All The Links Your Eyes Can Read
Another Mandate Mini featuring cool stuff I think is worth your attention.
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Hello out there in internet land! This week we’ve got a whole caboodle of links. I hope you enjoy it. My email is jason [at] jasonrogers.co if you want to get in touch or send me other fun links.
📇 The Mandate Media Club — The Mandate Media Club will be meeting again over Zoom on Tue, May 3, from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM PDT. In that session, we will discuss The Stone Boy, a moving short story written in 1957 by Gina Berriault. Don’t let its age fool you. The story conveys themes that feel remarkably resonant today. I won't give too much away, but it focuses on nine-year-old Arnold, who accidentally causes a traumatic event. How the community reacts says everything about the kind of man he will become. You can download a pdf of the story here (it’s a 25-min read). Attendance is free and open to anyone. However, it is limited to 10 people — first come, first serve. — Register here
🎙 Interview with Terry Crews — The actor, host, and NFL veteran recently gave an incredible interview on the Rich Roll podcast ahead of the debut of his memoir Tough. Crews is one of several prominent men to speak out on issues concerning masculinity. He has talked openly about battling an unhealthy relationship with pornography and sex. Crews has also spoken out against sexual assault against men after a powerful Hollywood agent groped him at a party. The interview is more than two hours, but worth it, I think. Crews is an engaging storyteller and able to clearly articulate the moments in his life when a little voice in his head arrived at just the right moment to save him from himself. I think we can all relate to that. — Rich Roll Podcast
🧒 The Unthinkable — Youth suicide is on the rise. This piece in the New Yorker tells the story of Trevor Matthews, a 12-year-boy who ended his life last year. The writer, whose son knew the boy well, notes that Trevor was intellectually gifted and had every advantage in life, including extensive medical and psychiatric treatment when he began to experience difficulties. And he still slipped through the cracks. This paints a bleak picture for other children who struggle with the same issues — especially those who do not enjoy the same kinds of privilege (like those from black, brown, or LGBTQ+ communities). This piece is a long, albeit incredibly moving read. — The New Yorker
⚧ Texas Vs. Trans-Youth — Trans rights are under threat all over the country, but nowhere more than in Texas. Governor Greg Abbot has effectively shut down the primary medical center where trans youth receive gender-affirming treatment. He has also put parents of trans youth in an impossible position. If they allow their trans kids to undergo treatment, they can be charged with child abuse. The situation parallels the Handmaid’s Tale, Margeret Atwood’s dystopian novel series (and show) about a totalitarian regime where women’s bodies are property of the state. Failure to disclose knowledge of trans children receiving treatment may now provoke criminal penalties in Texas. This means people must report on each other. The Daily did an excellent deep dive into the situation through the lens of one family trying to figure out how their son could continue to get the care he needs. — Daily Part I; Daily Part II
❤️🩹 How Everyone Got So Lonely — I’d butcher it if I tried to explain it too thoroughly. But suffice it to say that this piece will make you question your understanding of loneliness and take you on a journey through sex, love, and chatbots along the way. — The New Yorker
🧘♂️ Extremely Still — I enjoyed this profile on Colin O’Brady, the 10-world record-holding extreme endurance athlete who has solo-crossed the Antarctic and was the fastest man to summit Mt. Everest and reach the North and South Poles. Many think that preparation for these feats involves countless hours of physical preparation. And it does. However, O’Brady is the first athlete I’ve heard of who spends long passes doing nothing but sitting still. Each year, he attends a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat to deepen his meditation practice. On a recent ascent of K2, O’Brady faced a perilous situation when there were not enough tents for all the climbers in his group. And rather than press ahead in -50 degree weather, he leaned into his meditation practice and realized that the right decision was to abandon his ego and turn back. Four other climbers that did not make the same decision lost their lives. — Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
🪒 Shave Back the Layers — I highly recommend watching this Tik Tok featuring Ciarán, a lovely guy I had the pleasure of connecting with while writing an article about Men Who Take Baths. For exactly half of his life, Ciarán has maintained a robust strawberry-blond beard (it is so prominent that I noted it as a descriptive characteristic in my article). As a personal experiment and art project, he decided to shave off all the hair from his head and face to help him understand the value he attached to it. I think the experience should, at the very least, be a catalyst for all of us to explore the way our physical appearance connects to our sense of identity, masculinity, and self-love. — Tik Tok
🙍♂️ The End of Men — It has long been the strategy of the conservative movement to mobilize the masses by making voters (especially white male voters) feel as if they are under threat. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has continued that tradition in many recent interviews in which he has cited a “left-wing attack on manhood” to stir up rage and fear among American men. Tucker Carlson now continues that effort with The End of Men, a recent film that aired on Fox as part of the controversial news anchor’s “documentary series.” It’s not yet available online, so I cannot yet report all of the gory details from the full episode. However, the trailer begins with President Kennedy’s speech urging the nation to pay more attention to physical fitness, an objective I take no issue with. But it then appears to devolve into pseudo-science and hyper-masculinity tropes. There are various clips of beefy guys lifting heavy objects and drinking raw eggs. The strangest moment occurs when the camera pans to a man standing atop a pile of stones with a “red-light therapy” instrument pointed directly at his balls. That clip was widely reported upon and mocked by late-night comedians. Part of me wants to laugh at the joke. The other part of me realizes that this is yet another example of how we have essentially shut down all political dialog and allowed both parties to drift further and further apart. — Vimeo
🏄♂️ Surf Vlogging Gone Wild — This may be interesting to precisely four people, but I laughed out loud while watching it, so I can’t resist sharing it here. I have previously written about hyper-masculinity in surf culture. The most recent manifestation of this trend is in the surf vlogger trope. In addition to filming themselves on giant waves, several of these vloggers have taken to filling the rest of their videos with clips of childish pranks they play on their friends (think Jackass). This often reads as bullying, and the Raglan Surf Report, an account that spoofs surf culture, recently did a video in which they call a spade a spade. Fair warning to the non-surfer: There are lots of inside jokes, but I think it’s worth a watch. — Raglan Surf Report
More Links!!!! 💪 Should we bring back these men’s weight loss programs from the 1930s? 🤕 If you read the New Yorker article about youth suicide and are looking for more, the New York Times also did a deep dive. 📸 A photojournalist explores what The Simpsons taught him about masculinity when he was a kid. 🚢 I’m looking forward to seeing Dogwatch, a masculinity-focused documentary about ocean-bound, anti-pirate private guards.
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Love your links! One item to note is that "both parties" are not drifting apart. Only one party's leadership is denying science, lying about a stolen election, and condoning an attack on the U.S. Capitol (among many other anti-democratic and authoritarian actions). Only when we hold them accountable and stop the "both-sides-ism" narratives just to appear nonpartisan will we be be able to have dialog on the compelling issues of our day.
Thanks for that Simpsons / fatherhood link. That’ll be going in next week’s newsletter!