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Chapter 1: What defines a 'pathetic man' in modern society?
from wqxr and carnegie hall comes classical music happy hour a new podcast hosted by me pianist maniacs each episode will speak with a special guest listen to musical gems play music inspired games and answer questions from our listeners the first episode drops march 4th listen on the npr app when you date man you know exactly the type of guy that i'm talking about where it's like he's not good at anything and you gotta he just needs a hug he's just a baby and you're like
That's a 37-year-old man. That's not a baby. Like, that's not my baby. Quick question.
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.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
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?
To define pathetic, I think obviously it's a very loaded word. But I do think that there is something about the specific interplay of emotionality and manipulation, right? I think that there is this element of, like, this person is a little bit of a loser. And... they're trying to make it lovable. And in the piece, I was like, I feel like this, the wool is being pulled over my eyes.
I feel like you are being a loser. You're being ineffectual. You're being not good at whatever you're trying to pursue in order to make me feel bad for you. So therefore we can't criticize you anymore. Right. And it's not the like sort of Buzzfeed Tumblr feminism of like, boys are bad. It's more specifically the idea that like,
you are trying to manipulate me by getting me to feel bad for you because you are not successful or not interesting or not emotional. Or it's sort of this idea of being like turning masculinity on its head where you're obviously not every man is supposed to be stoic and like boys don't cry. But then I think that there is this element where men obviously learn that I think
millennial men, the rise of therapy, Gen Z guys. And so now they're like, okay, well, I'm going to cry on cue. And it's like, I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing. You're not going to get me.
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Chapter 2: Why has 2026 been declared the year of pathetic men?
You're not, I'm sorry. Like all of the examples that I listed, I was like, you are doing this in order to inoculate yourself from further criticism so that we can't use your failures as an actual cudgel against you.
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. He's not actually doing that work.
Yeah. And to like asterisk that, I'm not saying that all of these men are pathetic because they're not performing traditional masculinity, right? In sociology, you know, gender is a performance, gender is a construct, Judith Butler of it all. That's not what I'm saying at all. I don't want to get like attacked by being like, you have to get a job and you have to wear a car heart.
It's more specifically, I think the combination, like I said, of the performance where in sociology, Goffman believes that everything is sort of a performance, which is why I ride so strongly for reality TV where I'm like, yes, you are performing a version of yourself on camera, but like Goffman believes that you're always performing a version of yourself, right?
Like the self that you are at work is not the self that you are at home, which is not the self that you are with your partner. which is not the self that you are with your best friend, right?
And so I think that what I'm saying is that the performance of this sort of like hang dog, ineffectual, like, I'm so lonely, I'm so sad, I'm such a flop, I'm such a loser, is very calculated in a way to get sympathy from people who date men, sympathy from people who are attracted to men. And also when we live in
Obviously, in the patriarchy, there is this sort of built in element where it's like, we have to protect him, we have to like, that's baby boy, that's soft boy, that's my rap boy, like, all of these things that we were talking about for the last two years are now sort of congealing in this way that it's like, they're getting hip to it, and they're using it against us. What are we doing here?
Okay, wait. So give me an example of like a man or a fictional character in pop culture that people would know that fits your definition of the pathetic man. And maybe a man in pop culture who might seem like a pathetic man, but isn't. Just so people can really understand the difference.
Okay, that's a good question. I think maybe the examples that I used were too niche because I would say Henry on industry. So Henry is a character that we meet in season three who is sort of the picture of professional British success. He is a founder. We learn that he comes from a landed family. His uncle owns all the newspapers in England. He's a very, very wealthy sort of protected man, right?
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Chapter 3: How do emotional manipulation and masculinity intersect?
Kit Harington. He's played by Kit Harington. Handsome guy. Very charismatic. But like you said, you get one layer beneath the surface. And he's just this ball of want and need and just self...
like just feeling sorry for himself constantly um and yeah in some ways i think that that kind of draws you know that draws people in like you said draw some of the women in but by the time they realize that it's like oh this is like there's just more of this i go layers and layers deeper and it's just more and more of this abyss of like neediness it's it's too late by then usually
And I think the problem is that when you are sort of attracted to that personality type, there is this marriage of like fixers and people who are comforting, which of course are traits that are associated with femininity in American culture.
I'm not saying, obviously I'm not saying every woman is this, but like it is an advantage that these men have because it's like, well, someone's going to take care of me, right? This is appealing to someone. Someone is going to have this urge to like protect me and comfort me. And so it's,
Him being a black hole of need, just constantly devouring everything in his path with his like, feel sorry for me, feel sorry for me. Every conversation is about him and his emotions. Every conversation is about his failure. And you are not allowed to exist as your own person because you're eclipsed by his neediness.
Who's like a man that people might think of as pathetic? but doesn't fit this definition.
Okay. So Don Draper is a perfect example because he is someone who I think because he is such a cipher and he sort of refuses to live in the past for the first five or six seasons. I won't spoil a lot.
It catches up with him.
It does. It does. But he does attract this personality type, right? Like Megan and some of the women that he dates in between seasons three and seasons five are attracted to the – I'm watching it right now. That's why –
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Chapter 4: What examples from pop culture illustrate the concept of a pathetic man?
But this year it was like all dudes, right?
it was all men. And I thought it was interesting. So I did an analysis and I was looking at the careers of all of the men. And I said, 2025 is the year of something about men that we were, we couldn't stop talking about men, but I was like, okay, it's interesting. Jeremy Allen White, who is a character who was playing this very like sad man who has sort of risen to prominence being sad, right?
Paul Meskel, who has risen to prominence playing very sad man many times. And I said, a lot of the men, so Riz Ahmed is,
is interesting because he is like beautiful and sad but he doesn't get the internet baby girl thing in a way that like this sort of term is reserved for like young white men yes and it is interesting how the internet sort of grapples with the idea of like the changing nature of masculinity right so I love Glenn Powell surprisingly for anyone who is a fan of me they're like really oh my god
Because Glenn Powell is innately charismatic and very interesting looking. But he is someone who is sort of like, I am vulnerable. I didn't hit it big until I was 35. Like, I am very comfortable talking about failure. I'm very comfortable being this like...
traditional this sort of marriage between what we expect a Hollywood celebrity to be right the sort of Tom Cruise mold of like handsome action star along with not afraid to show show effort right which like you know being effortful is in many ways like the antithesis of traditional masculinity yeah you're supposed to just be able to play it cool at all times but I think that's what that's the thing that ended up tipping me over into being a fan of what's his name again Glenn Powell thank you I'd be forgetting the whole combination but
But that is what tipped me over into being a fan of Glenn Powell is I was like, oh, he's really not afraid to be vulnerable about how bad he wanted to be the guy. And he worked really hard at being the guy and he wasn't the guy for a long time. And there was something that was very charming to me about that.
Yeah, and that's what I was saying. It's like the marriage of this traditional mold because he is obviously like – he looks like a Hollywood star. He looks like an action star. But he's also very comfortable in this vision of new masculinity where he's like, I'm sad. I have a therapist. I'm vulnerable. I get – I wanted to be famous really bad and I –
was a loser for a long time and now I'm not. And I think that's interesting to me. Whereas a lot of the internet sort of grapples with like Josh O'Connor, who I do love, but Josh O'Connor, they're like, he's just so sad. He's just so sad. And I said in the piece, I said, I wonder how these terms sort of protect these men from the actual fallout of their actions.
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