A popular narrative suggests young people are liberal and getting more liberal. Thus, social media buzzed when a chart surfaced in spring that seemed to suggest 12th-grade boys had become overwhelm…

While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss

  • @[email protected]English
    7•1 year ago

    It’s not that they are good at addressing it, they’re they only group that vocally addresses it at all.

    Young white men are a group, a large group, in the US and when then ONLY people saying “hey its okay to be YOU SPECIFICALLY YOUNG WHITE MAN”, their social media algorithms tend to lean toward that.

    I’m pretty liberal because of my own life experiences, and my youtube feed is just filled to the brim with Andrew Tate, Walsh, Shapiro, Peterson, Jones, etc. I happen to find Jor Rogan funny and that’s about the furthest right I go, but because of that I’m can’t not open youtube and be subjected with this type of content that, more or less, targets my demographic.

    Personally, I see it as a grift. To me, these people are just making money selling bullshit by the bulk, and young white men happen to both have money and no other ‘pick me’ iconography.

    I’ve dealt with suicidal ideation and mental health problems all my life, and Peterson comes on and tells me it’s okay to feel emotions, but then immediately starts talking about how trans people will never be happy and should never try to transition. I’m pretty cognitive and can see its more or less book sales for him and he’s talking about an experiences he’s never had, but a 15 year old isn’t quite as cognitive nor has had the same level of life experience as my age group

      • @[email protected]English
        2•1 year ago

        Yes, but there aren’t figure heads targeting this demographic with a specific rhetoric/ideology.

        When they teach it in school about kids working in coal mines and meat factories, they don’t teach the politics that went along with it.