What the Internet is Like for Young Men
Just because masculinity is a sensitive topic doesn't mean we should cede the online space to the worst of us.
Everyone is asking what’s happening with young men today. There are skyrocketing rates of social isolation, loneliness, drug overdoses, and suicides. Along with those are seismic partisan realignments and shifting culture. It comes at a time when we are working to redefine masculinity away from the reductive conception of the past, which was harmful to men themselves and women even more so. Who is reaching young men the most to establish that definition? As you may have guessed, it starts online.
The space is filled with conflict entrepreneurs and Andrew Tate-esque content at worst, or hollow entertainment content disguised as self-help that typically encourages stock trading, sports betting, or over-leveraged real estate investments at best. You might get a little sports content or comedian podcast clips here and there to shake things up. Holistically, it’s a mess. It’s the digital version of endless mid-2000s reality TV shows with less FCC oversight and more gambling ads.
Alongside the toxic and the vapid are understandable critiques of this content and of the way it teaches young men how to actualize a reductive and harmful ideal of masculinity. While I share many of those critiques, they are not a sufficient counterbalance. Young men need a positive alternative and there isn’t enough of one out there. The distinct lack of “good” male-focused content that meaningfully and earnestly engages with the question of what it means to be a young man today is a major problem, and it is ceding the space to the harmful and the disingenuous.
The Content Space for Young Men
Andrew Tate and the “Manosphere” are now infamous for championing some of the worst visions for young men. But their content is only a small piece of young men’s digital ecosystem. Their overtly toxic messages are nestled within the majority of online content directed toward young men, which implicitly or explicitly tells them that masculinity is achieved through money, power, and sex. It's mostly mindless, hollow entertainment content disguised as self-help. Imagine buff snake oil salesmen encouraging radical optimizations of sleep, workouts and diets, pontificating on how to get rich, how to seem rich, how to get women to sleep with you. That, and lots of sports betting. However much sports betting content you think there is, I promise you there’s more.
That said, it isn’t all used car salesmen and steroid-abusing scam artists standing next to someone else’s private jet. The more influential influencers and content come from what can only be described as male cultural media. It’s the Barstool Sports content and podcasts like Joe Rogan and Theo Von. It’s often a combination of typically male-coded subjects like sports and crude humor mixed with genuine discussions about what masculinity is today–some of which are deeper and more genuine than you would think. This space is complicated and is frankly not the MAGA right-wing hive mind that many progressives believe it to be. There’s a lot to unpack about it, some good and some bad, and we will do it in a subsequent newsletter to give it the time it deserves.
All this content is mostly irrelevant when broken down into individual pieces. What it combines into–the noise that is formed in the aggregate–is what’s shaping young men’s conceptualization of masculinity. This comes at a time when society is debating how to define masculinity and what role it plays in a modern and more equitable system, which is both a good and necessary conversation.
It does, though, leave masculinity’s definition up to social consensus at some level if we are going to replace the outdated (and, in many ways, harmful) definition with a question mark. And if the content I described is providing a bad answer, who’s out there providing a good one? Not many, it turns out.
The Lack of “Good” Content
There is a debilitating lack of good, earnest content attempting to define masculinity in a healthy and productive way right now. The internet is in deep need of influencers and opinion leaders who are working to engage with the question of where and how young men fit into this modern world and expand past the reductive focus on money, status, and success as the defining characteristics of male self-actualization. That definition not only encourages the domination of others, but it holds up unattainable criteria that the vast majority of men will never achieve. Not everyone can be wealthy, famous, and powerful and even if they could, that is not what should dictate our self-worth.
The good news is that there are some trying to provide a better, healthier answer. One of them is Scott Galloway, who goes by Professor G online. Galloway has built a sizeable audience for his content that both acknowledges the struggles young men face today and provides solutions focused on self-betterment and personal responsibility (the healthy kind, not the bootstraps kind). He comes across as a great youth sports coach who provides support in times of hardship, acknowledges the challenges in front of you, and instills a sense of confidence that you are strong enough to overcome them. Occasionally, that last point requires some tough love and Galloway provides that.
What makes his message so particularly helpful for young men is two-fold: he acknowledges their struggles as shown in the clip above (ignore, if you can, the absurd thumbnail), and he engages them without placing blame on our changing society or characterizing women’s empowerment as hurting men. Other more harmful influencers will acknowledge the same struggles, but subtly shift responsibility away from their male audience and towards everyone else. They say if you are financially insecure, it’s because women in the workplace have taken your opportunities. If you can’t find a romantic partner, it’s women to blame for not wanting you. Their answer is, of course, to become egregiously wealthy and scoff at the idea of an egalitarian society.
Galloway and others like him can provide meaningful alternatives that teach young men how to self-actualize while appreciating the moral necessity of pursuing gender equality and celebrating our nation’s attempts at achieving it. Yes, you do have to compete with women for jobs and college admissions now. That’s the way it should have always been. Man to man, here are some ways to find fulfilment and success.
We Need More Scott Galloways
What’s clear is that we need more folks like Galloway and fewer like Andrew Tate. We also need those alternatives to stem the tide of the vapid “hustler culture” content and to give young men an idea that their image and self-worth extend far beyond their net worth and that their passions can include something other than sports betting. The lack of alternative voices in the ecosystem allows the worst of us to define what masculinity is.
That said, it’s not hard to see why many well-meaning influencers are tepid about joining the conversation. Considering the sensitivity of the issue, the justified-yet-intense backlash against the Manosphere content, and the complete inability of the internet to appreciate nuanced arguments, it’s not exactly an inviting place to be. It feels like a few poorly worded sentences or an out-of-context clip going viral could sentence you to death in the court of public opinion even if you mean well.
Ultimately, anything we say online is going to generate some level of backlash. It’s how the space works. If you speak long enough on a hot-button issue, no matter how empathetic or inclusive you are, you will eventually say something that can be cut into an out-of-context clip, posted online for the reactionaries to feast on, and someone will try and cancel you. The same is true of any topic that hits on an exposed nerve in American culture, not just gender-based content.
My point is that it doesn’t really matter. There is outrage and backlash every single day online and almost none of it lasts. What matters is taking the time to meaningfully think about your message and whether or not what you’re saying is thoughtful. And in many ways, some level of misplaced backlash helps build an audience. For better or worse, young men are pining for edgy and irreverent content and some frenetic internet anger can help build your authenticity. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is. It has certainly helped Scott Galloway at times.
If you mean well and think you can connect with young male culture in a helpful and productive way, then make content! Go out there and put your noise into the ecosystem. Young men desperately need it, and so does everyone else.