Basically a repost pf things I said in the mega, but anecdotally I'm hearing that sales of fiction read by men are dropping precipitously, and English and literature classes in colleges are now dominated by women. It seems like young men are not being exposed to literature in the same way that they used to. Like, when I was in high school and college, you could be a "bro" kind of guy and read Chuck Palahniuk, or Hunter S. Thompson, or David Foster Wallace. For decades, authors like Hemmingway and Bukowski found receptive audiences in young men, not to mention all the crime fiction, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy that men have traditionally consumed. The "guy in your English class who loves David Foster Wallace" was a stereotype for a reason. I read in another thread that music is less culturally important to young men than it used to be. It seems like younger men just straight up see no value in reading literature or fiction, or exposing themselves or critically engaging with art and music, because the algorithms just railroad them into Alpha Gridset world.
Am I wrong about this? Am I being condescending and out of touch, or is this a real thing that's happening, where the whole "male" culture is turning into grindset podcasts and streamers?
Edit: Okay, so the impression I'm getting is that everything is worse but also kind of the same as it ever was, which sounds right.
I see, that woulda been good to have laid out. It seems odd to me that A) there's an idea that the humanities have always developed empathy in men? Like dudes will only understand the system if... universities teach them about it? Which they apparently do? and B) this is new, Idk.
You don't need to go to a university to read Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson, even if they are also taught at universities.
Yeah, the idea that this backslide is happening because guys aren't in university classes is just odd to me Idk. Dudes could always just read stuff?
I don't think it's taken as a primary cause, the primary cause is whatever is making them not read. Furthermore, yeah, they could read stuff, and yet they don't. That's OP's point, not there being a lack of English majors.
Then the focus on academia seems weird...