caregiver. Still weird shit.
Because society simply has mixed standards and very little empathy for men.
Our culture has (thankfully) shifted very far from the idea of the male role as sole protector and provider for the family. While that’s great for women’s independence, society hasn’t changed the expectation that men should still primarily fill that role.
Young men are still expected to grow up to be financially successful, physically fit, willing to sacrifice their lives and happiness for their future families all while being completely emotionally invulnerable about all of it. Society is clear (and correct) that women can do any or all of that if they so choose, but it’s totally also fine if they want to be a “traditional” woman.
We’re at this halfway point where (compared to our traditional/conservative past) young women can choose any path they desire and it’s acceptable and celebrated (which is a great thing). We just need to have that same expectation for young men, and make it clear.
When young men have problems, they very often are told to man-up or change themselves in some way (get a job, go to the gym, buy an expensive car)in order to fix it, when they need to be told it’s okay to be upset, it’s okay to share your feelings, it’s okay to be vulnerable.
We can’t send mixed signals that women are primarily attracted to rich, ripped, emotionally invulnerable soldiers. We’ve got to stop only celebrating men who are billionaires or professional athletes. Boys need to see their nerdy English teachers or average looking artists as role models.
I don’t know how we can get there, but until we do our young men are going to continue this regression into toxic masculinity and far right ideologies.
This ended up way longer than intended, lol.
I don’t think our brains have caught up with our society lol…
I remember reading somewhere that in Nordic countries where the gender equality rates are highest in the world, women tend to take on More gender stereotypical jobs and roles than they do in less gender equal countries, even though they generally have more opportunities to do whatever they want compared to other less equal countries.
There are billions of us on this planet and none of us fit into that average cog, but I’m fairly certain that in general and among cis people men are attracted to traditionally “feminine” women and women are attracted to traditionally “masculine” men… obviously we are (hopefully) more enlightened as far as our acceptance of lgbtq and other non cis lifestyles etc, but part of what makes academic sociology so interesting is looking at stuff like this…
The main problem we all have is income inequity and the wealth gap.
For example, it’s a fact that when more people are covered by Medicaid and Medicare in a region, that region has lower crime, and the Medicare coverage is a better predictor of crime rates than police funding by a very large degree.
Because young men have problems that aren’t taken seriously. Then someone like Tate comes along and (quite literally) sells the “solution.”
If a cult leader can swoop in and radicalise a whole lot of people, then there is an unaddressed or ignored problem going on. This is the kind of way someone like Hitler got so much support.
People who are educated, and live secure, fulfilling lives would be able to see Tate for the twat he is.
This is probably not the whole reason but in my opinion it is the primary one. Young men are indirectly being told their problems don’t matter because when they are raised they get slapped down for trying to take attention away from women’s issues, and that leaves a very sour taste in their mouths that makes it easy for charlatans like Tate to take advantage of. Especially low-status white men getting hit with the double whammy of being assumed to be just fine because everyone knows how easy it is to be a white man, right? Thanks, apex fallacy.
The times where men have tried to form positive social support structures like the MRA/MGTOW movement, they are derided as being misogynistic, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the outside attacks reinforce those assumptions. If you look at these groups today, they are absolutely infiltrated by misogynist and racist voices, but that’s not how they started. Gamergate is another example of this phenomenon.
I’m not trying to invalidate the issues women face or trying to claim that men have it worse. It seems we collectively treat this as a zero sum game instead of getting folks the help they need for the specific problems they face, and it creates a situation where people who could otherwise be saved are radicalized by assholes who are all too willing to capitalize on that and radicalize them. Worse, the continuing polarization makes it very difficult for anyone left of center to walk back and try to address men’s issues without immediately being beset upon by a mercilessly vocal minority of feminists who see any attempt to help men as a distraction from their own issues.
Remember that each person parroting Tate’s rhetoric isn’t some hyper-privileged fratboy who is looking for an excuse to do violence to women. Some of them certainly are, but I would bet that a majority of them are low-status men who don’t see any other options.
One thing that I really wonder is if things have at all improved amongst men. It’s gone downhill with any Andrew Tate fans but like, if a group of 18 year olds watched Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds today, how many would be outright appalled?
They were popular in the day. Specifically among men. I just feel like it would be a fascinating experiment that could demonstrate some progress is being made. Perhaps people can breathe a bit easier.
In the 1950s men ruled the home, earned the money, and were kings of their castles. Since then gender rules have been torn up and rewritten. Women have carved out new spaces for themselves with the support of allies. But there hasn’t really been a new consensus of what a man’s role is any more. The result being that lots of men see their domination being eroded by the new order of things.
Shitstains like Tate prey on this by offering stupid but simple answers or solutions. “It’s not your fault that you’re a failure, it’s the [random mysogenistic term]'s fault. It’s them, they’ve done this to you. They’re cheating your out of your rights.” It’s the same rhetoric as Hitler blaming the Jews and Trump blaming immigrants and Musk blaming the ‘woke mind virus’.
It gives young men an out. “This guy’s winning at life and owning the [random mysogenistic term]! I should do what he does!”
Honestly, I think because it’s comfortable. Andrew Tate and the like say that there is nothing wrong with you and it’s society/women’s fault. It doesn’t challenge anything, not even the harmful standards for men (ex: High value = certain look/body, status, income, etc.). Dating has gotten harder for men. Women have a lot more options and choices, and I don’t just mean in which man to marry, but even if they will marry at all. That means men have to offer more than just being the provider, as many women also have to work. And I don’t think we set men up to be good partners. Providers? Sure. But to be caring, empathetic, loving and loved members of society? I don’t think so.
I think women need to be taken out of the equation all together when it comes to the male lonilness epidemic because that seems to cause the spiral. If it was focused on how men could foster good relationships, in general, I think it would be better. Focus on how to join/find/form social clubs, make it okay to talk to the boys about how you’re feeling, make it okay for them to need help. A lot of articles seems to boil down to more men are single, but I think it should be more of why don’t men have friends? If men are single, that means there are single women out there as well, but they don’t inspire these posts because women are allowed to foster platonic, deep relationships and we kind of tell me you either get a spouse for that or you just have to deal with it.
Men and women basically make up 50% of the population each, more or less.
As long as we keep trying to blame society’s problem on one sex or the other, we’re never going to solve anything.
I personally think most problems in society, however, are more related to class than either gender or even race. If we can find a way to reduce income inequality (specifically between the rich and the poor) then I honestly think a lot of these issues would work themselves out naturally.
I feel like people have known this since like the 1800s. But dividing people over race and gender doesn’t threaten the rich in the way wealth distribution does, so huge amounts of money and influence are poured into preventing society from advancing by exacerbating poverty and race/gender conflicts.
The right wing has easy answers for complex problems, so it’s easier for them to recruit frustrated, average people.
And the left is often paralyzed by the “complexity” of a solution and offers little no refuge for those in need. Sadly making those half baked ignorant simple solutions the only thing offered.
My guess is hating others for being different is WAY easier than looking inside yourself and learning to forgive and love yourself for all the trauma you’ve been carrying around.
The USA had expansion as an escape valve for most of its existence. Now that’s gone. There’s no future. Our politicians don’t talk about anything great ahead anymore. The rest of our existence will be capitalism crushing people. Hence, despair and cynicism.
70 years ago a guy could graduate high school, get a job that allowed him to buy a car, buy a home and support a family, including college for his kids. They were too busy living a decent life. Then Reagan and the Republicans came to power.
Now, thanks to the vast economic disparity, guys have a very bleak future that makes them easy targets for hate-blaming almost any group of people except the rich who are responsible for their miserable lives.There is a darker secondary element to that time period, freedom of choice for women. 70 years ago if a young woman wanted to leave home and setup on her own she really needed the financial support of a husband or other male relative, even if to just cosign agreements. You were properly tied to having a husband, expected to as well. The pressure from all angles to marry meant women would settle for some pretty shitty men in much larger numbers, and for longer as it was much harder to divorce.
As time has gradually removed this pressure, women no longer need to marry to get independence in the same numbers, so shitty men no longer luck into marriage. The rise of no fault divorce as a valid choice, and even not having to be married to have kids or live together as a socially acceptable choice further squeezes them out.
The whole trad wives movement is founded on restoring the power back to men in relationships.
Regan sucks and Republicans even more so, but it’s not accurate to blame it all on them.
It’s the concept of neoliberalism that took hold in the 70s and has been steadily draining the working class to the point we are now where all power and wealth are concentrated on the few at the top.
Democrats, especially the Democratic presidents since Clinton, are also neoliberals. While they hold much better social views, they are still in on the policies that keep their donors rich and the working class desperate.
Weak fathers, in the sense that the recent generations have been abandoned and ignored a lot more. Turns out that is on par with fucking beating your kids. At least the boomers got attention from their fathers.
How to deal with women and sexuality from a young male perspective is practically impossible in modern society without a good role model for how to approach the reality of certain issues revolving the truth that men and women are equal and at the same time the young males have much more strength, while the girls have other ways of being mean, that are perceived as being not regulated as harshly, and that’s glossing over so many other significant biological differences. The conflicting messages feels unfair to them, loneliness in this as well as a lack of belonging will more often than not become unbearable if they don’t find guidance.
That’s my view of the issue at least. It is redicilously easy to grift these young men, that yearns for answers surrounding sexuality and relationship with the other sex (to be clear, for hetero young males that are developing or adults with stunted development) that anyone can learn the cultures’ accumulated trigger words and key issues that appeal to their supposed inner private pain, can be predated with little effort. They don’t care or know it’s shared with so many boys and adults, that a grifter can basically trawl bountifully for men that feel this way, and once you have “vibe” by appealing to these, you can then elevate yourself to an iron man role model by lying that you get women often by being in a certain way. (Not surprisingly, the mindset is flawlessly unsuccessful with women.)
The absolute truth is that all women like different kinds of men just as men like different women, and to be anything but you leads to extreme stress and in this case potentially wasting years or decades on some testosterone fever dream that never existed. The allure for a man or boy in this state can become so strong that, not unlike with traditional “pick up artists” and other forms of grifting, conspiracies and cults, it just does not matter that most know it is a lie, or if people submit evidence to that end. It’s because these people do not connect with the young male and provide lasting guidance to replace their fears, which are very hard to uncover because of the vulnerability issues (more on this later).
If I could say something to these young or adult men suffering I would say, imagine you did succeed to become an “alpha”, hustle your ass off and become rich and get women. If they can imagine it, they must realise that at that point, you will be utterly sad. Worn, tired, bored, and the women, every single one you “caught” don’t like you. You will have no friends. Nobody enjoys your company for who you are, but for a formula sold to you as a male peak. The pinnacle of self realisation and real relationships can only come with being you, including flaws and therefore accentuating your strengths. Real strengths. Strength that is effortless. The real peak is becoming more you, and severely fuck the rest. The girls (but this also holds for all relationships, however their attachment model may not be ready yet) that like what you are, no matter anything else in the universe, will love you for it almost no matter what, because you didn’t sell a lie to them. This wonderfully includes people that aren’t attracted or even those that don’t enjoy the things you do.
And this means; be vulnerable. That is why all grifters focus on stigmatizing and burying any vulnerability in everyone around them, even belittling honesty. It’s partially a defence mechanism for most, but a few actively protect the communities by making sure this is simultaneously frowned upon, but also met with respect, so that none of the initiates see through the lies in the surrogate father system and realise the complete farce that they are subjected to. For adults that have matured sufficiently (and therefore also most young women) these role models in incel, red pill and alpha cultures are instantly recognised as people with deep insecurities and ridiculed. That is an easily deflected commentary by appealing to jealousy. It comes naturally because jealousy is the hook for the entire grift and the irony in this case is almost guaranteed to fall on deaf ears. These role model grifters that are elevated in the social hierarchy of these communities are usually men that have elected to not mature past this barrier, mainly because of how painful it is, and can therefore sell this scam even for free and proliferation of these ideas strengthen the bond between those caught in the more specific mind traps that flourish in these spaces.
For the people that mature in the role, often they separate immediately, or become ostritized for their ideas. For the few but continuously revolving grifters themselves, if they don’t leave at a big moment of realisation, it is certain to become very tiring to keep the mask on for work, and they are eventually exposed as betas or similar “them” keyword, and ejected for something they let slip or that was gleaned. Most of the communities are held up in a cycle of new initiates and old mentors, while a few grifters make their livelyhood on it. It has a high rate of rejects and new initiates that makes it a hydra for anyone looking to slay these ideas.
Once our society emerge with more accurate labels for these types of grifts (such as “red pill” “incel” and others), we coin vocabulary terms useful to more accurately describe and identify the phenomenon in conjunction with the concepts themselves and hopefully it leads to (as can be seen with the explosive growth and decline of “pick up artists”) the concurrent amount of trapped boys decrease over time before we can see it settle as a sub community of less importance. In earnest I don’t see it going away completely but linger and flare up periodically with new mutations of the same age old “pick up artist” young male loneliness appeal, since it is a inherent to teenage and young men loaded with testosterone and for many that also never found guidance even as adults. Yet it may with time get called out for what it is and met with compassion to finally remove it from main culture where I think many agree it have overstayed its welcome.
With education, it can be eradicated just like many many other forms of gifting. Social awareness on both general and individual levels should also be of deep benefit to the men that find themselves without belonging and holding very confusing and burdensome feelings and thoughts. If we can connect and empathise with them we can give them more genuine advice that stays with them their entire lives. The inherent tough nut with this type of rite of passage for young men is that compassion and forgiveness is both not appealing and also not exactly the first thing most feel when confronted with an insecure alpha male clocking their feathers. It becomes a self feeding loop as they are very similar to each other in this experience, especially for people that has lacking relationships with their male role models or with the other sex or peers.
It is identifiable by the traits that are the same with the mentor figures in red pill communities, acting tough, closing off relationships, hustling and adhering to early first century standards for social hierarchy. These traits are apparently for some reason inherently more attractive to adopt to a developing individual that has elevated testosterone, and when the individual choice is between asking for guidance and meet their pain and fear vs binging red pill content on YouTube and bonding with similarly outcast lost boys on discord.
The path of least resistance wins out when this category of developing man meets the need for belonging and thirst for relationship advice that resonates with their specific trials and questions which, at that point is honestly quite disturbing to most adults. I hope this message can find someone that needs it, hope you are doing great and looking forward to the future. Cheers
Weak fathers, in the sense that the recent generations have been abandoned and ignored a lot more. Turns out that is on par with fucking beating your kids. At least the boomers got attention from their fathers.
The boomers and prior gens were the definition of absent fathers.
It’s because many young people are not very media literate.
They aren’t aware that an algorithm pipeline is funneling them into being monetized by “men’s rights alpha male” bullshit.
Life is hard and confusing. Many people are frustrated with the way that the social landscape has changed: relationships, jobs, and economic prospects have all shifted for the worse in developed countries. Young people are the most affected. Every time this happens, a con artist comes along and starts offering easy answers. Sometimes it’s a politician, sometimes it’s a religious leader. Nowadays, it’s often an influencer.
Tate tells men, “it’s not your fault that your life sucks,” and he is right (to a point). After all, people who don’t own houses can’t be blamed for the state of the housing market, right? So who is to blame? According to Trump, it’s brown people. According to RFK Jr., it’s vaccines or food colouring or some shit. According to Tate, it’s women. He tells young men that feminism is surely the reason they are unhappy: the Woke Left is trying to emasculate you! Be an alpha! Follow my simple formula for abusing women and accumulating money and your problems will go away.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. This is not a truth that all people can accept. We can fix some of the problems that we are facing, but it will take time, effort, and cooperation. In the meantime, many men are comforted by Tate’s message: women are the reason you are unhappy, and everything can be fixed by returning them to bondage! If you are very young (or just a little stunted), this message is much more palatable than the admittedly challenging option of actually fixing things.
Lots of stuff. One has to do with modern feminism that has attempted to redefine the female gender role to become more independent and to adopt some traits that were traditionally masculine. This leaves some men clueless in their own identity, as traditional gender roles are a crutch for both women and men to kinda know their place in society. Now women refuse to fit their traditional role, so men have to redefine themselves too instead of relying on how it’s been done in previous generations.
This cluelessness is frustrating and we’ve seen it pop up in different ways in the last decades. However with a more modern image of a woman manifesting, teens who have to figure out anyway who they are in society are affected more, especially young boys who are welcomed to society with no clear “default instructions” because the old gender role is demonized by a society that has largely accepted the new gender role for women, but is still clueless what men are.
Men may be the provider, but women now must be able to work too. Men could be more emotional and may take caregiver jobs, but women are considered better at them anyway and men are not trusted with kids or not taken seriously as caregivers. This is also not easy on women who now have children and need to care about a career. No wonder we have fewer children. And this also gets confusing for young men who go on dates, when they still need to pay for the bill at dates, their income still plays a role, even though women may make a lot of money (or even more than them) too now.
I hope this doesn’t read as a rant, because I see feminism as a positive development even though I acknowledge the new challenges it provides.
Based on this background young, impressionable boys are sucked in by social media algorithms and confronted with the frustration and backlash of these men like Tate, that promote a return to the old gender roles. Many things he says could be something they said to your great granddad. Social media also leads to content and community bubbles, which are harder to penetrate for alternative ideas, so once you are “red pilled” you won’t get off your track.
Additionally social media is not just content, it also publicizes and quantifies your social status and connections with followers and likes. Social status is hugely important for teens who are looking for their place in society. Even when you move, you don’t have a chance to try again with a new group of mates: you still have your account and your status follows you everywhere. This increases the stakes and leads to more extreme behaviors.
I think that’s all the reasons I can think off. Sorry it’s so long.
I love this deconstruction, it captures quite a few of my own thoughts. Thank you!
I still don’t think the argument has ripened fully in my head yet. I’m glad I read “The Game” in my 20s and not earlier and that nobody asked about my Insta in highschool. I had the chance to move and leave some social dynamics in the past with several fresh starts.
Do we have a best of lemmy community yet?
On the playground kids would follow other kids who they felt were confident or charismatic, not who had the best ideas or were most concerned with fairness or equity. It’s just childish, naive notions of importance that are leaking out into the broader society due to social media, culture of celebrity, etc.
