THE CULTURE WE CONSUME
While young women are attempting to live their best lives in the girl power economy, young men increasingly are residing in the manosphere.
On some level, its rise can be read as a reaction to the forces that are driving girl culture: More women in the workforce than ever before – where it’s increasingly common for them to outearn their partners; women more likely to go to college and to graduate, and less likely to be living at home with their parents.
The manosphere peddles the idea that men have been emasculated by the success of women, and that the breakdown of traditional gender roles is responsible for their feelings of loneliness and aimlessness.
The playbook of the manosphere – and those who capitalise on it – is to grow its influence by undermining women’s progress.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s 43-minute diatribe against the Barbie movie — in which he lights a bunch of the dolls on fire in a trash can — has been viewed more than 3 million times on YouTube. To vice president-elect JD Vance, the powerful women at the helm of the Democratic Party are just a bunch of “childless cat ladies.”
The culture young men and women are consuming reflects their feelings but also reinforces them. Even the way it is consumed supports their diverging worldviews.
The girl power economy is comprised of massive, joyful and optimistic cultural moments that are shared together. (Nearly half of Wicked purchases are for three or more tickets, for example.) Meanwhile, the manosphere is mostly absorbed in isolation, on podcasts and YouTube off in the splinted parts of the internet.
Source: CNA
