Who are the Doomers?

Noah Smith brought this thread to the attention of those who follow his Twitter account. 

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I’m a small account so I don’t know who will read this, but here’s a @noahpinion-style thread on the documentary TFW NO GF. I’ll be referring to the community of 20-something men it covers as doomers.

Born from the internet, the phrase "TFW NO GF" was originally used online to describe a lack of romantic companionship. Since then, it has evolved to symbolize a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. The meme's protagonist, "WOJAK," has become the mascot to a vast online community consisting of self-described "hyper-anonymous twenty somethings" and "guys who slipped between the cracks." TFW NO GF asks: How has the zeitgeist come to bear down on a generation alienated by the 'real world'? Meet the lost boys who came of age on the internet- places like 4chan and Twitter, where they find camaraderie in despair.

There was a lot the documentary did right with covering (in a fair light) the struggles of 20-somethings in despair — especially related to their behavior online, their feelings of despair, and their place in society.

But to get a minor criticism out of the the way, there were a couple bits that might’ve communicated partisan messaging unclearly, such as a pro-Trump doomer ranting about Trump raising a sunken city or flashing a Texan doomer’s Confederate flag ring. 

There were also Tucker Carlson saying “something ominous is happening to men” and Trump talking about hardships of young men today. Both of these are in different contexts (changing gender dynamics) from the topics of the doc, but again, a minor issue.

Trump: "Somebody could accuse you of something and you're automatically guilty."

A main point, though, was that for people who are struggling in life, online communities have provided havens for them. “I realized there was other people who were going through the same shit and not really knowing what to do with their lives…” said one doomer in the doc.

With younger adults now growing up on the internet, places such as 4chan or Twitter may only grow in importance for people’s developmental years and we should be wary of this.

As two doomers said, “I wouldn’t necessarily say that I prefer the internet over anything else. It’s just that’s where I felt most was offered to me”. “People will compare and say ‘stuff online vs stuff in real life'. It is real life you can’t really decouple the two anymore.”

For disaffected NEETS (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), the internet is a haven from their real despair. It’s part of why 4chan can be so toxic. “People will call you a f***** and then they’ll join in” when you post about your dead-end life. It’s how they cope.

The doc conveyed how much of what people see as serious tweets from “toxic incels” (one of them had a gf) are from doomers being committed to “the bit” of being edgy/misogynistic/bigoted. But as one pointed out, it can be very unclear where the bit ends and seriousness begins.

With this very vulnerable population, that is when there’s a large threat that these doomers can become radicalized… poisoned on their own irony. This combination of placing desperate blackpilled people with others who have taken up extreme ideologies is dangerous.

This is how radicalization can happen, by taking people who feel marginalized/displaced and feeding them radical values. What the documentary did well, though, was making people understand how much of their behavior was a byproduct of their dejection.

This tweet was featured in the doc. Some believe this is what’s turning people to the alt-right, which one doomer pointed out as counterproductive. He argued that our neglected education system and importance of healthy childhoods is more to blame.

Do you have white teenage sons?

Listen up.

I've been watching my boys' online behavior & noticed that social media and vloggers are actively laying groundwork in white teens to turn them into alt-right/white supremacists.

Here's how:

— joanna schroeder (@iproposethis) August 13, 2019

Much of the struggles that doomers face can be rooted in loneliness. It’s epidemic that has hit them hard. There’s visceral emotional pain that’s often hidden from public even though it is a public health problem — and younger people are the loneliest.

Being a NEET, as doomers often are, exacerbates their struggles. Being a lower income person with no social life or community is connected to loneliness isolation.

“I’m tired of just wallowing with a bunch of other miserable guys. What’s the point? There’s no point. You can either try to get your shit together or you’ll die…. It seems like people before had it better, they had more to work for”, was how one doomer described his life.

A consistent issue among doomers is their lack of relationship success. Many have never had a gf. But they’re not looking for just hookups. “It’s less that not having a girlfriend, it’s more like just being alienated from everyone else in general, not being close to anybody.”

The struggle to be in intimate relationships is also a greater trend. Young people aren’t getting in relationships as much, even though they likely still want to be in them just as much as before.

These struggles with loneliness/relationships are important to pay attention to now, because cultivating emotional wellbeing is like working muscles — being perpetually isolated makes it more difficult later, especially as people in your age group progress with their lives.

“When you’re a man it’s like you just blend in. some days the only people who will talk you is a cashier. A lot of incels feel like they could just go along forever with their lives and nobody will notice them, they feel completely abandoned.” They live with hopelessness.

Doomers often feel personally hopeless, fallen between the cracks of society. “It’s a full-time job to fight the effects of modernity and atrophy. We live in the most wealthy country in the world, in the most powerful country in the world. But you wouldn’t know it.”

You can see their sentiment echoed in data on young people’s fortunes. They’re not buying homes. They have a lower share of the wealth as previous generations did at their age. They’re facing poor health at a younger age.

Many doomers never graduate college, while young adults without college degrees are falling the furthest behind. They have lower incomes, often live with parents, and aren’t in the position to develop long-term relationships.

This sums up how they feel: ”You’re trying to desperately reach out to different people online to try to form connections that you’re not able to form in the real world, because by all possible measures you’re a failure, you’re a loser, and embarrassed about yourself..."

But many leaders and policy makers don’t seem to understand how multi-faceted their issues are. There's also a general lack of consideration for the impacts our economic policies have on communal wellbeing. We have severely neglected the health of our communal institutions.

There is a coming crisis with our institutions at ever level, from politics to spirituality to social connections. “Graph goes up” can be generally true, but we shouldn’t ignore the parts of life that are hard to quantify such as happiness and fulfillment.

It’s interesting how doomers might have realized this before policy makers. "They’re the ones who are preparing for the demise of these institutions, which we know are no longer supporting the synthesis or unity of our society as a whole." 

What’s frustrating, though, is how this has been talked about by some people for decades. But it often feels like we are either ignoring the consequences of social decay or are shifting responsibility onto individuals to address it. muse.jhu.edu/article/16643

Doomers are a byproduct of our current system, and many are developing coping mechanisms to deal with the realization that institutional decay can stunt their potential. Some are unhealthy, but they’re also making efforts to be supportive of each other in positive ways.

But, especially if you’ve watched the documentary, I don’t think you want a society of doomers. It is very depressing and dystopian. What’s worrisome, though, is that we’re seeing a spike in suicide rates among teens, an indicator of things to come.

The growing group of desperate souls hurts everyone. Either more will fall through cracks as communities splinter, or we can rebuild institutions to be more inclusive/supportive. We need more research, but I really think the future wellbeing of the US depends on it.

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