Ask Lemmy

My guess is that the internet connects them to like minded misogynists, then it’s just a big women hating circle jerk that perpetuates the reason they got into it in the first place: women dislike them, because they are misogynists.

It's not complicated. They're horny and frustrated that they can't get a woman to be interested in them. Tate tells them it's not their fault and that the blame lies with women and society, allowing them to not feel shitty about themselves or make any effort to improve.

It's a combination of them being young and dumb, but also being brought up mind-fucked by social media from the beginning of their lives.

The algorithm pushes them that direction.

On YouTube I'm constantly one video away from "owning the woke libs" content because I turned my view history off.

I think its because, to an extent, masculinity has been villainized, and people who are masculine (in appearance, identity or desire to be traditionally masculine) naturally look for people that pretend to value them.

This combined with reduction or even removal of shop classes, reduced PE, recess and physical activities in school, female teachers now far outnumbering male teachers, and strict attitude towards typical male behavior can easily build a huge amount of resentment in young men. Most public schools now are heavily tailored towards female students.

Doing normal boy stuff, like roughing each other up and messing with your friends got me and other boys detention, and it felt extremely unfair.

The algorithms in social media, media platforms, and search engines are all designed to keep users engaged so that ad revenue can be generated and user data can be harvested.

Adding to that, a lot of these misogynistic creators leverage predatory practices that manipulate marginalized people into sycophantcy.

When this and other factors come together, we wind up with mindless drones which are easily manipulated, constantly angry, and always searching for a way to "get back" at those that who marginalized them.

Social medias thrive on engagement, and controversial content is king of engagement.

So social medias companies push content like Andrew Tate and co because it makes them money and they don't care about anything else.

Young people are impressionable, and they get pushed that crap over and over.

If everyday of your life you get told that women are just baby factories, you will eventually start to believe it, some sooner than others.

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

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

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

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.

I think I had this exact thought yesterday. In the past, there's been hints that appear within just a few months if you're looking.

Most of the explanations posted aren't very convincing. If it's just a daddy figure or toxic masculinity or just personal affirmation that's not new and should have applied all along. The YouTube algorithm could be part of it, but then you just get a question about why the YouTube algorithm was pushing that.

A random theory, just based on something I read recently: looksmaxxing is becoming a big thing, which is itself a sign of equality in that the burden for being attractive is now going both ways. Paradoxically, the new cohort of men with body image issues is very vulnerable to radicalisation by the manosphere.

It'd be kind of surprising if that was the whole thing, though...

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

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

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

Surprised Pikachu face.

I blame the algorithms. This shit is oushed in front of impressionable young men's faces by most social media algorithms because it drives (toxic) engagement. Others have already described why it's appealing.

This shit has always existed but it's given a soap box because corporate wants number to go up, and sadly parents these days leave parenting up to social media so they don't teach them that these views are abhorrent.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Further listening material

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.

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

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