Game Over
Women don't come with a hack
When my sons were young enough that I was still monitoring their screen time, they spent an unholy amount of it on YouTube, watching other people play video games. I was baffled.
I thought about the boys I grew up with, the ones who fed quarters into the Pac-Man machines at Skate Palace, and spent Saturday afternoons moving up a digital leaderboard, game by thumb-cramping game.
Then I’d watch my kids staring at a video of a video game. Surely you’d rather be playing the game yourselves? I’d ask them. Didn’t the sense of achievement come from figuring it out, feeding in those metaphorical quarters? My kids, though, didn’t want to play the game; they wanted to win the game. The pleasure wasn’t in getting better one roll of coins at a time, one Saturday afternoon at a time.
The goal was to advance and win as quickly as possible, and the videos they watched promised shortcuts and hacks. They could skip over the hard, time-consuming work of trial and error.
Every one of those videos ended with the same message.
Don’t forget to like and subscribe!
And people did, by the millions.
When I read an article recently about a dating boot camp, a place for men to boost their self-esteem and increase their dating skills, it was hard not to think about my kids and those video game hacks.
The boot camp was essentially promising the same thing: a way to hack into the dating scene and skip over the time-consuming work of making yourself an attractive option.
Here’s how you should arrange your face when you approach a woman. Here’s what you should say. Here’s how you should act. Do this, never wear that. You’re a strong, confident man, you got this, buddy.
Gobble up enough power pills, navigate through the maze without a rejection, and there’s a good chance Ms. Pac Man will give you her number. Feed a few more quarters into the machine, and we’ll get you to the next level. Lara Croft is waiting for your call.
Just like, subscribe, and hand over your dollars.
I’m not here to shit on dating, or learning how to be a more confident person, though I’d argue it’s better to do that for your own intrinsic self-worth than to date a leggy blonde, but what do I know? I still use Pac-Man as a video game reference.
We live in a world where our tech overlords encourage people to form relationships with chatbots, where we are all over-screened, and everyone is stressed. There is no denying that dating can be challenging.
I’ll add that the idea of dating tips and tricks isn’t new.
There are books and magazines devoted to helping women catch a man in her Jezebel net. Half the world’s comedy skits consist of jokes about women trapping men in relationships they don’t want to be in. The old ball and chain, amirite?
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, magazines like Cosmo were filled with ways to keep a man around, most of which centered around push-up bras, transitioning outfits from day to night, and how to use a hair scrunchie as a sex toy.
Learn what he likes, take an interest in what interests him. Flatter him, make him feel like a king of the castle.
The biggest difference now, of course, is in the who.
Dating advice was usually geared toward girls and women. In the supply and demand marriage market, how do you stand out? Pinch your cheeks, flutter your lashes, and always have a hair scrunchie in your pocket.
But the times, they went a changin’. Supply is high, demand is low, and more women are choosing to live lives outside of marriage and partnership.
Game over. At least the old one.
By the time my sons outgrew their Minecraft obsessions, a new internet trend was vying for their attention: the manosphere. Same business model, different product. Instead of Fortnite cheats, they were selling misogyny gussied up with big dictionary words like hypergamy, but at its core, the realm of the alpha bro is just a giant gaming hack.
Call of Duty: Alpha Male. It’s a first-person perspective game where men navigate a world in which women are levels to unlock, joysticks firmly in hand.
In the manosphere, women are not human beings; they are a game to be won.
Get her number and advance a level. Extract her labor, earn a man life token. Get her to do your laundry, have your kids, and give you a Monday blow job with a hair scrunchie? Boss tier.
“I’m a bit of a Barbie guy, really,” one of the men in the boot camp article says, “long legs and big boobs and slim.”
And this is where the manosphere really kicks into high gear.
The men at the boot camp were middle-aged, divorced, and often, by their own admission, socially awkward. They were being coached to approach women confidently, to shed their nice-guy image and be more assertive. They all spoke of dating as a game to increase their confidence. None of them talked about a relationship, about playing the game on Saturday afternoons and learning how to connect, quarter after quarter.
They just wanted a hot woman to give them her number as proof of something that only mattered to them. Their worthiness, their virility or attractiveness, or just their existence as a human being in need of human connection.
Here’s the real hook of the manosphere: Men are entitled to hot women, and if, for some reason, Barbie isn’t interested, it’s only because women now have all the power. And if even Midge isn’t? Those Feminist bitches have gone too far.
The manosphere sells the ultimate life hack: lack of accountability. It’s not you, mate. It’s her. Take back the power.
Like and subscribe, and I’ll tell you how.
When marriage and partnership were one of the few avenues open to women, theoretically, men had their pick of the female litter. The bar was on the floor. And honestly, there was still a lot of tripping over it.
Times change though. Women have choices, and some choose to live lives of their own design.
Game over.
Insert coins to play again.
No doubt my kids hacked their way to some sort of gaming achievement, and I’m sure they felt fine about it. They never stood in front of a Pac-Man machine at Skate Palace on a Saturday, trying to get their name on the leaderboard, one quarter at a time.
Maybe the boys I grew up with would have taken a shortcut if there had been one available, I don’t know. What I do know is that no one is entitled to a relationship, to a date, to sex. I know you can’t hack your way to meaningful connections with others. Those are hard and messy. You have to put in the hours and keep feeding the machine until you get better at it. There’s no YouTube channel that is going to help you skip a level.
The men profiled in the article weren’t bad people. They struck me as lonely humans, seeking connections. Yes, they wanted a shortcut or trick to ensure a sure thing, but no one can give you that. Not a YouTube gamer or a guy who runs a dating boot camp, and certainly not some guy on the internet who tries to tell you that women are the enemy.
That’s advice you can have for free. You don’t even need to like or subscribe.
This piece started in one place and went somewhere else completely. Such is writing.
Speaking of liking and subscribing…until the end of July, you can lock in an annual subscription at a 50% forever discount (17 USD) and support Feminist writers like me. Other ways to help? Like, share, comment, or drop a tip in the jar. I promise not to use it to play Ms. Pac-Man.
Thanks for being here, dear reader. I appreciate it. xxx dmh
I can't not think of the men Dominique Pelicote invited into his home, his wife. Regular men. Neighbors. The butcher, the baker, the old man across the street. If that is not the ultimate manosphere hack, I don't know what is and it seems like the next logical progression in world where women are to blame if they don't like a man— there is something wrong with that girl. In a world where men feel entitled. Those boot camps teach manipulation and hacks and isn't a Rophie at the bar nothing but a hack to something he's entitled to? Entitled. The sense of entitlement, that's the root. A root. This one has so many roots the only answer may be to salt the earth.
Life doesn’t come with a hack. Maybe we’re finally having to face that.