Excellent Reads

"[...] ChatGPT is offering this kind of illusionary sense of purpose, where they say, No, no, come to us. You aren’t useless. You’re actually the greatest mathematician on the planet. Or told Chris Mark that he was the greatest reality-TV show producer on the planet. And so on."

Chat, are we cooked?

That was fascinating. There have always been unhinged weirdos, but social media and culture wars have taken it to another level of bizarre behaviors and public personas.

This phenomena feels less about men and more about validation to me. In kindergarten when you try to impress the class by doing something that alienates a friend you learn that acting in a certain way just to please your audience can have important consequences in your relationships. If you decide FU to the friend and keep up that pattern you simply end up with no friends. To me this is what the article demonstrates, the internet giving people a way to temporarily feel validated until they realize they’ve alienated their real relationships. Now they either do the hard work of building real relationships again or they give up and become bitter people who hate the world and don’t mind hurting others.

But that change has also created some uncertainty for the men who have been used to being at the center of every household, every office, every institution, marketing campaign, and political decision.

How can men be "used to" this? When this hasn't been true for most men for decades, and it never has been for true for all men.