Over the last few years there seems to have been a meteoric rise in the popularity of content aimed specifically for men. When I first heard about this, I was 100 percent on-board. However, after being in those spaces for a certain amount of time, I felt the dreaded wave of disillusionment wash over me. Instead of finding spaces dedicated to addressing the unique challenges of being a man in the modern era with an introspective slant, I found bitterness, lies and exploitation. 

There is so much merit to self improvement in and of itself. Things like good fitness, nice hygiene and style can do wonders for a person’s mental and physical well-being. Young men are already suffering a huge mental crisis and spaces dedicated to helping men are needed to help address this crisis. However, when we take a look at the advice provided for men, a different picture becomes clear.

A young man wanting some guidance on dating or fitness might go to YouTube channels in search of relevant advice to address that crucial phase of their life. Men are bombarded with hypermasculine presenting figures telling their audience that they too were “just like them” until they found the secret to whatever they happen to be selling. 

A lot of the times the advice on whatever media influencers are offering tends to advocate for acting a specific way to get attention from the opposite sex and that if you don’t fit their arbitrary definition of what a man is, then you won’t get any results. 

Even more egregious is the blatant lying and manipulation by media influencers to get their audience to sell products. This is especially a problem in the fitness community where they will regularly lie about not being on steroids in order to sell the image of a “natty” and lead their audience into thinking that it is an achievable goal when it has a boatload of physical consequences.

What’s so bad about this is that developing a mindset that the world is only out there to hurt you isn’t good for you. When you suppress your authentic self to follow a blueprint version of somebody else’s masculinity, you won’t become a better person, you’ll just feel like an impostor. 

I want to make it clear that I do still think that men need targeted advice, but I wish that voice was more introspective and helped men genuinely be a better version of themselves wholly and not a cardboard cutout. In order to create healthy spaces for men is by loving and supporting each other as men but to do that we need the real you, not a parody of yourself.