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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13460 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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That article is great reporting; I feel like every line had a gem.

Take:

Anna has a boyfriend, whom she described as “a fucking Labrador”. “He’s reading books about how climate change isn’t actually that big a deal, and it’s hard to separate that from the fact that he’s not really faced much adversity in his life as a straight white man who was privately educated,” she said. “I’m probably the adversity in his life.”

Or:

Israel struck a Palestinian camp in Tel al-Sultan in the southern Gaza Strip. The attack caused a blaze that set tents alight and killed 45 people. Ash remembered watching videos of the attack, feeling cold and hopeless. Several women began openly weeping. The male students, meanwhile, were preoccupied with planning the next day’s protest. “I feel like sometimes men don’t feel the gravity of the thousands of people that have died,” Ash told me.

Wow.

But, my takeaway: you're imagining things. I direct this at both you and the interview subjects.

It's important to remember that this is a particular, peculiar subculture/mental illness being reported on. It gets a whole lot of attention, because many members of the media class are also afflicted with it. But it's not at all representative: we're being presented with a deeply warped carnival mirror style representation of reality. One that's optimized toward creating an emotional reaction and us-vs-them dynamic, which is ideal for engagement.

And so are they:

Evelyn was concerned about what the men she knew were watching online. “The stuff that’s being said about women is crazy,” she said. “They’re getting all these reels, talking about, like, bad stuff about women. And I get reels of women saying bad stuff about men. I try to think, not all men are like this, but…”

This is a typical pattern: a man whispers Andrew Tate's name once, and it echoes a million times.

Her friend group can almost certainly be assumed to be nearly entirely college educated men. And a reasonable bet for the modal number of times they had engaged with a misogynistic reel is 0. Men absolutely have their electronic follies, but few suffer from social media addiction (the more usual error path is video game addiction or porn addiction). Men are on social media much less than women, and they spend much less time on it when they do.

It's a extremely weird gap in understanding of reality to me, akin to a man worrying that women were learning to hate and murder men by playing too many first person shooters.

It's important to remember that this is a particular, peculiar subculture/mental illness being reported on. It gets a whole lot of attention, because many members of the media class are also afflicted with it. But it's not at all representative: we're being presented with a deeply warped carnival mirror style representation of reality. One that's optimized toward creating an emotional reaction and us-vs-them dynamic, which is ideal for engagement.

This reads as the latest update to the usual dismissal:

  1. It's just some kids on college campuses
  2. okay, it's more than college kids, but it's just some weirdos on the internet
  3. okay, it's more than college kids and internet weirdos, but it's an isolated subgroup getting too much attention

It becomes less believable each time. The whole western world is the internet. There is no "non-internet" reality to return to (unless one is Amish, I suppose). Swathes of people are addicted to social media/tiktok/IG/whatever (and it's likely worse among women). The media class is afflicted, the chattering classes are afflicted, the PMC are afflicted, and the white collar workers are afflicted. Resentment-powered leftist identitarianism is everywhere. Being told "it's not representative" is false and borders on gaslighting.

It's important to remember that this is a particular, peculiar subculture/mental illness being reported on.

But the "illness" is spread through information. So when people of the media class are afflicted with it, their vast reach spreads it to others. As their words reach more people and start to dominate on social media, more people will assume that this is now the default, socially acceptable outlook.

So politicians start using these opinions to formulate policy, and ordinary people start to adopt them as a way to fit in. Initially this only happens to terminally online folks and activists, but over time a feedback loop is created, as the more people believe in it, the more it actually becomes the dominant idea. Thus, even ordinary people will adopt theses beliefs as a way to fit in, which is when they really start to affect the world.

I wouldn't dismiss this as a fringe phenomenon. They appear to be average middle-class / precariat urban college girls to me.

Anna has a boyfriend, whom she described as “a fucking Labrador”.

Not even trying the least to beat the dogpill allegations.

“I’m probably the adversity in his life.”

It’s a common flex for a young woman to brag about how she’s negative value-add to the men she dates. To boast about how desirable she is, that men will put up with her shit as the cost of being with her. “Just here to ruin your life.” “Hope you like bad girls because I’m bad at everything.” Or the older: “If you can’t handle me at my worst you don’t deserve me at my best.”

This is a typical pattern: a man whispers Andrew Tate's name once, and it echoes a million times.

Bro got Streisand Effected to fame, as did Clavicular after him. Good for them, I suppose. To the extent Tate or Clavicular are part of a cause, they don’t have to do much recruiting as women do it for them.

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.

I actually think it is the only logical thinking they perform. If you truly believe in white privilege and that misogyny and patriarchy is ever-present and powerful, then of course you will make those associations on personal level and you should date white privileged boys to eke a little bit of that power for yourself. You would be stupid if you go for oppressed black handicapped weakling.

It is self-defeating nature of these movements, the same by the way goes for the other side of the spectrum where some parts of the manosphere give advice to have many sexual partners. They at the same time resent women as hoes but they cannot help and validate their own masculinity by sleeping with dozens or even hundreds of them - this actually giving them value.

There is a saying that you are what you worship. If you worship power, this is how it logically ends.

It's important to remember that this is a particular, peculiar subculture/mental illness being reported on. It gets a whole lot of attention, because many members of the media class are also afflicted with it. But it's not at all representative: we're being presented with a deeply warped carnival mirror style representation of reality. One that's optimized toward creating an emotional reaction and us-vs-them dynamic, which is ideal for engagement.

I'd like to believe this but more and more data points corroborate the fact that people do sincerly believe this stuff.

Her friend group can almost certainly be assumed to be nearly entirely college educated men

Why? Probably it's all neurotic women.

But, my takeaway: you're imagining things. I direct this at both you and the interview subject.

Women radicalizing to the left is a real phenomenon. For example this. It's trivially researchable.

Men are on social media much less than women, and they spend much less time on it when they do.

The average man and woman spends something like 2-4h a day plus on social media.

And a reasonable bet for the modal number of times they had engaged with a misogynistic reel is 0.

Yeah probably, as mentioned, the whole Tate thing is more moral panic and partially driven by immigrants and immigrant-descendant men (for whom this whole thing like acting like Tate is much more de rigeur)

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