I keep seeing posts mentioning this phenomenon more and more often.

For instance:

More and more men are being sucked into parts of the internet that circulate misogynist content, leaving their families to deal with the wreckage

‘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.

  • seeigel@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    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.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

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

    • Godort@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      This is the short of it. Tate explains in no uncertain terms that society is to blame for the insecurities they feel, and provides an easy answer on how to fix it that kind of works, because it emulates self-confidence.

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I mean it’s right wing politics in a nutshell

        Dupe fools with simple, comforting lies over complicated, uncomfortable truth. If people don’t understand reality they can’t change it.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      1 month ago

      To me his message is closer to “you’re a useless piece of shit, but i will help you become the strong man that women love. If you listen to me and work hard you will have a family and be happy. Fuck the world and society they lie about what you need to do to keep you docile and weak.”

      He also has a lot of stuff about embracing all the masculine traits that society hates like aggression and psychopathy. Then just general unhinged statements that contradict his core message and no one notices because cult

      • cazssiew@lemmy.world
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        30 days ago

        I feel like the contradictions are the point. The most desirable trait of people like Tate or Trump is their impunity. They keep getting away with heinous shit, it’s the one thing that makes them demonstrably powerful, despite being disgusting, unimpressive scumbags.

    • Gigasser@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I think it’s another message. Tate says “The world is fucked up” and then proceeds to say “I have the secret, if you want to make it in this fucked up world you have to be tough, uncompromising, domineering, cheat, and act like me” and “you’re a sucker and a cuck if you don’t do what I say”. First message sets up the world, 2nd sets up a “”“”“solution”“”“” to success that only a “few” people know, and the final thing is him attempting to make anyone who believes otherwise look weak which gives any of his followers the ability to a) feel a sense of superiority and b) make fun of others for being “weak” or “cucks” or “betas” or whatever.

  • DevCat@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      Referring to men in general as “wife beaters” is exactly the kind of rhetoric that fuels Tate’s popularity.

      It’s also pretty dishonest to lump his followers in with incels. Tate openly despises incels - he sees them as quitters. His whole message is about power, self-discipline, and taking control of your life. Incels, on the other hand, are rooted in despair and nihilism. They believe the game is rigged, that the problem is in their genes, and that there’s nothing they can do to change it. It’s a fundamentally different mindset.

      • snooggums@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Referring to men in general as “wife beaters” is exactly the kind of rhetoric that fuels Tate’s popularity.

        They are referring to the fact that it was common in the past for society to force women to get married so strongly that at least some of them had to put up with the wife beaters just to exist. They didn’t mean men in general.

        • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Also. When a legal system, religion, and political parties undermine women’s humanity, domestic violence in a population goes up.

    • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The incels

      Weaponizing shaming like this is part of the issue. Young boys and men are bullied and called incels because they don’t conform to whatever BTS image girls and women fantasize about these days. They’re not given a chance to come out of their shells, and being shamed, won’t ever try to.

      It’s a shame that body shaming boys is in vogue and perpetrated by those who support big models and HAES.

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            An incel is someone wbo claims ro be involuntarily incelibate, as in no one wants to fuck them. The incels claim it is based on looks, but it is because they have shitty, hate filled personalities where they blame women for their problems.

            It doesn’t have anything to do with looks. It might have something to do with dressing like an Tate fanboy though.

            • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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              1 month ago

              I’ve been incel for years and never hated or blamed women. I was aware of hateful incels but I avoided them.

              I wish people would stop generalizing.

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                Incel has never been a label without the part about hating and blaming women, although it has expanded to hating men too over time. It has always been about not getting laid and expressing frustration and anger. There isn’t some neutral meaning to reclaim or anything like that.

                If you don’t blame the gender(s) that isn’t having sex with, you are not an incel. That just means you haven’t successfully found someone which can be for a wide variety of reasons, most of which can be addressed by changing behavior and how one tries to connect with the desired group.

            • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Yes that is the definition.

              However, it’s now being used as an insult as well. I’ve been called this even though I’ve been married 20 years with children, by a 40 year old spinster.

              • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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                1 month ago

                And you don’t think it may have had more to do with what you were saying / the way you were behaving than your looks? I don’t doubt that incel may be thrown around more as a basic insult these days - it’s just reaching that level of ubiquity in everyday speech - but I have more often heard it used towards men who are saying or doing things that are misogynistic. The same kind of misogyny that betrays a deeper insecurity has long been common in adolescent boys who are going through puberty and dealing with feelings they don’t know how to deal with yet, and the word incel has become a convenient way to call it out, but I do feel that when it comes to adolescents there should be some charitability and understanding. Andrew Tate and the rest of the Manosphere are giving these kids the opposite of what they need, though.

                • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Oh it wasn’t used aptly which pissed me off even more.

                  Being called an incel to an awkward teenage boy has an equal but opposite effect to an innocent teenage girl being called a slut.

                  I’m advocating neither term should be used to either of them.

  • sit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    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

  • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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    30 days ago

    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.

  • Waldelfe@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • blarghly@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I always have to push back against this pathologization narrative. The very obvious alternatives are:

      (1) that these guys you are talking about would have easily fallen into the trap of the right wing manosphere if it had been available, because being unable to find a parter when your hormones are urging you to and when everyone else around you seems able to find one is intensely painful. But you wouldn’t hear about it, since no one talks about it, because the least attractive thing you can do is talk about how you are frustrated by your lack of romantic success.

      (2) the nerdy guys might just accept their lack of partners, but these days the demographic of unpartnered young men is significantly more diverse, and more likely to contain, let’s say… less discerning thinkers…

      It’s kind of like saying “back in my day, no one really cared about getting kicked in the head by a horse. Yeah, it happened, and it sucked, but it just wasn’t a big deal. There wasn’t the social stigma that getting kicked in the head by a horse was bad, or that you shouldn’t get kicked in the head by a horse.”

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        while I agree, I think there are people who ended up choosing (1) because of pathologization, because they were ridiculed and the increased stress made them decide it’s easier to hate women

  • Nyticus@kbin.melroy.org
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    1 month ago

    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.

  • KeenFlame@feddit.nu
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    30 days ago

    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

  • zxqwas@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      “women minorities whatever” ???

      did you not know that racial minorities can be men or is this a dog whistle for “white male persecution”?

      why not just say “women have a problem, men are a problem”? too on the nose, too obvious? yes misogyny is a problem. but if you’re trying to speak to the importance of male issues, you gotta stay focused

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      every time there is an issue discussed it tends to be: women, minorites, whatever have a problem, men are the problem.

      This can’t be overstated. There are a lot of loud misandrists posing as feminists, broadly painting men as The Problem just for being men. Speaking up is automatically condemned as condescension, sitting comfortably is encroaching on women’s space, striking up conversation is harassment, glancing at someone in the gym is sexual assault, a drunk hookup is rape.

      Of course, there are problematic men who are guilty of these accusations, but the majority are normal people being baselessly lumped in with actual offenders for no other reason than being male. Women get unwavering support for just being women, men get trashed for just being men. That by itself is demoralizing.

      Then you combine that with the fact that a large percentage of women want an assertive “manly” man. The boys who err on the side of respectfulness watch the aggressive dudebros succeed sexually and romantically where they fail.

      If respect loses to toxic masculinity so often, then it’s only reasonable to think that maybe the guys pushing toxic masculinity know what they’re talking about. And if they’re going to be demonized for being men anyway, they might as well live up to the condemnation and at least get something out of it.

  • Sk3rgi0@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    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.

  • Baggie@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    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.

  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    Because we are in a culture war and most people are dumb as fuck mass-produced NPCs in a rotten society but think they’re low-key geniuses.

  • moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    Lack of education (and a university degree changes nothing) which ends in a lack of critical thinking. The causes are deeper than “it’s the economy”, “they are delusional”, “social media”, even if social media is bad for critical thinking. You still have to educate yourself in many fields to develop your cognitive capabilities, and this from a young age.

    Going outside, playing with a stick and a rock, develops your brain. You’re the actor of your life. A smartphone screen puts the kid in a passive state.

    But it would be too easy to blame just this. It’s more than one factor. This politics of doom scrolling serves an economical purpose. The economy is over wellbeing. More and more norms are put on the human being, alienating them.

    Masculinism is a simple theory, solution, to a more complex issue. Humans like these simple answers.

    We have to address these multiple dots connected to each other’s. It’s not just masculinity, it’s the society in which we want to live.