• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    797 months ago

    Tell him calling himself an alpha is just what a beta would do. Real alphas don’t say shit about themselves, they have people who do that for them. Watch him implode.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    124
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    “Alpha male” basically translates to toxic masculinity, and “beta male” basically translates to anyone who respects other people in any way. It’s the callsign of pieces of shit like Andrew Tate, who is a human trafficker and serial sexual abuser currently in prison awaiting trial in… I think it was Croatia?

    He doesn’t know what it means to be cool, so he’s hoping that just declaring that he’s cool will be good enough to make him popular.

    The problem is that the kids who try this strategy almost universally cannot pick up on social cues, otherwise they would understand that it will always lead to the opposite result. People who seriously say out loud that they’re alpha males are pretty much exclusively losers or scumbags.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    737 months ago

    If you want advice on how to handle this: ask questions. Ask them calmly and without any judgment. Be genuinely curious.

    “What makes him a ‘beta male?’”

    “What characteristics do you admire most in ‘alpha males?’”

    “What characteristics do you think you have?”

    “Where’d you learn about all this?”

    Don’t ask them in rapid fire, pepper a question in here and there over time.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          127 months ago

          What are they gonna do about it? Get someone to defend their kinks better than they can while they jerk off in the corner?

          • Fushuan [he/him]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            127 months ago

            Dunno, but your fixation on defending the use of a kink as an insult soulds pretty assholeish. You do you.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              47 months ago

              Ok, in fairness the second comment was a dumb joke. But I fight stupid bigots with stupid bigotry. Its more entertaining for me than trying logic and reason because as we have seen time and time again from Trumpists it plain doesnt fucking work. Fuck them, if I have to be mad listening to their dribble, Im gonna make them madder.

              Someone constantly spouting off about being an Alpha will hate a dismissive “shut up cuck” and being walked off on so much more than actually respecting their stance by arguing it with logic.

              • Fushuan [he/him]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                27 months ago

                I also hate bigots, it’s just that engaging in hate against non-bigots to go against bigots is unnecessary when there’s tons of other ways to go against bigots.

                I never said “don’t insult the bigot pro alpha asshole”. Please do, but please don’t kink shame <3

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    287 months ago

    Alpha quality, like software. Buggy as hell and should not be released. :D

    srsly though it’s the clusterfuckchild of social darwinism, grindset mentality and randroid zoology, plus a bit of wannabe-dom.

    There was this old, debunked concept of the ‘alpha wolf’ as pack leader - all dominance displays, all the time, stronger and wiser and better than the rest, a sort of rightful-king that owes nothing to anyone, and that all lesser wolves obey and look up to.

    Some absolute chuds picked up on the concept and decided that it applied to people, that it was a quality people could and should naturally embrace, unless they were just inherently inferior.

    And of course they tied that all up with being male, because apparently men are just ‘naturally dominant’, unless again, they’re broken and inferior ones - so if you are male, it’s vital to prove that you’re a properly functioning one by being a domineering asshole who deserves to get away with it out of sheer chutzpah, or else you deserve nothing but contempt and getting trodden on.

    This ties in with conservative morality, which is entirely based around acknowledging and reinforcing social hierarchy. Right is when power is exerted downwards in the hierarchy, wrong is when power is asserted upwards.

    So in this world, ‘alphas’ are the master race, while ‘betas’ are submissive half-men who lack the strength (and thus the virtue) to display the proper ‘rugged independence’. They’re also obsessed with ‘cucks’, ie cuckolds, men who lack the necessary manliness to fight off ‘alphas’ who would disrespect and shame them by having sex with their woman.

    It’s all incredibly toxic, and you need to pick him up and shake the bullshit out of him.

    pic related

  • Cruxifux
    link
    fedilink
    English
    607 months ago

    It’s called the manosphere, and it’s a bunch of bad podcasters and YouTubers giving shitty advice on how to be a man to insecure kids. It’s annoying because it’s so stupid on its face and yet it’s working.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      147 months ago

      Can you blame them, though? I can’t think of a single person speaking for young men who is also widely accepted by the liberal left - or however you want to define the “good guys.” Even here on Lemmy, anyone slightly deviating from the narrative is met with extreme hostility. It’s not that young men are naturally drawn to figures like Andrew Tate - they’re being pushed there.

      • Diplomjodler
        link
        fedilink
        English
        157 months ago

        What narrative would that be? That all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity etc. deserve equal rights?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          57 months ago

          “You disagree with our narrative? You must be a sexist racist then.”

          Thanks for illustrating my point.

          • Diplomjodler
            link
            fedilink
            English
            117 months ago

            By refusing to answer my question you’ve given your answer.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            127 months ago

            If you disagree that all people should be equal then I won’t treat you as an equal.

            This doesn’t require a ted talk. It’s just fairness.

      • Cruxifux
        link
        fedilink
        English
        77 months ago

        I just can’t take anyone seriously who refers to liberalism as “the liberal left.” Liberals absolutely have not treated young men well, but for fuck sakes man read a fucking book or something just once in your life.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          6
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          I literally don’t know how to describe the userbase of a platform like Lemmy any other way but maybe you can suggest me a better term then. I’m not talking about liberalism. I’m talking about a group of people.

          • Cruxifux
            link
            fedilink
            English
            37 months ago

            Liberalism, which is a centre right ideology if we’re using that idiotic left right scale, is fundamentally different from leftism and conflating the two is disingenuous at best and willfully ignorant at worst.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              37 months ago

              What’s wrong about calling it liberal left then when literally 100% of those people are left wing leaning? Isn’t that like saying “the conservative right”?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        5
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        How about the hundreds speaking to ‘people’ in general instead of young men? Making your target audience 14yo boys is kind of fucked up on its own.

        Edit: as people habe pointed out, this comment is too generalized and not valid out of context. Of course there needs to be media for all ages. We should focus on limiting misuse in the form of indoctrination and manipulation.

        • Captain Aggravated
          link
          fedilink
          English
          37 months ago

          Making your target audience 14yo boys is kind of fucked up on its own.

          Is it just me, or does that statement just not hold up to scrutiny? Are 14 year old boys supposed to just be complete pariahs from society? At what age does it start being unacceptable to address them, and at what age if any does it become okay to speak to males again? What do you expect a teenage boy’s life to be like?

          I’m increasingly convinced that being anti-man is a defining trait of being on The Left in America. The Left has no monopoly on progressive social issues. If you poll Americans on issues alone, they’ll overwhelmingly come down in favor of progressive issues, things like higher minimum wages, medicare for all etc. The Left exists to play identity politics, largely against each other. Seeing men as the source of all their problems is the only uniting factor they share.

          Depending on exactly who on The Left you ask, it is either a waste of time or outright immoral to talk to men and boys in good faith. The people posting about “Instead of gender reveal parties, you should have anti-heteronormativity lectures with rainbow cake” cannot stand the thought of saying to an adolescent boy “Here’s how our social policies will benefit you.” Because they cannot stand the thought of males benefiting from anything. That sentence sticks in their throat.

          Most of my life I’ve heard “Girls need positive female role models in media.” Is this somehow not true for boys as well? “Even if it is, it’s not what we do here, and we’d rather it wasn’t done anywhere else either.”

          Well it is being done somewhere else. There’s a whole media empire out there who are perfectly happy to fill that niche. Nobody on The Left will even try to compete in that market because the culture war is too important to them.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            27 months ago

            Im not saying boys shouldnt be addressed and they shouldnt have role models. Im saying that people shouldnt target them specofically because they are young insecure men. Why cant people just consume media that fits them individually indenpendent of their age and gender? Why do we feel the need to shape people into roles they arent meant for just because of their gender? This is a leading cause of depression in young adults and it sgetting worse

            • Captain Aggravated
              link
              fedilink
              English
              27 months ago

              Im saying that people shouldnt target them specofically because they are young insecure men

              This is precisely why they SHOULD be targeted, why there should be programming and messaging specifically for them. They need mentoring and guidance through a strange, transitional period in their lives as they become the adults they will be for the rest of their lives. It’s why sitcoms with a “family” or young adult audience often had those “very special” episodes in the 80’s.

              Why cant people just consume media that fits them individually indenpendent of their age and gender?

              Yeah, why can’t 5 year old girls just be happy watching Game of Thrones? Why should there be an entire industry devoted to making children’s media when they could just watch what everyone else does?

              Beyond that, this topic goes beyond entertainment. People turn to social media for everything from shortbread recipes to news to tax advice. And get this, this is probably going to be a new concept to a leftist: your demographics do indeed inform what you are interested in. There are topics, themes and messages that are relevant to 40 year old women that aren’t relevant to 14 year old boys and vice versa. It’s why we developed more than three TV channels.

              Why do we feel the need to shape people into roles they arent meant for just because of their gender?

              That’s an extremely good question. Why should we treat every boy in the nation as if he was queer? That’s what we’re dancing around here, isn’t it? “Heteronormativity” is a dirty word on the Left, after all, the idea of a “normal male” upbringing is seen as distasteful if not offensive. The idea of helping adolescent boys grow up to be straight men is a non-starter on the Left. So there are only right-wing voices speaking on that subject.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                2
                edit-2
                7 months ago

                Thanks for your comment. I admit age-dependent media needs to exist to account for cognitive differences, of course a 5yo cant watch complicated content. I was being hasty with my comment.

                For the rest of your comment, you are strawmanning so hard I cant even answer to that. I never said anything about sexual orientation and I dont know why you suddenly brought that up, we were talking about gender. Should I start talking about why you like Hitler? Just because someone has a left-leaning opinion on one topic doesnt mean they support whatever right-wing media are claiming leftism to be about. Noone wants to raise all kids as if they were queer, that is pure propaganda.

                • Captain Aggravated
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  17 months ago

                  Okay look, the word “gender” has been so overused and misused at this point, it’s like the words “patriarchy” and “woke” at this point. It means whatever you need it to mean right now to make the other person wrong. I’m pretty sure this notion of gender being anything other than another word for sex was invented on Tumblr some time in the last 8 years or so, it apparently doesn’t refer to which kind of crotch you have or what you prefer to do with said crotch so…it refers to something that can’t be measured or experienced about a person so it’s a useless concept.

                  These people are no longer worth talking to or about. I leave them to their fate.

        • Alue42
          link
          fedilink
          37 months ago

          This is an age group that does need guidance through, and it’s looking for it, and if not provided with a positive role model will latch on to any that they can find.

          As an example, look at “Gregory’s Garden Goofballs” episode from Abbott Elementary. A group of the older kids start hanging out in Gregory’s classroom because he’s the “cool teacher” and he gets uncomfortable with it, especially when they start asking him advice about girls and because he doesn’t have his free time anymore. But then he realizes this can be a good thing and that if they are hanging out with him and he’s giving them advice, at least they are with a positive role model. So he sacrifices his free time to be the positive force for the older kids that aren’t even his students, because otherwise they might gravitate to a less positive source.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            17 months ago

            Thank you for the positive comment. I agree that my initial comment was too hasty and I havent thought it through before posting. The real problem is not targeting teenagers per se, but rather trying to push an agenda by taking advantage of their insecurities

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          3
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          I don’t know anyone who specifically targets that audience. There are those who talk about men’s issues (among other topics) and those who don’t, and the ones who do tend to lean more to the right and are almost universally labeled as bad people by everyone else. Even someone like Chris Williamson has mentioned how he couldn’t order merch for himself from a company in San Francisco because the staff refused the order simply because of who he is. I imagine Scott Galloway is treated more or less the same.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            37 months ago

            I dont know the people you mentioned so I cant comment on them specifically, but as I see it theres a huge difference between ‘talking about mens issues’ and indoctrinating them into mysoginists by saying stuff like ‘bitches wont fuck you because you are weak and poor, you need to dominate them, thats what theyre attracted to’

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        127 months ago

        Can you blame them, though? I can’t think of a single person speaking for young men who is also widely accepted by the liberal left - or however you want to define the “good guys.”

        There are plenty of social media personalities with massive followings that specifically aim some or all of their contents at men with a positive vision of what men can be. I watch FD Signifier personally. There are also plenty of articles showcase positive male social media personalities with millions of followers. You should have done a 5 second Google search before saying something so easily debunked. You can’t think of them because you are not looking.

        Even here on Lemmy, anyone slightly deviating from the narrative is met with extreme hostility.

        Welcome to social media, first day? You’ll get that same extreme hostility in Andrew Tates comments if you deviate from being misogynistic.

        It’s not that young men are naturally drawn to figures like Andrew Tate - they’re being pushed there.

        You’re right, just not in the way you’re claiming. They are being pushed by social media algorithms that reward toxicity and simple answers. That’s not the fault of the lefts “groupthink” it’s on those companies.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        17 months ago

        liberal left

        There is no such thing as a “liberal” left. Liberalism is a right-wing ideology - that’s why they are constantly “reaching across the aisle” to their fascist brethren.

        (Apart from that I do agree with your point, though.)

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          27 months ago

          That just shows that one axis is too few to categorize political opinions. The opposite of liberal is authoritarian and while I definitely would say I’m a leftist, I’m not pro authoritarian.

          Sadly, “liberal” partys nowadays are mostly economically liberal (i.e. freedom for corporations, deregulation etc.). But you can also be socially liberal, i.e. support individual freedom.

          (N.B.: I’m not from the US, maybe the definition of liberalism taught in school here is different, or the literal translation is used differently)

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            17 months ago

            The opposite of liberal is authoritarian

            I’m afraid not. Liberalism is about as “authoritarian” as it gets - or do you classify the ongoing genocide the (so-called) “liberal democracies” are sponsoring in Palestine as (somehow) “non-authoritarian?”

            Sadly, “liberal” partys nowadays are mostly economically liberal (i.e. freedom for corporations, deregulation etc.)

            That is what they have ALWAYS been.

            I’m not from the US

            That doesn’t matter. Liberalism is a right-wing ideology - even in Antarctica, on Mars, or on the other side of the galaxy.