They broke young men — then sold them toxic escapes

When Nick Freitas engages with young men, they often have the same complaint: The culture made them the scapegoat for its ills — and now they feel lost and don’t know what to do about it.

While he doesn’t deny young men’s predicament or blame them for it, Freitas does put the responsibility to do something about it on their shoulders.

The truth, he says, is that the institutions that shape the culture deliberately broke young men’s spirits by convincing society that masculinity was “bad, evil, toxic, horrible, and [needs] to be repressed” and then turned around and sold the young men they villainized toxic escapes, like social media, gaming, and pornography.

The path to a fulfilling life is still there, though — but it’s theirs to find