The Hive
Constructing Modern Femininity on Social Media
In which I examine the rarely explored world of female social media creators, and the implications for mass psychology and opinion formation.
The Unfulfilled Promises of Progress
There has been a lot of hubbub about tariffs, deportations, judges, elections, social media posts. Some of that churn is the natural result of a new media environment, with new financial incentives and new platforms. I’m beginning to suspect that a deeper purpose of our hyperactive, absurdly biased information transmission systems is to preclude any exploration of deeper questions. If you can keep people distracted, upset, focused on individuals and events (which pass out of our collective attention almost as quicky as they appear) then people might be less inclined to ask more fundamental questions, like:
In what direction are modern values taking us?
What answers and solutions are being proposed (if any) for urgent contemporary social problems, like the fragmentation of real-world social networks and the increasing rates of neurosis and anomie among children and adults?
Are the promises of modernity paying off?
It’s an odd phenomenon: nearly everyone agrees that the answer to the last question, overall, is ‘no.’ It is hard to find someone who will deny that, after decades of globalization, technologization, feminism, and the encroachment of consumer culture into every corner of our world, things seem to be getting better. The sense of vanishing solidity and meaning is everywhere. Nevertheless, our social system is deeply invested in globalization, technologization, feminism, and the encroachment of consumer culture. These developments have created and enriched our rulers and managers. People who work in administration and education and healthcare and the nonprofit sector and media are prone to structural economic shifts, of course. They’re not immune from the roiling uncertainty of the modern economy, but as a class they have been awarded many trillions of dollars and their power and authority is near its zenith. Recent events have begun to wrest back some of their coercive control over the economy and over society, but even developments these fit into the larger picture: the managerial class cannot frankly examine the promises they’ve made or wrestle with the disappointing results. They are consumed by the struggle against insurgent ideas, institutions, and threats to their class power. But if you ask them privately, they will often admit it: things aren’t going well. Leaving aside the (ephemeral) debates about DOGE and executive orders and stock market fluctuations, no one really seems to believe that more of the same will redeem us.
Long ago I began to suspect that our problems were deeper than politics. Extrapolate the trendlines: marriage, childbirth, immigration, reported happiness, government growth, depression, anxiety. You quickly (within decades) arrive at a society in which marriage is only common among the rich. Most children are raised by a single parent (usually a mother). National identity and high trust culture have been eroded by the arrival of large groups of people from different parts of the world. There is a potential future in which many of these people are contributing to the economy (at least in the United States)… but progressives’ policies aren’t formulated to make that happen. As crazy as it may sound, there are many leaders within our technocracy that advocate giving the newcomers generous benefits and awarding them transfer payments, indefinitely (which is not a recipe for economic assimilation). This might have something to do with the fact that these awards and the associated programs are administered by the technocrats themselves, and the funding therefore represents an augmentation of their influence and incomes.
People are desperately unhappy, none more so than the ostensible beneficiaries of this shiny new reality: educated young women living in cities, who are essentially the foot soldiers of this modern program. Every policy, every value, every program, every meme that is most associated with modernity (globalization, technologization, feminism, and the encroachment of consumer culture) is disproportionately supported by young women. Many of the actual mechanisms to create and enforce this new social order (increasingly feminized universities, increasingly generous social programs, increasingly ideological public education, increasingly pervasive mental and physical healthcare, increasingly liberal immigration policies and migrant support bureaucracies, increasingly anti-male corporate hiring practices, increasing cultural skepticism towards marriage and childbirth and risk and competition generally) are staffed and managed by educated women. Corporate feminism is, in a very real sense, now the animating value system of our society. I can find a hundred examples of our institutions actively promoting it. Can you find a single example of such an institution questioning or eroding it? That is ideological enforcement in clear action, and the fact that this enforcement is never acknowledged or addressed only makes it more sinister.
The disparity between liberal women and others has expanded dramatically since 2025 (and the overall mental health of liberal women has declined). The answer, according to our government and culture? More of the same!
Why would educated young women be building and defending a system which is making them less happy and more anxious, and lonely, and unfulfilled? Some of the explanations probably have to do with the short-term planning window which has been programmed into young people. People are encouraged to buy goods and services which make them feel happy or entertained or stimulated in the short-term and are actively discouraged from planning for the future or conceptualizing their lives in terms of decades. The media environment has never been more frenetic and myopic. We all feel this, and it’s leading to many people completely disengaging from a style of journalism that feels false and hysterical. Modern life plans are built around an endless ladder of education, internship, application, promotion, etc., which never ends. Participants are never encouraged to ask why they are engaging in the first place. Our culture lacks a sense of the ineffable. It lacks a sense of meaning. It lacks a structure for people to search for these things (especially together). And it relentlessly gives all of us the message that such concerns are somehow unreal, or less important somehow. The important matters, the narrative goes, center around jobs and vacations and dates and pets and purchases-selfish, disconnected, commodifiable constructs that offer subjective engagement and distraction.
The question that people are increasingly asking is: why? What is the teleology of this vast and heaving social organism and why is it so important that I get a career and an apartment and engage with TikTok every day? The reasons, of course, have nothing to do with the good of the individual or of society. You must do those things because doing those things maximizes the revenue and political control for the technocratic class.
How is it possible that so many people have blithely bought into this bleak and empty conception of life?
The Hive
Young women don’t really consume much content about politics or current events or history. Some do, of course, but it is an extremely awkward fact for the constructers of our modern feminist myth (women are, as a group, just as smart and competitive and decisive and ambitious as men) that women do not, in fact, generally like to listen to programmers or historians or economists speak for hours about subjects as entertainment. They just don’t. They are not, on average, as interested in philosophy and military history and mathematics and physics and engineering and statistics as men. (Incidentally, if you then require that half or more of any of those fields contain women at any level you will be significantly degrading the quality of the field’s professional talent. If you impose artificial supply constraints of any kind, you’re likely to degrade the quality of the professional field’s talent).
It seems increasingly undeniable to me that the ideological preoccupations of the majority of young women are a function of their dislike of deep and analytical content, and their engagement with a social media complex in which conformity, pathological empathy, and expressions of emotion are prized far above rigor, debate, or intellectual honesty.
In short: young women are being brainwashed. The problem goes much deeper than merely politics.
Young women do watch shows and podcasts and reels that feature politics of course. But one only has to encounter a few minutes of this material to notice a striking difference: the treatments of the issues tend to be shallow (talking points, rather than in-depth exchanges), one-sided (only representing the supported beliefs, while rarely giving an honest accounting of their opposition-this is connected to the avoidance of long-form podcasts and debates generally), and moralistic (things tend to be framed in terms of feelings, hurts, victimization, fairness-more often ‘equity’ these days-trauma, and norms). If it’s a conversation, both women (for it’s usually between two women rather than a man and a woman) gush with praise about each other. They begin the exchange with effusive compliments… and never actually voice any criticism or complaints. Praising your podcast guest is pro forma in the industry, of course, but one gets the sense that something rather different is going on here. Another strange feature of this content is the artificial, but regimented, lexicon which is used. There is a very discernable pattern of speaking (TikTok voice) from which these women simply do not deviate. The tone is chatty, casual, with lots of extended vowels and facial expressions. The content is filmed in an intimate and confessional style. If it’s one woman (or girl) she will use words like ‘y’all’, ‘I can’t’, ‘over it’, ‘it’s giving… ‘, and pepper her elocution with rhetorical questions, concessions (‘look-I’m not here to judge’, ‘that’s fine! Do you boo’) and expressions of emotion (exasperation, indignation, incredulity). It is quite a display. Its remarkable nature is perhaps only exceeded by the fact that no one ever seems to comment on this strange new social reality. We have entered the Hive.
The Hive is a collective organism, comprised of many tens of millions of creators and billions of viewers (nearly all female, some of whom claim to be nonbinary, and others of whom are gay men) who regularly watch other young women hold forth on topics. The viewers are subtly pressured, by the innate female tendency towards social conformity and desirability bias and an aversion toward conflict or disagreement or iconoclasm, to speak in a certain way (TikTok voice). The lingo is replete across Instagram and Snapchat as well; it is highly gendered, but feminists don’t like to explore the dynamics of this lexical divergence because of its implications for their project. They are pressured to think in a certain way and to hold certain ideas and advertise certain values. In this way the Hive is a self-regulating homeostatic body. The members are constantly separated from reality by their reliance upon a feedback mechanism that only integrates the feelings and desires and prejudices of the other members.
Dating discourse is one notable example. There are endless TikToks of women bemoaning the quality of men and experiences available to them, and advertising status through their dismissal of substandard prospects and through their claims of independence, aversion to drama, and easy-going natures (it goes without saying that many of these self-descriptions bear absolutely no relation to reality-low drama women are far less likely to record TikToks). Dating is very difficult these days. Women tend to prefer men who have more status (or, in a pinch, equal status, but rarely less) and more money than they do… but our society has systematically advantaged women and redistributed roles and money and programs from men to women, and from male-dominated professions to female-dominated ones. This has been an open political project for decades now. Consequently, women now have fewer options of men who have equal/more status and money than they do. Notably, the preference of women for high-status and prosperous men doesn’t diminish as women become more successful. It increases.
Dating is also now done primarily on dating apps, and women tend to ‘swipe right’ (express interest) in only around 2% of men, on average. Those men tend to be the ones which have the most appealing, attractive profiles (most of this variation rests in the handsomeness of the photos on offer). Unfortunately for these women, the men who they find most attractive are nearly always the same men that other women find attractive. There’s a profound scarcity problem here. (Men swipe right on around 50% of women’s profiles on dating apps). Consequently, many women are chasing few men, and so those few men have no incentive to offer real, extended commitment (or much of anything, really). There are other factors, of course. The changing norms around sex and the isolation of many young men and the increasing search of many women for adventure or ‘travel buddies’ or fun, rather than commitment, all play a role. The mathematical sex ratio inherent to dating apps however is, by far, the biggest obstacle to women finding romance.
Some men glory in this cornucopia of hopeful, unrealistic women. Some seek commitments, but if they are high status they can often land women who are uncommonly attractive. Youth plays a huge role here as well. Women in their 30’s become progressively less appealing to men (to virtually all men in that age bracket, regardless of whether those men want children or not) and this further distorts the dynamics of dating. Decades ago, we lived in strong and interlinked communities and so we had a lot of information available about potential matches (plus we were operating upon a cultural template of uniform monogamy, in which women who ended up unmarried or childless would face implicit social disapproval and lose status, pushing them towards bonding with less-than-stellar romantic options). Now we live in a world of apps, and the shallow nature of the selection mechanism, combined with the hypergamous tendencies of women (who are incentivized by human reproductive constraints to choose their mates very carefully) mean that many women are chasing many fewer men, and that less attractive or older women will probably have to adjust their expectations and standards downward in order to find a stable, long-term relationship.
What does the Hive say about all of this? You’re worth it. Don’t settle. “I AM the table” (an answer to the question ‘what do you bring to the table?). These men out here be crazy! Like, what is going on? Everyone is meant to find their person. Astrology. Attachment styles. Manifesting. Intuition. The advice to women and diagnoses of the problem by the Hive is completely disconnected from reality.
I mention dating because this is a particularly important issue for young women, and a lot of energy has been expended online processing and speculating about it. It is striking: almost every piece of female content regarding dating that I have seen focuses on the feelings of the women involved and is careful to avoid mentioning uncomfortable realities or likely counterpoints. The entire project is one of encouragement, affirmation, and validation. These are valuable qualities, certainly, but when they become the entire basis of fixed beliefs about complicated and important subjects then we have wandered onto dangerous ground.
Again and again and again (on issue after issue) you will find explanations with no basis in fact, and recommendations which invite failure and disappointment. One quickly realizes that the stories being told are being told because they flatter the impulses or feelings of the tellers. Everyone assents to this. Everyone participates. This new imaginary world becomes their reality, and a strange reality it is.
I would submit that some portion of the frankly absurd beliefs that our society now expresses-about obesity, mental illness, competition, gender, equity-are artifacts of this feelings-based reasoning style, in which validating the feelings of certain people is paramount and introducing real world data (for any purposes other than to bolster the narrative, or make the collectivity feel better) is frowned upon. How can ideas like the ‘gender pay gap’ persist? How can people proceed in blissful ignorance of the costs of single parenting and epidemic divorce? Why doesn’t anyone ever push back on the infuriating references to ‘neurodivergence’ or ‘ADHD” or ‘complex PTSD’ in conversations to which those diluted concepts do not relate? This might be your answer.
If I’m correct, the Hive might become an existential threat to democracy at some point in the next two decades. Ignorance and prejudice are inevitable in society, but having millions of people who ardently want to free all black convicted felons, simply because they’re black (a made-up example, but not an entirely laughable one), or who think that every person should be guaranteed a home and a university education and free, quality medical care (unfortunately, not a made-up example) can quickly turn a government into a clown car of emotional impulse and unworkable policies.
20 years ago, Democrats agreed that border security was of prime importance and vocally advocated the deportation of every illegal immigrant arrested for a crime. We should ask ourselves how things shifted so quickly. The Hive must be part of the explanation.
Crying in Front of the Camera
The Hive isn’t a construct that was designed to indoctrinate people. It is, rather, a kind of extended female social circle, in which women from all over the world can adjust their ideas, attitudes, values, identities, and vocabulary to accord with one another. It’s not so much that one narrative is imposed on the system, or that nonconformity is punished. Nonconformity doesn’t have to be punished. It is exceedingly rare. Conformity is the entire point. Status and beauty (and sympathy) earn certain actors some agency and flexibility, but their real end is always to gain more status and sympathy, not to accurately reflect reality. This entire social galaxy of young women who fancy themselves rational, independent, educated citizens subject themselves to an algorithmic tool of emotional manipulation (emotions like pity, anger, indignation, hope, sadness, fear) for hours every day. Much like the lost adolescents I wrote about last month, these are individuals who are actively damaging their worldviews and their mental health, in order to gain status and achieve distraction. Adolescents made a splash because it (inaccurately) diagnosed a problem with the ‘manosphere’ (a term which journalists don’t seem to understand). But every piece of data we have indicates that it is actually young women who are suffering far worse due to their exposure to social media platforms. Why isn’t that discussed? I think the answer is clear: the Hive serves the interests and supports the agenda of our professional class. If girls can be programmed to value work and status above everything, to regard men with suspicion and disgust, to depend upon social media and the state (really the bureaucracy) to meet their emotional and physical needs (rather than a husband and children and community), and (above all) to avoid analytical and objective thinkers or contrary data or open debate, the power of the ruling class will be enhanced. Consequently, a fictional Netflix series is treated as an urgent social crisis, and the real social crisis of young women and girls disappearing into the Hive is actively made worse.
Every piece of education and culture and media which is designed to appeal to young women that I have seen endeavors to push them into a relationship with this creature, and to emphasize its importance. It is a rare girl who will disregard her friend group altogether to do her own thing or think her own thoughts. Soon it will be a rare professional woman who doesn’t attend to the Hive, checking in daily to post and watch and scroll… and cry.
There are a lot of women and girls crying on social media. Let that sink in for a minute. A LOT. I remember encountering a young woman (some kind of fashion influencer) on Instagram years ago who was weeping in one of her reels. It wasn’t for any particular reason, that I remember. She had PCOS (another very popular subject for the Hive) and she said that it made her emotionally erratic and she was posting this video of herself crying ‘to raise awareness.’ I was already aware that humans sometimes cried, and I also knew the psychological data which indicates that females (especially teenagers) often have a strong empathetic response to such displays. They tend to feel the emotion, and they rush in to comfort and to ‘offer support.’ I pointed this out, and mentioned that I thought it might be a rather unkind thing to subject millions of strangers to an emotional response simply because you were feeling sad (and-let’s be honest-wanted attention). The replies I received were not agreeable. I realized that I had wandered into a social reality that I wasn’t supposed to see, and in which my participation definitely wasn’t wanted.
That is the curious thing about the Hive. It’s less a psyop, or a planned propaganda avenue (I suspect), and more a natural expression of female psychology applied to the distorted and unnatural world of social media. Women might want to see themselves (or at least their sex) as explorers and leaders and fighters and tycoons (Hollywood certainly wants us to see them in this way) but, given the opportunity to do anything online, it is rather men who gravitate towards investing resources and self-improvement content and Stoicism and hardcore exercise regimens. Women tend to spend an awful lot of time ‘spilling the tea’ (gossiping), and doing their makeup, and rehashing celebrity details, and participating in simplistic and emotional conversations about difficult and complex topics (for which emotion is rarely helpful). Sometimes they also cry. When men cry, they are not likely to record themselves doing it, upload the recording to TikTok, edit it, post it (on some flimsy pretext of ‘honesty’ or ‘awareness raising’ or ‘realness’)… and wait for the ‘support’ to roll in.
There are two reasons the Hive is never discussed, I think:
It is helpful for sellers and creators and policymakers and investors to keep women confused, upset, lonely, and dependent upon them for feelings of security.
Conversations about the Hive raise uncomfortable issues around the different interests and intrasexual dynamics and emotional makeups of men and women.
Tomorrow, I will write about ‘the Longhouse’, the other bulwark of modern femininity. The Longhouse is more carefully managed by our rulers and is more closely bound up with the tools of power. Its values and design are organized in a more top-down fashion than the Hive, but these two complexes feed off of and reinforce one another.
I enjoyed your writing and took some time to cook a certain thought to medium-rare:
Having always been a non-conforming female, it has surprised me as I get older to find myself still experiencing strong negative emotions about not conforming to "the group". I try practising acceptance (as opposed to trying harder to conform), but I can't quite "get over it".
It strikes me that there's a huge qualitative advantage to having a female group that will consent to co-rearing their children with mine, and that, in a pinch, if I'm sick or dead it's a big question whether one of my "sisters" will hold my baby.
So my deep psychological need could connect to the obvious evolutionary advantage that a sisterly group has in the "nurturing" phase of the reproductive cycle - especially the early part where a husband's best efforts still couldn't feed a baby.
Now we have this curious tangle, especially in the cities, where the "courtship/mating" phase (let us conflate those two for the sake of simplicity) is overlapping with the "nurturing" phase. We could say that those "ought not" to be both active simultaneously, but I guess the brainwashing in combination with the basic madness caused by population density (and hormonal contraceptives) cultivates this.
Presumably, it is a minority of female hive members who actually have children and are using their online networks to discuss their parenting (in a digitally diffused but still recognisable version of a parents' support group). Like the worker bees in the actual hive, most of them don't have children, but still have an active nurturing instinct that is readily applied to any other vulnerable group. And still - perhaps like me - react to the threat of group ostracism with fear of no-one being there to hold their baby.
very interesting - just now i skimmed some and fully read large parts but will check out the rest when i have time - i have not seen any of what you analyze here since i don't partake of any of those platforms; i boycott them all in fact. SS is the only social media platform i have interacted with, and i am a non-conforming woman and not young. still tho, i am surely seeing the reflection in the surrounding culture of that which you bear witness to here.