How does a teenager end up repeating misogynistic speeches heard online? After allowing himself to be seduced by extreme comments at the age of 15, a young man tells how he freed himself from them.
Posted at 1:36 a.m.
Updated at 7:00 a.m.
The message came at the end of November, in response to a report on masculinist influencers.
A young man thought he had an interesting perspective on teenagers who engage in misogynistic discourse online1.
Because he had sort of been there, too. And he got away with it.
Intrigued, we arranged to meet her one afternoon in March in a café in Old Montreal. We will call him Thomas, to preserve his identity.
We talk about radicalization, and that sounds far from us. But it happens. It can happen damn fast.
Thomas
Sitting in front of a steaming coffee, the young man takes out a sheet of handwritten notes from his bag. And he starts. “That summer changed the course of my life,” he begins.
It started with jokes
The story begins in 2019. Thomas is 15 years old and spends a month at a summer camp in Ontario.
His instructor is nicknamed Scooby2. Late twenties, charismatic, a Scottish accent to cut with a knife: “He was the funniest person I had met,” says Thomas, with a smirk.
With the campers, it clicks right away. Scooby becomes their leader. And quietly begins to direct the conversations.
“Over the summer, he showed us his macho mentality. »
It started with jokes, Thomas remembers. Seemingly harmless comments here and there. “Yes, but the wage gap…”, “Yes, but systemic racism”, “Yes, but abortion…”.
“It was always “yes, but…”. You know: “Yes, but feminism is just about putting guys down,” says the 21-year-old young man.
Like the other campers, Thomas lets himself be influenced by his instructor. “He had a big brother attitude,” he notes.
Looking back, Thomas does not hold his instructor solely responsible: he was also vulnerable to these speeches.
The teenager may not have been following masculinist influencers – who were little known to the general public at the time – but he was watching compilations of debates with Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson, two popular right-wing commentators.
“At that point, it was just memes on the internet, but by talking about it together, we normalized it,” he says.
Radicalization is “a process”, underlines Thomas. “The first step is to become slobbery. And we got fucking drooling. »
By the end of the summer, the teenager was no longer the same. He resented a society in which he felt out of place. To social movements that he believed had gone too far.
At school, he became arrogant, the type to raise his hand in class to provoke his classmates. “You feel like you know more than everyone else. »
His parents also notice that he has changed. The young man remembers “not fun” debates with his family.
It was really, really wrong.
Thomas
According to him, why do young people come to admire masculinist influencers?
Thomas thought for a few seconds before answering. “I would say there are two factors,” he begins. First, what he calls a “redirection of resentment.”
That summer, his instructor exploited his resentment as a young person feeling bad about himself. Just like Andrew Tate or Ben Shapiro do.
“Someone comes along and presents a Source to all your problems,” he said.
That, and the need to belong. As a teenager, Thomas had difficulty making friends. He had been bullied at school and felt isolated.
At the camp, he belonged to a group. Better, to a fraternity. “We took an oath to each other! », he exclaims.
No miracle cure
If Thomas contacted us, it is because he freed himself from these extreme speeches. How did he do it?
There was no miracle cure, he replies. The passage of time, above all. Today, Thomas is 21 years old. He entered CEGEP, opened his horizons.
People around him began gender transition, which confronted him. “It humanized trans people in my head,” he says.
During the same period, he became closer to his aunt and cousins – women.
And he started watching videos that contradicted his thinking. Analyzes which contradicted the arguments defended by Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.
“I realized it was a matter of perspective!” “, he laughs.
Above all, Thomas never returned to the camp.
“I don’t know how to prevent radicalization. I don’t know how to deradicalize. I just know it can happen quickly. I’m raising a red flag. »
1. Read the file “Misogynistic discourse enters schools”
2. Fictitious first name
Who are Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson?
Originally from California, Ben Shapiro is a conservative author and columnist known for his fight against woke culture. He published his first book, Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth, at the age of 20. Critical of the alt-right movement, he nevertheless supports Donald Trump in his current presidential campaign. Jordan Peterson is a right-wing Canadian psychologist and author. Among his controversial comments, he claimed that feminists have an “unconscious desire for brutal male domination” and that “gay children are convinced they are transsexuals”.
Need help for you or a loved one?
Do you recognize yourself or someone close to you in this story and would like to get help? Resources exist. The Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence notably offers a support service for radicalized individuals and those around them. In Montreal: 514 687-7141
Elsewhere in Quebec: 1 877 687-7141
