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The politics of this generation of teens

WouldBe said:
Was that because they knew they would get a day off school? :p
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lol they thought it was gonna be a week! think they just didn't like the queen/idea of the monarchy. this class in particular is very 'fuck the tories' tho not sure many know who keir starmer is 😂
 
ska invita said:
Just saw this tweet from a dodge account but the research seems legit

View attachment 385388

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(No idea of the methodology/questions asked etc)

... That's the US but matches what I'm hearing from a teacher friend in the UK, boys looking up to.... What's the sex traffickers name.... Can't remember, the one who got pawned by greta with the pizza... Andrew Tate,
etc


does seem to be a real trend.
would be interested to hear from parents and anyone working with young people what they're experiencing.
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id be interested to see a uk version of this, but not with the markers liberal/conservative. maybe socialist/capitalist?

whilst tate is a wrongun, i dont think he's particularly different from the alt-right grifters we had 5 years ago, or the lads mag culture in the 00s in terms of the influence he has over masculinity. he (and the others) mainly appeal to teen boys who are told that 'having' a beautiful girlfriend makes you a man, and prays on their insecurities about not living up to society's expectations of masculinity. from my experience, the best way to counter this is with empathy, by encouraging those boys to think about the impact their views have on others, including their friends. its slow work, but effective. but most schools don't have time to do in depth pastoral work with these kids, so they just do a few assemblies talking about how andrew tate is bad and the kids ignore their out of touch teachers and the stupid cycle of toxic masculinity keeps turning.
 
zedr said:
whilst tate is a wrongun, i dont think he's particularly different from the alt-right grifters we had 5 years ago, or the lads mag culture in the 00s in terms of the influence he has over masculinity. he (and the others) mainly appeal to teen boys who are told that 'having' a beautiful girlfriend makes you a man, and prays on their insecurities about not living up to society's expectations of masculinity. from my experience, the best way to counter this is with empathy, by encouraging those boys to think about the impact their views have on others, including their friends. its slow work, but effective. but most schools don't have time to do in depth pastoral work with these kids, so they just do a few assemblies talking about how andrew tate is bad and the kids ignore their out of touch teachers and the stupid cycle of toxic masculinity keeps turning.
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This is a great paragraph. Although I think there's definitely pressure on both sexes to get "partnered up", you don't really hear girls/young women coming out with man hate in response to not being able to find a boyfriend. Some women might dislike, distrust or fear men for other reasons, due to bad experience etc, but not usually because of sour grapes. Not that all men do either, but the ones that get angry about rejection can be very extreme!

One bloke I'd thought was a mate turned on me after a six month friendship after telling me he was attracted to me, and I told him directly but kindly that I liked him very much as a person but I didn't fancy him and didn't want a boyfriend anyway because I liked being single. He got really angry and accused me of wanting him to be my "little gay friend to take shopping", which was not only homophobic and offensive, but didn't even make sense! Most of my friends happen to be blokes due to my interests and hobbies, and the "gay best friend" is stereotypically the token guy in a crowd of girls. If I wanted somebody for that role, why would I choose someone straight? If anything, by his logic, that would make me the minority female of the friend group, but that girl just tends to get called "one of the lads" which isn't really equivalent. And I don't even like shopping anyway.

I explained all that to him, but what he really meant was it was somehow gay to be friends with a woman without fucking her, and blaming me for insulting his masculinity. He also made several comments about me "playing games" and "lying to him" which I hadn't done. I was telling him the truth and he didn't want to accept it, but tried to back that up with "That's what all women are like." I asked him why he wanted a girlfriend then, if we're all so evil. But obviously misogyny and homophobia aren't logical like that, and he replied "See, you do think I'm gay!" at which point I had to accept I was trying to reason with someone completely unreasonable.

Unfortunately, the things he came out with just really made me dislike him and so he lost me anyway. He did try to ring and apologise but I didn't want to know. If that's his attitude to friendship, he doesn't deserve friends or a girlfriend in my book. And I think that applies in general. We need to teach young people that friendship is great in its own right and shouldn't be seen as somehow second best. But yeah, you don't really see girls throwing that sort of tantrum when a lad or their male friend rejects them romantically. And if we hear a guy doing it, we need to point out that they're happy with a friendship revolving around beer and discussion of music and comedy if it's another bloke. If that's not good enough with a female friend just because she's got tits, then how is that not sexist? And if he is going to cut off his nose to spite his face, he should at least have the decency to admit it's his problem and not the fault of the woman who doesn't fancy him.
 
LeytonCatLady said:
This is a great paragraph. Although I think there's definitely pressure on both sexes to get "partnered up", you don't really hear girls/young women coming out with man hate in response to not being able to find a boyfriend. Some women might dislike, distrust or fear men for other reasons, due to bad experience etc, but not usually because of sour grapes. Not that all men do either, but the ones that get angry about rejection can be very extreme!

One bloke I'd thought was a mate turned on me after a six month friendship after telling me he was attracted to me, and I told him directly but kindly that I liked him very much as a person but I didn't fancy him and didn't want a boyfriend anyway because I liked being single. He got really angry and accused me of wanting him to be my "little gay friend to take shopping", which was not only homophobic and offensive, but didn't even make sense! Most of my friends happen to be blokes due to my interests and hobbies, and the "gay best friend" is stereotypically the token guy in a crowd of girls. If I wanted somebody for that role, why would I choose someone straight? If anything, by his logic, that would make me the minority female of the friend group, but that girl just tends to get called "one of the lads" which isn't really equivalent. And I don't even like shopping anyway.

I explained all that to him, but what he really meant was it was somehow gay to be friends with a woman without fucking her, and blaming me for insulting his masculinity. He also made several comments about me "playing games" and "lying to him" which I hadn't done. I was telling him the truth and he didn't want to accept it, but tried to back that up with "That's what all women are like." I asked him why he wanted a girlfriend then, if we're all so evil. But obviously misogyny and homophobia aren't logical like that, and he replied "See, you do think I'm gay!" at which point I had to accept I was trying to reason with someone completely unreasonable.

Unfortunately, the things he came out with just really made me dislike him and so he lost me anyway. He did try to ring and apologise but I didn't want to know. If that's his attitude to friendship, he doesn't deserve friends or a girlfriend in my book. And I think that applies in general. We need to teach young people that friendship is great in its own right and shouldn't be seen as somehow second best. But yeah, you don't really see girls throwing that sort of tantrum when a lad or their male friend rejects them romantically. And if we hear a guy doing it, we need to point out that they're happy with a friendship revolving around beer and discussion of music and comedy if it's another bloke. If that's not good enough with a female friend just because she's got tits, then how is that not sexist? And if he is going to cut off his nose to spite his face, he should at least have the decency to admit it's his problem and not the fault of the woman who doesn't fancy him.
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ah thats rubbish. sorry to hear. unfortunately this is a pretty standard story for western masculinity, which is probably why the Barbie movie has triggered so many upset men online.

yeah i didnt really mention the socialisation of girls at school but, again not a lot has changed since the 00s imo. its just moved from magazines and tv to instagram and tiktok. the same pressures about body image and weight. all kinda bleak to see.

the things which have changed are young people being more accepting of different sexualities and gender expressions and being less overtly racist, but schools have failed to tackle classism and structural racism (almost like they're baked into the school system, eh?).
 
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zedr said:
id be interested to see a uk version of this, but not with the markers liberal/conservative. maybe socialist/capitalist?

whilst tate is a wrongun, i dont think he's particularly different from the alt-right grifters we had 5 years ago, or the lads mag culture in the 00s in terms of the influence he has over masculinity. he (and the others) mainly appeal to teen boys who are told that 'having' a beautiful girlfriend makes you a man, and prays on their insecurities about not living up to society's expectations of masculinity. from my experience, the best way to counter this is with empathy, by encouraging those boys to think about the impact their views have on others, including their friends. its slow work, but effective. but most schools don't have time to do in depth pastoral work with these kids, so they just do a few assemblies talking about how andrew tate is bad and the kids ignore their out of touch teachers and the stupid cycle of toxic masculinity keeps turning.
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Thinking about it (Left school around 2000) we had a lot of similar shit going on. Rise of the PUAs/NLP etc. The various grim sites (something awful, rotten etc). The various strains of misogyny were pretty full-on; you look back at a lot of popular media of the time and it is an absolute shitshow. E.g try rewatching 'the masked magician' (guy who 'exposed' various magic set ups that performers had spent a lot of money getting right), just... Lot of women as set-dressing. A lot. That ran 1997-1999 and, while it might seem a somewhat random miniseries to bring up, I remember it being a bit of a must-watch thing. Only in my head because I watched a Chris Ramsay (youtube magician/puzzle solver) on it fairly recently and it was genuinely shocking.
 
hitmouse said:
They're all into Kaczynski and that, innit? Surely they need to be asking how many of them identify as based and deleuzepilled, etc?
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A teenager told me recently they were reading Anti Oedipus. I hadn’t heard of Anti Oedipus at their age, far less read it. (I still haven’t, though I’ve read about it). I suppose that’s the internet for you. All I had was a library card and Stirling Library, and nobody to guide me. (Except a grandad who would start sentences with “according to comrade Engels”).
 
My experience is probably coloured by my own political background; as in my daughter was never going to be apathetic and with both parents having left of centre views, that was always going to rub off.

I find that her and her peers are very socially liberal on stuff about race, gender, migration, sexuality etc., even the ones who don't think they are, if that makes sense. They're also pleasingly hostile towards or disinterested in the royal bullshit and flag-waving. Their hatred of the Tories is probably based more on experience growing up with them as the party of government for most of their lives than a political position, though. There's also very little class consciousness, even a little bit of snobbery. It does depress me that they (and a lot of people older than them) don't know anything other than rampant free market capitalism, and for all my daughter's leftist views, she's a total consumerist. You can buy your way to happiness or out of any inconvenience it seems.

As I say, that's the perspective from a lefty, lower middle-class family. My 16-year-old daughter would probably confirm that loads of her peers are totally apathetic and, as mentioned above, for the boys there's still a strong element of bigotry*.

(* I know people have mentioned Tate and the manosphere, and that's obviously a problem, but I think back to when I was 16 in 1987 and loads of lads my age flirted with the NF, nationalism and racism 'cos it made you look 'ard and was part of the football hoolie culture that a lot of them wanted to be associated with, and casual misogyny was another way of making sure everyone knew you were tough and didn't give a shit, 'cos that was fatal too. A lot of boys are insecure and not too bright at that age.)
 
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danny la rouge said:
A teenager told me recently they were reading Anti Oedipus. I hadn’t heard of Anti Oedipus at their age, far less read it. (I still haven’t, though I’ve read about it). I suppose that’s the internet for you. All I had was a library card and Stirling Library, and nobody to guide me. (Except a grandad who would start sentences with “according to comrade Engels”).
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I've never read it either, but then I'm not one of today's teens so I don't have to.
 
The conservative increase in the graph begins around 2016 and peaks around 2020, seems to early too be down to Tate, was he that prominent 5 years ago. The increase in conservatism looks much more correlated with Trump.
 
TBH I think the most notable feature of those graphs is that the combined totals on either graph peak out at forty-something percent. Which would suggest there's something there that's not being captured wouldn't it.
 
Combustible said:
The conservative increase in the graph begins around 2016 and peaks around 2020, seems to early too be down to Tate, was he that prominent 5 years ago. The increase in conservatism looks much more correlated with Trump.
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It’s more likely down to the mainstreaming of the alt-right on platforms like YouTube. Was teaching a bunch of 6th formers who very quickly went down the weirdo fascist (one called themselves a corporatist?!) rabbit hole. They’d also all been taught by a Tory turned prominent conspiracy theorist which I don’t think helped.

Tate’s only really been around online for 3/4 years in his current form iirc. Lockdowns helped his discord servers explode in popularity.

Useful to note that each explosion of fascism and bigotry amongst the kids comes with a new platform which grifters have figured out how to exploit. Forums->YouTube->Discord->???
 
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