In the neighborhood in which my kids grew up, none of the high school–aged boys wanted to date.  The problem was that the high school girls were too difficult.  They were in the early stages of becoming the screaming, woke feminists who were so prominent during the George Floyd rallies.  On Twitter, a girl like that, only now grown up to be a mother and academic, tweeted something generically nasty about the "alt-right" hatefulness of White boys in middle school — and an 18-year-old decided to explain exactly why White boys are embracing non-woke standards.

Dr. Danna Young, a University of Delaware communications professor rather than a medical doctor, has blocked access to her account, but the content lives on:

My teen told me something that's been haunting me for weeks.

He said, "I think almost every white middle school boy is in the alt-right pipeline — at some point — until something/someone pulls them out."

Somehow, Youngus's message came to the attention of Daniel Schmidt, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Chicago, who remembers very well his middle-school years, not to mention the journey through high school. Here is his Twitter thread, unrolled:

I'm an 18-year-old white male. I was in middle school only 5 years ago.

I think I can offer some perspective on @dannagal's thread.

Yes, young white males increasingly identify as right-wing.

But why?

From my experience, here's what's really happening:

THREAD

Thought experiment:

Imagine you're an 8th-grade boy. You're beginning to be told by teachers, the media, and maybe your parents that you're privileged because you're a boy. It's a basic truth, you're told.

But this just makes you confused. You start asking yourself questions. If boys are privileged, why do the girls in my class tend to get better grades?

Why are there more girls than boys in my advanced classes?

Why are the girls more well-behaved and focused?

Why are some of the girls preparing for college applications already? By the time you get to high school, your confusion only grows.

Your friend, who used to go to church with you, has become addicted to porn. Another friend, whose parents have recently divorced, has started using drugs.

Your friends start appearing unmotivated and demoralized. Meanwhile, the girls at your school continue to be over-represented in honors classes, get better test scores and grades, obtain more leadership positions, and participate in more extracurriculars.

But you're still repeatedly told that boys are privileged. How could this be? Then, when college acceptances come out, you notice many more girls than boys get into top universities. More girls are going to college in general, for that matter.

Image: Smiling school boy (edited) by stockking.

But for some reason, all you hear is that girls are underrepresented in higher education. It's confusing. When you search for scholarships to apply to, you find hundreds that are only open to women.

When you tour college campuses, you hear how proud the school is to have student organizations like Women in Law, Women in Business, and Women in Science.

It all becomes too much. You start doing research.

You discover that men are more likely to be homeless, go to prison, become alcoholics, struggle with isolation/loneliness, die of a drug overdose, and commit suicide.

But all you hear about, for some reason, is something called the "gender pay gap."

Eventually, you find out that the only people who seem to talk about the issues facing men — the only people who appear to sympathize with how you feel — are so-called "alt-right" figures like Jordan Peterson.

You start listening to them. For once, you feel like you're not alone. Now imagine you're an 8th-grade white boy.

On top of the alienation you experience for merely being a boy, you're told by teachers, the media, and maybe even your parents that you should feel some form of remorse for being white.

You're as privileged as it gets, you're told. This doesn't make much sense to you. Why should you feel bad for being white — something you can't control?

This is a question you and your white classmates implicitly know cannot be asked. So instead, all of you submit. Humiliation quickly leads to demoralization. As you get older, you feel increasingly unwelcome by society. "Diversity and inclusion" initiatives and never-ending anti-white messaging from the media only make you feel like a burden.

So you turn to the Internet, where you feel welcome by video games and right-wing forums. Younger and younger white males are following this path. They feel they're simply unwelcome by society, and they escape to a select few communities and websites.

For the first time in America's history, the founding demographic is dropping out of society in massive numbers. Dr. Danna Young's solution?

"Inclusive programming and a critical historical lens."

It's almost like their goal is to demoralize and demonize young men — the group most likely to challenge our ruling class.

I have only one thing to add to that: when you marginalize people, as leftists like Young (who argues that leftists have a greater grasp of "cognitive complexity" and therefore a better sense of humor) are doing, there will be pushback, and that pushback is never pretty.  Schmidt is polite and thoughtful; others will not be.

Update: I misspelled Danna Young's last name and have since corrected the error.