From Creep to Crypto Bro: The Powerlessness-to-Violence Pipeline in Post-Punk
Capitalism is why your favorite sadboy musician hates women (and probably himself)
Not All Men
I don’t know bad men.
At least…I don’t think I do. I was raised by a multitude of strong, smart, loving men. Men that love women, or at least love me enough to make me feel that I have value in this world.
But what if I don’t know them at all? Are the same men that love me, the same men when they go into the voting booth or when they participate in online forums or when they’re alone with their partners or when they make their art?
What began as a playlist of post-punk and experimental songs with the common thread of robotic spoken word, evolved into an exploration of manhood and its impact on the women in their lives.
Fresh off a binge of Netflix’s Adolescence, I explored the “manosphere” — a dark and mysterious place filled with incels, Joe Rogan, and some foul shit I dared not bother exposing myself to. The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership describes the manosphere as “a network of online men’s communities against the empowerment of women and who promote antifeminist and sexist beliefs.”
Their vocabulary has become so mainstream that, on one hand, its use is often accompanied by a chortle and an eye roll and, on the other, has indoctrinated the world’s young boys resulting in emotional and physical violence to women. These boys eventually become voting men, men with romantic partners, men with daughters. Some of these boys become artists and, for our particular interest: musicians.
This is a mandatory disclaimer that I am not accusing the artists on this playlist or in this analysis of being incels or Beta males, or even of believing in anti-feminist rhetoric.
The selected pieces and companion playlist showcase parallels between the bands’ and compositions’ origins from the 1970s to 1990s to the present day; how social and political circumstances have driven creation of banal, disoriented, and non-conformist musical delivery to demonstrate the pipeline of perceived powerlessness among men and boys to violent ends.
Creeps’ National Anthem
We have to confront an uncomfortable truth: Radiohead has been for the incels all along. In addition to the several first dates that tried to “name three songs” me, the online Radiohead communities are either unwelcoming to women or shocked that we can be fans at all. And, fair point: Thom Yorke told us in 1995 that he was scared of us.
“Confronted by a beautiful woman, I will leave as soon as possible, or hide in a corner until they leave. It’s not just that I find them intimidating. It’s the hideous way people flock around them… The way they’re allowed to believe they’re being so fucking clever. Beauty is all about unearned privilege and power…I’ve never met a single beautiful woman I’ve actually liked.
“It’s not just beautiful women. I totally fear women. I fear all women. Ever since I’ve been at school. I would go for five months without talking to a girl my own age. I don’t think it’s misogyny. It’s the total opposite. It’s blatant fear”.
- Thom Yorke
There are unverifiable claims that Yorke has evolved since then.
The interview, conducted in support of The Bends (1995), scarily and plainly describes the type of listeners Radiohead attracts and their gross feelings about women’s privilege. Radiohead’s work is canonically for the sadboiz, the outcasts, the basement-dwelling losers. Yorke is a certified whiner and we have rewarded him for it.
Combine the band’s theatrical and swelling compositions with concerning lyrics about stalking, death, depression and you’ve got a call to arms for a would-be school shooter.
“At a better pace, slower and more calculated
No chance of escape
Now self-employed, concerned and powerless
An empowered and informed member of society.”
“Fitter Happier” (1997) is a stressful song about disconnection and perfectionism. The character narrates their desire to blend in and optimize themself using a monotone robot vocoder, layered beneath movie score-style strings and piano, television static, and AOL-era computer noises. This song and stanza specifically speak to self-optimization at the expense of oneself and the dichotomy between the power felt when in charge of oneself (self-employment) and power in numbers (being a member of society).
The stanza evokes images of sociopaths that mask their true intentions and feelings about others to gain favor; they learn to speak slower and plan responses to reel in people and gain trust. They likely do this to overcome powerlessness, as he goes on to describe as a result of being self-employed; though he immediately contradicts himself by saying he’s “an empowered and informed member of society.” For a brief moment, “no chance of escape” feels like there is a moment of realization that this self-optimizing is actually killing them inside and they feel trapped in their situation or in their place in society.
We are sold a bill of goods around the benefits of self-employment and continuous self-improvement: authority over self and others, riches, flexibility, freedom. This narrator has bought into the ideas that these lifestyle changes will lead to happiness and yet he is trapped — like “a pig in a cage on antibiotics”.
Silence is Violence
“One of those fucking awful black days
When nothing is pleasing and everything that happens
Is an excuse for anger
An outlet for emotions stockpiled. An arsenal. An armour”
In at least the past decade, there has been increased awareness of male loneliness and emotional wellbeing. According to Heads Up Guys, a non-profit organization supporting men’s wellbeing, some overlapping stressors in men include lack of purpose or meaning in life, loneliness, and financial & relationship problems. Society’s insistence that emotional vulnerability in men is weak is shortening their lifespans — and puts women’s safety at risk.
The opening stanza in “Be Safe” by The Cribs (2007) gets to the heart of male violence: their emotions are suppressed and then eventually boil over into anger and violence. The Cribs use militaristic language to describe this suppression.
Manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate are coaching our boys and men not just to suppress any hurt they feel as a result of circumstances outside their control, but to also ignore any feelings of remorse or accountability for which they are personally responsible.
High school senior Eli Thompson for the Wall Street Journal, “Trump’s brashness mirrors what many of the teenage boys I know crave—unapologetic power. The Tates, popping up in our feeds and speaking our language, make it personal, like they are coaching us through the chaos. They tell us we don’t have to feel remorse for the things we didn’t do, or even for things we did.”
MAGA-nomics
Lowered taxes on the rich
Privatized what used to be public goods and utilities
Removed “full employment” as a responsibility of the government and placed it on the shoulders of the employee and employers
As easy as it is to credit these ideas to MAGA, these policies have origins in Thatcherism (1979-1990). Prime Minister Margaret “Iron Lady” Thatcher’s had a close political relationship with President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) who was also known for corporate tax cuts (trickle-down economics) and cuts to social programs (war on drugs). Both leaders’ policies reverberate today and inform some of the selections’ creation.
Preceding both Thatcher and Reagan’s administrations are the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969). In 1964, President Johnson in his first State of the Union address declared that American poverty was an “national disgrace” and was caused by societal failings. The NYC blackout on July 13, 1977 was a picture-perfect encapsulation of all of society’s failures: increased poverty, civil unrest, and increasing violent crime.
For the artists living through this time, the world felt like it was burning around them and the suffering that accompanied it drove people to madness and murderous ideation.
In comes “Frankie Teardrop” by NYC band Suicide (1977). Released in December, a few short months after the blackout, this song details the perils of poverty. The desperation can be heard not just in the storytelling, but in the audible gasps, terror, yelling, schizophrenic episodes, and what, at the end, sounds like a microphone swaying near the speaker producing feedback.
While the “Fitter Happier” narrator feels no escape from his circumstance, “Frankie” chooses to escape through murder-suicide. These compositions show the realities of poor economic policy and its effect on men specifically.
According to the National Institute of Justice, “In difficult financial times, it may be natural to look for economic influences, especially when the killer has recently lost a job or has enormous financial problems. [Researchers] found that unemployment was a significant risk factor for murder-suicide but only when combined with a history of domestic violence. In other words, it was not a risk factor in and of itself but was something that tipped the scale following previous abuse.” Men 16-64 years old are 19% more underemployed than women in the same age bracket as of April 2025 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It’s reasonable to be fearful of domestic violence increasing among this age group as the economy worsens and access to information and help decrease.
It’s Not About the Price of Eggs
“I am nothing and everything
[…]
I find my holy scripture in shopping lists”
When not planning murder, these artists are planning dinner. The artists’ disillusionment with societal norms sparks a passive nihilism which creates a detachment from oneself and those around them. The songs’ narrators are asking the listener, “is this all there is to life?” “Fitter Happier,” “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads, “Untitled” by Permanent (Joy), and “BYE BYE” by Kim Gordon each reference the finer things in life, their versions of the perfect life and perfect self. They each discuss the aspiration for perfection, the inability to achieve it, and the emptiness that accompanies its attainment (if they ever do at all).
Gordon uses the same musical tools as the other songs on this list, but adds a woman’s touch by listing off items like lip masks, eyelash curlers, luxury designers like YSL, Bella Freud, Eckhaus Latta, and — last but not least — her vibrator.
Gordon has been part of the Sonic Youth legacy since their first release in 1982. She also lived through the same economic and social strife through the decades and probably knows more than a lot of us about the difficulties of thriving in a male-driven society. “BYE BYE” plays into the same discontent and reflections on consumerism as the other pieces, using the violent sonic motifs of the other pieces, but without the violent edge.
Their suffering invokes the teachings of Frederick Nietzsche and what happens when readers selectively listen only to the writings that enable them to dissociate and become violent in the name of nihilism and/or hedonism. Nietzsche’s writings ask the reader to reflect on if boredom and repetitive mundanity are the reason for either the acceptance or the rejection of the existence of a “soul” or “meaning of life.” Far too often are readers, and young men, take these writings as an instruction manual.
These compositions would suggest that there is no meaning of life and, thus, they have checked out of society and chosen to go with the motions to the detriment of self and of the communities of which they are a part.
Man in the Mirror
At best, these selections reflect the discontent boys and men feel about their station in life. They should be listened to as the cries for help that they are. At worst, these are reflections of indoctrination and provide fuel to the fire for listeners to check out of healthy participation in the joys of life.
I’m a woman and I love Radiohead
This piece was insightful and I learned a lot. First time hearing that Frankie Teardrop by Suicide. I’m curious to know where does someone like Marshall Mathers and Eminem fitting all of this as well.