Don’t Surrender The Feed
First of all, I refuse to put the Instagram handle of this man here, because his thoughts need ZERO oxygen. He’s seen here in red screaming that “You do not need permission to access your spouse's body. Their body belongs to you. Your body belongs to them. You belong to each other now.”
What I will DO is platform this post because it is from my friend @professor_neil and his MASTERFUL takedown via a thought exercise proposal that you should show your team TODAY.
I’ve long argued that as much as coaches like to lean on the old trope of “social media bad” the reality of the world is our guys are on it constantly. Add in the fact that what they scroll through daily is influenced by the algorithms of whatever platform they are on and you have a recipe for their lives, beliefs, and relationships being directed by those “voices” instead of yours.
That reality is why we intentionally provide access to accounts like Neil’s and we have teams every year FOLLOW and LIKE with no requirement beyond that. Because if you can at least combat the algorithm with healthier content creators, you have a better chance of that coming up the next time your guy goes down a rabbit hole.
I’m not going to spend too much time restating what Neil does with his takedown, as I think the brilliance is there for your guys to engage with as is. But, I will say that his statement of “You strike me as somebody who is probably in possession of a whole lot of homophobia and very fragile, restrictive masculinity” is EXACTLY why you need to be following him and telling your guys to do the same.
Coach Prompts
What voices are shaping your players’ beliefs about women, relationships, and masculinity right now?
Are you intentionally introducing healthier content into your team ecosystem or simply hoping players stumble onto it?
If the algorithm is teaching every day, what are you doing to interrupt it?
Player Prompts
Who online most influences the way boys think about relationships and masculinity?
Have you ever noticed how social media rabbit holes slowly start feeding you the same type of message over and over?
What makes someone worth listening to online?
