I talk about this in another comment on a different post, but I’ll give you the TLDR, plus a bit more musing:
At the highest level, this type of thinking stems from an erosion of parenting and the evolution of the digital age. It’s not that parents don’t care, but they have less time than they have historically to parent, and both parents have to work to support the family in most cases.
Kids now socialize less due to time spent online
The algorithms online are powerful and meant to keep you watching, even if it’s not great for you
Because of the lack of parenting and being terminally on there is less and less interaction with positive male role model, so kids figuring themselves out latch on to anything they can find and it ends up being Tate and ilk because fear and anger sell, and they make us feel like if only we were just a bit better, we would have what the tatertots have.
To combat this, we need to make morons afraid again
Saying something outrageous used to cost you social capital but now everyone is too busy to care and there’s been the rise of the ideal that all opinions are equal, confrontation, unless approved by the talking heads online, is bad, and everyone need to feel safe, heard, and their opinions as valid (at least to a degree)
We can best deal with this weaponized misogyny by calling people out - especially kids - as it crops up. If you’re a coach on a hockey team and someone starts up, shut them down. Leagues have diversity and inclusion policies - use them to back yourself up.
Even if it’s just someone else’s kid you are around, while you may be afraid of speaking up, but chances are most parents would want to know their kid is calling women ‘holes’ or the like and will deal with it.
The only way this goes away is if we address it at every stage, and every time it comes up.
Listening to old Opie and Anthony clips where they called women holes. Was my 11 to 16 background noise.
You are right. My experience of what prevented me from deep ending:
Empathy. Empathy. Empathy.
I remember the look on my first girlfriends face when I was such a piece of shit to her. I was an asshole.
That internalized guilt feeling of hurting another person made me change.
Dated a man, saw the amount of trauma men can put vulnerable people in.
Allowing your worldview to change with new evidence. Admitting fault. All increibly valuable. But the act of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and really understanding it, or at least wanting to, cannot be beat.
I’m scared for the algorithm generation. I was and to an extent still am terminally online, but your interests being weaponinzed against you is another beast completely. Being too young to know you’re being pigeon holed into hate
Not wanting to be that guy but there is a part missing from your list (I think) where myogeny used to be much more wide spread and much less cared about than today
Slapping a woman back in her place was, shall we say, less socially awkward a hundred years ago than it is today. Especially the last twenty years a lot had changed in making misogyny visible, making people losers like Andrew Tate stand out much more.
I’m not saying it’s not a problem, I’m not saying that Andrew Tate hasn’t made things worse, I’m just saying that it used to be so so much worse, still.
Having said that; we need to bring back responsible role models, everywhere. I grew up with good parents who were role models but I also grew up with Star Trek TNG which influenced me greatly and I’m proud of that. I grew up with practicing kyokushin Karate which taught me humility and respect, both for men and especially women because woman that practice that are humble but don’t take your “I’m the guy!” shit for a second.
It’s not that parents don’t care, but they have less time than they have historically to parent, and both parents have to work to support the family in most cases.
I’ll spot you one deeper. Working families have been the norm for the bulk of human history. But we’ve also had large tribal communities full of extended family to provide social and economic support.
But the nuclear family, privatization of social services, and the wealth gap have closed off this network of relationships. In the modern world of commoditized labor and class politics, you either have servants or you are a servant.
Fascists translate the class politics to a social structure. For fascist men, the women become the servant gender to which men are entitled.
Further, as wealth aggregation generates a gulf between poverty and aristocracy, the aristocrats have a habit of monopolizing young people for their own personal demands. This leads to a problem of Surplus Males whose struggle for survival leads to domestic and criminal violence.
All of this degrades quality of life for the next generation.
there’s been the rise of the ideal that all opinions are equal, confrontation, unless approved by the talking heads online, is bad, and everyone need to feel safe, heard, and their opinions as valid (at least to a degree)
We can best deal with this weaponized misogyny by calling people out - especially kids - as it crops up.
Just to be clear, we call it out IRL. I 100% agree there.
Calling out tatertots and such online is feeding the trolls, and counterproductive. They thrive on the discord because algorithms love it, so the best move is to pretend they’re invisible, just like with real narcissists.
I see a lot of online sentiment of “we stay to fight,” especially on Reddit and Twitter, when that’s exactly what’s feeding the machine. Finite attention is so much better elsewhere.
Calling it out in person works a lot better than online. Online it’s just mean words on a screen they have to deal with. A living, breathing person telling them they are dumb has more sting.
I talk about this in another comment on a different post, but I’ll give you the TLDR, plus a bit more musing:
At the highest level, this type of thinking stems from an erosion of parenting and the evolution of the digital age. It’s not that parents don’t care, but they have less time than they have historically to parent, and both parents have to work to support the family in most cases.
Kids now socialize less due to time spent online
The algorithms online are powerful and meant to keep you watching, even if it’s not great for you
Because of the lack of parenting and being terminally on there is less and less interaction with positive male role model, so kids figuring themselves out latch on to anything they can find and it ends up being Tate and ilk because fear and anger sell, and they make us feel like if only we were just a bit better, we would have what the tatertots have.
To combat this, we need to make morons afraid again
Saying something outrageous used to cost you social capital but now everyone is too busy to care and there’s been the rise of the ideal that all opinions are equal, confrontation, unless approved by the talking heads online, is bad, and everyone need to feel safe, heard, and their opinions as valid (at least to a degree)
We can best deal with this weaponized misogyny by calling people out - especially kids - as it crops up. If you’re a coach on a hockey team and someone starts up, shut them down. Leagues have diversity and inclusion policies - use them to back yourself up.
Even if it’s just someone else’s kid you are around, while you may be afraid of speaking up, but chances are most parents would want to know their kid is calling women ‘holes’ or the like and will deal with it.
The only way this goes away is if we address it at every stage, and every time it comes up.
Very well said.
literally grew up in prime misogyny zone.
Listening to old Opie and Anthony clips where they called women holes. Was my 11 to 16 background noise.
You are right. My experience of what prevented me from deep ending:
Empathy. Empathy. Empathy.
I remember the look on my first girlfriends face when I was such a piece of shit to her. I was an asshole.
That internalized guilt feeling of hurting another person made me change.
Dated a man, saw the amount of trauma men can put vulnerable people in.
Allowing your worldview to change with new evidence. Admitting fault. All increibly valuable. But the act of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and really understanding it, or at least wanting to, cannot be beat.
I’m scared for the algorithm generation. I was and to an extent still am terminally online, but your interests being weaponinzed against you is another beast completely. Being too young to know you’re being pigeon holed into hate
Happy to have changed. Love is the thing
Not wanting to be that guy but there is a part missing from your list (I think) where myogeny used to be much more wide spread and much less cared about than today
Slapping a woman back in her place was, shall we say, less socially awkward a hundred years ago than it is today. Especially the last twenty years a lot had changed in making misogyny visible, making
peoplelosers like Andrew Tate stand out much more.I’m not saying it’s not a problem, I’m not saying that Andrew Tate hasn’t made things worse, I’m just saying that it used to be so so much worse, still.
Having said that; we need to bring back responsible role models, everywhere. I grew up with good parents who were role models but I also grew up with Star Trek TNG which influenced me greatly and I’m proud of that. I grew up with practicing kyokushin Karate which taught me humility and respect, both for men and especially women because woman that practice that are humble but don’t take your “I’m the guy!” shit for a second.
I’ll spot you one deeper. Working families have been the norm for the bulk of human history. But we’ve also had large tribal communities full of extended family to provide social and economic support.
But the nuclear family, privatization of social services, and the wealth gap have closed off this network of relationships. In the modern world of commoditized labor and class politics, you either have servants or you are a servant.
Fascists translate the class politics to a social structure. For fascist men, the women become the servant gender to which men are entitled.
Further, as wealth aggregation generates a gulf between poverty and aristocracy, the aristocrats have a habit of monopolizing young people for their own personal demands. This leads to a problem of Surplus Males whose struggle for survival leads to domestic and criminal violence.
All of this degrades quality of life for the next generation.
You’re on point at least on the capitalism behind this. I didn’t want to dive into it because my comment was long enough, but I’m glad you did
Just to be clear, we call it out IRL. I 100% agree there.
Calling out tatertots and such online is feeding the trolls, and counterproductive. They thrive on the discord because algorithms love it, so the best move is to pretend they’re invisible, just like with real narcissists.
I see a lot of online sentiment of “we stay to fight,” especially on Reddit and Twitter, when that’s exactly what’s feeding the machine. Finite attention is so much better elsewhere.
Calling it out in person works a lot better than online. Online it’s just mean words on a screen they have to deal with. A living, breathing person telling them they are dumb has more sting.