Why do some men behave badly?

Guess this can go here
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A creature of various talents, and the owner of at least three types of shirt, the Great American Bro can take different forms.

The finance bro, for example, favours a Patagonia power vest over his button-ups.

The brocialist still thinks Bernie would have won.

The gym bro likes to wear the tightest vest he can find, and has biceps you can crack a walnut with.

Whatever his particular vibe, however, the bro is a pack animal, most comfortable when surrounded with a group of people who look and act just like him.

And, increasingly, he has no problem finding those people. 2024 was the year of the bro: from pop culture to politics, bros were everywhere.

One viral hit of the summer, for example, was a catchy anthem about finance bros. (The lyrics: “I’m looking for a man in finance, with a trust fund, six-five, blue eyes, finance …”) Once derided as Patrick Bateman types, finance bros suddenly became a hot commodity on the dating scene.

As did the sports bro. Taylor Swift has tended to couple up with musicians and actors: her last serious relationship was with the impeccably dressed, politically conscious English actor Joe Alwyn. This year, however, Swift has had Travis Kelce, a big, brawny, football bro, on her arm…..

I don’t want to be accused of bro-scrimination, so, before I continue, an important disclaimer. Terms that lump a large group of people together under one label are always going to be overly simplistic.

However, they can be a useful way of charting and explaining shifting social trends. 1999-2009, for example, was the decade of the hipster – although, of course, they lingered, with diminishing social capital, for years after.

Hipsters, the first real post-internet subculture, were seen as a reaction to mass consumerism.

But counter-cultures are inevitably commodified. As the hipster became mainstream, the parameters of what was considered anti-establishment shifted.

In a 2014 piece about the “end of the hipster”, the futurist Chris Sanderson predicted the male hipster would have an image overhaul.

“There will be a downturn in this skinny-jean, long-haired feminised look over the next few years owing to the rise of the stronger female role model,” Sanderson hypothesized.

In its place would rise “a more macho look, almost to the point of caricature, in a bid for men to reinforce their identity”. Which pretty much nails the gym-obsessed, hyper-masculine, woke-loathing iteration of today’s bro……

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/28/bro-culture-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other