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ContraPoints - Men
- Thread starter Veliladon
- Start date
I agree that a support group for guys would generally help them feel better about themselves. This applies for everyone, really - a good support network really goes a long way in making sure one's negative thoughts don't spiral out of control.
One of the things that are particularly sinister about redpill/incel circles is that they seem to deliberately pose as these support networks as a way to draw people into their beliefs. I've visited some redpill-affiliated subreddits before to see what the rabbit hole looked like, and I was struck at just how much some of them were filled with common self-help advice that you would find anywhere, along with the same welcoming "hi, we're here to help" tone that you'd find in a typical support group.
Completely common and legitimate life advice such as "work out" and "eat healthy" was placed right next to complete poison such as "women are genetically inferior to men so you need to treat them in these ways". So these groups use the insecure/lost feelings that many guys feel at some point in their lives as a hook with which to pull them into their bullshit, amplifying their negative thoughts instead of providing a way to extinguish them. If someone is in a dark place mentally, and these groups are the only ones that seem to show kindness and acceptance, it's not surprising that the occasional person would wind up drinking their kool-aid.
I am genuinely curious how old you are, because I seriously doubt you saw the discussion around these movies when they came out. People did not perceive Revenge of the Nerds as some grotesque exploitation of women when they came out, not were the John Hughes movie need characters criticized either. Even obviously racist shit like Long Duck Dong got a pass by most people at the time. The reconsideration of these sorts of characters and themes in cinema went entirely unexplored until the very recent past. If your reading of these movies were the popular consensus at the time they came out, they never would have been popular in the first place. The idea of "Getting the girl" as a reward for a male lead protagonist didn't fall out of favor until well into the 2000s. There is a good reason why Pop Culture Critic's video exploring the sexism of BBT was do popular: It hadn't been really explored before in a meaningful way. If it was just common sense to read the show in that way as you put it, there wouldn't of been any need for the video to of existed as those ideas would be obvious to everyone.
I have no personal opinion of BBT by the way nor any reason to defend the opinion of it when it came out since I only watched two episodes of the show before, I have no skin in the game defending past fandoms here.
This is starting to drift a bit far away from Contra's video so let's see if there is a way to bring it back.
The core of the matter that you're ignoring is that the victims of these acts have always known they were wrong. The change in "society" you're describing is largely that men (or in your racism example, white people) have been pressured into behaving as if they care when others are hurt, and some even really do care now. Even today it's still pretty pervasive that men don't respect women's opinions. They just know that they can't get away with the same rampant sexism they used to. That doesn't mean the current status quo is OK. Anyone with empathy is capable of examining the situation and coming to their own conclusion.
As this video is calling attention to, men have lost their ability to oppress others with impunity, and they're mad as hell about it. However, this is a good thing for their victims, who have been suffering in silence for too long. That's why the focus is on how to get men to accept this change as opposed to the reactionary approach of fighting against it.
Yep, not entirely sure how I feel about the entire video as a whole yet, but this idea generally resonates with me a lot. At some point in my life I really started feeling like a lot of male-dominated friend groups had this constant one-up mentality of all the guys just constantly trying to prove who was 'the top dog', with non-participating guys effectively becoming jokes for the rest to pick on.
(which explained a lot about my personal experience with guys actually being friendly in private, but immediately sorting to weird competitive bullying in social situations).
However, as you guys describe for me it was something I gladly let go of; leaving me a lot less shitty & a lot happier as a result. (and far more selective with friends lmao, having actually empathetic people around is vital.)
For a lot of guys though ... I have no idea how to get them across that particular line. For me personally it wasn't a particularly hard pill to swallow, but I just like doing art and being nice to people in itself. A lot of people in the manosphere are so much further gone than I've ever been. & can be hostile to the point where giving them empathy just makes you a potential victim of their fucked up worldview.
I'll try to check this out. High production, from writing to filming appears consistent with her channel.
It is quite provocative.
CON
TRAP
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It is quite provocative.
CON
TRAP
O ! NTS
I don't know why you mention Jordan Peterson, because the list of what needs to be different from him is so long, you might as well say that we need the equivalent of not Jordan Peterson.
Also, we don't need a specific male messiah or whatever. We need new male ideals, which can be evolved in societies, and be reinforced/dispersed through entertainment and other forms of expression.
I agree. She has an incredible talent for this. It's absurd.