The Internet's First 12-Step Program

Emily Witt’s great piece today on the nofap movement-thing — all about the subreddit where men get together to talk about not masturbating! — points out that it’s mostly all about men trying to get their “alpha” back. Or get it for the first time.

When you look at the subreddit, the themes come up again and again: “I relapsed less than a month away from my one year milestone.” “Skeptic hooks up with chick he’s been trying to bag for months. THANK YOU NOFAP!” “At Day 39, first ‘Super Power.’” Magical self-realization!

And then the rest of their talk is couched in the language of 12-step recovery: relapse, shame, triggers, confession, fellowship, day-counting, all that jazz. (I SAID JAZZ.) So at least the Internet finally made something new out of something old! Also here is where we’d make a joke about “what a bunch of jagoffs” but, except sometimes for the slightly over the top “I AM MAN NOW” thing, it’s mostly kind of sweet.