 Why are men in America falling so far behind women? Did the world change so fast that a lot of men can't handle it? And what can anyone do? Yeah, there's a viral article in the New Yorker right now called What's the Matter with Men? It goes along with the topic of so many books, podcasts, other articles that are out right now. Long story short, Andrew, men are doing worse in school, which leads them to do worse in college, which leads them to do worse in their career. And a lot of them are just completely dropping out of the workforce at this point. Yeah, so what we're gonna be doing in this video is not covering and picking apart the article line by line, but we are gonna be covering the main stats that they use in their argument. Also, we wanna talk about how this applies to the Asians and some of the things they might've missed or left out of the article. So if you guys are interested by this, please hit that like button right now to turn on your notifications because Hop Hop Boys are releasing videos every day. All right, man, let's just get into it. What are the statistical metrics that young men are lagging behind young women in America in 2023? All right, these are from the article. Girls outpace boys in the classroom at nearly every age. Women make up three-fifths of all bachelor and master's degrees. Women make up the majority of current medical school and law school students. Young men are four times more likely to die from suicide. Men make up 93% of all prisoners in America. Men are as unemployed right now as they were back when America was still recovering from the Great Depression. Instead of socializing more, men without work are even less involved in their communities than those with jobs. Boys who grow up in fractured families or poverty are considered less resilient or less successful than women from that same background and situation. And lots of the industrialized jobs that were used or performed mostly primarily by men are now going away due to automation or globalization. Yeah, and by the way, of course, this is not all men. We're just talking about an increased volume of men that fit into this category. Of course, if we even go back to the 70s, 90s, 2000s, Andrew, there was the stereotype of like the hippie. There was the stereotype of the slacker, you know, the Kevin Smith clerks type archetype, but it just seems like there's a growing proportion of men in 2023, Andrew, that are just turning to, and this is according to a lot of different articles and books in this space, porn, drinking, weed, drugs, video games, junk food, the man of fear. And here's the thing, Andrew, I'm sure that everybody watching this video knows somebody or at least knows somebody who knows somebody who is doing these things way too often. I'm not saying that these things I just listed or categorically all bad, you know, some are worse than others, but definitely you know somebody who's like delving into these at just way too often, right? And it's sort of like fried food. Everybody likes fried food. It tastes good, but if you eat too much fried food, you will get fat and probably die. Yeah, I mean, I think even if you're a man or a woman and you feel like, you're like, I don't know if I can think of anybody in this position. Trust me, there are people in your circle, but it's just low key. You probably haven't had this conversation. Now, what's happening is that this conversation is moving more into the mainstream now. And people are starting to wonder like, hey, should we be more sensitive this or what's going on and everything like that? So anyway- People have been writing books on this topic for about five years. I mean, clearly there's a ton of popular titles about it. All right, so David, we've seen the stats and I think that a lot of people agree that there is some type of problem, but what are a lot of the reasons that people are giving right now? Right, basically there's a lot of different hypotheses, major changes in the economy, globalization, AI, automation, there's no more blue collar jobs that fit with the biological amounts of testosterone that men have. Not only that, the blue collar jobs that do exist, they've sort of been like, had their image worsened in society. So even though trucking is not a bad job in terms of payment, maybe you get derided in society for being a truck driver. Yeah, I mean, I do think that this is kind of where the culture is at, whether it's social media or media or Hollywood, but they have definitely, I guess, de-glorified a lot of the blue collar work and obviously a lot of people joke on it because now there's so many ways with technology to make a lot more money not having to lift really any weights or lift a trash bag or lift a brick or do any of these kind of blue collar jobs, plumbing, that was considered kind of unappealing. Yeah, on a more macro scale, I think the economics type argument can basically be summed up in unfettered capitalism that we have in America. At least for as far as the developed nation goes, like very unfettered capitalism, there's upsides and downsides, but right now over the past five years, particularly for men, maybe we have been seeing them get hit with the downsides and sometimes they don't even happen at the same time, so it could have been a delayed impact. All right, this is, so that's the economic side. The other major argument is societal. So basically this has to go to changing gender roles and this can kind of go from anywhere from like, dang, I'm really struggling to adapt to this new world and I'm trying, but I just can't make it work all the way to the more problematic, like of course thinking the feminism is just ruining the social order and I don't wanna be assisted women, so I can't fit into the new assisted women society. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are gonna point at how women have a raised status in society and there's a whole big push, right? Like push women, push women, and they are more successful and that's good because women should have equal opportunities as men. However, a lot of people are feeling like that crunched the men or made the men look bad or made women so picky that they don't like value the men as much. Anyways, that's a larger conversation. We'll get into it later in the video. I wanna be clear here guys, you can support women having more equal rights to have powerful positions in the infrastructure and society like they were denied for like thousands and thousands of years prior while acknowledging that that makes the competitive pool for those positions way more competitive. Some of those guys that used to get those spots can no longer get those spots. Now it's on the society to react to those guys who get kicked out of those spots. Is it just like, yeah, loser, just feel the pain of what like other people felt prior or does society need to develop systems to like catch them and make sure they don't spiral like four standard deviations down instead of just half a standard deviation down? And of course Andrew, the number third one, you have economics, you have societal, you actually just have a cultural one and basically some people are saying there's just a fundamental degradation in culture in general. When you have a free society like the US, obviously everybody loves it. On the upside, it's like the best place. You could do this, you could do that in your day. You can just do a ton of things that you can't do in other countries. However, Andrew, you're also free to make the DGEN choices. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of freedom and a lot of things in America that you can get distracted by or get caught up in. I mean, that's what also makes America great but also kind of contributes to this problem. Yeah, and Andrew, guess what? If you make a DGEN choice, every fork in the road you get, you just end up way too DGEN. Yeah, also another couple reasons are just like, a lot of parents did really well. A lot of boomer parents or Gen X parents did well for their kids. So their kids, just to be honest, are lazy. If you grow up comfortably, you're not taught to be hungry anymore. You lose that hunger as a man to work and be productive and constantly push yourself then. And there's actually a lot of parables Andrew in a lot of different cultures about this. Sort of like the good times create weak men, the bad times create strong men. That actually has a lot of sayings in a lot of different ancient cultures. In China, there's one that goes back like thousands of years saying wealth only lasts like three generations. So this is not just a uniquely American thing. However, America may be at the point where a lot of Americans, and I will say, the truth is this article is mostly talking about white people, the one in the New Yorker. Andrew, they're just at a point where it's almost like they've been had money, their parents have money, their grandparents have money. It's almost like, oh well, maybe we should just ruin it. Another reason that is contributing to this that a lot of people say is that everyone is so picky in their dating choices, whether it's using the online apps or just with this hookup culture that a lot of average men whose sexual market value is not very high are being completely left out. And you know, they're being lonely and that's leading to a lot of this stuff. Oh, Andrew, not only are they lonely, if they're lonely for a certain amount of time, they just give up. Yeah, yeah. There's also just a natural growth arc for capitalism and it kind of already happened in Europe and it's starting to happen in America. So, you know, it's just maybe a lot of people just feel like we're in a transition stage. Yeah, I will say that the interesting thing about Europe is they never let their capitalism ramp up that high, but it also prevents the men from like, when they drop off, they don't ramp down that harsh either. I noticed one thing about just the way they do things in Europe and I think Europe and America, there is some things you can draw in comparison because they're both like, based off sort of like Euro Anglo ideals, is like, everything they do is less extreme over there. So when their men drop off over there, it's gonna be less extreme, even though of course when people got rich in Europe, it was actually also less extreme. Right. So, David, what are some things of the article that obviously they're not gonna address? Like we're always gonna address kind of the Asian side, so we wanna do that first, but we have some other things that we're gonna be sharing with you guys. So first off, you know, this article was mostly referring to white and black men in America. But your heritage American populations that were here like 400 years ago, right? Now, it's not that I don't think that this trend, this trend of men falling off doesn't affect Asians. It definitely affects like all types of people in America, but we can say that it probably affects Asians and immigrant kids less. You know why Andrew? Because we're on sort of a different timeline. I don't wanna say for sure this is like 10 out of 10, but I would say there's a lot of comparisons with like second gen immigrant kids like me and you and almost like the greatest generation of the 1950s in America, because that's just our situation because some of our parents are just coming out of war or our grandparents for sure saw war. And it's kind of like, yo, we gotta not just survive, but we gotta be hyper upward mobile to thrive. Yeah, no, it's kind of being born with a lot of pressure and burden and this kind of like thing in the back of your mind, like, yo, gotta keep going, our parents did well, the parents struggled or our parents are immigrants here. I'm not really fit in this America. I don't really fit into America 100% but I gotta make it. We eat different food at home, we speak different languages, our rituals are different. There's a lot of things Andrew, from the town that we grew up in that where our upbringing was very different. And I'm not saying for a lot of Asian families like, and we know some Asian families who are third, fourth, fifth generation in America. So they've had a lot of time to be here. And you can say that maybe those fourth generation kids do think and act more like just any other American, like white American or black American. No, I would say I've seen this trend more with my Japanese American friends that are like fifth generation. For sure, like they might be more, I guess the trends in this article in New York are gonna be more relevant to their lives, like you said, because they're more fitting with the American mainstream narratives. Moving on Andrew, I guess where are the parents at? Because there's a lot of talk about economics, right? There's a lot of talk about society. There's a lot of talk about degradation of culture, but those are all very macro forces, perhaps creating some sort of downstream culture. However, where are the parents at? Well, I mean, maybe, you know, first of all, if you have like weak men or men who are falling behind, that's not gonna create, I guess, very strong fathers. I presume, you know. But yeah, I mean, as far as parents, man, it really does come down to parents a lot. But I do think that maybe this also ties into the degradation of the family structure, right? So there's less parents or like fathers are more distracted or parents in general, they wanna live more fun lives. So they wanna keep living like they're in their 20s, even though they're in their 40s, right? Yeah, they don't wanna think about their kids as much. So I guess the big question is, and this is always comes back to the parents, and being a parent is not an easy job by any means, but I do think that you do have to ask this question, like what are the parents doing and how much are the parents raising their actual kids? And I think this even links back to our first point about being an immigrant, where it's almost like, yeah, there's this downstream river of culture in America, right? Right now, it seems like it's trending, I guess a lot of people don't like it. But when you're an immigrant, it's almost like you get trained to be the salmon fish that swims upstream. And you know how salmon spawn, they need to like swim upstream. And it's like, I always felt so different from everybody growing up. A lot of people in our town, growing up into a blue collar manufacturing factory town, they actually fit into this article. A lot of the guys we know sort of fell off the grid. I'm not saying they're the worst of the worst, but we're talking about a lot of addiction, a lot of DGEN stuff, for no real reason. Like they didn't really have that much pain in their life, but they may not have had that much fuel to shoot opposite of downstream culture too. Yeah, I mean, essentially when you're an immigrant kid growing up in an immigrant household, you have a totally different culture at home that's raising you, that's telling you sometimes the opposite of what the mainstream culture is telling you. So anyways, so you're always battling that out and you have that balance. So obviously in that matter, there is definitely advantages, right? One of the things that I saw a lot of these articles don't really acknowledge, but I'm sure, you know, there's so many books on this topic. I'm sure some of them mentioned this. Andrew, once you stew a bunch of factors together, let's say there's a cultural, the societal and the economic, at some point, once you stew them together in a pot long enough, they become enmeshed and inextricable from each other. So these things are hard enough to address even if they were like compartmentalized like pizza slices. But once you stew it all together, how can you start to remove just one factor or address it? Cause it's all melted together. Exactly. Another point that we wanna go over is that, I think a lot of people are looking for quick results now. I think social media, I think where the culture is at, I think technology allows people to make a lot of money very quickly and it is almost like people don't wanna try hard unless they're gonna see results quickly. And a lot of these jobs, like we're talking about the blue collar like kind of manly jobs, whether it's like plumbing and stuff like that, you have to go to school for it, you gotta do some hard work, you gotta be able to sing, you gotta be dirty, but it's real work, it is real work. And a lot of people don't wanna do that kind of stuff because it's not cool and it doesn't release dopamine. Yeah. And some New Yorker article, and this is kind of like a controversial part cause the gamers were like, no man, you're saying what? I can't vape at home in game. But basically they were saying that society cannot mimic the quick hits of dopamine and like rewards or accolades that the video games give you. And the video games are so immersive nowadays and the graphics are so good. Andrew, what do you think about like guys getting left out of the dating pool? Cause that's probably like a whole another 10 videos, but like is it because basically if you're just like not an Alpha Chad bro in real life, which is very, very difficult to achieve, right? Because that's a mixture of genetics, inborn situation and your own work and self agencies and systems you can get into. A lot of guys that are like, well, you know, if I can't live like an Alpha Chad bro, I'm just gonna like just leave the game. Yeah. I mean, so here's the thing, I think dating and this is like a whole another video because I think there's so many factors that play into it. Yes. Do I think that women are more successful or more educated now? So they do have more options. They want to work in their career and they don't have, they don't need a man for like financial support necessarily. So then that is like, I guess makes things harder for a portion of men. However, and then there's also the other side where men are taught to like, they gotta get with as many good looking women as possible, right? That's how your value is measured as a man, right? We gotta be gangers. Is dropping your eggplant and spreading your seed with as many good looking women as possible. But that's not, that's not necessarily good because how is that gonna balance out with women being a more pickier too? And then now- What happened to them good old days? And then you throw on social media how like people are very stylish now and people are more, are as good looking as they've ever been in society. And so I do think there's a lot of expectations and the dating pool changing. It's just creating this perfect storm, unfortunately for a lot of guys that just want to bow out. But I would say like, there is a lot more, I guess knowledge out there on how to change your situation and change yourself and kind of like maybe move to another place to feel wanted and get what you want, which people have always done. Passport bros, yeah. There's always been passport bros, but maybe throughout history of the past, like at least like three or four decades. Just like there've always been slackers opting out of the work pool, but it just seems like it's making up a larger and larger pie slice of the overall pie. So I do think that there is a healthy conversation to have about all this because there's multiple factors. Yeah, and I just think there's so many, like you said, non-value adding but fun ways to make money where you don't need to get dirty. Andrew, back in the day, Andrew, we knew people that tried to work on like oil rigs or work on like Alaskan fishing boats like in the snow where you could die on the boat because it's so cold. Nowadays, that's before crypto, NFTs, you know, Amazon direct fulfillment, whatever, FBA. Yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot of ways to make money off the arbitrage as people would say. And I mean, I think that's fair in a capitalistic society. That is what it is. However, I don't know, that does lead to certain consequences, you know? Overall, Andrew, what are your predictions? Because there's so many books, articles, and podcasts on this topic, obviously we cannot cover it. This is our first time actually touching upon it. You know, I would say ultimately, I don't wanna say I'm a little cynical, but I would say I just don't know what's gonna change because let's just say that everybody's in agreement, even though everybody weighs it differently, that there are economic, societal, and cultural factors at play that have all been stewed together. I don't know how you fix that. I just see people sort of like making money, selling courses and like all these neurological vitamins, you know, like working against the downstream culture, but even those people that are like these male gurus, whether you're talking about Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate or like a hundred other more moderate ones that aren't as bombastic, all they can do is just make money, selling people a solution against it, but who can really reverse the stream? Yeah, I mean, I think that society did change fast with technology and everything, so for me, I have two things, is that one, I hope that people don't purposely start a war to go get men fired up and give them a mission to go fight and try to destroy another country, but that is historically speaking, sometimes what happens, whether it's on purpose or not, right? There's a theory that people did that during the Crusades because the world or the Western world at that time was also going through a mental malaise. I don't know, man, I hope that's not the case, but I also think that a lot of men need to find dopamine in real life, and I guess that's what people say when they're like, oh, do sports and work out, that is one way of releasing dopamine, so I think that's a healthy way of doing it, but I think that instead of going to drugs and video games, which they're not the same thing, guys, I understand, I'm not hating on video games completely, but let's be honest, they are very immersive, they take up a lot of time, they're not necessarily transferable skills exactly into the real world. What do you mean? I think a lot of people who play video games would agree, obviously, so play it in moderation, but I just think that young men need to find dopamine in real life, and it's out there, it really is, but I think that a lot of men are taught to try once or twice and give up, and so they're just like, I don't know, it's just not easy for me, so I'm just giving it, give up, because you're taught that everything's supposed to be easy, so I don't wanna sound like one of those male gurus, but I do agree with those points, for sure. Yeah, also I think that, like I said, it does apply less to immigrants, however, it's very difficult to replicate the experience of an immigrant, and what I've noticed, Andrew, is that second gents, we are lazier and less focused than our parents, because our parents don't even really pay attention to American pop culture barely at all, they're just so focused on survival and building something for us, we get more into it, and inevitably, our kids and their kids are gonna be more subjected to whatever mainstream dynamics are written about in this article. It's literally, but you cannot fight it to some extent, it's literally a natural, organic output of just whatever the equation is. Unless maybe we only marry immigrant women, and then maybe somehow pass down a little bit more of that immigrant mindset, and then our kids also marry women who are immigrants at that time. Oh yeah, I guess that would just be like a constant refresh. Sort of, I guess that's one way to do it. I mean, some people kind of do that, I'm not on purpose, I'm just saying that happens, but is it as simple as, man, we need to be more sensitive to men? I think we need to have these conversations, because it's real. You know, in the article, there was a guy suggesting that men go through an additional year of kindergarten. I could see that being a tough thing to stomach, to be honest, because it'll just be weird, but I would say that honestly, there needs to be more like men life skills coaching, because a lot of the public school education system was developed like at a wrong time. I don't think it prepares people for the future careers, or the future societal lifestyle. So somebody needs to address that, but like I said, we don't control anything. Let us know what you think in the comment section below. What's the matter with men? Article breakdown by the Hop Hop Boys. Until next time, we out, peace.