Men are apparently paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend man camp.
Or a military style training camp in the hopes of becoming what
they believe are real men.
Now, just quick Caveat, what does it mean to be a real man?
I think that's totally subjective and
you can be a sensitive guy who is also a real man.
But nonetheless- >> Don't worry Ana I know what it means to
be a real man.
>> All right.
>> And I will explain later in the video.
>> Okay, let's simmer down.
We'll get well unfortunately get to that later.
But before we do, please stop.
Before we do, let's give you the details on this story.
And I think it really has a lot to do with human connection more than anything else.
So first some context about these so called man camps.
There was a vice investigation that followed the story of an Indiana
firefighter named Keith Schmidt.
And he received an email about this masculinity program, right?
And it's meant to be this camp where you learn to really get
in touch with your your masculinity, your manliness and all of that.
The letter was actually from this entrepreneur named Pedro's Cooleyn.
Who runs a program for men called the Modern Day Night Project.
And they also refer to it as the project for sure.
So maybe we'll do that moving forward.
So most men suffer in silence, he writes,
because they feel disconnected from their larger purpose in life.
They gorge themselves on distraction, tv social media, food,
booze pornography, all the things that make life fun.
That part was added by me.
These devices lead men further astray jeopardizing their income, marriage,
family and sense of self worth.
That apparently resonated with Schmidt.
And so he was noticing that he felt super unmotivated.
He was suffering from childhood abuse and trauma that was unresolved.
He had PTSD, thanks to his time serving in the military.
And he kept all of those emotions bottled up.
Which is unhealthy for anyone to do.
And so the email came along with a sizzle reel advertising this project.
And in the project this entrepreneur talks about what the camp is like.
As he talks, the man behind this camp B-roll plays that
resembles a Marine's recruitment ad directed by Michael Bay fun.
Men wrestle one another in chokeholds.
Men link arms in the ocean while waves crash overhead.
>> Do they kiss afterwards?
>> Men howl Banshee screams as they exit body bags.
They look tough, rugged like badasses.
>> Do they.
>> Now Pedro's the guy behind this camp, has described the project
which cost $12,000 excluding flights and hotels of course.
For men to unf themselves.
To do that Men must do hard crap.
Okay, all right, cool.
So they can level up with what he calls their five F-bombs, Faith,
family, fitness, finance, which provides a life of fulfillment.
>> Okay, those five Fs are not so bad by the way.
And I'm kidding around about the making out because like I mean
it was like out of a romantic.
They're wrestling around in the sand as the ocean waves crash over them.
I mean they were they looking deep into each other's eyes.
>> It's like a Chris Isaac music video.
>> Right, but I did it.
But I'm kidding.
This has a lot of twists and turns.
>> It really does.
>> So hold and then we'll get to our real opinions.
>> So look, the training actually includes some stuff that I think is pretty fun.
And does allow men to connect with one another.
For instance, it includes hikes.
I like hikes.
They carry heavy weights while doing it.
Which I'm not into, but they like it.
So God bless.
Sledgehammers and the American flag.
So lots of patriotism here.
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Push ups along the ocean shore while
waves break on their bodies.
>> Here we go again Jesus.
>> Crawling a mile across the dirt field full of rocks, weeds, and gravel.
Okay, so in one event called The Dash.
Which refers to the dash between the birth and death dates on your tombstone.
Men are given a shovel and instructed to dig their own shallow grave,
not into this.
They then enter a body bag, zip it up, and lay in their fresh grave.
As instructors spread a layer of dirt on top of them.
While underground each man is tasked with burying their inner bitch.
So their inner beast may rise again.
>> No interesting, okay.
Here we go again.
Okay, you wanna go on the ocean and have the waves crash on us.
And we'll release our inner bitch and then bury it.
So I could be the inner beast.
I'm kidding though.
I'm kidding.
Look, it turns out that it's got some a lot of redeeming qualities.
>> For some of them.
So half of the men who pay the money and
try to do this actually end up dropping out.
There like you're not gonna bury me.
You're not gonna put me in a body bag.
You're not gonna bury me.
It turns out I'm okay with my inner bitch, okay.
Let my inner bitch roar.
>> That was a bad thing either.
You don't camp for that.
>> I mean, I personally think like inner bitch sounds kind of badass.
But I get what they think it's weak which I disagree with.
But nonetheless, apparently halfway through, broken down physically,
emotionally and spiritually, a flip switched.
Looking at the men to his left and right,
he realized he was not alone in his struggle.
This is about Schmidt.
The person that they're profiling here.
Other men suffered just like him.
All his trauma and other ordeals didn't make him weak, they made him strong.
Because he was still here fighting, pushing onward.
So it turns out that this camp, it might not be for some people,
clearly 50% of them drop out.
But for Schmidt, it actually ended up really helping him out.
His testimony is that he actually built a better relationship with his wife.
He was able to express himself in productive ways.
So I think if it weren't for his own personal experience and
what he says he went through.
I would probably read the description of this camp and
be pretty dismissive about it.
But I think really the overall theme here isn't about like wrestling while
the waves crash on top of you.
Or burying people in body bags.
I really think it's about feeling this sense of community and
connection with others.
I think that's really the healing part of all of this.
>> No, I gotta be honest.
Like I came in thinking this is gonna be ridiculous, right?
And it's a lot of money and it's and there's so many scams in the world, right?
But I came away thinking it's got a bunch of redeeming qualities.
And I think it might not be that bad an idea.
So what are some of those?
First of all, they talk about compassion to women?
So they're not this like weird, or toxic masculinity.
Being tough isn't toxic.
Being mean is toxic, right?
And loving yourself isn't a problem.
Hating other people is a problem, right?
And they also explain that the instructors that are like navy seals and
marines and MMA fighters and stuff.
Are actually one outwardly affectionate to their partners,
which they show the other guys, okay.
>> I like that.
>> That's really good.
And also like really like each other and express that.
So they're not the like the old school masculinity.
Which is like you don't show feelings, okay, we're bros and
we're dudes and stuff.
Yeah, whatever man, right?
No, they're like, no, we like each other, right?
So I'm like, wait.
If you're just training them to be tougher physically, but
it helps them be tougher psychologically and
it lets them know that there are other guys in a similar situation.
And you could be there for one another in this physical context, but
maybe also in another context.
That's a pretty good thing, right?
And so they learned to stick up for each other.
There's another stat in the Vice article.
And I gotta say the reporter did a great job of selling it.
So that's why I'm a little grain of salt.
I didn't see it for myself.
And so there could be more negative parts I didn't see.
But and what he wrote about, and it was a book, it was a long article.
So we had a lot of details.
There was a fact in there too.
There was a study that showed one in five men in the UK.
You got that- >> I do.
This is fascinating.
So British researchers analyzed data from the 2018 BBC Loneliness Experiment.
A survey of 55,000 people around the globe.
And discovered that young men living in individualistic cultures
were those more vulnerable to loneliness, obviously.
Today a 2019 YouGov poll found almost one in five UK Men say they
have no one they consider a close friend.
And according to a 2006 analysis,
white heterosexual men have the fewest friends in America.
Guys and women, everyone.
We're social creatures.
We want connection.
And it's okay to admit that.
And it's okay to seek that out.
Again, I mean, obviously different strokes for different folks.
I would not want to like experience a lot of the stuff that was detailed at this
camp, right?
But it's it's not about what's happening at that camp.
It's about what the men are feeling in terms of a sense of community,
a connection with others.
Were so atomized.
Think about it.
I think the internet, it has a lot of great parts to it.
But it also lead to people being even more isolated.
Because social media ended up serving as a substitute for
actual in person human interaction.
And we need that interaction.
>> And there's another problem that men have in particular.
And they put kind of a cutesy little phrase to to this.
But but still it makes sense.
So they say women do face to face sharing and getting along and
friendship, etc, right?
>> Day.
That sounds lovely by the way.
And so but men do shoulder to shoulder.
So when they're in a project together, and they're either fighting for
something together or building something together, etc.
That's where they bond more, right?
And there's a lot of truth to that.
And so there's a reason why the military gets you to fight for each other.
It's like, in a sense, it's one of the oldest tricks.
But that's because that's what men respond to.
Now in the case of the military, they break you down and then build you back up.
But as a killing machine, right?
And so they get rid of the parts of your body in your mind that has reservations as
a human being about killing someone else.
But you could do that same camaraderie and
that same kind of training that bonds people together without the killing part.
So a lot of these are Marines and veterans and stuff like that.
But I like that they're going to a Bootcamp minus the killing part, right?
And so I think that there's a lot of value to.
I'm not saying you should go to this one or that all of them are good.
I have no idea which ones because there's a bunch of these that take the right
approach.
And the compassionate approach, etc.
And which ones don't.
But don't just turn off to it because it sounds like so
called toxic masculinity, right?
There's actually nothing wrong with masculinity at all.
>> I agree with you on that.
>> And so and and it doesn't mean that there aren't toxic versions of it.
It doesn't mean that you can't take masculinity in the wrong direction.
But there's nothing wrong with being feminine and
there's nothing wrong with being masculine.
And what does it mean?
It means being, in my opinion, it means being strong for others.
And guys, what's the saying for progressives?
Help someone you don't know, right?
So if they're teaching men to be strong for each other for others, for
their family, that's a pretty good thing.
And men have trouble expressing their feelings.
And they express their feelings when they're carrying heavy weights up
a mountain, right?
And so it's a way to break them down.
But then build them back up as something positive.
So if that's the direction they're going in, then I'm all for it.
And what do we have in the postgame.
>> The cutest story ever involving elderly people having a lot of fun.
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