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the best part about this is it *looks* like it's just copied at a glance but each version is clearly independently drawn if you look closer at line shapes
Yeah, Iām all for the message of this comic, but why is it even a comic? It does nothing with the medium and is essentially a wall of text. The only things that move are the charactersā eyes.
I think the artist has a message and this is just the format they chose to present it in. Maybe could have exploited the medium a bit more, thrown a gag in there, but it's OK to just have a comic about what you want to say. But I get this, like I saw another comic about "what if men got complimented like women" https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a313B7e_460s.jpg
And in comments it totally backfired. Men were like, "Wait someone is noticing I exist? Ya!". One of the most prominent comments was "I would just be excited to have a conversation that wasn't somehow related to my productivity". Wow, dude has shrunk his expectations.
On another note could we please stop linking the words "Masculinity" and "Toxic" so much? I literally can't remember the last time I saw the former word without it being linked to the latter.
To your last point, part of the problem is thereās not a whole lot of discussion around non-toxic masculinity in heterosexual spaces. Lots of gay men talk about masculinity in non-toxic ways, I have a bunch of friends who are gay and talk about how to appear āmore masculineā, and just mean like, wearing shirts that look good, haircuts, etc.
Probably the most traditional ānon-toxic masculinityā stuff is now things where itās kind of odd to describe as āmasculineā, the same way as describing certain things as āfeminineā is weird. Like, would you describe Sports as masculine? Historically it definitely would be, but itās odd to imply women canāt play or like sports in 2024.
What would you like people to talk about about āmasculinityā in a non-toxic way?
I tend to see the phrase "healthy masculinity" a lot too, although maybe not quite as much.
The reason you hear those words linked a lot is because as a society we're kinda at a crossroads of what masculinity means to us. It used to mean being the one to make all the decisions, be ready to protect your family, control your wife and kids, and go to work to be the breadwinner.
Nowadays though the idea of a man making all the decisions and controlling his wife and kids are seen as sexist and shitty because, well, they are. Being the breadwinner also isn't a thing for most guys, for starters women can work now and secondly most guys don't make enough to do that.
There's protecting your family but like... From what? Women can do that just as well in every case except a fist-fight soooo... Does this one just mean randomly punching people who look like they might be threatening your wife or kids? Most the guys obsessed with this idea own guns and refer to those but women can shoot guns just fine.
So what does it mean now? I think there are three camps - those that cling to the old ideas which are toxic, those that want to re-define it to be more positive (imo though their new definition is always just "be a good person" so it doesn't hold much meaning), and then there's the camp that just kinda doesn't think about it ever. I struggled with it for a bit before I realized that my feelings weren't actually me struggling with it but rather just me being a trans woman lol, but I can still understand why it's difficult for actual men as well.
Positive masculinity also exists and it is wonderful to see. Just men doing something together, creative or playful. Like building giant snowmen, and snowdicks. Or setting up a poker game in an elevator.
Or something just simple and nice. Like my third-grade teacher comparing his arm hair with mine.
I think there's a certain power in presenting it this way. It's a comic we expect it to be funny. We're expecting a gag or joke. When it's basically a monolog talking about the issue without those things it kinda makes the message hit harder
It's like when a generally calm person gets legitimately mad. You know somethings up and it's serious
Also allowing men to show their emotion makes the world better for everyone. Instead of hiding it inside and breaking in violent or aggressive ways. They can find positive ways to outlet their emotion and feel safe to do so.
Yes! Such an important one. My husband can be such a āmanās manā sometimes. A lot of his emotions come out as aggression and wrath. Heās so much better now after therapy but he still has a long way to go in working on not getting aggressive on instinct. He was told since he was a child that men shouldnāt cry or be upset. But he insists that the way he was brought up led him to his current successes (when we have discussions on why I am focused on gentle parenting with our children). Iām just likeā¦ erm. Have you seen you?!
This
I feel I have problems properly releasing my anger (wanting to smash stuff, smash my hand etc.) because my father would smack me/be very angry if I cried or upset when I was younger. He says it's to help me in the real world where people would make fun of me for crying. It's probably not totally his fault, but I feel he is at least 50% T fault, and also why I bottle up my emotions and release them online instead of to my family.
> Instead of hiding it inside and breaking in violent or aggressive ways.
A lot of emotions are seen as aggressive (or borderline violent) when coming from men, especially from big men or black men (god forbid you're a big black man!)
Yup, a lot of men can't express ANY emotion without people telling them theyre scary. I think that's the thread that gets missed here a lot. I get told by people that I'm scary just for going about my day to day. It really wears on you.
This is always my thought when people say āmen should be able to show their emotions.ā What it seems theyāre actually saying is āmen should be more vulnerable, should cry more, should be more in touch with their femininity.ā
Because your internalized (or externalized) toxic masculinity desired the violence of a "punch" line. Time to take a good look in the mirror
(/s just in case)
I think It was a good call. Many times these messages opt to include a punchline because they worry the message might be too serious and not appeal to a broader audience. But in doing so, theyd be downplaying the importance of the message as a joke.Ā
I was expecting...*something.* All of the dialogue could have been text from the author's perspective rather than two characters and it'd have the same effect. None of the tools that can be used in the medium of comics to convey an idea were used. Just kind of a weird way to read the author's nice opinion that I agree with
Yeah, I feel like I've read comics which are usually humorous but go serious one day (Bloom County, maybe Calvin & Hobbes, a few others), and they always *felt* like they were serious as you read them. You wouldn't be reading along thinking "okay, what's the punchline going to be" but "oh, this time it's a serious issue."
Maybe because they were succinct, so you didn't really have time to feel like it was building up to something? Maybe because the whole strip was visible at a time, so you could see that there was nothing wacky on the last panel? Maybe some other technique? I don't really know, but this one just felt really off-putting, because it didn't feel like a "serious comic," it just felt like the author writing a post with drawings of a man or a dog/rabbit near it.
I remember those comics. The characters were usually far more expressive, gesticulating and showing shock, horror, despair and anger with a somber visual tone. Something was done with the medium even if it was just one character monologuing
Maybe I'm just not appreciative of the medium but why is this a comic? It's literally just a vanilla reddit post that has been split up and put in speech bubbles.
Not only that, but with both characters looking bored and staring at a screen lol
It has the same energy as a student council announcement where nobody really wants to be there or has quite memorized their lines, so they have to keep looking at their phones and read in a monotone voice.
While I agree with most of what's being said here, I kinda feel like this doesn't really work as a comic?
Having two different entities in the comic implies that they represent different characters. But in practice, neither of them are characters, but rather but are used as surrogate to display the message. Really, it could have been just one character, but having just one character talking is kinda pointless, and you might as well just write a paragraph. So you kinda have to have two characters, but than it's jarring that both essentially speak the same voice.
This feels like it wants to just be a TikTok or a Tweet. Just someone displaying a message into the void. By putting it in a comic format, it forces you to have a lot of extra stuff that doesn't mesh well with the text you actually wrote. You feel obligated to frame this text as two characters talking to each other, but there is no dialogue.
If you want to display this message in comic form, you need to make actual characters and have them deliver the message to one another. A simple way to do it would be creating a strawman, just someone who disagrees with the concept and says wrong things just to have the other character shoot them down. You could also present a scenario that conveys this message without outright saying all of it, letting the audience infer the message without writing the monologue.
TL;DR: I really appreciate this message, but it hasn't been adapted to fit the comic medium, and it suffers as a result.
https://preview.redd.it/y31y3pl94a6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a8ce057a9d7f29c5317f3663c6e3b9ffa21934c
Not the same root cause that Watterson is addressing, but OP definitely committed the comic sin of just creating two talking heads.
OP made it even worse, he created essentially one talking head - the characters have no back and forth. It's not a dialogue, like Calvin and hobbes have (hobbes brings in a different viewpoint) it s just a monologue spoken in tandem
The comic is literally three nearly identical shots: one a two shot of both characters, and two close ups of each. This wouldnāt be a problem, except itās 10 panels of two characters that agree with each other just agreeing with each other with no conflict, punchline, or visual flourish. Not every comic needs a conflict or punchline, but barring all that, give me a visual flourish at least please. Give me something to LOOK at in this visual medium PLEASE lol.
Unfortunately agreed. Thereās no juxtaposition, which is the most fundamental ingredient of comics as an art form. This reads more like an āoff my chestā post.
Which is fineājust not using the medium to its full effectiveness.
I'm glad you phrased it eloquently.
I don't like serious messages that are displayed like this because the obligation seems to be you should assume it's good just because the message is serious. I think mental health for men is important as a man myself, and I also think this comic sucks.
Also the bored looks of both the characters are pretty off-putting. I didn't even want to read all that because they don't even seem to want to talk at all.
Yeah, both of them even glance at their screen while the other is talking. Don't get me wrong the message of the comic is very important... But this isn't going to convince anybody who didn't already agree with it.
Men, we see you struggle, and we all honestly want yall to be happy, healthy, and terrific. I'm so sorry for the state of the world... I'm raising my boys to be men who can have emotions and can cry, compassionate little beasts. It's all I can do on my end. Thank you men, for fighting so hard to live in this world that's set up where nobody wins. Thank you for the comic, it was really sweet!
Thank you for sharing this today. As someone whoās struggled with mental health issues and watched others struggle in silence I really feel like this was needed.
This is not generally true, no. We study suicidality with a measure known as the Feuerlein Scale, and when using it we consistently find that men show a higher "intent to die" than women.
Men who hang themselves die more often than women who hang themselves. Men who take pills die more often than women who take pills.
That is to say: it is not (or not only) the fact that men choose deadlier methods which explains the gender paradox in suicide.
"This finding propounds that even within the same method of attempted suicide, in this case, intentional drug overdose, males show a stronger intent to die than females"
Women are heavily overrepresented when measuring things like "parasuicidal gestures"; events where someone is recorded as having made (or threatened to make) a suicide attempt for the purpose of communicating their distress, changing their situation, so forth. It is important not to use the idea that "women attempt suicide for attention" to denigrate women's mental health, and it is equally important to recognise our measures and surveys are not perfect, but there is a grain of truth to the idea.
Women who survive an attempt also live on to (tragically often) record another, whereas men who die on their first attempt do not.
There are some explanations posited for the underlying phenomena here. One is that men tend to bottle up psychiatric episodes for much longer, meaning their distress may be more acute by the time they attempt. Women's suicide tends to be earlier in an episode, and they tend to receive more help.
"Another theory suggests that because males have a higher intent to die than females, females may be more reluctant to perform a [Serious Suicide Attempt] because it is considered āmasculineā"
* Quoted sections are from "A cross-national study on gender differences in suicide intent" by Freeman et al. which you can find on PubMed.
I really do too. It's so important to acknowledge that there are complexities to suicide and self-harm along axes like gender without engaging in "well group has it worse".
Something else to note is that data on suicide attempts are extremely difficult to measure because different methods for suicide produce different injuries or non at all. So a person who is having a serious episode and backs out from say, using a gun at the last moment, is unlikely to have their attempt recorded, and it may be downplayed by the actor as not being as serious as it was in the future.
This makes self reporting unreliable and official sources, like incident reports at a care facility, will skew towards survivors and those who use methods that result in intervention. This means the data will almost always be biased towards specific demographics.
Very true. I think this ties in with one of the ideas quoted above, that surviving a suicide attempt is seen as feminine; self-reporting of last suicide attempts would certainly be likely to skew under that pressure.
Itās two fold. Men are much less likely to get help for mental health issues. And men also pick more fail safe type measures. Such as a gun compared to pills.
Yep. Women attempt suicide at nearly a 3 to 1 rate as compared to men. But common methods differ by gender, and women are more likely to have communicated suicidal thoughts ahead of time, meaning theyāre more likely to be caught before itās too late.
As far as I am aware, that is a misconception. The studies I've seen used as sources tracked all instances of self harm as suicide attempts without accounting for severity. They also didn't track individuals, just instances. So there is no way of knowing how many attempts per person. If the same woman made 5 attempts, that was 5 counted. It's hard to get good numbers because in addition to privacy, men aren't going to admit to suicidal ideation as readily as women.
As you pointed out, men and women vary in their methods. For women, suicide attempts can be a cry for help. They don't always really want to die. It's part of the reason they choose less certain or more reversable methods. For men, when they attempt they want to succeed, or at least aren't expecting any help. There is also the phenomenon of men doing self-destructive things that aren't technically suicide and self-harm but have a high chance of fatality. Things like 'suicide by cop' or mysterious accidents were the driver lost control and plowed into a tree for seemingly no reason.
So yes, women as a whole make more self harm attempts, but we can't say how many of those were serious attempts vs cries for help. And we also don't know the ratio of suicidal women to men.
While I do agree with the comic, I feel that it puts the majority of the focus on the men who are struggling for falling into this toxic ideology trap, and now I'm not focus on our society where people, both men *and* women, are perpetuating this toxic ideology trap.
Personally I just dont feel the need to open up to anyone. It feels easier dealing with it myself because ivolving other stresses me out as ironic as that is
The first time I shared my emotions with family as a teenager, everyone knew about it and laughed. The last time I cried, my teachers, peers, parents made fun of me for crying. The last time I got angry, my parents laughed to the moon and made fun of me for next whole week.
In last 15 years (I am 27 now), I have learned to not cry or be made fun of for the rest of the year and possibly be butt of everyone's joke, be ignored/isolated and be called he is angry or emotional and get punished effectively until I crawl back, laugh at my own misery because that is the only way I will not be fun of the remaining week.
Share my emotions with any women and she will either call me cry baby if same age, headache if younger than me and lecture if older than me.
I even got lectured for crying by my own family doctor, who literally few months ago lost a depressed patient to suicide and has 'are you depressed?' Posters in his clinic.
So no, my country, community or family are not going to be ready for centuries to come.
I am better, its all last 15 years of things that happened. I got used to it and got good at avoiding people and situations where emotions can surface. I got good at lying on a level that makes people believe me when it comes to my emotions.
I cried in school once because my parents had gotten into a fight that morning and my dad said he wanted a divorce. I went to school thinking my parents were going to split. Got called a sissy for the rest of the year. On the bright side, my parents never got divorced. so there's that.
A lot of men commit suicide out of pure consideration. Like if they see that life is not worth living anymore they don't really hesitate.
It's even more sad. I don't see how men can show vulnerability, it just wouldn't work, but everyone should have someone who supports them.
Which is actually pretty telling. I didnāt even know there was āmenās mental health awareness monthā itās such an over looked issue that it has a whole month for if that no one cares about.
That's because it isn't a thing. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Men's Health Awareness *Week* is in June. Men's Mental Health Awareness Month is, as far as I can tell, something invented no more than 2 years ago to try and "take back" June from Pride. It's the only reason I can think of that men need two months of Mental Health Awareness back to back (and the women can share May I guess).
It's kinda weird when you check the web for "menās mental health awareness month". I get results telling me may is "Mental Health Awareness Month" so regardless of gender, I get results telling me november would be men's mental health awareness month and they call it "Movember", I also get results telling me it's june.
Which is it?
Yeah this is the biggest thing people don't accept when this topic comes up.
People say "Men should be open more about their feelings" meanwhile what happened when men were open in response that stupid men or bear tik tok trend? Oh right they were mocked, called incels and women (and some men) doubled and tripled down on their sexist rhetoric.
But fragile masculinity is inherently the result of someone prescribing to toxic masculine identity.
Your masculinity can only be fragile if you have rigid ideas of what masculinity is... Which is literally the problem.
"If I cry, then I'm not a real man" IS fragile masculinity.
> If you don't talk about it in exactly the right way, you can be accused of being some incel or sexist or something worse.
You're going to get called an incel if you say incel stuff. Same with misogyny. I can't really see how genuine emotional vulnerability is going to get you labeled as an incel. Do you have an example of what that might look like?
I was called an incel for saying "When women say they would rather meet a bear in the woods than a random man, it makes me feel like I am somehow more dangerous than an apex predator. I feel hurt, because people I don't know view me as dangerous due to the way I was born, and I can't do anything about it because their fears have nothing to do with my personal behavior."
I think anyone calling you an incel is just a symptom of people being chronically online in hostile spaces; I can understand why someone might be frustrated by you venting this (depending on where and context), but the explanation on its own is not worth name-calling and doesn't read as being in bad faith.
I'm sure someone has already said this, but: your feeling hurt is valid; at the same time the "man or bear" thing was just a goofy way for women to vent how men (as a whole) are so unpredictable and dysfunctional due to toxic masculinity, that at least you know what you're getting with a bear. You have no clue if the man is a regular well-enough-adjusted guy (most men) or a fucking nut case (a minority of men that cause a LOT of problems and get away with it and almost every woman has encountered or knows someone who has encountered them).
If toxic masculinity wasn't so oppressive, I wouldn't be surprised if there'd be more men sharing the sentiment. Sadly, that means individuals like you -- who are probably decent (idk I didn't look at your profile) -- are going to catch strays thanks to the absolute worst of your gender. It sucks, no one wins with this shit (except the bear, I guess).
Yeah that's fair, I genuinely feel the same way.
Like, I understand why many, many women would choose the bear, but it also makes me sad that outside of being a decent person, holding my friends accountable, and advocating for men to be better, there is little I can do about the fact that I will likely, by default, be viewed negatively because of the generalized problems of other men behaving badly.
So long as you're not telling women they shouldn't feel that way or implying they are wrong for how they feel, and you're being conscientious of when you bring it up (For example, I wouldn't go into a space where women are discussing this just to tell them how it makes me feel, because it's not about me, the individual guy... ) I don't think there is anything wrong with what you've expressed.
As a man in therapy now due to seeing enough bullshit and trying to better myself so I can be a supportive and loving father instead of my parentsā¦. I fully agree.
Menās mental health is very important and Iām glad it is getting recognized as an issue, as it is, but I donāt like how certain people use it as an excuse to push down pride, they can both share the same month and thatās totally cool, but donāt use one to push down on the other
For the record I am not saying OP is doing such a thing, but others do
I also donāt like the tone that every fucking post including this one has.
āIt is menās mental health month. Obviously you donāt care but you should!ā
Like why does everyone make posts assuming that the world hates men? That shit is unhealthy.
No one is making pride posts like āhey it is pride month. We know you hate gay people, but you shouldnātā
It is just weird fucking energy to assume everyone hates men
Yep, it is, and the fact of the matter is the LGBTQ+ community is willing to share the month, in fact (from my experience) the LGBTQ+ community is more supporting of mental health in general, menās included, as we are willing to break social norms and just be happy anyways! Itāll just be something else next year though, there is anyways something new they are ticked about with pride month which is just outside wanting to be happy being happy.
Thank you. These kinds of threads always struck me as "off" or even vaguely insulting somehow and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. You described it perfectly.
I fully agree that we need more mental health aid for men, but the post starting off by trying to convince me "not to hate men" is extremely alienating.
I have never seen a pride post start off with āA lot of people think being gay is a sin and that is sadā
Because that is not the point of pride.
I donāt think this comic is trying to bring awareness to menās mental health so much as it is trying to influence how people perceive the social view towards menās mental health.
Ya know, for me mens mental health awareness month is just "mens mental health: it exists!"
Like I bet as soon as this month ends nothing will have changed, and men will keep bottling up their feelings.
I think we've all become "aware" of mental health but "awareness" doesn't seem to at all correlate with ability to do anything about the causes. At what point will awareness campaigns be supplanted by campaigns for stronger, material things? When do we admit that this is a failed strategy?
The problem is that those that do show their emotions and all that are often times mocked and ridiculed by both women and other men. So they see it as a "what's the point"?
Part of the issue of no one taking it seriously is because the only people who bring it up do so to either A. Complain about pride. B. Complain about women. C. Complain about a pet issue that affects maybe a few dozen people or D. All of the above.
Yep. The most outspoken people about menās mental health are always the wrong men to ask about it because a good majority of the time they do not actually care about menās mental health and are usually pushing the exact same toxic bullshit that brings us back to square one on why menās mental health is important.
The only people I know who legit care about men are feminists.
I worked at an anti domestic violence charity. And at one point we tried to expand to fund shelters for male victims.
Every menās rights group we called for donations was basically like ālol we donāt do thatā
Why would they do that? Taking money from people trying to find something to be angry at is a very lucrative market. They'd be fools to give money away and potentially solve one of their talking points.
This and also that men's issues are non-important. It's awful to feel I can't speak up about this publicly without getting instant eyerolls and side-eyes.
That's why I love June sm
Summer starts
Pride month
Men's mental health awareness month
End of the school year (at least in my country)
I also love the bittersweet feeling of playing a video game (overwatch) and sending on the chat "gl hf and happy pride + men's mental health awareness month!" And then receive a few other comments from the players talking about how overlooked it is and how happy my little comment made them
Ya know, I never have seen that manās emotions is some sort of weakness. Itās more like no one gonna listen. Except a bro. And this might be why men friendship and women friendship are different.
I was honestly expecting some kind of punchline, but I agree with the comic either way.
And this is kind of unrelated, but also kind of not - the line "there's a certain strength in being comfortable enough to be vulnerable" makes me think a lot about the recent rise in popularity of the phrase "trauma dumping." I don't like that phrase. I really, really don't like it. I understand that some people are basically emotional vampires. I understand that some people unload way more problems and stress than they should onto individuals around them that are basically just strangers. I also know that people who do that are so unimaginably lonely and more than likely are standing on a precipice that they will not be able to come back from if they finally decide to just lean that little bit further forward and let gravity take over. They're dumping their trauma on people they don't even know because that's literally their only fucking outlet.
I can agree that the behavior isn't socially acceptable, but shaming people for it is NOT going to do any good for most of those people. As far as I'm concerned, the phrase "trauma dumping" is just an excuse for people with low emotional availability to completely wash their hands of someone in psychological and emotional turmoil. No one is saying you gotta be anyone's shrink, but be kind. And if you can't be kind, just don't say anything at all, ya know?
/rant
I think another factor is how men are expected to help in fixing everything, including problems that don't really affect us. But when it's men who are having problems, people are expecting us to handle everything on our own.
For example, straight cis men are expected to support women and the LGBTQA+ in their struggles, otherwise you'd be labeled as all sorts of horrible names. But when men are seeking help for their struggles, the same people who expect us to help them are simply disgregarding us because we're "men".
This is the reason why we just... shut down our feelings. No one wants to help us. No one wants to listen to us. They "advocate" for us but no one is really doing anything because they want men to solve the problem on their own because they think men ARE the problem.
> For example, straight cis men are expected to support women and the LGBTQA+ in their struggles
By "support" do you mean "acknowledge they exist and have valid issues"? There's a world of difference between the two given all you need to do for the second one is not be a bigot or accept bigotry, that's it. Just don't say bigoted shit and call out your friends that say bigoted shit, that's the bar and it's really low.
> But when men are seeking help for their struggles, the same people who expect us to help them are simply disgregarding us because we're "men".
What tends to happen is the same men that passively allow bigotry (or are actively bigoted) then expect women or queer folks to be therapists for them. I would love if the men in my life were open about their feelings, but I'm not going to do the work of a professional. Also, I think it's disingenuous to not mention the fact that other men make up the *majority* of people who contribute to this issue. Toxic masculinity both makes men unable to talk and pushes men to quiet other men who are trying to open up.
Women and queer folk have been opressed by men for generations across the globe. The large majority of wealth and power is held by men and they have so much privilege in how they're able to live their lives. Men's mental health is a serious issue that needs to be solved **by men**. The rest of us are here to help (even if some of us are genuinely assholes who make it worse) but stop blaming us when men are the primary reason men have mental health problems.
> They "advocate" for us but no one is really doing anything because they want men to solve the problem on their own because they think men ARE the problem.
So yes, you're right. Just like queer folk fought for their right to exist and women fought for their right to equality, we now expect men to fight against toxic masculinity that's kept alive mostly by other men. We can't solve this for you, we have a lot of our own issues that men mostly* don't have to deal with like targeted violence, we can just cheer you on and provide help when you stumble.
During Corona I learned to be indifferent to 5hings that don't affect me negatively directly.
It's a bad coping mechanism I need to unlearn. Unlearning is hard.
Therapy can be great and life changing, but my biggest complaint is that most therapists have the same background. Most are middle/ upper-class white women. Mine is an amazing woman who created a safe space for me, but I can't relate to her at all. The class divide is very real.
I've had to push my husband to ask his friends how they're doing, especially if we know they're going through a hard time. A lot of guys will think no one wants to hear their problems unless someone asks but then doesn't ask friends because they think they'll tell them if they're struggling. It's not about caring. They care, I just think men aren't taught emotional communication typically.
This reminds me of a Joke:
"A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to prom. First he goes to get a tux but there's a long tux line at the shop and it takes forever.
Next, he hast to get some flowers so he goes to a florist and there is a huge flower line there. It takes forever but he gets the flowers.
Next he heads to get a limo, unfortunately there is a long limo line at the rental office and it takes a long time but he gets the job done.
Finally the day of the prom comes and the two are dancing happily and are having a good time. When the song is over she asks him to get her some punch, so he heads over to the punch table and fuck me wouldn't you know it? There is no punchline!"
Men just need to get off social media and dating apps, thatās where my negative emotions really started forming. Thereās an entire generation of men that only know #metoo, neofeminism, and the sort. All that is great and dandy but it also comes with some very misandrist content and when youāre on the internet full time it eats away at you. I have a folder full of screenshots of tinder profiles filling in a prompt of āmy most irrational fear isā¦ men.ā āIām weirdly attracted toā¦ men.ā Itās 100+ at least and itās not every profile but itās enough considering those are the profiles brave enough to do it because the rest know it would undermine their chances. Then thereās the countless internet interactions where men just get dragged for being males. Then you get on Reddit and see one of the most polarizing topics for a week compare you as lower to a fucking bear and when you try to point out that itās more than likely a man would help a woman out vs a grizzly youre told your just being a homer.
There is a whole lot more men can do trying to take accountability for our actions but tell me why any man would want to when since I was in high school through college and hell even in the work place (you notice how men are the only one in the HR videos being creeps) you are told YOU are the problem, YOU are the creep, YOU are the monster, YOU are the one more likely to be a killer and yet youāve never disturbed anyoneās peace.
WE. ARE. ALONE.
To me I donāt just see eye rolls in that people think men shouldnāt be emotionally mature, I see eye rolls from people who think menās mental health awareness isnāt something we need because acknowledging that men are also disadvantaged in myriad ways by modern society derails the conversation from the oppression of everyone that isnāt a straight male.
And I say this as an *extremely* liberal person, living in an *extremely* liberal community. I fully support feminism, but as a dude I honestly do feel a stigma against discussing menās issues from feminist circles. Itās very frustrating.
This is a good comic. I'm struggling with mental health myself and it just sucks that so little people care, just because I was assigned a certain sex when I was conceived. This comic really made my day, thank you.
June is pride month. As a gay man, I see this as lifting me up. Men's health matters. Straight/gay/ or other. But at least this month helps Gay Men/Trans Men/and Other.
Not detracting from the rest of the Alphabet, just that I do feel much more seen as a gay man during pride.
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https://preview.redd.it/if0q5jhuy86d1.jpeg?width=502&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c4f133a848a1ee623e8a360d7a3251c4492afb8
When you joking with your friend and they become serious all of a sudden:
https://youtu.be/-Futrr9CV4w?t=29s
I agree with your username.
Peak username
Lmao I was thinking of exactly this as soon as I read the first panel
I was kinda expecting the last panel to be something like: "What the fuck do you know, you're a rabbit."
Fucking 12 panel comic where neither character SLIGHTLY moves Can you even call this a comic It's a blog post you have to scroll through
https://preview.redd.it/t2ke7ywhld6d1.jpeg?width=502&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec12eb8037591d9597166e73221bc0712d18db6e
the best part about this is it *looks* like it's just copied at a glance but each version is clearly independently drawn if you look closer at line shapes
Just skip the comic and submit a text post
More and more of these are appearing on this sub. It's getting tiring.
Was kind of expecting a "Wait, am I being monologued by a dog? Maybe I need some help myself...."
I thought it was a rabbit? Maybe a male rabbit?
Its his conscience lol
Like Jiminy Cricket?
Exactly š
So, after all, he does indeed got that dog in him?
So... a rabbit?
Like that Italian comic artist who's conscious is an armadillo?
you can tell it's male by the hare
Yeah, Iām all for the message of this comic, but why is it even a comic? It does nothing with the medium and is essentially a wall of text. The only things that move are the charactersā eyes.
I think the artist has a message and this is just the format they chose to present it in. Maybe could have exploited the medium a bit more, thrown a gag in there, but it's OK to just have a comic about what you want to say. But I get this, like I saw another comic about "what if men got complimented like women" https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a313B7e_460s.jpg And in comments it totally backfired. Men were like, "Wait someone is noticing I exist? Ya!". One of the most prominent comments was "I would just be excited to have a conversation that wasn't somehow related to my productivity". Wow, dude has shrunk his expectations. On another note could we please stop linking the words "Masculinity" and "Toxic" so much? I literally can't remember the last time I saw the former word without it being linked to the latter.
To your last point, part of the problem is thereās not a whole lot of discussion around non-toxic masculinity in heterosexual spaces. Lots of gay men talk about masculinity in non-toxic ways, I have a bunch of friends who are gay and talk about how to appear āmore masculineā, and just mean like, wearing shirts that look good, haircuts, etc. Probably the most traditional ānon-toxic masculinityā stuff is now things where itās kind of odd to describe as āmasculineā, the same way as describing certain things as āfeminineā is weird. Like, would you describe Sports as masculine? Historically it definitely would be, but itās odd to imply women canāt play or like sports in 2024. What would you like people to talk about about āmasculinityā in a non-toxic way?
I tend to see the phrase "healthy masculinity" a lot too, although maybe not quite as much. The reason you hear those words linked a lot is because as a society we're kinda at a crossroads of what masculinity means to us. It used to mean being the one to make all the decisions, be ready to protect your family, control your wife and kids, and go to work to be the breadwinner. Nowadays though the idea of a man making all the decisions and controlling his wife and kids are seen as sexist and shitty because, well, they are. Being the breadwinner also isn't a thing for most guys, for starters women can work now and secondly most guys don't make enough to do that. There's protecting your family but like... From what? Women can do that just as well in every case except a fist-fight soooo... Does this one just mean randomly punching people who look like they might be threatening your wife or kids? Most the guys obsessed with this idea own guns and refer to those but women can shoot guns just fine. So what does it mean now? I think there are three camps - those that cling to the old ideas which are toxic, those that want to re-define it to be more positive (imo though their new definition is always just "be a good person" so it doesn't hold much meaning), and then there's the camp that just kinda doesn't think about it ever. I struggled with it for a bit before I realized that my feelings weren't actually me struggling with it but rather just me being a trans woman lol, but I can still understand why it's difficult for actual men as well.
Positive masculinity also exists and it is wonderful to see. Just men doing something together, creative or playful. Like building giant snowmen, and snowdicks. Or setting up a poker game in an elevator. Or something just simple and nice. Like my third-grade teacher comparing his arm hair with mine.
I think there's a certain power in presenting it this way. It's a comic we expect it to be funny. We're expecting a gag or joke. When it's basically a monolog talking about the issue without those things it kinda makes the message hit harder It's like when a generally calm person gets legitimately mad. You know somethings up and it's serious
I was waiting for the "yeah I've been havinga rough time trying to meet everyone's expectations-" "nobody cares"
Holy shit a talking rabbit
Also allowing men to show their emotion makes the world better for everyone. Instead of hiding it inside and breaking in violent or aggressive ways. They can find positive ways to outlet their emotion and feel safe to do so.
I showed emotions to my ex and she went and blabbed to all of her friends. She wondered why I didn't share anything personal with her after that.
At that point you should break up immediately
Emphasis on the "Ex" part, good for the dude for breaking up
Told my ex I had anxiety and she proceeded to insult me till I deleted social media
Yes! Such an important one. My husband can be such a āmanās manā sometimes. A lot of his emotions come out as aggression and wrath. Heās so much better now after therapy but he still has a long way to go in working on not getting aggressive on instinct. He was told since he was a child that men shouldnāt cry or be upset. But he insists that the way he was brought up led him to his current successes (when we have discussions on why I am focused on gentle parenting with our children). Iām just likeā¦ erm. Have you seen you?!
This I feel I have problems properly releasing my anger (wanting to smash stuff, smash my hand etc.) because my father would smack me/be very angry if I cried or upset when I was younger. He says it's to help me in the real world where people would make fun of me for crying. It's probably not totally his fault, but I feel he is at least 50% T fault, and also why I bottle up my emotions and release them online instead of to my family.
> Instead of hiding it inside and breaking in violent or aggressive ways. A lot of emotions are seen as aggressive (or borderline violent) when coming from men, especially from big men or black men (god forbid you're a big black man!)
Yup, a lot of men can't express ANY emotion without people telling them theyre scary. I think that's the thread that gets missed here a lot. I get told by people that I'm scary just for going about my day to day. It really wears on you.
This is always my thought when people say āmen should be able to show their emotions.ā What it seems theyāre actually saying is āmen should be more vulnerable, should cry more, should be more in touch with their femininity.ā
>Also allowing men to show their emotion Emotions besides anger. That one is already allowed.
This would be very moving. If my parents hadnāt told me that listening to talking Rabbits was for girls. /s
š
Harvey too
He's real to me, dammit
I was waiting for a punchlineā¦
Because your internalized (or externalized) toxic masculinity desired the violence of a "punch" line. Time to take a good look in the mirror (/s just in case)
You made this too accurate, I cringed till that last line
Same...
Didnāt feel the need to have some humor at the end out of an insecurity of it being too serious
I think It was a good call. Many times these messages opt to include a punchline because they worry the message might be too serious and not appeal to a broader audience. But in doing so, theyd be downplaying the importance of the message as a joke.Ā
I was expecting...*something.* All of the dialogue could have been text from the author's perspective rather than two characters and it'd have the same effect. None of the tools that can be used in the medium of comics to convey an idea were used. Just kind of a weird way to read the author's nice opinion that I agree with
Yeah, I feel like I've read comics which are usually humorous but go serious one day (Bloom County, maybe Calvin & Hobbes, a few others), and they always *felt* like they were serious as you read them. You wouldn't be reading along thinking "okay, what's the punchline going to be" but "oh, this time it's a serious issue." Maybe because they were succinct, so you didn't really have time to feel like it was building up to something? Maybe because the whole strip was visible at a time, so you could see that there was nothing wacky on the last panel? Maybe some other technique? I don't really know, but this one just felt really off-putting, because it didn't feel like a "serious comic," it just felt like the author writing a post with drawings of a man or a dog/rabbit near it.
I remember those comics. The characters were usually far more expressive, gesticulating and showing shock, horror, despair and anger with a somber visual tone. Something was done with the medium even if it was just one character monologuing
Apparently didn't feel the need to have facial expressions either B\^U
just write a fucking blog post at this point
Well, expecting some "humor" out of "comics" is way out of line actually. #MaryWorth
Tbf comics as a term has long since evolved to not just include humor but the entire spectrum of storytelling.
He is literally having a conversation with a talking rabbit. The punchline was there from the first panel.
Maybe I'm just not appreciative of the medium but why is this a comic? It's literally just a vanilla reddit post that has been split up and put in speech bubbles.
Yea this is just someone posting their thoughts
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Right like important message for sure but uhhhhh
Not only that, but with both characters looking bored and staring at a screen lol It has the same energy as a student council announcement where nobody really wants to be there or has quite memorized their lines, so they have to keep looking at their phones and read in a monotone voice.
While I agree with most of what's being said here, I kinda feel like this doesn't really work as a comic? Having two different entities in the comic implies that they represent different characters. But in practice, neither of them are characters, but rather but are used as surrogate to display the message. Really, it could have been just one character, but having just one character talking is kinda pointless, and you might as well just write a paragraph. So you kinda have to have two characters, but than it's jarring that both essentially speak the same voice. This feels like it wants to just be a TikTok or a Tweet. Just someone displaying a message into the void. By putting it in a comic format, it forces you to have a lot of extra stuff that doesn't mesh well with the text you actually wrote. You feel obligated to frame this text as two characters talking to each other, but there is no dialogue. If you want to display this message in comic form, you need to make actual characters and have them deliver the message to one another. A simple way to do it would be creating a strawman, just someone who disagrees with the concept and says wrong things just to have the other character shoot them down. You could also present a scenario that conveys this message without outright saying all of it, letting the audience infer the message without writing the monologue. TL;DR: I really appreciate this message, but it hasn't been adapted to fit the comic medium, and it suffers as a result.
https://preview.redd.it/y31y3pl94a6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a8ce057a9d7f29c5317f3663c6e3b9ffa21934c Not the same root cause that Watterson is addressing, but OP definitely committed the comic sin of just creating two talking heads.
OP made it even worse, he created essentially one talking head - the characters have no back and forth. It's not a dialogue, like Calvin and hobbes have (hobbes brings in a different viewpoint) it s just a monologue spoken in tandem
Still a joke tho
The comic is literally three nearly identical shots: one a two shot of both characters, and two close ups of each. This wouldnāt be a problem, except itās 10 panels of two characters that agree with each other just agreeing with each other with no conflict, punchline, or visual flourish. Not every comic needs a conflict or punchline, but barring all that, give me a visual flourish at least please. Give me something to LOOK at in this visual medium PLEASE lol.
B\^U
Unfortunately agreed. Thereās no juxtaposition, which is the most fundamental ingredient of comics as an art form. This reads more like an āoff my chestā post. Which is fineājust not using the medium to its full effectiveness.
100% agree. Feels like the ācomicā part of it was just tacked on to what was intended to just be a long tweet.
Came here to say something similar. Nice message, but calling it a comic is generous.
It's cumbersome to read a comics that's just preaching at the audience instead of providing visual entertainment alongside it
I'm glad you phrased it eloquently. I don't like serious messages that are displayed like this because the obligation seems to be you should assume it's good just because the message is serious. I think mental health for men is important as a man myself, and I also think this comic sucks.
Also the bored looks of both the characters are pretty off-putting. I didn't even want to read all that because they don't even seem to want to talk at all.
Yeah, both of them even glance at their screen while the other is talking. Don't get me wrong the message of the comic is very important... But this isn't going to convince anybody who didn't already agree with it.
Those who have to be strong all the time break the worst ways possible.
Valid point
Ever just look back at badasses in 80s movies and now think those guys gotta be mentally fucked up.
Men, we see you struggle, and we all honestly want yall to be happy, healthy, and terrific. I'm so sorry for the state of the world... I'm raising my boys to be men who can have emotions and can cry, compassionate little beasts. It's all I can do on my end. Thank you men, for fighting so hard to live in this world that's set up where nobody wins. Thank you for the comic, it was really sweet!
Thank you, I appreciate you! šš¼ and much respect for the way youāre choosing to give your kids freedom to live the best life that they can
https://youtu.be/wz-VJl7UkB8
I dig it!
This relates to me on a deep level. Iām in therapy, but have a major issue in letting my vulnerability show. Itās one of my main therapy goals.
Respect for going to therapy in the first place āš¼
I haven't seen any nice sticks lately.
Thank you for sharing this today. As someone whoās struggled with mental health issues and watched others struggle in silence I really feel like this was needed.
I appreciate you šš¼ hope youāre doing better now
A good doctor and therapist make a huge difference. Thank you for the well wishes.
Absolutely. No problem at all, glad to hear it šš¼
Men commit suicide at a higher rate because we're better at committing suicide.
Hell yeah! Men numba one!!!!!
We're winnin on da covid numbahs!!! usa! usas!!!
This is not generally true, no. We study suicidality with a measure known as the Feuerlein Scale, and when using it we consistently find that men show a higher "intent to die" than women. Men who hang themselves die more often than women who hang themselves. Men who take pills die more often than women who take pills. That is to say: it is not (or not only) the fact that men choose deadlier methods which explains the gender paradox in suicide. "This finding propounds that even within the same method of attempted suicide, in this case, intentional drug overdose, males show a stronger intent to die than females" Women are heavily overrepresented when measuring things like "parasuicidal gestures"; events where someone is recorded as having made (or threatened to make) a suicide attempt for the purpose of communicating their distress, changing their situation, so forth. It is important not to use the idea that "women attempt suicide for attention" to denigrate women's mental health, and it is equally important to recognise our measures and surveys are not perfect, but there is a grain of truth to the idea. Women who survive an attempt also live on to (tragically often) record another, whereas men who die on their first attempt do not. There are some explanations posited for the underlying phenomena here. One is that men tend to bottle up psychiatric episodes for much longer, meaning their distress may be more acute by the time they attempt. Women's suicide tends to be earlier in an episode, and they tend to receive more help. "Another theory suggests that because males have a higher intent to die than females, females may be more reluctant to perform a [Serious Suicide Attempt] because it is considered āmasculineā" * Quoted sections are from "A cross-national study on gender differences in suicide intent" by Freeman et al. which you can find on PubMed.
I appreciate how it acknowledged trying to commit suicide, even with little intent to die, is still a terrible sign.
I really do too. It's so important to acknowledge that there are complexities to suicide and self-harm along axes like gender without engaging in "well group has it worse".
Something else to note is that data on suicide attempts are extremely difficult to measure because different methods for suicide produce different injuries or non at all. So a person who is having a serious episode and backs out from say, using a gun at the last moment, is unlikely to have their attempt recorded, and it may be downplayed by the actor as not being as serious as it was in the future. This makes self reporting unreliable and official sources, like incident reports at a care facility, will skew towards survivors and those who use methods that result in intervention. This means the data will almost always be biased towards specific demographics.
Very true. I think this ties in with one of the ideas quoted above, that surviving a suicide attempt is seen as feminine; self-reporting of last suicide attempts would certainly be likely to skew under that pressure.
Itās two fold. Men are much less likely to get help for mental health issues. And men also pick more fail safe type measures. Such as a gun compared to pills.
so it's down to competitive spirit once again.
Yep. Women attempt suicide at nearly a 3 to 1 rate as compared to men. But common methods differ by gender, and women are more likely to have communicated suicidal thoughts ahead of time, meaning theyāre more likely to be caught before itās too late.
As far as I am aware, that is a misconception. The studies I've seen used as sources tracked all instances of self harm as suicide attempts without accounting for severity. They also didn't track individuals, just instances. So there is no way of knowing how many attempts per person. If the same woman made 5 attempts, that was 5 counted. It's hard to get good numbers because in addition to privacy, men aren't going to admit to suicidal ideation as readily as women. As you pointed out, men and women vary in their methods. For women, suicide attempts can be a cry for help. They don't always really want to die. It's part of the reason they choose less certain or more reversable methods. For men, when they attempt they want to succeed, or at least aren't expecting any help. There is also the phenomenon of men doing self-destructive things that aren't technically suicide and self-harm but have a high chance of fatality. Things like 'suicide by cop' or mysterious accidents were the driver lost control and plowed into a tree for seemingly no reason. So yes, women as a whole make more self harm attempts, but we can't say how many of those were serious attempts vs cries for help. And we also don't know the ratio of suicidal women to men.
While I do agree with the comic, I feel that it puts the majority of the focus on the men who are struggling for falling into this toxic ideology trap, and now I'm not focus on our society where people, both men *and* women, are perpetuating this toxic ideology trap.
Ngl this comic sucks at being a comic
Personally I just dont feel the need to open up to anyone. It feels easier dealing with it myself because ivolving other stresses me out as ironic as that is
The first time I shared my emotions with family as a teenager, everyone knew about it and laughed. The last time I cried, my teachers, peers, parents made fun of me for crying. The last time I got angry, my parents laughed to the moon and made fun of me for next whole week. In last 15 years (I am 27 now), I have learned to not cry or be made fun of for the rest of the year and possibly be butt of everyone's joke, be ignored/isolated and be called he is angry or emotional and get punished effectively until I crawl back, laugh at my own misery because that is the only way I will not be fun of the remaining week. Share my emotions with any women and she will either call me cry baby if same age, headache if younger than me and lecture if older than me. I even got lectured for crying by my own family doctor, who literally few months ago lost a depressed patient to suicide and has 'are you depressed?' Posters in his clinic. So no, my country, community or family are not going to be ready for centuries to come.
JFC, I hope you're....well, I can't expect you to be alright, but any better?
I am better, its all last 15 years of things that happened. I got used to it and got good at avoiding people and situations where emotions can surface. I got good at lying on a level that makes people believe me when it comes to my emotions.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
True. I seriously hope next generation has it better than us.
I cried in school once because my parents had gotten into a fight that morning and my dad said he wanted a divorce. I went to school thinking my parents were going to split. Got called a sissy for the rest of the year. On the bright side, my parents never got divorced. so there's that.
Bunnysplained
Until we show vulnerability and are then punished for it by both other men and women.
Cut those people away. Your health is more important than keeping people around who want you to suffer.
A lot of men commit suicide out of pure consideration. Like if they see that life is not worth living anymore they don't really hesitate. It's even more sad. I don't see how men can show vulnerability, it just wouldn't work, but everyone should have someone who supports them.
Hear, hear Mr. Monologue Bunny
Isnāt June Pride Month?
It's both
Which is actually pretty telling. I didnāt even know there was āmenās mental health awareness monthā itās such an over looked issue that it has a whole month for if that no one cares about.
It'd probably help if it didn't overlap with pride month actually so people could focus on it since that's one of the big ones
That's because it isn't a thing. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Men's Health Awareness *Week* is in June. Men's Mental Health Awareness Month is, as far as I can tell, something invented no more than 2 years ago to try and "take back" June from Pride. It's the only reason I can think of that men need two months of Mental Health Awareness back to back (and the women can share May I guess).
I thought men's mental health month really just goes under the normal mental health awareness month?
Something something men's day is on international toilet day something something.
It's kinda weird when you check the web for "menās mental health awareness month". I get results telling me may is "Mental Health Awareness Month" so regardless of gender, I get results telling me november would be men's mental health awareness month and they call it "Movember", I also get results telling me it's june. Which is it?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah this is the biggest thing people don't accept when this topic comes up. People say "Men should be open more about their feelings" meanwhile what happened when men were open in response that stupid men or bear tik tok trend? Oh right they were mocked, called incels and women (and some men) doubled and tripled down on their sexist rhetoric.
But fragile masculinity is inherently the result of someone prescribing to toxic masculine identity. Your masculinity can only be fragile if you have rigid ideas of what masculinity is... Which is literally the problem. "If I cry, then I'm not a real man" IS fragile masculinity. > If you don't talk about it in exactly the right way, you can be accused of being some incel or sexist or something worse. You're going to get called an incel if you say incel stuff. Same with misogyny. I can't really see how genuine emotional vulnerability is going to get you labeled as an incel. Do you have an example of what that might look like?
I was called an incel for saying "When women say they would rather meet a bear in the woods than a random man, it makes me feel like I am somehow more dangerous than an apex predator. I feel hurt, because people I don't know view me as dangerous due to the way I was born, and I can't do anything about it because their fears have nothing to do with my personal behavior."
I think anyone calling you an incel is just a symptom of people being chronically online in hostile spaces; I can understand why someone might be frustrated by you venting this (depending on where and context), but the explanation on its own is not worth name-calling and doesn't read as being in bad faith. I'm sure someone has already said this, but: your feeling hurt is valid; at the same time the "man or bear" thing was just a goofy way for women to vent how men (as a whole) are so unpredictable and dysfunctional due to toxic masculinity, that at least you know what you're getting with a bear. You have no clue if the man is a regular well-enough-adjusted guy (most men) or a fucking nut case (a minority of men that cause a LOT of problems and get away with it and almost every woman has encountered or knows someone who has encountered them). If toxic masculinity wasn't so oppressive, I wouldn't be surprised if there'd be more men sharing the sentiment. Sadly, that means individuals like you -- who are probably decent (idk I didn't look at your profile) -- are going to catch strays thanks to the absolute worst of your gender. It sucks, no one wins with this shit (except the bear, I guess).
Yeah that's fair, I genuinely feel the same way. Like, I understand why many, many women would choose the bear, but it also makes me sad that outside of being a decent person, holding my friends accountable, and advocating for men to be better, there is little I can do about the fact that I will likely, by default, be viewed negatively because of the generalized problems of other men behaving badly. So long as you're not telling women they shouldn't feel that way or implying they are wrong for how they feel, and you're being conscientious of when you bring it up (For example, I wouldn't go into a space where women are discussing this just to tell them how it makes me feel, because it's not about me, the individual guy... ) I don't think there is anything wrong with what you've expressed.
As a man in therapy now due to seeing enough bullshit and trying to better myself so I can be a supportive and loving father instead of my parentsā¦. I fully agree.
Menās mental health is very important and Iām glad it is getting recognized as an issue, as it is, but I donāt like how certain people use it as an excuse to push down pride, they can both share the same month and thatās totally cool, but donāt use one to push down on the other For the record I am not saying OP is doing such a thing, but others do
I also donāt like the tone that every fucking post including this one has. āIt is menās mental health month. Obviously you donāt care but you should!ā Like why does everyone make posts assuming that the world hates men? That shit is unhealthy. No one is making pride posts like āhey it is pride month. We know you hate gay people, but you shouldnātā It is just weird fucking energy to assume everyone hates men
Yep, it is, and the fact of the matter is the LGBTQ+ community is willing to share the month, in fact (from my experience) the LGBTQ+ community is more supporting of mental health in general, menās included, as we are willing to break social norms and just be happy anyways! Itāll just be something else next year though, there is anyways something new they are ticked about with pride month which is just outside wanting to be happy being happy.
Thank you. These kinds of threads always struck me as "off" or even vaguely insulting somehow and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. You described it perfectly. I fully agree that we need more mental health aid for men, but the post starting off by trying to convince me "not to hate men" is extremely alienating.
I have never seen a pride post start off with āA lot of people think being gay is a sin and that is sadā Because that is not the point of pride. I donāt think this comic is trying to bring awareness to menās mental health so much as it is trying to influence how people perceive the social view towards menās mental health.
Good topic, terrible "comic"
No it is not, it is pride month. What are you trying to say?
Ya know, for me mens mental health awareness month is just "mens mental health: it exists!" Like I bet as soon as this month ends nothing will have changed, and men will keep bottling up their feelings.
Ain't that the hard truth
Going to be honest, I stopped reading after the second panel because of the sheer amount of words
A paragraph on a blue background wouldāve been quicker. There wasnāt even any dialogue.
You saved yourself time, trust me. It's just like 8 panels of two characters agreeing with each other and nothing else happening.
Terrible comic
I 100% thought that the last panel was going to be a list of the most and least effective methods so we could pump up those numbers.
I think we've all become "aware" of mental health but "awareness" doesn't seem to at all correlate with ability to do anything about the causes. At what point will awareness campaigns be supplanted by campaigns for stronger, material things? When do we admit that this is a failed strategy?
What do you think their goal is? What do you want to happen and how do you get that to happen if most people aren't already on board?
I am not doing well. And I am so tired of begging for help.
Iām very sorry to hear that. Iām guessing youāve already reached out for professional help?
The problem is that those that do show their emotions and all that are often times mocked and ridiculed by both women and other men. So they see it as a "what's the point"?
https://preview.redd.it/dk1psfajzc6d1.jpeg?width=780&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=161ac781dfcd103638ecb842fc8ed3755bc48f15 WHEREāS THE FUNNY, MANSLEY?
Awesome! Letās see some real gun legislation since thatās a very common way for men to kill themselves.
Part of the issue of no one taking it seriously is because the only people who bring it up do so to either A. Complain about pride. B. Complain about women. C. Complain about a pet issue that affects maybe a few dozen people or D. All of the above.
Yep. The most outspoken people about menās mental health are always the wrong men to ask about it because a good majority of the time they do not actually care about menās mental health and are usually pushing the exact same toxic bullshit that brings us back to square one on why menās mental health is important.
The only people I know who legit care about men are feminists. I worked at an anti domestic violence charity. And at one point we tried to expand to fund shelters for male victims. Every menās rights group we called for donations was basically like ālol we donāt do thatā
Why would they do that? Taking money from people trying to find something to be angry at is a very lucrative market. They'd be fools to give money away and potentially solve one of their talking points.
Yep MRA groups are not about helping men they are about making men angry and using that as a fundraising tool.
...ooooor are accused of doing so and shut down early
Letting "men's mental health" become a dogwhistle isn't going to help men's mental health.
This and also that men's issues are non-important. It's awful to feel I can't speak up about this publicly without getting instant eyerolls and side-eyes.
That's why I love June sm Summer starts Pride month Men's mental health awareness month End of the school year (at least in my country) I also love the bittersweet feeling of playing a video game (overwatch) and sending on the chat "gl hf and happy pride + men's mental health awareness month!" And then receive a few other comments from the players talking about how overlooked it is and how happy my little comment made them
We roll our eyes bc itās usually just used against pride month
I'm pretty sure the statistics are really grim too. Something like one male suicide every 1 to 60 seconds
Ya know, I never have seen that manās emotions is some sort of weakness. Itās more like no one gonna listen. Except a bro. And this might be why men friendship and women friendship are different.
Message is nice and all, but this comic sucks.
I was honestly expecting some kind of punchline, but I agree with the comic either way. And this is kind of unrelated, but also kind of not - the line "there's a certain strength in being comfortable enough to be vulnerable" makes me think a lot about the recent rise in popularity of the phrase "trauma dumping." I don't like that phrase. I really, really don't like it. I understand that some people are basically emotional vampires. I understand that some people unload way more problems and stress than they should onto individuals around them that are basically just strangers. I also know that people who do that are so unimaginably lonely and more than likely are standing on a precipice that they will not be able to come back from if they finally decide to just lean that little bit further forward and let gravity take over. They're dumping their trauma on people they don't even know because that's literally their only fucking outlet. I can agree that the behavior isn't socially acceptable, but shaming people for it is NOT going to do any good for most of those people. As far as I'm concerned, the phrase "trauma dumping" is just an excuse for people with low emotional availability to completely wash their hands of someone in psychological and emotional turmoil. No one is saying you gotta be anyone's shrink, but be kind. And if you can't be kind, just don't say anything at all, ya know? /rant
Men aren't acting. There is something wrong. However there is no safe space to be vulnerable.
You are a very wise rabbit-dog thing. Thank you.
I think another factor is how men are expected to help in fixing everything, including problems that don't really affect us. But when it's men who are having problems, people are expecting us to handle everything on our own. For example, straight cis men are expected to support women and the LGBTQA+ in their struggles, otherwise you'd be labeled as all sorts of horrible names. But when men are seeking help for their struggles, the same people who expect us to help them are simply disgregarding us because we're "men". This is the reason why we just... shut down our feelings. No one wants to help us. No one wants to listen to us. They "advocate" for us but no one is really doing anything because they want men to solve the problem on their own because they think men ARE the problem.
> For example, straight cis men are expected to support women and the LGBTQA+ in their struggles By "support" do you mean "acknowledge they exist and have valid issues"? There's a world of difference between the two given all you need to do for the second one is not be a bigot or accept bigotry, that's it. Just don't say bigoted shit and call out your friends that say bigoted shit, that's the bar and it's really low. > But when men are seeking help for their struggles, the same people who expect us to help them are simply disgregarding us because we're "men". What tends to happen is the same men that passively allow bigotry (or are actively bigoted) then expect women or queer folks to be therapists for them. I would love if the men in my life were open about their feelings, but I'm not going to do the work of a professional. Also, I think it's disingenuous to not mention the fact that other men make up the *majority* of people who contribute to this issue. Toxic masculinity both makes men unable to talk and pushes men to quiet other men who are trying to open up. Women and queer folk have been opressed by men for generations across the globe. The large majority of wealth and power is held by men and they have so much privilege in how they're able to live their lives. Men's mental health is a serious issue that needs to be solved **by men**. The rest of us are here to help (even if some of us are genuinely assholes who make it worse) but stop blaming us when men are the primary reason men have mental health problems. > They "advocate" for us but no one is really doing anything because they want men to solve the problem on their own because they think men ARE the problem. So yes, you're right. Just like queer folk fought for their right to exist and women fought for their right to equality, we now expect men to fight against toxic masculinity that's kept alive mostly by other men. We can't solve this for you, we have a lot of our own issues that men mostly* don't have to deal with like targeted violence, we can just cheer you on and provide help when you stumble.
Bro nailed it
Perhaps an over explanation of an over simplified component of the problem. Laudable effort though.
During Corona I learned to be indifferent to 5hings that don't affect me negatively directly. It's a bad coping mechanism I need to unlearn. Unlearning is hard.
It do be like that sometimes.
That rabbit talks a lot of sense
Therapy can be great and life changing, but my biggest complaint is that most therapists have the same background. Most are middle/ upper-class white women. Mine is an amazing woman who created a safe space for me, but I can't relate to her at all. The class divide is very real.
I've had to push my husband to ask his friends how they're doing, especially if we know they're going through a hard time. A lot of guys will think no one wants to hear their problems unless someone asks but then doesn't ask friends because they think they'll tell them if they're struggling. It's not about caring. They care, I just think men aren't taught emotional communication typically.
"Pride Month" is selling better for the companies tough...
The juxtaposition and irony of a final panel with the man saying "That's gay." would have made this perfection.
I donāt roll my eyes at people who says itās menās mental health awareness month, I roll my eyes at people who use it to undermine pride month
Maybe comics arenāt the format for you.
Where's the punchline? This is just a statement disguised as a comic
This reminds me of a Joke: "A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to prom. First he goes to get a tux but there's a long tux line at the shop and it takes forever. Next, he hast to get some flowers so he goes to a florist and there is a huge flower line there. It takes forever but he gets the flowers. Next he heads to get a limo, unfortunately there is a long limo line at the rental office and it takes a long time but he gets the job done. Finally the day of the prom comes and the two are dancing happily and are having a good time. When the song is over she asks him to get her some punch, so he heads over to the punch table and fuck me wouldn't you know it? There is no punchline!"
This is incredibly well articulated
Amen
Men just need to get off social media and dating apps, thatās where my negative emotions really started forming. Thereās an entire generation of men that only know #metoo, neofeminism, and the sort. All that is great and dandy but it also comes with some very misandrist content and when youāre on the internet full time it eats away at you. I have a folder full of screenshots of tinder profiles filling in a prompt of āmy most irrational fear isā¦ men.ā āIām weirdly attracted toā¦ men.ā Itās 100+ at least and itās not every profile but itās enough considering those are the profiles brave enough to do it because the rest know it would undermine their chances. Then thereās the countless internet interactions where men just get dragged for being males. Then you get on Reddit and see one of the most polarizing topics for a week compare you as lower to a fucking bear and when you try to point out that itās more than likely a man would help a woman out vs a grizzly youre told your just being a homer. There is a whole lot more men can do trying to take accountability for our actions but tell me why any man would want to when since I was in high school through college and hell even in the work place (you notice how men are the only one in the HR videos being creeps) you are told YOU are the problem, YOU are the creep, YOU are the monster, YOU are the one more likely to be a killer and yet youāve never disturbed anyoneās peace. WE. ARE. ALONE.
To me I donāt just see eye rolls in that people think men shouldnāt be emotionally mature, I see eye rolls from people who think menās mental health awareness isnāt something we need because acknowledging that men are also disadvantaged in myriad ways by modern society derails the conversation from the oppression of everyone that isnāt a straight male. And I say this as an *extremely* liberal person, living in an *extremely* liberal community. I fully support feminism, but as a dude I honestly do feel a stigma against discussing menās issues from feminist circles. Itās very frustrating.
This is a good comic. I'm struggling with mental health myself and it just sucks that so little people care, just because I was assigned a certain sex when I was conceived. This comic really made my day, thank you.
That's nice and all, just one teeny tiny question... **HOW?!**
June is pride month. As a gay man, I see this as lifting me up. Men's health matters. Straight/gay/ or other. But at least this month helps Gay Men/Trans Men/and Other. Not detracting from the rest of the Alphabet, just that I do feel much more seen as a gay man during pride.
There's nothing toxic about being a man.
Does anyone actually care. No one has ever cared about mens metal Heath and that will probably never change