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.
All of my friends went to uni so its a biased sample, but id say about 80% of my masc friends read like actual literature. All of them have read various slop novels/manga, but they do engage with art, just less often.
Generally, from what I’ve seen; the biggest issue is not “the kids aren’t reading hemingway!!!” because, actually, in my high-school; a good chunk of students were given the “classics” as assigned reading in English, as well as some other ones like Hatchet and such. Neighboring school districts had different ones, but same principle. This was city, as well; so I am not sure if the bougies cut out classics elsewhere or if the city I had just had a ton of donated books. People my age also just prefer to read more short-form content.
That is sort of a thing I notice though. Attention-spans are being fucking shot. This isn’t even unique to Gen Z; I know boomers, X, etc who will sit on their phone and just scroll and scroll. Hell, I do it sometimes; how else do I get dank lefty memes?
A good chunk of people can retain their spans, I can still read Dune or watch a 3 hour video without losing attention. However, I worry more for children who are being handed a tablet as a form of “here kid, get outta my hair”.
Not in the age group, but I read a hell of a lot more at that age than I do in my 30s.
Youre also asking rich white kids on a leftie forum
Xi pays the big bucks tbh. I get 20000 RMB a second!
No I’m in this age range and all my friends read at least to some degree. Some of us are very avid and occasionally do little book clubs
I’m a little out of this age range but I feel like my friends kinda grew out of that mindset. Like I knew a guy who wanted to get into real estate a few years ago, but nowadays he’s a firefighter and certified EMS. Maybe it’s a little later than previous generations but most people get their shit together by their late 20s, seems like.
ITT, generationalism bullshit. sigh.
Younger people seem to read less novels and more stuff they find online like creepy pastas, fan fiction, smut, etc.
Not a man but I am in the age range. I mean it may be the case that more people are turning to parasocial relationships and falling into manosphere holes because of the internet. But also idk, maybe we’ve got to take stock of how misogyny plays a role into all this? Most men (and I truly mean, like 99% of them) don’t want to unpack the way they hold privilege and power over women. In decades past in which men were reading books more, they also had legal control over their wives? Women were gatekept out of academia for centuries. We live in a patriarchy and that needs to factor into any analysis of men as a social class that happens.
I think there’s an internalized misogyny that’s getting worse at play as well, where it’s feminine (and therefore weak and shameful) to explore feelings or one’s inner life in a serious way. It seems like that kind of misogyny is increasing.
I think a good question to ask, is the misogyny increasing or are you just recognizing it more and being exposed to more of it because of the internet?
That’s a good question. It’s generally my view that the past four years have been a massive setback for the left and the general sentiment has become much more reactionary, including an increase in overall misogyny. But I don’t know to what extent that’s reality or my own perception of things.
I think this ties back into my main comment.
Nobody posts on their social media that they just enjoyed X, Y, or Z literature or art. I won’t say for sure that this is because the people who take the time to genuinely enjoy these things don’t really give a fuck to tell everybody else about it, but that’s what I think is happening.
The internet has provided all sorts of assholes the ability to spread their message to millions of people. Unfortunately, you might be right that this is leading to an increase. Personally, I think these people were always around, and would’ve latched onto these type of ideas with or without the internet.
I can just tell you that, personally, as a 33 cishet dude, my attention span is shot to shit and I can barely watch a whole ass movie or listen to a new song let alone añbum. If anythibg, my capapcity for reading a book, fictional or otherwise is far more in tact.
Huh, I guess I’m really young but I always considered literature majority woman/femme presenting.
My guy friends that do read often read more helpful/confidence boosting works. Or they listen to audiobooks I suppose, both fiction and the helpful/confidence kind. By helpful I mean works like “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”, or “Stolen Focus”.
Most of my guy friends are technical or nerd types, not sure if that means anything.
Weird, I know I’m not that old, but ‘literature’ other than like, Bell Hooks, was a nerd dude thing, while pop fiction was feminized. I read both because I just love reading whatever.
I don’t know if anyone has said this, cause there’s a lot to read here, but I think you’re just seeing all this online. Nobody posts on their social media that they just enjoyed X, Y, or Z literature or art. I won’t say for sure that this is because the people who take the time to genuinely enjoy these things don’t really give a fuck to tell everybody else about it, but that’s what I think is happening.
I’m pretty sure there’s a term for this phenomenon that I can’t think of right now, but yeah you’re just getting exposed to drivel that is not representative of actual people.
I’m older than this range, but still a “Zillenial” for context.
Survivorship Bias, basically. The presentation of data is filtered out by physical circumstances.
18 year olds listen to me bitch about capitalism
You’re welcome?.. I think?
Now that you mention it, yeah. Of my school cohort, me and my best friend at school are the only guys in the year who went into the arts. It’s actually kind of insane.
At my uni, I was one of 2 guys in my class. In the whole year, it was me and maybe like 2 other guys who had any sort of traditional male hobbies/ways of presenting. Otherwise it was camp gay men, and a couple of straight guys who were just like, idk, theatre kids.
I think it speaks to a socioeconomic thing too though. Most other guys I meet who are in the arts are living off daddy’s money.
Newly minted 25 year old, In my circle of ~20 guys id say about 5 of them read fiction with any regularity myself included.
