It's a dull Wednesday night. The fan is whirring slowly, doing little to disturb the stagnant heat of Frank's room.
This article was written by The Line Creative Hub member Talisa G. Frank’s* name has been changed.
The lights were off, save for flickering videos emanating from Frank's phone.
The young man is, of course, doom-scrolling through TikTok.
He pauses for a moment, eyes flickering as he watches the clip unfold.
‘This is how you become a high-value man!’ A bald man is sucking on a cigar as he laments at the camera.
Frank rolls his eyes, but can’t help but take note.
Some of what the guy says seems to make sense; going to the gym, getting loads of money, taking care of yourself - it checks out.
He clicks on the guy's account.
To Frank, a young man who’s just starting to date, starting to figure out who he wants to be and how to get there - what to dress in, how to act - are all very important things.
The data shows it's a familiar story for many young men growing up in Australia.
The virtues talking heads like this cigar sucking bloke extoll (opinions dressed as facts btw) make sense to young guys working out for themselves what it means to ‘be a man’.
The data shows it's a familiar story for many young men growing up in Australia.
The Adolescent Man Box study, for example, shows more than a third of young men surveyed think teenage boys should try to appear manly in all situations.
A quarter of that same survey agrees that if a teenage boy has hurt feelings, he should hold them in.
'This kind of started for me around 2015-2017. There was a really strong effort on the internet at the time and still now to pull young people, and especially young men, toward this kind of thinking,' Frank explains to The Line.
'The Peterson/Shapiro, Charlie Kirk style stuff, I felt, at least pretended to be reasonable.'
It’s not hard to see what’s attractive behind these messages; whether it be stoicism, confidence, gym culture, ‘manliness’, wealth - even looksmaxxing!
It can make a lot of sense when it seems to innocuously fill your feed.
And that's exactly what it's designed to do.
Research shows this type of content deliberately targets young men’s insecurities (such as body image, dating, and mental health), and young men also say the motivational advice they receive is entertaining.
But, Frank says, he managed to work out the major difference between what he was hearing on his TikTok and what happens in reality.
‘It's so bad for you, it alienates you from your friends and family, and your communities,’ he says he began to recognise.
Even going on to say, ‘Guys are wounded from watching this crap, and are more hateful and aggressive because of it’.
He says he's thankful he was able to pull himself out of the 'alt-right pipeline shit' and recognise the people behind that content were trying to pull young men towards their dangerous way of thinking.
Reflecting back on what it felt like to consume such content, he thinks the best advice he has for anybody else reading this is to stay open-minded, but think critically about what these entertainers are saying.
'Make sure you listen to lots of viewpoints and advice. Don’t let anyone tell you how to think, learn how to do that yourself,' he says.
'Evaluate, explain.’
The Line’s tips:
- Really think about what you're seeing: does it stack up? Or is it just a random opinion?
- If you see it in your feeds, don't take the rage bait, just scroll on
- Reset your algorithm so you can see different content
- Think about who is benefiting from what these guys are saying (hint: it’s not you)
- If you know somebody repeating typical talking points, question them on it, ask them to explain what it means and then point out the harmful bits
