- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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Oh wow, another meme completely disregarding a problem many are struggeling with. But don’t worry guys and gals, it’s okay because it’s making fun of mens’ suffering. And men can’t be discriminated against.
On another note, has anyone figured out yet, why men are never emotionally available? It truly is a mystery 🤔
/s in case you can’t tell.
Silly men just need to understand that saying “I’m lonely” and “women belong in the kitchen” are equivalent. So don’t you dare ever talk or reach out if you’re lonely.
It’s a real shame that male loneliness is so quickly dismissed because it would be a great starting point to begin talking about how traditional male friendships tend to keep each other at a distance, and maybe come up with ways to bridge the gap so existing friendships can become deeper.
Instead it feels like the conversation just gets to this point where we all collectively shrug and say, “shame” and never really talk about it more than this.
“I’m lonely.”
“Well, you probably deserve it then.”
There is a difference between thinking someone deserves it and them probably needing to do some introspection.
Making the blanket statement that anyone who believes male loneliness is an issue that in parts is outside of their control, is a clown, has nothing to do with introspection. It’s a rude, unemphatic, misandric statement that has no constructive properties.
Unemphatic? Grown men seem to need more coddling than I got as a little girl. Do you guys know why women are so supportive of each other? They have to be to survive.
Sorry that evolution is hurting your brains right now
Thank you for your empathy. You sure showed us.
Grown men seem to need more coddling than I got as a little girl … Sorry that evolution is hurting your brains right now
Unfortunately, attitudes like these are why Democrats lost an election that they damn well should have won by a landslide.
You, as a woman, now have fewer rights than you did 5 years ago. Want to have those rights restored? Well, you need to actually win elections for that to happen.
Do you believe that taking this type of attitude with “all men” (Who make up 50% of all voters, by the way) will help you win those rights that you lost back?
oh look it’s Not All Men, shocked I got this far through the thread without seeing you
I’m leaving for Canada. You guys can have your shit hole
So the meme is making fun of “empathy is a weakness” and here you are unironically repeating it.
No, don’t you get it! Women just need to be nicer to “get their rights back”
No need for coddling, just be quiet. It’s not a big ask.
Ever heard the saying “If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all”?
Lmao keep sweet right
In my career, I have had a lot of contacts with Saudi Arabian men. I’ve sometimes been a bit jealous of the ease and familiarity of their male-male friendships in that culture.
They generally have no qualms about just hanging an arm over a friends shoulder and just keeping it there for a protracted side-hug, seemingly without a thought.
Sure, there are other aspects of the culture that give me pause, but the easy familiarity is something that I think is beautiful.
A good friend of mine and I were open enough to hug and say “I love you man” to each other, even at work. The engineering staff sort of tolerates us but thought we were weird for showing feelings, the shop floor staff immediately started with the gay rumour.
Yeah one of the many ways our culture is broken. :(
But did you double down on the affection after the gay rumors? Because, unless you feared violence, it seems like a great setup to mess with Straighty.
We had our photo taken together and framed it.
Made me think of that video of George W. Bush walking hand-in-hand with that Saudi royal (MBS maybe? Don’t recall)
Yes, that snippet went viral because it is so incongruous in the USA, especially. But such things are common elsewhere and it is not perceived as ‘gay’ or negative in any way.
I think of my own experience of learning how to live as a gay man in the way our culture accepts. I just have to wonder how it would have been different if I had been raised seeing and experiencing males touching each other with casual affection and no overt sexual undertones.
I had to go to gay bars to first experience socially sanctioned touching between men. In the sexualized atmosphere of US gay bars, it was hard to just enjoy the closeness - because of the implications.
This is also why representation in media is so important. Kids need to see people like them represented as “normal”.
The cumulative effect that the media has had on how Americans view homosexuality has changed so dramatically, even in my lifetime, and so much of that has to do with the media normalizing it.
It’s also why conservatives are so terrified of it.
Yep, it is my civic duty to be visibly gay.
Look at you being all self-actualized… Stay safe though! Shit is crazy out there.
Silly men just need to understand that saying “I’m lonely” and “women belong in the kitchen” are equivalent.
Yeah, I think maybe you misunderstood the meme format? I don’t think anyone is saying those things are equivalent…
Maybe, just maybe… men don’t have deep friendships because “empathy is gay”?
I mean yeah. To start with, casual homophobic phrase: “{blank} is gay” is a very common, very quick social check on behavior; it’s saying to be careful of being too effeminate, or too lame, uncool.
I think for children, they first use the phrase more to mean “lame”, it’s edgy for them and therefore interesting because it’s as close to cursing as they can get without cursing. I think that by the time they grow old enough to understand that the phrase can be homophobic, it’s likely that the phrase “don’t be gay” has already been repeated enough that it creates an unconscious tension to still try to “not be gay”, even if the phrase isn’t used anymore because “that would be gay.”
I think confronting children’s fear of appearing “lame” would go a long way in promoting men’s willingness to discover how to have deeper bonds with each other, even if it could be awkward at first.
edit: wording
It isn’t being dismissed by this meme. It is being acknowledged as a real thing that really exists and is really a problem. You just don’t like the solution it proposes: stop being an asshole.
But I suppose it’s everyone else’s fault, right?
You miss, and reinforce my point.
This meme says the solution to male loneliness is to “stop being an asshole”. Which immediately presumes that the only reason a man could be lonely is because they are bad. It is telling you that entertaining the idea that men are suffering is pointless because their suffering is self-inflicted and the pain will obviously stop once the man takes responsibility and “stops being an asshole”.
But, and this is a wild thought here, what if not all male loneliness is caused by men acting like assholes?
Yes, it is obvious that someone who pushes people away will eventually find themselves with no one. But that is a one way street. It is not true that everyone who finds themselves with no one must have pushed everyone away.
Edit: And to respond to the “it’s someone else’s fault.” It may very well be that men are lonely due to their own fault. After all, people who are alone because they pushed everyone away will still exist.
There is a fear in these conversations that solutions will always take the form of, “what do we do for lonely men”. But flip the script for a moment and try to answer, “what can a lonely man do?” And I hope that in finding answers to these questions that lonely men can learn for themselves how to form deeper bonds.
There is not JUST a male loneliness epidemic. Across all demographics, humans are experiencing more loneliness than twenty years ago, and more still from forty years ago.
The reasons that men, and especially young men, are doing considerably worse still than the general population with loneliness largely reflects on those men. We’re doing stupid shit. And yeah, we need some help to stop doing stupid shit and instead start doing pro-social shit. But ultimately, that responsibility rests on us, not on those who would love to help us get our shit together.
And not to be cliche, but we’re genuinely talking about “Not All Men.” We’re talking about men who say: women are dishwashers. Who think: empathy is weakness. Who excuse: all their hatred and selfishness. And then who blame: everyone else. If you don’t see your self in this picture, why get worked up??
No. You, and the meme, are talking about men who are sexist and men who are lonely as if they are synonymous. Whereas, I’m taking a half second and thinking that maybe men are not biologically evil, and that there could exist a man who is not sexist and still feels lonely because male communication styles highly discourage intimacy.
The “not all men” cliche doesn’t fit here. That cliché is about the context of women talking about woman’s issues and/or experiences being dismissed or diminished by men who assert that because they specifically did not perform the action that women are wrong. This is different than saying that men are not a monolith and differences do exist between men that can be categorized.
Case in point: yes, I absolutely relate to the feeling of being lonely. I’ve been the 20 year old boy, living alone in a fly-infested apartment who thought to himself that he is going to die alone. I grew up with a dad who couldn’t handle that I bought a school folder with a cat on it because it was too girly. Even if I wanted to express what I was feeling, I never developed the skills to even identify what I was feeling to even begin talking about it.
It took three years of work before I was able to understand that I was able to want things for myself. I cried in the car after I finally let myself buy a fun treat for myself, and not as part of any reward for something I did, but just because I wanted to.
So yeah, I do get worked up when I see posts like this, because posts like this is everything that I’d see when I was trying to find out why I was feeling so lonely. And the advice they gave then was the same advice you’re giving now: “there is something wrong with you, fix your loneliness by yourself”. And maybe I feel like things can be just a bit easier.
You had me in the first half, ngl
there is a
maleloneliness epidemicFTFY
I think it’s phrased like this because it’s less acceptable for men to express feelings like sadness or loneliness. men and boys who are lonely and alienated can more easily fall down the Andrew Tate/4Chan/Jordan Peterson/blackpill pipeline which yields violent extremist behavior. Obviously it’s not only men
Yes, it’s because despite the problem being the same for everybody, the “treatment” has to be very different. So it’s better if you break it down into two different epidemics.
And one gets more attention because every single well known and applied procedure to fight the epidemics don’t work for them.
Women don’t have the same issue because it’s socially acceptable for them to have deep emotional connections with their friends, where as men are mocked for being gay if they open up to their buddies about any kind of difficult emotion.
I have had the good fortune of being borderline gay with all my friends for my whole life. I wish it upon everyone
i don’t think so, if there was another context i would absolutely agree with you, but following the discourse this, on my eyes this is phrased more like “men are getting more lonely but not women” or “men are getting more lonely, and it’s because of women”; if it was another person, this would be the case, but this text did not mentioned any social acceptance of man’s loneliness
You’re not wrong. I think if anything this is making fun of men who fall down the hate pipeline
“All lives matter”
yes, i am a fascist bastard, how have you noticed? was it because i frequent a niche leftist-leaning decentralized social media, or because i have a penguin on my profile picture referring a left-associated group of operating systems that has much of it’s community ramble about how terrible corporatism is?
There is so much to unpack here. I sincerely hope you have a therapist.
Wow.
thanks
Yeah, that’s not at all what the male loneliness thing is about at all. Was the point of your meme to make fun of how ignorant people are about this particular issue for men or were you trying to suggest the issue is invalid and the result of misogynistic assholes? Because if it’s the latter I think you just demonstrated your own ignorance and should probably spend some time trying to empathize more with men and educate yourself.
Par for the course for cm0002 to drop a devisive clickbait “meme” for engagement and disappear. I understand we want Lemmy to grow, but is this actually the kind of content we want churned out?
He spams just the worst slop I’ve seen 24/7. Honestly I think he brings the overall quality of posts down on Lemmy. I’m glad I am not the only one that noticed how frequently he posts recycled trash.
A second person I can ask. What’s the epidemic then? If it’s not men failing to meet some pretty basic standards for empathy and kindness, what is it?
Not the person you replied to.
That’s easy it’s not not wanting to come off as a creep. Where do you meet them? I have been told you cannot approach women in the bar, work, gym, through hobbies etc. Only place that is okay is dating apps and they are awful for so many reasons for everyone involved.
You don’t want to be creepy so you don’t approach people. Then you get people calling you creepy for being lonley.
I don’t think the main message is not approaching women anywhere. I think the main message is actually making friends before making a move. Not just asking someone out.
I’ve had 2 relationships and am in a happt marriage going on 10 years, and each one started by being friendly and sharing interests, because then it’s natural to go do something together sometime.
Don’t overcomplicate it, just be friendly and make it natural to spend time together.
Ahhh, yes. Intentionally being on “the hunt”. It’s a shitty model, it rarely works, and I don’t understand why it persists.
This is part of the fallacy that men are fed.
I should probably make a video on the subject, but I doubt people would listen. But the way to meet women is the same way you meet new male friends. How do you do that?
It’s already a stretch to assume that men complaining about loneliness are happy with the number of male friends that they’ve got, but it’s a bigger stretch to assume that what they did to get their male friends should also get non-male friends. There are still men who haven’t realised that women are people and that to befriend them, you need to talk to them as if they’re people, but they’re not the ones referring to a male loneliness epidemic, and would instead blame conspiracy theories where crazed feminists want to do evil deeds or whatever nonsense it is that the likes of Andrew Tate peddle. Plenty of men just don’t meet anyone new, and on the rare occasions when they do, it’s when engaging in a male-dominated hobby or at a male-dominated workplace, and so it’s another man. E.g. for reasons I don’t understand, all the bars near me where it’s quiet enough to have a conversation (the bare minimum to befriending someone) are almost exclusively attended by men. After you’ve shown up a few times, you might be friends with the regulars, but no matter how effectively you make friends with them, they’ll still all be men.
You’re probably right that no one would listen if you made a video, as anyone who needs to hear the thing you’re trying to explain is too entrenched exclusively watching manosphere influencers, and anyone without that kind of terminal brainrot already knows what you’re trying to tell them.
Maybe this is the core of what I failed to understand. The male loneliness epidemic isn’t about women. We don’t have male friends either.
It also is more than a male loneliness problem. There has been a fundamental shift in society in the last decade or so, as we get more connected online we seem to be becoming less connected offline.
It started with the near complete disappearance of "third place"s.
Honestly, I feel this comment.
I generally disagree with the whole “male loneliness epidemic” framing… But this is a legitimate point.
When’s the last time you asked someone out?
It’s complicated because there are a variety of contributing factors and it’s not the same for every lonely man. There are some societal mores in certain demographics (e.g. urban Black men, traditional Hispanic men, traditional Southern White men) where men are expected to not talk about emotional pain or express it only in anger. They’re expected to solve all of their own problems and even complaining about a problem you’re struggling to solve makes you look weak to your peers. These kinds of societal forces cut men off from emotional support even when they have friends and makes them feel alone and abandoned even though they have people in their lives.
Then there’s stuff like boys/men getting addicted to video games and not socializing enough in person with people to create friendships groups outside of discord, that kind of thing. Like I said, it’s multifaceted. But it’s no joke and it’s not about misogyny.
Being taught to hide your emotions is part of my point. It stunts emotional growth and then they struggle to communicate or understand feelings. Which I believe leads to treating other people like objects.
I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. Being taught to hide your feelings doesn’t necessarily stunt emotional growth, and even if emotional growth is stunted, that doesn’t necessarily lead to treating other people like objects. You’re making a lot of assumptions about how people mature under these conditions. Do you have any professional sources to back this up or is it just your personal view of the topic?
I’m really struggling to get through this video. " Men are in a crisis and no one really cares"
The Fuckin feminists care. The patriarchy, and how it’s all been set up, is exactly the problem that caused all of this. The tight gender roles that need to fit certain models… That’s what feminism is here to fight.
Depends on your brand of feminism. Sounds like that’s about to become a no true Scottsman argument.
Where is all the care when I see women choosing the bear? Where is all the care when women go on TV saying men are useless and we don’t need men then laughing about it? What specifically are you talking about when you say the patriarchy is to blame? Cuz that just sounds like things I hear in the video that you struggled to get through.
Men are lonely? That’s men’s fault! Cool, guess I’ll go kick my own ass? This is why the left is completely losing men as a demographic.
And I’m saying this all as a registered Democrat in a loving relationship who is not lonely.
And I’ve said this all before the election, got down voted for it, and then lo and behold a lot of men shifted to Trump, especially in the younger demos, which have traditionally been more progressive.
You ask the average man if they feel feminists care about them and I doubt you’ll get a favorable response.
“where is the care when women are talking about themselves and their problems”
The care is when they point out that gender roles are stupid and that everyone should go to therapy.
So a video gets linked filled with examples of people who would proudly claim to be feminist demonstrate zero empathy for men, you somehow struggled to watch it for some unknown reason (maybe because it made you uncomfortable because it doesn’t fit your mental narrative) and instead of acknowledging the existence of these bad actors in your golden concept of gender eradicating feminism, you simply blame men for not being in therapy.
You are the exact problem I’m describing on the left. We’re never winning another election at this point if we’re going to be this clueless and obstinate.
Chef’s kiss.
I mean it almost sounds like an abusive relationship to me. Look what you made me do! I wouldn’t have said that if you had more therapy!
And no, I didn’t hear any of those people arguing men are useless and unnecessary arguing for the eradication of gender norms. Just the eradication of men in general.
I guess I can’t be accountable for the people claiming to be feminists who are actually misandrists. And you can’t be accountable for the anti-lonliness folks who are actually misogynists.
I doubt the first 3 statements are the same person as the fourth in most cases
Why
I just figure if you called women dishwashers you wouldn’t know big words like epidemic. That and it’s possible to be lonely without being sexist.
Also, I hear the 4th way more often than the other 3
That and it’s possible to be lonely without being sexist
Sure, but people often misdirect their anger at the wrong things.
You are right. And snowing similarly implies that it’s cold outside. But you cannot reliably conclude whether it is snowing if you only know it is cold.
The people speaking about male loneliness epidemics aren’t the incels right? I think trying to understand the problems related to masculinity in society is exactly the opposite, trying to combat incels and the like. It has nothing to do with blaming women (at least in my experience)
I know this guy who is absolutely ridiculous about this.
On one hand, he can’t stand women’s groups, gets upset about women’s sports, can’t stop dismissing anything that isn’t solely masculine like yoga, dance, and even rages on women artists and musicians.
On the other hand, has BEGGED OUT LOUD to people (I’m not even his friend) to get him connected with “chicks”.
I have no idea how to tell this guy he’s a miserable hateful fuck who will die alone because of his own personality.
Pretty funny that lots of now “feminine” activities like horse riding, yoga and dance were originally very masculine and women got into them when men moved onto to other crap like cars and whipping each other with towels in the locker room.
Death of third places and the tech takeover of social interaction is why men and women seem to hate each other now. We don’t have much opportunity to meet romantically in person and the online space pits extremists against each other until all the regular people believe that’s just the way it is in real life too.
Can’t overlook that women being, for the most part, economically equal for the first time ever gives them more opportunity to choose as well.
The comments on this one really highlights Lemmy’s demographics. You can take the men out of reddit but you can’t take the reddit out of men lmao
What are all these “actually it’s misandry” guys suddenly doing here? Did the C-drive at Truth Social run out of space or something?
Yeah, I dunno if it was the recent migration or what, but I’m not a fan of the direction that lemmy seems to be headed. This was one of the few online discussion spaces that hadn’t been poisoned by right-wing ideology and it seems like that might no longer be the case.
Yes I know about blocking, I just don’t like doing it.
The “what about men’s issues” crowd has been here since the first big migration, mostly due to the demographic most likely to switch to Lemmy being techbro adjacent male liberals. It’s been simmering since then but only bubbles up when stuff like this gets posted. .world has been one of if not the biggest offender for annoying bullshit on this platform so just be aware when you see a comment from one of their users you’re taking a gamble on viewing one of the dumbest things you’ve ever seen in your life.
just be aware when you see a comment from one of their users you’re taking a gamble on viewing one of the dumbest things you’ve ever seen in your life.
Lol so true
Blocking isn’t implemented very well. It prunes out the entire subtree. Would be nice to just elide the problem individuals and fold the subtree.
Yours was the first comment I read, and holy shit did it get bad. I had to bail less than a quarter through the thread. Sooooo fucking fragile.
Repost of https://lemmy.world/post/28076707
Probably the same bot farm
Yeah the dude in my old neighborhood who drove a Dodge RAM but rearranged the letters so it said “WAR” on the tailgate instead, and had a bumper sticker that said “KILL EVERYTHING” in that script that’s like, “badass Gothic tribal” but in reality is just floral minus the actual flowers… Not all clown cars are smol
Maximum “never actually been in a war” energy there.
In the US, women couldn’t get credit cards without a co-signer until 1974.
Historically, women had to have a man support them if they wanted options other than poverty. Your grandma probably didn’t have many other options - it might have worked well for her, but that wasn’t a choice made freely.
I think a lot of this is that relationships are a choice now. You have to be someone that someone wants to be with. This is a good thing, but it’s also a hard thing.
It sucks to be lonely and not get laid, but at the same time no one owes you sex or attention.
In 2013/14 my common law gf applied for life insurance on herself, she was a teacher. The insurance company didn’t want to insure her without me cosigning in case she ever lost her job and couldn’t pay the premimums. Like wtf. A) its not 1950s, B) if you can’t pay you lose the insurance anyway, so no risk to them.
Feminism allowed women to become fulfilled all on their own, taking on those “typically masculine” traits of making money, doing tougher work around the house, creating stability, etc. while also maintaining the ability to have the more feminine traits like emotional support through friendships, self-care, etc. Men haven’t been socially afforded the same expansion, mostly held back by other men. Like God forbid a guy have a skin care routine, or decorate his home all on his own, that’s gay!
mostly held back by other men
That’s an important thing to note. Patriarchy hurts men, just in a different way. If women are objects, then not being able to “possess” enough or any is a marker of failure.
I’m the kind of radical feminist that would like to get rid of gender entirely tbh. I like being a man, but I kind of want it to be something we do for fun rather than force it on people.
I think a lot of men have to stop trying to live up to some other guys definition of masculinity.
memespersecutioncomplextriggersI don’t think the two are fully related, at least not causally. If 1-3 are true, then there should be a large enough pool with things in common to avoid loneliness. If this specifically means sexual/relationship loneliness than, yeah.
Third spaces going away and moving a lot online has definitely had an impact on people hanging out outside of much more niche groups. I don’t care for organized religion much, but people of various backgrounds worshipped together. People had volleyball and other local leagues made up of all kinds of people who saw a flier for it. Men (not sure if women had something similar) went to fraternal order of the whatevers. Hell, dad and I went to Commodore computer enthusiast meet-ups. I think the loss of things like that has been bad for a number of reasons, including loneliness.
then there should be a large enough pool with things in common to avoid loneliness. If this specifically means sexual/relationship loneliness than, yeah.
Your last statement is correct. Most men aren’t socialized to have deep emotional relationships with their male friends, so they have to rely on a romantic relationship to do all their emotional support (if they even do that, there’s some that are also so convinced the women will hate them if they get emotional). Women haven’t felt as much of the pain of the loss of 3rd spaces for socialization because it’s socially acceptable for them to have emotional relationships with their friends.
Women can be dishwashers.*
*If women work in the position of dishwasher in a restaurant.
“Men are terrible and will hurt you because this is lifetime.”
