Althouse: "I would have gone to my grave peacefully had I never been reminded of the smug, horny entitlement of young men in the two-thousands

June 10, 2025

"I would have gone to my grave peacefully had I never been reminded of the smug, horny entitlement of young men in the two-thousands—the Tucker Maxes and Adam Carollas..."

"... or the pressure I felt to find their humor funny or smart. I did not enjoy being reacquainted with male journalists’ gratuitous comments about teen girls’ breasts in Rolling Stone, or the haranguing of diet books like 'Skinny Bitch' ('You need to exercise, you lazy shit'). I had repressed all memory of the ghastly reality-TV show 'The Swan,' in which desperate and body-dysmorphic women undergo a series of plastic surgeries and are then assessed by a panel of judges so that one may be crowned 'the swan' among ugly ducklings...."

Writes Dayna Tortorici, in "What Did the Pop Culture of the Two-Thousands Do to Millennial Women?/'Girl on Girl,' by the critic Sophie Gilbert, is the latest and most ambitious in a series of consciousness-raising-style reappraisals of the decade’s formative texts" (The New Yorker).

55 comments:

mccullough said...: Body dysmorphia flourishes nowadays.; 6/10/25, 3:45 PM
rehajm said...: …well it certainly made one girl vindictive.; 6/10/25, 3:49 PM
Enigma said...: Breast implants date back to the 1960s. Women's Lib. Equal Rights Amendment time.

Push up bras date back far, far, far before that. Bare-breasted snake handler goddesses were the "thing" in the ancient Minoan culture of 1600 BC Greece.; 6/10/25, 3:51 PM
rehajm said...: …tbf I don’t know the other guy but Adam Carolla was never funny…are there other Adam Carollas as she suggests?; 6/10/25, 3:52 PM
Spiros said...: Rodney Dangerfield holds up pretty well and he hated his unloving mother and never got any respect from his wife. Rodney's wife was an art collector and also rather promiscuous.; 6/10/25, 4:01 PM
effinayright said...: Wander over to the US version of the Daily Mail and see for yourself the female obsession with body perfection in the US and UK. Be sure to scroll down the sidebar.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html

You think MEN are promoting porn's esthetics? You think MEN give a shit about the Kardashians and all those other skanks strutting their stuff?

You'll see this kind of shit there every day. Every day.

SNORT; 6/10/25, 4:07 PM
Rabel said...: Memories of better days.; 6/10/25, 4:09 PM
RMc said...: a series of consciousness-raising-style reappraisals of the decade’s formative texts

Attention, please: writing stuff like this does not make you look smart, it merely bestows a headache upon anyone unlucky enough to read it.; 6/10/25, 4:10 PM
tcrosse said...: Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel did The Man Show, which very few women found funny.; 6/10/25, 4:10 PM
Mason G said...: "I would have gone to my grave peacefully had I never been reminded of the smug, horny entitlement of young men in the two-thousands—the Tucker Maxes and Adam Carollas..."

So- not an article about "strong, independent women who have no use for men", I gather?; 6/10/25, 4:11 PM
rehajm said...: I’m thankful I found and married a hot girl who would never care about this shyte and does my taxes every year…; 6/10/25, 4:12 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: Ladies & Gentlemen ......... (dramatic pause) ..... And now ... Girls in bikini's bouncing on trampolines.

Goodnight Everyone!

Couldn't have gone through puberty without The Man Show.; 6/10/25, 4:13 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: Some quality television right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgZpXOiDF-g; 6/10/25, 4:14 PM
effinayright said...: Spiros said...
"Rodney Dangerfield holds up pretty well and he hated his unloving mother and never got any respect from his wife. Rodney's wife was an art collector and also rather promiscuous."
**********
Are you familiar with the term "shtick"?

Dangerfield divorced his first wife in 1962. He had a much better relationship with his 2nd wife, whom he met in 1982, and married in 1993, at the height of his career. They remained happlily married until his death in 2004.

It also seems you took literally one of his lines about his promiscuous art-collecting wife:

"Rodney, your wife is upstaris showing someone her Klimt."

"Jeez. Him too?"

(Rodney's 2nd wife owned a chain of flowershops in London); 6/10/25, 4:18 PM
Jim Gust said...: I was not familiar with The Swan, and I wish I had not read about it, that is the most ghastly idea for entertainment since the Romans.; 6/10/25, 4:23 PM
Jim at said...: Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel did The Man Show

I admit I watched The Man Show and found some bits to be pretty good. My wife? Not so much.

And if you would've told me Carolla would end up being an outspoken conservative - and Kimmel a sniveling, whining, obnoxious leftist - I wouldn't have believed it.; 6/10/25, 4:28 PM
rehajm said...: I remember The Swan. The first woman had some major work, so much so her husband/boyfriend had issues with it after the reveal, so the woman dumped him and it was all you go girl! but I suspect he was worried this woman he loved was too pretty for him now or wouldn’t still love him back. He was correct…; 6/10/25, 4:37 PM
Kate said...: She needs more Asal Bahrierad in her repertoire.; 6/10/25, 4:38 PM
rehajm said...: …the worst tv was that show where people who never met agreed to marry for real on live TV. For exploitation one was worse than bull poker…; 6/10/25, 4:39 PM
FullMoon said...: “Girl on Girl,” by the critic Sophie Gilbert,
Misleading .
Guys, don't waste a click, it ain't what you hope it is; 6/10/25, 4:52 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: "I would have gone to my grave peacefully had I never been reminded of the smug, horny entitlement of young men in the two-thousands—the Tucker Maxes and Adam Carollas..."

Too bad she missed her chance.; 6/10/25, 5:02 PM
Big Mike said...: I did not enjoy being reacquainted with male journalists’ gratuitous comments about teen girls’ breasts in Rolling Stone …

Sounds disgusting to me, too, and I’m a guy.; 6/10/25, 5:10 PM
Iman said...: The tell is this woman doesn’t mention Kimmel among her targeted miscreants. Fuck off, Yew Norker!; 6/10/25, 5:14 PM
jim said...: Did all that crap really happen in media land?; 6/10/25, 5:27 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: @Jim, who wrote: "if you would've told me Carolla would end up being an outspoken conservative - and Kimmel a sniveling, whining, obnoxious leftist - I wouldn't have believed it."

Kimmel makes $15 million a year and has a net worth now north of $50 million.

Carolla has a podcast and a run-down smoke-smelling house in Pacific Palisade not even on the water.

You pay me that much, and I'd suck Michelle Obama's cock.; 6/10/25, 5:35 PM
le Douanier said...: Does the point of this gal's fussiness overlap with the Cosby-Clinton-Weinstein-Epstein-Etc (including not famous people) stuff that we was going on behind the scenes at the time?

BTW, are we sure that that era was peak creep? Why is she deciding to jabber about that particular time? Arguably there has always been bad/evil people.; 6/10/25, 5:37 PM
narciso said...: no, it was just a figment of her imagination,; 6/10/25, 5:37 PM
Joe Bar said...: Why does every woman hate "The Man Show?" You all realize it was a joke, right?
As far as Carolla not being as successful as Kimmel, I think he's done alright, with the cards he was dealt. I mean, _I_ don't have a warehouse full of Newman racecars. I just have a Bob Hannah practice bike.; 6/10/25, 5:44 PM
Ampersand said...: These personal memoirs expressing female dissatisfaction with the male sex seem to have started with Betty Friedan in the 1950s. It's an odd genre because, despite the sincerity often expressed, it's always based upon a partial and one-sided reading of the past. It's always a foreigner's perspective. "Rats and snails and puppy dog tails" vs. "sugar and spice and everything nice"

I think the literature of pre 1950s female dissatisfactions with the opposite sex is astonishingly sparse, given the abundance of reasons for grievance. Jane Austen, George Eliot, the suffragettes.

I guess we're just catching up.; 6/10/25, 5:55 PM
Jupiter said...: Feminism fatigue.; 6/10/25, 6:04 PM
Mason G said...: Why does every woman hate "The Man Show?"

From Perplexity:

"The show was known for its male-centric humor, including segments with buxom female models called the "Juggy Dance Squad," and a focus on themes like beer drinking, sports, and exaggerated masculinity."

Based on that, it's hard to say.

You all realize it was a joke, right?

Doesn't matter. If it (anything at all) doesn't elevate women, it's not funny. And it's especially not funny if men happen to think it is.; 6/10/25, 6:18 PM
narciso said...: the New Yawker, phoey,; 6/10/25, 6:19 PM
narciso said...: You mean like Sex and the City, that was all about female empowerment, lol; 6/10/25, 6:23 PM
tcrosse said...: One episode of The Man Show was a parody of Oprah, with Kimmel in the title role. Absolutely hilarious.; 6/10/25, 6:26 PM
Leland said...: I only saw a few episodes of The Man Show and having two daughters, I didn’t find it enjoyable. I always thought Kimmel was the sniveling and obnoxious one, but I didn’t expect him to become a hero of the left. Adam Carollas seemed like the guys from Top Gear, which is why many thought he would replace them.

That said, I don’t think any of those mentioned above had any effect on millenial women and certainly less than rags like The New Yorker. Sex in the City and later Girls had more influence.; 6/10/25, 6:29 PM
Jaq said...: "or the pressure I felt to find their humor funny or smart"

Where did this pressure come from? Did you have some ambition that you felt could only be attained if you found The Man Show funny and smart? Was somebody withholding something you wanted or craved?; 6/10/25, 6:45 PM
Joe Bar said...: Leland said:
"Adam Carollas seemed like the guys from Top Gear, which is why many thought he would replace them."

It was explored, then Adam made the "Why women aren't funny" comment.; 6/10/25, 6:50 PM
narciso said...: as if the sex comedies of the 80s, or American pie in the 90s didn't happen ok then,; 6/10/25, 6:55 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: "Why does every woman hate "The Man Show?" You all realize it was a joke, right?"

The entire point of The Man Show was for liberated, liberal, feminists to hate on it so we can laugh at them while watching hot teens show us their panties while jumping on trampolines while we eat popcorn and drink Mountain Dew (then we're playing video games later).; 6/10/25, 6:59 PM
wsw said...: (Then, go to your grave.) Kimmel and Carolla: only one is a walking embarrassment today.; 6/10/25, 8:16 PM
Aught Severn said...: If I were to take her premise at face value, I would turn her question around..."What did millennial women allow etc...etc...to do to them?" They did have agency, after all. Pop culture itself has no agency. It can do nothing to you that you, yourself, don't allow to happen. Ergo, anything that happened to millennial women was a result of action (or inaction) on their part. ipso facto and all that. With maybe a si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes thrown in for good measure for you lawyerly types.

On the other hand, I do not agree with her premise in that who is she to speak for millennial women as a group? For one thing, they were all unique snowflakes as I recall, and for another...where does she get the gall to think her opinion on this is in any way representative? I can't read the whole article, but my assumption based on past experience is that she will present anecdotes and extrapolate those as proof.

Ah well, as others have pointed out, it is the New Yorker. A magazine where navel gazing has reached the apex of an artform.; 6/10/25, 9:07 PM
Tom T. said...: "if you would've told me Carolla would end up being an outspoken conservative - and Kimmel a sniveling, whining, obnoxious leftist - I wouldn't have believed it."

Kimmel came from a white-collar background. Carolla grew up poor and never went to college. They met when Carolla was Kimmel's boxing coach.; 6/10/25, 10:27 PM
Iconochasm said...: rehajm, Tucker Max was a blogger/indie writer who spun a good yarn about being an amoral disaster of a date. The book was titled "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell", and I imagine most of his fans took it much less seriously than the woman in the article.; 6/10/25, 11:02 PM
Oso Negro said...: So. Sixty-odd years in from The Feminine Mystique, women are still dissatisfied with their lives and still blame men. Who could have guessed , really?; 6/11/25, 3:00 AM
wendybar said...: And yet, one of the most popular shows today is The Batchelor, where 20 women compete to make a guy fall in love with them and marry them. Why ANY woman or man would lower themselves to act like fools on that show is crazy to me...but it is one of the most popular shows and never has a problem finding women to beg....SAD.; 6/11/25, 3:16 AM
Saint Croix said...: the pressure I felt to find their humor funny or smart

As if women don't pressure their boyfriends to watch what they want to watch. I can't imagine a world where a man gets paid to write an article about the pressure his girlfriend put on him.

"She made me watch Sex in the City. I felt like I had to."; 6/11/25, 4:05 AM
Saint Croix said...: "She made me switch out my underwear. I felt like I had to."

I could do this all day.; 6/11/25, 4:08 AM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/11/25, 4:09 AM
Cappy said...: Get Kimmel and Carolla back together again for The Man Show.; 6/11/25, 7:09 AM
Peachy said...: there was a real show called the swan?
glad i missed that.; 6/11/25, 7:35 AM
Peachy said...: jon stewart destroyed way more than any of that crap.; 6/11/25, 7:36 AM
stunned said...: Not everyone is lucky enough or brave enough to develop a healthy concept of THE SELF. Instead of looking hard within themselves, people choose to look at pornography, or they choose to insult, humiliate, or they believe they are a hero or a victim of their own story, or they starve themselves. Sometimes people happen to have a porn-watching grandpa, or a cold, rejecting mother, they have a hard start in life.
If you want to insult someone and accuse offended party of being too sensitive or not getting "a joke," go look into the mirror, two pig-eyes are staring back at you, I know you have been avoiding to acknowledge that at all cost. But once you summon your bravery and accept that you are hurting people to numb your own internal pain, things can start improving for you in terms of your own happiness and self-worth.; 6/11/25, 12:42 PM
Lazarus said...: I watched a lot of junk in the 2000s, but I never felt compelled to watch or laugh at "The Man Show." I wouldn't remember the show at all if it weren't for the girls on trampolines close.

Tucker Max was a smug, entitled frat boy -- or at least that's his reputation. Adam Carolla was much less smug or entitled than any writer at the New Yorker. Dayna forgot to check her own privilege.

I give her credit for trying to find some common denominator that unites the Oughties and separates them from the Nineties and the Teenies, but she's wrong. Surely "girl power" and "strong female protagonist" propaganda runs through the whole last 30 years. What Dayna objects to is the little blips of rebellion against the dominant culture and its messages.

The audience for "The Bachelor" was predominantly female, and the show would soon enough be supplemented with "The Bachelorette." "The Man Show" was a half-hearted, half-tongue in cheek rejoinder to the culture's main current. What distinguished the Oughties was the rise of reality television and the consequent collapse of the old broadcast networks and their replacement by cable.; 6/11/25, 4:12 PM
Saint Croix said...: they believe they are a hero or a victim of their own story

I believe that. I'm the hero of my life. What's wrong with that? Acknowledging that I'm the protagonist (a.k.a. hero) keeps me from being the villain of my life.

I'm not the director. God's the director. And he wrote the screenplay!

I'm the actor. And I haven't read the screenplay. I'm doing improv, trying to make my life good. And if I want feedback on how my acting is, I pray.; 6/11/25, 5:57 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Adam Corolla was born in 1961 so he was 39 in 2000--he wasn't exactly a "young man" in the 2000's. Dayna Tortorici was apparently born in 1989 so she's around 36. Perspective!; 6/12/25, 8:09 AM