That is such a toxic subculture and should be called out for what it is. Misogynistic rubbish.
Curious to know how does one live a "small" financial life as an adult? Unless they live in their parents basements forever (playing video games), they are going to get jobs, rent/buy property, pay for groceries....
Here in the Land of the Brave and Free, it has become increasingly dangerous for a man to be alone with a woman in a professional environment. Years later she all of a sudden may "remember" that you made sexual advances on her, whether that's true or not, and your life will be turned upside down.
And this is why MGTOW is fucked up.
Messed up or not, agree with it or not, MGTOW is a growing issue. I don't worry about the relatively few MGTOWs. What is more concerning is the larger number of young males who don't identify as MGTOW, but who believe that marriage and long term relationships with the opposite sex are a bad idea. That's not at all good for the future of the economy or the society as a whole.
Had to look up MGTOW, and now I feel smarter for NOT originally knowing what it stood for, and dumber for now knowing.
This is obviously an attempt to justify one’s failure to launch or to rebrand oneself as a victim or conscientious objector rather than someone who failed to accomplish what one perceives the cultural norms say one should accomplish.
However, I think the larger lesson is to be careful about measuring generation #2 by the metrics that mattered to generation #1. The draft dodgers of the Vietnam era were considered failures by the WW2 generation, doomed to live lives of shame and mediocrity, but this was actually a survival strategy that made a sense at the time and worked well in the end. Not only did the draft dodgers not end up dead or disabled, but they also experienced more success than those who conformed to cultural norms. 3 of the last 4 presidents of the US were draft dodgers. Meanwhile one of the word associations with “veteran” is now “homeless”.
Gen X and millennials grew up in mortgaged suburban homes where oftentimes the parents either divorced or should have. They don’t all want to repeat that life, particularly now that housing affordability is so bad in so many areas and now that screen addiction makes the maintenance of close romantic relationships very difficult (teens now spend an average of over 7 hours a day using phones/ tablets. Not a lot of time to be present for a SO.). Like the draft dodgers, they see following the previous generations’ cultural norms as a risky and futile endeavor. Instead of one counterculture as the baby boomers had, today’s young adults have fractured into thousands of internet subcultures, incels and FIRE movement included, with their own rules and status symbols that are easier to achieve than the old standards.
In terms of investing, we must brace our portfolios for the possibility of a future without “mass demand” for the things once assumed to be universally desired: houses, weddings, cars, vacations, full time jobs, luxury status symbols, decorations, bank accounts and all existing forms of entertainment. All these former universals will be niche markets. We must also brace ourselves for a future in which our leaders will be the ones who “won the game” by eschewing much of what was previously considered important. Pewdiepie for president? Stranger things have happened.