https://www.theawl.com/2014/09/a-po rtrait-of-the-alt-bro-as

>>9856136
Please take this elsewhere, you boring faggot

>>>/pol/
>>>/r9k/

DO NOT REPLY TO SHILL THREADS

neat but brace for incoming buttmad

what's up with people building up a straw men they can feel superior to? like the starter pack memes for example. has this always been around? has the internet just made this phenomenon more worserer?

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>>9856136
>The Alt-Bro jerks off to X-Art on YouPorn. Afterward he logs onto Facebook without washing his hands.

Im laughing for real right now

>>9856158
try the redpill, cuck numale feminist cultural marxist degenerate leftist who hates whiteness and masculinity

>>9856160
Because for you ironic posts I will make sure that every leftist I see is obliterated

Raging narcissism: the blog.

>>9856165
Good. We must eradicate the menace. They are actively destroying what our white ancestors built.

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I read through the article and honestly I don't even think people like they're describing exist. They're fighting strawmen... or should I say shadows?
What I'm really wondering is what kind of person would be so frustrated about this perceived stereotype to write a long-ass article about it. Smells like either envy or projection.

>He’s drinking a $4 Americano

Wait, how much should an Americano cost? The cheapest espresso I can find is 2.50

>>9856172
Don't worry leftists like you will be left in the nigger hoods you love so much rather than being killed outright as you don't deserve fast death

>>9856180
>not realizing I've been "pretending" to be a /pol/ charicature for a full year
>not realizing this has driven off all the literature interested leftcucks off the board
>not noticing that this is now entirely a right-wing board

You should thank me. Have a look in the catalog. It's all bait to talk white identity politics.

>>9856175
It's splitting mixed with ad hominem, he's trying to eradicate a perceived 'enemy' by making him be what is most despicable and base in their own eyes, as if he/she is not even human at all or even capable of being right.

I really like this post. I had this idea that whenever you manage to group a specific individual and assign him to a party or with other similar (sometimes identical ) people , you manage to undermine his individuality and values by a lot.

By no means do exclude myself from the man the article writes about. Some of these attributes I can see them in my self, appearing out of influence from society and other naratives around me. Intense self hating made me realise that it isn't that hard to root out such attributes.

Huh, thanks OP

>>9856136
So basically the writer knows he's an alt-bro himself to the bone but he gains salvation by writing an ironic, witty essay. He knows he's still pathetic, but at least he's self aware of it and accepts it, so he's done the exact kind of "transcendence" that the alt-bro is so fond of.

These people with this kind of hypersensitivized self-awareness will never manage to create anything lasting. Not that you or me will do that either.

>>9856184
Yeah we've got a big surprise to thank you for your deed. You will be surprised to see what it is.

/LIT/ BTFO!!!!!!!!!

>>9856194
You will be surprised when we start rounding up Bolshevik feminists like you, cuck

>>9856188
this self aware criticism of his transcendence seems like a pathetic way to re-assert control over your identity and (for lack of a better word) our generation's understanding of our own zeitgeist.

>>9856208
If you have a functional set of sensory organs you can notice the patterns of the average humanitiesfag on your campus. Lump enough descriptions of those traits into one article and yes, people that inhabit places like /lit/ will find at least something describing a part of themselves.

Here, have some more revelatory zeitgeist:

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.

>>9856232
literally a horoscope that applies to everyone

>>9856239
Bingo!

>>9856179
2.50 seems reasonable, but I wouldn't pay much more than that

>>9856232
>At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable,
Nice try

Made me laugh and feel insecure at the same time.

>>9856277
I'm insecure knowing that even alt-bro can get laid

Good thing I'm not like this!

Made me laugh and feel sorry for the guy. If only it was written in first person present it would have been good.

>>9856159
X-art is sterilised boredom, I don't know why anyone would bother with it

>think to myself there's no way people will bump, discuss, and promote such obvious shill bait
>30 / 2 / 16 / 1

>>9856339
this article is 3 years old, why do you think its shill?

>>9856136

>alt bro

Is Hipster Runoff back?

>>9856327
Sounds like you know the spiral very well but we'll have to wait and see if we touch ends ;)

Who is this fairy faggot quoting? What is an alt-bro? Is this just a thinly veiled diary entry?

Honestly a lot funnier than I expected it to be. Of course, few if any people exist who meet all these criteria, but I've met some that come close. They're alright dudes if you can steer them away from rambling on about their intellectual pursuits.

>>9856377

Are they still a thing? I admit I thought it was funny but it feels a bit like it's from 2005. It appears to be making fun of the same crowd that Radio Broker did in GTA IV.

>>9856380
>Are they still a thing?
Always were, always will be. As long as there are sad young men who think they're smarter than they actually are.

>>9856389
oh no, am i a sad young man who thinks i'm smarter than i am? am i bad?

>>9856399
Man, I said these alt-bros are alright dudes. Just realize that nobody at a house party wants to hear your take on Marx or Taoism and you're in the clear

I get the feeling the guy who wrote this article wants to throttle anyone like that

>>9856296
Altbro is nothing more than a damaged Chad

Why does the left like to use "bro" as an insult? What's possibly negative about being a bro?

>>9856453
It's masculine.

>>9856493
tricks on you, non masculine guys are bad too
https://byrslf.co/have-you-encountered-the-softboy-7e95e2c7f3e7

>>9856136

Ah yes, what small people like to talk about most..... other people. Thanks /pol/.

>>9856136
lel, none of this applies to me other than "religion has done a lot of bad things, but has also done a lot of good things" and "The Alt-Bro doesn't shit talk"

>>9856850
>The Alt-Bro who reads this will think he’s an exception.

>>9856389

Most great writers in history were, at one point, ''sad young men''.

The alt-bro writes an article for the Awl insulting alt-bros. The alt-bro is self-aware, but not enough

>>9856829
>The Softboy doesn’t want to talk to you about The Wire. He concedes that it is “objectively good television” yet “ultimately problematic” and “undeserving of its lionization.” Obviously, he is an Ally.
>He is emotionally intelligent but does nothing with this knowledge. He is artistic. He is aware. He is still a dick.
ohh my.

>>9856140
You are not in pol domains kid. Hope that doesn't make you cry

this is an attempt at making fun of a culture vulture, but doesnt cut deep at all. horrible writing. op probably wrote it. faggot

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>>9856136
>the author imagines /pol/posters this way

Why do people always try to overcomplicate everything? People on /pol/ are like the people on most pther chan boards: disenfranchised, antisocial, sexually insignificant young (15-25) men projecting their own problems on other things. On /v/ it's bad games, on /lit/ it's hacks like Rupi Kaur, on /pol/ it's jews and black people stealing our women.
This is almost the correct portrait. Not a fucking pseudo-intellectual pseudo-hipster rebellious student who go around feeling aristocratic while looking down on another minorities. It is far more likely that the guy you're talking to is either a scrawny or obese kid who is getting a giggle out of being edgy.

I've said almost because it's not really only young disenfranchised losers: there are Stormfront shills too.

What a smug judgemental jerk.

>>9857064
It is fair to be smug towards /pol/ users.

>>9857072
this has nothing to do with /pol/ though
it just feels like a mean spirited anti young artist diatribe

>>9857083
In this sense I agree with you. I genuinely do not understand where the author picked this portrait from. He probably met a guy like that, discovered that he knew about /pol/ and wrote an article as if that guy was every user on that board.

>>9857088
where do you see /pol/? it's not talking about "alt right" the article was published before that was even a term (at least to the public)

>>9857101
>what does the alt-right have to do with /pol/
Who knows...

Anyway you were right about the date, I dis not check it.

>>9857117
>what does the alt-right have to do with /pol/
i didn't write that

is this bait?

The only insightful bits of this article are the ones that diagnose young angsty men as longing for higher ideas and ideals, and for a less bourgeois commitment to ideas in general. For any young 4chan faggot reading this stupid op-ed, those lines will be the only ones that resonate: the ones that diagnose his melancholy and his sense that something is wrong.

But those bits are only insightful because they're completely true. They're being channeled from the exact literature that the article uses to ridicule the young angsty men as naive and passe, like Steppenwolf and Thompson, literature that naively suggests that life should be lived seriously, that it isn't being lived seriously anymore, and that something is wrong. Any "alt-bro" reading this article is going to resonate with the truth of those bits, insofar as they're simply a window into that literature.

The sole, cheap trick of the article is that it wants to associate that open and unanswered challenge to modernity with all the shallow, embarrassing, hipster behavior that it then catalogs. No further insight makes those two elements of the critique hang together. The hipster accusations are just an awkward non sequitur. If you resonate with Mann, you... must like Ethiopian jazz? The article is only saying, "Whatever _you_ feel when you read Mann is simply wrong, and if you were smart like me, you'd enjoy being a cow like me. All the rest of the cattle are laughing at you for lagging behind." The article is trying to peddle a bourgeois cure for postmodern melancholy, but as always, the cure boils down to chiding.

Lukacs wrote that a writer with world-historical insight will be able to discern "types" of men, the major archetypes whose struggles define his age. The article's author probably thinks he's done that, but in fact all he's done is wrench open the same old wound, the same dichotomy and dialectic that divides modernity, and use the same old postmodern, sarcastic, less-naive-than-thou insults to pour salt in it. The author's own personality is more typologically and historically informative than what he writes, because he shows (for the millionth time) just how oblivious, feminized, and "wretchedly content" a bourgeois "last man" really is. He looks at the alt-bro and only sees himself, sees someone fundamentally like himself, because to the bourgeois man, all humans are fundamentally cattle just like himself, even if a few suffer from the illness of not having embraced it. The cure, as with everything at the end of history, is to cease being insane and become like everyone else.

In trying to discern a type, to see an "individual" other than himself, to encounter something strange, the article's author has only mirrored himself, as the bourgeois mass-self only ever can do. Same old fatal flaw of ressentiment, of not being able to tolerate any individuation, of needing to cut down anything that stands outside it with effeminate ridicule.

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>>9857127

Good post.

I couldn't get past the 4th paragraph, it's just so "poorly written". Is this what happens when high-school kids take "writing classes"? OP, if you "wrote" this article, you might want to consider reading more "books", the kind written for "adults", but I know you probably consider yourself an "individual", or maybe even an "intellectual", but none of your observations were "funny" or "interesting".

>>9857127
Good post.

>The Alt-Bro pretends he has self-hating thoughts

kek imagine being this insecure about depression. jeez.

idk at one point this would probably make me insecure (although i'd never do any of the things that the author mentions in the article)

what confuses me is that all of these stereotypes are supposed to describe a single type of person. i have literally never met someone who embodies all of these things. i've definitely met guys who would say things like "but then you start to think in iambic pentameter and its FUCKED" but they're not the same people this author is describing.

also trivializing the work that goes into getting a Ph. D in philosophy is retarded. you can only pretend to be deep for so long (which happens exactly to be the point where you have to defend your thesis)

>The Alt-Bro who reads this will think he’s an exception.

this was a good addition though lol.

overall i'm just confused by this whole article. who exactly wrote this? how many people does he know like this? does he think this describes every humanities major?

>>9856136
Lol

>>9857127
good ass post

>>9856179
That's about right nowadays, at $4 it better be a big-ass americano.

>>9857127
fuck off virgin

>>9856136
Who the fuck is this actually trying to describe? It sure and the hell isn't your average alt-right. It looks like a jumble of things the author finds funny in other people.

this has nothing to do with politics guys
this was written in 2013 or 14, way before alt right was even a thing
it's about pretentious douchebags who get laid

>>9857343
no it's not. it's about telling young white males with high minded interests that they should be ashamed of themselves and come down to earth so to speak

it's the same anti-artist sentiment the right has always had now coming from the left

>>9857127
can you post this on his article please, I think if you posted this the author might kill himself.

>>9856136
Honestly doesn't seem like that bad of a guy. Overly sensitive and abstracted, but it's not like he does anything to merit such hate.

>>9857127
Damn son, where'd you find this strong ass post?

>>9857343
Shit, makes more sense i guess.

people who write things like this cant grow out of celebrity culture style commentary. its very politicized without admitting that it is. its like he hates his job but is too caught up on classic newyork style dicksuckery. so in writing this he is the 'made' writer. in a way he wants to experience the alt-bro life but he memes it away. this isnt that different from autists who post here who sound exactly like him.

>>9856136

I don't want to do it, Sarah. I don't want to do it, but my pa. He has to know. He has to.

>>9857127
>The sole, cheap trick of the article is that it wants to associate that open and unanswered challenge to modernity with all the shallow, embarrassing, hipster behavior that it then catalogs.

"Cheap trick" is too kind. But that "the article is trying to peddle a bourgeois cure for postmodern melancholy" is giving him too much credit and ignoring the simplicity of its irony.

This is internet writing that wants only an instant before it disappears. Don Delillo catalogues, transcribes, and this guy posts. He sincerely tweets and waits for feedback for a while, but forgets that he ever wrote it, unless someone reminds him.

What's the point of writing this caricature, exactly? Is the author advocating the opposite of the lifestyle he is lampooning, to live in the social media sphere and watch Netflix? Or is he saying that this kind of person doesn't apply himself enough to the kind of studies he says he loves?

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>>9857356
Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. Everyone else in the thread has already expressed my confusion as to who this is actually making fun of (I attend a university in a fairly hipster-ish Canadian city and have never encountered anyone remotely close to the archetype the author is describing) but what really has me scratching my head is why the author is so disgusted by this image.
From what I could gather the "alt bro" is guilty of being lazy, financially dependant on his parents, a dilettante, narcissistic and naive. But he doesn't even bother anybody. I'm even more confused by his two interactions with women. His female friend chastised him and broke off their friendship, because he was being a bit juvenile and directionless. Seems like a shittier person than him. The thing with the girl he met outside of a bar- what did he even do wrong? He went on a few dates with her over the course of a week, then admitted he didn't know if he wanted a relationship? Unless my reading comprehension is even worse than I thought, it's not even implied they had sex. Why does the girl feel used?

Truly a puzzling text. I really wish I could have the author sit down and walk me through his thought process.

>>9857433
i can see the "alt bro" on my campus. if i wasnt so autistic i'd probably fit the bill too.

>>9857127
Good post

>>9857451
Really? It's far removed from anything I've ever experienced. Maybe it's because I don't hang around coffee shops or poetry readings. Literally the only dude I've talked about philosophy with was some chill gay dude in my philosophy 100 course.

I really don't see anything in the article that describes me, despite being a charlatan. My lifestyle is completely different.

>>9857469
one day i hope to be that chill gay dude

>>9857433
perhaps a sole alt-bro stole his chick or made him feel like a pseud at some point in his life. theres a patrick bateman kind of bitterness to it

>>9857433
He seemed to me like a mildly intelligent guy who only has vague notions of getting more out of life and ends up getting nowhere. Pretty sad. I don't know why Gavin Thompson feels the need to mock him.

>>9857429
That's the point of its failure. It doesn't care. It sets out with nihilistic laughter as its goal, and needs to do so within stylistic framework that satisfies a certain readership. It's the writing of a injoke.

That comedy effaces tragedy is the only motive.

>>9857479
There are certainly worse things you could aspire to be.

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>>9857127
An excellent and articulate post. Thank you for writing it.

This voice that affects "cool irony" is a typical stance for these kinds of people. Criticizing someone else's views and beliefs and ridiculing their naivete while at the same time obscuring their own inner self and evading anything that would approach their own beliefs so that they may be attacked in the same way; that is assuming they have such a core. It's the simple tactic of tearing down something while offering no real alternative, and when you ask the question "What should I be instead?" they just chuckle and shake their head, as if to convey "If you need to ask, then you're too naieve and stupid for the answer." Their foundations are concrete and immutable, but they will never reveal its dimensions or quality, because it doesn't really exist in the authoritative mode that they proclaim it to be.

>>9857433
>>9857469
>>9857479
Detection.
>>9857499
Rejection.
>>9857506
Deflection.

It really doesn't even feel like it's criticizing a strawman. It seems more to me that it's pointing out that good looking young men with above average intelligence often have trouble actually finding their place in the world, and thus float from one empty intellectual pursuit to another, never really finding fulfillment. I feel like it's more critical of the sort of affectatious culture that ensnares these people, rather than the people themselves.

>>9857469
it's not the lifestyle but the social shortcomings and wide ranging interests. i do feel somewhat hurt that people see someone with even a naive passion for art in such a negative mocking light. i don't hurt anybody.

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>>9857127

>>9857536
What exactly are you trying to say m8?

>>9857536
Brainlet here, someone explain this post

>>9857433
>a dilettante
>masters/Ph. D in philosophy

pick one and only one

the weirdest part about this was how he flip flopped on what the alt-bro actually does. first, he was making fun of the fact that he was going to get a ph. d. then, he makes fun of the fact that he doesn't have the grades to get into a ph. d program.

he makes fun of the alt-bro for not actually being depressed, then makes fun of him for becoming genuinely depressed.

overall weird as fuck

>>9857542
>the social shortcomings

what social shortcomings? it seems like he gets laid a lot and has a circle of friends

>>9857050
I don't think the author had /pol/ in mind while writing. As you are correct a lot of the denziens are antisocial etc but there are scores of full fledged Nazis on that board who have zero self awareness.

What this article is attempting to satirize is the sort of guy who isn't really committed to anythiny, lilts from fad to fad meanwhile putting on airs that he is superior to it all, there's several of them on college campuses but not much.


What I detest is that articles like this and others that attempt to chastise any guy who is intetested in anything outside the norm is seen as weird "problematic" and deserve mockery. Then on the opposite spectrum a fairly masculine guy who has opposites interested the the aforementioned are also chastised and mocked. Fucking no one can win in this era.

>>9857518
>It's the simple tactic of tearing down something while offering no real alternative, and when you ask the question "What should I be instead?" they just chuckle and shake their head, as if to convey "If you need to ask, then you're too naieve and stupid for the answer."

this sums it up perfectly desu. i would rather chill with the alt-bro any day

>>9857538
>the sort of affectatious culture that ensnares these people, rather than the people themselves.
can you elaborate?

>>9857479
I'm that chill gay dude. Ask me anything

>>9857518

They're Robert Durst wannabes who just don't have the money and power to do so in real life, so do so on the page - and, worse, there's so many of them waiting to get in on it through literature, that you actually have to be a decent stylist to get that far.

I'd feel less contempt for Sade then I do these kinds of writers.

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>alt bros triggered by the alt bro article discuss how they are not alt bros and how it's not as black and white as the article makes it seem

>>9857593
I wonder how "right" the lit bro was while the alt bro is so "wrong"

>>9857593
Because it isn't

>>9857553
>>9857551
Don't worry about it.

>>9857553
*farts*
That's pretty much the gist of it.

>>9857518
>This voice that affects "cool irony" is a typical stance for these kinds of people. Criticizing someone else's views and beliefs and ridiculing their naivete while at the same time obscuring their own inner self and evading anything that would approach their own beliefs so that they may be attacked in the same way; that is assuming they have such a core. It's the simple tactic of tearing down something while offering no real alternative, and when you ask the question "What should I be instead?" they just chuckle and shake their head, as if to convey "If you need to ask, then you're too naieve and stupid for the answer." Their foundations are concrete and immutable, but they will never reveal its dimensions or quality, because it doesn't really exist in the authoritative mode that they proclaim it to be.

this is a stupid post though because to write about a cultural trend you shouldn't have to justify your position and talk about yourself too. the detached voice is attempting the position of a nonpartisan observer. especially because it is a short story, not an essay i think your demands are silly and unfair, even if the article is silly and unfair in itself. even if you haven't an answer pointing out others who are wrong is still a push towards a general direction of progress.

>>9857609
It's sometimes embarrassing, but I do tend to laugh at my own farts more than I suppose I should if I'm to remain in good society.

>>9857620
But a "direction of progress" implies a different set of values and a different way of living, so I don't think it's unfair at all.

>>9857607
inflection
>>9857609
de-selection

>>9857633
good point, even in chasing an obscured ideal you are guided by certain hidden maybe unconscious values. perhaps they don't know what these values are though. you can agree with the rhetoric of the piece or not and that itself should tell you about your values.

now this piece is fairly manipulative so there may be a gap between its ideological goal and the values by which it garners sympathy, but in general i think it is important to allow for free floating critique.

>>9857585
It's been my experience from talking to people at psychedelic music festivals and various retro new age retro hippies types, that many people embrace counter-culture as a way of just one-upping their peers who have done the same thing. They feel the need to signal virtues that they don't actually hold because they see it around themselves, but also have to take it a step further for the sake of not being called a fraud. They get so wrapped up in trying to push their way into an obscure culture where no one is actually sure of what they want or feel or believe, solely because they feel like they would be chastised for actually being genuine.

I have a friend I went to college with who is probably one of the most blunt, brutally honest people I've ever met. He's a great guy when he's not a bit of an asshole, and he'll always stick his neck out for his friends. Yet people hated his guts. Not because he'd actually start shit or act maliciously, they hated him because he was passionate about what he liked and genuine about his beliefs. He would come into conversations where people would circlejerk about the plight of children in third world countries and point out that by refusing to buy products made in sweatshops, they directly contributed to the problem.

When heavily right wing pundits would try to talk to him, he'd tell them that a flat tax rate was fucking stupid and that most illegal immigrants working in the US didn't even make enough money to have to pay taxes and that there were practically slaves (he's mexican himself).

People just flat hated him because he'd never pretend to be part of some group or culture. They would call him all sorts of shit because he wouldn't go out of his way to appeal to whatever tribe.

The guy works for NASA now so he obviously did something right. But I feel like the article is pointing out that sort of empty one-up-manship that makes people into complete jerkoffs.

>>9856159
>>The Alt-Bro jerks off to X-Art on YouPorn. Afterward he logs onto Facebook without washing his hands.
How did they know?

>>9856186
The secret to this article is making people feel guilty for having traits that literally all humans have. Look up the Barnum effect

>>9856136
I just get fucking exhausted by these types of articles and authors - it's always one type of shitty person hanging around another type of shitty person and getting hurt and then they have to vent their thoughts but since they, as in the very fucking strawman they're constructing, has very important thoughts it absolutely has to be made avaliable for everyone else to see, so every other shitty person can see it and without a single shred of introspection say "that's so fucking accurate".

And fuck it, I'm just going to go there - it's always something with a "bro". Now, I don't doubt there are a lot of wankster hipsters around, but isn't there a huge blindspot if you only focus on one gender? I don't know. In the end it's just one big spiral of navel-gazing and trying to one-up eachother by strawmanning people hard enough.

>>9857688
>perhaps they don't know what these values are though.

That's not giving a writer of this kind the benefit of the doubt - and probably because you're trying to be kind. I'd say that this type of style pares well with writers hyper-conscious of their negative value system.

If you ever work away at people who are artistic and are committed relativists, you'll find once they've negated everything you've said for enough time, they get tired of intellectualising and casting off others into some absence that their sincerity can't help speak for itself eventually. But god, wouldn't that ruin their style.

>alt-bro talks to women
>alt-bro has relationships with women
i'm jealous

>>9857796

I wish Emily Grey would do scenes on Kink

This seems to be criticizing the confused and vapid humanities major. I can see the alt-bro browsing a lot of /mu/ and /fa/ but not really /lit/

I feel as though I've already read this article many before, albeit in many different guises. It's a feminist pastime to draft up some sort of hyperspecific stereotype for any sort of male interest or behavior. Don't for a second think that by taking the article's criticism to heart and trying to live as something other than an "alt-bro" (better understood as a "intellectual bro") that you evade their scorn.

Be as mainstream and basic as possible? You're a frat-bro, or perhaps a bro-bro. Be more empathetic and open, and become a feminist? You're a feminist-bro, a brocialist, a berniebro. Avoid politics all together and cultivate interest in a hobby? You're a gamer-bro, or a birdwatching-bro. Reject it all and become an anti-feminist? You're a new member of the "bro-right".

It gets worse when you realize that this behavior is in no way exclusive to feminists. This sort of polemical stereotype-describing starter pack meme tier op-ed is used by a crudgel of every ideological disposition.

Welcome to tribalism.

>>9856829
Fuck mane, this is me.

I remember when the vaguely intellectual guys that people all hated were called hipsters

>>9856829
From one of the comments:
>I’ve dated this very type of guy whose suckage is beyond the realm of suck. It’s like being with an actor who is working on ‘morose’ ‘pensive’ and ‘empathetic’ all at once; but it’s sincerely just an ACT. He’s in for the long con. How does a girl tell he’s a softboy? He NEVER buys you anything—no flowers, candy, cards, and don’t even think about jewelry.
>he never buys you anything
I'm triggered.

>>9857922

Bang the gong, won't be long.

>>9857915
>I can see the alt-bro browsing a lot of /mu/ and /fa/ but not really /lit/

but /lit/ is full of dilletantes and pseuds. although, again pursuing a philosophy Ph.D is about the farthest from a pseud that i can imagine

going to parties and talking about marx and nietzsche does seem like a pseud thing to do though, and i doubt philosophy majors in grad school even would want to talk about that shit at a party

>>9857949
That's what a relationship entails for these women, just a new Dad to take care of you while you all you do is look pretty.

>>9857949
Cards are the biggest fucking sham out of anything. "Here's a piece of paper with either a funny or vaguely romantic phrase to show how much I appreciate you it cost me 7.99" either make it yourself or show your love in a different ways. Cards are the hallmark of a fool

>>9856829
These fucking articles are so weird. I don't get it.

I guess some of this applies to me, but honestly this article doesn't even seem that critical. I don't get what the author is going for. Is she just describing somebody she knows? How can this possibly be a real stereotype?

Does the author really not think she fits into some stereotype? Or that she's above it by trying to fit everyone she knows into some kind of box so she can deny that anyone has ever been original or genuine?

>>9858155
> Cards are the hallmark of a fool

Clever, anon. Clever.

>>9858187
both articles were written by men

>>9858307
then substitute all of the "she"s in my post for "he"s

>>9857808
This to an extent. Portraits like this are so offensively caricatured that even a reader with some measure self-confidence will be pricked by a detail comprising the whole. This type of humor is the equivalent of trawling a fishing line with a hundred hooks tied to it. To be "caught" isn't necessarily to be offended. Curiosity, amusement, guilt, etc. are all valid reactions.
What I dislike about these pieces is that they're desperate, and despite their detail, they're vague. Behind the dismissive attitude is a common message: These people are bad, don't you agree? (Whether the author is one of these people is irrelevant.)

Like, there's funny details, but what's the point if it's essentially satirical clickbait.

>>9858319
>What I dislike about these pieces is that they're desperate, and despite their detail, they're vague. Behind the dismissive attitude is a common message: These people are bad, don't you agree? (Whether the author is one of these people is irrelevant.)

yeah this.

i don't get the "point" of it i guess. he's not attacking anything really, he's just kind of describing someone. seems like some intense projection

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>>9856136
I feel like this particular brand of sarcasm serves only to stifle personal feeling, and make emotions seem like something that is laughable- if only because someone else may have shared them first. This isn't how it used to be however; until recently, stories were a form of sympathy: a writer's way of a capturing a moment or feeling that might be shared the one reader in a thousand. Writers like these, however, make stigmas out of perfectly ordinary feelings of angst. I don't like it. Even less, I dislike this modern habit of pushing everyone into boxes: "this person's a dudebro, this person's a stacy etc." This is the true habit of the present age: people wantonly having themselves defined by some silly, ephemeral title; denoted by journalists.

>>9856136
A decade ago, the person the author derides would have been known as someone who's simply acting his age.

>>9856136
Dan Ashcroft types are far more detestable than the Nathan Barley types

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhAr_UeroCk

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>>9856891

>The alt-bro writes an article for the Awl insulting alt-bros. The alt-bro is self-aware, but not enough

This. I'd bet cash that the guy who wrote this is the type to cringe and feel uncomfortable at homophobic/racist/sexist jokes irl, even if it's only banter. He'd still feel uncomfortable "on principle".

A queef trying to lecture me on how shitty other queefs are. Brilliant.

>>9856878
The difference being that they were actually talented. Also I imagine most of them weren't very fun to be around

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This is the dude who wrote the story. Self-hatred and cowardice drips off of him

https://twitter.com/gavintomson?lang=en

>>9857348
You aren't an artist if you don't produce anything. The kind of person described in the article is just a consumerist who justifies his passivity with intellectual posturing

>>9856158
>has this always been around?
Yes.
>has the internet just made this phenomenon more worserer?
No, just easier to catalog and regurgitate.

>>9858486

>This is the dude who wrote the story.

LOL no fucking way. The guy looks like a perfect representation of what an "alt-bro" would look like irl.

Absolute pottery.

>>9858519
All too typical eh

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>>9858486
this whole rant was such a clear moment of self-hatred disguised as satire. get it together, gavin.

>>9856136
>>9856829
God feminism has gotten fucking weird. I know this isn't the crux of the actual workers out there in feminism, but shit this can't be healthy.

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>>9858486

when life imitates blogpost art.

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>>9858486
https://twitter.com/GavinTomson/status/818880453310615553

this shit has to be satire

>>9858441
A conflation?
Woosh.
Sad deflation.
Sorry.

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>>9858486

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>>9858486

>>9858653
BUGS
U
G
S

>>9858491
someone who takes literature seriously is something like an artist. someone who reads joyce seriously is not simply a "consumerist" because he doesn't publish anything himself

>>9858600
>taking pills to make you happy
lmao i can't take anyone this emotionally weak and easily defeated seriously. if you take anti depressants instead of facing your problems head on nothing you say has any value to me, your world view is fucked.

The 'alt-bro' certainly sounds like a Peterson suckoff. Once again, the real villains of this world are those that make the better seem the worse.

I know an 'alt-bro'. He's a 'smart but lazy' first-year drama student, fairly good looking but unfortunately very Slavic. I once overheard him saying he is considering changing his program to philosophy. Of course, he is basing this off of the first year philosophy course he took with a professor that is now dead, and was notoriously easy on first-years. Of course, he skipped more days of that class than he attended, and barely passed (as did most, the average GPA was something sad like 2.8 despite it being incredibly easy.)

An 'alt-bro' is essentially a dudebro that takes himself very seriously, intellectually.

>>9858785
ugly mean post

why not take yourself seriously?

>>9858785
>An 'alt-bro' is essentially a dudebro that takes himself very seriously, intellectually.

maybe but there is an assumed authority or superiority. he feels deeper feels, he thinks deeper thoughts, etc. its basically making fun of faux-elitists who think people who don't share their tastes are shallow, vapid, and stupid.

>>9858820
he doesn't though

>>9858820
so we're supposed to pretend 80 IQ drug addicts and gamers think as deeply as people with an interests in philosophy art and architecture (and politics or economics or business and so on)

>>9858824
who doesn't what?

>>9858849
The problem is basically now a lot of people are kind of spooked by people who have genuine interest or passion about subjects.

Much less embarrassing to put on a facade of irony or other emotion of choice then actual deal with people who have serious unironic interests in things.

>>9858862
he doesn't feel deeper feelings or think deeper thoughts than anyone else
"he feels he’s on the verge of a profound realization, a Joycean epiphany, something that will blow his mind. Google, is he manic-depressive? Sometimes he feels so much, it’s almost unbearable. There’s no way most people feel as much as he does. He’s unique. He might be a genius. He’s certainly heterosexual. He’s probably going to grad school."

>>9858849
alt-bro detected. drug addicts think pretty deeply. don gately was based on a real person.

>>9858870
this thread was so good for a while

>>9858870
solid bait

>>9858865
yes, that's the point. he doesn't but thinks he does.

>>9858882
oooh ok, sorry i misunderstood your post

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>>9858882
>he doesn't but thinks he does
how can you say what someone else feels? how much they feel? as if it's quantifiable. he thinks he feels something profound but doesn't because... because why? because he's pretentious or entitled or lazy or confused?

this is such an ugly form of commentary. literally creating a strawman to call the strawman out as having inauthentic or undeserved feelings. stop thinking you're worth something, stop enjoying art.

>>9858901
>because he's pretentious or entitled or lazy or confused?
yes

>>9858901
>as if it's quantifiable.
I agree. that's the point. you forgot to contextualise it with his faux-elitism and demeaning of others based on that same unquantifiable quality.

>>9858864
This is correct. Many today are so fucking scared of having genuine passions for subjects and things so they use irony to shield themselves from genuine self-commitment.

The article is missing one important thing: the alt-bro it depicts is sincere, while the actual alt-bro is more self-conscious than that. He still shares the traits of the alt-bro, but wears them ironically, and the result is exactly the kind of articles that started this thread.

Meanwhile the somewhat sincere alt-bro that the article describes may be insufferable, but still has some actual hope of redemption because he hasn't lost his ability to sincerely commit to ideas and personality traits, no matter how shallow they may be under the surface. Can he become a great philosopher, poet, thinker? Likely not, but he can become someone like Kerouac, Jim Morrison or Hemingway, who can impress normalfags with his thought and commitment to a persona.

Meanwhile the actual alt-bro, the kind that writes articles like this, will be forever stuck to smelling his own self-aware, ironic farts that give him the satifaction that he managed to avoid the pitfall of sincerely committing to a persona or a thought system. Oh he may be genuinely open-minded, sure, but he will forever lack the capability to affect the world in any significant way.

>>9856850
Religion hasn't done anything bad because religion cannot act. You may as well say 'cholesterol has done a lot of bad things'.

>>9858805
>>9858819
Too seriously, not simply seriously. As in, distilled pretension. 'im le smart but le lazy' horsepiss. Incredible mediocrity under the guise of some transcendent intellect.

As in, an actual dumbass painting himself as a genius.

>>9859164
Using the turd I threw under the bus as an example:
He's barely able to pass his classes despite always cheating off of one overly nice guy that actually takes himself seriously enough (properly-seriously, not seriously-seriously) to pay attention in-class. After all, he's paying to be at university. If the turd wants to sleep in to 1 (which he brags about, often) and drink every day, he can drop out and be a NEET. That'll cost him less too and he'll get just about as much out of it.

This turd is really into nihilism. Of course, that's only to be edgy. When he speaks of nihilism, he speaks like a preteen boy. For example, he thinks neechee is a nihilist. No, he has never read neechee. In the span of this course, the professor mentioned Stirner more than neechee (its on ancient philosophy so neither are terribly relevant.) There's another turd, an actual philosophy student, who is also a nihilistturd. He thinks the presence of philosophy in manga is somehow a sign of profundity. He is also very arrogant about his proclaimed intelligence and thinks clinging solely to 19th century philosophy will be enough for him to get into law school.

The 'alt-bro' is a very obvious sort of person. The slavicturd fits the definition much better, because he's the sort to join a frat if our university had frats. The other is an awkward Jewish kid with some buddies straight out of a SakuraCon commercial.

These two think they are very smart but are very mediocre. They take themselves seriously, but have no self-respect.

this thread has the intellectual merit of a hobo's dick cheese

>>9859220
'intellectual merit' is an alt-bro meme.

I am still so completely lost on what "bro" is supposed to mean.

>The group of self-identified queers who run his university’s left-wing newspaper and volunteer at community kitchens and publish their undergraduate essays in graduate journals

lol no the radical queers I know-- and really, most of the students I know, generally--are borderline verbally retarded, basically dyslexic- through-poor-public-education. They aren't getting published anywhere.

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>>9856136
Holy shit that article with hipster faggot lingo. This is how you imagine a young right winger if you're a leftist pretentious faggot.
As Clint Eastwood said "I just hate niggers".

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>>9859406
alt right dweebs think everything's about them

>>9856175
>honestly I don't even think people like they're describing exist

literally the better than food faggot

>>9859406
Article isn't about politics

itt: alt bros BTFO

>>9858600
a living meme

>>9858155
>Cards are the hallmark of a fool
Best post in this thread

>>9856136
I just don't believe this strawman.
So he is a bisexual hipster kindof christian?
He is basically a mixed bag of everything that is good outside the culturla marxists left but portrayed as something hypocritical and wrong.

>>9858974
Is this bait?

Kerouac, Morrison, and Hemingway only impress normalfags? Seems like the trifecta of awesomeness, chief. Me loves how the bards do provide historical context. Dilillo, too. Lapping up that media saturation, tackling the "human" problem. Get into the jive and jingle jinxy baby. Trim that stash to have a fine french flair, and let your razor go wild into that good night, fare not well enough to pay your way to Hades. Beebop and ring a ding dad in hole sub-thoughts, kicked in to the can a pattern of unadulterated value, tested and true.

Or, please stop using sincerity as a measure. It attaches the writers character to the work and ultimately calls into question their intention. But in a manner that can only lead to surface level arguments that are as bad as the article or story itself.

Questioning sincerity became such a fad that no wonder impostor syndrome runs amok. But all the better for group cohesion, I guess. Smart marketing, effective copyrighting, the next literary frontier.

Sarah's sphincter, gilt with perspiration?

>>9859164
>As in, an actual dumbass painting himself as a genius.

ie. give no compassion, no mercy to the destitute!

>>9857808
>Barnum effect

Oh wow this is a very interesting topic from what I see in wikipedia.
Any books that anyone wants to recomend on the Barnum effect?

it's a funny read but ultimately useless in any way other than as a work of comedic caricature. it seems the author does a poor job conveying this (if that was their intention) because everyone is thinking it's a strawman

>>9856232
Vague universal statements like this are used to build rapport with strangers, because it seems like you have some special insight about them, but really you could be talking about anyone.
The same underlying idea is used in cold reading, hypnotic induction and advertisement.
Also OP is an Alt-Bro

>>9860190
>Kerouac, Morrison, and Hemingway only impress normalfags? Seems like the trifecta of awesomeness, chief

Teenage pls go

>Or, please stop using sincerity as a measure

Missing the point. It's not about sincerity as "meaning what you say", it's about sincerity as "daring to have concrete thoughts and ideas you're willing to stand for instead of liquid "cool" irony so you can avoid investing yourself to anything". We can for example use the word "integrity", if you prefer.

The point of the article is to protect women. These guys will try to lure you into sleeping with them because they seem different than your usual dickhead dudebro, but he'll still treat you like shit. Same with soft boys

FUCK MEN. All masculinity is toxic. Altbros and softboys should be CASTRATED for being potential RAPISTS. ALL MALES ARE THE PROBLEM.

>>9860606
What type of person doesn't "treat women like shit". The guy described in the softboy article literally did nothing wrong, he just hung out with a girl for a bit and let the relationship fizzle out.

What are these people's ideal man?

>>9860761
>What are these people's ideal man?
A woman.

>>9856136
I'm only like 25% of this, could be worse

Lmao @ all the people saying this archetype doesn't exist... you may want to check out a mirror

What age range is this aimed at? I've never heard of altbros or softboys.

alright nerds. the reason some read it as politics and the 'alt-right' is because this type of thought is exactly what makes cancer discourse. much like your usual sjw/poltard type. its a direct strain of it. it used to be subculture focused paired with irony, now its the front page of politics and memes. IT WAS WRITTEN 3 YEARS AGO

>>9856335
t. German into scat and piss

The girls look gorgeous and the cinematography is incredible.

>>9859406
The guy is explicitly described as a Leftist retard

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Tell me what "bro" is supposed to mean in the current year.

>>9856136
alt-bro is /ourguy/

>>9860761
A two dimensional character that exits solely for her.

>>9859406
>projecting a projection
so this is the power of frogposters

>>9860973
Its like how kike is used for Jews but for young white males

>>9856136

I could only make it to the end of the first paragraph.
Can't handle these levels of assblasted.

Someone should tell the author of this:

Confession cannot achieve redemption.

Boring piece.

>>9860219
It's not really funny to read. It would be funny only if the author was heavily involved in identity politics so that line like:
>he group of self-identified queers who run his university’s left-wing newspaper and volunteer at community kitchens and publish their undergraduate essays in graduate journals are “pretty chill,” the Alt-Bro guesses

would reveal that he is so unwilling to criticize himself that he makes even the Alt-Bro think he's 'chill'. Honestly, the kind of person being written about is so irrelevant that I am lost as to why someone would write this. If I ever see anyone who acts remotely as described I write them off immediately.

t. Alt-Bro

>The Alt-Bro thinks things like, Imagine how much more beautiful the world would be if you believed God created it.
Goddamnit.

ITT: Literary nu males get triggered and try to pretend it's not a big deal

>>9857127

Buttmad alt bro detected

Literally 1 thing in the whole thing related to me. now i feel superior.

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>>9856136
>The Alt-Bro jerks off to X-Art on YouPorn. Afterward he logs onto Facebook without washing his hands

Dude, fuck

I would also add this:
>the alt bro selects all squares with street signs

I am not an altbro but I associate with many altbros. This article has forced me to consider my trajectories and priorities and be critical of my own artistic ambitions and tendencies towards pretension.

>>9857127
Un bon post

>>9856136
is that thing on the right a vagina wtf

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authors twitter

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>>9864395
>men phrasing sexual desire in spiritual terms ...as repulsive as phrasing capitalism in nautral terms??@hashtagrollin

The fuck is this guys major malfunction?

Jesus, I have the patience to read through thousand-page tomes that I thought were mediocre, but even I couldn't sit through this dreck.

Somebody please summarize this retards strawman so I don't have to waste my braincells reading the word "Alt-Bro" for the millionth time; If I see another portmanteau I'm going to fucking hang myself.

I think this is way to detailed to be anything but the author expounding on his previous self.

>>9857127
Every bourgeois in the ferment of his youth, if only for a day or a minute, has believed himself capable of a grand passion, of a high endeavor. Every run-of-the-mill seducer has dreamed of Eastern queens. Not a lawyer but carries within him the débris of a poet

>>9864485
I really, really, really like this quote

I thought it was funny. People complaining that the stereotypes don't describe any single person are missing how amusing it can be to freewheel and associate vaguely related cultural phenomena. It's like the archetypal Reddit user, who doesn't exist, but captures something real (and probably pernicious) anyway.

To ask what Ethiopian jazz has to do with these college-age stereotypes misses the point that we already recognize intuitively that liking obscure music that signals cultural refinement does relate to some archetype the author is getting at, & that prior recognition, rather than its rationalization, is what's amusing, in the same way that saying a Reddit user likes Rick & Morty is amusing (and revealing).

>>9856136
REEEEE STOP DOING THINGS I DONT LIKE

>>9864952
cunt

I didn't think this was a thing until I read all the salty replies from alt bros itt.
t. prob an alt bro too

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>>9864952
>It's like the archetypal Reddit user, who doesn't exist

Wonder who's behind this post

>>9856158
>why is prejudice a thing?
>prejudice leads to selective information attainment and it worsened by an endless stream of (pre-selected) information?
Welcome to the real world. Where we provided humans with endless sources before informing them that they are idiots to begin with.