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The true problem with men

Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s been seeing TikToks, reels and tweets all over the place like this one —

Weird af, right?

I feel like I really started seeing this kind of content geared towards “restoring men’s alpha mode” or whatever starting around 2020. We’ve always been cringe (I mean have you seen the Rocky movies? Love the first few, but come on now), but this stuff everywhere online is different.

All of this is all part of the same narrative that men are in crisis.

IS there are crisis with men / masculinity?

It’s become part of broader culture war to say “men are in crisis and need help,” but no one seems to agree on WHAT the problem is with men.

Lots of annoying guys online, like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, etc. say a hodgepodge of things, but it all dilutes down to this:

Men are getting weaker and sadder - they’re all suffering more (allegedly).

Weird, I know.

And they all shout about the 1000s of reasons as to why: low testosterone from chemicals in our food, they’re always watching porn and playing video games, they’re being told being masculine is bad, etc.

These online podcast bros also LOVE to say that NO ONE is talking about MEN and their suffering:

Wrong - no one will SHUT UP about them:

Even popular media outlets like Vox try and put their own spin on it - from left to right, everyone is talking about it.

I’m not a fan of this because all this hubbub has encouraged insecure men to share these Tumblr-ass memes everywhere:

But if you ask me, there’s nothing new going on with men.

I’m pretty sure that for most of time, men (we) have always been agents of chaos and kind of sucked:

• Men commit most violent crimes

• Men are the majority of alcoholics

• Men gamble the most

• Men crash their cars the most

• Men commit suicide the most

• Men overdose the most

The list can go on.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and fix these issues.

However, the only thing that’s new is that, in the Internet age we live in, everyone figured out that this topic draws attention. This leads to more views then followers then eventually monetizing this attention (from men) based off insecurity - they buy into the “solutions” that’ll “heal” them - like Liver King (a loser full of steroids).

So, now that we know there’s nothing really new with this crisis, but everyone feels the need to figure it out, let’s start with trying to understand which men aren’t doing great.

As much as the libs hate to admit it, we have strong evidence that money DOES, in fact, tend to make you happier (to an extent ofc)

If more $$ didn’t really make people happier, then we’d see poorer countries reporting to be happier/more satisfied with life compared to wealthier countries.

But we don’t. Probably because poorer countries also tend to suffer from more violence, pollution, and are all around just harder to survive in.

Now, despite us doing so well in the states, young Americans (especially poorer American men) tend to die younger than other other rich countries.

Why? It looks like, for whatever reason, American men resort more to “coping mechanisms,” like alcohol and drugs.

What’s also interesting to me about this stuff is that it looks like it’s mostly American media obsessed with talking about the “masculinity crisis”/why men are so sad 😢

Why not Asia, Europe, etc.? Can’t really figure that tbh. Maybe because men are typically told to bottle up their feelings and shove them down, so discussing this is still considered taboo.

Now that we know it’s usually poorer American me, let’s address some of the claims people try and use to explain why these poorer American men are suffering:

1. “Men are struggling to find a job and fulfillment” - Wrong. Things have literally never been better by most standard measures for economic well-being in America, from employment to debt:income to median wealth to physically easier, safer, more pleasant jobs.

If you want the deets, you can check out my last post on this in June:

2. “It’s the negativity from the media!” Wouldn’t EVERYONE be in crisis then? Wouldn’t we see happiness falling for men and women?

3. “It’s living in a post-capitalist society!!!” - relax, plz. First of all, this is just word salad. #2: all empirical measures (from child mortality to purchasing power) has gotten much better over time for the average American - the past kind of sucked: men lived shorter, worse lives - broken bodies from factory jobs, drinking all the time, etc.
   

4. “Men are no longer the alpha!” - ergo, men not adjusting to modern societal roles. As you know, we’re no longer in caveman times, nor are we in Mad Men era of 1950s when women were forced into economically and socially submissive roles that benefitted men because of things like, ya know, how they weren’t allowed to open a bank account on their own until the 60s.. while men could basically do whatever they wanted.

   • As the Barbie movie showed, it does feel like men seem to be pretty confused about their role in society. Women have moved on from needing a man to survive. They’re no longer forced to resort to a man since they have options now. But men seem to still be tying their self-worth to what women think of them.

   • While I think this is a pretty philosophical claim and lacks being grounded in measurable things, I do think men are encouraged to behave like they’re Tony Soprano (even though there are actually lots of good role models in media for men today too, despite what people say).

5. “It’s none of that, Zach! It’s a loneliness epidemic!” False - contrary to popular media narratives, we’re not experiencing widespread, worsening loneliness. In fact, I like to argue that it’s never been easier to make friends and connect with others, whether it’s social media or being able to be ~ vulnerable ~ (everyone’s favorite word) with others.

Tbh, as you can see, I’m really struggling to find where this masculinity crisis is besides Joe Rogan complaining about it!

Maybe men aren’t doing so hot, though, since the suicide rate is a bit higher than it was in the 1940s, for example. And while we don’t know for sure, it does look like being less educated + owning a firearm are correlated with higher suicide rates.

To recap: it’s looking like we don’t have some new “crisis of masculinity,” but rather a long-standing condition of how men (mainly poorer, less-educated) have been for a long time that we should keep trying to alleviate.

But it feels like there’s some new “masculinity crisis” because everyone has a microphone via social media and is addicted to discussing this hot topic.

I think Matt Yglesias sums it up best here:

Still curious?

• This is a great book - I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression

Thanks for taking the Pack,

Zach

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