A new one highlights the risks of social media influencers and supplements. In this case, that being tired, feeling stress, or having lower testosterone with age leads to buying more useless stuff. The supplement market, given new life in the United States by President Bill Clinton in 1994 with the DSHEA law allowing companies to make a lot of suspect claims if they included "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration" in fine print, have created an open season on science and health. If you feel any way at all, someone is willing to pathologize it for you, and sell you a potion, serum, or cure.
The new paper says toxic masculinity on social media may be causing real harm. It was only 46 Instagram and TikTok posts, so not really compelling scientifically or even statistically, but the authors believe the 659,001 likes they received are notable.
Not really. I once had nearly that many comments on Twitter after saying that astronomy does not care if you are male or female. Yes, that was controversial on social media. I got death threats for alleging that stars and planets do not change based on the sex organs of the observer.
Social media is not real life. Only a tiny fraction of people use it, and a lot of them are bananas. Which makes it the perfect gathering place for both misandry and the manosphere. But one of them sells a solution better than 'stop breeding' and that is the manosphere. They are happy to recommend supplements if you are aging and don't trust modern medicine. And the authors of the paper are happy to write once each year in a journal that corporations or men or whatever are pulling the strings.
But when it comes to supplements, no matter who is behind it, they are right. Not because it may not be addressing a legitimate condition - claims that social media posts are only reaching people without valid medical issues are nonsense - but because supplements are expensive placebos unless they have been adulterated with actual medicine. Which makes them risky.
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That didn't stop neoliberal mumbo-jumbo like "knowledge is power" and "be your own health advocate" from being co-opted by the manoverse from the progressive female conspiracy sphere.
The authors are more concerned about health services being taken up for tests by young people. Testosterone fades with age, and biology is different for different men - I still don't have gray hair while some people I know have had it for 30 years - but if it is legitimately happening, social science evangelists shouldn't be lumping that in with the manosphere claiming everything is caused by low testosterone and paid endorsements will fix it. That is as unscientifically nonsensical as believing food coloring causes diabetes and "ultra-processed" foods cause any condition at all.
Most men will have lower testosterone yet not have any symptoms. Being tired is age but you can get diagnosed with Low T the same way you can get diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, Chronic Lyme Disease or anything else - keep doctor shopping until you get one that agrees with you. That does not make it smart. America is the most pro-science country in the world, which also makes us the most over-medicated. And some will believe in alternatives to medicine as well.
Naturopaths are not doctors, you can get a PhD in it and call yourself Doctor the same way a guy who believe he was a witch called himself Doctor.(1)
The issue is if they are actually getting tested and using government resources to legitimize their beliefs. It makes as little sense as health insurance covering acupuncture, chiropractors, or gluten sensitivity tests. People with celiac know it, everyone else is just making stuff up.(2)
Citation: Gram, Emma Grundtvig, Mintzes, Barbara, Copp, Tessa, Moynihan, Ray, Brown, Anthony, Shih, Patti, Nickel, Brooke, Selling masculinity – A qualitative analysis of gender representations in social media content about “low T”, Social Science&Medicine, 393 118903, 26/03/01, 0277-9536, htps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625012341
NOTE: Despite Wikipedia being 50% made up by people acting as public relations reps, there is no mention of his PhD. in anthropology from the unaccredited diploma mill named Brantridge Forest School, which also sold degrees in chromatherapy. And that despite his Wikipedia bio being so supernatural it says he went from working at an airline (he seemingly did, editing company manuals) to running anthropology at Columbia. Which he did not.
(2) That includes you, Matt Damon, but congratulations on your weight loss for "The Odyssey." But that was the crash diet. You are addicted to delicious bread, not allergic to gluten.
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