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> The soyboy insult came about particularly to criticize frail tech nerds (who are white in all the memes) who eat meal replacement diets, particularly soylent.

> The soyboy insult came about particularly to criticize frail tech nerds (who are white in all the memes) who eat meal replacement diets, particularly soylent. No, it has been around for longer than that. Soylent is a tertiary at best aspect to this.

lupusreal 3y ago
Earliest archived use of the term on 4chan was from 2017, several years after soylent meal replacement shakes hit the market. Soy was also being used in various other vegan and/or processed foods at the time, but soylent was particularly conspicuous due to it having soy right in the name. Regardless of which particularly product prompted this, the point is the meme is new but westerners not eating soy is not new and cannot be attributed to the meme, nor is the meme even about asians. The memes mocked white guys in the west who eat soy products, particularly soylent. As for the general aversion to eating soybeans, read the Wikipedia page for soy. It has a short history of soy consumption in North America since the introduction of the beans here in the 18th century. For most of their history in North America they were raised almost exclusively as animal feed. This wasn't because of a meme that didn't then exist, nor because anti-asian racism; it simply wasn't considered very good to eat. America got the bean itself from Asia but not the culture of tofu production and consumption. In the 20th century methods of processing soybeans for human consumption started to be developed in North America, but it would take several decades to gain any appreciable traction. The "soybeans are effeminizing" train of thought only came about very recently in response to soybeans actually being consumed now in North America. The memes about "soyboys" exclusively featured white men who were usually skinny or skinny-fat, office workers who lacked physical strength, not laborers, usually with thick-rimmed glasses and an enthusiasm for immature interests like video games or saturday morning cartoons. The memes were about these sort of white men, not about Asians. Tldr: these memes weren't about Asians and neither were they the reason it took so long for soybeans to catch on. That's completely ahistorical, wrong by centuries.
- philwelch 3y ago
  I think a lot of the early backlash against soy was more targeted at soy milk in particular. Soy milk was one of the first widely marketed ersatz milks, at a time when virtually all “milk” in the store was actual cow milk and Lewis Black had a hilarious comedy bit about how there were already too many kinds of milk[1]. There was also an infamous 2008 case study of a man who developed gynecomastia while consuming three quarts of soy milk a day[2]. [1] https://youtu.be/6_wDEjCpeOc https://youtu.be/6_wDEjCpeOc [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/
- m0llusk 3y ago
  Yikes, 4chan as culture? I expect there is much truth in what you are saying, but I remember quite clearly an incident in 2014 where a fellow fitness enthusiast and bodybuilder chastised me for offering him food with tofu in it because of the estrogen content of soy. He was already injecting testosterone, so ingesting soy would be, as he put it, "going the wrong way". In my experience hardcore competitive bodybuilding culture in particular does not cross over with 4chan very much. The users of 4chan tend to be too young to have entered to competitive bodybuilding scene so the generations are different, plus there are other cultural issues. Putting time into 4chan and time into the gym are not obviously exclusive of each other but in practice end up being so.
  - 13_channel_ctf 3y ago
    FWIW 4chan has a pretty active /fit/ board with pretty frequent bodybuilding threads. I actually run an imageboard myself. Btw, if anyone from 13chan is reading this, the solution to the challenge is "im_from_13chan_that_means_im_cute" I love 13chan <3
  - philwelch 3y ago
    There was an infamous 2008 case study of a man who developed gynecomastia while consuming three quarts of soy milk a day[1]. I actually remember rumors about this so I wouldn’t be surprised if those same rumors spread around the bodybuilding community. It certainly seems that the soy-estrogen theory became widely accepted “bro science” somehow; I just don’t know of any evidence that it was in any way related to anti-Asian racism. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/

lupusreal 3y ago

Earliest archived use of the term on 4chan was from 2017, several years after soylent meal replacement shakes hit the market. Soy was also being used in various other vegan and/or processed foods at the time, but soylent was particularly conspicuous due to it having soy right in the name. Regardless of which particularly product prompted this, the point is the meme is new but westerners not eating soy is not new and cannot be attributed to the meme, nor is the meme even about asians. The memes mocked white guys in the west who eat soy products, particularly soylent. As for the general aversion to eating soybeans, read the Wikipedia page for soy. It has a short history of soy consumption in North America since the introduction of the beans here in the 18th century. For most of their history in North America they were raised almost exclusively as animal feed. This wasn't because of a meme that didn't then exist, nor because anti-asian racism; it simply wasn't considered very good to eat. America got the bean itself from Asia but not the culture of tofu production and consumption. In the 20th century methods of processing soybeans for human consumption started to be developed in North America, but it would take several decades to gain any appreciable traction. The "soybeans are effeminizing" train of thought only came about very recently in response to soybeans actually being consumed now in North America. The memes about "soyboys" exclusively featured white men who were usually skinny or skinny-fat, office workers who lacked physical strength, not laborers, usually with thick-rimmed glasses and an enthusiasm for immature interests like video games or saturday morning cartoons. The memes were about these sort of white men, not about Asians. Tldr: these memes weren't about Asians and neither were they the reason it took so long for soybeans to catch on. That's completely ahistorical, wrong by centuries.

philwelch 3y ago
I think a lot of the early backlash against soy was more targeted at soy milk in particular. Soy milk was one of the first widely marketed ersatz milks, at a time when virtually all “milk” in the store was actual cow milk and Lewis Black had a hilarious comedy bit about how there were already too many kinds of milk[1]. There was also an infamous 2008 case study of a man who developed gynecomastia while consuming three quarts of soy milk a day[2]. [1] https://youtu.be/6_wDEjCpeOc https://youtu.be/6_wDEjCpeOc [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/
m0llusk 3y ago
Yikes, 4chan as culture? I expect there is much truth in what you are saying, but I remember quite clearly an incident in 2014 where a fellow fitness enthusiast and bodybuilder chastised me for offering him food with tofu in it because of the estrogen content of soy. He was already injecting testosterone, so ingesting soy would be, as he put it, "going the wrong way". In my experience hardcore competitive bodybuilding culture in particular does not cross over with 4chan very much. The users of 4chan tend to be too young to have entered to competitive bodybuilding scene so the generations are different, plus there are other cultural issues. Putting time into 4chan and time into the gym are not obviously exclusive of each other but in practice end up being so.
- 13_channel_ctf 3y ago
  FWIW 4chan has a pretty active /fit/ board with pretty frequent bodybuilding threads. I actually run an imageboard myself. Btw, if anyone from 13chan is reading this, the solution to the challenge is "im_from_13chan_that_means_im_cute" I love 13chan <3
- philwelch 3y ago
  There was an infamous 2008 case study of a man who developed gynecomastia while consuming three quarts of soy milk a day[1]. I actually remember rumors about this so I wouldn’t be surprised if those same rumors spread around the bodybuilding community. It certainly seems that the soy-estrogen theory became widely accepted “bro science” somehow; I just don’t know of any evidence that it was in any way related to anti-Asian racism. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/