Just Because a Man is On Social Media Does Not Mean He Is Required to Begin Acting Like a Woman (or a Tweener Girl, More Accurately)
Does It?

SHUT UP, SALLY: A MANIFESTO

RE: sidebar item about Jonah from MisHum...

Jonah denigrates the Keurig coffee.

Fine.

But when Keurig devises a powdered-gravy pod, he'll be running an IV from the fucker right into one of his whale-flippers and riding the Brown Dragon every day.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice

I've complained about this a lot, but Twitter is the most estrogenizing toxin known to man, or to half-man shmans as you see on the internet.

I have this weird affliction, called heterosexual masculinity, which keeps me from offering strident, childishly-intense opinions about womanly creature comforts and sundry num-nums.

I don't think people should have strident opinions about trivialities. Children have strident opinions about trivialities.

Men don't. Men are supposed to be wise enough to know which things are trifling, and which things deserve their concern, and express themselves accordingly.

If it's important, you say something.

If it's not important, you practice the most ancient of all manly arts, the Manly Art of Shutting the F*** Up Once in a While and Giving Your C***slappers a Rest.

I'm glad to know that there's a cure for this affliction of normal masculine reserve, how, and that Jonah Goldberg is proof of that.

Apparently, being on Social Media all day long is a cure for normal, regular heterosexual masculinity. It's a feminizing and juvenilizing force which turns toxic men into pliable weakling children and fat little girls trying to advance in the social hierarchy.

Does that mean men shouldn't talk about these things? No, of course not. It's just that men... we're goal-oriented. Or we used to be, before the Internet gave us permission to engage our innner prepubescent sexually-androgynous tween.

I had a question a few weeks ago about what Duncan Donuts coffee tastes great at the store but very meh at home, and asked about it in a comment thread; another commenter said "Maybe you just have to grind the beans yourself and use the pour-over to get the same flavor."

This is a short back-and-forth in which there is a clear goal, and a response that is directly, and briefly, directed towards helping me meet my goal. We did not use the opportunity to bond over it, nor did we use it as a segueway into complaining that our boyfriends don't buy us flowers frequently enough.

Compare that to Jonah Goldberg, JV Last, David French and the rest of the Twitter Mean Girls Half-Men Chitty-Chat Coffee Clatch, oohing and aahing like women every day on Twitter about their favorite kitchen appliances, and whining and bitching about which vegetables they continue having a manbaby aversion towards.

They're vegetables, Little Girls. They're not Twinkies. They're not supposed to taste nummy. At best, they taste pretty good, but in a particular way you have to cultivate a taste for.

And also, David French: Who the fuck gives a fuck whether you like kale or not? Why do you even care if you like it or not?

Why do you think anyone else cares?

I realize that this is a bit odd for a blogger to say, but I have come to a conclusion about opinions: People need to stop having so many opinions.

You know who has opinions about everything? Blowhards, assholes, and lunatics.

Sane people do not care one way or the other (or at least do not care enough to bother expending the breath and saliva necessary to say otherwise) about 95% of all the people, objects, and concepts in the universe.

But every "man" on Twitter seems to imagine that the world is just begging for their 8th grade mix-tapes of Stuff I Really Like or Don't Like At All (Pee-Yoo!).

If you don't like kale, don't eat it. What the fuck is this bullshit with alleged "men" sitting around in a little quilting bee talking about food and appliances and movies all day?

This reminds me of the John Gray "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" claim, which went like this: Men talk about practical problems and seek practical solutions. Women, on the other hand, often talk just to establish rapport and seek emotional validation and fresh reaffirmations of closeness.

This, he claimed, is why men and women are often frustrated with each other. When a woman complains about, say, work, she wants emotional support. She's not looking for some kind of practical solution like "Just update your resume and find another job," which is the sort of thing that a man would usually say (until he realizes that that's not what women want to hear).

So while men, such as myself and the commenters here, will talk about these things in the interests of actually getting something done, David French, Jonah Goldberg, JV Last and the rest of the low-T very-womanly half-men brigade are constantly babbling on twitter about their What's Hot and What's Not lists, and starting Twitter threads nominating things which are on their To Do list, or, more wickedly, their To-Don't list.

Also: This seems to be a tactic employed by betas (or lower than betas): to appear "cute," cute like children or cute like squirrels, rather than, you know, like men.

Little boys are cute, and act cute. Some men are lucky enough to be attractive, but if they act cute, act like little boys, I have a feeling that a lot of women quickly go from feeling sexual to feeling Saharan.

And I sit here thinking: What the hell is wrong with you? Are you... gender curious?

Are you this immature? Did Twitter and social media give you permission, in your view, to go back to the good old days of being a child?

To reset the system at -- what do IT guys call it? -- the Last Safe Configuration of your lives? The last time you felt secure and happy?

Did you "men" ever learn how to be men? Or did you learn once, but decide it was too "toxic," and so refashioned yourselves into Twitter-imprisoned metrosexuals and cloying little children?

Complaint:

I don't like kale.

Solution:

Then don't eat kale. Also, get the fuck off of Twitter if you have time to complain about kale. Do some squats in your spare time.

Complaint:

I don't like Indian food. (From Tom Nichols, who does not look like the sort of guy who would turn his nose up at any food that includes a lot of sugar and carbs.)

Solution:

Then don't get Indian food. Also, start intermittent fasting. You're grossly obese and it makes me sad to look at you.

Boast:

I just love my high-end espresso maker!

Solution:

Fine, I guess. Have some coffee. But also maybe consider the possibility that most men don't really enthuse over kitchen appliances, and maybe you should do likewise. (Note: grilling equipment is not part of the kitchen, obviously.)

Also, do some deadlifts. You're all hunched over like Gollum when he's masturbating furtively on a public bus. Some deadlifts might straighten you out a bit.

Am I wrong? Am I being too crochety, or am I guilty of enforcing Outdated Notions of Masculinity? Am I guilty of perpetuating Toxic Notions of Masculinity?

I don't think so. What about you guys?

And women, actually -- do you women ever look at these "men" babbling like little girls about Captain Marvel and think uncharitable thoughts?

But these "men" aren't exchanging information -- practical stuff like advice, recommendations, and recipes (actionable intelligence) -- but just to gab with the same shriveled low-t soybags they gab with every single day to further reaffirm that they remain emotionally-cherished members of the Twitter Mean Girls clique.

posted by Ace of Spades at 06:32 PM

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