Are young men okay?

Every Monday, I turn the camera off and try to get introspective on what it’s like being a news creator in 2025. This is basically my diary and you’re my younger sibling reading it. Become a member for early access to my diary!

A 22-year-old man murdered a prominent political figure with “edgy” meme-engraved bullets, and even joked about it hours later on Discord from his account, which had a Garfield meme as its avatar. I’ll go into detail on that in Monday’s video but for now I want to take a step back and talk about young men. 

Overall, they’re more moderate than millennial men. But politics aside, a larger concern is how young men are socializing, if at all. Around 20% of young men say they don’t have close friends at all. My brother-in-law has taught at the same high school for well over a decade. In recent years, he’s observed that young men are more isolated and have far more trouble talking to young women.

If it feels like I’ve been talking about you in third person while you’re in the room, you may be right. Our audience at LNI is overwhelmingly male and in their 20s, especially on YouTube. I don’t know the makeup of our newsletter audience but I imagine many of you are those exact young men. So, I’ll just speak directly to you now (hey it’s me, Fake JD 👋).

At the Online News Association conference in New Orleans on Friday, I was asked how I felt about you all (young men) being my primary audience. This was a panel with my co-founders, Lauren Saks and Micah Gelman. Notably, none of us are young men, though Micah and I once were. I won’t specify how long ago, but Micah has expressed to me that he knows how to use a Super 8 camera.

My answer, by the way, was that I’m thrilled to have earned you all as an audience. In my experience, you all have been extraordinarily thoughtful and civil in my comment sections, despite the stigma attached to your demographic. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised just how interested you all are in current events. I don’t see much of the meme culture associated with “groypers,” Nick Fuentes’ far-right followers that Charlie Kirk’s killer may or may not have associated with (again, more on this in Monday’s video). Instead, you are all original and funny and always ready with some genuinely very good Is-Dave-JD-Vance jokes.

I often say that I fell into journalism backwards, having scored an internship at the Colbert Report during the 2012 election, when I really just wanted to write for a comedy show. During the internship, I found that I really enjoyed participating in (and satirizing) political coverage. That’s in contrast to young men today, who are far more engaged than I was from the jump. You all care deeply about what’s going on.

This means it’s also easier to become consumed by hours-long podcasts hosted by unqualified hosts with questionable motives. I can empathize with the those who have spent thousands of hours listening to Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk and Joe Rogan. Because if you’ve put all that time in, how could they be wrong about anything? After all, don’t you become an expert at something after doing it for 10,000 hours? If someone tells you that your views are wrong or problematic, does that mean you wasted all that time?

This is what I hope Local News International can be: a place where anyone, young men included, can commit that time while knowing that you’re getting content from a honest, well-meaning independent source, that’s fact-checked and backed by a team of experienced journalists.

At the risk of being too preachy, I cannot imagine growing up in today’s world, overwhelmed by loud voices in media and politics, mass shooter drills in schools, a pandemic through elementary school, and a decade’s worth of scorched earth politics, without any memories of civil political debates. 

With so much content out there, I believe journalists across the spectrum, independent and otherwise, have a shared responsibility to create more opportunities for young people to be better informed and less lonely in today’s increasingly fragmented society.

This means being clear and concise about what’s happening in the world (Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood, leaving his children fatherless), while not bending over to please the far-right provocateurs (he was a racist, sexist and spewed hateful rhetoric, and there’s no point in pretending he didn’t). 

If you are one of the young men that I think I’m talking to, send me an email at [email protected]. I want to hear about what you read, care about or don’t care about. And sure, send me a funny meme too.

(If you’re not, but just a fan, hey I still want to hear from you too! And remember, we’re putting your pets you email us on our homepage!)

Before you go, I wanted to thank you profusely for helping us get to 150,000 followers on YouTube. TikTok isn’t far behind. And I’ve had to eat my own words about Reels, which is catching up quickly, often outpacing TikTok in views (in the past, I’ve said it will become obsolete. I was wrong!).

And an additional thank you to the judges at ONA. In my previous content-making life at the Washington Post Universe, we had submitted for “Best Social Engagement.” We won that award Friday. A big, hearty congrats to Carmella and Joey. It felt nice to have one last win as a team before I ran off into the Independent Media Land™️.