Can't Believe I'm Back Here

No they're right actually and they should say it.

The lefts descent into obsession with identity politics means all these boys get from these spaces is essentially being told they're inherently monstrous or will grow up to be so.

12 year old boys are not evil. They're children. And they're susceptible to manipulation from these fucks on the right who have sadly correctly identified that large swathes of the left will ignore and shun them. People turn to extremist factions when they feel ignored and dehumanised.

A 12 year old boy online isn't going to be able to read the nuances in your uber ironic but not really actually ironic "all white men are inherently trash" hot takes. They're going to take that at face value because they're 12 and that's what 12 year olds do. And they're going to feel angry, rejected and judged by your words. And then fucks like Andrew Tate get to swoop in and tell them that you're wrong and start the ball rolling on that indoctrination.

If you're an adult leftist and you honestly think teenage boys possess the wherewithal to purposefully follow dangerous Misogynists like Andrew Tate in order to "preserve their own privilege long term" then I'm sorry to say you're too far gone and I'd suggest logging off and actually trying to have a conversation with a kid who is vulnerable to the grooming of these uber misogynists and treat them as a human being instead of a reflection of an identity you've boxed them into.

My youngest sibling is 8 years younger than I am, so he was a preteen when I was in undergrad. He’s firmly planted in Gen z territory while I’m at the tail end of millennial, which isn’t important except to say that his unlimited access to YouTube and Reddit was not something I really had when I grew up.

My brother started to fall down the alt-right pipeline. He confessed that his YouTube recommendations were mostly guys talking about gamergate and how the feminists are feminazis and are actually evil (side note: ever notice how the term “feminazi” has stopped being used since the rise in acceptability of nazism again? Horrible to think about). It could have been really scary, but he pulled himself out.

The key here is that my brother trusted me enough to come to me and ask me questions.

Ive been a very vocal feminist pretty much all my life, and it’s a long and glorious tradition in my family, and my mom is the one who taught me baby’s first feminism. Because my brother trusted me and knew I’d never discount his opinion for no reason, he asked me what my responses were to some of the videos he was seeing. He said “I think there are some good points” and I watched the videos and talked to him about some of the rhetorical techniques or logical fallacies they used. Then I talked to him about why I’m a feminist and what that means.

That dialogue changed everything.

My brother is now starting his first year in college and is taking feminist and gender studies classes, just for fun. He is himself a vocal feminist, and he’s so damn proud of himself.

I’m proud of him too, and I’m honored that he trusted me enough to ask me what I thought.

social response affects social behavior! if we want people to continue a certain line of behavior, then yes, it has to be encouraged! if you, personally, do not feel up to handing out said cookies, then maybe consider... just not engaging at all? The uncharitable thoughts can stay on the inside maybe?

Seeing this kind of messaging be accepted erased like 10 years of anxiety and tension/bitter resentment I had over how leftism and feminism (and to some degree, society in general) views men. A resentment and tension that i'm sure a lot of boys who fall down alt right pipelines feel themselves.

How do you think young boys feel hearing phrases like dudebro gymbro berniebro techbro be used by mostly leftists and feminists to tie a negative connotation to their gender? What about manspread mansplain manchild?

Do you really think they are gonna believe the same people using language like that when they say toxic masculinity isn't saying all masculinity is toxic? Because to their eyes feminists/leftists do seem to use the male gender in hateful rhetoric that suggests a default toxic assumption to masculinity.

(You want the bro vote? step one, stop calling it the bro vote.)

Talk about male defaultism, the biggest form of male defaultism from the left is how often it defaults to negative assumptions with boys and men. You think boys haven't picked up on that, subconsciously at least?

Back when I was in 1st grade one day a friend and I went around the school and we showed each other the other gender's bathrooms. Making sure they were empty first and standing guard by the door so we could get out if anybody was coming. Which one of us you do you think got suspended and which one do you think didn't even get a phone call to her parents?

In 4th grade, (in a different school) when i asked about the time a girl randomly kissed me without my permission on the school yard i was told it i'd risk suspension if i brought it up again because the policy was to always suspend the boy for any kissing on the school yard regardless of who initiated it.

Some years before, a girl I meant in after school rec class who was (from my limited memory) very likely ND like me told me one day that she can't hang out around me anymore because her mommy forbade it saying "boys only want one thing".

It would be a few years before i'd actually understand what that "one thing" was, but by the time I did. I had such a subconscious shame for my own sexually and anxiety around how hyperpoliced my behavior seemed to be around girls. By the time I hit highschool I was a mess. Conflicted between a desire to not feel ashamed for my sexuality, while wanting to snuff it out so others couldn't defined me by it, and bitterly envious at my peers on the other side of the gender wall who seemed able to express things like finding band members or actors hot without fear of being called perverts or womanizers or accused of objectifying them.

(I posted those stories on here before and got a long response talking down to me about how all my problems are actually examples of how society is harder for girls and easier for boys)

I see a lot of the same hesitation I had in high school at even looking at women in some of my younger cousins and nephews. And I hear their younger or more internet obsessed family members already calling them incels over it behind their backs. (Something i'm sure they hear from their classmates to their face.) No misogyny or bitterness yet needed. They vaguely seem like the stereotype (because part of the stereotype is awkwardness/anxiety around women/girls) so they've already been cast into it.

I don't like how easily people seem to throw that fucking word around like a Scarlett Letter. I can't be the only one who can see that the mere act of using it as an attack or insult where others can hear it helps create more of the kind of man who puts so much of his self worth on what women think of him that he gets emotional when she doesn't think well of him.

When we attack opinions as incel opinions are we seriously expecting young boys to understand the nuance there? Because they don't. They hear that and think that the opinions of people who don't get laid are worth less. They internalize a connection between their worth in the eyes of others and if women find them unappealing for sex or not. Can we really act surprised when that boy grows up to take rejection to be a personal attack on his very being as a man?

Let alone our over-willingness to apply the incel label to young men purely for trying to debrief the emotional load of dealing with their dating anxieties. This unspoken habit to presume they are speaking from a place of entitlement to sex when they express emotions related to the above. This will actively push young men to take those firsts steps down the path to bitterness and that one forum.

Would you like to know the kinds of places somebody branded as an incel can go to debrief their emotional load without being made to feel like a preverted monster acting entitled to sex purely for having said anxieties or emotions? The most accepting place for somebody branded an incel is the incel forum, so how quickly and easily we are willing to throw that word around is a concern if its needlessly leading non-misogynistic men into it. When you are looking for emotional support in a desert of empathy for men, its can become very easy to excuse or ignore their hateful rhetoric as irony, viewing it as only the gender reverse of "kill all men" rhetoric you would have seen be tolerated in women's forums (and overall online).

I can’t stress enough how important it is to understand: A world where incel wasn’t used as a scarlett letter; or a world without bear vs man; or a world where boys and men could talk about their gendered issues without assholes talking down to them about how women are more oppressed or how their issues are actually examples of how the world is better for men; or a world where we treated boy’s insecurities not by attacking or mocking them, but the same way we treat girl’s insecurities. (with dove commercials)…..

Zuko’s like no, yeah, I totally get it, and just makes her one of his advisors. At first it’s just so she has a good excuse to stay but after the first meeting Toph storms out shouting about how EVERYONE was lying why would you even need to lie about what kind of tea you want??

Zuko: I mean they’re politicians…..but also who, and when, and in what way

They make a subtle Morse code system so Toph can warn him when someone is lying to him without tipping anyone off that she can sense lies.