I as an old man (29) end up interacting with young men on video games pretty often, just by talking in voice chat or whatever, and they seem to gravitate towards wanting to talk to me outside of the game all the time. Usually I'm just positive, reassuring and cooperative in the games and they end up asking to continue gaming with me and they start asking for some kind of guidance from me eventually. They almost always say something terrible, whether it be sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, you name it, but I express disapproval without excessively shaming them and they go back on it so fast and even apologize. They'll call themselves cringe afterwards and I just tell them I understand they're probably not actually an awful person and just trying to be edgy or whatever, but agree that yeah, its cringe and they stop. I'm not sure what the message to send to them is exactly, but it seems like they really want to avoid two things, disappointing someone they look up to, and appearing cringey to people they respect. Any ideas of how to get an effective message across to young men from anyone would be great to hear.
orionizaqt
As a young man who used to watch right wing content, it’s disheartening to see gender essentialism on the left and widespread misogyny. Feels like an honest solution to give men a positive ideal of masculinity is out of reach. I hope we see a constructive convo from this
griffinspecker
There used to be union leaders as macho role models on the left but the deindustrialisation of the economy has killed a lot of that.
NedTesco
it's not how ignorant my country is that bothers me, it's how CONTENT they are in their ignorance. Some of the people simple don't want to learn the truth; living in a world of your own beliefs is far more comfortable.
thelonecabbage
I voted Trump in 2020 and discovered Vaush soon after. Back then he made a good case for an alternative path and gave good advice on relationships, and I eventually found myself in the first relationships of my life. Jan 6 might have been a wakeup call, but Vaush gave a direction for that seed of doubt to grow.
Darth_Insidious
Imo the left has dropped the ball completely when it comes to appealing to men. I always joke that if you want a leftist to talk like a rightwinger, just bring up the topic of men's issues. Suddenly it is all "personal responsibility" and "skill issue" and "bootstraps", instead of how systemic issues like patriarchy or late-stage capitalism or conservative societal expectations that are indeed oppressing men.
I find there is almost a sense of disdain of men in leftist communities - that if you are a cis straight male, then your issues don't matter. Then when you add in things like the "man vs bear" discourse that imply that all men are inherently dangerous or evil, it is no wonder that men are moving right. Why would anyone want to listen to a community that constantly demonises them and puts them down?
I guess the silver lining of this election is that hopefully it is a wake up call for how leftists and progressives and their rhetoric on men.
emilchan
Tim Walz’ life hack, “surround yourself with smart women and listen to them, ” has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of my life.
priyonjoni
It's been mentioned countless times, but the severe lack of male role models all throughout education really is an issue. I worked at 3 separate centers as a preschool teacher and I was the sole male presence at every one. This included our summer training when every center in the county were together. It's so uncommon for men to be there speakers would routinely have to correct themselves to include me when using any gendered language.
Sadly it's not surprising that this is the case. Pay and benefits are abysmal despite requiring more training than any other job I've ever had.
soulreaver
Young med did have a role model. His name was Bernie Sanders.
Then Dems rebuked him.
austinfowler
I was one of these guys from 2016-2018. What started me down this road was when I got hazed and sexually harassed in high school by a bunch of my classmates. All women, one of whom I was in love with. I genuinely have no idea how I got out of it. That’s what drives me insane.
christopherjustice
Trump is the symbol of success and aristocracy for young men . He is rich, does say whatever he wants without thinking much, even does to some extent, extremely bullish which appeals man that are suppressed by societal issues.
ronnlina
These young men were children and young teens growing up during the gamergate era. My brother and I were talking about this last night. That era is where a lot of the right wing content was born and evolved into current right wing/anti-woke content. That specifically was where a lot of talking points these young men are listening to grew from. Its how Sargon got his start. A lot of these young men really need left wing self improvement figures. The right wing ones basically tell you its everyone else's fault your life is shit while some how also shaming you for not being rich or "manly" enough. Also add in that generation has zero social skills and stays in their bubbles and circles outside of a few moments of try and failure when it comes to women. Also add on that their parents basically don't give a shit about them and left them to just figure shit out on their own with out any positive influence.
hustle_simmons
One thing to remember, yes there was a slight shift, but it's relative to voter turnout. Some left-leaning men sat out the election.
ABa
As a young leftist man, I plan on getting more involved in local elections in my deep red county in SC.
Change will never happen if we wait for someone. Be that somebody. Be that change.
matthewwagner
As a 36-year-old man, I've always sworn to myself that I'll never do the typical older-generation routine of fretting about how bad and messed up the younger generations are as I age. This is... making it more difficult, admittedly.
samk
A lot of men don't vibe with self-improvement. They see some mouth breathers on Twitter call them misogynist for having a stupid take (instead of trying to help them see the other side fairly), get mad, and then have 30 different influencers eagerly waiting to tell them "You don't need to change, you are not wrong, everyone else is instead." It's not hard to sway men to the right when the people there champion the idea that "nothing was bad in the past actually, we don't need to change."
What's happening in South Korea regarding feminism and anti-feminism is starting to happen here, too.
ApexGale
Left-leaning spaces have dropped the ball on welcoming young men for a long time now. Being 30, I grew up alongside spaces like YouTube and I saw the radical shift in things like the old Skeptic/Atheist Community.
It was honestly more progressive in the beginning, criticizing religion and in part how the GOP was captured by religion etc. Somewhere along the way, there was a split. A million small things contribruted to this, some of which got blown out of proportion, but in retrospect it seems a lot of the splitt ended up starting along the lines of who wanted to to focus on ideas and issues compared to who wanted to talk about identity politics, whether it was in favor or against the topic.
Identity politics are important. The civil rights movement was identity politics, for example. But the voices that won the popularity contest online were not the ones trying to build broad coalitions and understanding. The ones who won the poularity contest were largely schreeching manhaters on one side, and the people reacting with mockery and division to them on the other.
The former group now has a lot of overlap with TERFs it seems, while the latter group shifted more and more right wing.
This was a microcausm of what a lot of communities went through. So where are young men, most of which have had no more say in how the world works than women have, supposed to feel welcome? Well, the right wing groups and content creators were the main place you'd find any acceptance without having to constantly prostrate yourself for something you weren't guilty of.
Eventually some more progressive spaces that welcomed young men came about, like Vaush's community. Which is a huge improvement. But let's be honest: A lot of these communities are like independent little islands, given how taboo content creators like Vaush are at large.
This is of course only made worse by how the more progressive or liberal media at large covers men's issues. It's usually stuff like "how to appeal to young men FOR THEIR VOTES", where is becomes painfully obvious by reading the article that they can't even be bothered to pretend to care about the men, they just want their votes to win elections and certainly come across as entitled to them. This is when the liberal media is giving young men even a shred of credit; when they're not, it's about how bad and harmful men are.
If we want young men to be better, they need to be shown a path where they can be better without giving up their self-respect. And it's not difficult to find something like that: Bernie Sanders' populist progressive politics were enough to get it started.
The difficult part is getting people with meaningful voices and influence in progressive and liberal spaces to champion it.
TheTdroid
"Skill issue" is the new "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps"
AndroidAccountant
I disagree with Vaush that the problems he dealt with as a teen are vastly different than teens now. I’m 29, and find that where I was at as a teen is a less extreme version of where they are nown
mr.irrelevent
It's weird. "What men want". I'm a man and what I want is for as many people as possible to live free, contenting lives.
