I thought I’d share something that crossed my commercial video feed as it stirs up an interesting undercurrent with Western society today. I’m curious how YouTube determines pinning these types of adverts on my reel as I’ve never shopped at the following video maker’s store and likely will never do so. Anyway, that isn’t important, but the topic that’s brought up by Bonobos is -
So first, the context. For quite some number of years now, the idea of “masculinity” has been under fire from multiple directions and has been distorted into the villain of today’s social hierarchy. Particularly ‘white’ masculinity. It has been eagerly conflated with conspiracies of patriarchal systems, domestic abuse, ‘rape culture’, victimization of marginalized peoples, and general violence in all senses of the word. To be masculine is almost a slur in today’s diversifying world.
As such, we now celebrate “soy boys” in modern culture much more - soft-spoken, mild-mannered, compassionate, and unassuming ‘beta-males’. These are the boys that would avoid confrontation at all costs, willingly accept pay-cuts, act as a constant shoulder to cry on, and never put personal ideals above others. We’ve become almost immune to the antics that try to warp our society into this poodle culture, suffering through blog after blog by Buzzfeed and the endless keyboard warrior-ing.
And just like yesterday’s post, this indicates for me a general trend towards limitless and almost degrading compassion in the modern day. We started off by briefly entertaining these men who want to neither be seen nor treated as ‘strong’, and that opened the floodgates for all types of contortions on what we should expect out of individuals.
I’m not anachronistically curmudgeon-y that I think every man should be like pre-Hollywood Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t think men have to be beefheads nor own firearms nor play contact sports nor anything objectively ‘masculine’. The reason I rail against this murdering of masculinity is because for me, to be a man is to be responsible and reliable. It is to be competent and confident, serving as a cornerstone to any meaningful situation. It has nothing to do with size or aggression or power. It has to do with one’s capacity to stand somewhat firmly in the world and not slink away to some cushy little corner where no one will judge you. Ultimately, and I’ve said this on multiple occasions, this is a consequence of “weakest link” mentalities getting away with living selfishly and meekly. This is an infantile attitude where self-smitten ‘cucks’ that think it’s enough to be self-assured and comfy, their lives padded with over-priced floral clothing, limitless Netflix, and no real responsibility in the world.
So to hell with anti-masculinity. Man up and get you shit straight. If you’ve got enough time to sit in front of a camera and complain about a word’s connotation and how it affects special ‘ol you, you’ve probably got more urgent things to attend to… real crises that you’ll probably avoid at all costs.
