TRIGGERnometry - The Dark Side of Dating Apps - James Bloodworth

00:00:00.000 you go to the mainstream for dating advice and it's garbage it's just be yourself it's like it's 0.99

00:00:05.500 just this disneyfied nonsense you'll meet don't worry you'll meet someone eventually like fate 0.96

00:00:09.800 will take care of it just be yourself just be nice and then you you go to the college party

00:00:15.000 or something and it isn't the nice the nice guys who are like hooking up with the with the with the

00:00:20.220 girls that you were into or whatever it's and it's then you you feel like you've been lied to

00:00:24.620 And then you go in search of pickup artistry or the manosphere or you look for things outside of the mainstream because it feels like the mainstream is either lying to you with some agenda or just some lack of understanding.

00:00:36.960 And then you gravitate to alternatives.

00:00:39.120 And some of those alternatives are not necessarily good for you.

00:00:42.880 You can become radicalized by that.

00:00:50.300 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:52.860 I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:53.900 I'm Constantine Kishan.

00:00:55.220 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:00.540 Our brilliant and returning guest today is a journalist and author, James Bloodworth.

00:01:04.180 Welcome back, man.

00:01:04.980 Lovely to be right.

00:01:05.840 It's been a few years since we had you on.

00:01:07.860 We talked about one of your books, which is Hired, and that was about how big companies

00:01:12.760 abuse staff.

00:01:13.720 Particularly, we talked about Amazon and Uber and others.

00:01:16.560 And you've been writing a lot of stuff since you've written another book.

00:01:19.780 And, of course, you're working on another one and you've written a lot of articles.

00:01:24.040 And one of the areas of focus, I think, has been particularly masculinity, dating, all that sort of stuff.

00:01:29.700 So it's good to have you back.

00:01:31.280 We wanted to talk to you about dating, first of all, because that is a world that neither of us is particularly involved in anymore.

00:01:36.880 We're in sales.

00:01:38.460 Yeah, we've upgraded.

00:01:39.540 so it seems to me just as an outside observer reading about it and seeing that the way the

00:01:47.720 technology has changed that whole aspect of life has just been extraordinary tell us about that

00:01:52.040 yes i mean i think dating apps have changed uh the romantic sphere in the same way that social

00:01:57.360 media is changing politics and we hear a lot about how social media is changing politics how

00:02:01.800 social media has made us more adversarial say twitter the way we behave on twitter we don't

00:02:06.900 necessarily behave in real life. I think dating apps are changing the way the technology we see

00:02:12.540 is just this tool that we use that we that we input our desires into the into the dating app

00:02:17.380 into the into our smartphone and then that just it just comes out the other other end and selects

00:02:22.220 those people for us. Whereas I think as we've learned with other forms of technology the

00:02:26.140 technology itself shapes the the thing that comes out the other side so it's not just a kind of

00:02:31.200 neutral platform, it actually funnels our kind of desires into these narrower directions, or

00:02:36.900 it actually changes the way we interact with each other quite profoundly, because romance is

00:02:41.440 obviously, you know, a central, central part of people's lives. And so I don't think we take that

00:02:46.180 issue seriously enough. And when you talk about these changes, what is happening? Because one of

00:02:51.660 our former guests, Mike Driver, is a business guy. And he was just saying, you know, one of the

00:02:56.080 things that will happen as a result of dating apps is you're going to get different people

00:03:00.160 matching up together and getting married and having children

00:03:03.660 than you would have done in the past.

00:03:05.340 So you're actually going to get different people

00:03:07.740 being in relationships than you would have done in the past.

00:03:10.240 But what other impact is it having?

00:03:11.700 Because, you know, we talk about Twitter and politics.

00:03:14.140 It's very clear, I think, that social media is having

00:03:16.500 a hugely detrimental impact on our ability to have conversations

00:03:21.260 and all of that.

00:03:22.560 What's been the impact on dating and romance from those apps?

00:03:26.880 I think the first thing that dating app technology does is it basically formalizes preferences, which may have been arbitrary before, or they may not have had like central importance. So we see something we see this with with both men and women. So we see, for example, women having a preference very commonly on apps for men six foot, you know, there's a setting six foot or over. There's even racial preferences on some apps or there have been in the past where people can screen out people of different different ethnicities, which

00:03:56.860 we can all see how that could be potentially problematic.

00:03:59.800 That's the one for me.

00:04:02.060 But it's, I mean, the author Mia Levitin

00:04:04.180 wrote a really interesting book about Tinder

00:04:06.560 and she went on lots and lots of Tinder dates

00:04:08.920 to write this book.

00:04:09.620 And she said, you know,

00:04:10.300 if you put all the people she'd ever dated

00:04:12.700 in real life on an app,

00:04:14.480 she'd probably swipe right, is it?

00:04:16.820 You know, she'd probably reject most of them 0.99

00:04:18.600 because there was something different.

00:04:20.700 It was the chemistry or something else.

00:04:22.340 It wasn't these arbitrary criteria.

00:04:24.120 So I think trying to kind of funnel our dating preferences through through those narrow criteria that can breed lots of resentment. So we see that in some of the incel community, for example, in the manosphere, where because in the past, those those kind of there were those kind of areas where you could meet someone more organically, those those especially with the pandemic, those those things have kind of have been kind of rolled back to some extent, it's harder to do that.

00:04:52.380 and we're encouraged to do everything through a smartphone app everything through a dating app

00:04:56.360 organize our lives through these apps and that can be much harder for if you don't know how to

00:05:02.140 present yourself for example if you don't have an online brand or something and can't sell yourself

00:05:05.840 online very well like that or you don't match some of these arbitrary criteria then it can lead to

00:05:11.860 lots of resentment and we also see the volume of rejection so dating apps on the one hand there is

00:05:17.900 a lower bar to i mean when i was when i was kind of um in my late teens early 20s i wasn't i had

00:05:23.920 no success at dating i lived in the countryside with my ground i was very shy um didn't didn't

00:05:29.460 do very well but i could tell myself this story like ego protection story that well if i wanted

00:05:34.780 to if i wanted to get a girlfriend i could if i wanted to go and talk to that girl but i'm just

00:05:38.920 i just don't feel like it no whereas i think with apps there's a low bar you can put yourself on

00:05:44.000 there very easily but the sheer volume of rejection uh it creates this kind of feedback

00:05:49.500 loop of rejection which kind of impacts that age when you're forming an identity so that constant

00:05:55.460 negative feedback loop i think can be very detrimental to uh young men and women but we

00:06:01.260 tend we're tending to see the more of the consequences from men because men tend to act out

00:06:05.760 uh when they're resentful about things so you see like violence or these forums with with misogyny

00:06:11.220 and not just misogyny, but men generally in a very depressed state

00:06:16.260 lamenting their results on dating apps.

00:06:19.360 Doesn't it also encourage the superficiality amongst people?

00:06:22.960 Because, look, everybody has their own attributes

00:06:26.440 and there are some people who may not be as physically attractive,

00:06:28.940 but they may be charismatic, they may be funny, etc., etc.

00:06:31.760 But just reducing it to a photo, I mean,

00:06:34.660 that just encourages us all just to go by what people look like.

00:06:37.900 Yeah, I think it's, uh, I think dating apps and I include Instagram when I talk about this,

00:06:43.420 because I think Instagram in a way is, is like the world's biggest dating app in some ways,

00:06:48.620 because I think, uh, a lot of people use it, use it in that way. And it's, and dating apps kind of

00:06:53.560 came, uh, around the same time. And it's, yeah, it's, it's all about presentation. So you could

00:06:58.780 be like a great person. You could be a, you could be a great person. You could just not be

00:07:03.040 photogenic for example which is a is kind of a real thing um and you just don't know how to

00:07:08.720 present yourself uh in this new digital world through a screen you don't have someone who can

00:07:13.480 take good photos if you just don't know you just don't understand that vocabulary of how to do that

00:07:18.180 and then you're kind of left behind and yeah it is it is arbitrary and and like you say

00:07:23.080 sometimes you meet someone and they may not tick certain logical boxes but they have a certain like

00:07:29.040 vibe or you have a chemistry with them and that's often more important than commonalities which is

00:07:34.540 something you tend to more select people for a job or something yeah and it also incentivizes people

00:07:40.420 to be dishonest because they know for instance that if they say that their age is i don't know

00:07:46.240 45 they're less likely to get a date so why not say you're 38 yeah i mean i mean yeah it's and

00:07:53.200 it's um but again because you have these like arbitrary uh criteria so if i mean i use this

00:08:00.860 example because i've asked female friends before about i asked them about their experience on

00:08:05.900 dating apps because the male and female experience is very different um and lots of them yeah they

00:08:11.920 do have this this uh six must be six foot or whatever and then i'll ask them hope so have

00:08:17.740 you ever dated someone shorter than this or older or younger than this and they will always will

00:08:22.240 have in real life but it's then they kind of think about it and it's like well but but they're

00:08:26.760 getting bombarded women typically on apps with so much attention that you have to feel to people

00:08:31.640 like some way so perhaps that's why there's one last question i want to ask which is a cross

00:08:36.260 section between dating and politics that we've talked about because i've now seen online like

00:08:41.060 people say never date a tory and then you've got these sort of right of center right leaning dating

00:08:46.860 platforms do you yeah yeah they've got the right not on them just making it ladies uh but you just 1.00

00:08:54.320 go this is a recipe for disaster in society yeah i mean i think that's in terms of politics i think

00:09:01.560 people are forgetting how to disagree respectfully so forgetting how to disagree and as we've talked

00:09:07.020 about before still be friends with someone still still get on with someone um i feel like i don't

00:09:12.060 know what it is but i and i don't want to just like dump on younger people but i feel like

00:09:16.620 there's please do we fucking hate you i feel like people just because we're no longer younger 0.99

00:09:21.160 people sorry for this yeah no it's true though but i feel like it's i mean generations you know 0.95

00:09:29.180 my our generation is true to some extent but i feel like people are becoming worse at accepting

00:09:33.860 criticism yeah taking it as something personal you know it's not something you're doing or saying

00:09:38.900 it's just something it's about you personally and I think that's um making it much harder to

00:09:43.760 disagree respectfully so when you uh when you look for someone on a dating app you're looking

00:09:50.040 for someone who shares the exact same beliefs as you do but I also think it's part of the

00:09:55.540 there's this idea now that romance is it's like the Disney idea that romance is the center of

00:10:01.300 everything that your romantic partner has to fulfill every one of your needs so you have to

00:10:05.960 be able to, um, maintain like a strong sexual desire for them. And at the same time, be able

00:10:11.700 to go, go home and debate kind of Marxism, Leninism at the kitchen table all evening or

00:10:17.620 whatever. It's like, whereas whatever gets you hard. I think, um, yeah, I mean, I think, I think,

00:10:25.700 you know, you have to, uh, compartmentalize those things a bit more. Like you shouldn't expect one

00:10:30.180 person just to fulfill every, like agree with you about everything, fulfill all of your,

00:10:34.360 your knees you should have different uh yeah people for that it's very limiting as well i mean

00:10:39.100 i disagree with my wife and a lot of stuff francis with his girlfriend and pretty much everything

00:10:43.140 yeah they do debate marxism leninism a lot um you you mentioned that the female dating experience

00:10:49.900 is very different to the male one can you talk to us a little bit about that yeah so i mean

00:10:55.440 i think first of all i think well to get take it the other the opposite way around i think

00:11:00.400 it is very different and I think that leads to like a lack of empathy between the sexes about

00:11:05.240 the corresponding experiences so you'll see online uh so I follow a lot of uh quite good

00:11:11.700 incels online um part of my research I say that but now I kind of chat to them and befriend them

00:11:18.420 but um and you'll see them complaining and stuff and then you'll see also lots of women like 1.00

00:11:23.540 dismiss that and say oh they don't face like potential violence when they're on a date and

00:11:27.680 stuff which is true but it's um you know there's not a limit on misery people can two groups of

00:11:32.860 people can be miserable in different ways and with women they tend to be bombarded with attention 0.71

00:11:37.580 unwanted attention not just on apps but in life in general you know on the tube or something or

00:11:42.900 walking down the street and there is due to the biological fact that men are physically stronger

00:11:48.680 than women there's always on some level that implicit like danger of threat of violence um 0.91

00:11:54.920 which i think men often don't understand when they when they when they talk to women that

00:11:59.340 the first thing a woman's going to be doing is uh trying to get a sense is if i'm alone with 1.00

00:12:04.780 this person will are they a threat to me would they be a threat to me um but so that's that's

00:12:09.880 one side of it so you know a woman goes on a date she has to screen the guy is she gonna

00:12:14.100 end up with her head on a pike at the end of the end of the night whereas i've never thought that 0.94

00:12:18.400 when i've when i've gone out on a date um whereas men it's they tend to so on dating apps for

00:12:24.320 example 80% of men tend to you know that's the kind of rough figure tend to be just getting

00:12:30.880 rejections like getting one or two matches very occasionally and just getting just volumes and

00:12:35.900 volumes of rejection and they then transpose that onto real life and think well this is this is if

00:12:43.060 this is the reality on dating apps I'm never gonna I'm just gonna be alone forever um well it's not

00:12:48.320 really true because if you don't know how to present yourself on a dating app it doesn't mean

00:12:52.440 that in real life, which is very different,

00:12:55.260 you could not meet someone and hit it off

00:12:56.680 with someone and have chemistry.

00:12:57.900 But people transpose the online experience increasingly

00:13:00.200 because we spend so much of our lives

00:13:02.080 on these apps and online to the real world

00:13:05.080 where it isn't the same.

00:13:06.860 But I think that's a danger

00:13:07.900 and that radicalizes lots of these men

00:13:10.000 in certain corners of the manosphere.

00:13:13.900 We'll talk about that in a sec,

00:13:15.520 but we love a bit of doom and gloom here at Trigonometry,

00:13:18.640 but is there something positive to all of this?

00:13:22.440 In what sense?

00:13:23.800 In any sense.

00:13:25.180 Is there any sense, is there any way in which...

00:13:27.520 About dating apps?

00:13:28.160 Yeah, the existence of dating apps is making our world better,

00:13:31.900 our lives easier, dating, you know, in some ways better.

00:13:35.000 Is there a benefit?

00:13:36.140 Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's all bad.

00:13:37.460 I think, so I've met people and had a great time

00:13:40.560 and I've met them from dating apps.

00:13:42.040 And I think it allows kind of cross-cultural engagement as well

00:13:46.080 to some extent.

00:13:47.240 It allows people who are in maybe a much more conservative family setting

00:13:51.020 to then branch out of that

00:13:52.940 and see that another kind of world is possible,

00:13:56.080 another experience is possible.

00:13:57.720 So I do think that they,

00:13:59.540 and you can also kind of hone in

00:14:00.780 on what you actually do want in a relationship.

00:14:03.360 So sometimes those preferences aren't arbitrary.

00:14:07.240 They're born of experience

00:14:08.980 or bad experiences or good experiences.

00:14:10.540 So you can really hone in on that

00:14:11.840 and be like, I do not want this.

00:14:13.140 And then you can screen those people out on a dating app.

00:14:16.100 So it's quite efficient.

00:14:17.640 So yeah, I don't think it's all bad,

00:14:19.000 But I still think that meeting people organically is just much more, you get a much more accurate sense of who the other person is, and whether you find that person attractive, because the big error, I think, with thinking that dating apps will solve our issues will solve the kind of romance question for us or make it much more streamlined. And it's you're treating it again, like it, like a job interview. Whereas, you know, you know, I have my best friends, you know, I could tick all the boxes about our compatibility, but it's like, I don't want to

00:14:48.940 sleep with them it's like that's not chemistry that's that's a logical thing but um you know

00:14:55.460 sexual attraction romance and desire those things are that's not a choice that's not like a logical

00:15:00.620 rational decision it's it's something you feel emotionally on which goes back to some deep

00:15:05.600 biological kind of level and it's also that the that old adage you know opposites attract

00:15:11.220 what you think you want in a partner isn't necessarily the things that you actually need

00:15:16.640 for instance if you're a you know chaotic creative person then maybe what you actually need is

00:15:21.720 someone who's a little bit more stable a little bit more rational a little bit more calm even

00:15:25.740 though in your head you say oh i want a creative type yeah no i think um one benefit i think of

00:15:31.840 apps funnily enough is they allow you to kind of play the field a bit more if you know if you can

00:15:37.600 present yourself okay if you do okay on apps it allows you to kind of meet more people and that's

00:15:42.280 important i think in terms of um you don't like sometimes what you think you like is not actually

00:15:47.240 what you do like when you like when you're younger you think you might like something in a partner

00:15:50.940 then you meet someone with those qualities and you realize actually as you say it's not always

00:15:55.800 necessarily something that's beneficial to you so but again you have to meet the people in real life

00:16:00.460 it's uh putting it just into a filter on an app it's uh it doesn't really get you anywhere because

00:16:06.480 until you meet someone you may they may be on paper you're perfect match but then there'd just

00:16:11.300 to be no spark.

00:16:13.700 Hey Francis, do you like privacy?

00:16:16.260 Of course I do.

00:16:17.740 I don't want the feds knowing my business

00:16:20.600 in case I get whacked

00:16:22.420 because I got too close to the truth.

00:16:25.740 The man is everywhere

00:16:28.060 and truth seekers like me need to be careful.

00:16:31.720 Mate, you're a burnout former primary school teacher

00:16:34.500 who spends too much time on imafatincel.com.

00:16:37.940 Just cause you read that the world is run

00:16:39.700 by a cabal of lizards doesn't mean it's actually true.

00:16:42.820 I've never said the world is run by a cabal of lizards,

00:16:45.940 but they are definitely tracking my online activity.

00:16:48.940 Well, if you are worried about your data being mined

00:16:51.500 by big tech and sold off to third parties

00:16:53.620 all around the globe,

00:16:54.820 then Startmail is the email provider for you.

00:16:57.500 The email accounts you use aren't free.

00:17:00.060 They're mining your accounts and email for data as we speak.

00:17:04.460 This data can then be sold on

00:17:06.860 to a whole host of different companies.

00:17:09.620 Startmail keeps your messages private.

00:17:12.140 Every email can be encrypted

00:17:13.660 even if the recipient doesn't use encryption.

00:17:16.160 When you delete an email in Startmail, it's gone forever.

00:17:19.400 Startmail uses their own servers, not Amazon.

00:17:23.560 This means they can't be put out of business like Parler.

00:17:26.560 Switching to Startmail is dead easy.

00:17:29.580 You can easily transfer all your current email data

00:17:33.320 so you don't need to start from scratch.

00:17:35.760 Your cybersecurity has never been more at risk.

00:17:38.720 Email snoops and scammers are taking advantage of the pandemic

00:17:41.740 as phishing has skyrocketed in the last year.

00:17:44.860 Take control of your privacy with Startmail before it's too late.

00:17:48.360 Sign up today and you'll get 50% off your first year.

00:17:52.600 Go to startmail.com slash trigger.

00:17:55.900 That's Startmail with a T.

00:17:57.460 S-T-A-R-T, mail.com forward slash trigger.

00:18:01.780 50% off your first year.

00:18:04.200 Startmail.com slash trigger.

00:18:06.320 Don't let the lizards get you.

00:18:08.720 and it's also as well i read this statistic and tell me if this is incorrect that people who

00:18:15.660 meet on dating apps are far more likely to break up than if you meet in college and if you meet

00:18:20.280 in the workplace it creates a far less stable relationship yeah i mean i think part of that

00:18:26.180 is there's the kind of choice paradox with dating apps i think that that is a an issue where the

00:18:33.000 grass is always greener potentially because whereas in the past i think where there was

00:18:38.460 more scarcity i think scarcity is a bad thing to view relationships with a mentality of scarcity

00:18:43.420 because you might be you might stay in toxic relationships then because you think i'm never

00:18:47.800 going to meet anyone else but the flip side of that is the choice paradox where you feel like

00:18:51.920 i could just go on an app and meet someone else so the the smallest kind of thing that comes up

00:18:56.960 in a relationship you just walk out the door whereas actually if you'd you know you have to

00:19:01.720 work at every relationship even with family members you can't just it's treating it like

00:19:06.340 another part of consumer capitalism that you just have this like a product you just throw it out when

00:19:11.760 you discard it when you've when you've had enough of it and you don't work it's available yeah and

00:19:16.740 i and i think on it there's there's kind of a deeper kind of connection that you have to build

00:19:21.700 with someone to have a sustained relationship and that involves working through uh disagreements

00:19:29.340 working through things that are called sometimes red flags because some of those things can be

00:19:34.940 work through and actually investing in the relationship not just treating it as as something

00:19:39.540 completely disposable and there's also the addiction element as well because some you know

00:19:44.340 let's be fair it's quite an addictive way to live a new experience new person oh someone swiped left

00:19:51.060 or right or whatever it may be on my photo being dopamine hit yeah and again the the big tech

00:19:58.200 companies they're not you know they don't get rich off happily ever afters they're doing this

00:20:03.500 to turn a profit there's so hinge allowing to us james what's that hinge allowing potentially i

00:20:09.580 mean yeah i mean they're not they're not doing it to it's not some altruistic thing they're doing it

00:20:15.140 to make a profit and you know i think we we've seen the same with the gig economy with with

00:20:21.000 say when i was driving for uber as research for the my previous book they gamify it to keep you

00:20:26.700 out on the road driving for longer and the apps you know we don't know what's input into the

00:20:31.740 algorithm we don't know um whether it's actually showing us um who would be our most suitable

00:20:39.580 matches or whatever we know we we do know from whistleblowers at some of the apps that uh the

00:20:45.880 algorithm you know they sometimes game the algorithms to get us to upgrade so when someone

00:20:49.600 upgrades on an app say to get more matches they then stop paying the upgrade and then they take

00:20:54.900 away more of our matches so they feel like they're only getting matches when they when they've paid

00:20:59.240 the extra upgrade fee like i don't think we're outsourcing many of our aspects of our lives to

00:21:05.680 algorithms run by a small number of people in silicon valley for example i don't think that's

00:21:11.920 necessarily something we should just do i think there's um like nobody is new nobody who creates

00:21:17.980 these things is completely you know they're not creating them on a value-free basis it's not

00:21:23.100 neutral they have their own values they're inputting it into that um for the benefit of

00:21:27.160 their company and we should be careful i think in terms of how we engage with those technologies or

00:21:32.560 we should at least think about it that you know this may be someone else's framework they're

00:21:36.860 imposing on us when we when we open an app it's a really good point and one of the things you've

00:21:42.020 referenced a fair bit is the manosphere let's let's talk about men a little bit because and

00:21:47.920 boys particularly because you're writing a book about it and i correct me on this timeline but

00:21:55.620 Sort of around the time of Brexit and Trump, there started to be this conversation about, you know, Jordan Peterson became a big figure and suddenly everyone was concerned about men and men acting out and toxic masculinity became this phrase.

00:22:14.720 And then you started hearing about the incels and then there were these people and then dating apps and all of this seems to be, there's like an emerging narrative about it.

00:22:23.380 and there's genuine problems emerging in that thing.

00:22:26.100 And I remember Cassie J's film, The Red Pill,

00:22:29.540 I don't know if you saw that.

00:22:31.220 Yeah, I have, yeah.

00:22:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:32.540 So all of this was kind of happening in that time

00:22:35.180 and the conversation has moved on a little bit,

00:22:38.220 but I feel like the issues are only getting more concerning,

00:22:42.360 not less in time.

00:22:43.640 Where are we with men and men acting out, as they say?

00:22:49.060 I feel like with this subject,

00:22:50.560 there's so i'm just reading nina powers uh book which on masculinity which i think is very 0.96

00:22:55.040 interesting a very interesting engagement with the topic i haven't finished it yet

00:22:58.740 but i think um books like that i feel are quite constructive whereas i i've read other books on

00:23:05.060 this subject which i just feel are deliberately inflammatory they they take the worst examples

00:23:10.800 from different uh subcultures and define the entire subculture by by those those unpleasant

00:23:17.920 people um i feel like the debate i feel like there are two debates on this so we can come here and i

00:23:24.340 feel like we can talk about it uh properly and we could have a good discussion on it um chris

00:23:29.560 williamson you know his his podcast they also have some interesting discussions on that and

00:23:33.460 nama kates's podcast too the incel podcast but then you go to like liberal spaces and

00:23:39.880 it's like two completely different conversations and i feel like both sides could learn something

00:23:45.580 but i feel like the right does engage more with well i'm not saying the right this is like a right

00:23:50.900 space but but i feel like um those outside of the mainstream tend those outside of the mainstream

00:23:57.840 tend to be better often at engaging with the mainstream as well because you can't really

00:24:01.340 avoid that's a good framing mainstream and not mainstream i think is the right yeah that's a

00:24:04.920 better framing you're right but i feel like i can i can come here or i can i've been on chris's

00:24:09.680 podcast or the incel podcast and talk about this issue and we can talk about the nuances of why

00:24:14.740 these young men are being radicalized and it's not all just like violent misogynist men some

00:24:19.100 people it's just men who are very depressed but then none of that if i try and bring that

00:24:24.280 conversation into liberal spaces it tends to be you won't get commissioned for the most part

00:24:31.400 anyway but it tends to be oh you're just making excuses for incels you're just making excuses

00:24:36.680 oh like you're just saying poor men and um there's it's just it seems like a nuisance why can't we

00:24:42.980 talk about the gender pay gap why that's that's the response you get don't we shouldn't talk about 1.00

00:24:48.540 that let's talk about um maternity leave and things like that which is fine i think we should

00:24:53.180 talk about that but i think we can do several things at once this idea that you it's not a

00:24:57.760 zero something you know if we talk about say uh the the declining numbers of men proportionally

00:25:04.360 going into higher education which i think we should talk about that that doesn't mean that

00:25:09.120 we can't talk about uh things affecting women as well it just there seems to be this zero-sum

00:25:13.760 mentality that you have oppressor and oppressed yeah and therefore if you talk about male

00:25:19.720 homelessness for example it's it's somehow a distraction from talking about women's issues

00:25:24.100 which i think i think on that particular issue that mainstream space that you talk about

00:25:29.020 they they're stuck a little bit in that oppressor press dynamic and really the thinking is

00:25:37.180 reparations that's what they're thinking about they're thinking how the men have had it this is

00:25:43.720 their version in my opinion men have had it great women have had it terribly now finally we're making

00:25:49.320 some some progress we've got a bit of a microphone we can talk about it it's time to get our own back

00:25:54.680 it's time to advance our interest and i think they're not thinking about it in a holistic

00:26:00.320 constructive way, which is what I'd like to do here in this conversation. So why are a minority 0.96

00:26:07.300 of men, but a growing minority of men, switching off that mainstream dating society thing? Why is

00:26:15.080 that happening? Several reasons. Obviously, it's a huge topic. But for example, I think,

00:26:20.940 let's say start with dating, for example. There have been huge changes economically in terms of

00:26:26.660 equality between men and women technologically in in recent decades which have meant that the

00:26:31.700 assumptions of our parents generation and grandparents generation in terms of romance

00:26:35.300 have gone out the window so i mean anyone who's ever tried to go to someone older for date for

00:26:40.500 dating advice um will know that how useless that stuff usually is it's um the way they met has uh

00:26:46.780 and even even monogamous monogamy and monogamous marriages you know the numbers doing that are way 0.61

00:26:52.760 lower than they were back in our parents generation uh people can pick uh women in 1.00

00:26:59.140 particular can pick from a select from a much wider pool of of potential suitors now whereas

00:27:03.860 in the past due to the fact that they had less economic women had less economic freedom 1.00

00:27:08.460 they tended to people tended to marry locally anyway uh women tended to 1.00

00:27:13.340 they they tended to need to marry someone who could financially support them because there 0.67

00:27:19.920 there's no guarantee that they'd be able to earn a ways themselves for example um so men who might

00:27:26.980 not have much else going for them had the fact that they could could um they had the whip hand 0.91

00:27:32.120 over women in terms of in terms of finances so they could use that to control women within 0.99

00:27:36.420 relationships and also find a partner like that dating apps allow give women more freedom to 0.96

00:27:41.080 choose from a wider pool of people so um if you're a an attractive young woman living in some some

00:27:47.720 village now you can get so you know some the back end of nowhere you can still go on instagram uh

00:27:53.660 build up an instagram throw up a load of attractive pictures and you'll get high status quote unquote

00:27:59.100 men offering to take you out so therefore the you know the guy down the street who has the steady

00:28:04.380 job uh in the office uh or whatever is some suddenly less uh attract less attractive proposition

00:28:10.840 so i think that's that's a thing um and i don't say that's necessarily like a good or bad thing

00:28:17.460 is just something that's happened um and yeah i think also uh men's place in work via work has

00:28:25.060 changed men's relationship with work with with production has changed massively so that was

00:28:29.020 hired something i looked at with hired uh men in the past working class men in particular would

00:28:34.040 there a lot of their identity would come from work from making things from producing stuff

00:28:39.160 from those industries that existed those have kind of been wiped away and we tend to we've

00:28:47.600 been sold this idea that you should form your identity through what you consume rather than

00:28:51.240 what you produce but that's much more ephemeral I think it's it's it's much shallower it's much

00:28:56.940 more easy to kind of well it has it doesn't have the deep roots that if you're if you're producing

00:29:01.500 something you're making something there's a certain pride of a sense of accomplishment

00:29:05.620 that you take out into the world in terms of confidence whereas i think for a lot of men

00:29:09.760 that they don't know their place in the world because that's no longer there they're no longer

00:29:13.800 the breadwinner they're no longer the someone who has pride in being say a minor or working

00:29:19.400 in industry or whatever it is um it's much harder to get that it's just a wage slave in some like

00:29:24.720 corporate environment you just you do feel kind of emasculated a little bit um some boss like just

00:29:30.380 ordering you around all the time not that that didn't happen in the old industries but

00:29:33.740 there is something there's like it's eroded a strong sense of male identity i think and couple

00:29:40.540 that with the transformation in the the dating market brought about by these various things

00:29:45.320 it can be very confusing and you don't have mainstream society you go to the mainstream

00:29:50.720 for dating advice say and it's garbage it's just be yourself it's like i remember when i was 0.69

00:29:55.940 a teenager i'd see that stuff and it's just this this disney disneyified nonsense you'll meet don't 0.96

00:30:03.480 worry you'll meet someone eventually like fate will take care of it just be yourself just be

00:30:07.760 nice and then you you go to the college party or something and it isn't the nice the nice guys who

00:30:12.820 are like hooking up with the with the with the with the girls that you were into or whatever

00:30:17.140 it's and it's then you you feel like you've been lied to and then you go in search of

00:30:21.440 pickup artistry or the manosphere or you you look for things outside of the mainstream because it

00:30:26.600 feels like the mainstream is either lying to you with some agenda either either from the data the

00:30:33.080 corporations like the dating apps or uh or just some agenda or just some lack of understanding

00:30:38.380 and then you gravitate to alternatives and some of those alternatives are not necessarily good

00:30:44.140 for you you can become radicalized by that i was watching uh that documentary what was it the tinder

00:30:50.320 you know the tinder swindler exactly and that was someone who obviously went around and

00:30:56.960 exploiting women but what was very interesting about it is the guy presented himself as a

00:31:04.220 billionaire and the moment he did that there was all these women wanting to go to date him wanting

00:31:10.940 to that's shocking yeah sleep with him but but the problem is right sorry james but the problem is

00:31:18.820 is number one as my girlfriend pointed out why would a billionaire be on tinder yeah okay so

00:31:23.920 So number one, that's a problem.

00:31:26.000 And number two, we all want this unattainable lifestyle.

00:31:30.680 We want the billionaire.

00:31:32.120 We want to live this Instagram lifestyle.

00:31:34.700 So the guy down the street with a regular job

00:31:37.400 who might be a nice guy, who might be a good guy,

00:31:39.580 solid, dependable, have a good...

00:31:41.680 It's just never going to be able to compete with the fantasy.

00:31:44.700 Yeah, I mean, the Tinderswind Lair,

00:31:46.120 it was a great documentary.

00:31:49.080 It was really well done.

00:31:50.040 but the um and i i did feel sorry for the women you know being ripped off and stuff but there was

00:31:55.560 a part of me which was also like you could have just swiped for a normal and a guy with a normal

00:32:00.260 lifestyle i mean it's if something's too good to be looks too good to be true it pretty much

00:32:04.840 always is um and so yeah i think it said something interesting about people's expectations of the

00:32:10.720 type of partner you know they deserve both men and women i think that's a i think an issue of

00:32:15.420 There's an issue of entitlement among both men and women that we've been kind of sold by consumer capitalism, whatever it is, that you deserve like the perfect Hollywood kind of fairy tale romance and every aspect of your life should be perfect.

00:32:34.060 So you see men acting out more destructively than women 1.00

00:32:38.720 because men are much more likely to be violent

00:32:40.860 and you have this kind of residual misogyny

00:32:45.840 which has just always been there anyway.

00:32:47.460 James, before we get into that,

00:32:48.300 because I really want to ask you about the man's fear,

00:32:49.900 can I ask you, you talked about how dating advice

00:32:53.060 or whatever doesn't really work,

00:32:54.600 particularly from older generations.

00:32:56.380 I suppose that if some, I was just thinking,

00:32:58.300 if someone asked me for, a man asked me how to get a girl. 0.84

00:33:02.980 I'm going to ask you after the show.

00:33:04.800 I can help you.

00:33:06.500 Dr. KK is going to sort you out.

00:33:08.740 No, but I suppose the way I, what I would say,

00:33:11.980 and this is probably completely inappropriate now,

00:33:14.220 but it's like, don't try to find a woman today,

00:33:17.440 but work on yourself, on your job, on your personality,

00:33:20.440 on your skills, on your body,

00:33:21.740 whatever it is that you think is going to make you more attractive.

00:33:25.240 But really for a man, it's about raising your status

00:33:27.760 and upping your game, right?

00:33:29.820 Is that still not something that's going to get you

00:33:32.240 way you want to in the in the current dating environment yeah i mean i think that's your

00:33:36.060 point is interesting because uh that's something that you do see people in say the red pill

00:33:41.140 community saying uh you know they go off the deep end in about certain things but there is that

00:33:47.480 basic premise of self-improvement work on yourself which i think is a good a good starting point um

00:33:53.120 becoming a better but the mainstream doesn't really talk about that as much either it tends

00:33:57.460 to tell you um you're perfect as you are you know someone will like you for who you are

00:34:01.660 which which is i mean that is that is the message oh someone should like you for you and it's just

00:34:07.920 yeah but there's different versions of you right there's yeah i mean there's there's there's the

00:34:13.200 i know from i you know i experienced grief recently there's a version of me which came

00:34:17.600 out then which i wouldn't want to maintain yeah you know drinking at midday and and and just not

00:34:23.680 really doing anything it's like a temporary thing but that's like one facet of of me whereas you can

00:34:29.640 be the person who's doing stuff and yeah i think status can it's still massively important but in

00:34:35.840 a way it's it's more important how you present yourself so you can have people who uh have

00:34:42.040 status say this applied before dating apps as well say someone goes out to a bar and is chatting to

00:34:47.580 someone and they're wearing like a rolex and their first thing is oh do you like my rolex or you know

00:34:53.440 they're flashing money that's very unattractive but then if someone discovers if the woman say 0.95

00:34:59.840 discovers later on you know that they interact normally then the woman finds out later on that

00:35:04.720 he has some high status thing it seems more it seems cooler it's like show don't tell yeah but

00:35:10.000 i think with dating apps you have to know how to present yourself and if you you may be the

00:35:14.760 you may be jeff bezos or whatever but if you don't know how to present yourself then you're not going

00:35:20.940 to do very well yeah i can't remember who it was that said why be yourself when you can be someone

00:35:25.160 actually worthwhile i think but to me that's that's always been the way it's like you've got

00:35:30.680 to get better man that's that's and particularly for a man if you want success in any field that's

00:35:35.960 what you're gonna have to do you're gonna have to up your game simple as that but let's talk about

00:35:39.740 some of the the problems that we're starting to see that are coming out as a result of this

00:35:43.740 because you talk about the manuscript you talk about incels um is it a bigger problem or we're

00:35:48.440 just talking about it more and what exactly is the problem no i think disenfranchised men essentially

00:35:53.280 who feel uh they've got no shot there's no chance they're never going to get a girlfriend it's not

00:35:58.080 going to happen yeah is that how they feel yeah it is it's this fatalistic you know forever they're

00:36:02.680 going to be forever alone is is something you it's over you see the incels you hear the incels

00:36:08.060 saying it's just over it's over bro um i think it's wrong because i think again transposing

00:36:13.500 experiences of tech on apps to real life whereas i think those of us who grew up kind of one foot

00:36:18.640 in the digital world one foot out of it so i my first mobile phone was like 17 i think so so

00:36:24.040 younger it was kind of you grew up experiencing a different world i think people coming up now

00:36:29.380 who've just uh had these experiences mediated by apps i think that is a storing a big problem

00:36:36.300 because it's it's much harder to get those people to recognize that you know that's not the world

00:36:41.900 like just turn turn the app off go out let's go out or something or go just leave the house

00:36:46.700 and it's not always as bad as it seems on apps I think it is storing up a big problem though I

00:36:53.820 think you're seeing this with some of the resentments that are spilling over from these

00:36:58.600 communities occasionally but I also think the mainstream is dealing with it very badly it's

00:37:03.540 not really partly as a journalist partly I think that's because there simply aren't the resources

00:37:09.720 in journalism anymore there's more kind of generalists who just will suddenly write about

00:37:16.000 say the incel thing having just looked at it for kind of 20 minutes before read some stuff on it

00:37:20.960 and they're churning out this uh these hot takes on it and you just see inflammatory pieces which

00:37:25.940 aren't really interested in examining how this process of radicalization happens just as we do

00:37:31.420 with other forms of of extremism it just tends to be like oh well they're men they're privileged so

00:37:36.360 let's just like shut them down or ban their groups or yeah pretend it's not happening

00:37:41.900 isn't also the problem as well that society has become more feminine 1.00

00:37:44.920 over the years and that look and that's gone goes right the way through education we could have a

00:37:50.860 whole one hour podcast about why education has become more feminine in a way it favors girls

00:37:55.820 more there's one simple statistic for the same for the same misdemeanor in school boys are far

00:38:02.160 are far more likely to face severe discipline than girls, for example.

00:38:06.460 That's interesting. I didn't know that.

00:38:07.860 I know what you mean in terms of the labour market.

00:38:09.960 So the changes in the labour market, for example,

00:38:13.500 have become more accommodating of women's, I'd say, innate skills, 1.00

00:38:18.640 on average anyway.

00:38:20.020 So it tends to be more service-facing jobs

00:38:22.460 where skills like communication are valued more highly.

00:38:26.440 So I think that's obviously had a massive impact, yeah.

00:38:30.700 and there's also as well we're not talking about the hormonal aspect of it and a really interesting

00:38:36.380 article that you wrote i think it was in the times we talked about uh you talked about low

00:38:40.640 testosterone and the effect it's having on men so let's explore that a little bit what does it mean

00:38:46.560 to have low testosterone in a scientific sense and what are the implications for men yeah so so

00:38:52.480 testosterone levels among men in in advanced developed countries tend to have gone down

00:38:58.660 slightly in recent uh decades i think it is it's in my article anyway but and there's no kind of

00:39:05.260 well there's been a steady decline over many decades hasn't there and it's essentially i

00:39:10.240 mean there are there are on in the manosphere there are kind of conspiracy theories about this

00:39:14.660 and uh there's also stuff that is a bit more plausible about kind of contamination of water

00:39:19.520 supplies and stuff generally which is a problem yeah um but but a lot of this is is um is is kind

00:39:28.080 of a cultural things really it's it's i i don't think it's um yeah i don't think i don't think

00:39:33.780 there's there's a conspiracy i think it's lifestyle and cultural factors so we live more sedentary

00:39:38.280 lifestyles which is bad for your testosterone we're much less likely to engage in uh physical

00:39:43.480 activity and i mean this is why one of the first things during this article i went to interview a

00:39:50.560 doctor about uh who specializes in this and he's like the first thing you should do is like go to

00:39:54.560 the gym and lift weights because it's you're mimicking some of the stuff you would have had

00:39:58.320 to do in the past um and that that kind of improves your testosterone we don't get enough 0.65

00:40:02.800 enough sleep uh because the kind of night the office culture basically uh the things we eat

00:40:09.200 the certain processed foods and stuff all of this feeds the amount of time we we sit on a screen

00:40:13.920 looking at a screen um all of this stuff contributes to having potentially low lower

00:40:19.300 testosterone, which has a hugely detrimental effect on all sorts of things.

00:40:24.480 People with low testosterone are typically depressed, so it's not a good place to be.

00:40:30.340 Hey, Konstantin, do you believe every business needs cyber security to succeed?

00:40:36.340 Yes, of course, because otherwise Uncle Vlad will hack the hell out of it.

00:40:40.200 Wouldn't that be a gross violation of international law?

00:40:43.360 In Putin, Russia, we don't have law.

00:40:45.220 Well, if you don't live in Russia, then Pocket Seam is the company for you. 0.99

00:40:50.700 If you have a business that needs protecting from the unscrupulous elements of the internet,

00:40:56.020 then make sure to check them out.

00:40:59.100 Unscrupulous elements? That is no way to talk about my family.

00:41:03.020 Pocket Seam also provides free resources if you follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn.

00:41:08.320 And if you want to keep costs manageable, you can also pay for their services on credit.

00:41:13.600 Pocket Seam is the best and most cost-effective cyber defence company in the world.

00:41:18.680 I tried hacking them and all I got was international sanctions.

00:41:21.760 If you want to protect your company at a reasonable price,

00:41:25.820 then go to pocketseam.co.uk.

00:41:29.200 That's P-O-C-K-E-T-S-I-E-M.co.uk

00:41:36.380 and get your company protected by the best in the business.

00:41:40.260 so so let's explore that so what are the signs for instance that you've got low testosterone

00:41:46.760 so we've touched on depression which makes me which leaves me horrified because there's people

00:41:51.760 there must be lots of people out there who are on antidepressants lots of men but actually the

00:41:56.720 reason is they're on low they've got low testosterone and actually if they you know 0.79

00:42:01.060 maybe took testosterone supplements or they went to the gym or changed their diet they could

00:42:05.080 completely changed our lives yeah i mean and and getting yeah depression is often the symptom of

00:42:11.020 low testosterone is often mistaken for uh depression this was something that came up in

00:42:15.800 in uh my discussions with people who've been diagnosed with it and taking testosterone is

00:42:21.340 like a last resort lifestyle like the legitimate doctors who do this uh who work in this area

00:42:27.080 will always suggest testosterone is a last resort because uh it can you can risk infertility

00:42:33.340 uh with that but it's also this is an area where you can't just tell whether someone has high or

00:42:39.860 low testosterone from appearance we think it's uh oh well they they may appear very manly or they

00:42:44.440 may uh so i couldn't grow a beard very well till i was well only just now i still still have a

00:42:51.420 patchy beard when when it's growing like i couldn't manage even that till like my mid-20s

00:42:56.640 and i was not like super like masculine in school like playing rugby and stuff um but so i would i

00:43:04.020 got my my testosterone was actually like fine it was it was a good level but then you have other

00:43:08.580 people i spoke to i interviewed for the article who you would never think that they had low

00:43:13.220 testosterone but they were and it took them a long time to seek help because they were suffering with

00:43:18.000 these problems but they thought you know i can't be it can't be this it'd be depression uh low low

00:43:23.340 or non-existent libido fatigue a brain fog these kinds of things so it's worth I mean I think it's

00:43:31.200 worth anyone especially I'm 39 now I think it's uh especially men around our age it's worth getting

00:43:38.620 checked out if you're feeling symptoms of low mood for example and what could effect could

00:43:44.500 that be having on a broader section of society um I'm I'm not I mean more people who are who are

00:43:52.400 depressed it's probably not good yeah and i think it's um the thing is improve increasing your

00:43:58.800 testosterone corresponds with actually living just a better lifestyle anyway so i think

00:44:02.200 going to the gym and lifting weights and uh being healthier generally i think that will improve

00:44:08.920 all different aspects of your life i think you're more likely as a man to meet a partner if you

00:44:13.060 get in shape get trim and stuff it's like incrementally increases your odds a bit doesn't

00:44:17.660 it no i i when i read your article like i said i found it incredibly worrying because to me

00:44:25.260 you know we talk about mental health and we talk about you know talking is important and yes of

00:44:30.000 course it is but if you're not addressing the hormonal or the biological then you're never

00:44:35.060 gonna not sort the problem out but deal with it effectively yeah and i think i do think um men and

00:44:41.160 women deal with problems in a different way so yeah i mean we we it feels like yeah it feels 0.99

00:44:49.420 like that's something that we have to pretend isn't isn't really true now so i think for many

00:44:54.140 women many women like on average i think there's great value in talking about things for the sake 1.00

00:44:58.440 of talking about it yeah yes um and you you know anyone who's been in a relationship it's like

00:45:04.600 knows that your partner doesn't necessarily want you to solve their problem they just want to vent

00:45:09.560 you about it and i think once you understand that it makes relationships easier i think as as men

00:45:14.920 we tend to be yeah it's like talk i've been to therapy and it's like all right talking but but

00:45:20.280 i want her to give me like a roadmap so i can execute these steps and and and make the change

00:45:25.480 that way like to me just talking about it doesn't you know it's we think of it like where's the

00:45:29.720 logical end point of it yeah it needs to solve the problem as opposed to just be a process that

00:45:33.820 you go through yeah that makes a lot of sense man so the i'll be honest with you i feel like

00:45:40.200 we haven't really got deep enough into the particularly the sort of like the manosphere

00:45:44.200 incel resentment world because i don't know anything about it and what's going on there

00:45:51.020 james like what what is brewing under the surface that we don't know about um i just think well you

00:45:57.420 have the form you have the formation of basically new ideologies really so and and conspiracy

00:46:04.060 theories attached and what are they what are those ideologies one one conspiracy theory for example

00:46:08.800 i would call it a kind of a conspiracy theory it comes from something real so dating apps we have

00:46:14.300 the 80 20 rule which is um you know the parito distribution rule where you know it's commonly

00:46:22.080 accepted in the stats by the site that on dating apps it's like 20 of men the chads so-called

00:46:27.420 are competing for 80 of women are competing for them and then the other 80 of men are basically

00:46:32.800 just being like ignored and that is that is roughly true on dating apps like tinder and hinge

00:46:38.480 but it becomes a conspiracy when it's transposed onto real life so when you have these black 0.98

00:46:44.980 pillars as they're called in the incel community that's the ideology they believe they'll never

00:46:50.240 meet someone because they take that rule as something hard and fast that they'll be uh the

00:46:55.820 80 20 you know it's 20 of men or less monopolizing every woman in well 80 of women in the world or

00:47:04.840 whatever i think that's a conspiracy theory which leads people into these very misogynistic oh women 1.00

00:47:10.820 are just shallow women are just superficial um and these very misogynistic attitudes and 1.00

00:47:15.620 it's a very simplistic view towards women i think that's um that's quite dangerous that 0.71

00:47:21.020 creates breezes hatred it's very deterministic that women are like this men are like this

00:47:25.600 stop seeing people as individuals um and and when radicalization like that takes place

00:47:33.480 and there is that this now there's you know the black pill ideology for example

00:47:37.820 um very deterministic very fatalistic teaches people that there's they have no hope that

00:47:44.420 But it's like nihilism, basically.

00:47:46.980 And nihilism is always, can be, well, it's always dangerous.

00:47:50.860 Especially for young men.

00:47:52.260 Lash out is what's the point.

00:47:54.140 So what's the counter argument to that worldview?

00:47:59.060 In terms of?

00:48:00.180 In terms of the black pillars and whatever.

00:48:02.400 What do we say to those people?

00:48:04.460 Well, I would say that it's far too reductive, for example.

00:48:07.580 So a black pillar would say that all that matters in dating for a man is looks. 0.90

00:48:13.400 all that matters is so that's why you have just factually incorrect though isn't it yeah i think

00:48:18.520 it is but i think it i mean it matters way less than it does for women yeah no i agree but it's

00:48:24.740 there in this echo chamber yeah where they're they're telling themselves that that's all that

00:48:28.760 matters and there's kind of an identity attached to being a loser um and i don't mean being a loser

00:48:33.940 as that person's like oh they're just a loser i mean to losing they're they have an identity

00:48:38.640 attached to failure and to losing and it's kind of like a bucket of crabs as well so you have

00:48:45.380 anyone who tries to be slightly more optimistic or say actually it's not as bad as um so i spoke

00:48:50.260 to jack peterson who used to be a like spokesperson for the incels and he was saying you know it's

00:48:54.600 like anyone who tries to improve themselves it's just like what you're doing you're just wasting

00:48:58.960 your time it's just like like small small town mentality or something where you're just kind of

00:49:02.760 knocked down again do you not think this is also about technology like 30 years ago if you were

00:49:09.380 a black pillar without knowing it you you you didn't have access to 10 000 other people who

00:49:17.460 were exactly like you and so you were surrounded by a world in which you you constantly saw 0.98

00:49:23.400 counter examples your mate that you went to school with he was a complete loser and now he's got a 0.57

00:49:27.720 great job and a beautiful wife and three kids and whatever like that was something that you could

00:49:32.320 see and you had to process that whereas now you've got a forum of people who are just reinforcing

00:49:37.120 your beliefs about the world so how much of this is just technology more than anything yeah and i

00:49:41.960 think that's that's a good point in that it's those niches are more accessible so you can find

00:49:46.340 your ideological niche surround yourself for more and more time with uh with with with like-minded

00:49:51.660 people who just reinforce that all the time it's about selective focus as well though because you

00:49:56.920 know you can still we can still all of us find counter examples to we could say that you know

00:50:02.580 on average it's it helps if you're if you're good looking or if you're tall or whatever

00:50:06.700 as a man in the dating realm but we all know uh counter examples of these other things

00:50:13.860 this person has it those things don't matter um but i think that's about if more and more of your

00:50:19.780 time is spent yet on the technology it's uh it's easier to shut it's easier to have that selective

00:50:24.600 focus where you just focus on uh the ideology and and any time anyone brings up a counter example

00:50:30.720 you just dismiss it as well that's that's the exception but isn't the problem as well let's be

00:50:36.040 fair there's a i've seen a lot of what they write there's an air of entitlement to them they believe

00:50:42.540 that they deserve a woman who is a tenor or whatever it is that they call her whatever the

00:50:47.000 terminology is it's like well you're not entitled to that particular person she doesn't have to date

00:50:53.680 you and there's something deeply narcissistic about it as well isn't there oh yeah no I definitely

00:50:58.880 think uh there's like entitlement plays a big part in in a lot of that I would say not for

00:51:06.080 everyone because you know there are there are incels I've spoken to who they have you know

00:51:10.340 severe facial disfigurement and they're not they're not expecting to to to go out with kind 0.79

00:51:15.340 of a playboy model they just want uh they just want some company at some point they would just

00:51:20.200 like to form a relationship at some point um but i think at the same time there is an element of

00:51:26.340 uh male entitlement in terms of uh some people with their standards is just like they they they

00:51:32.140 don't want to improve themselves or make any effort to be kind of a better person themselves

00:51:36.820 they just want to be distinctly average and yet they expect to find a partner immediately who's

00:51:43.060 who's amazing it's just that's just not realistic no it's not i think the thing that worries me

00:51:50.460 about the incels is that again it seems to have been a movement and correct me if i'm wrong it

00:51:55.160 starts in america and we've seen it with you know the shootings particularly the one that happened

00:51:59.520 in santa barbara in california which was that awful awful case and so who then went on to kill

00:52:04.900 all those young women and then it starts to bleed over here do you think it's going to become more 0.99

00:52:09.100 more prevalent i mean i think some of the high profile cases so um elliot roger was was was that

00:52:15.760 one i think some of those cases are slightly exceptional so he was someone who clearly had

00:52:20.420 a personality disorder it's not just oh he's been on some forums and that's made him do that it's

00:52:26.220 someone who clearly had at the very least narcissistic personality disorder if you watch

00:52:30.320 his videos and read his um his his manifesto um and again there was the incident in in plymouth

00:52:36.580 here which you know it was all when it when that happened there were inflammatory comment pieces

00:52:41.960 and hot takes about oh this this is why we need to crack down on uh incel internet forums and then

00:52:48.260 it later transpired that it really didn't have uh anything to do with with incel ideology this was

00:52:53.460 someone again who are deeply troubled and i would say probably he had some troubled relationships

00:52:59.220 with women in his life so we might say yeah he's he's has some issues with women but i don't think

00:53:05.720 it's a bit of a stretch to then say that he was radicalized by these forums. I think there will

00:53:12.980 be spillover though. It's not like I don't think there's a risk of it. But I think we need to put

00:53:17.520 it in perspective. I mean, most of the people on these forums need help to get out of depressed

00:53:24.440 states usually to deal with these kind of mental health problems very often. And you have 25% of

00:53:31.540 people on one of the biggest insert forums who have some form of autism.

00:53:36.900 So it's not just, you know, people being hateful for the sake of being hopeful.

00:53:40.740 You have people with deep-rooted problems.

00:53:42.520 And unfortunately, sometimes that's channeled into radical ideologies,

00:53:46.020 just as we've seen before with Islamic terrorism.

00:53:49.580 We've seen you have some troubled individuals who get drawn into these subcultures and radicalized.

00:53:56.160 We want to stop that instead of just, I mean, we can denounce the acts

00:54:00.180 and people have ultimately a choice

00:54:02.560 whether they go down this road.

00:54:04.280 But we also want to understand it

00:54:05.580 to better prevent it, I think.

00:54:07.140 I think it's a really good point, James.

00:54:08.460 And sadly, I fear this conversation

00:54:10.540 is only going to get more important with time.

00:54:13.080 So I look forward to your book when it's out

00:54:14.880 and we'll have you back

00:54:16.400 and get you to explain a little bit more about this.

00:54:18.820 But for now, thanks for coming back.

00:54:20.420 Where should people check out your work,

00:54:22.140 follow you, et cetera?

00:54:23.540 You can, my book's not out for a while,

00:54:25.400 but I'd love to come back when it is.

00:54:27.180 Anytime, open invitation.

00:54:29.320 Brilliant.

00:54:30.460 Twitter, J underscore Bloodworth on Twitter.

00:54:33.360 James dot Bloodworth on Instagram.

00:54:35.540 You can read me in the New Statesman and the Times.

00:54:38.240 And my book, Hired, is available in all good books.

00:54:40.460 Which we interviewed you about before,

00:54:41.900 so go back and watch that if you're interested.

00:54:43.700 Brilliant book.

00:54:44.240 And it was a really important piece of work at the Times,

00:54:46.300 while you exposed a lot of wrongdoing.

00:54:48.480 Thank you.

00:54:48.940 That was really important.

00:54:50.380 Well, thanks for coming back, James.

00:54:51.860 Thank you for watching and listening.

00:54:53.400 We're going to do a couple of questions from our supporters,

00:54:55.900 for our supporters, for Locals in a second.

00:54:57.960 but in the meantime

00:54:59.380 thanks for watching

00:55:00.080 we'll see you very soon

00:55:00.920 with another brilliant episode

00:55:02.020 like this one

00:55:03.040 or our show

00:55:04.060 all of which go out

00:55:04.960 at 7pm UK time

00:55:06.020 and for those of you

00:55:06.780 who like your trigonometry

00:55:07.840 on the go

00:55:08.560 it's also available

00:55:09.500 as a podcast

00:55:10.360 take care

00:55:11.320 and see you soon guys

00:55:12.460 do you think

00:55:15.060 dating advice gurus

00:55:16.480 actually make a real

00:55:17.460 difference to people

00:55:18.300 or are they just

00:55:18.980 selling a dream

00:55:19.700 to incels

00:55:27.960 your full great outdoors comedy festival lineup is here on september 11th through 13th at

00:55:38.800 arondale park three nights five shows huge laughs september 11th through 13th buy tickets now at

TRIGGERnometry - June 06, 2022

The Dark Side of Dating Apps - James Bloodworth

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript