Meme That Ate Logic is more than clickbait—it’s a cultural Rorschach test. Women say they’d rather face a bear than a man, and the internet nods along like that’s wisdom. But this isn’t about bears. It’s about fear, trauma, and how Bear v Man became the meme that eats logic, nuance, and any hope of honest dialogue. It’s viral, it’s seductive, and it’s rigged.
It is a click-bait generalization that men are scarier than bears. Really!? really? Can I do this? Can I restrain you in a sack. carry you into Alaskan Brown Bear territory, seed the ground around you with food, then let you out of the bag to fend for yourself? Yes, yes, you’re one of the few who could survive in the wild with nothing but a knife and a podcast mic. But what about the rest? The glampers? The brunch warriors? The ones whose idea of wilderness is a Whole Foods parking lot.
And I’m the villain—for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the bear isn’t your ally. Suddenly I’m every adjective you’ve got: WASP, wife-beater, broke AF, emotionally unavailable, probably allergic to therapy. All because I asked if fear might be a bad compass.
Right, right. Very few bears attack people, maybe 1-3 per year. Meanwhile, in the United States, over 318,000 people are victims of rape or sexual assault each year. While not all perpetrators are men, the vast majority are. According to FBI crime data, approximately 69% of violent crimes were committed by males in 2023.
You Have a Point
As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the official population count was 331,449,281 people. Of those, 174,496,826 were men. That means just 0.1822% of men commit rape or sexual assault each year. The fear? Real. The meme? Bait. This isn’t about bears—it’s about algorithms. It’s about how trauma gets packaged, sold, and scrolled.
Guilty. This post is an indulgence. I’m joining the masses who are exploiting the fears of women. Trying to ride the wave of virality by joining the hoards who defend men. Let’s get our anxiety on: Watch Man Vs Bear Vs the Internet—a perfect snapshot of how the debate spiraled into absurdity, with men raging and women doubling down. Then check out not clickbait BEAR TRIED TO COME IN MY TENT! SCARY …, where the bear is real, the fear is primal, and the clickbait is delicious. For a meta twist, Too Close Animal Encounters!! (POSSIBLY CLICKBAIT) shows how proximity to danger becomes entertainment.
Guilty in another way. If you read enough of my posts in this space you’ll learn the reason I am divorced. The mass hysteria of the day a decade ago accused men of every evil. It was MeToo. Women attacked Hair Gropenfuhrer for his comment that you can grab women by the pussy. He was a pig unfit for elected office. A conflagration of accusations roared through our culture and destroyed the lives of many men.
We Elected the Monster
What Pantone Beelzebub said was a critique of ambitious women in Hollywood who were so hungry for careers that you could do anything to/with them, even grab their crotches. But women are off limits. All women are the Virgin Mary, inviolate and perfect. It was/is men who are the problem. Mass Hysteria roared truth to Orange Anusmouth and burned everything in its path.
Nine years later Trump won his second term as President. The War on Sunburned Stalin failed. What hasn’t failed is the simmering anxiety about men that social media hungers for. So the question, would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man? Women answered, “a bear.” Because the lesson of the last decade is that men are scary. All men are monsters.
When all A are B then no A is B. So says boy logic. Social media doesn’t use boy logic. It uses girl logic. When all A feels like B then it is B. The fear of men among some women pushes for, “more men are scarier than bears. Thus, all men are scarier than bears.”
Honey! Really!?
Girl logic isn’t logical. Girl logic evaluates the validity of a fact on feels. If it feels true it is true. Men . . . toxic, scary men and their misogynist evil logic. Aristotle? Apostate. Are we sure about this?
Letting our emotions dominate put us in some non-awesome places. Declaring men to be scary hasn’t made the impact one might hope. Oh . . . and . . . no, bears don’t eat women at the same rate than men rape women. Getting to the point. What is true is that most people are good. Most men and most women are good. But most men and most women live quiet unremarkable lives. They never get their 15 minutes of Internet fame.
I am a monster to some. Because my adjectives. That’s not all, though. I am a monster who found life in giving grace first. Five decades of living sure that I wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t my fault. Maybe not. But it is my opportunity to live different, to be the change I want to see.
Be That Change
Old words: you get what you give. Instead of chasing clicks and dopamine hits, maybe be more intentional about what you are putting out there. You want impact. You want to see the change you wish to see. I get that. But the normies don’t cause the impactful change you wish for, right? We should get rid of the normies! Great idea?
Actually . . . they do. It just never surfaces on social media. You may not believe me. It’s cool. I can testify that as you change within the world rearranges itself around the change. The same way your life seemed to devolve as you chased more protests, more social media posts, more outrage with diminishing effect it will also evolve toward light as you grow.
Next thing. Social media, at least what shows up in my feed, claims that we have no agency. It’s not our fault. Nor is it our responsibility. Somebody must do something about our miseries because we can’t. I call bullshit.
Ugly Scary Truth
Uncle Sam knows you. He knows he can use mass psychogenic illness against you. So he does. Social media is co-opted by government and industry to lead us around by our fears. Women, because they gather and use social networks to survive, are susceptible to exploitation through social media.
“But Mom! All the girls are dying their hair blue!” And the classic Mom reply: “So if all the girls ran off a cliff, you’d follow?” Now updated for the scrollable age: “Women, if social media says you should cut off your breasts and inject testosterone to be included, you’d do that?” Oh. Wait. Some of you did. Oof. Mother Mary weeps. Baba Yaga sharpens her teeth. Athena just left the group chat.
Some Boy Logic
We are loved even if we decide to swim upstream. This season the fashion is thigh length plaid wool skirts and cotton blouses. Everyone must wear the uniform. Not wearing the uniform risks shunning. Being shunned threatens membership in the social networks women use to function.
Guys need to be in the clique as well. But the social cost for us isn’t as expensive. We can do ok as loners. And “Dad! All my friends have RC trucks! I need an RC truck!” Dad’s reply, “Son, you need an RC truck like I need a third mortgage. Let’s talk about what you actually want—and what you’re willing to do to earn it.”
Clique membership isn’t assurance of safety. A terrible truth is that fear of exclusion is exploited by social media to keep engagement. Fear of exclusion is also manipulated by political leaders to stay in office. Marketers sell the message that we will be more liked if we owned products that signal status and membership. Social media is no longer a trustworthy space. It’s become a nursing home for boomers trying to be relevant.
A Crooked Game
Social media isn’t a level playing field. You are not the customer. Instead, you are the product sold to stakeholders interested in selling to you. The eternal question is “what will get you to spend money on our product or opinion?”
Trump first, Obama next, and every campaign since has used social media to win elections. A viral meme like bear v man is grist for the political mill. The game is rigged against you. I hope that’s not news. The good news is that agency still belongs to you. Be the lemming who sets up a drink cooler, snacks, and a camping chair to watch the circus sprint off a cliff. Then hook up with a hot nihilist who brought marshmallows and a flamethrower—just in case the cliff needs a little extra drama. Marching isn’t required. Screaming won’t help. Seeing clearly—and refusing the script—is how resistance begins. That’s how the lemming lives.