Basically a repost pf things I said in the mega, but anecdotally I’m hearing that sales of fiction read by men are dropping precipitously, and English and literature classes in colleges are now dominated by women. It seems like young men are not being exposed to literature in the same way that they used to. Like, when I was in high school and college, you could be a “bro” kind of guy and read Chuck Palahniuk, or Hunter S. Thompson, or David Foster Wallace. For decades, authors like Hemmingway and Bukowski found receptive audiences in young men, not to mention all the crime fiction, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy that men have traditionally consumed. The “guy in your English class who loves David Foster Wallace” was a stereotype for a reason. I read in another thread that music is less culturally important to young men than it used to be. It seems like younger men just straight up see no value in reading literature or fiction, or exposing themselves or critically engaging with art and music, because the algorithms just railroad them into Alpha Gridset world.

Am I wrong about this? Am I being condescending and out of touch, or is this a real thing that’s happening, where the whole “male” culture is turning into grindset podcasts and streamers?

Edit: Okay, so the impression I’m getting is that everything is worse but also kind of the same as it ever was, which sounds right.

  • Chronicon [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    If they read philosophy, they read about individualism and idealism (if they read philosophy at all). If they read fiction, they read only the misogynistic and crass author, and so on.

    yeah the only neurotypical young man I know of that reads outside of school is a libertarian weirdo who reads (or pretends to have read) libertarian shit, and maybe like marcus aurelius or something

    • qocu@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      and maybe like marcus aurelius or something

      And they misinterpret what they read to fit their ideals. They use stoicism to try to be rich (they will never be).

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      yeah the only neurotypical young man I know of that reads outside of school is a libertarian weirdo who reads (or pretends to have read) libertarian shit

      I was sad when one of my students stated how much they loved literature and then showed me their Terry Goodkind collection in their backpack. desolate