Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Incels?

[Gorn]

Yeah, the Friends song is great, and I say this as someone who generally doesn't listen to pop music or keep up with it. I haven't heard it a million times, but it has a catchy/memorable quality when you hear it on the radio that makes it stand out from the other crap.

[Ran]

46 minutes ago, john said:

For what it’s worth, I’ve heard FRIENDS I’d say about a million times. Next you guys will be saying you don’t know Ciao Adios. Anne Marie definitely doesn’t take shit from men.

Never heard it, never heard of her before today. Marshmello I know because he played Fortnite with Ninja back in the day.

[polishgenius]

I hadn't heard of it but then I hadn't heard Dame tu Cosita until I just looked it up a second ago and that's got 3.6 billion views. The way music works now it's quite easy to miss things if you never listen to the radio proper.

Also I wish I hadn't looked it up coz it's utter shite.

[lessthanluke]

I just wanna know who the fuck Marshmello is

[Ran]

Just now, lessthanluke said:

I just wanna know who the fuck Marshmello is

This guy, American multi-platinum EDM artist.

[DMC]

I always thought it was this guy:

 

[lessthanluke]

28 minutes ago, Ran said:

This guy, American multi-platinum EDM artist.

I am out of touch but not music I'd ever choose to listen to so makes sense.

[horangi]

18 hours ago, karaddin said:

It's not driving the isolation itself, but neo Nazis identifying these individuals struggling with said isolation as prime targets for recruitment, then manipulating and exploiting them to amplify the feelings of alienation is certainly amplifying the problem. In severity of the alienation, in the scope of the number of people falling into it - and I want to make it clear it's not just men, although this thread is focused on one such group of them - and in the extremist levels it's taken to.

As to what's making people vulnerable in the first place there's of course a multitude of factors. One of the big ones is a model of masculinity that simply doesn't work in the modern economy - even in the 50s/60s/70s there was a lot less single income "breadwinner" type families than popular media would have us think, and many of the industries that allowed men to get close to this at the lower class & education levels have largely disappeared in Western nations. The economic outlook in general has been terrible for the majority coming of age during or post GFC. The looming climate catastrophe is also another big driver of nihilism in younger people. All of these also connect with cynicism about politics, a feeling of helplessness that saps hope etc.

Thanks Karaddin for the well thought-out reply!  This makes sense to me.  I am guessing that the 'fertile ground' of isolation and alienation has always existed in forms and I can see that covert access to those vulnerable youths being a major change.  Its sure a lot easier to spot some creeps trying indoctrinate kids in person, either by parents/adults or our peers.  The nihilism I suspect goes in waves, for the GenXrs, it was growing up with the nuclear war threat (and climate change was becoming a consensus idea even then amongst the scientific community).  Heck the game Civilization I already had global warming as a feature! 

As you said, the 'bread winner' family was already not reflective of reality, but I think it took a few decades for it to really sink into society's collective consciousness.