Van Lathan (45:02)
Or. Or this is the type of fodder, like, when women are talking about that. And I can't tell you, I can't tell you, I can't speak to the authenticity of those feelings about whether or not nice guys are not attractive and desirable to women. Whether or not women need somebody that's a little bit more of a leader or alpha or whatever. But all of those ideas about nice guys, which are basically ideas about, like, decency and patience. And like men who aren't like, super domineering. Those ideas are then taken by the manosphere guys like Andrew Tate and the rest of them. And they say, look, they're telling you this is what they're telling you. They're telling you that what you're doing flowers and candy bullshit, like, they're telling you it's not good enough. What they're telling you is that you need to go to the gym, you need to become a hyper toxic alpha male, you need to be abusive, you need to be borderline maniacal about yourself, and then that will make you desirable to women. I don't know if that's true or not. I know a lot of nice guys who are successful in doing just fine. So I don't think that it's true. But I'm saying all of this stuff, when it's talked about in these constructs, it just makes it really easy to take it, then bastardize it and move it to whatever you want it to be and translate it the way you want it to be. Let me be clear. I don't think any of that's happening right now. And I think a lot of this has to do with timing. A lot of this has to do with the fact that this is coming on the back of black women feeling particularly attacked by stories that they've seen in the media and about. Because I've talked to a lot of people about this, I wanted to know why this was so uniquely triggering. And there is like a kinship that women feel with Meg because of how she lost her parents, because of the fact that she was the victim of this terrible crime and then she was made the villain in that terrible crime. There. To me, Meg reminds me of Shador Sanders. Okay, there's a. Let me tell you what I mean by this. There is a way that black men feel about Shadour Sanders that I have not been able to really understand. Like, I haven't been able to understand why this particular athlete gets so many people animated like they are in for him. Remember, I've joked about it before. Shador Sanders is the civil rights issue of our times and everything. That's. He'll go out there, he'll. He'll play in a certain way, and people will be like, is he being put in the best, best position to succeed? Then I thought for a second, what I thought about was the fact that, like, for a lot of brothers, for a lot of black men, that is their dream scenario. Their dream scenario is to be in a position where they have had this amazing, hyper involved, like, close, close father. A father who will not let you fail. Whatever you do, this father will not let you fail. And he has the power to make certain that you have everything that you need to be good looking, to be confident, to be all of these things. They feel like for a lot of brothers, they feel like the existence of Shador Sanders as a black man is peak existence. And in order for their idea of how they want to be to like, be real, that he has to succeed. And not only that, but purposefully, people will try to make him not succeed. They'll try to ensure his failure because of all of these things that are culturally true to them. They need that to work. They need Deion's boy, a guy who they would love to be their dad, a guy who they would love to be around. They would love. They need Deion's boy. They need him to succeed. They feel like him. They would want to be him. With Meg, it's a little different, but I do feel like she has become, for a lot of people, just a flashpoint of how black ladies are treated, of how black women are treated. It feels like that there's no one who she can rely on. Her parents are gone. She even tried to protect Tory at first. She didn't. And then she was made the villain in that situation. And the end of it just becomes, who is going to take care of Megan?
