Summary
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”. Another said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine’”.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action… to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists.”
He should meet a Luigi.
The problem isn’t that we need to get rid of Tate. They are like flies and there will always be more like him.
What we need to figure out is what made him so persuasive to young boys - that’s the real problem. We need to know why young boys are willing to listen to bullshit like his, and we must figure out what we can do to correct that.
Because all we hear about men from the left is that women would rather be with bears, and that men are useless. And that they are oppressing everyone with their privilege.
You tell some poor white kid he’s privileged, he’s not going to be your friend or sympathetic to your causes.
I don’t think messaging from the left has really done anything to win them over. It’s not necessarily that Andrew Tate is telling them anything amazing. He’s just a voice not blaming them for everything.
This is really it.
It’s not even a left vs. right debate at this point. It’s a problem with human psychology where we can’t accept a modest approach to anything. Everything has to be blown out of proportion and distorted to the point it’s not even representative of reality.
Either people are 100% with you, or they’re 100% against you.
I blame reddit and forums like these, honestly, for playing a big role in creating this divide.
It’s a problem with human psychology where we can’t accept a modest approach to anything.
This is nonsense, the rightwing has clearly evolved this way but provide evidence the leftwing has or stop repeating this narrative of “both sides”.
Y’all will “both sides” everything right up until a conservative yells a slur at you and kicks you out the door as you get deported to a brutal prison in an authoritarian country because conservatives decided you weren’t worthy of basic human rights.
Then again maybe you will still sit in your cell shaking your head saying to yourself “damn, both sides got so extreme” .
edit how about you provide some evidence instead of just downvoting like an intellectual coward?
You. You call your own allies intellectual cowards. You’re part of the reason the left drives it’s own support away.
The only people driving people away right now are centrists… which is why those of us on the left are so worried.
Maybe it’s because all we hear from your type is how immigrants are the root of all problems, “all lives matter” and junk like that.
What a great example of what they were talking about!
What’s my type? You couldn’t have made my point for me any harder than you just did. You just irrationally lashed out at an ally.
What we need to figure out is what made him so persuasive to young boys
Why is this a mystery to people? Everything is falling apart and most adults are in denial about it, kids are going to follow people like this because they sense the nihilism of the moment that their parent’s can’t handle confronting.
We do need to get rid of Andrew Tate though I will settle for him going back to jail, but his popularity isn’t a mystery. There is a very clear pipeline to make money as a conservative influencer, this is then ultimately an issue of money being poured into manipulating children.
No positive father figure in their lives. No sense of community. Stigma from male role models that want to step up but fear being branded a PDF.
A big part of this is the shallow takes on feminism that are so pervasive.
And to be clear, it’s not feminism itself that is the problem. It’s the complete lack of nuance we have when discussing topics as a society. The idiots outnumber the thoughtful people, and when an idea becomes mainstream, the dumbest possible take is the loudest and the easiest to spread. So actual feminism got out-yelled by idiots taking the idea to the most illogical extreme.
And that leads to light misandry. And even if it is light, it’s so pervasive that young boys now feel like they’re being overlooked and ignored, demonized and generalized with the worst men have to offer.
And again, I have to stress, that this isn’t because of feminism, it’s because of the lack of nuance surrounding all discussion, but in this case, the discussion around men/feminist issues. It’s much easier to spread “all men are garbage” than it is to spread “women have historically faced complex issues that, together, are a societal stumbling block resulting in less favor in everyday life and a harder, more complicated existence.”
And when this is the case, men like these assholes step in to tell boys, “fuck women, you are a king and you deserve everything.” And what little boy isn’t going to be empowered by that? We need to have space for men in modern society that is supportive and open, because right now the only “support for young men” comes from assholes trying to capitalize on the complicated feelings of suddenly feeling like they’re being unfairly overlooked.
Now, that also has to take into account that if the boys are ever overlooked, it’s because there have been centuries of unequal treatment for women, and that has to start to be righted somewhere. And it’s only been in the last, like, 30-50 years. And in all that time, we haven’t taken the high road to equality, we’ve taken the easy road hyperbole and simplistic solutions, which doesn’t solve the existing problem, it just gives us new ones—like this exact problem we’re dealing with now.
Thanks for writing out your thoughts like this. I try to make this point again and again in different settings but it often does not illicit a thoughtful response.
I honestly don’t have a strong sense of how Tate can be so popular. But if I had to guess, I’d say the “no sense of community” is probably the biggest thing.
The internet has become a gathering place where communities and social bonds are formed. I can imagine a heap of people who are struggling socially in the real world seeing, and then seeing Tate and his community offer an ‘answer’ to that - supporting those who feel rejected, and putting the blame squarely on others. That’s what I see as the draw that brings people in. They feel safe and secure in their haven of hatred. Any opposition to them is from people that are weaker and less important. – Which then makes leaving the group almost impossible, because you’d have to degrade your own view of yourself - joining the people who you think are weaker and less important.
So this Tate thing is rot that has taken root because of a gap in more healthy support structures. (I don’t see an easy solution for it though!)
You can do both
We only talk about the absolute worst men. We have raised them to think that the right is the party for them because otherwise they are being told over and over that they are dangerous predators and nothing more.
“There are too many assholes in the world because people let them get away with it.” - Mr Inbetween
Society when kids are no longer wearing a uniform, have the same haircut, answer with a stoic “yes madam” and can be beaten into submission in school.
This is a problem that needs to be dealt with with better schooling. More teachers and new and updated curricula.
Yes, maybe parents are getting “worse” or kids are less “behaved”, but what would it matter?
Also I really doubt it. Kids probably have more things to deal with and struggle with that. Same goes for parents I think.
“Society when kids are no longer … beaten into submission” is exactly the take I needed to get my morning going!
I meant that as it was in the past. Obviously it’s bad. Not saying we should go back
As I’m collecting downvotes I realize that my post can be read as a defense of kids that like andrew tate.
Fuck tate and all other rightwinger fascists.
I meant to direct my comment at people who say “kids these days are bad”.
I don’t know about other downvoters, but i downvoted you because you said kids should be beaten into submission at school. Corporal punishment is the refuge of bad parents and it’s not a teacher’s job to harm your children that way. There is not a single justifiable reason that you need to be physically violent with a child to educate them. In fact, that only makes it worse. You either raise a fearful child or a hateful one. Either way, in my book, it’s child abuse and you were calling for it.
And boy would i cause all sorts of sky falling down trouble on the poor soul that decided to physically assault my child, undoing my job of teaching that violence is only a tool of self defense. I suffered significant corporal punishment growing up and i can guarantee it improved my life in no way.
Wtf I don’t condone that archaic behavior. I meant that’s why kids behaved in the old days, because they had to, or else.
Nowadays we need better schooling.
That’s how I meant it.
It’s kind of weird people are taking that literally.
Also just a weird is how the internet predominantly lays the blame solely on parents. And people love to absolve everyone else especially teachers of any childhood development responsibilities. LIke the saying goes, ‘it takes a village’. Teachers are as much parents as anyone else in the village. The aunts/uncles, neighbors, corner store clerk, mailman, police officer. When kids act up, the adults have to correct it.
Yet the internet generally just glares at the parents. Then again it stands to reason parents or broadly speaking people who actively engage in parenting roles aren’t chronically online. They’re actually raising children.
People wonder why things are the way they are. Maybe it’s because the village has absconded.
If I had kids I should damn well hope they get a beating at school when they step out of line. Figuratively of course. Because. The internet seems to have lost all reading comprehension. Maybe they weren’t beat enough at school either… Figuratively I mean.
I am sorry but to me this reads as if you want kids to be beaten
When I was 10, or 13 there were literally no issues like this at all. Well, I didn’t even think about girls that much at that age, let alone in overly sexual way, lol.
What the actual fuck is happening with society recently? Is everybody going insane because of social media?
I can really recommend the mini series Adolesence on Netflix (or wherever) to get a great, dramatized example of how this effect looks like.
There was always a large number of stupid kids who were jerks in school, but it was always hidden behind a mentality of stern rebukes of fights and an occasional suspension. Now, all of those same types of moronic assholes have a digital distillated stream of garbage that fits with their natural tendancies, putting these idiots into hyperdrive.
Honestly, it’s probably better that the problem gets worse so that it unmasks the high amount of bullying and abuse that’s normally accepted in schools.
Worst of all, when bullies harass and attack and beat people over and over in school, on the rare occasion when a student defends themself, the defender often ends up charged because “cool” bullies get a free pass unless bones are broken or the victim dies, while uncool victims are castigated by schools for defending themselves. The unfortunate recent charging of the innocent Karmelo Anthony with murder for refusing to be bullied by some asshole jock is an excellent example of this.
Andrew Tate is not the problem, this problem has existed for a long time with school just letting it fester. Tate at least finally makes the problem noticeable. The problem has always been school administrators who allow this sort of stuff to happen.
When I worked in a middle school a couple years back, I heard the Tate shit there. Had a student who would name their Kahoot something like “[female students name] has a nice ass” and administration would refuse to allow me to impose consequences.
If you are around teen boys, please talk to them about Tate. He’s not someone who should be walking free, and he’s not someone children should be listening to.
I’ve already raised 3 wonderful & respectful children into mostly functional men, but if I had ever gotten a call like that, the child in question wouldn’t have had a phone or seen another webpage until after they moved out as an adult.
Alternate idea: it’s not my job to raise someone else’s kids.
If youre a teacher you need to quit. Now.
No it isnt our job to raise someone else’s kids but it is our job to educate them. Not just on curriculum. Teaching isnt just shoving curriculum down students’ throats, calling it a day, and getting your summer vacation.
Our job is to help students succeed as people. The curriculum is one small part of that. Being a role model and teaching kids how to be better people is a part of that. If you didnt sign up for that, find another job.
The world is full of shit teachers and I cannot stand teachers who dont take this job seriously enough to understand the responsibility it comes with. Do better or find different work. For your sake and the sake of your students.
It’s not your job. It is rewarding in and of itself though.
The great part about Boys and Girls Clubs or being a CASA or face painting at a festival etc is that you don’t have to raise them. The undivided attention of adult who seems to genuinely like and care about them for like 15 minutes is the kind of shit that changes kids lives.
I’m not saying “organize community talks at your local library about positive masculinity” or “become a Big” but - maybe a cousin says something shitty at dinner, and you bring it up gently in a chat? Or be a positive role model in spaces where you encounter young men: in video games, on forums, outside…
The best way to create a society where men are allowed to cry and express their emotions is to teach boys and young men these things are okay.
Sure, but the children are people; they do not have the experience of wisdom to make choices and rely on adults to teach them wisdom from their experience.
It’s not your job, but those kids are the ones paying for their parents’ value system, and so the adults teaching them aren’t teaching them well. Children are people, and are being let down. Theyre not kitset projects for parents.
One day those people will be expected to make their own choices, and the only foundation they’ll have to decide with is what they’re taught now. It’s not your job, but it’s everybody’s civic responsibility to contribute to a healthier collective society, and children are a part of that.
This shitheaded take is how we ended up with the failing society that we have
think again. do you want someone else’s kids to grow up to be misogynists who will vote?
If a psychopath has an influence over children in their formative years, it is your absolute responsibility to educate the kid and the parents.
Actually when you live in a democracy it is. Or at least, if you don’t you still get the consequences when these kids start voting.
Yall didn’t see this coming with the red pill derived slang that kids have been using? They’re obsessed with their value. It’s terrifying and capitalism loves it.
I’m clueless, what slang are we talking about here, I doubt I’d know it if I heard it.
I don’t know much more than you, but they said it right in the comment. “They are obsessed with their value” Such as, “High value man” “low value man” ect
I do know my 14 year old nephew is obsessed with making money in ways I never saw in my youth cohort
Nothing is more toxic than obsessing over money and status. Literally will poison your soul and ruin your life.
It’ll get you laid!
Welcome to capitalism baby!
Capitalism is an inadequate reason for all this, because we had decades of capitalism without this level of shit and toxicity.
“How did we get here from there?” One step at a time.
Not all consequences are immediate.
I’d argue it’s not the inevitable outcome of capitalism. The grifters are connecting and feeding off each other like never before though. Trump/Tate/Farage/Rogan/Jones/Brand/Peterson/Shapiro are a few that spring to mind. They’re probably not sitting round planning stuff (well Shapiro probably is in the dorkiest way possible) but they amplify each other, vouch for each other etc etc.
They’re parasites with no moral compunction, they spot a glitch where they can get support, money and power and exploit the shit out of it with no regard to the consequences.
To my mind they harken back to the bullies of the 90s (and I’m sure before) and appeal to that mindset, wokeness bothers them because it represents progress that patches the glitch. I could ramble for hours but I’ve no solution, I wish someone did.
Consumerism. Consumerism is the problem.
We have sold out.
It’s from the Matrix, maybe you’ve seen it. For those who haven’t here it is without giving any major spoilers: at one point one of the main characters tells the protagonist that if he wants to learn the truth he could take a red pill that he offers to him, but if he wants to remain oblivious and continue to live normally he should take a blue pill. They’re using this analogy to describe how the media peddles as normal what they consider wrong values and ideas like lgbtq tolerance, feminism and so on.
Needless to say, Tate is a big fan of that movie. So much so that he named his “course” the Matrix Academy. One of my former classmates actually paid for that nonsense. It was just a discord server and the lectures were useless. All the information there could be found for free on the internet by just doing a Google search or watching a few videos on Youtube.
Rizz, alpha/beta/sigma, mid, simp. A lot of importance placed on your value, your masculinity and a lot of overlap between gaming and red pill content.
You got kids mewing trying to get their jawlines looking nice. Little girls obsessed with makeup and skincare. It’s wild and people think it’s all innocent. It’s not. It’s early indoctrination.
Thanks! I feel the only new things here are simp and rizz if I’m honest. Simp seems to have gone the way of woke in that it’s lost most of its meaning, but when I see it used on YouTube it’s sinister AF. Tbh I’ve noticed this a lot on YouTube of late, high degree of racist and misogynistic comments in videos that feature a woman doing something “incorrectly” or if something criminal happens and it’s not readily apparent what the race of the perp is.
It’s honestly wild to me that people in my age bracket can grow up with heroin chic, and think it somehow just vanished into the ether. I don’t know why it’s so hard for them to understand that kids are just getting hit with an evolved form of the same bullshit message that you’re worthless if you don’t fit a specific aesthetic.
How does heroine chic relate? I may have been too young to remember anything besides the look
It was just the “goal” aesthetic I was trying to meet as a young woman. So many of my classmates developed an eating disorder or just started using drugs because the “strung out supermodel” look was what everybody wanted.
Its just a precursor carrying the same message kids are gettimg today. That you’re worthless if you don’t look the right way, and you should hurt yourself to look the right way.
Ah I see. Yeah the more insecure you are the more money they can make from you. Especially the more unattainable the ideal is.
oh the society is totally not turning to shit because of terminally online kids. No worries at all.
It would be interesting to know how many children are becoming more ambitious in school. I recently read an article about how more and more girls feel so much pressure to be the best in class that they start controlling their food intake (the only true control they feel they have) leading to anorexia. Two very different but scary extremes.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Can you elaborate for me?
I’m actually not sure why so many people down voted my comment, but I’ll try to explain. This article is about boys who don’t respect women or girls. I read another article about girls trying their best but still struggling due to pressure. So I’ve read two very extreme cases, and both articles present it as something widespread. The big issue seems to be social media.
It made me wonder how kids are doing in school, are they more ambitious now but struggling because of mental health? I saw in the comments that a lot of kids are doing poorly.
Just to clarify, I think it’s bad regardless of the reason or how many kids are affected, gender doesn’t matter, and my comment was never about that.
How did you (and maybe others) read my comment? I want to learn to communicate better for next time.
I think you got downvoted because it wasn’t clear what you were saying, so people misunderstood. That’s why I asked, because I don’t like to assume I know what people are saying, I prefer to have them tell me.
If I understand your comment, you are wondering out loud. Perhaps some of the other readers thought you were trying to make a point about something.
Thank you for elaborating!
First. If the kid doesn’t want to talk to the teacher then put the kid into detention until they will. If the kid misses more then a certain number of days of class. Make them take the entire grade again. Fail them.
Second (and I’m not sure how we would do this) cut them off from the internet. There are books in the library for doing research.
These kids already have been left behind by someone and they filled the void with people telling them it wasn’t their fault.
And your solution is to leave them even more behind? That’s just compounding the problem.
The solution is guidance and therapy. What you’re describing is retaliation.
Gotta love how many self-identified leftists we have that are actually confused authoritarians.
These kids already have been left behind by someone
It’s like bullies. People always come down hard on bully kids. They rarely act like that naturally, they learned this behaviour. They’re probably being abused at home. Coming down hard on them just makes them more angry and confused.
You have to figure out what is making the kids act the way and address that.
Thank you for understanding. It’s clear how few people are actually equipped to help kids like these.
Agreed.
It’s a good thing most of the people on these forums don’t have much influence on the outside world.
Gotta remember… This is sky news. Probably fake. Especially since the “survey” doesn’t even match the headline.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
Wow it seems like everyone here is completely credulous and happy to have their bias confirmed.
In my opinion the huge difference between this generation and all previous ones is that content is no longer vetted by anyone. It used to be that to put something in front of kids it had to approved by some sane adult. If a TV station marketed to children something that most parents would not approve they would face protests or maybe even legal action. On social media any asshole can post literally anything and millions of kids will consume it without any supervision.
That’s the whole point of screaming about “liberal” or “leftist” media for all this time even when most media outlets are owned by for profit orgs. They usually have to comply with laws. On social media you’ve been able to lie as much as you want without consequence or being called out. Corporations mostly use this to market to children and get them addicted to gambling.
Most media is liberal though. Liberalism is a (right-wing) hegemonic ideology. CNN, Fox, NYTimes, NYPost, NPR… All liberal.
Not so much for leftism though. It’s “strange” how the right-wing conflates the two.
I agree but it’s beside the point (the liberal party in my country is openly supporting the nazi party). For profit media can per definition not be objective but at least it has to comply with the laws of the country it operates in. The internet bypasses all this legislation and pretty much every country was slow to catch up.
What really grinds my gears is when my fellow countrymen believe propaganda about our state sponsored media. Which cannot be controlled by our government because it’s been proxied off behind several foundations running it. The only thing our government can do (and then only with support from the opposition) is reduce or increase money going into it. It’s pretty much the only source of reporting in my language without sponsors dictating content.
Fox news liberal… lmfao
Tankies are permanently stuck in backwards day. Left is right and right is left. They do this because they’re just fascists that don’t like to be associated with other fascists. So they call their fascist group “leftist”, but they hate democracy, liberalism, the jews, etc just as much as any other fascist.
You know you’re actually right on the money, and it’s a little startling that it never occurred to me before. Shit.
It used to be that to put something in front of kids it had to approved by some sane adult.
I love how you got a ton of upvotes by vaguely gesturing at the past.
When was this time you speak of?
What has changed is the social fabric of society has been ripped up.
Back when media for kids consisted mainly of broadcast TV shows and books. It’s not some mythical past; it’s my childhood.
…and that centralized system of culture disemination played a major hand in creating the crisises we are in now.
Ah yes, the Sesame Street to MAGA pipeline.
Don’t condescend me, I am talking about TV and US media in general.
Oscar the grouch would be a anti vaxer and complain about immigrants taking their bins.
And, part of the reason for that is section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
If a TV station or radio station has a call-in show and the caller swears, it’s the station that gets fined. If the station runs a late night informercial where someone is defamed, the station is liable. But, do it online and you’re fine. The YouTube algorithm can pick out the juiciest, most controversial, most slanderous content and shove it into everyone’s recommendations and only the person who posted that content is responsible.
Section 230 makes sense in some situations. If you’re running a bulletin board without any kind of algorithm promoting posts, then it makes sense that you shouldn’t be held accountable for what someone says in that bulletin board. But, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. have all taken it too far. They don’t personally create the content, but they have algorithms that analyze the content and decide who to show it to. They get the protections of a bulletin board, while curating the content to make it even more engaging than a segment on Newsmax or MSNBC.
Yep, that’s why the only way to be a good parent nowadays is to not give your kids smart phones or computers of their own. There was a time when it was kinda ok for them to have those devices, but that time is permanently in the past.
Closeted queer kids with bigoted parents need online safe spaces.
I mostly disagree with that. Cocooning up into a terminally online person makes one’s life worse, not better.
Straight up abusive parents are another thing of course. But even then those kids need sheltering, not the internet.
I think you underestimate the sheer number of homophobic parents that aren’t necessarily abusive but would be if their kid ever came out. There are a lot of people I’ve talked to that their online escape was the one thing that kept from killing themselves.
I’m not saying that it’s healthy but there are a lot of kids in a situation that they can not escape from because of the way that society treats children. Children are treated as something that is closer to property than an individual when it comes to things like law enforcement and emotional abuse.
Homophobia is abusive. Regardless of the intentions. Ignorance of that fact doesn’t excuse it.
I agree. Try arguing that to a conservative judge in the south and you will simply be sent home with your abusive parent, who is likely enraged about having to defend themselves from the “law”.
Yeah, absolutely. Having been in a marriage with an abusive person, there is zero reasoning with them once they’re in that state.
I think muad’dib is just projecting and maybe you are, too.
Using the internet to avoid dealing with problems in real life is an unhealthy crutch.
Using the internet to avoid dealing with problems in real life is an unhealthy crutch.
So is pretending the internet is not part of “real life” like it’s 1998.
unfortuatly the healthy way to deal with a situation like that is to remove yourself from it which children are not allowed to do.
Well the solution to that one 10 year old is pretty clear. Actions have consequences, if he wants to be a little shit he can repeat the grade next year after hard failing this one.
This is totally a diffusion of social media issue. Twenty years ago, the media that kids had available for consumption was age rated. We had agreed as a society that certain things should not be visible to children until they grow up. It was possible to do because it was centralized (TV, movies, radio, print) and it was accountable to regulatory bodies and the rest of society. If a TV channel showed something as shitty as Tate style propaganda, there was institutional pushback, there were letters to the editor, there was someone specific to be targeted for accountability.
With social media being dominated by US style “freedom of speech” algorithms and US style acceptance of the impossibility (or even undesirability) of regulation and with completely unaccountable megacorps running them while giving very minimal if non-existent attention to who is watching what, we have a complete lack of age rating. We have given up on the idea of protecting childhood it seems.
Coupled with every fucking other issue being brought up in this thread, from COVID, to economic issues, to cultural misogyny, there is a perfect storm…
With social media being dominated by US style “freedom of speech” algorithms and US style acceptance of the impossibility (or even undesirability) of regulation and with completely unaccountable megacorps running them while giving very minimal if non-existent attention to who is watching what, we have a complete lack of age rating. We have given up on the idea of protecting childhood it seems.
…and you have clearly given up any pretense of not being extremely authoritarian it seems, what the hell does “freedom of speech algorithms” even mean? Rhetorically you are completely mixed up about what is going on and what the solution is, I am amazed you made it here to the fediverse.
We had agreed as a society that certain things should not be visible to children until they grow up.
Do you have evidence the systems we employed to do this actually didn’t make problems worse? As far as I can see, it is also just overly righteous adults desperate to fix the world in ways that don’t make them look inwards and question the policies they support and the beliefs they hold.
I missed a comma before “algorithms” it seems.
The kind of “extreme authoritarianism” you’re pearl clutching about is literally the age ratings system that was in place in the late 90s. Get a grip.
You are the one pearl clutching.
The rise of criminal assholes like Andrew Tate has to do with ADULT MEN VALIDATING these figures all the way up to the most powerful adult men on earth.
Why do you think turning up the centralized censorship dial is NOT going to directly benefit people like Andrew Tate when Andrew Tate is exactly the kind of person the people who have control of that dial actually want?
I am in support of more human moderators moderating social media for kids, but in an empathetic way of giving kids more actual human attention, not as an authoritarian impulse to fix things by always just tightening control over others.
actually the correct response, yeah. the same people who control the social media algorithms, the same people who have been pushing andrew tate, are the same people who control society more broadly. that the response is always instinctively to just hand over more control to them is extremely cool.
Twenty years ago, the media that kids had available for consumption was age rated.
It was, still is, was ten years before, and trust me that didn’t stop me one bit.
What’s different then and now is the degree of choice people employ in their media consumption. It’s not like there was no Nazi propaganda on the net in 1990, it’s that who the fuck seeks that stuff out. The feeds that were choice-free were, yes, sanitised (TV, radio, though if you stayed of long enough TV would show rather interesting things), but also numerous. Like at least seven TV channels over the air, and plenty of radio stations (though most played shoddy music). Imagine having seven tiktok feeds you can’t fast-forward but switch in between. On current algorithmic platforms, you skip something, get shown the next thing, algorithm learns about you, about how to draw its hooks specifically into you. Back in the days, you couldn’t skip, switched away, and if there was only uninteresting stuff on the other channels you switched off. Internet? Age of web rings, search barely even existed. Anyone remember altavista?
I roamed the library, inhaled multiple series of books whole-sale, but in between, there was always this magic moment: Browsing. Looking at things, shaking them a bit, see if they’re actually interesting. Great availability of things, yes, but also limited time, and preferences, so you got picky.
That’s the skill that’s getting lost: People are outsourcing their consumption choices to algorithms. Worse, ones who care about nothing but retention, how can they keep you hooked so you watch more ads.
…which btw ties back into youth protection. Ratings etc. exist but the general consensus in youth psychology is that as soon as youth seeks something out by themselves, they’re ready to consume it. Ratings are there so that kids don’t stumble across things inadvertently, not so that they are completely unable to consume it. A hoop to jump through, maybe some secrecy, all that is a proper framework, “they think it’s not for me, I think otherwise”, puts the mind in the right inquisitive-but-cautious frame. That, however, presumes a choice algorithm that’s running in your head, and not in the cloud.
And meanwhile, “media literacy” is understood as “spotting fake information”. BS. Any information will become true to anyone if you allow it to be fed to you without getting your own agency involved. The question is less “are kids able to sniff out BS” – they by and large are. The question is whether they have the power to say “I choose not to continue down this path”, whether they have trained that muscle. Because without that no amount of skill in spotting bullshit will save you.
Some of you need more empathy. These are children whose insecurities are being exploited for profit. Be mad at their parents, and be mad at figures like Andrew Tate. But these are children and they deserve more grace than that.
