Profile of a Bugman

Yes, this is a stereotype and not every Bugman is going to hit every point, but most bugmen will represent some concentration of most of the following, including bugwomen:

  1. White
  2. Overweight
  3. Childless, even if married
  4. At least one bad physical consumption habit (drinking beer, starbucks, smoking, etc.)
  5. At least one purposefully unattractive physical choice, such as colored hair or messy beard
  6. Lives in a city
  7. No real religion
  8. Carries a large amount of debt
  9. Seemingly large amount of disposable income and budget for entertainment
  10. Somehow always has a new phone and other gadgets
  11. Low long-term planning and investment ability
  12. Moves between apartments, etc. frequently
  13. Personal obsession with franchise properties – very often Star Wars or Marvel movies.
  14. Perpetual deferment to popular or “expert” opinion
  15. Doesn’t take personal responsibility for life outcomes. Views all negative outcomes as systemic problems.
  16. “Enviromentalist”
  17. “Ally” of LGBTQPRXYZ++
  18. “Science!”
  19. Uses pornography extensively; has sex infrequently
  20. Obession with state solutions to every personal problem

I think you can get the point. There’s such a significant comorbidity of these factors I probably didn’t need to go to 20. You could probably sum it up with three:

  1. Low personal mastery
  2. Obsession with consumption of all things
  3. Love of the state and megacorporations

Form these all the others flow.

The defining characteristic of the Bugman worldview is a belief that he is in no way responsible for his life outcomes. Although he may believe that good outcomes are a product of his unique abilities, usually he will express that it is a product of “privilege,” and his benefit is some moral negative.

This is why he is so obsessed with state solutions to every problem. He has a totalitarian view of the state and also assumes all other people are like him – a victim or privileged beneficiary of things beyond individual control. The state is everything because the state is the system, and the system is what creates all outcomes.

This is why he is called the Bugman, because he thinks and acts like a bug. He’s a colony creature, part of a large amorphous workforce of interchangeable drones frequently shuffled around to different meaningless tasks. He has no clan or tribe, so there is nobody mediating his behavior except the queen.

Bugmen are latecomers to the LGBTQ movement because the urban collective has only in the last 20 years imposed that moral vision on them. It wasn’t popular before, so the bugman didn’t pay attention to it. He was against masks and quarantine measures when it was “conspiracy theorists” who suggested them, but adopted their universal goodness as soon as the “experts” changed their opinion and all the bugmen around him started wearing old knickers on their faces.

Of course, this process doesn’t stop. There is no position so absurd that the bugman will not adopt it, so long as the rest of the hive is doing it. The bugman is the reason there is no such thing as a “slippery slope” fallacy. He will happily proclaim “Love has no age” as soon as everyone else around him agrees, just like polyamory, trans rights, kid drag queens, etc. etc.

What’s left is what to do with the Bugmen. If one is capable of altering culture, the bugmen will go along, eventually, but only if they perceive it. Social media keeps them effectively controlled by allowing them to live in an artificial reality bubble. They profess care for animals, but have never been to a farm. Eggs are delivered to the local store for them. They talk about the environment, but have never been to the dump. Trash men take their waste away to be buried.

Since the bugmen are obsessed with the system, eventually they will have to have their reality bubble popped, since the state cannot grow forever. What then? We shall see.

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7 Comments

  1. Thank you for the article, though I’m not sure if I’m clear on the premise.

    Just because someone does not go to a farm to get their eggs, they are a bad person? Just because someone wants clean air and water, they are inherently a ‘bug person’, a part of the collective hive, an evil environmentalist? People who do not bring their trash personally to the landfill are bad?

    Concerning your 20 points, you’ve cast the net so wide as to gather almost every fish available (all 153 of them, I would say!). Nearly everyone has a few points on that list.

    I agree with your summary of 3 points, though. Very likely, you have summed up there the reason for so much of our depression in today’s society.

    Thank you again for the article.

    • I never said they were bad people, did I? They are merely disconnected from the practical realities that enable their survival and are unaware of their own effect on the world – meanwhile they want to use the state to control the things they don’t understand, like telling farmers how to make eggs.

      Depression might be another contributing identifier (not a SOLE identifier), but again, that’s a result of those three big things.

  2. Brilliant blog post. You’ve perfectly captured everything that’s wrong with many lost men. I hope you can write a novella expanding on your short story about living in a pod. Great potential for satire.

  3. “The defining characteristic of the Bugman worldview is a belief that he is in no way responsible for his life outcomes.”

    Bingo! I really think this is the heart of the whole movement. Freedom from the consequence of their actions. Recently I saw Amy Pohler asked “What is feminism” on a talk show, and this is what it was boiled down to, unfettered pursuit of “freedom”. Which imo given the modern definition, is really just the ability to avoid any and all consequences of your actions.

    • Yes, the current idea of freedom is license – the ability to “do what you want,” rather than freedom from coercion, or freedom to pursue your interests within the limitations of the world.

  4. This nails it. The question, of course, of “what to do with them,” is the one so few ever ask. You allude to the answer in your conclusion: create something new for them to mindlessly latch on to, but that is actually good both for them and for society at large. Some people are born to be led by the nose. Might as well have the leaders be benevolent.

    I’m anticipating the “Muh collectivism!” and “Muh big government!” lolberts popping up in response to this, even though I’m not talking specifically about government here (but what if, and hear me out because this is radical, the government was actually bent towards objectively good ends?), but so be it.

  5. Great explanation of these hive-minded generic urban dwelling NPCs. Another point, they are so SMUG! Their little smirks when they see something that isn’t recognised as something that’s hip to the rest of the hive. They’re uncomfortable around people who can just tackle a problem without looking something up or calling someone to do it or waiting for guidance. “Hold on just let me look up if thats OK, are we even allowed to?!” They’d stand by and watch and even participate in disgusting atrocities if Daddy Gubbermint told them to. Bugmen is such a great name for them, but if they weren’t called that, I’d call them domesticated chickens.

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