Happy Relationships "Too Republican" To Be Cool? Riiiiight…

Is having a boyfriend now considered “uncool”? In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the cultural shifts around relationships, social status, and online identity—especially among urban, progressive communities. They explore why some women are now hesitant to share their relationships online, the rise and fall of trends like the “stay-at-home girlfriend,” and how social media algorithms and peer pressure shape what we see (and don’t see) about love lives. The conversation covers everything from viral articles and Reddit threads to the impact of influencer culture, parasocial relationships, and the new “flex” of being single. Whether you’re curious about the latest social trends, the politics of dating, or just want a fresh perspective on modern relationships, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins (2): HELLOOOOOO SIMONE! I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing. If having a boyfriend has become embarrassing or uncool specifically for urban monoculture, I really cannot describe this. Anything other than like upper middle class white women. Okay. Have begun to categorize.

Having a boyfriend or being in a relationship as a social taboo. There was a paper written on this then in in Vogue, which we’ll go over, which by the way, teen Vogue Vogue inspired all of their black employees. So that was fun. When they were trying to do like woke cleanup, they accidentally.

Simone Collins: No, I, I think it’s more, I think they were getting rid of unprofitable Teen Vogue by tucking it into Vogue.

Vogue. And they got rid of the, the politics team, which was just because obviously gay and not

Malcolm Collins (2): that also all the trans, no, no, yeah. Sorry. Not

Simone Collins: gay trans. Yeah, gay is like conservative. LGBT Trans is progressive Lgt. Yeah. Gay. Gay

Malcolm Collins (2): [00:01:00] is now conservative coded these days. Yeah. But anyway, so to continue here so they did an article on this and we’re gonna go through both their article and the article that they referenced, which I think is almost more interesting than their article itself.

And then we’re gonna dig, go through some reply articles to this and Reddit threads that we’re discussing this to sort of see how the general feminist community feels about this. Okay. But it does appear to be a real shift that’s happening online, which is really cool and interesting

Simone Collins: because cartoon hate her was kind of like.

Is this really real? This is actually just journalists making something up, but it’s no, I, I, I

Malcolm Collins (2): think it’s, well, when I look at the Reddit discussion of this, I think it’s real, and it also makes sense when you think about the wider cultural context that we’re in.

Simone Collins: Okay. Interesting. Let’s dive in.

Malcolm Collins (2): So if someone so much as says, my boy and, and they cut it off there, so they can’t even say, my boyfriend on social media, they’re muted.

There’s nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become quote unquote, my [00:02:00] boyfriend Defi suddenly, oh, this is probably because for so long it felt like we were living. In what one of my favorite subjects, hackers calls boyfriend land a world where women’s online identities center around the lies of their partners.

A situation rarely seen reversed. Women were rewarded for their ability to find and keep a man with elevated social status and praise. It became even more suffocating when this could be leveraged on social media for engagement and if you were serious enough financial game.

Simone Collins: So, oh yeah, right. There was the whole stay at home girlfriend trend.

Hmm. Of women just making their identities about the fact that they had a boyfriend who subsidized Alexa. And I wanna go into the

Malcolm Collins (2): article about that phenomenon, which preceded this phenomenon. Okay?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): Because she references another blog post here where they are talking about that phenomenon.

Okay? Now I’m gonna note here what you will actually, I’ll, I’ll get to it when we, when we get to the point of the article here. Hmm. But I, I, I, I also love like the horrible that [00:03:00] this woman. Is triggered by the fact that other women have partners, right? Like that this is a, a threatening thing to her to the extent that it appears to be emotionally damaged, like it, it appears to cause some form of emotional distress when she sees this.

I might ask her to meditate on why that may be. Is it that maybe you want a boyfriend and just aren’t putting in the effort or aren’t making the you know, bridging the ideological gap enough to actually find one? Right. So you. But no, uh uh, there is, there is no, no interest in, in bridging that gap.

So let’s go to this other article.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): A few months ago at a literary event, I introduced myself to a writer whose book I love. She then did the Odds thing. She turned around and introduced her boyfriend and began to speak about his accomplishments at Links, despite her book being a book [00:04:00] Talk Darling, despite Good on

Simone Collins: her, because as we’ve just.

It’s pretty unusual for a woman in public to praise her male partner. Very rare

Malcolm Collins (2): in, in real world.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that on its, that’s on its own

Malcolm Collins (2): is notable, so, wow. Okay. But, but we’re now seeing partially why, despite being beloved by her community, despite being showered and praised by writers and fans alike, her first instinct was to talk about her partner for five minutes straight.

Oh. I thought, I see. Now I’m noting a number of things here. One is Simone, do I often praise you in public? When we’re talking to people to the extent that I, I feel uncomfortable because I’m like, no, we should be talking about you. This is a normal thing that people do

Simone Collins: with their look at your partner and you’re proud of him.

Like Eric Barwin talking about his, his wife on the red carpet, but then she off. She shouldn’t be proud of her though.

I don’t think you make it more silly than it is. I actually feel, I try. Oh, didn’t get that on the show. No, no. We just, we just cut all that part out. Cut me out. Cut you out when you’re trying to make it silly.

Malcolm Collins (2): She shouldn’t be proud of her. That’s a, that’s a [00:05:00] difference.

Simone Collins: A lot of kids together. That is like the one important point is that they have a big family. They’re like good on them. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s really important that you are highlighting here that.

This woman praised her boyfriend and here she is being criticized online. I mean, it’s people, you know, we, we have normalized obviously the, as we covered in another episode, eye rolling wife, the sarcastic wife as sort of this endemic and, and problematic issue. But it’s not just the fact that the belittling your husband slash boyfriend trope is so pervasive and, and sometimes lauded.

It’s that women on the other hand are punished. When they praise and are supportive of their boyfriends and husbands.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yes. And then we’re seeing that right here. She is punishing. Yeah. And the woman above is punishing women for being supportive of t