I also feel this is true, and I wonder why that is. I remember when Jonathan Franzen turned down Oprah's Book Club, an honor for which most authors would commit actual murder, because he was afraid it would scare away the already dwindling audience of men. Something weird happened in the late 90s.
Here's an incisive writeup in Vox that explains the Franzen controversy and sheds some light on the 'why don't men read fiction anymore' question as well.
Now that you mention it.. Growing up my dad bought books 📚 all the time from Amazon (like I do now) but hardly ever read them. He claimed he was too busy but I always suspected there was more to it.
I used to read fiction voraciously. In my 40s, dealing with a protracted and bitter divorce, I stopped being able to concentrate long enough to read ANYTHING. Now I'm reading more often again, but fiction keeps defeating me. I really don't know why and I hate it.
You see it in extreme forms with the Andrew tates, ranting how it’s pathetic to like Star Wars, or sff in general
They shame each other for even caring about fiction
My first reaction to this is surprise, as most of my male friends read regularly. But then I think about those friends and they're all SFF fans, so it makes sense.
Outside this, my male co-workers/acquaintances never mention books... while the girls/women I know who read talk about books often.
I worked at a bookstore many years ago, and it was remarkable how her recommendation would improve sales of a book. We'd go from stocking a few copies to filling a shelf with them.
Yeah, it was right around then. Here are some names: Louis L'Amour, John D. MacDonald, Donald E. Westlake (aka Richard Stark). These were more or less household names in the '80s because grown men were buying and reading their novels. It's kind of incredible how "men's fiction" has disappeared
I google the gap and the first thing coming up is articles saying this is happening from the mid-00s, ooof. And apparently a worldwide issue? (Sometimes I've seen "men aren't seeing the books they want" but there's books on _anything_)
It unfortunately does feel generally true for my millennials (I would probably bet the same for gen z). Meanwhile, historical bios and political punditry books seem to have absolute strangleholds on my dad’s generation.
The central argument strikes me as unlikely. Tater tots & co are a relative outlier compared to the majority, with the thrilled genre especially doing well and being massively masc in nature.
SFF & horror also has a big male readership, so does self-help and memoirs. I suspect social media is to blame for less reading in public, mainly because smartphones are so convenient and social media is so addictive. I think public shaming is going to be low down on the impact list
They live their lives in a fog of fiction about how the world is "supposed" to work - no need to read other people's fiction that contradicts their fiction
