#laddism

[aesthetictournament]

Round 1, Match 18 — Mall Ninja vs. Lad Culture

Mall Ninja is a braggadocious stereotype involving boasting about weapon proficiency and being "badass," despite a lack of mastery and respect for weapons practice. Obsessed with weapon tropes depicted in anime, action movies, or other violent fiction, the Mall Ninja is characterized by clumsy threats or posturing for superiority. Mall Ninja is an offshoot relation to the "Internet Tough Guy." The main aesthetic concept of the Mall Ninja is that of being a poor mimicry of a fictional badass character. Their weapons, which they often carry in the eponymous malls, tend to be tacky and based on items that they have seen in anime. For example, they would have unnecessary ornamentation like colors, have no practical function, and are made of poor quality materials. Likewise, the clothing that they can typically be seen wearing is cheap, may fit poorly, and looks tacky. This is not based purposefully on camp, but rather being inexperienced in judging quality. Common visual elements include anime imagery, badass quotes and threats overlaid images of badass characters, camouflage-printed items, dragons, improbable weapons, such as a gun that shoots knives or gun-chucks (gun nunchaku), iridescent rainbow blades, nunchaku, over-sized weapons, weapon shops in shopping malls, and weapon storage rooms.

vs.

Lad Culture, also known as Laddism, is a British youth subculture that emerged and peaked in the 1990s, characterized by an embrace of stereotypically working-class masculine interests, attitudes, and styles. The movement was heavily intertwined with the Britpop music scene, football fandom, and the rise of "lads' mags" like Loaded. While often presented with irreverent humor, the subculture is widely criticized for its promotion of aggressive sexism, misogyny, and a "raunch culture" that normalized the objectification of women.

Which aesthetic do you prefer?

Mall Ninja

Lad Culture

Voting ended onMay 13

[abroadeningyourhorizons]

Laddism: innocent student culture or an excuse of tomfoolery covering up the blatant male chauvinism of the powerful and privileged male members of society?

Read more

[feimineach]

Men worry about feminism, as if a culture of women's rights is about to stamp out male identity. But really, it's men who are their own worst enemies. In response to feminism, there's been a surge in ultra-male television and writing. TrueLad is one example, so is Man v. Food, those Fosters ads on YouTube and the hugely venomous Return of Kings. This kind of media is – ostensibly - designed to reclaim a lost kind of maleness. It tells young men that it's acceptable to adhere to their basest instincts, to eat, drink and laze around, and expect subservience from women. But rather than empower or reinvigorate the male gender, this lad culture is retarding it. An entire generation of men is learning, by osmosis, that tolerance, restraint and self-improvement are all virtues that are unmanly, and that ascribing to higher behaviour than “laddishness” is to rebel against their genetics. It's leaving men looking outmoded, childish, irrelevant. If masculine emotional attitudes had matured at all since the Stone Age, then much of that progress has now gone up in smoke thanks to the male media's puerile response to new feminism. It's as if men are throwing out their cars and going back to the bicycle. The version of maleness that lad culture seeks to reclaim is resoundingly at odds with today's world.

Edward Smith: The real problem men face today is not the rise of women (newstatesman.com).