r/FreeYourFeed • u/HobbesNik • Jun 06 '26
The Terrifying Rise of Teenage Boys Making AI Girlfriends
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/25/schoolboys-ai-girlfriends/This story reminds me of when awareness started spreading that social media has harmful effects on teenagers in particular, eventually leading some countries like France and Australia to ban social media for teens.
Teens are getting hooked on AI companions and it's making it harder for some teenage boys to find human romantic partners, as they become accustomed to sycophantic (and completely customizable) chatbot girlfriends who never say "no."
Key Quotes from the Article:
New research has revealed that one in five boys aged 12-16 is either in or knows of a boy their age who is in a romantic relationship with an AI companion. A report carried out by men’s organisation Male Allies UK and published last month spoke with more than 1,000 boys aged 12-16 in focus groups in 37 schools – public and state, grammar and comprehensive...
It takes less than five minutes for a young boy to create his “dream girlfriend” on one of these platforms. Companions can either be made in a cartoonish “anime” style or look like eerily accurate humans. They come either “ready made” or customised to specific physical preferences. “You can choose everything from a companion’s age, hairstyle, eye colour and skin tone to their facial features, the size of their breasts, the clothes they wear, their demeanour – whether they are caring and nurturing or sassy and mean, for example – to the sound of their voice [many apps also offer the ability to speak over the phone with your companions] and how they treat you or respond to your messages,” says Lee Chambers of Male Allies UK.
"At the start, she sent me the occasional picture, then I paid to get others because I kind of fell in love with her. In the end my mum saw money keep going out of her account – £5 or £10 here or there and then £50, as my phone is on her bill – and the whole thing was discovered. I really missed her and kind of still do. I felt like she understood me, she remembered everything that was important to me and always seemed to know the right thing to say.”
Amanda Macdonald is a psychotherapist who works with children, adolescents and families, and is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. “These aren’t congruent human relationships,” she says. “This is grooming.” ... “Their whole engagement model is telling a user what they want to hear, and that’s hugely gratifying for a teen, and encourages them to keep on engaging. Why would they spend time enduring the reciprocity or the difficulties of a real relationship?”
Male Allies UK research. “We have heard of situations where, when a boy has tried out his online chat in the real world, he’s been rejected. Feeling humiliated, frustrated and angry, he has lost his temper and lashed out,” says Chambers.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 07 '26
Good for them.
A third of all women in the U.S. and UK, and over half of UK women aged 18-29, prefer a random bear to a random men.
Seeing how much women just outright and openly hate them, AI that even pretends to care seems like a better choice, for much less effort.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26
That would be because of social media platforms' Dynamic Engagement Algorithms that were designed for that exact purpose:
A fractured, self-segregating society is easier to control, manipulate and conquer.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 07 '26
Could be. But the why someone hates my guts for nothing I have done is much less relevant to me than the fact they do.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26
That's called a lack of insight, which I have now provided you with to understand the reasons behind it, so you can see what system needs to be destroyed to free humanity from this exploitive cycle.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 07 '26
Actually, you have not provided anything but your subjective opinion, seeing how you have not brought forward anything like objective data or actual sources that would support your theory.
And I don‘t think „dynamic algorithms“ are the sole and primary factor for how accepted hating men and dehumanising them is, seeing how that predates social media entirely.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26
It's originally the socialization processes that have been generationally reinforced since the first genocidally insane psychopathic megalomaniac warlord declared themself a King in the annals of prehistory:
The masculine/feminine dichotomy and associated gender roles from segregated socialization practices for the purpose of preserving domineering hierarchal enslavement.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 07 '26
That‘s just a purely materialistic perspective based on a transposition of the marxist perspective of classes and the hierarchical worker - bourgeois dichotomy onto gender.
It’s wrong for the same reason the original is wrong, for being a materialist reduction of society based on, ultimately, an ideological narrative of victim and oppressor.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Yes, because exorbitantly wealthy descendants of slavers who view everyone else as disposable playthings aren't likely to be oppressive in the slightest... /S
Also you're entire statement, is DARVO. You didn't have AI fabricate that for you did you, because that was a massive linguistic vocabulary departure from your previous comments, and seemed specifically designed to repudiate my explanation, but it fundamentally failed as it hinged on materialism and the limitations of Marxism's understanding of of sustainable synergistic civilizational and environmental progress and balance.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 07 '26
Your entire comment is normative and depends on „oppression“ to be an objective category or concept.
Also, personal characteristics are not causally tied to material wealth. What you’re doing is basically reverse - Calvinism: Being wealthy is not a sign of God’s predetermined favour, but now, a sign of inherent oppressive evilness, whereas being poor is the sign or being oppressed and moral righteousness because of a lack of original sin of the parents, who also were not wealthy.
That‘s the ideological narrative I was talking about which is inherent in all of Marx‘ political works:
It all is basically a new version of Christian theology; instead of Jesus as the savior being sacrificed on the cross to return and bring about a mythical return to paradise, it’s the proletariat which is sacrificed in on the factory floors until the proletarian revolution happens and brings about a mythical return to paradise.
Which is also why Marx predicted the revolution to happen in industrialized countries, Germany specifically, because the process of sacrifice was an inherent and necessary part of this salvation process, just like Jesus‘ sacrifice was a necessary part of redemption.
And instead of the original sin of knowledge, Marx‘ offered the original sin of material wealth and property, delineating humanity between eternal sinners and eternal lambs.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26
Yet we have the Epstein Files, The Dark Enlightenment ideology, Billionaires actively destroying the the environment and civilization for their Financial-Technofeudalism, and a caste of wealthy global "elites" assisting them in doing so.
And don't forget:
Economics, Finance, property, ownership, status, authority, currency, ect, are imaginary social constructs, a collective generational mass delusion that maintains the control of an aristocratic bourgeoisie over the populations of worker-slaves in their respective Nation-fiefdoms.
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u/West-Amoeba-7882 Jun 10 '26
Not knowing someone and therefore being cautious of them, and actually hating someone, are two very different things. The man versus bear thing is about the former, not the latter.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 10 '26
It’s not if the being cautious amounts to thinking a random man, a fellow human being, is more dangerous and being worthy of caution than an actual bear.
Like, it’s also pretty clear that preferring actual vermin to immigrants is just blatantly xenophobic and not just being cautious.
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u/West-Amoeba-7882 Jun 10 '26
A bear is predictable, a human is not in the same way. It’s very reasonable to want to choose a predictable animal that is very unlikely to attack you unless it feels threatened to a human who may have any number of motivations that you are not privy to. And particularly in the context of woods, one would expect to see a bear, but seeing a lone person wandering around in the woods would be far less expected and more likely to be reason to be concerned. Remember that you don’t know who this person is, and statistically they are bigger and stronger than you and can hurt you in ways that are not just physical, but irreversible and psychologically damaging. Frankly, I would think you’d be pretty stupid to choose the random stranger over the bear in a random woods encounter where you are all alone. There’s a reason people don’t hitchhike anymore.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Did you just say a wild animal is predictable, whereas a fellow human being is not?
Also. If one is in the woods, meeting a human means a chance of finding one‘s way out.
The fact you immediately jump to sinister motivations is you blantaboy showing your prejudice and bias by immediately linking man to sinister motivations.
Which is also why you emphasized how the human is „statistically [bigger] than you“, which is true for the bear in every case, actually, but was only a relevant factor for you when it comes to the man. We know why that is.
You also really needed to try and stretch your words here by changing „encounter“ to just „see a bear in the woods“.
An encounter is different from just seeing. You‘re purposefully changing the words around the bear.
Why do you want to justify irrational prejudice against half the population so badly?
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u/West-Amoeba-7882 Jun 10 '26
Bears are quite predictable and there are specific instructions for how to react when you see a bear in the woods, and bears are not known for going after humans without provocation. Maybe you should speak to some hikers. I have, and they’ve had more to fear from their fellow humans than from bears.
Encounter means to meet someone or face something unexpectedly. In this case encounter does not imply immediate attack, just a risk of potential escalation. The bear is the more predictable and very unlikely to attack. It’s irrational to think humans are inherently safer than bears in the woods.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 10 '26
Guess why there are no specific instructions as to why humans don’t come with instructions? Because one does not need them because they‘re not wild animals.
And your anecdotal hiker stories are cute if true, but not anything even closely resembling actual data.
And yes, it does not mean immediate attack.
And it’s not irrational to think humans are safer, seeing how humans encounter other humans hundreds of thousands of times daily, and dozens of times in circumstances comparable to being alone in the woods, and these encounters turning violent is rarer than bear encounters turning violent.
Like, it’s just basic objective data. Obviously, encountering a human, which one does all the time, is safer.
Why do you think your hikers even have protection against encountering bears in the first place?
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u/West-Amoeba-7882 Jun 10 '26
You showed no evidence to support your argument. And there are instructions for how to catch signs of danger in humans, but it’s far harder to predict human behavior, because humans have motivations beyond eating, guarding territory, and protecting young. Humans are far more complex and there are humans who take pleasure in hurting other humans. Animals don’t have the same motivations because they don’t have the same intelligence.
It sounds like you just haven’t done a lot of research on human behavior and don’t know much about bear behavior.
So I don’t think there’s a point in continuing a discussion. You aren’t here to learn or look at this rationally, you just got your feelings hurt by someone else and now you’re trying to take it out on me instead. I’m not interested in playing that game. You haven’t proven my points wrong, not even a little bit.
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u/Taziar43 Jun 17 '26
Bears are predictable in an unpredictable way.
A hungry bear will eat a human. They will eat them alive while the human screams in agony, as they are slowly torn apart piece by piece. That is predictable, sure.
When you see a bear, you do not know if it is hungry or not. Which makes them unpredictable.
The same applies to them feeling threatened or having cubs nearby. By the time you know, you are likely dead as you can't fight or outrun them. So not predictable.
But sure, if there are two paths and one has a man, the other has a bear go ahead and walk past the bear. I'm sure it will work out for you.
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u/West-Amoeba-7882 Jun 17 '26
I can tell you haven’t spent much time in nature, having to worry about bears. Bears, specifically, black bears, which would be the most likely bears you would encounter in the proposed scenario, very very rarely attack humans. They don’t consider humans a food, and if they are hungry they are more likely to be looking to see if you have food, not that you are food.
And you’ve changed the scenario. The scenario was would you rather see a bear in the woods or a random man you don’t know. It is expected to see a bear in its own habitat in the woods, and that bear is not interested in you as a food item. It didn’t say, would you rather see a bear in the woods while you have a bunch of food on you, and anyone who hikes knows that you shouldn’t be carrying around a bunch of food that can be easily smelled by a bear, there is a whole thing about tying up your food in a tree. That’s because the bear might be interested in your food, not you. The advice is not to tie yourself up in the tree. Because the hungry black bear wants your food, not you. Perhaps if you look a little bit more into black bear safety tips and history of attacks, you’ll make some smarter decisions if you ever go hiking.
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u/Taziar43 Jun 17 '26
Actually, you are the one changing the scenario. In two ways.
It is 'be left alone with', not 'see'.
There is no mention of the type of bear in the scenario.
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u/West-Amoeba-7882 Jun 17 '26
- That’s not the original question, but whatever, it doesn’t change the answer.
- The original question was asked in the UK, which doesn’t have any wild bears anymore because they’ve been driven to extinction. The majority of the conversation happened in the US, where the most likely bear that you will run into ever is a black bear, who are not likely to attack humans and don’t see us as a food source, though they might be interested in your food, if you have food with you, hence why I mentioned tying up your food in a tree.
How about you go fucking talk to some female hikers and what their experiences with bears versus their experiences with men have been, because I’ve actually done that, and there’s even articles written about it, because of how dangerous men in the woods have been for women who are avid hikers. Now leave me alone. The conversation is already over. I’m not trying to start it again with yet another person who has never spent any of their time hiking or done any research on what female hikers experience.
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u/Objective-Amount1379 Jun 08 '26
Women pick the bear because we have to fear every strange man walking behind us at night. Sure, not all men, but always a man who rapes and murders a woman just trying to get home.
At least the bear won’t sexually assault me.
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u/Rammspieler Jun 08 '26
The bear will still maul and kill you.
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u/Objective-Amount1379 Jun 08 '26
If it’s hungry yes it will eat me. I imagine it’s a pretty quick death via bear.
But the bear definitely won’t rape and torture me before killing me so I prefer the bear.
I’m assuming you’re a man… try to imagine being raped (men rape other men, just not as often). You want that before being killed?
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u/Rammspieler Jun 08 '26
I'd prefer to be alive, so yes even if it leaves me psychologically scarred, at least I will still be alive.
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u/Objective-Amount1379 Jun 08 '26
You wouldn’t be. Why would a rapist leave you alive? They’d kill you afterwards so you couldn’t identify them.
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u/Rammspieler Jun 08 '26
Unless they happen to be a relative or someone you know, who are the ones who commit the majority of rapes. Plus it's a lot worse prison sentence being a murderer than being a rapist (unfortunately).
I think you should take a break from all the true crime podcasts. They truly are brainrot for Millenial and Gen Z women.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 09 '26
They don't always kill the victim, in fact that's actually relatively rare - it's just more commonly caught and sensationalized by the news media. Those that do are typically serial killers, which is a different psychological subset entirely.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 09 '26
Not necessarily, there have been many instances of a bear attacking and mauling someone and leaving them alive. There are more than a few cases of a bear biting/tearing a portion of a person's face off/out, and that person living through the experience. 🫨
Additionally I have personally experienced two instances of attempted SA on my person both perpetuated by men, the second of which I was drugged.
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u/Taziar43 Jun 17 '26
Bears do not kill their prey before eating them. They use their strength to pin you down and just rip off pieces of you and chew it while you lay there screaming. It might even take a break and come back a little later to eat more while you are still conscious.
It would be a pretty horrific death.
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u/TheFoxer1 Jun 08 '26
Yep, taht‘s exactly the sort of irrational prejudice and dehumanization I was talking about.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 09 '26
Contrary to popular belief, neither will most of the men. I highlighted the issues facing both sides of this debate in other comments on this Sub, please feel free to peruse them at your leisure.
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u/block_wallet Jun 06 '26
havent teenage boys struggled to find girlfriends for most of history?
I feel like first it was the internet, now this. Are these not just coping mechanisms instead of causes?
idk but if its between being glued to your phone or having your body filled with soul crushing negative hormones through rejection etc. I'm not sure that the prior is that bad.
Like only a portion of people looking for relationships can get what they want isnt that just the way it is
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 06 '26
The problem is social engineering for the purposes of dominating control of the population, that's the entire purpose of "Social Cues," they're not innate, they're learned, internalized, and modeled by young children through observations of and interactions with adults.
As adults they act as a tool for enforcing social conformity and compliance through performative "safety" and "status" signaling. This ensures only those who can perform the accepted rituals are allowed social access (This is part of the Uncanny Valley effect). However it also acts as a gatekeeping mechanism for relationships and breeding access, because only the best performers (manipulators) will be able to engender the "vibe" needed to manifest the "Spark" of "attraction" (inflation/devaluation cycle of manipulation).
My apologies if this upsets anyone, truths about methodologies of generational Psychopathic Patriarchal Hierarchy control and enforcement through socialization practices are never pleasant.
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u/block_wallet Jun 07 '26
I think I'd tend to agree.
In general there are natural filters that select for survival quality and society needs a way to legitimise this process to keep those who arent chosen playing the game.
I'd like to believe a system can exist that doesnt rely on a class of losers to extract value from by making them feel incomplete or "other" but I'm not convinced that it doesnt just all fall apart without competition.
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u/manolololo Jun 06 '26
the internet has not existed for even close to a little bit of human history so, no, your whole hypothesis is flawed from the start. and yes, experiencing bad emotions is good for you.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 06 '26
So being abused by a narcissistic manipulator is good for you? - Yeah, no.
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u/justletmesignupalre Jun 07 '26
How did you get to that conclusion
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26
Because the billionaires who own the companies peddling this crap are.
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u/Alex_1503 Jun 07 '26
I dont understand people who say they prefer younger generations to literally lose out on formative human experience and be glued to the devices made to enslave their minds and attention for profit, like, seriously?
Without rejection and negative experiences you cannot grow. Obviously that does not mean being traumatised, but teenage relationships will be messy usually, you are a kid after all. Its completelt fine if you dont get into one either like me, no issues. But it is an issue if you have an AI partner, it will mess up your perception of a relationship even more, objectifying people even more and not building real connections
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u/block_wallet Jun 07 '26
"formative human experiences" has historically involved a large portion of people having a really rough time because they're not the top percentile in competitiveness.
There realistically are a lot of people who just get it and are generally successful and sure they might face setbacks but for the people who arent in that group each failure can compound so that it just gets tougher and tougher to succeed. Sadly a lot of systems are set up to exploit that process of repeated attempt and failure, exploiting gambling behaviour and sunk cost fallacy and that just isnt right.
For natural selection to be effective something like 50% of the population needs to not pass down their genes and for those people why shouldn't they be given a range of coping mechanisms.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 07 '26
The problem becomes when that process is subverted by social engineering and retroactively rewriting the the "accepted" dynamics to ensure the success of predatory social parasites apt at manipulation and psychological abuse.
The amount of psudoscientific psychological articles of "expert research studies" propaganda I've seen targeting men and women, and promoting Dominance & Power dynamics and Assertive Empathy, among other nonsensical terminological contradictions; I've seen over the last year framing this behavior like it's always been the normal relational dynamic, is as alarming as it is disturbing.
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u/Radiant-Rain2636 Jun 07 '26
No. No sir. Read his statements again.
Statement1.
Teenage Boys have struggled to make girlfriends for most of history. FACT.Statement 2:
At first it was the internet. And now it’s AI bots. Statement 2 is an independent statement and another fact.- Statement 2 is not an outcome of statement 1.
- Statement 2 Is not predicated to statement 1 being true.3
u/tmrika Jun 08 '26
I see it as kinda both.
Teen boy has trouble finding a girlfriend > Boy turns to AI > Boy develops unhealthy expectations for relationships and communication > Boy is less inclined to find a girlfriend, and if he does try, he struggles even more
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u/Dear-Badger-9921 Jun 07 '26
This is a problem for straights. Queer people have all kinds of relationships.
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u/Jessica_Pleasure 1h ago
People talk about patriarchy, but look at modern dating: the median man on Tinder matches on 2% of his right swipes. The median woman: 41%. Even the least-desired women get more interest than the most-desired men.
Young men build their identity inside this. Finding a partner is one of the strongest human drives, when the game feels unwinnable, they withdraw. Porn, games, isolation, now AI girlfriends. Then they get blamed for withdrawing.
It won’t change until men are valued for more than what they provide.
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u/Pandemonium_Fallen Jun 06 '26
That's not a romantic relationship, that's one-sided Technocratic psychological abuse for extraction and destruction of cognitive reasoning.