Goddamn Kids These Days...
Two guys watched the same movie and will not stop fighting about it. Somehow, I have decided to make this my problem...
Ok, I’ve been sick this week and therefore have even less energy to put towards leaving my apartment so I’m about to embarrass myself here and talk about something no one my age should ever talk about… which is… ugh…
YouTuber drama.
For those of you who are actually going outside, living your lives blissfully unaware of this sort of content-driven shitstorm - Here’s an explainer - but for the TL:DR crowd, I’ll try to sum it up here:
This past week, a very popular YouTuber/streamer who goes by ‘MoistCr1TiKal’ (real name Charlie White), fired back on Twitter at the provocateur (read: shithead) Sneako (nee Nico Kenn De Balinthazy) for threatening him with two handguns over livestream.
Basically, a petulant child was called out for being a petulant child, and while it’s always nice to see some asshole get a well-deserving smack, there’s one slight problem. Charlie’s ire is definitely directed properly, but at the same time, it slightly misses the mark. Sneako has been ridiculed for talking about how he had attended swingers parties and watched his partner sleep with other men (something he described as… well, traumatic), while at the same time calls his male detractors soy/beta/cuck etc. It’s the same as the Republican that was caught commenting on a gay instagrammer’s page: some people project their internal struggles onto others in order to avoid having to accept themselves. In some ways I feel bad for Sneako, given he’s falling into the age-old “tough guise” trap, but my sympathy has it’s limits given he’s also using this to indoctrinate more young men and make money off of them.
The other point Charlie makes here is how he’s attacked Sneako multiple times for “defending child pornography”, which feels a bit disingenuous given the “child pornography” that he’s referring to is the movie “Cuties”.
Remember “Cuties”? That movie that Netflix put out a couple years ago that caused mass hysteria over how it depicted pre-pubescent girls? Given the way the movie was initially marketed, the response made sense, with Netflix’s poster for the film really giving one a deep feeling of “ick”. As for the movie itself: I’ve seen it, and while it’s not without its flaws (it can make for a very uncomfortable watch) it’s fine, “good” even.
Ever the contrarian, upon its release Sneako made a video calling it his “new favourite movie”, while Charlie - after watching it - described it as “actual soft-core child porn”: “You can’t defend this movie and if you’re defending this movie you haven’t seen it, and if you have seen it and you’re defending it, you might be a pedophile. It’s a simple as that.”
Ok, before continuing I should point out that there’s no such thing as “child pornography”, only evidence of a crime. These are not images that should be understood as intended to inspire arousal or were created with any kind of consent between parties, like pornography. These images are the byproduct of child abuse, which is why the term for them that is preferred among law enforcement is: “child abuse images” or “child sexual abuse material” (CAM or CAI).
While I won’t get too deep into a defence of “Cuties” (I’ll leave that to Khadija Mbowe who did an excellent video discussing her own feelings about it), it’s honestly upsetting seeing the film described as child abuse. Writer and director Maïmouna Doucouré describes her work as partly autobiographical given her own history as the daughter of Senegalese immigrants living in Paris (same as the film’s protagonist, Amy). It’s a very personal film, and was actually made with care with Doucouré interviewing hundreds of pre-teens in order to better understand their own stories and their relationship to images of women in media. Doucouré had also consulted with France’s child protection agency in the production and had a child counsellor on set. This was a film made with respect for the story as well as the actors, and while it’s a story that is so far from my own, it’s hard not to feel some empathy for these children trying to understand their place in a world that is so often dictating their roles to them. It’s a movie about a young girl trying to navigate her role as a woman between eastern and western visions of femininity. That said, much like the “bad fans” of the Sopranos, there are those who can miss the point, even when it’s right in front of them.
Describing the film in his review, Sneako says he admires it for being “realistic” and
“provocative”. He expresses some empathy with the characters saying “it’s an honest depiction of what it’s like growing up as an 11 year old girl right now”. I say this within context of his own video, given any suggestion that he’s showing any authentic empathy to these characters is laughable given it’s coming from a person who once mimed sexually assaulting another YouTuber who had criticized him. While he admits that the hypersexualization of women in media must be difficult for young girls, he then says, without a hint of irony: “This was pointing out a problem that girls have, guys don’t really have problems like this”.
“My Brother In Christ…”
One of the main things responsible for Sneako’s rise in notoriety was his connection to self-described “King of Toxic Masculinity”, Andrew Tate (who is currently in a Romanian prison awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges). Both gained popularity on online as a part of what became known as the “Man-O-Sphere”: an absolute cesspool of pickup artists, reactionaries, and grifters. Given its very name, it should be no surprised that this kind of content is very popular with young men, and more concerning, young boys. This fall, there were multiple teachers posting about how this kind of material, specifically that of Tate, was affecting their male students. One woman described a 6th grader who had told a female classmate that “she’s like every other girl in the world” and “uses men to get money”. Sneako and those like him are the flipside of the problem the girls in Cuties face: a toxic masculinity that bases itself on power and control.
The reason that this kind of masculinity is called “toxic” is because it destroys all that it touches. It prevents men from discussing emotional vulnerabilities, punishes weakness, and celebrates a “warrior mindset” that keeps men in a state of constant internal war. This is a way of thinking that emphasizes “increasing your value”, never content with what you have. For men like this, to be happy is to be content, giving up on going after what you are entitled to. The idea of self-reflection, and emotional contentment is dismissed. It’s no surprise that these guys are fucking miserable, they’re trapped.
Cuties presents its audience with a young protagonist who finds herself caught between two distinct visions of femininity: the hypersexualized vision of the West, or the femininity-as-subjugation that she sees from her own - non-Western - culture (throughout the film she is told that she must attend her father’s wedding, as he is marrying a second wife). In discussing the film, Doucouré describes its core question as: “…can we, as women, truly choose who we want to be beyond the role models that are imposed upon us by society?” After leaving her friends midway during a dance routine that even those in the film shield their eyes from, Cuties ends with Amy being able to choose a path that is not that one of her friends, or that of her family, but one that specifically belongs to her.
It shouldn’t be any surprise that Sneako and those like him have an incredibly narrow vision of both masculinity and femininity, with men expected to attain power and women expected to be submissive. Tate has said multiple times a woman in a relationship should “belong” to her man, using every word to describe a woman as “property” without actually saying the word itself. Women should be attractive but not too attractive, available but not too available. This puts women in the incredibly difficult bind of being desirable to all, but also not welcoming any advances. For men, they are expected to be desirable to, as well as in control of, as many women as possible lest they be seen as weak. It’s an insane amount of pressure to put oneself under, often resulting in depression, substance abuse, and domestic violence. This is the vision of masculinity that Sneako, Tate, and others are selling to young boys, and while both of them have been kicked off of multiple platforms, they still manage to stick around, usually through fans reposting their videos. This is concerning for many parents and educators: how are you supposed to raise boys in a radioactive swamp like this?
If it wasn’t for the massive backlash, Cuties would probably have gotten an Americanized remake like so many other foreign language films. Good news is there’s still time, just make it about young boys.
Call it “Alphas”.