• uglyface [he/him]
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    8010 days ago

    I’ve worked really hard to make sure my 18 year old doesn’t fall into the manosphere/mra/conservative trap. It has taken a lot of actual active parenting, discussions and compassion. Knowing all his peers and their parents… I guess we’re screwed.

  • PapaEmeritusIII [any]
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    6510 days ago

    I’m gen Z and my partner is a millennial guy #AgeGap #PowerDynamics

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    (we were born in ‘98 and ‘95, respectively) picard-troll

    • turmoil [any]
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      279 days ago

      stuff like this really illustrates how fake generations are. you’re in a “different generation” with someone 3 years older, but in the “same generation” as someone 15 years younger, while your partner is in the “same generation” as someone 15 years older

    • eyyImwalkin [none/use name]
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      1910 days ago

      it’s very interesting how the “power gap” arguers never use the same argument for other axes of power

      like supposedly it’s a huge power gap if a 30 year old dates a 23 year old
      but it’s not a power gap if a white guy dates a black girl

      makes no sense whatsoever, literally nobody in the history of the world has been shot for being 23 years old

      • sodium_nitride [any, any]
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        1710 days ago

        Not that I necessarily agree with the age gap discourse (never participated), but isn’t it a different thing with age since it’s about maturation?

        Also, I’ve definitely seen people at least talk about the power dynamics between rich americans dating people in lower income countries. That shit can go sideways fast especially if one individual had the power to decide the other’s visa status.

        • eyyImwalkin [none/use name]
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          10 days ago

          but isn’t it a different thing with age since it’s about maturation?

          Okay but how is maturity is a source of power? (assuming you can even tell someone’s maturity level from age, which is itself a stereotype/very imperfect proxy)

          for the record I think that men who exclusively look at young women are creepy but the discourse around it is the same quality as lib discourse on communism

          I’ve definitely seen people at least talk about the power dynamics between rich americans dating people in lower income countries.

          yea but at like 1% the rate of the age gap stuff

          • sodium_nitride [any, any]
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            89 days ago

            I mean, I ain’t gonna go too deep into it because I’m not a fan of age gap discourse myself. But I think a sufficiently large maturation could certainly a large power dynamic (ex - adult and child) because I guess maturation allows one to set boundaries more clearly, recognise when they are crossed and enforce them.

          • @whogivesashit@lemmygrad.ml
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            8 days ago

            Like all discourse there’s yappers who are sometimes a little too extra, but obviously in the case of a teenager (who just graduated highschool) and someone who is in their late twenties (brain fully developed for years now) there is a major gap in terms of maturity and understanding.

            Now obviously things are malleable and I’m not saying get the pitchforks out for a gap of 22 and 26 necessarily, but it’s fairly well established that brains aren’t fully developed until about the mid 20s, so I think we should consider that carefully when discussing.

            And if you are dating around the legal age (18, 19, 20) and you aren’t also like college age at most, imo that always screams “I would go lower but the law won’t let me”.

            Once someone is in their mid to late 20s, there’s definitely still the possibility of power dynamics at play with someone significantly older for money, connections, or experience reasons, but I think at that point you are basically universally considered a fully matured adult and probably have the wits to go around and do whatever you like.

            “How can you tell maturity from age”.

            I said it above with the brain development but, but I think that’s crazy to just leave that out there with no conditionals. Like it’s universally accepted that a 5 y/o is less mature and less equipped to understand shit than a 10 y/o and so on and so forth. Like again obviously it’s a spectrum a bit, but peoples brains are literally not finished developed until they are years into adult hood and they (mostly young women) regularly get taken advantage of by older people who know how to take advantage of younger people.

            There’s like a million cases of 18 - early twenties women who spend years with an older partner building a life and then grow into realizing that they were taken advantage of and manipulated.

            • eyyImwalkin [none/use name]
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              8 days ago

              Like again obviously it’s a spectrum a bit, but peoples brains are literally not finished developed until they are years into adult hood

              Yea that’s the point, how do you know which ones are fully developed by 25 and which ones aren’t? And how do you know the extent of brain development without some kind of weird brain test? Some 30 year olds are gonna have more developed brains than other 30 year olds. Some 23 year olds are gonna have more developed brains than some 38 year olds.

              Also keep in mind that the racial thing isn’t a spectrum, while the age thing is: ALL whites have more power than ALL blacks in the US ceterus paribus, but this is not even close to true for all 32 year-olds versus all 22 year olds. American judges, juries, and cops display INSANE favoritism for whites that allows them to do almost whatever they want to POC, but they DO NOT display anywhere near this same favoritism to older men. By your logic one should be EXPONENTIALLY MORE critical of an interracial couple than an age gap one, especially if the male is white.

      • keepcarrot [she/her]
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        129 days ago

        It comes up a lot in disability dating discourse. Like, who can someone who is developmentally delayed meaningfully date etc

  • Nakoichi [they/them]M
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    6410 days ago

    Suddenly it makes a lot of sense why women 10-15 years younger than me keep hitting on me despite me really not having any interest in dating someone that much younger lol (I’m ~40 but I do also look kinda younger). Must fuckin suck to be a young woman with all this shit.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
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      4910 days ago

      I can’t say much for how the straight demographic at that age is holding up because the only straight people i hang out with are a few pre-transition friends who are roughly my age, but when i’m in queer spaces and have a conversation with younger women i often hear them say stuff like “you know, i’m actually pan, BUT …” and then the horror stories about why they’ve given up on men begin.

      • SuperZutsuki [they/them]
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        1910 days ago

        I’m a newly minted pan, BUT am terrified of dating guys. However, I don’t pass as a woman at all—even if someone did my makeup (have not learned how to do it myself), my voice would give me away anyway—so I’m not as worried about cishet guys trying to hit on me/be awful to me. I know queer guys should be better but idk, mostly just looking for t4t right now.

  • turmoil [any]
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    9 days ago

    I’m getting a little uncomfortable with the whole “all gen Z men are fascists” rhetoric lately. I don’t think that’s true. way too many of them are for sure, but there’s plenty of leftists or at least radlibs too. a lot of Gen Z men at those campus protests for Palestine. from what I can tell Gen Z has been radicalized in all sorts of different directions, but the media only wants to talk about the ones who have been radicalized to the right… for some reason

    and let’s not act like older men are any better. millennials and Gen X created the manosphere and a lot of them are consuming it too

    • @Dengalicious@lemmygrad.ml
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      309 days ago

      Band-wagon appeal. They want to make the far-right even more popular by making many young men think that everyone else in their group is as well.

  • SevenSkalls [he/him]
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    5610 days ago

    If you look at the top political streamers, the conservative and manosphere dominates podcasts and twitch streamers. Hasan seems to be the only one in a leftist direction that makes numbers anywhere near all the other guys. Maybe we need others who seem “cool” that appeal to a younger demographic? Idk.

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
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    5610 days ago

    It’s a vicious cycle of watching porn, thinking real life is a porno, getting frustrated that you’re not sexed-up 24/7, seeking out other lonely men, getting radicalized off red pill types that prey on lonely men, rinse and repeat.

    • @Sandouq_Dyatha@lemmy.ml
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      5110 days ago

      seeking out other lonely men,

      the right move at that stage was kissing other lonely men and finding out true love there

      • GeneralSwitch2Boycott [none/use name]
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        10 days ago

        That’s not true though, they get dates sometimes and they fuck it up because they don’t care about any sort of companionship but a specific form of domination and subjugation they’ve been primed for by fascist media. Them being with another man would either turn into some kind of gay panic murder or they’d mentally feminize their partner…

        transphobia

        …like you see 4chan-types were doing with transwomen/trap anime characters because they rhetorically say it’s actually even less gay to subjugate another man as your feminine partner, from their point of view.

  • autism_2 [any, it/its]
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    539 days ago

    Psyop article I don’t believe men from older generations are any better and especially not the ones going after 19 year old women

    • AstroStelar [he/him]
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      9 days ago

      If we take this graph at face value (it’s boxed in by the US party duopoly and the nost extreme young men probably weren’t interested in a poll about their beliefs) it amounts to a political divergence between the genders and young men being relatively more conservative:

      Gen Z men, Deckman noted, have “reverted to the mean of men”: while they’re not necessarily more conservative that most men, they are more conservative than their millennial counterparts.

      Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/aug/07/gen-z-voters-political-ideology-gender-gap

      • autism_2 [any, it/its]
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        169 days ago

        Thx for the info. Adding that a man identifying with left/lib politics doesn’t guarantee him to not be a misogynist, but a young woman may not yet recognize that.

    • @lengau@midwest.social
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      49 days ago

      Using the xkcd creepiness rule, it’s creepy if he’s over 24. If she’s 19 and he’s 22, that seems fine to me.

    • eyyImwalkin [none/use name]
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      8 days ago

      I originally wanted to date ~28 and up year olds but 22-25 year olds kept hitting on me

      I have never gone after a woman, only waited (I’m 32 yo)

  • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]
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    519 days ago

    Honestly I feel like I’m taking crazy pills whenever people online talk about this, I barely see any tate influence in the young men I know. The older folks seem wildly misogynistic, in comparison.

    And these aren’t even just people from like orgs, I volunteer at high schools and professional associations with student wings (in a generally conservative industry) where I meet plenty of young people.

    • @Dengalicious@lemmygrad.ml
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      319 days ago

      I would like to see any empirical evidence to suggest what percent actually like him/other misogynistic icons. It is definitely far too many but I imagine the media might just be trying to get clicks and shares by saying that everyone is.

      • AstroStelar [he/him]
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        9 days ago

        In the Netherlands the public broadcaster polled young men and found that one in four “agreed (partially) with Andrew Tate” and that in that group half of them agreed with his statement that women are lazy compared to men.

        If you look at support for the far-right, it’s usually much higher among young men than among young women, except in France where the RN scores high among both. On average the far-right is supported by a third of young men, going by an EU poll from 2024: https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-young-people-right-wing-voters-far-right-politics-eu-elections-parliament/

        The most damning study is this one, where 60% of Gen Z men believe the US has become “too soft and feminine”: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/aug/07/gen-z-voters-political-ideology-gender-gap

        However, it says that this doesn’t make them exceptionally conservative, it only looks like it because young women are turning left at a high rate, creating a large political gap between the genders:

        Gen Z men, Deckman noted, have “reverted to the mean of men”: while they’re not necessarily more conservative that most men, they are more conservative than their millennial counterparts.

        Note: the graph only considers “liberals” and “conservatives”

        • @Dengalicious@lemmygrad.ml
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          119 days ago

          Interesting, I do wonder how much this is influenced by willingness to fill out a poll on the subject, as I imagine that many would not unless they already had some position taken on the matter. Definitely a problem one way or another though

    • @whogivesashit@lemmygrad.ml
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      48 days ago

      In my experience, a lot of these dudes are also incredibly aware of how their politics are perceived in general and don’t espouse them as blatantly as someone from an older generation might.

      Being someone masc presenting at work, I’ve had several instances where I ended up alone with other young male coworkers and was subjected to outpouring of misogynistic nonsense when they thought they have someone who was on their side and wouldnt report them.

      And whats more crazy is I’ve never been close to any of these people outside of a work environment and never discussed anything remotely personal at all. They genuinely just thought “here’s another male, they’ll agree with me”. Mostly millennial more than gen-z if that matters to anyone.

      For more personal anecdotes about the older generation thing. I’ve had two older like gen-z bosses who just blatantly pointed out women’s bodies they were eyeing while we were walking into work with like a crowd of people. Boss dynamics make it also different but it just also feels like younger dudes wouldn’t be as blatant idk.

  • FedPosterman5000 [none/use name]
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    5010 days ago

    Lmao also somewhat explains how as a guy from that same time frame 90% of the friends I’ve made are lesbian. Like the you wanna hang out and drink a beer and talk about your shitty work? You don’t want some dude talking about whatever they saw on youtube, you want a salt of the earth lesbian who’s actually been through the ringer with you and you know you have each others backs

  • RION [she/her]
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    4310 days ago

    Minor downside of transitioning is I will no longer get to mog guys by having an iota of emotional intelligence. I’ll just be “normal” or more likely deficient

  • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
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    9 days ago

    I wonder if these guys ever realize, I’m voicing someone else’s opinions and not even getting a crumb of pussy.

    Need some sort deprogramming for these dudebros along the lines of: Defending another man’s ideas on a date? Letting ideology ruin a good chance with a girl. Gay as fuck bro. (Jk)

    • vegeta1 [he/him]
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      249 days ago

      Funny part is… You doing all this not only for someone that doesn’t know you exist, but said on social media that having sex with a woman to feel good is gay and probably thinks a woman’s orgasm is a myth. I don’t even go that hard for my team and you out here ruining ya dates over this no chin having ass goof?

      • @Fluke@lemm.ee
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        79 days ago

        My favourite shot at Andrew Taint; he was mildly successful in kickboxing not because he has a strong chin, but because he has a ninja chin, impossible to hit because you can’t find it.

        He grew in his bread to hide the fact he literally doesn’t have a chin.

  • the articulated details are different, but the trend has generally been 5-15 years older guys with women in my lived experience since high school ended.

    when I was in my 20s, my woman friends and colleagues my age were often in longer term relations with guys in their mid 30s. late 20s with 40s. and on and on.

    I’ve never seriously dated someone that much younger. but as I’ve gotten older the pool of women expressing interest has gotten wider. which I attribute to appearing young for my age, but I’m sure there’s more to it.

    in my early 20s, it was non existent. which, looking back, I get lol. ignorant, insecure, no plan, shit-not-together.

    • Pentacat [he/him]
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      2610 days ago

      Not bagging on you, but men mature late. People also tend to learn from experience and relationships in high school tend to be mutual torment in a lot of ways. Boys/men, being on the winning end of that, snap out of it later because they don’t see the problem until a few heartbreaks.

      • I’ve heard that statement a lot, but absent the context of what “maturity” means, it doesn’t explain much about the social process of men’s prolonged immaturity

        we can also trouble this idea by pointing out the devaluation of young men in extremely patriarchal, heteronormative communities, where they are treated as a nuisance to be discarded to reduce competition for younger women and older men pairings. whether exiled by religious leaders or driven to the remote man camps of the oil fields by political economy to “find their fortune” (re: permission and place among stabilized, complex community).

        I think unless we are willing to dig deeper into what this society indoctrinates young men to believe about themselves and the expectations they internalize in that window of early adulthood, we won’t get far in liberating ourselves from its shackles or their generational regrowth.

        this story has been going on a lot longer than Andrew Tate and the manosphere, the PUA grifters, etc. certainly it has metastasized, but the foundations were already old when my grandparents were young.

        • Pentacat [he/him]
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          79 days ago

          For sure. It’s a recipe that has been around for decades, but today’s “solution”—due to the internet—is more troubling in part because a lot of those old economic “opportunities” have dried up. The culture doesn’t even offer the old, shitty ways for men to “make it” anymore.

    • @swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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      17 days ago

      Personally, when I was in my 20s, everyone I knew except for a couple people were dating someone close in age. It felt weird to me when a friend got engaged to someone 5 years older. People that much older seemed so different. I had guys decades older try to get with me, but I saw them as parental figures, if anything.

  • quarrk [he/him]
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    3510 days ago

    My hope is that nothing really changed for the worse, and it’s just that dating scenes are always dominated by men looking to score instead of get into a serious (and equitable) relationship.

    Millennials had h3h3 and pewdiepie. I don’t think it meaningfully prevented those same viewers from a leftist turn if they were ever going to. Sometimes this shit just boils down to “kids can be dumb” and then they turn out fine after their prefrontal cortex finishes developing at 25.

    • @meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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      109 days ago

      The audience that took off for h3 (and that whole orbit) and pewdiepie* was definitely the older part of gen z, not millennials. There are zoomers that are as old as 28 (born in 1997).

      *tbqh I don’t think pewdiepie deserves a mention here. Heated gamer moments aside, I really just don’t see him as a major political influence for the audiences that watched his stuff especially early on.

      • quarrk [he/him]
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        59 days ago

        If older gen z were watching, then so were younger millennials… both of these creators were popular in the early 10s.

        I don’t think pewdiepie deserves a mention

        Fair, I don’t know that much about him except that he was the biggest YouTuber and had a few scandals for saying slurs.

        Maybe I’m an optimist but I think it shouldn’t be that alarming that kids watch offensive things. They always have, forever. The millennials especially grew up in a new internet environment with minimal guardrails. Millennials saw a lot of gore and porn and edgy incel shit which was way easier to stumble upon than it is today, and with none of the warning labels. It probably felt cool to see that stuff, like flipping through grandpa’s playboy magazine, but that’s just angsty teenagers being angsty. I don’t see much cause for alarm in my personal experience with zoomers.