Gen Z is drowning.
At some point, swimming in the endless sea of information became too onerous of a task. Although the digital sphere has made content far more accessible than ever, some say media literacy and critical thinking skills have dropped substantially.
The reasons for this shift are varied. Grant Johnson, a sophomore studying computer science, believes the rise of short-form content has killed attention spans across the globe.
"I honestly have not watched a movie in a minute," Johnson said. "I should be doing my Letterboxd, but I just don't. It'd just be easier to be scrolling through TikTok or Instagram Reels."
Others believe longstanding institutions like Hollywood have decayed, opting for easy cash grabs with simple, spoon-fed morals over complex, impactful stories.
"People don't like getting preached to, people like putting together puzzles for themselves," said Ryan Hetchler, a sophomore studying finance. "When you take that mystery out of filmmaking … you're going to naturally lose the audience's attention, and they're not going to come back to the theater, and therefore they're going to become more media illiterate."
And with the decline of prestigious establishments begets the rise of the new, dangerous school of thought — the manosphere.
The manosphere is characterized as a mélange of online sites and forums that promote a return to "traditional masculinity,” a narrative centered on maintaining patriarchal hegemony and an opposition to feminism.
As media literacy dwindles, the manosphere has been able to increase its following.
Hetchler said Hollywood's overt preaching of "PC values" has led to young men feeling alienated and distrustful, and they turn to misogynist content creators such as the Tate brothers to feel welcomed.
READ MORE: Opinion: Shock-value misogyny like Andrew Tate's becoming increasingly disturbing
Tara Fatima, a sophomore studying biological sciences, said the algorithms behind short-form content's success have a part to play in radicalizing young men into the manosphere.
"Social media will just feed you whatever it thinks is really outrageous or is really exciting," Fatima said. "It isn't necessarily the truth or what's reality that's sticking in people's minds."
Rage bait and countercultural content gets clicks, and clicks get revenue, so there's little incentive for social media platforms to change their content recommendation models.
Manosphere creators work their magic through relatability — trying to appeal to base human desires to advance their agenda.
"Young men will look at male figures in positions of power and in positions of maybe obscene wealth, and just immediately associate them with positive things," Fatima said. "In the end, we're all looking to get wealthy when we're broke and we're young."
Recent figures entering the manosphere such as online fitness coach Ashton Hall have gone viral for their morning routines.
"He gets up early to work out. He goes and gets money. He has his assistant, probably his wife or woman, his partner, looking after him, and then he goes to sleep," Fatima said.
The man does the work and wins the bread while the woman stays on the sidelines — not getting in the way to impede the opulence seemingly only attainable by an embrace of masculine values.
Jordan Belfort, former stockbroker and subject of the biopic "The Wolf of Wall Street," retains a cult following — seen on flags in college dorms — despite his defrauding of the American people. Why? It's because he's cool, according to Hetchler.
"Oh, that guy makes a lot of money, and he has a yacht, and he's throwing little people ... and they're having parties while they're stockbrokering," Hetchler said. "The imaging is very different to what the actual story is."
The inability of audience members to read between the lines gives the manosphere movement a foothold, and it's difficult to get rid of it.
"Everybody's an expert," Fatima said.
READ MORE: Satire: Dating in the age of the Trump manosphere
The coordination between manosphere and confirmation bias is intentional — misogynist creators intentionally condition their audiences to make them believe they are the only ones worth listening to.
"I don't think that the women in these men's lives that I know have been able to make an impact," said Fatima. "The whole persona of these Andrew Tate people is that you can't listen to the women because they'll just bring you down."
It becomes a positive feedback loop. Lower media literacy has opened the door for manosphere creators to enter the public eye, and in return, manosphere-centric content kills critical thinking and media literacy.
As more and more youth enter the digital world, many worry about how these impressionable minds are going to interact with the manosphere. Johnson said younger people don't have the nuance to accurately comprehend certain pieces of media, notably satire videos about manosphere figures.
Fatima said sometimes people living in the manosphere won't listen to others, but they still have the potential to navigate out of it.
"As a woman, I've seen the men in my life, especially the men that I've known since I've been growing up, go through this phase of über masculine, listening to Andrew Tate, all of this, and grow out of it," Fatima said.
For Johnson, growing out of these phases came through exposure to different perspectives.
"It happened to me, in high school, and I realized, 'Bro, that's like, really, really dumb,'" Johnson said. "You realize, 'Wait, this person is just like me, this is a human being.'"
Edited by Sophia Braccio, Sophia Ramirez, and Katrina Michalak.
Reach the reporter at stroeste@asu.edu and follow @samtroester on X.
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Sam is a sophomore studying political science with a minor in business. This is his first semester with The State Press.
