Taylor Lorenz, a leading journalist tackling contemporary issues in internet culture, rejoins us to go off on current trends pushing young men to embrace conservative expectations of their physiques. Clavicular is a streamer who’s used his platform to advance aesthetic standards for men based on reactionary, profoundly superficial and often dangerous ideals of masculinity. Many such cases. Clavicular is getting a lot of notice lately because of some comments he’s made about supporting Gavin Newsom over JD Vance, applying those standards in ways that capitalize on ideas of physical dominance and superiority. Clavicular’s own dad was a bodybuilder, and that’s shaped his foregrounding of “looksmaxxing,” encouraging young men to pick up on toxic ideas that define worth through conforming to unhealthy physical criteria. This is the realm of the groypers, and from what Taylor’s seeing through her work on the subject, it’s a terrifyingly dominant ideology spreading online and affecting young men.

This also provides us with an opportunity to think critically about the faults of JD Vance and Gavin Newsom. We don’t have time to get into everything that’s wrong with JD Vance as a political figure. But here’s what we picked out for our discussion: He’s an incredible hypocrite who has sold old anti-Trump political commitments down the river. Vance has proven himself willing to say and do anything, putting down his own family members, to grab at power and latch on to what the MAGA base wants to see from him if they’re willing to vote him into higher office. (Yikes!)

It’s a jam-packed episode, one that takes on contemporary political and cultural trends we’re going to have to contend with seriously to make sure that younger generations of voters are not radicalized to profoundly conservative and inhumane ideas about what masculinity means and who should run our country. Even if it’s not the most lighthearted conversation, we think there’s a lot to learn here, and we hope you enjoy! This episode’s available to everyone via major streaming platforms.

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