Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Yup, the massive investment in engagement algorithms is why these hateful messages are amplified.
Because hes alpha and fucks
/s
Why? Simple. Young men now have to compete for the attention of women in a way that they never did. In times past, if there was competition for a woman's attention or time, it was with another man - someone they saw as an equal, a better, or someone to be defeated. Now the competition is with the woman herself. It's not just a matter of putting on the act of shaving, buying a suit, going to church, spending time with her instead of sporting events, and so forth - for the purpose of courtship only. Most of that could be shut off immediately after the marriage license was signed and the rest after the birth of the first child.
Generally speaking, society is applauding women for competing with men like that, and telling men that they have to 'be better' - while not giving clear objectives on what "better" is. Add to that ongoing social friction (especially now after the lockdowns), and the situation for many young men is looking rather bleak.
Along comes Andrew Tate (and a slew of other MR activists), who tell these disappointed, depressed guys that what they're experiencing is not their fault (which is what they already believe, but are afraid to say). They provide clear, simple answers - do this, achieve that. And it works, especially the basic things. Why wouldn't they listen to people who tell them that they're not the problem? Or who tells them what they can do to solve the problem? Of course young men listen to it and heed it. But because they're so caught up in a cult of personality, they don't know how to speak a new, less toxic voice into existence.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”
Does this come from Tate? This could also be a child from a family with partiarchal values. Tate is not the only source of influence. But one incident shouldn't be part of an article because it is an exception.
What is the general reason for social development? The elite is creating the cirucumstances for change. Why? Divide and conquer.
On an individual level, masculinity makes sense because going to the gym and being confident makes life much more simple than trying to feel compassion with everybody. For boys, masculinity is the common denominator among all cultures. So in a multicultural society, that's what is going to be established as the fused culture of the next generation.
Girls have the same problems, but their answer, being pretty and doing makeup, doesn't cause trouble and is thus ignored.
To change this, new forms of education must be developed because math and geography don't teach the necessary skills to deal with this complex world.
When some group is trying to manipulate people, they don't just boost content from that topic, they generate fake 2nd hand interest. Fake 3rd hand interest. They aren't trying to boost it a little bit, they're trying to create an artificial fad. Create the fake appearance of a whole social movement happening that you just happened to stumble upon. When people want to manipulate a whole society, manipulate their culture, in ways that sew distrust and divisions and make it self distrust, they do this to people like him. He's probably getting boosted by Russia just as Trump removed all the protections against Russia tampering and influencing American social media. His message is hateful and harmful and pro far right, which is exactly where the interests of Russia and maga align. You could be part of a Russian farm trying to spread the message for all I know. The targeted payload of influence you're trying to spread isn't "Andrew Tate good" the message is "lots of people are paying attention to Andrew Tate." The thing is i never hear shit about Andrew Tate. I hear people saying "other people are paying attention to this." And I'm taking the bait by even responding to this when I know it's better to just ghost and ignore things like this.
Unimpressive men who have exhausted all other ways to gain social status except by force, resort to forcibly gaining status.
I can't help but feel that the amount of people following the likes of Tate did not change much, they just got an opportunity to get more vocal, being less afraid of a pushback.
They are a now vocal minority, similar to how there was a rise in Neo-Nazi speech, for example.
I think at some point in time, I might have been a little bit more susceptible to this. I've had a very hard time getting a girlfriend, in part because of a terrible dating sphere - ironically, very much caused by rapists like Andrew Tate. So really, the men frustrated by lack of attention should be blaming Andrew Tate, not worshipping him, but the same situation is true for, say, businesses suffering from government regulation joining lobbying groups, etc.
Loneliness combined with the requisite image of male strength kind of forces people to either admit to being a loser, or "taking charge" in a way that demonizes the rest of the world. Being turned down repeatedly denies them a lot of power, so they're eager to steal some back in any way they can, even if it's for a cause that doesn't actually help them.
As for why I never fell in there; I had good parents, and a financial cushion. If I was always starved for cash, chances are mental stress like that might've actually pushed me into very poor choices.
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.
I think I had this exact thought yesterday. In the past, there's been hints that appear within just a few months if you're looking.
Most of the explanations posted aren't very convincing. If it's just a daddy figure or toxic masculinity or just personal affirmation that's not new and should have applied all along. The YouTube algorithm could be part of it, but then you just get a question about why the YouTube algorithm was pushing that.
A random theory, just based on something I read recently: looksmaxxing is becoming a big thing, which is itself a sign of equality in that the burden for being attractive is now going both ways. Paradoxically, the new cohort of men with body image issues is very vulnerable to radicalisation by the manosphere.
It'd be kind of surprising if that was the whole thing, though...
Because people in the far left attack masculinity as toxic. This is blowback.
Can you expand on what you mean?
The last decade has seen many people openly criticize masculinity like it's some form of toxic waste. This is what they grew up hearing. That there's something wrong with being manly or a man. When somebody like Tate comes along and tells them it's okay they gravitate to it to make them feel less worthless. Btw why do we never hear about toxic femininity? 😉
I don't agree. I think what was originally dubbed masculine, was thinly veiled stoicism. It was a philosophical approach to how one should live a good life. It was be a hard, strong, quiet man that takes it all on the chin because you know that your work will come back and benefit you in the long run. Masculinity was akin to boomer-isms of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," or "work hard and you'll be rewarded."
But through the lack of social economic reforms over the last half century, there is a profound disconnect between hard work and wealth. Wealth generated passively from capital has surged, while earnings from actual hard work has dried up. Young men are not so stupid that they don't see this. So what happens when someone swoops in with seemingly a massive fortune, that is selling a new version of masculinity? He's selling a new philosophical approach to the dire economic hardship of today, and it's basically one of the gangster. The same people that idolized Al Pacino in Scarface, now, instead, worship online toxic figures selling similarly thought out get-rich quick schemes.
His philosophy could be surmised into "Use everyone around you in order to accumulate wealth."
It's really just a terrible philosophy that destroys lives, but within it, he offers the same snake-oil that most religions do, "it's not your fault." Which is the barb that sticks in people. "It's not your fault, it's XYZ (whether that's the woke or women or immigrants or whatever, it doesn't matter who they blame, so long as they blame someone else for your problems)."
So, instead of focusing on figures of true positive masculinity (Steve Irwin, Mr. Rogers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lebron James), they flock to the simpler, easier answer. They can imagine how to use people, how to sell drugs or prostitute women, because they see it depicted in movies, and think that they could do it. It's far more difficult and far more convoluted to grow into a fully realized man that values others, and works hard despite not garnering massive wealth. To live a life of charity and humility isn't sexy, and doesn't make one a millionaire. So why would they flock to it?
Fix wealth inequality, and you'll fix a LOT of issues we have today, including (I think) the rise of toxic male influencers.
There are plenty of healthy ways to perform masculinity. If all you've managed to understand from that discourse is "all masculinity is toxic" then I'm afraid you just haven't been paying attention. Toxic masculinity is when young men are taught that the only way to be a man is to be strong, outgoing, possessive, stoic, unemotional and tall (among other things). Toxic masculinity is when men that don't fit those stereotypes are beaten down, verbally, but often physically, because they don't conform. Because they're gay, have "effeminate" hobbies, are short, weak, empathetic, dress sharply, you name it. It's also harmful to women, but more than anything it's men hurting other men for nonconformance.
Btw why do we never hear about toxic femininity?
Because it's not a deeply structural societal issue? Before I transitioned, I faced the effects of toxic masculinity every single day, dozens if not hundreds of times a day. Meanwhile, yeah, my conformance to femininity has absolutely been questioned post-transition, but nowhere near as much. Women and girls have spent the last two centuries working through the toxic and smothering nature of traditional femininity, as much as the patriarchal nature of society had allowed us too.
Hasn't this always been the case? Men flocking to an idolized image of masculinity with a sense of superiority over women?
It's what uneducated men do when they end up making society so hostile to women that women don't want to date anymore.
A more extreme version of this happened durning the Arab Spring.