Cruelty Is a Costume
Today’s blog is me sharing a piece from Joshua Doss (@doss.discourse) — because it helped me name something I’ve been wrestling with all weekend: the way “cruelty” is being sold to young men as if it’s a requirement of masculinity.
I’ve struggled with how to address the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by ICE agents. I don’t want to do the lazy version of this conversation. I don’t want to posture. I don’t want to perform.
I want to be useful.
Doss’ message gave me language for what I’ve been feeling: there are voices in our culture actively conflating cruelty with manhood — and then calling that “strength.” They frame compassion as softness. They frame dominance as leadership. They frame malice as “alpha.”
And you see it everywhere right now: not just in policy, but in the tone around it. Not just “enforcement,” but delight in humiliation. Memes. Dunking. Laughing at families being displaced. That’s not power. That’s insecurity wearing a costume.
So here’s where I’m going with our guys today in our Monday full-program gathering:
Every day as men, we’re faced with a choice: compassion or cruelty.
And the scary part is that cruelty is contagious — especially when it gets framed as funny, righteous, or “just how the world works.”
Masculinity is not supposed to be malice.
Confidence isn’t demeaning people. Confidence is the ability to stay human when you’ve been given a thousand excuses not to. Confidence is having enough internal security to say, “I’m not joining the pile-on.”
If your politics — or your group chat — requires you to shut off empathy to prove you’re a man, you’re being played. The manbox doesn’t just limit men. It weaponizes them.
And that’s why this video matters in a team room: because our players are being recruited into cruelty every single day. Online. In jokes. In memes. In the “bro, it’s not that deep” scripts.
It is that deep.
And we’re going to practice choosing better.
Coach Prompts
Where are your players being “trained” into cruelty online—what are the tells?
How do you model compassion in a way your athletes won’t dismiss as “soft”?
If you had to build a weekly habit that strengthens empathy, what would it be?
Player Prompts
Where do you feel pressure to laugh along even when something feels wrong?
What’s a moment you’ve seen someone get dehumanized online—what did you do, and what do you wish you did?
What’s one “small courage” move you can make this week when a group chat turns ugly?
