Comic Strips

One possible reading of it is that the bear trap is alt-right pipeline, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, toxic stuff like that, and the trapped guinea pig is a probably cisgender, probably straight, probably white young man. They fall into the trap because it's actually designed perfectly for them. I took it as the moral of the story being to be mindful of pushing away people who may be suffering and also experiencing relative privilege within this soul-crushing capitalistic system.

And like, yeah, unironically, poor cis-het white guys. I've seen plenty of men and boys I care about struggle under the pressures of hegemonic masculinity (a particular form of "manhood" that one must adhere to to be afforded the privilege of being a Man (TM)). My best friend used to say that in an alternate timeline, he could've seen himself becoming an angry, edgy incel, if not for the influence of some friends who supported, and, where necessary, laughed at him.

I don't think that's controversial. People who fall into traps should be helped, even if they don't think they need your help before they fall in (and hell, even while they're trapped, they may still not realise it).

However, there's a limit to what can reasonably be expected to be done to "bring people over" to the other side. If I'm trying to build community and solidarity than more often than not, I wanna be prioritising the wellbeing and voices of people experiencing structural oppression, over coddling the ego of someone who's relatively privileged. And yeah, that sucks, and it's uncomfortable to reflect on how privilege doesn't mean you're exempt from suffering, and how that privilege can even serve to isolate you if you're surrounded by voices saying that men don't suffer under the patriarchy and if you are suffering, it must be your fault for doing the masculinity wrong.

I'm marginalised along some axes, immensely privileged in many others. In some ways, being marginalised is more comfortable, because I know where I stand: it's me, and others like me, against an unjust system. Righteous anger, baby. It gets uncomfortable when I look back at my privilege. It doesn't negate my suffering, but I can't pretend it doesn't exist; part of the solidarity and striving for a better world is tearing out the old structures that I, and others like me, have benefitted from, unjustly.

In recent years, I've gotten quite good at sitting with my discomfort, which is good, because whenever I think I'm on top of it all, I find something else that makes me feel profoundly uncomfortable about the world. That's good though, because that means it's working, I hope. I'm in a trap of my own, you see, and there are countless good people working to free me from this, I just need to stop flailing and let them help me; it's not reasonable to expect people to put their wellbeing at risk to help someone who seems determined to go down struggling and take others with them.