Young men, like 18-24 year old males on Hexbear: Is the culture for your age group completely fucked, or am I out of touch?
Young men, like 18-24 year old males on Hexbear: Is the culture for your age group completely fucked, or am I out of touch?
Basically a repost pf things I said in the mega, but anecdotally I'm hearing that sales of fiction read by men are dropping precipitously, and English and literature classes in colleges are now dominated by women. It seems like young men are not being exposed to literature in the same way that they used to. Like, when I was in high school and college, you could be a "bro" kind of guy and read Chuck Palahniuk, or Hunter S. Thompson, or David Foster Wallace. For decades, authors like Hemmingway and Bukowski found receptive audiences in young men, not to mention all the crime fiction, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy that men have traditionally consumed. The "guy in your English class who loves David Foster Wallace" was a stereotype for a reason. I read in another thread that music is less culturally important to young men than it used to be. It seems like younger men just straight up see no value in reading literature or fiction, or exposing themselves or critically engaging with art and music, because the algorithms just railroad them into Alpha Gridset world.
Am I wrong about this? Am I being condescending and out of touch, or is this a real thing that's happening, where the whole "male" culture is turning into grindset podcasts and streamers?
Edit: Okay, so the impression I'm getting is that everything is worse but also kind of the same as it ever was, which sounds right.
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These are consequences of living in a system that rewards your individualism.
I am in that age bracket, and when I was in college I found it quite difficult to get friends just because of that. Young men are easily influenced by capitalist propaganda, and not only are they manipulable, but they like to feel that way. So, most commonly, they feel like they're in a competition all the time. If they read philosophy, they read about individualism and idealism (if they read philosophy at all). If they read fiction, they read only the misogynistic and crass author, and so on.
Of course, today we live in the society of spectacle, so these people do not usually read, but are merely educated by images. This, coupled with zero critical thinking, simply generates a wave of stupid, misogynistic and individualistic people.
If they read philosophy, they read about individualism and idealism (if they read philosophy at all). If they read fiction, they read only the misogynistic and crass author, and so on.
yeah the only neurotypical young man I know of that reads outside of school is a libertarian weirdo who reads (or pretends to have read) libertarian shit, and maybe like marcus aurelius or something
and maybe like marcus aurelius or something
And they misinterpret what they read to fit their ideals. They use stoicism to try to be rich (they will never be).
yeah the only neurotypical young man I know of that reads outside of school is a libertarian weirdo who reads (or pretends to have read) libertarian shit
I was sad when one of my students stated how much they loved literature and then showed me their Terry Goodkind collection in their backpack.
I read almost all of those books when they came out and the author lived not far from me 😬
I'm jelly.
I wish I knew so long ago that Herbert dunked pretty hard on Joseph Campbell, who is like the patron saint of stilted gender essentialist lazy bullshit writing that bazingas around the world continue to revere as some kind of saintly authority on writing.
I read all the original Dune books plus Hero With A Thousand Faces (and I enjoyed all of it). I will face the wall now.
That's fine. I even read Ayn Rand trash.
As long as you don't declare that all stories must obey Campbell's so-called rules of a good story,
I like the use of the Community gif since it's creator, Dan Harmon, is a huge Campbell stan lol
I hate him less than Justin Roiland and I admit Harmonquest was funny for the most part.
He can be a devotee to a misogynistic asshole with petty dogmatic narration rules if he wishes.
Of course, today we live in the society of spectacle, so these people do not usually read, but are merely educated by images.
The Spectacle certainly includes writing. It's hard to get more Society of the Spectacle than by being a Hemingway Guy. The point of the Spectacle is that it replaces "being something" with "having the aesthetic of something," and literature most definitely conveys aesthetics that people have chased after, and in fact that's very strongly a trope of writing aimed at younger men.
Edit: See also: https://web.archive.org/web/20210610042340/https://the-toast.net/2013/11/04/male-novelist-jokes/#idc-cover (including some of the comments)
Edit: See also: https://web.archive.org/web/20210610042340/https://the-toast.net/2013/11/04/male-novelist-jokes/#idc-cover (including some of the comments)
It's like the one responding were Jordan Peterson.