The Organist
Episode 69: The Testosterone Abyss
The website Weird Dude Energy is singularly devoted to collecting the most inexplicable male behavior on the internet. It’s funny and weird, but if you study it carefully, it also raises some troubling and complicated questions: about contemporary masculinity and community—and about violence, misogyny, and Donald Trump.
By Andrew Leland • • 19m ListenA man screams “why are you closed? Tell us the reason!” over and over as he rattles a pair of locked doors outside a Toronto shopping mall. Klaus Kinski berates the officiant at his own wedding while he lavishes a disturbing amount of affection on his bride. A clean-cut guy in glasses beatboxes the entire drum part of Rush’s “YYZ.” The Tumblr Weird Dude Energy is singularly devoted to collecting the most inexplicable male behavior on the internet. It’s funny, and it’s weird, but if you study it carefully, it also raises some troubling and complicated questions: questions about contemporary masculinity and community. It even raises questions about violence, misogyny, and Donald Trump. For the Organist, the writer Mark Sussman stared into the testosterone abyss of Weird Dude Energy and sent us back this report.
Written by Mark Sussman. Produced by Mickey Capper.
