• vexikron@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    First one is an old US Marine who likely served in WW2, contrasted with NikoCado, some random OnlyFans or Twitch thot, and is telling you that /real men/, you know how they had real men back in the day, didnt die for sluts and crazy fat useless people!

    Basically, ‘Return to Tradition, because obnoxious internet personalities bad’.

    Second is similar, but much more obviously ‘Return to Tradition, specifically Traditional Gender Roles.’

    Yes, the image of the traditional man is actually a modern super model at best and an absurd photoshop at worst, and yes, traditional men of the 40s to 60s era they seem to be aiming at were practically never that muscular, and were basically never ogled at as sex objects by the culture at large as the modern male supermodel obviously is…

    … but none of that matters. What matters is big strong man muscles = traditional male.

    Third one at least just says its about the end of masculinity. I dont know half the people in the thumnail, but James Charles the rainbow make up guy is definitely effeminate, possibly gay (i dont know i dont watch make up tutorials on youtube), and the doomer meme signifies depression and poverty and hopelessness basically in this context.

    So from just those two, the message is that being effeminate/gay is not real masculinity, and neither is being depressed, unemployed, poor and or jaded.

    By contrast, real masculinity is thus a stereotypical successful, authoritative, well off man who probably wears a suit and definitely isnt gay.

    So, in summary, all three thumbnails are culturally reactionary, basically promoting a return to traditional American White Straight Maleness of approximately the 1940s to 1960s, use more or less internet memes or personalities, so we know this is aimed at basically frustrated and or directionless young white males, and that the videos will nearly certainly promote an idealized caricature of what being a real man should be, from an imagined past which either completely ignores all of the personal and social downsides of a cis patriarchical white man … or actually highlights those dow sides but presents them as actually good and natural.

    Its functionally cultural fascist propoganda.

    Put another way, these videos are for people who watched Mad Men and somehow took away the message that being like the main male characters in that show is actually desirable and should be striven towards.

    These videos are what you get served by YouTube when you are roughly 1/3 of the way down the YouTube Reactionary Pipeline, as many Breadtubers have discussed and outlined years ago.

    • Mzuark
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      7 months ago

      By contrast, real masculinity is thus a stereotypical successful, authoritative, well off man who probably wears a suit and definitely isnt gay.

      The fetishization of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho factors into this a lot. People see an insane man who kills women and other men over minor slights as some alpha male who is just so manly he can do whatever he wants.

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        Yeah, I’ll be honest, I still get uh /triggered/ by people who are somehow so brainwashed, ignorant, malignant or all of those that do not understand that American Psycho is satire.

        It still astonishes me, on a personal level, that most reactionaries seem to be totally incapable of understanding humor and satire as anything beyond basically fart jokes and simply being cruel to and/or mocking people.

        Like Bateman literally murders a homeless man who just asks him for help, thanking him profusely while explaining that he lost his job. Apparently to reactionaries, Bateman is thus a double badass: 1) He kills a useless leech on society 2) His whole fucking job is mergers and acquisitions, which basically always /cause/ mass layoffs.

        But he wont kill a kitten when the ATM tells him to feed him one.

        A feral kitten is thus deserving of more sympathy from Bateman than a not even feral human. Likely entirely because of outward appearances: kittens are adorable and homeless people are dirty.

        The whole monologue with Bateman peeling off a face mask while he realizes there is nothing under his superficiality… other than cruelty, apparently, and an incredible drive for increasing his personal social standing… all of this is apparently, to reactionaries, is just a man being a badass winner.

  • DamarcusArt
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    7 months ago

    Hatred. That’s what they’re trying to convey, pure distilled hatred for others.

  • lorty
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    7 months ago

    Masculinity has always been in crisis because it is a terrible ideal that no one truly wants.

  • Mzuark
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    7 months ago

    The one on the left is Pro-Fascism. “They didn’t die for this” is the same as saying “The Nazis should’ve won” Reject Modernity is also fash speak for “Let’s go back to a time where we hanged gays for being different” and the last one is arguing that we should apparently be sad that “”“masculinity”“” is under attack

    • Catradora-Stalinism☭
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      7 months ago

      if i can get a right winger to stop believing all stereotypes to the letter then I will claim to be Jesus

  • NikkiB
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    7 months ago

    “You are under attack and you need to defend yourself.”

  • jaeme@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    That’s not what they died for.

    I will never be funnier than a non self-aware chauvinist who makes shitty music edits and uploads them on youtube dot com.

  • Catradora-Stalinism☭
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    7 months ago

    this shit is literally the dumb ‘girls vs boys’ idiocy from elementary school but rebranded for the modern manchildren