This is the story of how the post-#MeToo world turned pandering to women into the ultimate business model, shaping our culture, economy, and politics into a safe but shallow popularity contest no one can escape.
The Cosby Show
Are you capable of separating the artist from their work? Well, every creative business does not think you can, and no one is proving them wrong.
I am sure if I did a deeper dive, I could find a more thorough history, but it looks like the creative world has become a popularity contest, and Harvey Weinstein was the litmus test.
If we did not fail, we absolutely sent the signals as if we did.
For those who really do not know what I am talking about, there was this social movement, the Cultural Revolution. No wait, #MeToo. I am not sure why I mistook the communist purge of people in the cultural space for ideological reasons via mass murder for the feminist purge of men in the cultural space for ideological reasons via mass shame. It is an honest mistake. Moving on.
The big headliners were Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. It is not that they were criminally malicious. In fact, both cases have been appealed. In Cosby’s case, he was promised by the state that if he testified in a civil case, that any testimony would not be used in a criminal case, which it was. In Weinstein's case, the two accusations of sexual assault turned out to be consensual, so the court admitted testimony from anyone and everyone who would accuse him of sexual assault.
Now I am no fancy lawyerin’ type. I am just a humble country boy with a sailor mouth, but this does look like the public servants in charge of justice were acting in an unethical, and possibly illegal manner. The accused were acting in an unethical, but legal manner. As with all Cultural Revolutions, I mean feminist causes, the process is the punishment. The process is the proof. The process is the wedge, and the process is the talking point. The process is definitely not a search for truth, justice, or any sort of higher good.
Now this is the part in everyone's commentary on the two MeToo poster man-children where the author has to personally proclaim that rape is bad, that men are bad, these people deserve to rot in hell, and that I am forced to talk about this in the way I have because they are just bad men. “But hey, I am just doing my job, right?” This is the point of all this. Not because anyone wanted these two people to serve their time and serve justice. It was to shame men into falling in line. A cooling effect. I am not speculating either. This has been in “their” playbook for a while.
The Effect of Child Support Enforcement on Bargaining Power Among Married and Cohabiting Couples
A simple economic bargaining model predicts that living in a state with stricter child support enforcement increases the bargaining power of married mothers, who can more credibly threaten divorce.
The deadbeat dad laws, the child support apparatus, and no-fault divorce system run the same playbook. They are not interested in justice for mothers or fathers. They are interested in increasing women’s power by weaponizing the process. Put a head on a spike and everyone toes the line. Do not worry, this will not turn into a Men's Rights Advocacy rant. The Nineteenth Amendment is not going anywhere ladies, and abortions are still going strong. I strongly proclaim that deadbeat fathers are bad, these people deserve to rot in hell, and I am forced to talk about this in the way I have because they are bad men. But hey, I am just doing my job. I am sure a more thorough dive will show many more examples. I wager there are some skeletons in the suffrage closet, but I am moving on.
From a business perspective, you had a few thought leaders, intellectuals, and professional navel gazers all asking the same question: Can I enjoy Miramax films or The Cosby Show now that I know these two men are literally Hitler? (Note, Hitler was not exonerated on appeal.) To which every soccer mom with a bullhorn gave a resounding “no.” Business was listening and watching what people did.
It turns out that women love nothing more than to be pandered to by someone they like. They do not care for story, or character, or longevity, or themes, or anything. Make them feel good and make them like you, or Else, capital E.
I say capital E because women are debt-fueled discretionary spending.
Even the Government of Canada is bending over backwards to ensure inflationary spending will go to women writ large.
I laughed when I did a search for the word “women” and got 58 hits, while “man, men” only got a few, mostly because Manitoba, mentor, and human share the same letters.
For every dollar spent on consumer purchases, women are responsible for over 85 cents of it. I have seen various numbers from various sources over the years, but they are generally in the “almost all of it” category of spending. Earning? Not so much. But that is the thing. Business does not care who their product is for. They cannot. What they care about is who is making the decision to purchase their widgets. That is always women. The MeToo era sent a clear message. If you do not pander to women, they will not spend money on you, period.
This is why we have become a Looney Tunes economy of enshitified slop. The market of ideas has spoken, and our great leader has decided to pander to women at the expense of everything else. How does this manifest in day-to-day life?
First off, if you are an actor, or an actress, you definitely do not say you are not a feminist. You do not do anything that could possibly offend one woman on earth. Marvel is a multi-billion dollar risk. If you ask Brie Larson to smile more, you are going to get blacklisted faster than a communist in the 1950s. Ironic. Business cannot afford to take a chance on that. Of course, you can be the latest Disney princess or Marvel superhero and shit on old white men. I am not whining about the hypocrisy. I am making a business case. It is not lucrative to shit on women at all, but it is not a financial risk to shit on old white men. Who does that message resonate with? Dissatisfied wives who hate their husbands. It is the hottest new demographic with disposable income.
Secondly, whether you are making something that is any good does not matter. Only autistic men (and a cheaper bunch of people does not exist… maybe the Scots) care if something is good, works well, is entertaining, and follows the professional standards of millennia of entertainment. Look over to your wife or girlfriend, sitting on the couch, watching the show you like, asking questions that, if she only watched the show, would be explained. Do you think she is looking for a good story? Or is she looking for a shiny mobile of inoffensive actors to jangle keys while playing some soothing tune while she flips through the latest Sephora sale on her phone?
Of course, politics are big business. If you are a Liberal, you are looking for whatever taxpayer-funded projects you can get your grubby hands on. The Government of Canada will throw money your way if you promise it to women for some cause. Maybe you are a real goody-goody and want to help women in some hardship. Good for you. Realize that sociopaths will say they are doing the same thing. Andrew Tate opened a center for women who need protection from abusive men, as he stated in an interview with Candace Owens a while back. It is like that saying: the fascists that come in the future will wear the banner of anti-fascism... but for women, I think.
If you are a conservative, you get to counter-signal. Shitting on women is great. It provides the Pepsi taste challenge to the Coke Classic taste. If there is not a villain, no one gets paid. While I have my fair share of laughing at the “hoes” in my content cannon, I am under no illusion. The more we bring the issue to the forefront, the more we reinforce it as status quo. A guy with a monkey avatar and an Instagram-famous sex doll may have some great intellectual and reasoned points on the current state of things. A female-friendly brand selling pink widgets will always be able to say “weirdo!” and sell to the 85%. Hearts and minds? Make way for dollars and cents.
For the sake of giving this essay structure, it all happened because your wife could not watch The Cosby Show anymore, and you gave her joint finances.
Epilogue
So what do we do with all this information?
How can you save the country from this trend?
There is a lot you can do, depending on what you want, and nothing you can do to change it.
