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GaveUp [she/her] @hexbear.net

Why do you think some people like specifically "mediocre white men"?

Nobody ever says this about mediocre white women, or any POC of any gender

Seems to me that these people want to date people of high social status/privilege in society - and due to mediocre white men's complete lack of any highly positive qualities - by virtue of being "mediocre" - can more easily be stripped back to only being viewed as white and a man as the sole standing "positive qualities", making them a more pure symbol of status/privilege

34 comments

  • Although I'm wildly confused by the framing of the question, I'm going to take a stab at it anyway.

    I see the mediocre white man as an aspirational goal. Obviously we're not talking about the white guy with the shitty job who struggles to make ends meet when we talk about mediocrity, we're talking about the guy who's a tax attorney making $350k in Texas for doing one of the only jobs that's currently 100% replaceable by AI. The guy who thinks he's super smart and deserving even though he's only a hair or two above average. That guy gets to breeze through life with every comfort imaginable and never question his position, he's got it made.

    When you look at those weird Ivy League university presidents and shit that are still often mediocre white men but also frequently men and women of color, the position of the mediocre minority is significantly more precarious than that of the white man. If they screw up or suck publicly at something they are subject to intense scrutiny. They're clearly not very good at their job, did they fuck this up because they're a token diversity hire? The white guy, on the other hand, gets quickly reprimanded and forgotten about. It's very clear which mediocre person that the average onlooker would want to be.

    Think about someone like Kamala Harris, a picture of diverse mediocrity. She has been rewarded over and over for no discernable reason and should be widely revered by mediocre women and people of unclear ethnic background as someone to aspire to be in the same way mediocre white men see Elon. While there are clearly lots of women who look up to her, the intense and lasting scrutiny she suffers for her failures keep her from reaching that mediocre white man threshold. Then consider the higher bar to clear that already exists as a non-default person and it just seems like a way less fun place to be rewarded for your mediocrity.

    The mediocre white guy is like being told you get to have as much cake as you want. It's great and if you eat too much of it like a dumbass your main consequence is a tummy ache. It's not the best but you get to go right back to eating cake when it passes. The mediocre non-white person is like being told you can have as much as you want of the same exact cake as the white guy got, but this one has a very low dose of laxative baked into it. You still get to eat cake whenever you want and even get to eat more than just about anyone else, but if you fuck up and go over the limit you're now shitting yourself in front of everyone at your work. Up to that point both experiences are objectively the same, but the threat of greater consequences taints the entire experience in a way that a tummy ache doesn't. People want to have their cake and not shit themselves too.

  • Would it be splitting hairs to say 'generic' over 'mediocre?' Mediocre has a more negative connotation when I feel the desire for average.

    Anyway, I've seen it as seeking an average guy you can see in most media depictions and institutions of power. White is just default for a lot of people. Terms like 'Average Joe' can really highlight that assumption.

    If someone is immersed in a country that promotes the myth of white supremacy, I feel like the default safe option is an inoffensive, unremarkable white man.

    Racist institutions make it harder to date other people and that's by design.

    Don't date different genders.

    Don't date white men above your station.

    Don't date different ethnicities.

    Don't not date.

    I think for a lot of people, mediocre white guys are the safest option because you get the least resistance.

    It's exhausting. It's hard to find people you want to date and for some, going for the mediocre white guy without complications is just the easier option.

    Being a person of color, I don't think my family would cheer if I dated an average white guy, but I would get fewer complaints and weird questions. It would be a conversation ender.

  • I think it's more a frustrated acknowledgement of how a racist and sexist system has made it so those who are not white and male have to work a lot harder to get the same recognition, jobs, money, appreciation and status then white men do.

    The wage gap is an example. Two people doing the exact same job and yet one of them gets paid more for being a dude.

    It's glaringly obvious if you have a straight married couple and they both have the same job. I know a couple who have the same job and even though the woman has more qualifications, works harder and longer hours and is better at the job than her husband, he gets paid more are is promoted more easily.

    The kicker? He's won awards... but only for work she helped him with (advertising industry)

    When people think a man did her work, suddenly it becomes more valuable lmao.

    So basically, non-white male people have been burning themselves out producing amazing work and are barely getting by. Meanwhile white men, while yes they still work hard, they don't have to work as hard to get to the same level of return.

    Even in day to day things you wouldn't think of like healthcare. Women find they need to work a lot harder to get a doctor to even diagnose them properly and not brush them aside.

    So that's where the exasperated cry of "Fucking hell if I had half the luck of a mediocre white man" comes from.

    It's not about white men being worse than everyone else, it's about how social structures favour them more. It's not saying mediocre POC women don't exist, rather that a mediocre man can survive where others will not simply because they are catered too in our racist, sexist society more than anyone else.

    • Meanwhile white men, while yes they still work hard, they don't have to work as hard to get to the same level of return.

      Precisely. I think the word "privilege" kinda gaslights people into thinking that they aren't working hard. Everyone is working hard, but not everyone is rewarded the same way. I'm even able to believe that capitalists work hard but they don't work 312 times harder than I do, so they don't deserve their wealth.

34 comments