Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute, said the opposing views of some young men and women is a surprising trend. "This is a new and unusual generational pattern," he said.

The reason for the contrasting views of young men and women could be the result of social media consumption. That's the view of Rosie Campbell, Director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's. She said: "The fact that this group is the first to derive most of their information from social media is likely to be at least part of the explanation."

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

I think there's a developmental aspect to this. Young boys are not fully developed yet, the part of the brain that processes empathy doesn't even fully develop until 25+. Due to the process of development young boys are uniquely susceptible to manosphere grifters.

I'll also say that I think competitive gaming plays a negative role in this ecosystem and is rarely looked at. There's a reason freeze-gamer and reactionary behaviour have easily recognisable patterns. I'd wager that competitive gaming plays a role in reinforcing the ideas of everyone for themselves, alpha, aggro aggro aggro, types of behaviour. Boys learning to win in these videogames find that the things that help them win at games sound a lot like the things that these manosphere grifters tell them will help them win at life, getting girls, fighting, etc. What these boys want to do is "win".

Why do I think that's a thing now and wasn't a thing 10-20 years ago despite games being prevalent? Because the industry has moved to live service models, which are literally ALL built around competitive esports ladder-climbing in Ranked modes gaming. Box sale models were single player games, or when they were competitive games they didn't push their Ranked competitive so hard because the goal wasn't to create an infinitely long never-ending grind to keep players playing permanently.

These two things blowing up at the same time is not a coincidence. And this is not about games making people violent or anything like that, but that the ideas of "how to win" in a hyper-competitive zero-sum system reinforce reactionary beliefs. You could also tie this to CONTENT influencer grifter culture that has developed initially through youtubers but then through twitch and social media.

[–] Hello_Kitty_enjoyer@hexbear.net 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But at the same time, 19 year old men today are way more "in the know" than 19 year old men back in 2005

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 12 points 2 years ago

I think it goes both ways. Many are significantly more in the know, and many are significantly more out of the know with completely fucked up warped views.

[–] MayoPete@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago

In competition someone wins and someone else has to lose.

Under Socialism if you lose it's OK, your basic needs are met. Dust yourself off and try again.

Under Capitalism? If you lose and you don't have a family or money or other resources, you're fucked. Have fun being homeless!

[–] Saeculum@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago

It could also be a product of the widening gap in education. White British men are the least likely ethnic group in the UK to attend higher education.