Bloomberg offers a valuable, well-documented discussion of the key role that a number of YouTube "influencers" played in pushing young males towards Donald Trump in the last election:

Mastodon Migration

It is indeed really instructive to watch a few minutes of one of these podcasts or videos. Generally they are four or five guys talking fast in a sort of impenetrable jargon about how to become fabulously wealthy and fit and have lots of sex with beautiful stupid woman who they despise if only you will buy their bodybuilding supplements, invest in some scheme, or take their class on how to pick up women etc.

The Sleight Doctor 🃏

@wdlindsy @mastodonmigration Indeed. Not a zero-sum game - or to loosely paraphrase a popular meme, human rights aren't like pie: you don't have less because someone else has more. The neccessary universality of human rights is why we protect the marginalized. Ultimately, strengthening the rights of anyone builds a more robust framework for all of us. Conversely, weakening the rights of anyone puts everyone at risk by making rights conditional on the whims of power.

First they came for the...

laguiri

@wdlindsy @paco I teach high school in Spain. Last year I intercepted a love letter and read some lines thinking it was cheating. The girl waxed lyrical about the love object's wish to improve himself. My students share that outlook in public too: you want a girlfriend, you study hard and build a future. They don't want to be supported, just to be partners.

Beachbum

@mastodonmigration @wdlindsy Let’s not forget the ignorant parents who coddle them and let them live at home, pay their bills, buy them cars and fail to teach them and encourage them how to support themselves. #FailureToThrive

Mastodon Migration

@Beachbum @wdlindsy

For sure. And, hate to say it because absolutely love video games, but video game addiction plays a role too. Not because of the violence, but because of the enormous non-productive anti-social time sink.

sb :q!

@wdlindsy
Here's an archive link to the above article.

Paywall-free: https://web.archive.org/web/20250122180001/https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-youtube-podcast-men-for-trump/

EllenJS

@mastodonmigration

This podcast episode is on a related (the same?) subject but from a different angle.

Why Are Boys and Men in Trouble? - Freakonomics

Freakonomics (freakonomics.com)

@lucybeahere @wdlindsy @paco

Mastodon Migration

@EllenJS @lucybeahere @wdlindsy @paco

Reeves is an interesting character. His work is regarded as good in identifying the problem, but flawed in his prescriptions for addressing it, and too closely aligned with MRA (mens rights activist) thinking:

Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription: Richard Reeves' Of Boys and Men

It’s not exactly unknown that boys and men are struggling in America. A number of books have already been written on the topic from Warren Farrell’s The Boy Crisis to Kay Hymowitz’s Manning Up. But much of this work to date has come from people who are somewhat marginal to the mainstream conversation (often conservatives). Richard Reeves’ new book on the topic, Of Boys and Men, is different in that, while it covers much of the same ground, it’s from a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, the most establishment center-left think tank. Which makes it a mainstream book.

Institute for Family Studies (ifstudies.org)

bouriquet

@wdlindsy It’s a fear of poorly educated males who are afraid of being dominated or led by a woman, whether in a relationship, job or government.
That explains the difficulty Kamala Harris (and Hillary Clinton) had in getting males (not just white males) to vote for them, even despite the TV ad by Sam Elliott telling them to “man up” and “Be a man and vote for a woman” produced by the Lincoln Project.

Godfrey642

@bouriquet @wdlindsy

America is an immature violent country that has never moved on from its Wild West days. Largely terrorised by men, violated by men, ruled by men, corrupted by men, perverted by men, armed by and for men, preached to by men. And now it's telling its young men that they have been emasculated and need to be heard again.???

I would propose that we've heard enough of these male voices over the centuries.

Noteworthy that the religious leader who boldly spoke against Trump in church was Mariann Budde - a woman - and she was right to speak up.
#mercy #uspol #fascism
#trump2025 #trump #toxicmasculinity

EllenJS

@mastodonmigration
Have his prescriptions been tried? If so did they fail or succeed? If they’ve not been tried it’s early to say they’re flawed.

@lucybeahere @wdlindsy @paco

Mastodon Migration

@EllenJS @lucybeahere @wdlindsy @paco

No real opinion. Just passing along some of the critique. The question of how to address this problem is a very interesting discussion and spans the gamet. A lot of the debate is about how much to coddle these young men vs. treat them as miscreants.

Feel like the thing that resonates about this criticism of Reeves is that much of his language is similar to the MRM, which despite the innocuous sounding title is a gateway to a pretty toxic set of ideas.

EllenJS

@mastodonmigration
MRM?

@lucybeahere @wdlindsy @paco

Mastodon Migration

@EllenJS @lucybeahere @wdlindsy @paco

Men's Rights Movement

Men’s Rights Activists: What You Need to Know

ADL (www.adl.org)

William Lindsey :toad:

@Godfrey642 @bouriquet That's right. If you haven't read Heather Cox Richardson's book on how the South won the Civil War and the role a certain mythology of the West has played in making that possible, you might find her book really interesting.

William Lindsey :toad:

@bouriquet Yes, that's right. I very much agree.

William Lindsey :toad:

@sb Thank you so much. That's actually how I accessed the article, and I should have noted that for readers of the thread.

William Lindsey :toad:

@laguiri @paco As I read your report, I think of the article in the US media after the election of teenaged girls who went to school right after the election, totally crushed and feeling very beaten down, and found the boys in their classes elated and high-fiving each other.

William Lindsey :toad:

@ApostateEnglishman @mastodonmigration Excellent analysis. I couldn't agree more.

William Lindsey :toad:

@vfrmedia @mastodonmigration @paco I wonder if they're discouraging those activities because these influencers cannot, themselves, work on cars/trucks, DIY projects, etc. I always find the gender distinctions many people see re: such activity a little funny, since my father was hopeless at fixing anything that broke around our house, but my mother was talented in doing so. No one can do carpentry, plumbing, electric work, car repairs better than my (gay) husband, too.