George Hahn

Learn how to approach people.

This is harder in an age when many people are addicted to YouTube and TikTok and third spaces are disappearing.

But increasing your risk appetite for the real world is essential.

Adolescence, the gut-wrenching Netflix miniseries that won four Golden Globes earlier this week, stoked the debate about incel culture, shining a light on the threats posed by social media influencers known for their misogynistic views.

The drama, which follows a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a female classmate, tackled symbols such as the red pill, a metaphor taken from the 1999 movie The Matrix.

Keanu Reeves' character Neo must choose between a blue pill, which will keep him in a state of blissful ignorance, or a red pill, which will awaken him to a painful but enlightening reality.

In the manosphere, people who make the latter decision have accepted the supposed truths about gender roles, including the idea that the world is unfairly stacked against unattractive and awkward heterosexual men.

Here's the truth pill regarding sex.

Throughout history, 40% of men and 80% of women have reproduced.

In the U.S.

today, an estimated 75% and 85% of men and women will reproduce, respectively.

American men today are twice as likely to procreate as their ancestors.

Another incel conviction, fed by dating apps that separate potential partners into a small group of haves and a massive cohort of have-nots, is that most men will never find romantic satisfaction because 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men.

The bottom 80% of male Tinder users, based on percentage of likes received, are competing for the bottom 22% of women.

This leads me to the same conclusion.

Young men need real-world venues where they can demonstrate excellence to women who are more discerning than they are.

The incel movement was in motion long before adolescence.

The term emerged in the late 1990s on a website dubbed Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, created by a university student who wanted to provide an inclusive hub for people of all genders and orientations who had trouble dating.

Instead, the term was hijacked as a weapon of war, and the community morphed into a nihilistic, misogynistic subculture.

Our society is producing far too many self-described incels who think it's acceptable, even aspirational, to give up on relationships, and who become susceptible to biases against women and immigrants.