Why Modern Masculinity CONFUSES Young Men
Elliot Bewick presents a compelling exploration of his journey through the media landscape, punctuated by a fervent desire to actualize his potential from a young age. At 19, he has amassed years of experience that have profoundly shaped his perspective on masculinity and societal roles. His contributions to the esteemed podcast Trigonometry, where he witnessed the channel's remarkable growth, serve as a testament to his commitment to his craft and ability to adapt to a rapidly changing media environment.
Elliot's discussions delve into the nuanced complexities of masculinity, particularly in light of contemporary societal shifts that have led to the vilification of traditional masculine traits. He reflects on Andrew Klavan's impactful quote regarding the outlawing of masculinity, a sentiment that encapsulates the challenges young men face today. This outlawing has given rise to negative role models who exploit the void left by the absence of genuine male figures, further complicating the landscape for today's youth.
As he embarks on his own podcasting venture, 'The Next Generation,' Elliot seeks to create a dialogue that addresses these critical issues, aiming to provide a supportive platform for young men navigating their identities in a complex world. His vision is to inspire his peers to engage with their potential, fostering a community that encourages constructive discussions around masculinity, ultimately working towards a more positive and inclusive future.
Takeaways:
- Elliot Bewick has garnered substantial experience in the media industry, profoundly shaping his personal and professional outlook.
- Elliot emphasizes the importance of maximizing one's potential and utilizing life's opportunities to the fullest extent, a principle he has adhered to since a young age.
- He articulates a critical perspective on modern masculinity, asserting that true masculinity has been suppressed in contemporary society, leading to the emergence of detrimental role models.
- Elliot contends that the rise of toxic masculinity is a symptom of societal pressures, rather than a cause of the issues young men face today.
- The podcast discusses the importance of authentic relationships, underscoring the necessity of accepting both the strengths and weaknesses of partners in romantic engagements.
- Elliot reflects on his journey, explaining how his decision to move out at 18 was driven by a desire for growth and a commitment to challenge himself.
Links referenced in this episode:
- trigonometry
- ruby lola
- andrew klavin
- andrew tate
- sneako
- fresh and fit
- modern wisdom
- carl jung
- betterhelp
- joefazer
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Trigonometry
- Andrew Tate
- Sneako
- Fresh and Fit
- Ruby Lola
- Joe Fazer
- Chris Williamson
- Jordan Peterson
- BetterHelp
Transcript
Elliot Buick I'm 19 years old and I've been working in the media space for the last four or five years now.
Speaker A:I started very early on, and not to get too deep too early on, but I've always sort of had this aspiration to maximize my potential and do as much with the life I've been given as possible.
Speaker A:So I got into the media world straight away.
Speaker A:I was doing freelance videography.
Speaker A:I ended up producing a massive podcast called Trigonometry that you should totally check out as well.
Speaker A:After this, was working with them from 300,000 subscribers until a million.
Speaker A:And from there, those three years were super formative in my life.
Speaker A:I always tell people I went to the University of Trigg instead of actual university, and I ended up learning a lot more and coming out with a lot less debt.
Speaker A:So it was super formative for my outlook on the world and also my perception of myself.
Speaker A:And as of about a month and a half ago now, nearly two months, I went freelance to pursue my own podcast and as you should, created the next generation.
Speaker B:So, okay, so I'm going to go in the first question, because as I said earlier, I was watching the Ruby Lola podcast.
Speaker B:Brilliant.
Speaker B:Thought you were exceptionally impressive.
Speaker B:And you said, when masculinity is outlawed, only the outlaws seem masculine.
Speaker B:Or you said something along those lines.
Speaker B:How did you come up with that and what does that mean?
Speaker B:Or where did you hear it?
Speaker A:So that's actually lifted from Andrew Clavin, who speaks about this.
Speaker A:And just like your reaction to seeing that, I had the exact same reaction hearing him say that on a podcast.
Speaker A:It summarized everything that I've been thinking and the trends that I've seen developing over the last few years.
Speaker A:I know, especially since lockdown, I think that quotes become more and more relevant.
Speaker A:And essentially it says what it's on the tin if you, if you break it down.
Speaker A:Masculinity in the last few years has been outlawed, in my opinion, in the true sense of what masculinity actually is.
Speaker A:And it's been replaced with all this pseudo masculinity of what a man should be in the modern era.
Speaker A:And it's, as a result, it's caused all these outlaws pretending to be masculine, playing the masculine role.
Speaker A:People like Andrew Tate, who I despise, and I think he's done a lot of damage for society.
Speaker A:We can get into that if you want.
Speaker A:And other streamers like Sneako, just playing off this void that does need to be filled in terms of people lacking father figures.
Speaker A:You see kids in London, once they reach the age of 15, they have a 50% chance of having parents that are still together.
Speaker A:And usually when you see single parent homes, it's always the mother in charge.
Speaker A:So there's a real lack of father figures.
Speaker A:Any proper role models to actually shape your life after that aren't just preaching to and drive Bugatti's, which I don't think is the right recipe for a truly fulfilled life.
Speaker A:So I would say that people like Andrew Tate are more of a symptom rather than a cause of the problems that we're facing today.
Speaker A:And what I mean by that is he's a result of all these campaigners and activists having this thirst for hunting down toxic masculinity, which I don't think is actually a real thing.
Speaker A:And you know, as a result, they've caused a lot of these issues that we are facing and these bad role models that have absolutely blown up on the Internet in the last few years.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, it's definitely the case that when you suppress, endeavor to suppress men, you will only end up suppressing the men that in reality didn't really need suppressing because the ones that are belligerent and do can give a.
Speaker B:About what you have to say will still exist.
Speaker B:And if anything you'll encourage them and you'll magnify their existence because all the others will disappear because they'll be the considerate men and the considerate boys, I guess, will be okay, well, how do I, how should I act?
Speaker B:How do I behave?
Speaker B:What do I do?
Speaker B:And the ones that don't care will just do what they want to do and they'll just go, we definitely saw that with Andrew Tate.
Speaker B:And, and you bring up people like Sneako.
Speaker B:I forgot about Sneako.
Speaker B:But you, you've also got the podcasters, so the Fresh and Fit, the, the whatever podcast who sell a certain narrative that for whatever reason is, is very popular and, and part of it is because it, it harbors, it gives men that have a resentment towards, when we move into the dating scene that have a resentment towards women.
Speaker B:It gives them an opportunity to watch what's going on and sort of give you a.
Speaker B:They, they straw man the argument.
Speaker B:They, they exaggerate the argument so they, they bring in a specific cohort of women who are not an accurate representation.
Speaker B:So they immediately distort the landscape and then they, obviously they're, they're intelligent and they know what they're doing.
Speaker B:So they, they wrap them up in their words and they make them look sort of stupid.
Speaker B:And then it's for men to look at and go, aha, da, da, da.
Speaker B:I'm right.
Speaker B:I'm justified.
Speaker B:I feel vindicated, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:It's really interesting.
Speaker B:What was it like working for.
Speaker B:For trigonometry?
Speaker B:Because that is.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's mad.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:What's he called?
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:He.
Speaker B:I really.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's two of them.
Speaker A:Constantine kissing and Francis Foster.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker B:You know, yeah, the.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The kin.
Speaker B:Is it Con.
Speaker B:Not Konstantin, the.
Speaker B:The Russian guy, or is he.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's him.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's.
Speaker B:I really like him.
Speaker B:He's very.
Speaker B:He's very direct with the way he talks.
Speaker B:And for someone who's trying to improve their directness, then that's a really.
Speaker B:Yes, I really enjoy his work.
Speaker B:So why did you decide to branch out and do.
Speaker B:Do your own podcast?
Speaker B:What is it you want to achieve from the neck, the next generation?
Speaker B:Is it particularly young men?
Speaker B:Because, I mean, 19.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's nuts.
Speaker B:I mean, I was thinking about earlier what I was like when I was 19, and.
Speaker B:And I had ideas like I do now, but, I mean, I should have started this podcast when I was 19.
Speaker B:Imagine where we've been now.
Speaker B:But I didn't really have any.
Speaker B:I didn't have enough to say.
Speaker B:I didn't, I didn't.
Speaker B:It wasn't there.
Speaker B:So you said on the.
Speaker B:On the Ruby Lola that you.
Speaker B:You had this sort of.
Speaker B:The Ruby Lola, the podcast with her, that you had this desire in you to.
Speaker B:You said, along some of the lines of you had written down what you were like 12, exactly what it was that you wanted to.
Speaker B:To do.
Speaker B:Where do you think that came from?
Speaker A:That's such a good question.
Speaker A:It's something I've been thinking about a lot this year.
Speaker A:I moved out when I was 18 last November, nearly a year ago.
Speaker A:And since moving out, it's given me that space and time alone because I don't have many friends that live in London because obviously most of them can't afford it.
Speaker A:And I'm fortunate enough that I had a job to pay for that.
Speaker A:So it's given me that space to be alone a fair bit and reflect on things like this and on myself.
Speaker A:And I think, honestly, a lot of it does just come down to an innate desire to fill my potential.
Speaker A:That's always been there.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:That might not be what a lot of people want to hear, but it wasn't this thing magically gifted to me by someone giving me advice Or a mentor.
Speaker A:It has been there.
Speaker A:I remember When I was 13, I used to do this thing where I evaluated everything I had access to and how I could make use out of that to be the best version of myself.
Speaker A:And that's why I got into actually the fitness world before anything else was.
Speaker A:I saw that I didn't have any money, I couldn't drive, obviously.
Speaker A:Cause I was 13.
Speaker A:And I saw that I had my body, I had access to doing sit ups, doing the plank, going on runs.
Speaker A:So that's what I went for first.
Speaker A:And I think through that I learned a lot about the science of the body and how that transfers over into everything else.
Speaker A:But to actually answer your question, I don't know, I just.
Speaker A:In that moment in time, I was so grateful for the life I'd been given, how I'd been raised, that I just had this thought that I need to make the most of it.
Speaker A:And a lot of people fall into the trap of trying to make out that their upbringing is difficult.
Speaker A:And this probably stems a little bit actually from this romanticization of growing up tough and what sells online.
Speaker A:Because me coming on here and saying I love my parents, even though they're not together, they've both been there in my life.
Speaker A:They've been great role models for me.
Speaker A:I grew up in Brighton, which is a lovely place.
Speaker A:That doesn't sell the success story Hove, actually, it doesn't sell as well as someone saying I came from a broken council estate or if they did come from Hove as well, or a middle class area.
Speaker A:They have to put something into lives that seems like a struggle that they overcame, like having depression or anxiety.
Speaker A:So I think people need to be careful and they need to be as grateful as possible for everything they have going on in their lives and actually use that as fuel to raise the bar even more of what they should achieve.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I.
Speaker B:You do give off that impression of someone who was just driven.
Speaker B:It's obviously just like a biological.
Speaker B:It was just in you.
Speaker B:The fact that you, you didn't go through some like.
Speaker B:One of the questions I always ask people at the end of the podcast is, do you have a.
Speaker B:What is your.
Speaker B:What was your breaking point?
Speaker B:Because that's what it's just called the breaking point podcast.
Speaker B:I'm interested in the lowest points and I'm always all the highest points.
Speaker B:Because actually a lot of people, they find the, the biggest revelations of their life and existence can also come from the.
Speaker B:The peaks as well as the troughs.
Speaker B:But I do agree, we have romanticized and fantasized this idea of going through a struggle and the sort of the wounded individual, the wounded psyche that.
Speaker B:That needs something that.
Speaker B:To sort of galvanize it.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And this is a.
Speaker B:Yes, it's a bit of an offshoot, but there was something.
Speaker B:I don't know where it came up.
Speaker B:I just wanted to talk to you about it, but this is really random.
Speaker B:But in.
Speaker B:We're talking about.
Speaker B:When you talk about like friendships and relationships and why this generation.
Speaker B:I was thinking of why this generation of potentially struggling on those front.
Speaker B:And I was.
Speaker B:I've watched Jordan Peterson, who.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I bring up nearly every pod.
Speaker B:No, actually, no.
Speaker B:I bring him up less and less.
Speaker B:But I referenced him without referencing him.
Speaker B:And he was talking about that this guy discovered.
Speaker B:Was it France de Walt or something?
Speaker B:Someone discovered the play circuit in.
Speaker B:In mammals, which exists.
Speaker B:I'm not sure what part of the brain it exists, and I think it's probably a common altitude.
Speaker B:But he was saying that in order for play to take place, all other aspects of like our existence need to be satiated.
Speaker B:And I think part of the reason.
Speaker B:And stabilized.
Speaker B:And I think part of the reason why people are struggling to build relationships, romantic and Platonic, is because we don't exist in a society that creates a hospitable environment so that we can feel satiated across all our relationships.
Speaker B:We're too.
Speaker B:We're dysregulated and.
Speaker B:And therefore play, because effectively play is a.
Speaker B:Is a form of abstraction.
Speaker B:Making friends with people is quite a.
Speaker B:All other.
Speaker B:What am I trying to say?
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It sits at.
Speaker B:It's like at the top of the pyramid of sort of our existence.
Speaker B:We need all other things to be in place before we feel in a place to be in place before we feel in space where we can create the dynamic between someone and build relationships.
Speaker B:And I wonder if maybe that's why people are struggling, because social media is dysregulating them and all sorts of things that things are going on and therefore dating is hard.
Speaker B:You said you grew up as a.
Speaker B:You're an only child, aren't you?
Speaker B:Yes, I got it right here.
Speaker B:What was.
Speaker B:How was.
Speaker B:How was your teenagers?
Speaker B:I mean, you're still a teenager, mate.
Speaker B:But how is your sort of.
Speaker B:Did you have.
Speaker B:How did you.
Speaker B:Because you know, you're.
Speaker B:When you.
Speaker B:When Covid happened, you must have been what, like 14 or 15 or something?
Speaker A:Yes, I was 15.
Speaker B:Fifteen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So what's your opinion on this.
Speaker B:This younger generation?
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:What's.
Speaker B:What's sort of going on?
Speaker B:Because I'm I'm slightly out of it now to some degree, but you're still right in the thick of it.
Speaker A:Well, to lead back to what you were talking about earlier and I won't give the game away by answering your final question now on what was my breaking point.
Speaker A:But to give a clue it was self imposed because I grew up with a nice circumstance in terms of my family and not having to worry when the next meal will be put on the table.
Speaker A:And I think that's the issue is that ironically people are self imposing struggle on themselves but it's struggle that abdicates any responsibility rather than self imposing struggle in the sense of challenges that boost their responsibility.
Speaker A:And I think that's what lies at the heart of the issue.
Speaker A:You talk about that pyramid, I don't know if it links directly into Maslow's sort of hierarchy of needs.
Speaker A:But yeah, play being at the top reference, yeah and I completely agree with that.
Speaker A:I think play is at the top.
Speaker A:And when you put these obstacles in your own way before that, the as I've said, abdicate responsibility from yourself, you're never going to reach that state of play.
Speaker A:And that's fueled further by people espousing all these different messages on social media.
Speaker A:I mean something I've been thinking about a lot but this week is this idea that no one's coming to save you.
Speaker A:And that's been really popular as this David Goggins message to counter people giving themselves self diagnosed anxiety or adhd.
Speaker A:But I just think that with the technology available and the incentives at play, having a more nuanced message doesn't necessarily lend itself to selling.
Speaker A:So on one side you've got what I've diagnosed in society as people self imposing struggles that abdicate responsibility of anything.
Speaker A:But then on the other side you've got people taking too much responsibility, especially in the manosphere.
Speaker A:Do you think all the incels that are rising in numbers constantly need to hear that no one is coming to save you?
Speaker A:That's the last thing they need to hear.
Speaker A:And I think it ties into this loss of community and connection with other people.
Speaker A:There's obviously a grain of truth in that that you do need to sort your out.
Speaker A:And I think the sad thing is that you do need to be able to show and demonstrate to people some form of capability for them to be willing to reach out and save you.
Speaker A:But to just say that no one's coming to save you ever is is completely wrong in my opinion.
Speaker A:And the most beautiful things I've experienced in my life, whether it's this fun at the top of the pyramid or if it's help from older mentors to get me to that place of being able to have fun, it's because of other people coming and not necessarily saving me, but helping me and guiding me in the right direction.
Speaker A:Just like producing trigonometry, that was a huge life changing job for me.
Speaker A:It was three years where I got to meet the most incredible people and work with the most incredible people, all much older than myself.
Speaker A:And they, they didn't need to give me that job, they didn't need to keep on giving me job changes and promoting me.
Speaker A:But they had faith in me when they first brought me on.
Speaker A:And that faith in many ways was them saving me from maybe.
Speaker A:I mean I would have never gone to university, but.
Speaker A:But if I was someone else, them giving me that would have made me avoid going to university and following the crowd like many people do.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think you, you bring up.
Speaker B:It's a really, really good point, the idea of no one's come to save you.
Speaker B:I think something like that.
Speaker B:And as you said, that sells more than a more nuanced approach that fits into the category of.
Speaker B:So the sort of.
Speaker B:The Buddhist idea is that life is suffering and that's an incredibly exaggerated and void of the nuances of life.
Speaker B:It's just a statement, short statement.
Speaker B:Life is suffering, get on with it.
Speaker B:And the idea of something like that I think is to act as like an undergird so that you fall back on that.
Speaker B:And I think it's the same sentiment with that idea of no one's coming to save you.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:If you can contend with that, truth or not, not truth contend with that potent possibility, then you're, you're configuring yourself in a way that means that you're, you may feel or maybe more capable to contend in a world where it is pretty cutthroat and it, and it is, it's, it is ruthless.
Speaker B:So yeah.
Speaker B:What do you, do you think that maybe is possibly something to do with this idea that it's a, a short pocketed statement that is.
Speaker B:Grabs your attention but you, it takes like a nuanced brain to look at it and go, okay, well maybe that's not true in its entirety, but there's a sentiment there that is trying to help me feel, empower me.
Speaker B:I hate that word empower, but encouraged me to build myself up so that I.
Speaker B:It's basically saying don't walk around in the dark because you might bump into something, but it's not always going to be dark.
Speaker B:It's not saying that that's really bad.
Speaker B:I try to come up with a pithy little comment.
Speaker B:I can't come up with them.
Speaker B:But yeah, let's.
Speaker B:I'm going to get onto this list because I really want to.
Speaker B:I want to get through some of this.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, no, I take that pushback, though, and just to address that quickly, I think that you're right to bring that up.
Speaker A:And I wouldn't necessarily even blame David Goggins for that lack of nuance.
Speaker A:I talk about how we're living now in the death of nuance, and that's simply because of the way that the message is distributed.
Speaker A:You know, that the medium is the message.
Speaker A:And when you have all these short tiktoks with inspirational music playing in the background of Goggins just saying that first part.
Speaker A:And I'm sure, you know, I mean, take me as an example.
Speaker A:I don't actually know what he says after that because I haven't delved into the full podcast.
Speaker A:Maybe he does say, but actually you need to build community as well and friends.
Speaker A:So it's not necessarily his fault.
Speaker A:But I just think that right now it's not necessarily what we need to model our lives on.
Speaker A:And a lot of people are just modeling their lives on that.
Speaker A:No one is coming to save you.
Speaker A:Go Monk mode.
Speaker A:Go mgtow.
Speaker A:Men go their own way.
Speaker A:And they're retreating into these isolated communities online where ironically, you're ostracized for getting out of them.
Speaker A:You see things like incel forumed and mgtow when people mention any inkling of success with a girl or branching away from this online community of complaining about the rest of the world and not just focusing on yourself, which I think is very selfish.
Speaker A:They get absolutely hammered down and they get kicked out of the group and then they're literally left for dead.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I take your pushback and I think it's definitely valid.
Speaker A:And there's obviously impact with these short slogans.
Speaker A:You can't add a nuance to everything when you're communicating it to mass audiences, necessarily straight away and like a hashtag.
Speaker A:But I don't know that that approach is the right approach at the moment because we see people drifting further and further away from society at the moment.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And also it's.
Speaker B:It's a non q humanitarian community based outlook, which fundamentally is not a good way of being if you want to be, if you want to exist in a.
Speaker B:In a sort of conducive way to positive mental health.
Speaker B:So let's let's move on to a little bit of modern.
Speaker B:Modern dating.
Speaker B:Because I think that's really interesting.
Speaker B:And you.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker B:You talk about that a lot, so I think you talk about those things a lot.
Speaker B:But it's something that I wanted to explore.
Speaker B:So there's this thing called Brifold's Law.
Speaker B:Did you see it on the thing that I sent you?
Speaker B:Did you Google it?
Speaker A:I did indeed.
Speaker B:Did you know about it before?
Speaker A:I'm aware, yeah.
Speaker A:I'm familiar.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So for anyone that doesn't know what Brifolds Law is, it's basically the idea that a relationship doesn't occur unless there is a clear and obvious benefit for the female.
Speaker B:And I look at some of that, and I think that's a very, very interesting.
Speaker B:I think, and logical point of view.
Speaker B:And I think one of the.
Speaker B:The guy who's.
Speaker B:Who's the.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The con.
Speaker B:Constantine guy or something.
Speaker B:The guy of trigonometry.
Speaker B:The other guy?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:What's his name?
Speaker B:I need to remember his name.
Speaker B:What's his name?
Speaker A:Constantine.
Speaker B:Kissing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, he's Constantine.
Speaker B:Okay, cool.
Speaker B:So Constantine, I was the little clip, and it was Stephen Barlett, which.
Speaker B:Meh.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:How can men along.
Speaker B:One of those videos.
Speaker B:He does loads of them.
Speaker B:And it was with Constantine, and he said, the number one thing men can do to improve their position is improve themselves.
Speaker B:And I think that's absolutely the case with the we.
Speaker B:Any man out there that's struggling, all they can really do is work on who they are and build aspects of themselves because we society is where it is.
Speaker B:And I'm going to very sort of cliche, stereotypical point.
Speaker B:But just to promise the point, we've balanced the world, I suppose, to some degree.
Speaker B:And as a result, that has meant that it's harder to raise.
Speaker B:As a man, it's harder to raise your status because you're now no longer just competing with other men, you're competing with women.
Speaker B:And therefore, that means that you have a greater pool of discrepancy from where you are to where you could be.
Speaker B:And women.
Speaker B:The hypergamy and things like that.
Speaker B:And I've lost my train of thought from what I was gonna.
Speaker B:My original question was gonna ask when you did that live video.
Speaker B:Not live video.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The what?
Speaker B:What'd you call it?
Speaker A:Public interviews.
Speaker B:Yeah, public interviews.
Speaker B:What was your takeaway from.
Speaker B:From doing that?
Speaker A:Well, I guess, firstly, just to pick up on that point of Brifolds Law.
Speaker A:It's fascinating and it's very closely linked to this idea of hypergamy, which is that women always marry up or get in relationship with men that have this higher status in society than them relative to the current culture, whatever.
Speaker A:Whatever higher status means.
Speaker A:And I think that there's pretty conclusive evidence on that that that is the case generally.
Speaker A:And obviously you have to always preface this with, like, generally.
Speaker A:It's not 100% of the time.
Speaker A:I think a lot of that projecting onto a woman, I can relate to that completely.
Speaker A:I mean, I've had relationships in the past where it was almost as if I was seeing a different person to who was really there.
Speaker A:And I didn't realize that until I got out of the relationship.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:I don't know about this, but my bro, science hat on.
Speaker A:It's probably down to the fact that women are the gatekeepers ultimately.
Speaker A:So they don't need to project ever onto a man because they can just find the one that actually lines up with everything that they want.
Speaker A:Whereas with a man, if you've got a hype, go for it, go for it.
Speaker B:No, no, no, I will carry.
Speaker B:I just want to.
Speaker B:I think that women do project.
Speaker B:I think fantasy is just as key for women as it is for men, actually.
Speaker B:Well, different way.
Speaker A:Yes, fantasy is definitely a key player, but not in the sense of romanticizing what that man is.
Speaker A:Whereas with a man, sometimes they just have to accept that, you know, or they don't accept.
Speaker A:They pretend that this woman is everything they ever dreamt of, but she might not be.
Speaker A:But one of the key problems I would diagnose, and it is linked to the female fantasy, is this idea nowadays that a relationship has to be perfect if you're not soulmates.
Speaker A:If you are soulmates, then you're never going to have any issues.
Speaker A:That's what a soulmate is.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And you see this idealized on TikTok and all these different platforms.
Speaker A:You see all these couples that have millions of followers and they live this incredible lifestyle.
Speaker A:They seem to just constantly be so in love with each other.
Speaker A:There's never any obstruction to their relationship.
Speaker A:There's never any issues that they're working out.
Speaker A:And that's complete fantasy.
Speaker A:We don't accept that.
Speaker A:Actually, part of loving someone is taking them for what you love about them and also their flaws that you think could.
Speaker A:Could be changed slightly.
Speaker A:And that goes both ways.
Speaker A:You need to both work on that.
Speaker A:So I think that's a huge cause of this bifurcation of men and women going different ways, whether it's politically or just socially in their relationships.
Speaker A:It's because we're not willing to put the graft in and accept people for their inadequacies.
Speaker A:And again, like, I'm preaching to the crowd here because I'm part of that.
Speaker A:I know that that's true because I've experienced that.
Speaker A:I know that I can download a dating app or go on Instagram, have access to pretty much the majority of the population that are on that platform and see someone that's better looking or at least online because they probably altered their images than the girl that I'm going on a date on.
Speaker A:So there's always that.
Speaker A:But what if.
Speaker A:What if I found someone that was better?
Speaker A:But I've seen this girl online and I never have to listen to that girl online talk about how her cousin's barbers dog shit all over the floor and they have to clean it up.
Speaker A:She just seems really interesting.
Speaker A:But we're not shown the reality of these relationships.
Speaker A:And I can guarantee that if we were, there would be a lot more arguing than you think.
Speaker A:And you see this reflected in people.
Speaker A:Like, I don't know if you're familiar with Joe Fazer, but he's this massive fitness influencer in the uk.
Speaker A:I love his content.
Speaker A:I've grown up on it.
Speaker A:He's only like a couple years older than me.
Speaker A:He makes a video every time he gets a new girlfriend, sort of showing her off to the Internet.
Speaker A:He's clearly really encapsulated by her and is desperate to show his audience because, you know, he's, he's, he's done great.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:He's pulled a fit bird or whatever.
Speaker A:And it gets portrayed as this perfect thing.
Speaker A:The months go by, they're training in the gym together, and you're like, I wish I had this.
Speaker A:I just, I really want what Joe Fazer has or whoever this other insert influencer name.
Speaker A:And then suddenly you see this huge blowout where they break up and one of them gets outed for abusing the other, and then the other one makes a response video and says, no, she was abusing me.
Speaker A:Which is exactly what happened with Joe Fazer's case.
Speaker A:I don't know if you're following, but cubed back and forth.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you're like, wow, I would have never expected this because all I saw portrayed online was this perfect fantasy utopia of a relationship.
Speaker A:So you're completely right that women and men have these wild fantasies that seem to run off on themselves.
Speaker A:And I think there's a magic in having that and having access to that too.
Speaker A:But we just need to be careful about taking it too far.
Speaker A:For sure.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, that's the thing is.
Speaker B:Is lust can fade.
Speaker B:Not even lust can fade.
Speaker B:It's the.
Speaker B:The flame of.
Speaker B:Of love will eventually will burn out.
Speaker B:Yeah, I.
Speaker B:Interesting one.
Speaker B:I watched a bit of his podcast with.
Speaker B:With a Ruby as well.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Cause I remember I didn't realize he was so young.
Speaker B:I thought he would have been sort of around my age, but he must have 21 to be fair.
Speaker B:And to.
Speaker B:To be his size is pretty impressive.
Speaker B:Fair play.
Speaker B:What did you get from your podcast with.
Speaker B:With George the Tin Man?
Speaker B:Well, the Tin man, the main thing.
Speaker A:I've taken away from having this friendship that I've now got with George, and I'm very lucky to be able to sort of tap into him with whenever I want.
Speaker A:And we're hopefully going to be doing some things together in the future, which is super exciting.
Speaker A:So stay tuned for that next Gen X Tin Man.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But the main thing that has really just been bouncing off the walls inside my head for the last few weeks since recording with him is this idea of men just needing to talk.
Speaker A:You see it all the time.
Speaker A:Every single mental health charity.
Speaker A:I don't know what the hashtag is.
Speaker A:There's definitely hashtags.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Simple hashtag for everything.
Speaker A:But it's just this idea that if men speak up, all their problems will be solved.
Speaker A:And he says, I think, quoted from Susie Bennett, I could be wrong, that speaking up is like taking the lid off of a pot of boiling water.
Speaker A:It reduces that water down and it might calm it temporarily, but the stove's still on and eventually that water is going to bubble up again.
Speaker A:You're not actually getting to the root of the cause is what I take from that.
Speaker A:And I think it's so true.
Speaker A:People are just told all the time to go to therapy.
Speaker A:I don't know if you get this, but on my YouTube, 50% of my ads are just like BetterHelp or whatever.
Speaker A:The literal editor is popping up all the time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:As someone who never Googles, you know, why am I upset?
Speaker A:How can I make myself happier?
Speaker A:Which would then tie into them feeding ads like it just pops up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which is wild.
Speaker A:So there's this mass commodification of speaking about your problems rather than doing anything about them.
Speaker A:And it's so odd to see.
Speaker A:I don't quite know how we've gotten to this point where we've advanced so much in the world and we've got phones in our pockets that are over a million times the processing power of the Apollo 11 just 50 years ago, whenever it was.
Speaker A:Yet we've started treating the symptoms rather than actually rooting out the problem.
Speaker A:Like, how is this a thing?
Speaker A:It blows my mind.
Speaker A:It's so dumb and just logically flawed.
Speaker A:Like it's inherent in that that you're never going to solve it.
Speaker A:You're just going to keep on taking that lid off and letting the water bubble down until one day you forget to take the lid off and the water bubbles over and destroys your kitchen.
Speaker A:So that's the big thing that I've taken from George is this idea of talking.
Speaker A:And my spin on it is that men do need to talk about their issues for sure.
Speaker A:But looking at myself and thinking about this with what I would want if I faced troubles and when I have faced lower points in my life, I would never, never, never, never go to therapy.
Speaker A:Because it's, to be honest, it feels like it's sacrificing my masculinity.
Speaker A:This is me being very open here.
Speaker A:It would take the sting out of my feeling of being able to overcome anything, having to sort of bend down and kneel to my problems and speak to someone about them.
Speaker A:Whereas if you didn't use the term talk someone or therapy, but if you told me, hey bro, let's go to the gym and let's have a session where we hit legs and we reflect on our cognitive state and where we are at in relation to our peak optimal mental performance and just masked it up in all this like self improvement, I'd go, yes, let's go.
Speaker A:That's genius.
Speaker A:It's very important that we stay on top of what's affecting our lives.
Speaker A:So I think we almost need to engage in this word game that's taken place and flip the way we even speak about speaking.
Speaker A:Instead of saying, go and speak to a therapist, go and get therapy, you know, it's okay to not be okay.
Speaker A:I think the self improvement space, and it's something I want to push a lot would benefit just from taking a different verbal spin on it and kind of making the approach to mental health more scientific rather than all this floaty, airy, fairy language around it.
Speaker A:So for sure, I think that would, that would help a lot more people speaking, but in the sense of wanting to be able to perform better in their jobs, in their lives, make better connections and just, just taking that sort of very, I don't know, I think it's demoralizing the way it's currently spoken about.
Speaker A:It's kind of like you're a victim, speak up about it.
Speaker A:I pity you so that's one thing.
Speaker A:And on top of that, not just talking, but actually getting to the root of the cause, which, which can be gone to from talking maybe sometimes, but also doing things practically, especially with men, is super important.
Speaker A:Typically girls like to speak about things a lot more and they like to sort of know that they're listened to with their friends and they'll speak about it for a few hours and maybe get to the bottom.
Speaker A:But with men, they just want solutions and I definitely feel that myself.
Speaker A:And there's, there's this thing going around of like, men would rather reenact the Battle of Troy with their friends than go to therapy.
Speaker A:Men would rather build a toy train for five weeks than go to therapy.
Speaker A:And it's sort of laughed at, but actually that's just the truth.
Speaker A:And maybe actually that is what men need rather than going to therapy and sort of being lectured or at least sort of told what to do by someone, which I think by the way as well is sort of designed more for women than men.
Speaker A:I don't think therapy is very good for most men.
Speaker A:Maybe they do just need to go out with their mates and reenact the Battle of Troy and feel like a warrior for a couple of hours.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So a big part of it is doing things.
Speaker A:And yeah, I'm just really sick of this culture of thinking, the virtue signaling about being there for someone rather than actually doing something and saying, do you know what, you're better than this.
Speaker A:You can get through this.
Speaker A:Let's look at the steps to do that.
Speaker A:What is it that's going wrong with your life?
Speaker A:You don't just need to talk about something.
Speaker A:Actually, you haven't been outside the last three weeks.
Speaker A:You don't have a job that's keeping you feeling like you're driving forwards in life and your diet is.
Speaker A:You're drinking three cans of monster a day.
Speaker A:I say as I look at two on my kitchen top.
Speaker A:So we do need to fix things and diagnose the direct problems in our lives, not just diagnose that we're having problems.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think I all I've said many times for anyone who's struggling in life in any aspect and in a general aspect as well, you have to look at the micro details of your life and say, what are you?
Speaker B:What am I consuming nutritionally, holistically, not holistically, what's the words virtually screen wise, what is I'm, what am I taking into myself?
Speaker B:What am I?
Speaker B:Where am I allowing my thoughts to go?
Speaker B:What am I?
Speaker B:What thoughts?
Speaker A:And we do it for every other thing.
Speaker A:We do it for a cat if it's unwell and keeps on crying.
Speaker A:You don't think that the cat just needs to articulate that it's feeling unwell to its feline friends, whatever the word is, for cats.
Speaker A:You have a look at its diet, if it's unwell, if it's got a splinter in its foot that you need to take out.
Speaker A:So it's so funny that we don't do it for ourselves.
Speaker B:What do you think the future.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:Where do you think young men are going to go?
Speaker B:Because the stats don't look great in many ways.
Speaker B:Like, young men are four times more likely to kill themselves than young women.
Speaker B:I think it's like 80% of suicides now are young male.
Speaker B:It's really bad.
Speaker B:And obviously no one's talking about it, which is a whole other conversation which I don't really want to get into, because what's the point?
Speaker B:But what do you think young men need to do and where do you think they need to turn and what should they turn away from?
Speaker B:That was another.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, the future knows it's great.
Speaker A:The future, on the other hand, isn't.
Speaker A:It's bleak.
Speaker A:And the stats all align on that.
Speaker A:You've got 54% of men not having had sex any time or.
Speaker A:Sorry, 54% of men didn't have a single girlfriend in their teenage years.
Speaker A:So as of next year, if I hadn't ever had a girlfriend, I'd be part of that 54%.
Speaker A:So if you're down a pub, half of your mates wouldn't have any stories to tell of off on a vacation and having an adventure with a girl or whatever.
Speaker A:Like all these.
Speaker A:All these things that make up the human experience and living life.
Speaker A:So that's terrifying.
Speaker A: xed up with is that it was in: Speaker A:They hadn't had any sex in the last year, and now it's closer to about 50%.
Speaker A:So that's not great.
Speaker A:And then on top of that, I've sort of got this theory of what's going to unfold.
Speaker A:And these are big questions that we're grappling with.
Speaker A:And if I had the answer, then I would have a lot of you, then I do.
Speaker A:But I've got this fun theory that I've been toying with.
Speaker A:And it's this idea that, with men watching more and more and getting used to this idea of sort of almost digitally cucking themselves where they're getting turned on by another guy Shagna woman.
Speaker A:And then simultaneously, you've got women becoming statistically ever more liberal and open for polyamory.
Speaker A: years from: Speaker A:I can see a possible future in the nearby decade or two where polyamory is completely normalized because you've got men getting used to it being okay and getting turned on by it.
Speaker A:Then you've got women following these ideologies that promote polyamory.
Speaker A:And that is empowering to sleep with as many men as possible.
Speaker A:So that's something just to throw out there as an idea.
Speaker B:But anyone don't.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:Just one little thing that would be.
Speaker B:So that would be the death of society.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:That will.
Speaker B:That will kill our species.
Speaker B:There are so many reasons why that will ruin our livelihoods.
Speaker B:And there's.
Speaker B:And I think feminists, there are.
Speaker B:The stats on polyamorous and monogamous societies and domestic abuse are quite incredible, actually.
Speaker B:Monogamous societies, the domestic abuse rates are far lower.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Yeah, sorry to interrupt you, but that's.
Speaker B:That's not good if that does happen, by the way.
Speaker B:But carry on.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And funnily enough, monogamous society is best for women and kids.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're the ones that benefit from it the most because 80% of history was polygynous, which means a man with multiple wives.
Speaker A:And it was disastrous for women and kids because men would have to distribute their attention span and their protection to more people.
Speaker A:And as you rightly point out, the case of domestic violence are much higher when you don't have monogamous relationships.
Speaker A:So that's all something to consider for those people that espousing these ideas that polyamory is great and freeing.
Speaker A:But that's a bleak overview of what could happen at the same time.
Speaker A:And the reason why I'm so driven to embark on this mission of the next generation, which is to guide my generation, Gen Z, and your generation, in the right direction.
Speaker A:We're the same generation because I.
Speaker A:Yeah, we are.
Speaker A:You're at the top end, mate.
Speaker A:You're still in there.
Speaker B:I'm still in there.
Speaker A:I think it's all out there for the taking at the moment.
Speaker A:And the scale is very finely poised.
Speaker A:It could go catastrophically wrong in one direction.
Speaker A:But I do think that there is hope and I am very optimistic that if we can get the right role models in place online and align incentives digitally to actually push us towards creating value and telling the truth, rather than saying things that sound good and lying for views.
Speaker A:Stoking up fear of World War Three, saying that you just need to buy my course and your whole life will be solved.
Speaker A:If we can move away from that by carefully realigning the mechanics of apps, and I don't have to do that.
Speaker A:I'm not a programmer, but it's something that I'm thinking about and working towards a lot, then I think there is hope.
Speaker A:And our Generation is on TikTok more than any other generation.
Speaker A:And we've grown up in this information age where we've got access to anything we want at the click of a button.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:And it's not spoken about enough, that if we harness that properly, there's untold success to be had.
Speaker A:I mean, I wouldn't say that I've had untold success, but I've definitely been able to do a lot of things that I would have never have been able to do at age 19 or even, you know, 16, 17, 18, just 20 years ago.
Speaker A:And that's all down to technology.
Speaker A:Not just being able to reach out to people and get work through them and meet up with new people, new clients, but also just the role models in my life.
Speaker A:I've got access to Chris Williamson, who's 15 years older than me or whatever, and he's spent a life building up all this knowledge through experience.
Speaker A:I can tap into that by just clicking on Modern Wisdom and watching videos by him.
Speaker A:Before, you would have to know a really wise man in the village and allocate some time to speak to him if he's not fully booked by the rest of the village speaking to him.
Speaker A:Whereas now, you know, you can tap into as much as you want.
Speaker B:Carl Jung said, beware of unearned wisdom, and he was a very wise man.
Speaker B:I do think that's the case.
Speaker B:Beware of unearned wisdom.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And this is something I'd be very careful to point out, is that I'm not trying to come into this industry and pretend that I'm the wisest man out there, and that's why you should listen to me.
Speaker A:But I am aware that I've had access to a lot of people that have genuine wisdom.
Speaker A:I've been fortunate enough to sit and have dinners with these people, be in the same rooms as them, and I feel a bit of a sense of duty to use that gift that's being given to me to explore further into the issues that my generation is facing and try to work towards the solutions and promote the ideas that I think do actually work.
Speaker A:So it's super positive.
Speaker A:I do think that if the right content does win over, we could be like one of the most successful generations for decades and hundreds of years.
Speaker A:Like, it's, it's exciting.
Speaker A:We should be excited by this.
Speaker A:Men do need to step up sometimes.
Speaker A:And that whole adage from Jordan Peterson that you want to be the, the toughest guy at the funeral, whatever he says.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think there's anonymity of truth in that.
Speaker A:And, and, and you should take.
Speaker A:Yeah, your dad's funeral.
Speaker A:Um, I want to be the toughest guy at my dad's funeral for sure that everyone can lean on.
Speaker A:And regardless of people's opinion on whether that's right or wrong, I'm going to have to be, I really know it.
Speaker A:So I need to work towards being able to do that.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I think you definitely are on the way, my boy.
Speaker B:Definitely.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Let's talk about the, the point, if there is something to say about, about your breaking point to end the show.
Speaker A:My breaking point was when I just moved out from home.
Speaker A:It was self imposed to London.
Speaker A:I had everything a kid could possibly want.
Speaker A:The most incredible mother would cook me any meal I wanted at any point.
Speaker A:It was just down to me how much I wanted to take advantage of that.
Speaker A:And naturally being a kid, you are gonna accept these resources and you're gonna take the piss a little bit.
Speaker A:Whether that's right or wrong, it's just the fact.
Speaker A:I know so many people that sort of get called by their parents and they, they love it.
Speaker A:But I was very aware of that.
Speaker A:And I love my mum to bits.
Speaker A:I loved where I lived a bit to have all my friends there.
Speaker A:I chose to move out not because I was unhappy with my circumstances, but because I was too happy and too comfortable.
Speaker A:I looked at anyone that had ever done anything great and I saw this pattern that they had these uncomfortable experiences.
Speaker A:So I thought, I need to put this on myself, challenge myself and grow.
Speaker A:So I started looking for apartments in southeast London to rent near the studio that I was working in at the time.
Speaker A:I found one straightaway snapped up.
Speaker A:It was actually ironically the first one that I ever saw when I was looking.
Speaker A:I was like, wow, this would be incredible, but it's expensive.
Speaker A:Then it went off the market.
Speaker A:I looked at one in the same building that wasn't as nice and got told on the day, this one's just come back on the market and it was the one that I saw a few weeks prior that had gone off the market.
Speaker A:And I was like, okay, I have to do this is fate.
Speaker A:And even just, yeah, it's, it's fate.
Speaker A:Not, not that I am like religious about this stuff, but I was just like, yeah, okay, let's do it.
Speaker A:So I, I moved out, spent all my money and I actually had to pay six months up front because I didn't meet the minimum income, income requirement.
Speaker A:Luckily, I had some money saved up from my job.
Speaker A:And I remember so distinctly it was December, middle of winter, My best friend had come to visit and being a good host, I took us to the nearby convenience shop to get a couple of soft drinks for us and like a packet of sweets or something.
Speaker A:And I remember my card literally getting declined for this, like, three pound order that I'd placed.
Speaker A:Having to dig into my pockets and spend these last British coins that I had to be able to get that for us.
Speaker A:And I thought, okay, this is as low as I can go and I'm never going to be in this position again.
Speaker A:And from there we built.
Speaker A:And I can, I can happily say that I took that risk.
Speaker A:It paid off massively.
Speaker A:It's changed my life.
Speaker A:And I'm now moving apartments with a lot more than two quid to spend on strawberry laces, so it was worth the risk.
