> 2-3 decades of targeted marketing that shifted pretty much all concepts related to femininity or polite society into the lens of "gay and weird" for boys.
This and the another commenter who mentioned the social media algorithms tuned for rage-bait. People get sucked into this deeper and deeper in-group rabbit holes with targeted content suggestions. Its incredibly insidious. While I think this is a major major factor, I still think there is another issue for young men that make them more easily susceptible to falling down these holes in larger numbers than would be the case if things we're going better for them. I think there is an underlying hopelessness there that various actors are exploiting. It is this hopelessness* that is the true cause of this problem.
* Maybe that's not the right word. Alienation? Looking forward and seeing only barriers? I don't know.
Oh, for sure! Economic turmoil absolutely contributed to all of this.
Yea, when it comes to the alt-right / manosphere stuff, I don't think there's a lot of self-selection going on. The social media algorithms are largely steering boys and young men down these paths. Log out and get a fresh IP (or VPN), and take a random walk on YouTube to see for yourself. Within 10 clicks or so on recommendations, you're likely to start seeing one or two alt-right videos, and once you click on one, you're done for--90% of your recommendations will be things like "Become Alpha Male by increasing Testosterone" "Arguing with women and liberals using facts and logic!" and "Mussolini wasn't that bad!"
I can 100% agree with this. I’m a pretty liberal person (my father says a little left of Lenin), but I did grow up in the south shooting guns with family, and am still interested in firearms and related information. It’s so hard to get youtube and other things to actually believe that I’m liberal because “guns”.