Best of the gentle guy internet

And because it must be asked: What about the incels?

May 20, 2021

Welcome to Embedded, your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, published Monday through Friday by Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci. “Get Embedded” on Twitter and Instagram. 🧩

Today, GGI (gentle guy internet) UGC (user-generated content). —Nick

On Tuesday, Kate wrote about the "gentle guy internet," the mildly masculine content that her boyfriend watches on his laptop in bed while wearing big headphones. She cited two YouTubers named Steve (one samples WWI and WWII military rations, the other camps in weird places). I submitted a few examples of my own, including a tasty live Radiohead performance and a German guy with a cute accent who gets an old BMW running. The idea sent off an appropriately gentle ripple of appreciation across our readership—not a few men and their girlfriends and daughters replied with GGI content of their own.

Señorita Babadook 💟 @JazzCochina

oh i love this

kate lindsay @kathrynfiona

wrote about "gentle guy internet," which is what I glimpse over my boyfriend's shoulder as he sits on his laptop wearing big headhpones in bed https://t.co/R9iMa6EDW0

Mehhhhhhhhh @mememolly

@kathrynfiona i sent this to @mikerugnetta who would like to add, 'men talking softly about cooking knives but never using them' and 'synth videos with “no talking” in the title' to the list

Betsy @btransatlantic

@kathrynfiona @TaylorLorenz omg yes. my husband’s corner also includes sites and forums about urban planning and architecture despite his lack of expertise in either field.

A friend of mine DM'd me this post, writing, "cycling meme accounts are definitely for gentle dudes." Her boyfriend, meanwhile, emailed with a darker observation: that gentle guy internet "is a lurking ground for quiet incels and the kind of guys in an office who are specialists in passive aggressive disagreements!" I wondered whether there is any place men gather where incels aren’t incubating. "My feeling," he replied, "is that anywhere men gather there's a certain % of [passive-aggressive potential] incels. It's going to be like 4% at a Patagonia clothing swap message board, 10% at a Belle and Sebastian show, 80% at a Richard Spencer speaking event."

Make of that what you will ("Patagonia clothing swap message board" made me LMAO), but I would suggest that vigilance against incel culture is also, even consummately, GGI. As for the content that you tweeted at us and that we have gathered below, I would say this: Many of the creators and accounts are, at first glance, focused on productivity—undertaking projects or adventures, exploring history or finance. But unlike the content and communities for men who want to transform themselves into Chads, or Bitcoin millionaires, or authoritarian toadies advancing white supremacy (or, why not, all three), the gentle guy internet is open-ended, about journeys and not destinations, tending (sometimes literally) one's own garden rather than enacting someone else's fantasy. These are safer spaces for everyone, not just the people wearing the big headphones.