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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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Is it brave to have HR waste hours of everyone's time with a degrading struggle session as a preparatory bombardment for your triumphant return? To me that seems like only seeing and valuing other people as your obedient audience...

I don't really know what to say. You're clearly smitten with this guy, but to me the story sounds like a typical case of mid-life crisis autogynophilia from a successful guy who wants to feel inherently valued for something, rather than just for his job skills.

successful guy who wants to feel inherently valued for something, rather than just for his job skills.

OP didn't mention any particular romantic success on his coworker's part, just that he was good at job skills. I'd be willing to wager that they're sufficiently far onto the spectrum that the dating market had essentially completely rejected them, leading to trans affiliation as a hugbox.

It's often not that. Many of these guys are already married. They're not failures, they're just tired of only being valued for the things they do rather than what they are

It’s funny, people talk a lot about men not being valued for who they are but that doesn’t describe my own experience. I get the logic of it, but I don’t know how to explain the discordance between the view and my experience.

But I guess I’m just lucky. My family, friends, and partners have always seemed clearly to value me for who I am. I haven’t had many partners but the ones I’ve had have been lightyears beyond the descriptions of wives and girlfriends I hear online.

Right. Chris from Mr Beast was by all accounts the very picture of success -- money, wife, kid. Dude had it made. Then he blew it all up to cosplay as a girl. That's not a rational move by any stretch of the imagination. It's something that must be driven by emotion. Either in the way you say, or simple raw fetishism.

Then he blew it all up to cosplay as a girl.

Pretty sure Kris still has money and a kid. From what I can glean from light Google searching the amicability of the their divorce isn't known, but it's entirely possible it's what Kris wanted.