It’s honestly pretty sad. The type of masculinity they’re trying to recapture is basically just about being useful. They want to contribute more to society than just making their boss more money by sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. They want to feel like they can build stuff people need, fix stuff, and bond with the guys over a pint. What they’re really looking for is solidarity and meaningful work, but they can’t figure out how to do that so they buy masculine-branded shit instead.

Here’s an unending repository of this kind of guy

I like the dude who carries a knife, a pen, a flashlight, and a Gameboy Advance SP GameBoy Micro with a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics

Because, as much as these guys want to be masculine, they aren’t willing to do the work to be masculine

Work, you ask? How does one work to be masculine?

Simple, the positive traits of traditional masculinity that are valued–strength, loyalty, honor, discipline, bravery, etc.–the POSITIVE ones–are hard

Similarly, the positive traits of traditional femininity–nurturing, patience, wisdom, diplomacy, management–are hard

That’s why they worship special forces psychos instead of being them, that’s why they worship MMA wackos instead of being them, it’s idolatry

That’s why they buy straight razors even if they can’t grow a beard, that’s why they buy a gun then never shoot it after the first trip to the range, that’s why they go into that “art of masculinity” shit that, if you tried to sell in the 1970s, everyone would be calling you “gay” over for how campy it is

Yeah, it’s alienation, it’s working a dead-end office job, it’s having grown up in a suburb hellhole with no trees or streams or rocks to break bones/scrape knees on, but there’s also an undeniable element of American laziness and conspicuous consumption

And you better believe that a super individualist society is corrosive to traditional masculinity, because why the fuck would cutthroat capitalists need loyalty or discipline or honor? Take a look at your CEOs and finance capitalists, they’re cowards and scumbags, not Greek or Roman folk heroes they’d make statues of

Holy shit, i was trying to articulate this theory to my GF a couple months ago. My gen x performativly masculine boss got me a craft beer man crate for christmas. all the branding and instructions and stuff were all like huge block letters, manly etc. the instructions had a bunch of shitty sarcastic self-aware ‘jokes.’ but all i could think about was who this kit was made for: probably a man in his 30s who in his 20s though of himself as a tough dude/ladies man/big boy. Now though, he’s had a couple of kids, put on some weight and spends his life at an utterly dehumanizing (therefore emasculating) job. Therefore, he buys products that sell a masculine lifestyle so he can try to buy back the pieces he’s lost.

I am definitely traditionally masculine. In my spare time I love training boxing, weight lifting, watching a little sports, and camping. My job is mostly working outside and I go on some dangerous hikes. However I don’t make much and my family background are the blue collar salt of the earth type of people you mentioned. My blue collar family like what they like and that’s it. Cheap beer and sports make them happy.

When I think of these middle class men who project their idea of “real men” they always come from a privileged background and work a job that could be removed tomorrow and society would never notice.

This also makes me think of the three combat veterans I know who the men you describe would worship. The one vet did like three tours and has been in the army for almost 20 years. He’s the stereotypical man’s man but the guy is the biggest fucking nerd ever. Plays video games all the time and is huge into DnD. The other one is a gamer too and my cousin just smokes a ton of weed and is a laborer.

The Fight Club speech about being God’s middle children always comes up in my mind when I think of these macho guys. These guys have no struggle, no Great War, they had everything come to them so they have to buy and prove to everyone how tough they are.

Edit: I never feel the need to show off my “manly” hobbies to other people unless they ask.