By: Jonah Lazar, Staff Writer
Content warning: mention of suicide and misogyny.
Seemingly everywhere you turn, there is discourse about the “male loneliness epidemic,” how young men in particular are experiencing unprecedented levels of social isolation. However, multiple studies have confirmed that loneliness rates among young men and women have jointly increased from 1990 to 2021. Everyone is spending more time by themselves, reporting fewer close friends, forming fewer romantic relationships, and spending more time alone online. The study suggests that things like “falling marriage rates, rising screen time, and the erosion of community ‘third spaces’” have contributed to this issue. The rising loneliness among men and women disproves that there is a loneliness epidemic exclusive to men, but that hasn’t stopped alt-right influencers from taking advantage of it.
Alt-right influencers like Clavicular and Andrew Tate have tapped into this market, appealing to these young men by scapegoating women as the catalysts of young men’s social isolation. Characters in the manosphere like HSTikkyTokky are trying to sculpt a definition of manhood centred around material wealth, control over women, and emotional repression. As a whole, alt-right influencers have said that young men need to scam their way into wealth via get-rich-quick schemes, smash their face with hammers, and take copious amounts of supplements and drugs in order to become “valuable” men.
This is dangerous, because men are the primary targets of the alt-right’s conspiracy theories surrounding their loneliness. This can lead to paranoia and vulnerability towards conspiratorial thinking propagated by the alt-right. This kind of thinking further isolates them from real society, making it more difficult to engage with peers and possible romantic partners, which reinforces their social isolation. Social isolation is directly linked with increased depression and suicide, which could explain the 28% increase in men’s suicide rates since the turn of the century.
In essence, the alt-right rabbit hole is intentionally further isolating men from mainstream society to profit from their loneliness.
Young men need access to healthier content and role models online. People who share their lives that’s focused on community instead of competition. Content that encourages their audience to seek out help like counselling. And, they need to encourage getting together in person, to be there for each other. A study published by the National Library of Medicine theorized that community groups, like clubs, were more important for men than close individual friendships. Some research even claims that meaningful community belonging can combat loneliness even if men are not engaging in romantic relationships.
Men need more accessible, affordable outlets for participatory sports teams, clubs, organizations, and other community activities where they can develop healthy friendships. This will help pull men away from the harmful online communities that prey on and reinforce their loneliness leading to misogyny. In doing so, we can combat the myth of the “male loneliness epidemic.”
