Some More News - Some More News: Are Men Okay?
Episode Date: May 22, 2024Hi. Today, we're taking a look at American men – are they in crisis? Why do they turn to misogynistic manosphere creeps like Andrew Tate? What else can we offer them besides anger and contempt? Go t...o https://ground.news/SMN to stay fully informed. Subscribe through our link for up to 40% off unlimited access this month only. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/morenews to take your retail business to the next level today. Hungryroot is your partner in healthy living. It’s the easiest way to get fresh, high-quality groceries and simple, healthy recipes delivered to your door. Right now, Hungryroot is offering Some More News viewers 40% off your first delivery and free veggies for life at https://Hungryroot.com/MORENEWS Hosted by Cody Johnston Executive Producer - Katy Stoll Directed by Will Gordh Written by David Christopher Bell Edited by Gregg Meller Produced by Jonathan Harris Associate Producer - Quincy Tucker Post-Production Supervisor - John Conway Researcher - Marco Siler-Gonzales Graphics by Clint DeNisco Head Writer - David Christopher Bell Cody Johnston as Warmbo SOURCES: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12UBmgWd34GZdLG6RYvmhitpviQYf7Q-eSN4bD24G2Zg/edit MERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.com PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:55 - Why Young Men Feel Lost 08:37 - The Quest To Keep Men "Manly" 20:36 - Men seeking answers in the worst possible place 28:06 - The Fake "Return To Tradition" 34:07 - It always leads to Nazi stuff 39:52 - A few minutes on Andrew Tate and other scammers 50:59 - Fixing men's circumstances 55:43 - Replacing the patriarchy with something other than the patriarchy 1:03:42 - Cody gives raw... advice to young men
Transcript
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Anyway, where were we?
Oh right, we weren't anywhere because the episode was just beginning.
And hey!
Speaking of balls,
are men okay?
You see, because most men have balls, not all of them,
but on average men have like 1.4 balls.
According to me, just making up a number.
Anyway, here's some news in the form of the question
we just asked.
Are men okay?
I only ask because, well.
Move forward.
I'm a man.
I am.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man.
I am a man. I am a man. I am a man for one! I am a man for one!
I am a man!
Okay, so the short answer is no.
Men are not doing okay.
Or rather, that man isn't.
But I mean, to be fair,
I have been known to scream,
I am a man!
Repeatedly and through sobs.
But that's usually while moving heavy furniture
or taking a dump.
Anyway, that clip is apparently
from one of those
wildly expensive and so-called alpha male boot camps
that have become recently popular,
if only to mock on the internet.
There are so many of these now,
even Jesus is getting in on the fun.
["The Stronger Men's Conference"]
Welcome to the Stronger Men's Conference.
What God did in your life, it's meant to impact the world around you.
It's meant to be multiplied.
That's the plan of God for you.
We can change and impact the world because we serve the strong man, Jesus Christ.
He says, I will go with you, but hold on with you always.
I'm going to give you strength.
Oh yeah, monster trucks, wrestling, fire, and Jesus.
Boy, as a man that felt both insulting
and chilling to watch.
And while it's fun and easy to make fun
of the many clips from these camps,
this of course speaks to a larger problem happening
right now, and honestly before now,
which is that men everywhere are struggling
with their mental health as it relates
to their gender identity.
Nearly three out of four of every death of despair,
as in a suicide or overdose, is committed by a man.
I mean, look, we're all pretty bummed out right now,
probably because of the queen's death.
I mean, she had so much life left in her.
But men, specifically young men, are even more bummed.
While there was a 4% rise in suicides across the board,
for young men, that rise was double.
And that's probably in part due to men not seeking help
nearly as often as anyone else.
Here's a survey from Cleveland Clinic
that found over 80% of men feel stressed,
but also 65% of them feel hesitant
to seek professional counseling.
Here's another survey of 1,001 adult males
that found nearly 50% of them were quote,
more depressed than they admitted
to the people in their lives.
Here's an insurance survey where one in four men admitted
that they've never talked to anybody
about their mental health.
You get the point.
Insurance ghouls don't screw around with this stuff.
But it's not just depression.
Men are struggling socially too.
They are lonely.
I mean, I'm not.
I have tons of friends who aren't puppets.
Right, friendulous?
That's right, Cody.
See, I'm not lonely.
But for example, dating is far more difficult for men.
That's probably why they are having less sex
than they used to.
That and their living arrangements.
Since the 60s, the rate of men living with their parents
has steadily gone up to the point that there are now
more men living with their parents than living alone
or with a partner or a roommate
or like a quirky Mediterranean cousin or two hot chicks
or a zany source of increasing sexual tension.
For women, that rate of living with your parents is lower,
but they are catching up, so good for them.
Women get depressing things done.
We don't know exactly why men are struggling socially,
but it's probably somewhat related to the fact
that they aren't making enough money anymore.
I mean, yeah, we're all hurting there,
but men aren't going to college
as much as they used to either.
Their employment rate has either stagnated or gone down.
And since 1979, men's average wages have fallen 10%,
while women's wages have gone up 25%.
Although I'm guessing that's in part
because women were paid less than men and have to catch up.
Because despite everything I just said,
men still rule the world?
It's still a patriarchy?
Everything is still dominated by men.
The richest and most powerful people are still men,
just not most men. So we have a bit of a pickle dilly, a dick pilly,
a seow mess.
Society is run by men and largely designed for men,
but the majority of men don't feel like they are
in charge of anything.
And so their anxiety around that is uniquely related
to their gender identity.
That's why if you were to ask, let's say certain men, And so their anxiety around that is uniquely related to their gender identity.
That's why if you were to ask, let's say certain men,
if there's a patriarchy,
or if women have problems worth considering,
you'll probably get a response that strips all nuance
and just gives a laundry list of various issues
that men have, like this.
Do you believe that we live in a patriarchy
and it negatively affects women?
No.
No.
No.
Yeah, so for example, men are more likely to commit suicide, more likely to die at work,
more likely to declare bankruptcy.
Women are far less likely to be in credit card debt, far more likely to graduate from
college, far more likely to get a high paying job.
Ah, you know how the left is all about victimhood and their victim mentality, claiming that they're
the victim and, ah that they're the victim
and I'm just sick of it.
Because actually, the real victims are men?
Hey, quick question.
All these problems that men apparently have.
Who made the society that created those problems?
Is it the women who make you do all the wars?
But these types of weirdos can frame it as a woman problem
because women are more often supported and boosted
in the interest of equality because of this patriarchy
that continues to screw over both men and women.
Boy, if only there were a movie about this exact dynamic,
perhaps involving a magical doll world
in multiple musical numbers,
I'm not saying that women have it easier,
quite the opposite.
We've had decades of women being told
to be subservient baby canons, and have only
recently begun course correcting from that error.
Women are redefining themselves beyond that role, and while the efforts to do that are
extremely difficult, the message there is somewhat clear.
But with men, the message hasn't really changed much.
For generations, the concept of masculinity has always been presented one specific way.
Men are expected to endure physical and emotional pain
with a little complaint, lest we get soft.
Men hate being soft in multiple ways.
You can trace this all the way back to the 1800s,
when writer Washington Irving complained
that Americans too often send their kids overseas
to become luxurious
and effeminate in Europe, and claimed that, quote,
"...a previous tour on the prairies would be more likely to produce that manliness,
most in unison with our political institutions."
You gotta do that trad little house on the prairie life, bros!
Of course, war was generally seen as manly, so we did that a lot.
There is of course a contradiction here
that you'll notice more if you listen to these guys talk
for more than five seconds,
whether it's some guy in the alpha-manosphere space
or a more traditional Christian conservative influencer
like Charlie Kirk.
All the men who die in war, that's bad.
And it's a sign that men have it bad.
But also, war is good and necessary to create good men.
And we need it because it rocks, but also it sucks
and is a reason that you aren't allowed to mention problems
that women have, because men die in the wars
that I'm also saying men need.
Point is, there's nothing more masculine than exploding, I guess, is the point.
But post-Civil War, we saw a rise in education, not manly.
But luckily, we had sports and gym class, yes, manly.
To quote a 1906 essay by Harvard professor
and philosopher William James,
we must make new energies and hardy-hoods
continue the manliness to which the military mind
so faithfully clings.
You see, war is bad, peace good,
but we certainly can't stop torturing men.
That's what makes them men after all.
And to continue this essay,
James brings up a very telling alternative to war.
Quote, to coal and iron mines, to freight trains,
to fishing fleets in December, to dish washing,
clothes washing and window washing,
to road building and tunnel making,
to foundries and stoke holes,
and to the frames of skyscrapers
would our gilded youths be drafted off
according to their choice
to get the childishness knocked out of them
and to come back into society with healthier sympathies
and soberer ideas. Gotta stoke those holes, man. The idea here is that war was always
seen as a way to harden boys, because apparently seeing your friends die screaming was what
made a man, and the closest equivalent to that was either being forced to do sports
or working a shit job. James concluded this would ensure that, quote,
the women would value them more highly.
They would be better fathers and teachers
of the following generation.
Nothing wrong with being a dishwasher or hole stoker.
I stoked holes for years to pay for school.
But you can see how the patriarchy here
is working against most men, right?
Men are being told that in order to be men,
they must punish their bodies
to the benefit of more powerful men,
either through war or sports or as a menial worker.
I can't help to feel like this is a scam.
Like, how is this different from a pyramid scheme?
And as that quote indicated,
the end result is that these hardened men
were better suited as a mate and father.
If that sounds a little eugenicsy to you,
that's because it is and was.
Here's a 1920s issue of Physical Culture magazine
posing the question, should I marry him?
A lesson in eugenics.
Oh, also we get to learn what Ty Cobb thinks of Babe Ruth.
Anyway, can you believe it?
That views around masculinity would be tied to racism?
Who would have thought such a thing?
Anyway, we'd keep going this way for a while.
Even in a society absolutely dominated by men,
we were constantly worried that men weren't manly enough.
Here's a quote from historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
back in 1958 that asked,
what has unmanned the American man?
Around that same time,
Playboy Magazine would be founded specifically
because of the quote, womanization of America.
You may notice that as being the exact same motivation
for man-centric entertainment
all the way into the freaking 2000s.
And just as these heroic men did more than 60 years ago,
we are building a dam.
A dam to hold back the tidal wave of feminization
that is flooding this country.
A dam to stop the river of estrogen
that is drowning us in political correctness.
Wow, that is two very different career paths
in one embarrassing clip.
And yes, in case you didn't catch that,
the intro for the man show was about showing reference
for all the men who died to make the Hoover Dam,
otherwise known as men who were forced to endure
the hardships of work under the guise of manliness.
More than a hundred of these men
gave their lives to this dam.
Their bodies are paved over in its walls.
That is truly incredible.
Like this brief clip from a 1999 Comedy Central show
sums up everything I just said
about how the patriarchy hurts everyone.
And I'm honestly not even sure if they realize it.
I mean, one of them definitely doesn't.
This also demonstrates how monumentally difficult it was
for a woman to make any progress.
Like even in the 1950s,
we saw any incremental push toward equality
as an all out attack on men, unreal.
But despite the Sisyphusian-ass task,
women began to slowly win ground starting in the 1960s.
That was good, yay women.
The problem however, was that this coincided
with a shrinking economy, specifically agriculture jobs
and even more so manufacturing,
two industries dominated by male workers.
We actually talked about this shift during our food episode
where when women began to enter the workforce,
we had an opportunity to rethink
the family structure.
But instead, we just let corporations sell us things like fast food and microwave meals.
And ultimately, the wealthy saw a way to double their workforce and move away from a world
where a single person could provide for a family.
And as women joined men in higher education and management jobs, the superficial idea of what made a man began to erode.
To quote historian Kristin Cobas Dumais,
Stripped of their confidence as providers, men compensated by turning to the protector role.
But there is a performative quality to this.
Calls for the restoration of traditional masculinity are often infused with a sense of resentment over what was lost.
And that's pretty much where we are now.
Men were told for decades that to be a man,
you had to endure hardships and provide for a family.
That was what defined their gender.
And then all that stuff went away.
And now they're sort of left twisting in the wind
like those Borg drones that were cut off from the hive mind.
And just like those Borg in that TNG episode
we all watched and loved and know by heart
because we're all extremely manly,
they are desperately looking for a direction.
And if you recall from that later episode,
Descent and then Descent Part II,
Lost Souls are easy to grift.
Perhaps by evil twin robots starting a death cult.
And going all the way back to that Cleveland Clinic survey
about how 65% of men
feel hesitant to seek professional counseling.
That group was also twice as likely to spend five
or more hours on social media platforms.
And you know what else is on those platforms?
Evil twin robots, a lot of them.
And so after the break, we're going to talk
about the modern industry of male self-help
and how that's perhaps not very helpful
and how it's perhaps harmful and traps men
in a place that keeps them coming back for more advice
and is filled with grifters that also perhaps
a hypothetical puppet watching this should not listen to.
BRB.
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Yeah, I do about 60 beefs per longest.
That's a jerking off muscle.
Cool, right?
Oh yeah, cool, cool. Totally. I also cum a lot.
Goddolo these guns, know what I mean? Gun is my middle name.
Yeah, I definitely know about things. So, uh, wait, your name is Stole Gun Canole?
Legal name, broski. Anyway, I sent you that email. Take a look, hit me back.
All right, now I gotta go take a primo dump.
So catch you later.
Okay, hell yeah.
Hope it's brown and good.
Hope it's a good poop, man.
It's nice chatting with you, bro.
Haha.
Ski, wow.
I was skeptical at first, but that's still, he's pretty rad.
He gave me a discount code for that dude cream.
Decent guy.
I'm not lonely or anything.
I'm cool if you're not.
Thanks, Franduilus.
Anyway, he just seemed neat is my point.
Where were we?
Oh, right.
Men, they be struggling.
After endless generations of patriarchal rules
spanning multiple civilizations,
the concept of a man had been based around enduring hardship
with the promise of obtaining a wife and family
that they get to boss around.
But as society advanced,
those hardships became somewhat abstract.
Women were, for some reason,
unhappy with being domestic servants.
And so male responsibilities became shared.
At exactly the same time,
our country started declining in economic prosperity.
Cut to now, and young people are entering a world
of broken promises.
No longer can a single income afford a home.
Heck, two incomes can't.
This obviously affects everyone.
But men were uniquely told that these things were their responsibility.
This idea still lingers as a relic of these previous generations.
Kind of the same way a boomer might tell you that you can still get a job with a smile
and a firm handshake.
It's like, buddy, you can't even get hired with a smile and a firm hand job anymore.
This is all to say that a lot of frustrated young men
are currently looking for answers
as to why their lives seem to be stalling.
And a bunch of less young men
are more than happy to give them answers.
Good answers, I hope.
How are we supposed to get our lives in order
when we are told to not even be men in the first place?
Well, it's certainly, I mean, the fact that you're told not to be men in the
first place actually doesn't interfere with your ability to clean up your room,
it just demoralizes you. Well then the next accusation is something like all
masculine ambition is nothing but a manifestation of the pathology of the
patriarchy and they get about four years of that and if they
escape from that unscathed, which they don't, the next accusation is plus
everything you do is just destroying Gaia, you know, Mother Earth and so and
that's a form of nature worship by the way and that's often accompanied by
child sacrifice in the ancient world and that's not form of nature worship, by the way, and that's often accompanied by child sacrifice
in the ancient world, and that's not the least bit surprising. And it's exactly what's happening now.
And that's also no joke. It's exactly right. There he is. Hey, buddy, doing okay? So yeah,
that was in response to the question, quote, How are we supposed to get our lives in order when
we are told to not even be men in the first place?
And you might notice that while Jordan's answer was,
let's say confusing and kind of contradictory
considering maybe not doing anything about climate change
and our increasingly hostile environment
is actually sacrificing children and their future,
but regardless, the question itself seems to be posed
from a very disillusioned and cynical starting point.
We're hearing someone who already has a lot of resentment
and is sorta in the middle of their indoctrination.
But maybe if we let Jordan keep talking,
he'll make some sense.
But it's always been the case that the hero, let's say,
has been opposed by the serpent of the state
and by the serpent itself.
Nah, it's okay.
Why is he dressed like a hotel curtain?
Does he have to pee?
Jordan, stop fidgeting so much, man.
You gotta calm down.
All right, so it's easy to laugh
at Jordan Peterson's gibberish,
just like it's easy to laugh at those man boot camps.
If you're an older adult successfully participating
in society, you probably see this as silly cult behavior.
But there's a reason there's so many
of these manosphere grifters flooding
the internet right now.
Because they are some of the only people
actually discussing the anxieties of young men,
also known as their primary audience.
They put out videos directly addressed to them.
If there's one failing of the left,
besides all the other failings,
it's that they don't have anyone specifically trying
to be a role model for young men.
Meanwhile, weirdos like Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate,
or countless other crypto-slinging hustle culture bros
are correctly identifying that young men feel lost,
and they offer answers on every platform available. Along with the ones I just mentioned, there's a former YouTuber named Sneeko,
the Twitter account and beefcake fetishist Bronze Age Pervert, and the Fresh and Fit podcast.
And boy, I really hope you don't know who any of those people are.
But a lot of young men do. So now you have to know them as well!
And if you're assuming that they're cool headed or suave,
or at the very least, not overtly toxic,
and I'll just say it, stupid men with obvious insecurities
and bigotries that they've made everyone else's problem,
well.
Like I said before,
why the hell are you gonna pay full price
for a goddamn car that's been used?
What women don't understand is men don't ask for much.
Okay.
If I'm going to take you seriously as a girlfriend and or a wife, my only real
request is that you don't embarrass me and fuck other guys.
Okay.
But they have the fucking gall to sit here and say, yeah, it's a care.
Yeah, it's a care.
No, you dumb bitch.
I'm not fucking insecure.
I'm very insecure
in my goddamn confidence.
I don't wanna fucking wipe up no ho, all right?
And I'm tired of women out here telling dudes,
small dick energy, small dick energy,
you're insecure, you're insecure, you're insecure,
da da da da da da!
Yeah, nothing insecure about that clip.
I honestly don't wanna spend a lot of time
on each individual influencer
because they're all just these really embarrassing freaks
with obvious issues to work out.
Like there's a reason they target young boys
and not adults who know better
because these young boys are gravitating to anyone,
making the baseline effort to acknowledge them.
Unfortunately, this is also how predators work.
After all, they say that if you need help,
like if you're lost or have a flat tire
or got too high at the mall,
you actually should seek someone out
as opposed to wait for someone to offer help,
because the person offering help
is more likely to want something from you.
And while a lot of this help is gibberish,
the reason it works is because it's often rooted in truth.
People like alleged sex trafficker, Andrew Tate,
are recognizing that the world has changed
and a lot of young men feel aimless.
They were promised this patriarchy,
but seemingly don't benefit from it,
and in fact are now being told it's bad.
And while it is bad, many young men don't feel
like they're being presented with an alternative.
Andrew Tate is not only selling them a purpose,
but one that doesn't make them ashamed of wanting that patriarchal promise.
The only snag is that this promise is also a lie.
After all, we built this entire society
around the idea that men and women
were supposed to be a certain way,
that our genders made us inherently destined
to fit ultra-specific roles in our society.
And now we've realized that this was all a construct
built to serve people in power, like the Matrix, you know?
It's like we all took the red pill
in that movie, The Matrix.
Remember the red pill?
It's a really good analogy for destroying the illusion
of an unjust system based around
false social and gender roles.
It's also like a trans person wrote it.
Good thing no one has hijacked that.
And so continuing that very fresh metaphor from the Matrix
after taking the red pill,
the main characters thrust into a world of harsh truths.
Similarly, once we all realize that this patriarchal society
was built around lies and control,
we had to face the harsh truth
that we had built a system upon a foundation of lies.
And when you're faced with this harsh reality,
when the walls have come down, it's really easy to want to go back and take that blue pill instead.
Have you heard the term tradwife? It's short for traditional wife, a woman who stays home, cooks,
cleans, and even openly says they are submissive to their husband.
There is a little bit of a pushback going on with woke feminism and I think a
lot of women are finding that it is a wholesome lifestyle to be at home and
take care of their families, whether it's just their husband or they have
children.
Ladies. Hi, call me JK. I'm taken.
Also if you want to stay at home and cook and clean
and manage the household, go for it.
That is, after all, your choice
that the women before you fought for you to be able to make.
And if you can afford to do that, go for it.
I mean, to be clear, that tradwife influencer
puts out several TikToks a week that, based on view counts,
likely make around 4,000 to 5,000 a month,
possibly way more,
especially if you consider potential branded content. It talks a week that based on view counts, likely make around four to 5,000 a month, possibly way more,
especially if you consider potential branded content.
So not very traditional of you, miss,
making all that bread
and all that other meaning of the word bread.
Two.
Good grift though.
Congrats on the successful lifestyle influencer grift.
Boy, we will probably do a whole thing on Tradwives,
possibly get Katie to host wherever she is.
Haven't seen Katie all day for some reason.
Anyway, going back to people like Andrew Tate,
this return to tradition is very similar
to the answers you'll get from him.
Give us a solution. What's the solution?
Yeah, I think the solution comes back down to family values
and that's a very difficult question to answer
because it's across the entire spectrum, right?
It's hard and I still think one of the easiest ways to do that is God. I think if you bring back some degree of mercy to family values and that's a very difficult question to answer because it's across the entire spectrum, right?
It's hard and I still think one of the easiest ways to do that is God.
I think if you bring back some degree of morality and some degree of standard to both sexes
that I think things will start to get better.
You talk about the 1950s, another thing that was different.
In the 1950s, parents raised their kids.
Who raises kids nowadays?
School.
School.
Just three manly smart guys on a channel called Valuetainment, smoking cigars that they love, being like schools.
The Matrix.
Definitely no indoctrination in 1950s schools, by the way.
But the red pill, you know, like from the Matrix.
OK, so I acknowledge that in some sense, we're part of the problem here too.
We all do discourse and politics and so on.
But can we all just stop?
Like if these guys and everybody was just like,
I'm gonna stop talking about stuff.
I'm gonna stop getting in front of a microphone
every day or every week and just spouting like,
it's the schools doing the Matrix to you,
all serious with your stupid cigar.
If they all agree to stop, I'll stop too.
Let's all do it, okay?
I am 100% on board with all of us just stopping.
But anyway, since we're not stopping, it's not bad.
And perhaps it's even good to want to help young men
in an evolving society.
The problem is that their solution
is that we shouldn't evolve,
and in fact should go backwards.
This is a very common sentiment about a multitude of things
and why these manosphere types are usually conservatives.
After all, they want to make men great again.
Not to mention that conservative men
are often the ones lamenting
that they can't find a romantic partner,
probably because they want to take away
their reproductive rights and treat their partners
in this skewed, unbalanced way
that eventually catches up to itself.
Meanwhile, noted January 6th coward, Josh Hawley,
wrote a book literally called,
Manhood, The Masculine Virtues America Needs,
because manliness is often treated
like a necessity for civilization.
This is tied directly to nostalgia
and the hard times create strong men meme
you see going around.
Once again, it's the same concern we've always seen,
that men need hardships like war and labor
to keep them tough.
It should be noted that there's actually not much evidence
that men are becoming more conservative,
but rather apolitical, which I would argue just means that they don't realize it when they
are conservative.
Ultimately, the divide seems obvious.
We have these conservative leaning men who believe the generations long propaganda about
manliness who also feel a resentment toward modern liberated women who have absolutely
no interest in them.
And so they lost for the better days
when women were to them more tame.
This is not exclusively right wing, mind you.
The internet has especially boosted nostalgia
for pre 9-11 days.
TV shows had 20 episodes a season.
Mel Gibson wasn't a racist yet.
We had malls and physical places to exist
and all the Gallagher we could ignore.
And no one was struggling.
I mean, that last one isn't true,
but that's how a lot of people look at the past.
And like, yeah, you were a kid.
That's why you weren't struggling.
Wow, I'm so nostalgic for the carefree days
of when I was a literal child
and didn't need to care for anything.
Anyway, undoubtedly, things got economically worse
in America.
But the thing about nostalgia is
that it makes a tremendously effective dog whistle
because this decades long economic erosion
just happened to take place the same time
that minority populations were expanding their own rights.
And so people like Tate and Peterson
can point to these two things as if they are related.
By lamenting the good old days, they are often implying that things were better because women
had fewer rights, and that feminism is why things are worse now. It's just like how dummies like
Elon Musk will look at crumbling infrastructure or shitty airline companies and blame DEI.
infrastructure or shitty airline companies and blame DEI. And so this is why the manosphere is a pipeline to Nazi shit.
Going back to that beefcake fetishist bronze age pervert,
well, you see right in the name
that the account is glorifying a mystical before time.
It's no wonder that account was specifically popular
with Trumpers.
At first glance, you might see that his admiration
for past civilizations is tied to his beliefs
that men need to build strong friendships
and brotherhoods like ancient Greece.
Then if you look a little closer,
you might learn that this guy under his real name
wrote an entire book about eugenics,
and in fact has proposed selective breeding as a policy.
Because again, Nazi shit, it always goes back to it.
And when you see right-wing influencers
or right-wing influencees or moderate liberals
or why I left the left types mocking this idea by saying,
oh, so fitness is right-wing now,
it's Nazism to be healthy,
we can safely and reasonably assume
that they either didn't read the thing
they're complaining about or they did,
and they're speaking broadly and vaguely
and incorrectly about it in order to confuse the issue.
Exercise is fine.
It's actually good for you.
Go outside, work out, stay hydrated, eat well,
fall into wells, find pirate treasure, get good sleep,
stick to a solid routine, develop good habits.
This is all fine.
It's not man stuff, it's person stuff.
It's all recommended by most people, regardless of ideology.
But there are elements of this,
a certain viewpoint and perspective
about these kinds of things that can lead to,
yes, some Nazi stuff, or at the very least,
just general women-hating.
In fact, the idea of a toxic pickup artist
is almost quaint now.
A bunch of MIT researchers actually looked at the Manosphere
and found four distinct groups.
Quote, men's rights activists claim that family law
and social institutions discriminate against men.
Men going their own way take this feeling of grievance further, arguing that society
can't be amended.
They often avoid women blaming them for their problems.
Pickup artists, meanwhile, date and harass women.
They believe society is feminizing men.
And then there are the incels, the most potentially violent of the group.
Incels abide by the Black Pill,
a belief that women use their sexual power
to dominate men socially.
For that, incels want revenge.
You can sort of see how each of these Manosphere types
can melt into the other,
and why it's so closely tied to white supremacy as well.
And this all starts with these self-help grifters.
Jordan Peterson isn't overtly a Nazi,
but he's the first step in that direction.
We actually made a quick explainer about that guy
if you wanna check that out
and just take a few minutes of your time.
Ultimately, it's an extremely enticing pitch
to tell young men that all of their problems
aren't actually their fault.
And then point to leftists and women and Marxists
as the enemy inflicting these hardships upon them.
They don't need to change, you see.
It's the world that's wrong.
Skinner meme.
No, the other one.
Or take your pick, I guess.
Of course, the problem is
that the world isn't going to change for you,
despite what the masterpiece lady ballers
might want you to believe.
And so resentment isn't a useful tool.
There's nothing helpful in it.
These people are basically saying,
hey young men, I can help you if you listen to me.
And then their help is to just get mad at women.
It's like offering swimming lessons
and then spending the entire class
complaining about the ocean.
And of course, the beauty of stuff like this is,
as you get madder and madder,
you're still going to need to tune into those godawful
swimming lessons.
And like, hey, all you men out there,
if you want to endure hardships and be strong,
then maybe you need to endure the fact that women
are not subservient drones and learn how to actually
communicate with them.
Maybe it's actually manly to adapt.
Where do you think your Y chromosome came from?
And so when you think about the resilient futility
of this Manosphere message,
the only use it has is to frustrate
and indoctrinate young men.
They want you to be bitter and isolated
so you keep following them.
It's a grift and a tool for extremists.
At the very least, it's a way to sell you crap.
Heck, for some, that's
the main goal. Like, you know how a lot of freaks, but specifically the freaks of the
Daily Wire, will be like, razors are woke now, buy our anti-woke razors, and they're
really bad and it's just a waste of everybody's time and money and also it's stupid? Well,
they're doing it with vitamins now, and they have a man vitamin from a new Daily Wire company called Emerson,
which is just more vitamin slop.
We all love our vitamin slop, obviously,
but now they're ass deep in the vitamin slop game,
and they're selling these pills that are no joke,
literally and specifically,
for making your brain go good, smarter, and manly,
and for making your calm, nice, and hearty,
and thick, and powerful.
The Daily Wire's man brain jizz vitamins
is where we're at with this.
And that's like the quaint version of the Manosphere.
And so if these Daily Wire freakazoids
are the reasonable moderating vanguard
of taking back masculinity,
it's no surprise that a lot of the most popular figures
in the space are very often just toxic weirdos themselves.
And in at least one case, an indicted sex trafficker hiding in Romania.
This is almost a different video, but it's unreal how post-Trump internet cultism has made overt criminals like Andrew Tate able to not only maintain their fandom after doing terrible things,
but actually use it to boost their publicity. On paper,
there's no logical reason to look to a dull-eyed accused rapist for advice on
how to be a better man. It's beyond parody.
His most recent of several arrests happened because his idiot friend slash
bottom feeder punching bag revealed on a live stream that Tate was going to flee the country.
These are not smart dudes.
They are the same dipshits you knew in high school
who killed a cow by feeding it everclear.
I can tell you right now,
they talk about why does men
not wanna get married anymore.
Men don't wanna get married anymore.
They come up with all these elaborate reasons.
The main reason men don't wanna get married anymore
is because their girlfriend was with me for free.
So why are they gonna marry her? That's the bottom line of it.
Why would you? A white dress means virgin.
Marry who? A girl from the club who your friends have been with?
Do you want to marry her?
Oh, yeah. You know how when men are like, I can't find a good woman to be my wife.
They're talking about women who go to the club and have sex with Andrew Tate.
You know how, like, there aren't any women who aren't those women?
But also, what does it say about Andrew Tate
that he considers himself some kind of blight on women
that degrades their value if they come in contact with him?
Like a social canker sore
they should warn kids about at school.
So clearly, not someone you should listen to
about meeting women.
And yet Andrew Tate has managed to take this grift
to a cult-like level.
He offers his hustler university
that gives paying members access to special chat rooms
that do nothing but create an echo chamber
of men complaining about women.
This language of simps and betas and alphas and cucks,
this isn't how most of the world speaks.
Like yes, you might hear people using it at first ironically
to make fun of these people,
and then it kind of seeps into their real language,
but unironically, it's this weird esoteric terminology
designed to isolate men further from mainstream society,
almost guaranteeing that they will never successfully
find a partner and be forever caught in their
manosphere. And if they do, they'll probably resent the word partner because it implies some sense of
equality. So I guess more accurately, almost guaranteeing that they will never successfully
find a pet slave. There's a pretty telling article about a reporter who took one of these
manosphere programs who noted, quote, "'Despite paying for a course dedicated
"'to meeting more women,
"'few of the men I talk to in LA
"'seem to enjoy their real-life company.
"'What they want more than anything
"'is to be admired by other men.
"'This, in the end, is the true purpose
"'of all this acquisition and abundance.
"'Women are viewed as a resource on a par
"'with sports cars
and infinity pools, something to show off and deploy
to convey your alpha status to other men.
So basically these men sign up because they are lonely
and join a cult designed to make them more lonely.
This in turn makes them even more susceptible
to the cult and its spirals.
Meanwhile, they're pushing crypto
almost as their own internal economy,
and heavily tying this manosphere
to the promise of economic prosperity.
In fact, did you know that Hustler University
offers commissions to their members
if they get their friends to sign up?
I'm sorry, let me rephrase.
In fact, did you know that Hustler University
is a pyramid scheme?
As in, it's very explicitly that.
To cult, did you know that for the low, low price
of $5,000, you can join Andrew Tate's special war room,
his secret club where you can, I don't know,
prepare for some kind of war, I guess.
It sounds silly, but it's made Tate millions of dollars
doing this, which is probably why that YouTuber Sneako
also got in on this, selling a creativity kit
for 50 bucks a month to help other people go viral.
It's time to stop scrolling and start monetizing.
These are the sheep, the bots I yell about.
This is the clientele that give all their money
to the people at the top advertising
while we sit here and scroll.
Do you wanna waste your time and sit here?
I don't know why these people are here.
Do you wanna sit here all day or profit off of them?
That's all I know how to do from scripting, writing,
live streaming, being comfortable talking in public,
vlogging, that's what I wanna teach you on this course.
I'm sorry, but before we get into stuff
that is way more relevant,
you don't know why people are there?
I don't even know.
It's a crowd of people
sitting in like an arena type environment.
Look for a sign, dude.
I bet there's a sign that says why people are there.
I don't wanna harp on this.
There are more important things to talk about,
but I'm going to because man,
this guy is so fucking silly.
I don't know why people are even here. Look around
Ask somebody. Hey, are you tired of being online all the time? Well, you got to get out in the real world
So here I am
But why is everybody else also here? Oh, well, hey online people out there
I don't know why these people are out in the real world, but they're sheep.
Like, this is just a theory, but maybe men are lonely
because they're incapable of asking a stranger,
hey, what's this crowd of people doing here?
Anyway, the actual point of me bringing up
this creativity kit from a guy who I don't even think
could define the word creativity.
And if he were to ask someone why a bunch of people
were sitting in an amphitheater,
it would only be for content with a capital C
because he capital sucks shit.
Well, the actual point of showing you that
is that it's just scam stuff.
It's scams, it's scams.
It's that Riddler guy you saw in 3AM infomercials.
They're actually good with money or even women.
There are sex workers who have talked about how these guys
will hire them to pretend to be their sexual conquests.
One of these grifters, a Twitter account called
Shades of Game, even admitted that he would go to clubs,
pay for a VIP table, and invite women to take pictures
with him.
It's just a grift.
It's so laughable and obvious.
But according to these guys,
the fact that I'm saying this is just another victory.
To quote this article about Andrew Tate,
in one guide, Hustler's University students are told
that attracting comments and controversy
is the key to success. What you ideally want is a mix of 60 to 70% fans
and 40 to 30% haters.
You want arguments, you want war.
It's a war, you see, for attention.
Though to them, it's for the culture.
And by framing it this way,
by working the haters into your grift,
you've made yourself bulletproof
from anyone laughing at your obvious lies and bullshit.
The more people laugh, you see,
the more successful you are.
After all, a huge portion of this Manosphere economy
is simply attracting any attention.
As we just talked about in our last episode,
they ultimately just want engagement,
and they absolutely don't care how they get it.
In fact, I'm not sure they even think about the harm they absolutely don't care how they get it.
In fact, I'm not sure they even think about the harm
they are doing to young men.
And they are doing a lot of harm.
Like, get ready for the saddest clip in the world.
Sadder than the ending of Homeward Bound
where Shadow gets trapped in the hole.
What did you take?
Fuck the woman, fuck the woman.
What?
No, no, no.
No, no, wait, wait, wait. We love women. We love women.
We love women.
Not like transgenders.
Yes, sir. We love everybody!
No, no! All gay can die!
That there is Sneeko
meeting some of his fans
and perhaps realizing the extent
to which he's ruined these extremely young boys
For money the culmination of his grift
His legacy is a handful of shitty children screaming hate at him at a baseball game
And I don't know if that doesn't haunt him for life. I'm not sure what would
So, you know fuck that guy his name sounds like a Star Wars alien,
and that's the best thing about him.
Also, fuck Andrew Tate, obviously,
and fuck all the other weird Manosphere grifters,
or rather, don't fuck them, they're gross.
Young men are lost,
and they are selling them maps to nowhere.
So after the break, we're gonna see
if we can't find a way out of this.
Maybe that dude cream will help.
Stay tuned.
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So now that I'm a partner, you want to hang out or?
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So hi again.
Before the break, we were talking about how men are really lonely and depressed
and are looking to these grifters to sell them on a purpose.
A lot of these men are very young and impressionable,
but it would be silly not to recognize that anyone can fall in this trap.
Men are lonely. I'm not, even if friendulous suddenly won't answer my calls,
but a lot of men are.
And when you're lonely and depressed,
you might not even notice
when you're being taken advantage of.
You might be willing to put your faith
in something that you shouldn't.
Oh, they took out a lot more money than I agreed to pay.
Though they took out a lot more money than I agreed to pay.
Well, that dude cream must be really good. My point is that it's really easy, as I keep saying,
to make fun of the people falling for this
like they're Elmer Fudd getting punked by bugs,
or that lady rabbit that sometimes showed up.
Who was that lady?
I never said her name.
But this entire video started with the very real fact
that men are statistically not doing good.
They are not okay.
And unless we take that seriously,
they will continue to not be okay.
The Manosphere is only going to isolate them more and more
as these crypto weirdos latch on
to ever more depressing solutions like AI girlfriends,
which yes, is now a very stupid thing.
Although even those girlfriends
are apparently too woke for some guys, wowee.
So what do we do here?
How do we fix men?
Well, let's start with a broader look
at political policies that would be good to support.
There's a lot of stuff we could pitch here,
so we'll keep it specific to men feeling depressed
and struggling with education and making money.
Going back to the history of the patriarchy
screwing over men specifically via war and labor.
Well, the obvious thing would be to support organizations
that help fight for higher wages
and better working conditions.
Some kind of union of people bargaining for stuff collectively.
We'll think of a name later.
But according to one study, men who belong to such organizations
make on average 1.3 million more than men who don't.
It would be wise to look to anyone who is fighting for labor rights
and pushing to increase things like the minimum wage.
Whomever that person may be,
to work toward a world where a single income
can once again support a household.
Or I guess we can treat it like a zero sum game
where we get mad at minorities and women
for also wanting stuff.
How dare they exist?
On the subject of education, it's worth noting
that men, specifically white men,
are more likely to be depressed
if they lack a college degree.
Aside from college providing benefits of wider socialization
and broadening experiences and perspectives,
I'm assuming this is also directly tied
to these people lacking a livable wage.
I think it would be wise for men to seek out ways
to make college affordable,
perhaps look at the fact that men have a great deal
of student debt.
And while white men have traditionally had more
deaths of despair, we need to recognize
that a reason the overall number has gone up
is because the number of suicides and overdoses
for black men has nearly tripled in the past decade or so.
That's one of the reasons that it's important
not to make this a weird battle between races or sex.
It's important to understand that by pushing policies
designed to help people in need,
that will end up helping everyone, men included.
A rising tide lifts all microplastics or what have you.
A proper alpha knows that sigmas only thrive
when betas are happy or some other dumb shit.
Whatever phrasing gets through to you stupid, stupid boys.
The point here is that there are people
who already care about labor rights and fair wages
and education access and affordable housing and healthcare
and reforming our prison system and ending wars
and all that stuff is directly tied to the wellbeing of men.
And it would be silly to ignore that
just because it also helps other people.
And perhaps the people trying to make this a war
between white men and women or minorities
are actually trying to distract you
from practical solutions.
DEI didn't make the cost of living so high, you know?
Feminism isn't why the national minimum wage has stagnated. As for the social side of things,
such as the lack of support and isolation that men feel,
I think one solution stems from what caused the problem
in the first place,
which is how the world changed when it came
to social dynamics as it relates to gender.
As I already said, the patriarchy was a scam,
but it did offer men everywhere,
or rather white men everywhere,
a lot of places to socialize.
Men's clubs, boy scouts,
that weird no talking society in Sherlock Holmes.
Social clubs used to be a thing.
The idea being that you found a group of like-minded people
and held little meetings and parties
around a specific interest.
Sometimes you paid a little fee,
sometimes you paid a big fee
and got spanked by a dude in a skull mask
and then eventually became the president.
But of course, these social clubs were often divided
by sex and race.
And ultimately they became seen as archaic for that reason.
Instead of integrating, a lot of them just closed down
or made a version for women.
In fact, over the years,
women's only spaces began to thrive and for good reason.
Not sure if you know this, but men can be dangerous.
I'm not saying there aren't any terrifying women out there.
I'm pretty sure Gwyneth Paltrow has tasted human flesh,
but statistically speaking,
men are more likely to do very bad things, often to women.
And more than that, a lot of the men that don't do bad things
still won't speak up when other men do bad things.
The need for women's spaces is seen as a matter of survival
or at least a haven.
And ironically, that's from the exact same pickup artist
types that are probably mad about that.
Here's what you do guys.
You see a girl at the gym, you want to ask her out,
you want to put your pee pee in her,
you want to get to know her better,
go on a date, whatever.
Here's the number one thing you do.
Hey guys, you see a woman at the gym
and want to ask her out?
Well, here's what you got to do.
Step one, don't.
Okay?
She's not there to meet guys.
Video over.
Also, don't say pee pee to her or anyone.
Classic alpha language. I want to put my pee pee in you. God. See, even't say pee-pee to her or anyone. Classic alpha language.
I want to put my pee-pee in you, God.
See, even if guys aren't physically dangerous,
a lot of them have decided that women can be approached
and bothered in literally any situation at any time.
And because of this,
a lot of women just need a place without dudes there.
This is also where a lot of turf stuff stems from.
Turf-sy trans women is like, I don't know,
secret men trying to find a loophole or something.
And it seems dumb, but I bring up these dummy turfs
because it speaks to a larger
and more modern thing happening right now,
which is that we're starting to completely redefine
how gender plays a factor in everything.
After all, ideally, like in the Star Trek Utopia future,
we don't need men or women spaces.
And we've begun to realize that public bathrooms, for example,
might not all need to be separated like that.
But the snag here is that, much like women who still want safe spaces,
a lot of men also want spaces just for them.
This is often expressed toxically.
Look at Gamergate, a movement that seems obsessed
with the idea that video games are being feminized
while at the same time complaining
about female characters looking too masculine,
but whatever.
They treat this as if men owned the concept of video games
because traditionally, men's clubs were always just society.
That's why they were bad. That's why they were bad.
That's why they were dismantled.
But in dismantling pieces of the patriarchy,
we didn't give men anything to replace it with either.
So this is all to say that maybe we need
non-toxic spaces for men.
Going back to that reporter who took a manosphere class,
his impression was that these men were really there
just to bond with other men.
They're not actually there for alpha training.
They're just there for friend club.
See, there's a difference between being a weirdo
men's rights activist and providing a social space for men
and sticking up for issues that affect men,
such as the double standards that come with judging men's bodies
and the way male domestic abuse victims
are often treated like a joke.
I would argue that a lot of feminism also speaks out about these things. judging men's bodies and the way male domestic abuse victims are often treated like a joke.
I would argue that a lot of feminism also speaks out
about these things,
but there could be a man-led effort there that's normal,
one that doesn't devolve into just being weird incel shit
and getting your young fans to just hate women.
Like they literally say it out loud to your face
that that is what is going on.
Because the thing that men need to accept
is that what hurts them didn't come from women.
It came from other powerful men, the patriarchy.
That's what that is.
And for a lot of these young men out there,
the first thing they need to understand
is that when people attack that patriarchy,
they aren't attacking you.
How are we supposed to get our lives in order
when we are told to not even be men in the first place?
Well, it's certainly, I mean,
the fact that you're told not to be men in the first place
actually doesn't interfere with your ability
to clean up your room, it just demoralizes you.
So the answer to that question,
how are we supposed to get our lives in order
when we are told to not even be men in the first place?
Is that no one is telling you not to be a man.
They're telling you that the world
can no longer exclusively cater to men
and to perhaps not be an asshole about that fact.
But the way Peterson frames his just very confusing answer
is to confirm the idea that men and boys are being punished
for being assertive and ambitious.
Because boys tend to play very actively and frenetically,
especially if they're assertive
and schools don't like that at all.
And so, and then if they escape from that,
well then the next accusation is something
like all masculine ambition is nothing but a manifestation of the pathology of the patriarchy.
It provides no excuse for young men to fail to stand up for themselves.
It actually instead invites them, it provides them with the temptation to abandon their
responsibility by accepting the doctrine that everything they do that's ambitious is evil.
So this claim is that society is telling men and boys
that they aren't allowed to be successful.
They aren't allowed to be ambitious
and they aren't allowed to vaguely be men.
But who the fuck is telling boys
not to be ambitious or assertive?
Seriously, when boys are playing on a playground,
do they get in trouble for being assertive?
Does the teacher send a note home saying
that little Rutteger was caught practicing ambitiousness
in gym class?
They get in trouble because they're too rough,
or they tease someone, or start a cool fire.
Being rough or violent isn't the same as being assertive.
And it's very bad to confuse the two.
But Peterson literally has to lie
that people are saying that verbatim
any sense of ambition is evil.
What?
Excuse me?
Much like men often do,
he is reframing a criticism to be an all out attack.
Oh, I loaded the dishwasher differently than you prefer?
I guess I'm the worst at loading the dishwasher
in the entire world and fine,
I'll never load the worst at loading the dishwasher in the entire world and fine,
I'll never load the dishwasher again.
It's an assault on them and their way and their being,
but that's not what's actually going on.
They have to say this lie, to do this trick
in order to recruit people into the responding army.
It seems to be part of the reason
so many effective guys in this space
focus on material, flashy possessions,
present women as sexy assistants,
and are named things like Smooth Chris and The Ravening.
They're magicians.
Peterson's dressing up like he's the magnificent brain man
doing close-up magic for the rubes outside Caesar's palace.
There are a lot of cons out there,
but this one is particularly obvious
and doesn't seem particularly helpful.
And so what I'm saying here is that if your definition
of being a man is to treat other people like shit
and then interpret any criticism as an attack on men
and you specifically, then maybe you don't know
what it actually means to be a man.
And so you know what?
How about we talk about that?
How about I, Cody J. Johnston III,
actually give some raw, unfiltered advice
to young men who feel lost or insecure
or don't know what it means to be a good man?
Let's make it a segment.
Cody gives it raw.
You know, I blame myself there. Cody gives it raw.
You know, I blame myself there. I set that upon myself.
I take full responsibility.
So what does it mean to be a good man?
Broadly speaking, it's not really different
from being a good person.
In fact, at the top of this,
I'd say the number one piece of advice
about how to be a good man is to realize
that there is no definition of what a man is.
A man is whatever you want it to be.
You feel the way you feel.
Heck, maybe you don't feel particularly masculine.
That's fine.
You can be a good, feminine man.
Be who you are and let other people accept that.
If you do that with confidence,
then people will respond to it.
Of course, when young men and boys
flock to the manosphere,
they are doing so because they are depressed
or resentful or have trouble fitting in
or want a romantic partner, usually a female.
I don't know, maybe there's a whole other
toxic manosphere for LGBTQ people,
but typically we're talking about cis men
looking to meet women.
And so the quickest way for a young man
to learn how to speak to women
is actually pretty simple on paper.
It doesn't involve paying for a weekend seminar
or buying a copy of the game.
Are you ready?
If you want to know how to speak to women,
you should become friends with women.
And not friends in quotation marks,
not women that you want to sleep with or date,
but actual friends with women who you hang out with
and talk to and play video games
and do crimes and watch movies with.
If you are a young boy or high schooler or adult man
and you don't have friends who are women,
then you need to make an effort.
Even if you don't succeed immediately, even if you're awkward and weird,
the goal is important. Be friends with a human woman that you like as a person.
I think a lot of men have trouble approaching women and resent that men are traditionally
expected to be the one to make the first move. I personally agree that this is bullshit. The idea
that a woman has to be chased or approached
is exactly why we have these toxic pickup artist types
and all these guys who are resentful
when that chasing actually chases the woman away.
And don't get me wrong,
there are men and women who do prefer that dynamic.
Like when I said earlier,
not to approach a woman in the gym,
that's the safe assumption,
but it really depends on the vibes of the situation.
But it takes time to pick up on those vibes.
It takes advice from other women.
It takes knowing how to talk to a woman.
So when you just start genuinely talking to women
with no agenda or hopes,
then you will slowly find yourself more comfortable.
It's like a job interview.
We're all nervous in a job interview
because we want something.
But if you went and interviewed for a job
you had no intention of getting, you'd be way less nervous.
So just talk to women the way you talk to a dude.
Like if they have a shirt of a band you like
or share some interests with you,
engage with them on those interests.
Don't challenge her on whether she really likes the band.
Talk to her about the band you both like.
Just be friends with them.
Listen to them.
Learn about what their lives are like.
Share your feelings and anxieties.
If you're close enough friends with them,
you can even ask them for advice
on how to date or ask out other women.
They probably have good advice for you.
And just keep trying to make friends,
not just with women, but anyone.
If you see someone who's struggling to fit in,
approach them, ask them about themselves, make friends,
build a group of friends, both men and women.
And if someone is an asshole or treats you poorly,
stop being friends with them,
even if they are popular or cool.
One moment, sorry.
Hey there.
Hey, what's up?
You're here to do what?
The jars.
Oh, that's great.
Yes, go for it.
Although there are a lot of them,
so it might take a while, but thank you.
Someone's here to take away all the corn cream jars
on the floor.
I guess Katie found somewhere to put them,
which is great news.
See, Katie is a friend and friends help each other.
I know it sounds basic
and I know this is easier said than done,
but it's important to seek female friends,
specifically as friends and not romantic partners.
And ideally, do that before you even start
to think about dating.
Another very important thing to do before dating,
not just for young men, but everyone,
is to figure out who you are.
Figure out what you like to do.
And once you feel comfortable in knowing who you are,
you can think about finding
a partner and in fact a partner might find you because you'll be out there being yourself,
doing things you enjoy, being comfortable in yourself.
It's not a race.
And I think too many young people jump into relationships because they think it's what
they're supposed to do and feel like failures if they don't succeed.
But there's no natural or unacceptable age
to start having relationships.
You can be 15 or 50.
There's this fear that quote,
all the good ones will be gone when you're older.
But that's not true.
In fact, it's even less true today.
And that's because of something you also need to accept,
which is that the world just isn't as prosperous
as it was for everyone.
If someone tells you that as a man,'t as prosperous as it was for everyone.
If someone tells you that as a man,
you should be successful or provide for a woman or a family
and if you're struggling to do so, you're a failure,
that person is either stupid or a liar.
It's okay to struggle.
It's okay to be a victim.
It happens.
Sometimes bad things happen and there's nothing we can do.
To quote one of the best fictional examples of manhood.
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.
That is not a weakness, that is life.
The spaceman is right.
Honestly, if you ever need advice
on how to be a good man or a good person,
a good life hack is to just think about
what a Star Trek captain would do.
Picard is friends with women.
He tries to better himself with a hobby,
but accepts that he's not the best at it.
He's not really a father figure though,
but that's why we have Captain Benjamin Sisko
to show us what it means to be a loving father.
Sisko is also friends with women
and even women with worms in them.
He's not afraid to show emotion or explore spirituality.
He helps people even if those people aren't nice to him.
And look, yes, he did a few war crimes, but come on.
Come on, you know?
Come on.
So just like do what these guys do,
except the war crime part,
Picard also turned into a robot
and did a genocide actually.
Damn.
Defund Starfleet.
And speaking of war crimes, there's a big difference
between feeling shame for the past and current crimes of men
and acknowledging them.
If someone explicitly tells you
that you should be ashamed to be a man,
they're not a good person.
But similarly, if someone tells you
that everyone else is telling you
to be ashamed for being a man,
that person isn't good either,
and is probably a grifter,
pointing out the fact that men and male-centric culture
has traditionally been toxic toward women,
as well as for other men, is not shaming you.
Pointing out that macho culture
has been largely anti-LGBTQ
or often tied to racism, again, isn't shaming you.
It's okay to like macho stuff,
to watch old 90s and 80s action films, pro wrestling,
sports, to gaze into the eyes of Robert Mitchum
and feel the hairs on your balls grow a little bit more.
But you can do those things and also acknowledge
the problematic elements contained within them.
And you can draw your own lines
in terms of what is and isn't acceptable to enjoy,
but just know that other people have their own lines
and you need to respect those lines.
Part of being secure and strong is acknowledging
that our heroes and interests are flawed
and working to rectify that and include people in it.
That's a strength.
Taking responsibility for our mistakes is a strength.
Because to be frank, sometimes we are the problem.
Even Jordan Peterson seems to know that.
Okay, so you're a young man
and all the women are rejecting you.
Who's got the problem? It's not all the women are rejecting you. Who's got the problem?
It's not all the women.
That's a bad road to go down.
If all the women are rejecting you, it's you.
We both agree on this.
And I'm sorry, but we of course have to contrast
this admission with the following clip
of professional terrible guesser
and Manosphere bottom feeder, Tim Poole,
who claims to want to use like skateboarding
and video games as a way to influence youth culture
instead of talking about politics,
which he incidentally still does every single day of his life.
Anyway, let's get some insight into why he thinks
that he specifically is single.
You know what the problem is though?
It's definitely not me.
I think it's everybody else.
Yeah.
Oof. If you are at a point where you've decided that the problem is everybody else. Yeah. Oof.
If you are at a point where you've decided
that the problem is everybody else but you,
or that the world is filled with assholes
and everyone is unfair to you and women are all terrible
and are trying to humiliate you, I have some bad news.
You probably need to work on yourself.
If you're always angry,
you need to think about how to change that.
I would suggest telling people when they hurt your feelings
and expressing those feelings
before they turn into resentment and anger.
Men are often told not to share their feelings.
This is a chick thing to do,
but it's actually just a healthy human activity
to say to a friend,
hey, kind of hurt my feelings yesterday
when you called me an anthropomorphic jizz rag
in front of my grandma.
You can talk that stuff out,
release the steam before it overflows.
And if the person isn't receptive to your hurt feelings,
then you don't want to be friends with them anyway.
Pretending to not have emotions isn't manly,
don't be a jizz rag about it.
And while you don't have to feel ashamed for being a man
or even think your problems are your
fault, you do have to take responsibility for fixing your situation. Only you can do that.
And what doesn't fix things is just blaming women or minorities or any broad group of people. If
your plan to fix your life is to dictate how other people live their lives, then you'll never fix your life. And in order to fix your life,
you actually don't need a specific figure or ideology
or culture war army or cult
to tell you how to better yourself.
Basic stuff, life advice, working out
and getting good sleep and eating right
and developing good habits,
cleaning your room, taking responsibility.
As we discussed, these aren't left or right issues.
You don't need a specific guy or sphere
or cult of personality to tell you
to do these basic elements of life.
But perhaps more importantly,
it doesn't matter if you think the world isn't fair or kind,
you can't control what other people do.
You just can't.
This is the world.
It's filled with a lot of different people.
You're not gonna like all or most of them,
but you have to find a place in it where you can be happy.
And the only thing you can actually control is yourself.
That's the puzzle you have to solve.
And listen, if you need someone to tell you
that it's not your fault, then okay.
It's not your fault.
Hey, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. Hey, it's not your fault. It's not your fault.
It's not Wombos fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not Wombos fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not Wombos fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not Wombos fault. It's not your fault. It's not Wombos fault. It's not your fault. It's not Wubble's fault!
It's not your fault.
It's not Wubble's fault!
It's not your fault.
It's not Wubble's fault!
They were dead when Wubble got there!
It's not your fault.
There. Good. Will. Hunting.
I think we made a breakthrough.
I hope that was at least a little helpful, but maybe it wasn't.
I don't know.
Okay.
But if I can give you one last bit of advice,
it's to keep seeking emotional help,
or rather professional help.
It's okay to talk to an actual therapist.
More than okay, it's courageous even.
Or find a support group, confront traumas, cry.
Everyone does it.
Think of it like jerking off for your heart.
That's manly, right?
Even if what I'm saying doesn't resonate with you,
what's important is that you understand
that help isn't easy.
It's not a product.
Anyone offering you a quick fix probably wants your money,
or worse, your loyalty.
Don't fall for it.
My dude cream got delivered, I bet.
Yes, I do.
One sec.
It's just the same corn cream.
I bought the corn cream that was already here.
It's clear to me now.
Son of a fuck.
I guess Stoli was working for Katie.
I should have known that makes so much sense now.
That dude was way too cool to be true.
Fuck!
Maybe he still wants to hang out though.
I'm gonna text him.
Help me Stoli Gunn Canoli.
You're my only hope.
See what I did?
I'm not lonely. Hey, Frenzulous.
Just checking in again.
I know this is, I don't know how many messages so far.
Try to ignore the other ones. Focus on this one.
I'm just calling to say.
Well, as well,
oh, if you want to hang out, do you want to hang out today or tomorrow?
What what's your free time like schedule wise?
What's you how do you how do, how do you do with your time?
What, when are you, when can you hang out, please?
Please just, or you know what, just call,
just to call back, just to call back.
Just one, just one call.
We won't, we don't have to hang out.
We won't, but just like call me back.
Just text me you got the message.
Just text me you got the message. Just text me you got the message.
OK. OK, talk to you. Talk to you.
Fuck, so bad. How are you doing?
Do you want to hang out with me?
I don't think he's going to call back.
Thanks for watching. I don't think he's the link to it.
You can check out stuff on other stuff.
And you know what else?
He's not gonna call back.