Brittany Luce

That's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR.

I'm Brittany Luce.

Talk soon.

This week on Consider This, the DHS shutdown.

What is ICE doing in airports and how are existing airport workers managing without pay?

Why there are no easy solutions as workers wait for Congress to act.

This week on Consider This, you can listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Is 2026 the year of pathetic men?

Well, according to writer and content creator Josh Laura, aka TellTheBees on TikTok, it definitely is.

He wrote a Substack article about it, and he's here with us today to break it all down.

Josh Laura, welcome to It's Been a Minute.

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

You have called 2026 the year of the pathetic man.

How do you define a pathetic man?

And why do you think that this year of all years is their year?

Kind of separate from the performative male.

It just sounds like, you know, they're kind of trying to find comfort in the aesthetics of, you know, maybe being this like enlightened, like cool, emotionally in tune guy.

Yeah.

But he's like not doing that right.