I’m going to revisit a ‘current thing’ to highlight a pervasive thing. Below is a post that went viral last week. I left the out poster’s name intentionally.
Even discounting bots, a lot of people engaged with a headline from an outdated women’s magazine.
I understand why women don’t want to have a mere boyfriend for 10 years. The sentiment isn’t anti-man, it’s anti-adolescent. Most girls would prefer to be married than have a boyfriend forever, so I don’t get what all the fuss is about.
Regardless, that post isn’t the point. People weren’t engaging with the headline, they were engaging with the way it was framed.
I can’t comprehend the impulse to twist topics in order to make people believe “it’s over.” A headline from a women’s magazine shouldn’t be enough to take a man down.
It takes 2 seconds to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has no legs, a parent who just lost their child, or someone who had to walk alone into the cold with a spear to hunt wild animals for sustenance. Words make you think it’s over? Brother, civilization isn’t cooked. YOU are cooked.
That post is just one example of men spreading demoralization propaganda online. Have you seen Andrew Tate’s account lately? Such is the fate of many washed up men.
And to be fair, you don’t need to spend a lot of time online to be concerned about the state of civilization. But it’s not impossible to thrive regardless of what blackpillers tell you. Bad news will always come. The question for men isn’t whether the world is good or bad, it’s how you’re going to handle it.
Trying to depress people is fundamentally cowardly and unmanly. I’m sympathetic to men having a rough time, but I have absolutely zero respect for men who try to blackpill people.
What explains this behavior? Perhaps their sense of honor is so vanquished that rather than find the will to improve their lives, they’d rather drag other men down with them. Misery indeed loves company.
I’m not big on moralizing, but I believe men have a responsibility to elevate themselves and the people they care about as much as possible.
Why are modern men so easily depressed? Is it a testosterone issue? Is it a symptom of a culture in decline? Or perhaps they’re just weak? Could you picture your grandfather talking in such a way? What about his grandfather?
Is depression an inevitable byproduct of spending too much time online? Do modern men not have enough real world experience to recognize bullshit when they hear it?
If you learn about life online, your human instincts die, then reality makes you pay the price.
What explains the rise of blackpilled men?
Weak Discernment
There’s two reactions one can have while consuming internet headlines:
Compare the headline to your understanding of reality then come to your own conclusions.
Believe the headline prima facie then react to it.
Most people on the internet end up in the second camp, to their detriment.
I might be more skeptical online than the average person. I get enough engagement to know that most comments are moronic. On posts where I can predict what people are going to say, or if I know it’s going to attract retards, then I turn comments off. I’m generally uninterested in what people on the internet have to say about anything minus a handful of people.
Born Weak or Raised Weak?
I’m lucky to have been born with an arrogant optimism and unyielding belief in myself. Even when I failed at something as a kid I knew that wasn’t who I really was. Underneath the surface of any insecurities I had, I listened to that voice, and it took me decades to uncover it.
I’d like to believe everyone has this “spark”, but I’m not sure. One of my oldest friends has been saying he’s “getting old” since he’s 16. He always leaned towards the depressive side, is a bit of a loner, and tends to be more glass half empty. Despite being handsome, funny, highly competent, and exceptionally talented at a very impressive thing — he never believed in himself. This is much different than being humble. He set low expectations for his life and was always just content to obtain the bare minimum. Now he’s married to a woman he doesn’t really like and he often complains about being a father. Sadly, his son will have a father who is depressed and doesn’t believe in himself. Maybe he will rise to the occasion and encourage his son the way he should have been encouraged.
I don’t know if being easily blackpilled is a nature or nurture problem. There’s genetic predispositions to depression. However, how your father sees you and responds to you has an extremely powerful impact on how you see yourself — especially men.
I don’t talk about my personal life much online. But for the sake of this post, I’ll say this: I wasn’t raised by an encouraging father, to say the least. To anyone who can relate, this lack of masculine support does something to you. You’re forced to build confidence out of thin air through reckless risk-taking and brutal self-awareness. You become your own source of calm when nobody can reassure you. You learn to prove things to yourself because no one else is cheering you on. You mistake resilience for peace. This perseverance grows to become an infinite source of strength.
Even as a child, I knew in my bones I was not supposed to be like him. I feel very fortunate to have this knowledge, which is why I write the way I do. I feel morally indebted to others who might not be so lucky.
Being Realistic vs. Blackpilling
To people who have been following me for a long time, you’d probably describe me as aggressively realistic. I don’t like to give people false hope, and I think it’s good to crush harmful delusions. But I never try to make people lose hope or believe they don’t have options. I don’t let the external world affect my inner world. My potential to make choices remains unaffected, so I try to remind men to not let it affect them either.
When it comes to giving other people advice: give it carefully. Know where your knowledge ends. When in doubt, just listen. At the minimum, remind people that they have free will. Your life is completely in your hands.
Blaming the world for your problems is for communists and cowards. Men are responsible to lift themselves up and people around them. Anything less makes you a failure as a man.
Your writing is always very uplifting.
Online men's communities in the 2010s had a ton of positivity. Occasionally some goofballs but that was the exception. I don't know what the hell happened now but I want no part of it.