r/MensLib • u/sugar4thepillpodcast ​ • 13d ago

Interview with a former PUA fan: "It breaks my heart for little Mikey that watched that..."

https://youtu.be/4pxZWaet9HA?si=i_zd5ozSJfQAYXsd
37 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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24

u/sugar4thepillpodcast ​ 13d ago

Hey, I’m Dr Joshua Thorburn and for the past few years I’ve been researching the manosphere and online far-right. I've long thought subreddits like r/menslib are a great antidote to the manosphere so I wanted to share this podcast here! It's called Sugar for the Pill and it's an independent project I've put a lot of heart and soul into. I explicitly wanted to leave academia and make this podcast because I think perspectives like these are the sorts of thing that might help a lot of young men and boys who are simply trying to find advice and do their best in a strange strange world, yet instead get scammed and tricked by the manosphere. I appreciate self-promotion is a bit of a faux pas on Reddit, but I really think this podcast might be of interest (and helpful!) to folks on here!

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u/toughtacos ​ 11d ago

I know you didn't specifically ask for feedback, but since the content is so importent I'm going to risk it anyway. The one thing that struck me immediately while listening is you're doing a lot of backchanneling) using the same sound ("mm"), and that made it hard to listen to the actual content. The issue isn't as much that you do it, but that the sound is identical throughout the entire 1 hour interview, making it come off more like a verbal tic that gets very distracting. At least for me.

You're doing important work, though, and I hope this doesn't come off as discouraging!

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u/sugar4thepillpodcast ​ 11d ago

Thank you! I do appreciate the feedback… I’m completely new to interviewing/editing so there’s a steep learning curve with doing this!

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u/toughtacos ​ 10d ago

I do a video podcast with a couple of friends and had to address this myself at the beginning. I still catch myself sometimes backchanneling when just listening to people talking and I’m not even really part of the conversation, just in the same room at work 😂

I also have a colleague that is difficult to talk to because she exaggerates her backchanneling to the point where it’s hard to finish a sentence.

Talking is difficult 😔

3

u/AussieAboleth ​ 11d ago

This is a good point, and important feedback I think for this sort of work. It's something that psychs (for example) are trained in, particularly to vary them and be sensitive, and be mindful of not sounding robotic. 

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u/Embarrassed-Area4652 ​ 7d ago

Thanks for putting it together. Subscribed. I think there's tons of room for academically informed, deep coverage of this kind of stuff. In fact we need it as an antidote to simplistic, sound-bite oriented takes that tend to dominate otherwise.