A Bro Confronts Brodom

Where did this strange American Bro come from, this alien, fist-pumping, Jager-bombing avatar of modern sexism, racism, and nihilism? And why does he loom over every male friendship, every moment “with the boys”? Am I doomed, by our culture, to live as a jerk, a social parasite made fat on the sweet lard of privilege, with my male friends and colleagues? At what point did all strong homosocial relationships between men become conflated with the most vile and socially abhorrent behavior and egregious sartorial choices?

Jared Keller, self-professed bro, suggests in a Pacific Standard piece on “The Tortured Rise of the All-American Bro” that the modern bro “is a historical accident, a hostile social virus — incubated in the safety of homosocial bonding and bred in communal organizations” like fraternities and sports teams. Click through enough and you’ll end up here, a “photo history of male affection”; to round things out you might revisit Broseidon, lord of the brocean. [Pacific Standard]