• RATMachinespirit [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I think it less gen x, and more nerdy white dude problem. Nerdy white dudes feel like they "missed out" during their formative years, and project that onto young women with no regard for their current age. Arrested development is a perfect descriptor, they are completely unable to progress past "I wish stacy was into me when I was young" and are completely unable to make the connection between " I am now an adult" and "projecting my insecurities and hatred of my past onto the young is bad".

    No shit, toxic masc and our cultural obsession with youth is causing this. maybe a positive movement regarding older men could help? Like, that dos equis guy could get it, maybe more of that would be the carrot to stop these people turning into freak predators? The stick obviously involves a wall, but positive reinforcement is also useful.

    • Bloobish [comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It's so fucking weird how this has created a self feeding oroborus of media that continually reinforces the notion that "omg your teenage years are supposed to be the best ever!" like some faded after image of what was really going on with all the latchkey kids of the 1980s. Like all the pop culture nowadays has a chance of being made by a maladjusted man-child that was fed this weird aggrandizing teenage fantasy bullshit and are now in perpetual midlife crisis mode. Hell I almost fell down this fucking trap as a college student thinking "oh I'm not doing X which means I'm failing at life". Shit is fucking insidious and meant to instill a perpetual desire of consumption.

      • RATMachinespirit [he/him,they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        FR, to build off that, my mom was one of those latchkey kids. She hated it and was lonely. It is not something to idealize. (as a social "reject"), letting social rejects control pop culture is a mistake with dire consequences for the popular zeitgeist. Thank god I discovered leftism, it does wonders to dispel this bullshit. Insidious is a good descriptor, but is still to mild. English lacks a word for how fucked this shit is.

        • Bloobish [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Honestly it's helped me a lot deal with self persecution issues due to idealized pop cultural milestones that aren't actually fucking real (see one of my other comments in the thread on sex pest nerdy men). I'd likely label it as some type of terminal cultural parasite that distorts how you perceive reality. It's why so much of culture nowadays feeds in on itself and can't see past itself (see all the comedy shows created or inspired by all the Newgrounds folks and how fucked they are).

          • RATMachinespirit [he/him,they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            do you mind elaborating on the newgrounds thing? I am vaguely aware (flash games during the computer room study hall as a kid) but never went into the forums. Good shit tho, culture feeding on itself is a thing that is almost certainly harming us all.

            • Bloobish [comrade/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              So from Newgrounds you saw a crop of new animators that made parody shorts on popular anime, memes, culture, that kinda shit. Thing is this is all they did, nothing else. You had folks like OneyG, MeatCanyon, etc be spawned from this. This meant that there's no real originality but just "insert funny violent action X lol so random" or "insert disturbing shit about X celebrity/person". This became the entire internet pop cultural discourse in which animators created a self feeding system in which you get the most clicks/views from low grade humor (similar to how most comedy is kinda mid tier today from writers). Thing is these peeps also like to insert misogyny shit, racist shit, gross shit, into their stuff creating a low grade but still present reactionary undercurrent. Overall think of them as another aspect of the internet feeding really bad aspects of humanity similar to how gamergate led to a clusterfuck of hate towards women/lgbtq peeps in gaming. What's sad is you had some cool animators from Newgrounds that either disappeared when they entered the industry or just left.

          • Antoine_St_Hexubeary [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            Part of the reason that disappoints me is because a couple of the "A"-list guys from the Newgrounds era (I'm thinking of Neil Cicierega, David Firth, Jonti "Weebl" Picking) actually turned out to be pretty cool. Weebl in particular seems to have had some sort of leftish awakening just over the last year, judging by his Twitter.

              • Antoine_St_Hexubeary [none/use name]
                ·
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                Oh yeah, Russian Dancing Men hits different now.

                Even the guys from that milieu who didn't turn out to be overt leftists (Joel Veitch, The Brothers Chaps) just seem like good-natured guys who, on some level, can't believe they've been allowed to make a living in the animation business, and figure the best way to avoid screwing it up is to just be nice. It would not be the worst thing in the world if every high-profile show-business lib acted like that.

      • UlyssesT
        ·
        edit-2
        15 days ago

        deleted by creator

      • Bloobish [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Nerdy looking :lmayo: here. I mean kinda true but also tbh it can also just be most guys nowadays due to how things are all fucked up. You also get sex pests among people we would stereotype as "jocks", overall the issue is that men now suffer from the body image fuckery of advertisements meant to sell ideal images of the self that women were suffering from the dawn of advertisement (diet pills and all that shit). Back in the day adverts for men were "buy x shirt and look dashing" now you have fucking muscle clubs, supplement cults, incel 4chan chin measuring (they bash their chin bone with hammers to make them "pronounced"). This all of course leads to hate of the self that then comes out as hate and abuse of others (i.e. maladaptive psychology 101). Honestly I suggest sussing out most guys on whether or not they hit specific leftist supporting check boxes given how I've been sidelined by friends suddenly going all misanthropic and misogynist out of fucking nowhere.

        • Nagarjuna [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Honestly I suggest sussing out most guys on whether or not they hit specific leftist supporting check boxes

          We all know there's assholes in the movement. I propose a more rigorous test:

          He should have neutral-positive feelings about Taylor Swift and neutral feelings about Mitsky. Strong opinions either way are a red flag.

      • RATMachinespirit [he/him,they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I don't blame you. I'm basically that except my anxiety is too strong to even become a creep even if I wanted to (I don't, plz don't misread this) and your take is only logical. I still think these men could be turned into comrades. The realization of alienization is a hella strong argument in favor of socialism. A socialist society has the communal bonds "retvrn to trad" types yearn for while also not being evil. Loosening of sexual moores also only helps those sorts, like there is no wat they get chosen in a society which says "pick one person and only one to ever fuck and be bonded with for life". They just don't realize that their inadequacies (both real and self-perceived) make a more casual and, dare I say it, liberal system their only hope. I'm almost epstein-brained enough to think the powers that be do this on purpose. An alienated social underclass of people predisposed towards violence is good for the fucking rich pigs.

        • THC
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          deleted by creator

    • UlyssesT
      ·
      edit-2
      15 days ago

      deleted by creator