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.
I don't know if it's attention spans or w/e but it does feel like fewer people of all generations are reading now, and when they do read, they just want slop. Anything that demands engagement or effort from the reader is denounced as 'badly written'. It drives me a bit mad tbh, because at the same time that people smugly reject good literature, you can see that they're unfulfilled reading the same old dreck for the millionth time.
A common thing I used to see on Book Twitter was people complaining at the lack of beautifully written prose that focuses on the interior life and I just want to scream THAT'S MODERNISM YOU'RE DESCRIBING MODERNISM, READ THE WAVES, PLEASE READ THE WAVES, IT WILL MOVE YOU SO DEEPLY, but the thing is that while they want that, they also only read YA dystopian fiction written in the past simple as an iron rule.
As a former educator that worked with teenagers for some time, I can tell you that it's possible to get kids interested in literature because they are still open to new ideas and can get downright habitual with their reading with the right encouragement, but unfortunately the Bill Gates-driven ruinous "reforms" that have dominated public schools for decades now have dictated that reading only matters as far as it teaches future workers to read and follow instructions, not how to think critically. Critical thinking was, and continues to be, something that a lot of parents outright abhor and see as some sort of evil influence.
Also, by default, most kids that cruise through school with apathetic teachers follow the defaults given to them, which are to aspire to escape peonage by becoming a parasocial parasite instead.
IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS
I'm begging anyone in my immediate circle to just read a book or think about what they watch just a little. You don't have to be a scholar, God knows I'm not either, but it's so BORING. I dunno, maybe it's me, but I try to like, have a slightly in-depth conversation about any piece of media or art or whatever with someone and I just get nothing. We're all hooked up to the slop spigot and can't turn it off.
Also GET OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE WHEN WE'RE HANGING OUT.
I'm not of that age, but imo it's more a technological thing than a generational thing. People, of any age, cannot put their phones down. I personally have to make the conscious decision to disconnect if I'm going to read something or watch a movie or whatever. I imagine that for people who grew up with smartphones, that's like cutting off a limb.
In that sense, yes absolutely. There's a huge prevalent mindset of anti-intellectualism and hopelessness that leads to individualistic hustle culture with no appreciation for the arts. I think you'd see the same thing in any nascent fascist society in history, where any actual love for art is replaced by much shallower symbols in the service of reinforcing hegemonic masculinity. But even among my leftier friends, if I send them a message that's longer than 2 sentences I'm very likely to receive an "I ain't reading all that" (even a literal 3 sentence message).
I think music has probably retained a similar relevance for my age group as previous ones, but the way that people engage with music is a lot more easy come easy go, which means that unless you have a specific kind of personality you're unlikely to try to dig much meaning out of music, especially men with lower emotional intelligence. But there's still the same drive to make music a part of your identity, just shallower.
Not a man but I am in the age range. I mean it may be the case that more people are turning to parasocial relationships and falling into manosphere holes because of the internet. But also idk, maybe we've got to take stock of how misogyny plays a role into all this? Most men (and I truly mean, like 99% of them) don't want to unpack the way they hold privilege and power over women. In decades past in which men were reading books more, they also had legal control over their wives? Women were gatekept out of academia for centuries. We live in a patriarchy and that needs to factor into any analysis of men as a social class that happens.
ITT, generationalism bullshit. sigh.
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.
Now that you mention it, yeah. Of my school cohort, me and my best friend at school are the only guys in the year who went into the arts. It's actually kind of insane.
At my uni, I was one of 2 guys in my class. In the whole year, it was me and maybe like 2 other guys who had any sort of traditional male hobbies/ways of presenting. Otherwise it was camp gay men, and a couple of straight guys who were just like, idk, theatre kids.
I think it speaks to a socioeconomic thing too though. Most other guys I meet who are in the arts are living off daddy's money.
I quit reading the minute I got a smart phone
I don't know if anyone has said this, cause there's a lot to read here, but I think you're just seeing all this online. Nobody posts on their social media that they just enjoyed X, Y, or Z literature or art. I won't say for sure that this is because the people who take the time to genuinely enjoy these things don't really give a fuck to tell everybody else about it, but that's what I think is happening.
I'm pretty sure there's a term for this phenomenon that I can't think of right now, but yeah you're just getting exposed to drivel that is not representative of actual people.
I'm older than this range, but still a "Zillenial" for context.
I'm in that age bracket and male and among the people I know reading literature is basically nonexistent. I constantly see people browse Instagram when randomly bored so a bunch of organizations use Instagram as their primary means of communication then I end up browsing Instagram to get updates from those organizations and get addicted to it like everyone else. Video games are social and also addicting so people prefer those over literature as well. Aside from that people have very limited time and want to spend the few moments of free time they have doing things that are more social, more engaging (which black marks on a white paper doesn't do a great job at, I can barely pay attention to them for like 2 minutes), or more relevant to their hobbies or future. With music on the other hand I've seen differently, a lot of people use Spotify frequently and I've met quite a few people who have strong interests in certain bands or genres. Also while the internet has caused all sorts of problems regarding addiction and misinformation and people not being as social, I think it has also caused people to be more connected and empathetic on a large scale since they see the struggles of people outside of their physical social bubble.
I'm a little out of this age range but I feel like my friends kinda grew out of that mindset. Like I knew a guy who wanted to get into real estate a few years ago, but nowadays he's a firefighter and certified EMS. Maybe it's a little later than previous generations but most people get their shit together by their late 20s, seems like.
idk a lot of young people who read outside of school, and I do interact with HS and up people on the reg. But that also applies to older people ig. We're all on that slop train. And it's a lot harder to get an idea of what people are consuming when its all algorithms in their phone not a physical book in their hands or on their shelf. So idk exactly how fucked we are but its definitely not great.
Younger people seem to read less novels and more stuff they find online like creepy pastas, fan fiction, smut, etc.
18 year olds listen to me bitch about capitalism
You're welcome?.. I think?
Not in the age group, but I read a hell of a lot more at that age than I do in my 30s.
Absolutely.
This is what you get after decades of capitalist brainwashing, schools being defunded, worse and working to maximize profits instead of raising our future generations. Competition within the working class reaching an all time high and making people cannibalistic wage slaves that somehow still think they're gonna be the next Elon. Consumerism making people obsessed about their material possesions and looking richer that the rest. Capitalism has made art and culture an expensive commodity to be bought and sold instead of given to the people to enlighten them and make them think for themselves. No one reads anymore, their attention spans are hardwired for 10 second reels that mostly play CIA propaganda by default if it's politics related, e.g. the obsession with the Tiananmen "massacre" and a ton of memes about it giving the impression that it was historically brutal and definitely not something that the West has done in much worse ways. There are ton of examples about how "innocent funny memes" passively propagandise anyone that won't really sit and read about what happened. Cynicism and nihilism are extremely common, probably due to the realization deep down that we are not even remotely living in democracies and the world is steadily getting worse and there's not much you can do about it individually.
I'll say it again, how the fuck are we as communists supposed to radicalize the working class, when the working class refuses to think about anything on a deeper level that is outside of the given framework by the ruling class? How do you get someone to really understand something like Marxism, when they refuse to read anything longer than a maximum length Tweet?
It really bothers me to see how each generation is seemingly getting less and less able to conceptualize and analyze the system they're living under or pretty much anything for that matter, unless it's a science and they're getting paid to do so.
I can just tell you that, personally, as a 33 cishet dude, my attention span is shot to shit and I can barely watch a whole ass movie or listen to a new song let alone añbum. If anythibg, my capapcity for reading a book, fictional or otherwise is far more in tact.
All the young groypers I see online are obsessed with Trump and Elon, I highly doubt they care about old heroes young men used to take up like sports stars and the like.
Generally, from what I've seen; the biggest issue is not "the kids aren't reading hemingway!!!" because, actually, in my high-school; a good chunk of students were given the "classics" as assigned reading in English, as well as some other ones like Hatchet and such. Neighboring school districts had different ones, but same principle. This was city, as well; so I am not sure if the bougies cut out classics elsewhere or if the city I had just had a ton of donated books. People my age also just prefer to read more short-form content.
That is sort of a thing I notice though. Attention-spans are being fucking shot. This isn't even unique to Gen Z; I know boomers, X, etc who will sit on their phone and just scroll and scroll. Hell, I do it sometimes; how else do I get dank lefty memes?
A good chunk of people can retain their spans, I can still read Dune or watch a 3 hour video without losing attention. However, I worry more for children who are being handed a tablet as a form of "here kid, get outta my hair".
No I’m in this age range and all my friends read at least to some degree. Some of us are very avid and occasionally do little book clubs
Newly minted 25 year old, In my circle of ~20 guys id say about 5 of them read fiction with any regularity myself included.
Fuck I’m old, but to contribute something, my nephew joined the navy so anecdotally, no it’s not going great, not at all
It's the damn video games!
I am out of that range. When I was in that ranged it was fucked. from what I can see they are still fucked. Less fucked than my generation, cause they have access to infinite learning which has bred empathy. Still little fucked. I think they will grow up to be alright
Huh, I guess I'm really young but I always considered literature majority woman/femme presenting.
My guy friends that do read often read more helpful/confidence boosting works. Or they listen to audiobooks I suppose, both fiction and the helpful/confidence kind. By helpful I mean works like "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck", or "Stolen Focus".
Most of my guy friends are technical or nerd types, not sure if that means anything.
We can looki inward or outward. Media consumption just facitates this for better or worse.
I feel like the medium is neither good or bad. If you want to connect with someone meet them where they're at.
All of my friends went to uni so its a biased sample, but id say about 80% of my masc friends read like actual literature. All of them have read various slop novels/manga, but they do engage with art, just less often.
Yeah we’re fucked
My take on it is that Silicon Valley should be tried for its crimes and the average consoomer is just seeking out a thing to give them the most dopamine with the least effort possible.
It’s clear that workarounds like apple’s screen time bullshit did fuck all to do anything. It’s like the only thing in tech that shouldn’t have been opt-in.
