Liberal Manosphere?

Look, I have no idea what is going on with young men, except that I have a lot of contempt for them. As a guy who likes guy things myself, the idea that young men just can’t handle the world because of reasons is so beyond absurd to me that I don’t even know how to respond, except to have no mercy when they bring their bullshit to my classes, such as not reading or using AI to write their papers. If women are outcompeting men, well, maybe buck up little camper. Put down the bong and the porn and the gambling app and do some fucking work or fail like the evolutionary loser you are if you don’t.

But….you have to deal with these idiots where they are at and while the “manosphere” is one of the most revolting worlds I’ve heard in 2024, we need our boys to speak to these boys. So I have no particular comment here, except to say that when I talk about Democrats engaging in the world as it is and stop telling each other absurd myths like women are going to come out in huge numbers to vote for Kamala Harris because of abortion or that Donald Trump’s racism will get Mexicans to vote for Democrats or that a good strong postcard sending campaign is a good use of party resources, this is exactly the kind of outreach I am talking about:

The “woke teen” in question is Dean Withers, a now-20-year-old liberal content creator who lives in Colorado. Mr. Withers has been debating politics online since 2022 but rapidly gained traction in the final stretch of an election in which Republicans improved their performance with young men.

Gen Z men have reported feeling economically dissatisfied and socially left behind, frustrations that President-elect Trump sought to channel with the help of an online “manosphere” of podcasters and influencers. In the aftermath of an election in which many Democrats believe they were outflanked online, some are scrambling to find bro whisperers of their own.

They are eyeing people like Mr. Withers, who attended a holiday reception at the White House on Tuesday. (“Off to meet mr joe,” he wrote on his Instagram story beforehand.)

He is part of an ecosystem of left-leaning influencers including Hasan Piker, the 33-year-old progressive commentator who streams for hours a day on Twitch. An even younger group of men including Harry Sisson, Mr. Withers and a friend known online simply as Parker each have more than a million followers on TikTok, where they brawl with supporters of Mr. Trump during combative, unpredictable livestreams that Mr. Withers compared to U.F.C. matches.

Can their fluency in the language of the manosphere be used to encourage young men to consider liberal viewpoints instead of conservative ones? Mr. Withers thinks so.

“I used to be a very conservative young white guy who was captured by people like Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan,” he said in a recent phone interview. “Now I found my nook and cranny on the internet where I can help be the opposing force to that.”

Mr. Withers streams for about five hours a day on TikTok, where he has more than two million followers. A vocal supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris, he spent the months leading up to the election sparring eagerly with right-wing figures whom many in the left-wing establishment would rather not touch, including the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and the prominent white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

There, his approach diverges from that of an earlier generation of progressive commentators: It is hard to imagine the four millennial men who host “Pod Save America” sitting down with Mr. Fuentes, a font of misogyny, racism and antisemitism. Mr. Withers gets comments asking whether what can seem like a potentially dangerous, shock-jock approach is the wisest strategy for changing young minds.

Again, I don’t really know what to make of it. I can say that Democrats have done an absolutely horrible job of outreach to young men. So might as well see what happens if we actually embrace young men doing young men things, just with better politics.