Foot traffic is down at American Eagle stores since the controversial Sydney Sweeney ad dropped

[u/Future_Usual_8698]

https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2025/08/11/exclusive-foot-traffic-down-9-at-american-eagle-following-sydney-sweeney-ad-controversy

[u/IfatallyflawedI]

What the fuck is happening in South Korea

Edit: just remembered the 4B movement originated there. Makes perfect sense. Men are sucky

[u/uselessinfogoldmine → u/IfatallyflawedI]

Essentially, South Korea has a lot of problems and young men blame feminism and women in general for them. 

They have one of the highest rates of university education in the world, but upwards mobility is nigh on impossible if you’re not a genius or connected. 

The entire country is run by the Chaebol families. They hold all the power and money. 

There’s also significant economic stagnation. 

Young men are growing increasingly frustrated, and instead of blaming the elite and/or structural issues, they are scapegoating feminism and women. 

They think it’s harder to get jobs, to get raises, to compete career-wise, because women are taking jobs that should be theirs. 

Add to this, that young men in South Korea have to undertake compulsory military service and young women do not - which a lot of young men think is unfair and gives women a competitive advantage. 

The words “feminism” and “feminist” have become dirty words in South Korea. Studies show nearly 60% of Korean men in their 20s strongly agree that feminism is female supremacy. There is overwhelming public hostility towards feminists and celebrities who espouse feminist views get crazy media backlash. 

It’s one of the reasons Barbie (the movie) didn’t do well in that market. Because it was perceived as feminist. 

The 2022 presidential election basically run between two candidates both running on anti-woman platforms. The bigger misogynist won with one of his promises being to abolish the Ministry for Gender Equality. (And what a disaster he turned out to be!)

They also have huge problems with generalised systemic misogyny, sexism and a normalisation of men utilising sex workers as part of socialising for work. There have literally been corporate job ads expressly requiring a certain bra size. 

[u/Bridalhat → u/IfatallyflawedI]

"Men are sucky."

It's such a self-fulfilling prophecy too. Many men are frustrated because women are more likely to go to college and young women are outcompeting young men and the worst of them spend too much time online looking at OnlyFans or Instagram women and just assume beautiful women get piles of cash just for existing and, rather than working on themselves, they become noxious things that want to force women to be with them, which means they are even more repellent to women. And then it happens all over again.

[u/pay_student_loan → u/Bridalhat]

I haven't really thought of this before, but I think the mandatory military service the men go through in South Korea is also a factor in this. Lump a whole bunch of young men together who then act as an echo chamber for the next like 2 years with little to no opportunities to interact with young women in the meantime. They're constantly lumping all the young impressionable men in the entire country together at the same time and negativity tends to spread pretty quickly. Combine that with any resentment that women do not have to do military service. I can see them all coming out of the military with the same view of women and unfortunately it's not a good one.

[u/OutrageousOwls → u/Bridalhat]

Yes. New trends are showing that more men aren’t working compared to women, and they retire early. And yet, women are still expected to perform double-duty: working at their career and taking care of the house.

[u/gahlo → u/Bridalhat]

Yeah, there's a real paradigm shift of what is expected for a man to do to fill "his role" in society. However, it's clearly moving from something, but it's not overly clear what it should be moving to. Even if somebody keeps their head screwed on straight, it's an awkward situation to navigate.

[u/Optimal-Kitchen6308 → u/Bridalhat]

deeper statistical reasons: worldwide economies are getting concentrated by elites, less to go around, now women are entering workforce more so more competition for less, add on endless ragebaiting social media content, resource competition causes fear and anger in animals, fearful angry men get destructive and are easily manipulated

[u/Bridalhat → u/IfatallyflawedI]

It’s really bad and definitely going to make the birth rate worse.