Ask Lemmy

Men need a daddy figure.

Because positive masculinity doesn't get clicks like toxic masculinity does, sadly. No shortage of examples of the latter, but there just aren't enough examples of healthy manhood out there to learn from, or at least not enough ones in the algorithms.

What's worse, in so many cases it's assumed that positive masculinity just means being receptive, sensitive, collaborative and being connected with others. These are qualities that are typically associated with women, and a lot of guys shun anything that might make them "look like a woman". Then it's assumed, more or less, that you'll need to be more like a woman in order to not be toxic.

Obviously not true, but this leaves young men in a vacuum. So they fail to live up to their potential, plus they lose out on relationships, are isolated from their peers who could steer them in a better direction, and are without a secure sense of self.

So, in come the Andrew Tates of the world to give them a seemingly easier and better way to cope. Sure, they're told they're special, but then they're fed the notions like "might is right", that there are only winners and losers in this world, and to "get the prom queen". Not wanting to miss out on this is incredibly enticing for these young men, so the manosphere sucks them right in.

It's gotta so, so much deeper than just changing the messaging. Positive male role models and helping young men understand who they are, creating healthy examples of masculinity that are both manly and positive, can make a difference. Without that, the far-right black hole that is the manosphere is going to keep getting more young men trapped in it.

From around 2022 until just recently YouTube Shorts was heavily pushing Tate on me (an almost 50 year old man).

No matter how many times I disliked and/or blocked the poster, the YouTube algorithm just kept throwing more Tate at me. I don't know what I did to make YouTube think I'd be interested in that clown.

On the plus side, it made me a lot more aware of what's going on, hence my efforts to get Google out of my life. I can spot someone trying to manipulate me, but I have young sons who might not.

That's what happen when identity politics mark a group as less important and the enemy.

It happens when right wing do identity politics an the marginalized minorities group together against it.

Left wing for some reason decided to use exactly the same strategy as the right wing and took identity politics as a way to do politics and they are having exactly the same result. The "marginalized" identity turned against them.

Surprised Pikachu face.

Young men have problems in their lives, like everyone else does, maybe less, maybe more than other groups in society but that does not matter because for them it's the most vivid problems. He talks to specifically them and their problems.

I don't know how the media in your country sounds*, but here every time there is an issue discussed it tends to be: women, minorites, whatever have a problem, men are the problem.

If the mainstream does not talk about young men's issues, you will hand over the attention of young men to someone who does.

*In a news article, or a political speech try switching the word man/woman black/white immigrant etc for their opposite. Some of them sound absolutely absurd when you do.

Same reason people flocked to Trump to vote for him, this false idealization that he was this bold, bright and strong leader.

Same reason people worshiped Musk, thinking he was and is the future with all of the money to do it.

It's like any or all qualities of themselves that they lack or devoid of educating themselves or learning. They replace it with blind devotion.

I feel like there is also a pathologization of being single. I was a teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s, so before most of social media. I'm also from a village where most people knew each other.

There were a couple of nerdy, shy guys who never had a girlfriend by the time of graduation. I only had one boyfriend at 16 for 2 month before his friend told me he was only dating me as a dare. I was "ugly" and "not a real girl" because I didn't wear makeup and mostly wore jeans and Tshirts. Stupid village kids.

Anyway, similar things happened to the nerdy guys. But no one started crying about all men/women being awful and no one became an incel. Several girls and boys in my class never dated by the time we graduated and that just wasn't a big deal. Nowadays everybody's being told there's something wrong with them if they've never had a partner by age 17.

Young men are struggling badly, and almost no one seems to take it seriously. A lot of them want to man up - but the message they get from much of the media is to man down. I saw a Reddit thread asking who young boys could look up to as a role model, and the top answer was Aragorn. You literally have to turn to fictional characters to find someone broadly seen as decent.

They gravitate toward people like Andrew Tate (and Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Jocko Willink, David Goggins, etc.) because those are some of the only public voices telling them it’s okay to be a man - and to embrace masculine traits - without apology.

I'd argue there's a niche that's not being filled by standard community interactions in regards to learn how your society thinks you should act, and that's where the scum starts crawling in. These guys wouldn't have an audience without there being a pre-existing market for their bullshit.The pipeline starts really early now as well with kids being allowed on the internet, and it's just so fucking disheartening. I got a lot of bullshit fed into me when I was younger, but I can't imagine how much gets directly beamed into your brain nowadays.

I'm a 50+ dude, married for 25+years and I have no idea who this Andrew Tate is nor who young men identify to nowadays (I wanted to be Michel Strogoff and an astronaut and Maria Callas too, as a little boy) but I would say that it was enough for me to read some of the comments (way too many of them) in this discussion to get a pretty good glimpse of what may be causing such a split. At least partly.

Could it be that young men and teens are growing tired of being told they're a threat (to women, when it's not to the whole society) or, when they're not a threat that they still are a nuisance, just because they have a dick and because that dick may sometimes grow bigger and harder when they feel attracted to another person?

My childhood was what today's press would call 'traumatizing' (and not just once, mind you) but at the very least I did not grew up afraid of my dick getting hard because I was attracted to someone. And I was never too afraid to ask that person if they felt the same interest and if they would be willing in exploring it further together (more often than not, I was being told 'no').

For the rest, one simply needs to add a lot of partisanship, militant certainties and self-proclaimed righteousness with hordes of so-called experts and journalists that have no clue what their job is supposed to be about (hint: it's not about making the buzz and not about collecting page views, or Likes) and then, on top of that, add a handful of smart-ass people (some real assholes too) that want to profit from all that stupidity that is raging-on everywhere, in every 'camp'.

It's easy to tell people, boys and girls alike, what they want to hear and nothing but what they want to hear. That they're right, that they're great and that the other group is just assholes that hate them. And to profit out of that.

It's so easy that I'm seriously starting to wonder if the next generation or maybe the one after them will still be able and willing to make love or even just to enjoy some intimate good time together, and to make babies by themselves? Maybe I should invest a few cents in whatever startup will undoubtedly show-up and try to profit from that situation. Pretty sure I would make a fortune...

Sad times, indeed. I will go make some coffee and pour a cup for both my spouse and I.

Edit 1h later: you're welcome to downvote till the end of times if that helps you feel any 'righter' in your opinions, or if it helps you think you're punishing me (really?) but may I remind you that without any explanation no amount of downvote will help me understand any better why you disagree with what I wrote. Also, I won't be able to read or contribute any further to this very interesting exchange we've had so far as I'll leave for a long walk to and back from a tiny bookshop that is set nearby the Seine. A real nice shop and a real nice and long walk which means that, taking into account the fact I will probably spend some time there chatting with the lady owner (there are much are closer bookshops to our place, like a lot closer, but I really like how she works and how she really cares to help customers find the right book for them and not just try to shove them whatever the latest trendy book is and be done with them. So, I shop at her place). Considering all of that, I shouldn't be back before at least 3 hours. PS: our cup of coffee was great.

It used to be that women couldn't open their own bank accounts. Depending on how far back you go, they couldn't even own property. In this context, women really needed to get married if they wanted to do anything. For this and many other reasons, the bar was lower, men could get married with less effort. Nowadays women can do anything and the only reason for them to want a man is if they want to, so you actually have to put in effort now.

Also, gender roles are changing and there's no clarity as to what being a man is supposed to mean in 2025. If it's not protecting and providing, if it's not dying in war, then the purpose of men is undefined as of now, and there's a tendency to want to return to the older gender roles.

And late capitalism is stressful, and men aren't going to college as much these days. There's lots of reasons but this is what i can remember in five minutes

Further listening material

I think the answer is obvious: Tate tells them "you're awesome". No one else is doing that. People seek validation.

Lack of healthy father figure, lack of social exposure, lack of success with women, lack of constructive rolemodels (people like tate replace constructive rolemodeks), lack of empathy through lack of life experience/social exposure, lack of introspection, lack of proven confidence (craving for outside approval/desire to compensate for perceived own shortcomings)

All of these possibly enable, enforce, or worsen each other

A lot of young men frustrated with the lack of community, the fleeting chance of making good money, buying a home, etc. are looking for something/someone to blame. Misogyny and xenophobia are easy escape hatches for difficult times.

Part of it is that women have achieved an educational level as a group that allows them to make better choices. They no longer have to choose which is the nicer wife beater in their town.

The incels seem to have a problem with this. The idea of having to compete based upon personality, likability and in general the ability to treat another person as a human being bothers them.

A lot of young men are lacking role models and community these days.

More kids are growing up without fathers around now (single parenthood is up from 9% in the 1960s to about 25% today).

Most people's source of community used to be church, but since the advent of the internet, people are rapidly moving away from organized religion. I think this has disproportionately impacted men, who tend to be less social on average.

And I think in general, a lot of young men feel like nobody cares about their personal struggles.

So, even some toxic dude like Andrew Tate can show up and say "Hey, you're great. Here are the reasons why things are bad for you and what you should do, and here's a community of like-minded people to interact with." and these guys are going to dive in head first.

I feel like there's always been a culture of boys and young men who didn't respect women, there's just never been podcasters actively promoting it.

The internet allows idiots to broadcast their message worldwide and social media promotes the most controversial stuff in order to drive engagement and, more recently, to promote a culture war that keeps the populus divided.