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ZeStriderOfDunedain

Ze Strider

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joined 2022 September 06 04:34:38 UTC

Maybe it was the weather, but that night I found her very alluring.


				
User ID: 812


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
ZeStriderOfDunedain


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Ze Strider

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 04:34:38 UTC
				


				
					

					
Maybe it was the weather, but that night I found her very alluring.



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 812


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're right, they probably do genuinely believe it. But I think that's marginally better than being dishonest with your own intellect and staying in the bandwagon out of fear of getting kicked out. You can make a far stronger case for States' rights being the leading cause of the Civil War, but no reputable journal will ever publish it. You'll only see them arguing against it, while allowing far more methodologically flawed papers arguing for woman the hunter. I just think, absent any social/career cost of offending progressives, academics will more readily reject these narratives offhand. Instead, it's pick the wokest answer and write backwards, basically.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah I don't miss leaving X at all. That title comes across as a withering backhanded slap at a tyrant's delusions of divine grandeur, I literally can't read any adulation there. Hot takes and one-note emotionally charged short-form communication have killed people's reading comprehension like tiktok has killed the youth's attention spans. This is why I abandoned my own joo-poasting, took me too long to realise I was insulting my own intelligence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Which is that by and large, their daughters seem to have little problem dating white guys and in many cases actually prefer white guys over men from their own race.




Really? South Asian female spaces frequently complain about lack of interest from non-South Asian men relative to East/Southeast Asian women. And while they're probably doing better than the guys, dating =/= marriage, which is an important distinction. Actual intermarriage rates are the lowest out of all Asian American groups, across both sexes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


People see the stuff that agrees with them as the neutral baseline and the stuff they don't agree with as an anomaly so something that might be "70% agree, 30% disagree" gets treated as "70% normal and smart, 30% abnormal and dumb". So even just more fair information looks like biased against you information.




You nailed one of my least favourite trends in the Israel/Palestine discourse. I've personally flirted with the Zionist conspiracy bandwagon myself but even in my Joo-poasting arc, I could not read any article from "Jewish" mainstream media and come off thinking the IDF are the good guys. The examples they usually cite of this supposed pro-Israeli bias are occasional word choice hedges (“clashes,” “alleged strikes,” contextualising rocket fire as “response to…”) or instructing reporters to avoid terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. But to me, that feels less like propaganda and more like the cautious house style of an establishment outlet that doesn't swallow the full activist catechism. The tone is still predominantly grim Palestinian suffering, orphaned children, power imbalance and skepticism of Israeli explanations for strikes. So is the real charge that these papers are not maximally pro-Palestine and anti-Israel enough? On the other side of the spectrum, pro-Israelis believe that progressive media is inherently biased against "apartheid" Israel and won't take everything their government says at face value, while purchasing the "Hamas narrative" with far less scrutiny.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I had an Australian Indian friend. His dad went to one of the best universities in India via scholarship, moved to Australia and is among the top rated neurosurgeons in the entire country. Absolute narcissist though. Verbally and physically abused his son to a point where his mom (who was abusive herself) took him and his sister away. The sister was adored by both their parents, turned out fine, got an arranged marriage and moved to Singapore where she recently had a son. My friend seemed like he didn't fall far from the tree when we were growing up but... he sorta turned out okay. Above average intelligence, normal job, okay social life, level headed. Unsure about his dating life though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In short, your ingroup oppression points and achievements are positively correlated. One woman's achievements are treated as collective credit for all women. And women get to hijack men's inventions by claiming female erasure, an ironic which systematically hinges on male erasure.




that black people ought to be proud of all the things their ancestors did




IMO woke history revisionism is one of the most damaging trends in modern academia, simply because of how much it is allowed to proliferate uncritically or even treated with any seriousness. It usually manifests in the systematic downplaying (or outright denial) of slavery, human sacrifice and other endemic practices among non white civilisations, and claiming that white men somehow introduced these vices to their otherwise harmonious civilisations.


There's also a recurring theme in progressive history circles to claim the Americas would've still evolved to become the modern superpower that it is today had European settlers never arrived on these shores, as if leaving the indigenous peoples entirely undisturbed would have produced equivalent institutional, scientific, and industrial outcomes. Even though historical and even current parameters do not support this claim.


I doubt even they believe this though, but saying it out loud would get them exiled by their ingroup as it would be implying that atrocities (real or perceived) against indigenous Americans was justified as it had led to more productive outcomes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


While Adolescence was filmed about incels (an utterly fabricated moral panic, as involuntary celibate men are both more likely to be non-white, less likely to rape and less likely to be violent against women)




I'll be honest, that show radicalised me far more than "Andrew Tate" could ever hope to.


UK's statistics show a downward trend of violence against women over the years, a pattern that's remained consistent throughout Andrew Tate's influencer period. So even if we generously allow the dubious "correlation = causation" logic, empirical facts point in the opposite direction of the show's premise.


I'm overgeneralising, but progressives are consistently inviting allegations that facts and figures function as their worst kryptonite. The irony is compounded by the real world assault charges against the actor who played the black detective.


And for a production that lampoons boomers for their lack of tech literacy, the show itself mirrors the very species of reflexive (and completely unfounded) moral panic stoked by suburban karens over violent video games in the 2000s.


The actual crime is young white men's perceived departure from progressive politics, but that is not enough to cause alarm. You need to engineer a moral hysteria that your 13yo sons are gonna murder your daughters. But really, you're streisand effecting stuff like this. Progressives seem to have forgotten what teenagers are like. They push boundaries, they don't care what it is but if it's a sacred cow to the adults, they will push those buttons. Perhaps they thought bible thumpers would be the butt of the jokes forever and cannot fathom being seen as the out of touch scrooges themselves.




They also feel much more negatively towards young men than young men feel about them.




Yet we're told that men are the ones being radicalised! Women's concerns are a failure of society and men, but men's concerns are a failure of men.




Again, beliefs utterly unmoored from reality. Young women outearn men and the economy bend over backwards to an absurd degree to make that happen.




And yet, young able bodied men continue to disproportionately shoulder physically intensive and dangerous vocations that sustain modern infrastructure - the grid, roads, energy, built environment. Men still account for >90% of all occupational fatalities. Male labour remains foundational to the physical backborn of the modern world. Yet, the culture allows anti-male messaging to proliferate without consequence, while framing women's minimal participation in these fields not as a reflection of preferences or average physical differences, but as society's failure to accommodate them. Collective male guilt for crimes committed by men is axiomatic, but collective male credit for dangerous, essential labour carried out by men is never acknowledged.


And despite this, we are not allowed to write stories about male heroism without extensive ideological throat clearing to accomodate girl power mandates. Women are encouraged to retrofit male oriented media (movies that they don't watch and video games that they don't play) with feminist themes, to atone for the arbitrary crime of pandering to male power fantasies and featuring female character designs that appeal to straight men. Frank discussion of men's distinctive struggles is permissible only when prefaced by deference to feminist priors.


Times are a-changing. White guilt petered out with the George Floyd riots, the "Holocaust industry" ran out out of steam with the Gaza war, the "misogyny industry" is next. Acknowledging men's unique qualities and contributions, and extending reciprocal respect, is unlikely to leave women worse off. Quite the contrary, in fact.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Not even trying the least to beat the dogpill allegations.




Nor the "redpill" allegations. She knows that he doesn't share her values, she believes he's lounged off his wealthy (allegedly) straight white male privilege all his life, so what made her choose to be with him? Just what about him is worth overlooking his politics for, which she claims is alarming her?


This tracks with the pattern I've seen irl, literally the worst men I know (deadbeats, drug users, serial cheaters, emotionally distant dbags, Andrew Tate followers) who treat their girlfriends like fleshlights face near zero barriers to attracting women. You can't keep wielding the social crime of "misogyny" as a conversational cudgel to stop people from noticing unflattering* patterns in female attraction and dating incentives.


*I personally don't think it's unflattering, but it's probably difficult to reconcile it with progressive sacred cows.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll tell you this much, if you (and especially the missus) find WKW's movies boring or unrelatable, that's probably a good thing. It's a good sign you're happy where you are and your relationship/marriage is healthy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yup. Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Zhao Luisi of the current generation, and Michelle Reis (the girl on my pfp) are my favourites.


Just look up any dancing e-girls on douyin. Obviously they use many layers of plastic and filters, but it gives you an idea.


Side note: China's tiktok brainrot is really no better than ours!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Isn't Saudi thought to have access to pakistan's nukes on demand?




This is more hedging than operational reality. The formal text is intentionally vague, because Pakistan's arsenal was always India focused with tight command controls. Actually handing over warheads would likely trigger many political, technical, and NPT headaches that make the whole operation look more like signaling than a ready-to-go umbrella. Also Pakistan is literally on Iran's doorstep. Allowing the Saudis access to their arsenal to explicitly counter Iran might prompt a military response from Iran and support for proxies in Balochistan. And Pakistan doesn't want that obviously.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Jumping off that thread, I read Nadhim Zahawi's article making a case for this war. Some highlights:




The reality on the ground inside Iran was stark. By mid-2025 Iran was assessed to have had nearly a thousand pounds of 60 per cent enriched uranium. This is so close to weapons grade, that American intelligence said that the Iranians could have fuel for a bomb in under a week. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thought it could make enough for nine weapons. They were likely days, not years, from the bomb.






Now, picture what would have happened if they had actually crossed that line. A nuclear Iran doesn’t just get a weapon. It gets a shield. The IRGC and the Houthis could control the Strait of Hormuz (as well as the less often discussed Bab-el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Eritrea, connecting the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden), and forever dictate terms to ships with infinitely more certainty than their threats today are armed with. Hezbollah operates with nuclear cover. The Gulf states face a simple choice: bow or build their own bombs; Saudi Arabia has already said it would. A nuclear cascade across the most volatile region on Earth would follow.






Iran's to-do list






Worst of all, the conflict we have just seen to defang the regime suddenly becomes impossible. This is exactly why the ayatollahs wanted nuclear weapons in the first place. Then the axis of resistance, led by China and Russia, can hold the region to ransom and make any Western intervention in Ukraine, Taiwan or elsewhere even more difficult. Suddenly, short-term oil price hikes don’t seem so existential.






So how did we nearly let it happen? Tehran executed a brilliant strategy, with extraordinary patience, over two decades. The ayatollahs pursued a deliberate multi-track approach: building a regional proxy network of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi militias, to name but a few, that made the cost of confrontation appear unbearable.






Then a stroke of unforgivable Western naïveté – Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This gave the Islamic Republic both international legitimacy and billions in sanctions relief, while tying Western hands. The JCPOA deliberately excluded both the missile programme and Tehran’s regional behaviour. Many of us warned at the time that Iran would use the breathing space to fund proxy operations and accelerate ballistic missile development. That is exactly what happened.






So when we assess the conflict, which is likely far from over despite the ceasefire, we should consider not just the way it was carried out, or the consequences of action. We must consider the counterfactual of inaction. And we should rebuild a British foreign policy landscape that is capable of considering the different outcomes and the impact that they might have on the British national interest.






What would be the effect on our energy security, our trade and investments – and above all the safety of our people – if this intervention, or indeed any other, had not happened?




This hinges on the premise that a war with Iran was a matter of when, not if.


FWIW 400+ kg of 60% enriched uranium is hard to justify for civilian use (feel free to correct me), so the only thing this write up convincingly argues is Iran was definitely building a bomb. But I see no evidence that they were mere days away from a deliverable warhead. What about pit fabrication, warhead integration, missile delivery, and testing? Re Houthis, there is no historical incidence where other nuclear powers (say, Pakistan) offered nuclear cover to their proxies. And given that Saudi Arabia lacks Iran's enrichment infrastructure, a nuclear Gulf is how many years away after a nuclear Iran?


Notwithstanding @Shakes intemperate declarations of an ever secure victory under President Trump, I want to believe that paying NZ$80 for half a tank of fuel is a small price to pay for less savory alternatives but none of it makes sense unfortunately.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No peace deal with Iran


Can I just point out that 21 hours seems too short for negotiations? I don't think the talks were done in earnest, at all. The 150-page JCPOA took almost 2 years of frivolous negotiations and lasted just as long. A 21 hour session in the middle of an active conflict is not very likely to reach a better equilibrium that both parties are happy with. Iran carried bloodstained schoolbags of kids killed in the Minab strike on the flight to Pakistan, they were certainly not there to surrender. I suspect the administration (or at least Vance) already knew this, and deliberately structured one-sided terms intended to be rejected so Trump can attempt building political scaffolding for escalation and blame Iran ("Look, we offered Iran a peace deal and they chose not to accept it"). Meanwhile, the Israelis have been busy!


Between accepting one of the greatest strategic defeats in decades, and trying to prosecute a horrific war amidst historic energy and food prices, we remain stuck with the latter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've always enjoyed hanging out in TheMotte, but the Epstein discourse is probably the best case example as to why this space matters. Epstein skepticism carries high social risks literally anywhere else.


The only thing I find mildly interesting about this whole meta crime drama is the selectively applied generosity reserved for individuals named in the "files" if they sit on the correct ideological shelf. How do you still stan for Trump, Clinton or Noam Chomsky if you actually believe they sinisterly engaged in (or at least overlooked) child rape and cannibalism? Maybe you are just genuinely disillusioned and don't want to believe your favourite leaders and intellectuals are evil but, if not child sex trafficking, what will get you to rescind your support for them?


In the spirit of "nothing ever happens", a mass societal shakeup by the world's most armed civilian underclass to punish their evil elites remains a meme.


Instead, it will be always the proles who ultimately pay for their sovereign's crimes. Now also factor in 2 decades of moral panic over video games, UK's online age verification laws, payment processors pressuring steam to delist certain games, Nexus mods removing ANY mod that touches child NPCs (completely non-sexual), Netflix's "Adolescence" driven "manosphere" hysteria, we might be looking at the most draconian assaults on ordinary people's civil liberties and digital lives since the Patriot Act.


This will be the real travesty of Epsteingate IMO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Indeed, and just look at the plethora of "eating babies" stories floating around based on ridiculously blinkered interpretations of random email fragments. I've even met people irl who believe this! There is a peculiar historical continuity to these stories about elite depravity, as though those in positions of power aren't mundane social actors and actually talk in nasty euphemisms. This is a central theme of most conspiracy theories, a projection of popular imagination riddled with Hollywood tropes about ruthlessly efficient, hyper competent villains who can bring down entire city blocks with one phone call. I think most people cannot grapple with the relative mundanity of real life, which bears little resemblance to how actual human networks operate. Conspiracy theories covert a messy, contingent, uneven and random world into something legible, which is probably more psychologically satisfying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's possibility D) The Epstein saga is riddled with a plethora of falsehoods, and the actual story is much more banal than most people think.


Check this out.


Virginia is a very unreliable witness who had retracted 8 years of allegations against Alan Dershowitz. She was also accused of being a recruiter herself by Carolyn Andriano (one of the witnesses in Maxwell's trial). Ro Khanna told reporters not to ask questions or cross examine the "victim stories". But since no one from either camp gains to profit from "rehabilitating" Epstein, all the falsehoods associated with this saga are allowed to proliferate uncritically. Listen and believe. We have at least two witnesses from the Maxwell trial who, Judge Alison Nathan says, were NOT victims of illegal sexual activity, and yet received millions of dollars in compensation from the Epstein estate. And a slew of anonymous witnesses whose allegations don't appear to have been verified at all. Now we do have evidence that Epstein himself probably did have some historic engagements meeting illegal sexual activity criteria involving minors, and he wouldn't be the first or last rich socialite guilty of this. But there is no evidence that he hired minors to provide sexual services to any of his powerful friends.


What has happened is that Trump and his cronies kicked the hornet's nest for years about a predaphile elite cabal without considering second and third order consequences, in typical Trump fashion, and it came back to bite them in the arse. So now, we have an epistemologically bulletproof narrative:


    

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    American elites are a nasty cannibalistic pedo cabal rubbing hands in a dark room talking in anime-villain-speak contemplating world domination.
    

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    Epstein was a Mossad linked predaphile blackmail kingpin (allegedly puppeteering America towards Greater Israel) and the central unifying link exposing the world.
    

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    Any mention of sexual activity on Little Saint James island in the "Epstein Files" is evidence of minor sexual abuse. Absence of details means the real tapes have been scrubbed a long time ago. Exoneration means elite capture, silence is cover-up, and deviant Jews are overseeing the network.
    

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Trump dragged everyone into his flames, but never calculated his own exit strategy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah this is the Right's "It's not happening, oh it is happening and it's GOOD" moment. Every new detail we learn makes it painfully evident that there's a severe blind spot in Trump's cognitive abilities to model second and third order consequences. This is worse than Iraq. I don't know what is going to happen after the midterms and October elections in Israel. We're not going to realise the fullest consequences of this war until 4-5 years later. Iran is definitely building a bomb, so I suspect Israel will keep striking them indefinitely, with or without US help.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ha I wish (almost!)


I'm mostly speaking secondhand, years of noticing recurring patterns in real life and fictional relationships that appeared healthy but looking back, really wasn't. Typically, there is some level of mutual initial attraction and maybe even care. But the femme fatale operates on her own internal logic. She's deliberately ambiguous, discloses very little, presses all the right buttons to disarm him, encourages him to do her bidding, and withdraws... but not completely! She enjoys her power in the dynamic. On the other hand, the guy is reorganising everything around her rhythms. Waiting for reply texts and reading meaning into every small gesture and before you know it, he's lost his confidence and initiative around her. She gaslights him at every moment she can, threatens him, constantly reminds him of all the things she's done for him, refuses to acknowledge his qualities unless it is calculated and given precisely when needed to drive in another command, or jab at his intellect. He becomes almost childlike, and that dependency leaves him vulnerable. He begins subconsciously seeking her permission to have an opinion or even think for himself. He might tell himself it's a challenge and not slow poisoning. He pretends he's emotionally detached when really he's over-tolerating. He'll see the door yet feel obligated to choose her over and over again. He refuses to see the trauma building up from the mismatched levels of attachment and when he does, he's reorganised his entire personality so thoroughly that no one (including himself) can recognise him anymore, nor who he used to be.


But because none of the signs are immediately evident to an outsider, they'll simply think she's wearing the pants and he's laidback.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Real life femme fatales just chew you up and spit you out with a sort of effortless finality, rather than the theatrical Hollywood BDSM violence. The emotional disorientation of her "victim" IMO is far more damaging than the contrived (kinky) physical force. She's a master manipulator and enjoys immense social advantage over the man, so he loses his confidence and intensity around her, and bends to her whims out of fear of backlash. Emotional abuse is simply not as visibly obvious as physical violence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I can't imagine any evo-psych explanation for this that makes any sense at all




When Rihanna dropped one of the biggest tracks in her career in 2011 and EDM was sonically reaching its peak, I was too young to see what a toxic relationship the MV was about.




It's like you're screaming,
and no one can hear.
You almost feel ashamed.
That someone could be that important,
that without them, you feel like nothing.
No one will ever understand how much it hurts.
You feel hopeless, like nothing can save you.
And when it's over, and it's gone,
you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back.
So that you could have the good.




In the midst of that unholy symphony of emotional turmoil, tears, and self destruction, it's the search for those brief moments of euphoria that really keeps one going. The song makes me feel so empty in a way most mainstream billboard top 100s never do. Can't say I've been there myself, but it does give me a glimpse of what it feels like. Unfortunately, we're never stopping anyone from making bad calls and trying to intervene excessively probably makes it worse and gives them incentive to rebel.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You might be onto something there! Millennials are still seen as youngish people in the media, lots of millennial aged men and women in Hollywood who were childhood crushes for a lot of zoomers growing up are still seen as desirable. And big productions usually cast somewhat seasoned actors and actresses for main roles, which would put them in the 30+ age bracket. Which makes me think that male preference for strictly younger women is not quite as universal as women usually preferring older men.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Emotional intelligence" certainly seems to be a $4 doublespeak for "my way or the highway".


Closely related: how society "intellectualises" female gaze and sexual interest as more sophisticated than its more primal and unfiltered male counterpart, hence justifying policing of female sexualisation in media.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Something something misogyny of gamers and Star Wars nerds. You can make a much stronger case for anti-men sentiment in female dominated kdrama/kpop fandoms, as (unironically pro-4B) radfems frequent these spaces and gatekeep like crazy. But it's just a case of women by default having more social capital than men on average.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Somewhat OT but there seems to be lot more males in gen z with an older woman fetish at least online, in spite of the metaphorical "wall". I saw a Chinese woman talking about this, she links this to directness and better socialisation of older gals, which makes sense but I suspect there's more to it.