Power of No One - Part Three

Rise of the Nobodies

Sitting in a recent meeting to discuss social media strategy over coffee, the conversation turned to the topic of “insights” — who’s following the account, where they are, what they like. It’s all intel that can help businesses and individuals looking to reach new customers or audiences find out what’s working, what isn’t, and what they can do about it.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I tapped the screen on my phone to check my own social media analytics. I’ve never done this as much as experts might recommend. I’ve always been more interested in just showing up as myself and hoping for the best. Over the years, I’ve occasionally peeked in to get a snapshot of the audience and, I’ll admit, I’ve wondered what the results say about me.

As the charts and graphs and numbers populated the screen. I saw something I had never seen before. Scrolling down under the tab marked “followers,” I saw a familiar graphic with very unfamiliar results. According to the data, for the first time ever — my audience is overwhelmingly made up of women — over 75%.

This is a complete reversal from five or so years ago when I was sitting in a conference room worrying about trying to appeal to the “Ginas” of Western New York, as I described in part two of this series. Back then, the data revealed my followers were overwhelmingly men. That shifted during the run of “Most Buffalo,” eventually landing in a nearly 50-50 split. It stayed that way until recently.

Casual observations, such as these, may be far from hard evidence but they’re certainly enough to raise an eyebrow — which brings me back to the thread stitching this entire series together.

“Someday you will be old and no one will care about you.”

Turns out, the creep who left that comment on my post all those years ago wasn’t entirely wrong.

Men like this have been conditioned to believe women exist for their pleasure, that a woman’s value is dependent on male attention and approval. When he said, “no one,” I’m quite sure he meant it and believed it to be true. In this worldview — only men and their opinions matter. They make the rules. They set the standards. Women are barely supporting characters to their male leads — never equals and certainly not leaders.

Men like this only want your passive agreement they can do and say whatever they want, whatever meets their needs at the time. Push back, and you’re instantly labeled whiny or harsh, humorless, difficult and disposable; your intelligence, interests, skills, appearance, and even your morals — all labeled inferior, your independence — a threat.

This pattern is repeated over and over and over. Maybe they’ll get what they want, or, these days, maybe they’ll start a podcast groaning about the epidemic of male loneliness or the worrying decline of masculinity. Happy to place blame on women, they are less inclined to look in the mirror, take any kind of accountability or acknowledge the harm they do to themselves by holding up patriarchal ideals.

While his attitude was certainly considered archaic 15-plus years ago, it’s now roared back into fashion and is even lauded by men and women who traffic in something they keep insisting are “traditional values.” It sounds wholesome enough, but if you ask me, what they really value is good old-fashioned privilege — though they’ll claim it doesn’t even exist.

What made me unattractive to men like this in my 30s is only compounded by my audacity to age. It’s one thing to defy them, doing so in the body of a 50-year-old woman not even worth fantasizing about, is unforgivable.

“Someday you will be old.”

He made it sound like a threat but considering life is not guaranteed, I suppose it could be viewed as charitable.

“No one will care about you.”

He really got me there. No one supports my writing. No one supports my art. No one gives me opportunities to grow my business and absolutely no one encourages me to keep going.

These “nobodies” now number in the tens of thousands with the ranks increasing everyday. They run businesses and households and circles around anyone who underestimates them.

While I can only speculate why far fewer men follow me now than ever before, I suspect this article will bring at least one or two to the surface to take offense or enter laundry lists of beloved female relatives into evidence for their defense. Whether this “activism” ever extends beyond comment sections, their family trees or if they ever stand up for women when it doesn’t benefit them personally — I can’t say.

All I can do is keep showing up as myself and hoping for the best — like nobody’s business.

Yes. It’s a real tattoo.

This essay originally appeared in my column in the April 24, 2025 edition of the Perry Herald in Perry, NY.

***

And because I’ve been on the Internet long enough to know how things like this are often received, I found this worth adding.

My husband is one of the most evolved, wonderful men I have ever known. I love him dearly and even he, at one point, listened to one of my columns and responded with, “I know what you are saying, but not all men are like that.”

I had to take a moment to have this conversation with him.

If you’re a man (or woman) who is tempted to comment, “it’s not all men,” do me a favor — don’t tell me about it. Ask yourself some questions instead.

Would you or do you speak up when a man makes a sexist comment or joke in front you? I’ll set the scene: it’s you and the guys hanging out, you’re with your sons at home, your brothers around the campfire. One of them says something derogatory or even degrading to women. Are you going to say something and hold them accountable or are you just going to let it go because you don’t want to make a big thing out of it?

Do you read books written by women, listen to music or podcasts by women,. consume any art made by or centering women or watch women’s sports?

Do you seek out advice from women you are not related to? Do you value women’s opinions?

Would you stand up for women when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular or inconvenient for you?

Why, when a woman was sharing a story about her experience, was your first instinct to center yourself?

It’s just a place to start. You may not leave gross, sexual comments on social media but that doesn’t automatically absolve anybody of anything. This is not about blame, it’s about awareness. Sexism is held up in our society due to structures we all have bought into in one way or another.

That first question? As I told my husband, I’m just as guilty. I’ve absolutely been present when a guy makes a sexist comment or joke or refers to a woman in a derogatory way. I’m better than I used to be about speaking up, but I’m still more likely to just let it go because I don’t want to make it weird, I don’t want to be that person. I have been raised and socialized to be polite — many if not most women are. Me not speaking up in these moments absolutely makes me complicit and it is an eye-opening lesson for us all.

Sexism is deeply engrained in our culture — so much so — it’s rude to point it out OR it escapes our notice entirely. Even when we do encounter it, it seems like “no big deal,” but it is a big deal. These attitudes have a lasting impact.

More importantly, the way things have always been is not superior. It’s damaging and, as I mentioned in this week’s column, men damage themselves by clinging to these patriarchal ideals as well — look at mental health. It’s very common to tell boys to “man up” and encourage them not to cry. This is not okay. They are human beings and we can’t keep raising boys who only discover feelings when they’re old enough to get married and may never learn how to express them in a healthy manner.

There’s nothing wrong with adjusting our beliefs and behavior when we have the benefit of more information. We don’t lose anything by learning and evolving.

Leaving it there for this week but, as always, thank you for being here.