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> I remember growing up and the boogeyman was sexualized videos on MTV and violent video games Ironically, I think that generation may have been more or less r

by retrac 5y ago

> I remember growing up and the boogeyman was sexualized videos on MTV and violent video games Ironically, I think that generation may have been more or less right about the imagery being a negative, but wrong about the mechanism by which it works on us negatively. Sexualized imagery does not turn boys into rapists. But it does seem to promote body image insecurity, social status worries, and general anxiety, in those who see it, particularly those of the same sex, and where the person is seen as desirable to emulate. Violence in the media, also, probably doesn't make us violent. But it may well skew how accurately we estimate the likelihood of interpersonal violence. Quite a few studies hint at a link between how terrified someone is of being murdered and how much gory TV they watch, basically. t;ldr: instead of turning us into sex-crazed impulsives like feared, it turned us into sex-hating neurotics.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
You don't need old school MTV to find this. Just go to a grocery store and see all the women's magazines that promote insecurities. It's an entire business model. Female editors are presumably highly represented at these magazines and they don't seem to have a problem with the destruction they wreak.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > Female editors are presumably highly represented at these magazines and they don't seem to have a problem with the destruction they wreak. Regardless of gender, the people that rise to the top tend to be sociopathic…
  - lugged 5y ago
    All 1-4% of them... The insinuation that anyone who rises to the top of an organisation must be sociopathic is dillusional. Yes, there is a higher incidence at the CEO level, traits that help you in a role also help you get there, go figure, but the idea all leaders are sociopaths is a huge stretch based off nothing but your own bias and distain for anyone high up in a power structure, that seems to be going around right now.
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      Is there any reason that sociopathy can't exist on a spectrum, and why 1-4% of the population couldn't be somewhere on it? What's the state of research in this area?
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > 1-4% Citation needed, as well as a fully qualified definition of "organisation". It's not fair to equate the leader of the local farming co-op with the editorial head of a major newsgathering (or in present-times: news-aggregation) corporation.
- atoav 5y ago
  Yes, but these magazines are something you have to actively buy and read. As the uncle of three girls I'd say what has more impact is peer pressure in social media. Girls from your class/school displaying images of themselves fulfilling certain body stereotypes. Seeing the same images in advertisements makes things only worse. Putting female people into certain position doesn't turn them automatically into liberal challengers of the status quo, who rationally question the things they learned their whole life, certain kinds of pressure comes in the worst forms from other women (mother, grandmother, aunts, colleagues, etc). E.g. if you are a girl in a typical family in Italy cutting your hair short, getting a tattoo, or not wearing a bra is something your relatives definitly will mention negatively to you. The only reason being that they have an idealized image of what a woman must look like to be a "propper woman". If you don't look like that they might think you are a lesbian, have psychological problems or similar silly causal connections.
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    The thorny issue is that your 3 examples might reduce that girl's chances on the dating market, so it might even be reasonable for her relatives to attempt to support her in obtaining a high quality partner. I'd say the critical part wrt suicides is not that people are competing for attention from the opposite sex, because that has been around for a million years. The critical new aspect is that people are now grossly underestimating their relative standing. And that's because social media makes the one pretty outlier actress from the other side of the globe feel personal and acessible, which tricks us into treating them like a valid comparison point even though most high school girls will never need to compete against a Hollywood actress on looks, because the latter one is unavailable to all of her male classmates anyway.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > most high school girls will never need to compete against a Hollywood actress on looks, because the latter one is unavailable to all of her male classmates anyway. Is this actually true? Just because the hollywood access (or porn star) is unavailable doesn’t mean the male classmates are behaving that way.

by retrac 5y ago

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

You don't need old school MTV to find this. Just go to a grocery store and see all the women's magazines that promote insecurities. It's an entire business model. Female editors are presumably highly represented at these magazines and they don't seem to have a problem with the destruction they wreak.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> Female editors are presumably highly represented at these magazines and they don't seem to have a problem with the destruction they wreak. Regardless of gender, the people that rise to the top tend to be sociopathic…
- lugged 5y ago
  All 1-4% of them... The insinuation that anyone who rises to the top of an organisation must be sociopathic is dillusional. Yes, there is a higher incidence at the CEO level, traits that help you in a role also help you get there, go figure, but the idea all leaders are sociopaths is a huge stretch based off nothing but your own bias and distain for anyone high up in a power structure, that seems to be going around right now.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Is there any reason that sociopathy can't exist on a spectrum, and why 1-4% of the population couldn't be somewhere on it? What's the state of research in this area?
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    > 1-4% Citation needed, as well as a fully qualified definition of "organisation". It's not fair to equate the leader of the local farming co-op with the editorial head of a major newsgathering (or in present-times: news-aggregation) corporation.
atoav 5y ago
Yes, but these magazines are something you have to actively buy and read. As the uncle of three girls I'd say what has more impact is peer pressure in social media. Girls from your class/school displaying images of themselves fulfilling certain body stereotypes. Seeing the same images in advertisements makes things only worse. Putting female people into certain position doesn't turn them automatically into liberal challengers of the status quo, who rationally question the things they learned their whole life, certain kinds of pressure comes in the worst forms from other women (mother, grandmother, aunts, colleagues, etc). E.g. if you are a girl in a typical family in Italy cutting your hair short, getting a tattoo, or not wearing a bra is something your relatives definitly will mention negatively to you. The only reason being that they have an idealized image of what a woman must look like to be a "propper woman". If you don't look like that they might think you are a lesbian, have psychological problems or similar silly causal connections.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  The thorny issue is that your 3 examples might reduce that girl's chances on the dating market, so it might even be reasonable for her relatives to attempt to support her in obtaining a high quality partner. I'd say the critical part wrt suicides is not that people are competing for attention from the opposite sex, because that has been around for a million years. The critical new aspect is that people are now grossly underestimating their relative standing. And that's because social media makes the one pretty outlier actress from the other side of the globe feel personal and acessible, which tricks us into treating them like a valid comparison point even though most high school girls will never need to compete against a Hollywood actress on looks, because the latter one is unavailable to all of her male classmates anyway.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > most high school girls will never need to compete against a Hollywood actress on looks, because the latter one is unavailable to all of her male classmates anyway. Is this actually true? Just because the hollywood access (or porn star) is unavailable doesn’t mean the male classmates are behaving that way.