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So, let's pull the sections from your own quote that you missed. > But how, exactly, does “hegemonic masculinity” accurately sum up a scene explicitly identify

So, let's pull the sections from your own quote that you missed. > But how, exactly, does “hegemonic masculinity” accurately sum up a scene explicitly identifying as beta male Here she says that they're explicitly identifying as beta males, when nearly every culture she referenced rejects and mocks it. Also > this geeky beta world > The beta style draws from > Among the stale memes, repeat posts, true-life confessions, pre-rampage tip-offs, and cock-and-bull stories that make beta forums so impenetrable The phrase "beta rebellion" is in the article eight times. She is literally basing this entire article on betas, when the groups mentioned inside don't think very much of betas at all. If you're not seeing that, you're projecting an awful lot onto this article. Not only that, her understanding of betas is faulty. > Whereas alphas tend to be macho, sporty, and mainstream in their tastes, betas see themselves as less dominant males, withdrawn, obsessional, and curatorial in their cultural habits. She's conflating introversion with beta, when they're both orthogonal attributes. And she's claiming this is where the internet misogyny comes from. Betas are perceived as being afraid to speak controversial opinions or in other ways step out of line (they're followers, remember?), and also as people that will say the most pleasing things in order to get attention. _None_ of which lines up with the forums and sub-cultures she's describing. Betas may pop on the internet and try to be tough, but it's usually just them RPing some sort of fantasy. They might talk down on people who reject them, but there's nothing they resent more than their inability to change things. > the betas are in it strictly “for the lulz.” Here she's claiming that the burn the world down for fun behavior of the chans is beta behavior. She started this whole article with mass shootings, transitions into betas, makes a link with online forums as if the internet is breeding them. In reality, the problems behind people who make IRL attacks don't start in internet forums. The callous spite for anything and everything certainly doesn't help fix them. But the chans talk about these people as beta to mock their weakness. In their minds, they literally didn't have enough guts to do anything about their problems in real life until they snapped. In summary, no, she doesn't understand the people or the ideas at all. She just cherry-picked words and did some meme research for authenticity. And then she grabbed the biggest brush she could buy to paint everyone the same color.

pron 11y ago
First of all, this is a rather short, non-academic article, not a book, so some generalizations (and catch-phrases) are necessary in order to state any thesis at all. Second, I think you're fixating too much on your disagreement with the author on the use of the word betas. You think she's misusing it and applying it to a different group? Fine. I don't see how her thesis is affected by (what you believe to be) incorrect labeling (I agree with her, BTW[1]). Broad strokes and catchphrases necessitated by the medium aside[2], I think this is the best article on internet culture I've read in quite some time. [1]: I think that she (correctly) applies the label as they (or some of them) self-deprecatingly call themselves (in opposition to the jock alphas), rather than as an objective description of "weak(er) followers". She stresses over and over that they don't view themselves as followers regardless of their self-applied label. [2]: And those limitations are very clear to readers of a high-end magazine like the Baffler.

pron 11y ago

First of all, this is a rather short, non-academic article, not a book, so some generalizations (and catch-phrases) are necessary in order to state any thesis at all. Second, I think you're fixating too much on your disagreement with the author on the use of the word betas. You think she's misusing it and applying it to a different group? Fine. I don't see how her thesis is affected by (what you believe to be) incorrect labeling (I agree with her, BTW[1]). Broad strokes and catchphrases necessitated by the medium aside[2], I think this is the best article on internet culture I've read in quite some time. [1]: I think that she (correctly) applies the label as they (or some of them) self-deprecatingly call themselves (in opposition to the jock alphas), rather than as an objective description of "weak(er) followers". She stresses over and over that they don't view themselves as followers regardless of their self-applied label. [2]: And those limitations are very clear to readers of a high-end magazine like the Baffler.