Offline with Jon Favreau - Are Men Okay?

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

53% of American men are now dying before the age of 75—and that trend is getting worse.  Clinical psychologist Zach Seidler, Director of Men's Health Research at Movember, joins Offline to delve into how men misconstrue wellness in an increasingly digital world. Zac's work exposes how male influencers, podcasters, and cultural and political figures are shaping young men's views on masculinity, their relationships, and their overall health and wellbeing. But first! Jon opens up about teaching his own sons about strength and pride, and the myriad ways someone like Geroge Retes is a better role model than the second most powerful elected official in the United States. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Go check it out. layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quince.com slash offline for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash offline. Free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash offline. So many people have told me that the algorithm is a mirror for who they are. I don't buy that. I don't buy that at all. Like they enter in, they're watching this stuff and it's telling them slowly but surely that this. is who they should be. This is how they should adapt their behavior. They should resent women. You know, things have been taken from them. I just don't think that that is what the value

system is at their very core. And I think that we need to find ways to offer them an enriching reflective capacity to be able to go, actually what I'm being told is not who I want to be. I'm John Favreau, and you just heard from Dr. Zach Seidler, a clinical psychologist who's the director of men's health research at Movember, the leading global charity for men's health. Zach stopped by the office last week on his way home to Australia, and we had a fantastic conversation about some of the really important work they've been doing on the state of young men's health in a digital world, especially how male influencers, podcasters, YouTubers, cultural and political figures are shaping young men's views and choices and well-being. But before we get to my interview with Zach, I do want to share some thoughts on this topic since a few related stories have popped up in the news recently. I've been thinking a lot about two men with similar stories who became very different people. One of them, J.D. Vance, you know. Grew up in small town, Ohio, didn't have much money or direction, enlisted in the military, deployed to Iraq, came home and went back to school, got married, had a few kids.

and then he was off, wrote a book about his life that catapulted him to national fame, got a lucrative job at a venture capital firm, ran for Senate, and was ultimately chosen as vice president, where his portfolio apparently includes owning the libs and calling me a dipshit on Twitter. The other young man, you may not know. His name is George Redis. He's 25, and he was born and raised in Ventura, California, about an hour north of L.A.

Like J.D., George didn't have much money or direction. He too enlisted in the military. He was also deployed to Iraq. And when he came home, he also went back to school, got married, and had a few kids. George's career didn't take off quite as fast as JD's, but he eventually found steady work at a security company. In July, George was driving to a job in Camarillo, where his firm had been contracted to do security for a licensed cannabis farm. When he got close, he saw a bunch of federal agents blocking the road. ICE was there to raid the farm and deal with a group of protesters who showed up. George just wanted to get to work, so he got out of his car to tell the agents who he was. They told him to get the fuck out of there, that he wouldn't be going to work that day. So George got back in his car. Then the agents surrounded him.

They started screaming at him, banging on his car. Then they tear-gast the protesters. George was stuck in his car, coughing, eyes watering, couldn't see. Then agents came back and started screaming at him again. Some told him to leave. Some told him to get out of the car. Then they shattered his window. Pepper sprayed him directly in the face.

Dragged him out of the car, threw him on the ground, pinned him down. One agent with a knee on his back, one with a knee on his neck. George told them he couldn't breathe. They didn't care. He told them he was a citizen and that his ID was in the car. They didn't care. George was arrested and put in jail. He wasn't read his rights. He wasn't allowed to call his family. He wasn't allowed to call a lawyer. He wasn't allowed to shower, even though he kept telling them his skin was burning from the chemicals that were sprayed in his face and all over his hands. They put him in solitary confinement, no windows, lights on the entire time. He was there by himself all Thursday night, all day Friday and Friday night, all day Saturday and Saturday night, and finally on Sunday, he was released. No charges, no explanation, no apology. George had missed his three-year-old's birthday.

His family had no idea where he'd been, and he spent all those hours alone in a cell, not knowing if he'd ever see them again. You might think that after this experience, George would feel nothing but rage towards his government or even his country, the country he volunteered to serve and risk his life to defend. You would especially think that

after the government responded to George's story by claiming that he was violent and arrested for assault, even though they didn't charge him for assault, even though there's video footage that backs up George's account. But George isn't responding with rage. Last week, my friend Tim Miller at the bulwark asked him why during an interview.

Here's what he said. I still love this country. I know that just what's happening right now just doesn't define America. What's happening right now just doesn't define the flag that I wore. And so I have no problem still standing by the flag and standing by and believing in the Constitution. Like, it's really important. And I think it's everyone's job to speak about it. to get involved because it's not just my rights that were violated.

It could happen to you. It doesn't matter if you're left, you're right, or you're, like, you agree with him. Like, it affects us all. The same week that George Redis' own government violated his constitutional rights, the government's second highest-ranking official gave a speech just a few hours south of where George was being detained. J.D. Vance was there accepting an award from a far-right think tank, and he offered a different take on America.

The vice president said that what defines this country is not a set of ideals, that it's not the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the idea that we're all created equal, that we're all born with certain rights that no government can take away. He thinks that what truly defines us as Americans isn't shared beliefs, but shared ancestry. The idea that your claim on this country is only as strong is how many generations of your family are buried here.

It's a vision that isn't just based on excluding people, but sorting them into hierarchies. There's us and there's them. We're worthy, they're less so. They're out to get us, so we need to get them first. Survival of the fittest. Total war. It is the foundation of tribalism.

And it's probably why this week the vice president chose to weigh in without being asked on a story about thousands of leaked messages between a dozen young Republican leaders across the country who joked with each other about sending their opponents to gas chambers and loving Hitler, who referred to black people as monkeys and rape as epic and said that supporting slavery is based. There were jokes about people with Indian heritage not bathing, about how you shouldn't get on a plane flown by non-white pilots,

and slurs directed towards almost every minority, Hispanics, Chinese, Jews, gay people. Some of the young men involved apologized. Others lost their positions in the party, and a few Republican leaders condemned the messages. But not Vance. Vance dismissed the criticism as pearl clutching over a college group chat because, quote,

young boys tell stupid offensive jokes, that's what they do. even though these aren't young boys or kids or even college students. They're state party officials. Some work in government. One is a state senator. Didn't matter to Vance. He went out of his way to defend them because they're on his team and the other side is worse.

When their group chats are leaked, it's more evidence that there's a crisis of political violence on the left. When it happens to Republicans, it's just boys being boys telling stupid jokes. And it's not surprising that Vance was so focused on absolving young men in particular. In 2024, the demographic group that dominated the post-election analysis of why Trump won again was men, especially young men. That has led to an endless discussion about why young men shifted towards Trump by such a big margin and conflicting views on what Democrats should do about it. Every take is required to include a reference to Joe Rogan. politicians have been given advice

to appear on more media that young men consume to talk more about sports to swear more to sound tougher to show your supporters that you're willing to kick the shit out of your opponents because what matters to young men, we're told, is strength and Democrats have to show strength

and maybe that's true I honestly don't know but I do know what I want from my two sons I want them to see strength as a measure of how you handle life's most difficult moments. Do you let them harden you or do you let them help you grow? Do you get through them just by looking out for yourself or by leaning on people who might someday need to lean on you too? Do you pull up

the ladder behind you or do you drop it down for the next person because you remember that someone once did that for you? Do you learn over time to live with just a little more kindness and grace? I want my sons to be more like George Redis. I want my party and my country to fight for what people like George Redis deserve. Yes, that means the ability to afford life in an increasingly unaffordable country. Yes, that means protecting basic constitutional rights and freedoms. But it also means appealing to men by actually setting an example for them like George is doing right now. as he said it's not just my rights that were violated it could happen to you it doesn't matter if

you're left or right it affects us all for me that's a better articulation of what defines strength and what defines america than anything we've heard from the vice president having the courage to speak out about one of the worst things that's ever happened to you and your family not for your own benefit, not for the benefit of people who look like you or vote like you, but for the sake of people who you may not know, but still hope to protect. And that's what it looks like to defend the country you love. When we come back, my conversation with Dr. Zach Seidler. Offline is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Let me tell you, there's a surefire way to wake up feeling fresh after drinks with friends. It's with pre-alcohol. You bet.

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But the bride called it off. And then they called it off, so they didn't get married. I found in the bottom of my bag an extra zibiotics, and boy, was I excited. Cool. So, and I felt great. I woke up Sunday, I felt great. Somebody made a drink on the internet called the beericano, which is, it looks so awesome. And I was trying to see if I had somewhere in my house red vermouth, which like sweet

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You'll be able to celebrate and still wake up feeling great the next day. Go to Zbiotics.com slash offline to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use offline at checkout when you use offline at 100% money-back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash offline and use the code offline at checkout for 15% off. Dr. Zach Seidler, welcome to offline. Thanks for me, John. So, Zach, to start off, I think a lot of our listeners associate Movember with men-growing mustaches, which is certainly that. But for people who don't know, like, what is the broader mission of your organization, and what is the connection to facial hair?

So the connection to facial hair is, it's 23 years strong in growth. And, you know, we're now in maturing into young adulthood, which is great to see. it came out of a couple guys in a pub in Australia being like where is where did moustaches go what's going on here what happened and this was pre hipster age when it when they're everywhere now you know and there was a huge movement around women's health and pink ribbons and breast cancer and they were all working in the creative fields kind of watching this thing blow up and going where where is someone talking to us about us with us and they started to go, we can create something here, I reckon.

And so a couple of them grew a moustache during the month of November. It was this idea of creating a walking, talking billboard. We always talk about health by stealth. So we're not going to hit you over the head with the message. We're going to come around. We're going to use banter and humor as an entry point because that's the Trojan horse to have a conversation about men's health and well-being. And so over that time, we've now got over six million.

people across over 20 countries who've taken part in our movement. And we're the largest, you know, men's health charity in the world, the largest grassroots fundraising body going around and getting guys to do things other than gamble, drink, and watch football, you know, on mass to talk vulnerably about what's happening, about their prostates, testicles, you know, about our office banter is pretty wild. Some of the stuff, if someone looks at our slack, it's like, don't do it. But the mission is really around helping men and boys live healthier, longer lives.

And at this moment in time, with the statistics that we're witnessing, especially in the States, where things are moving backwards when it comes to health trends, specifically, there's never been more of a moment. And we've been in this game for over two decades. We understand how to reach men. We understand that you need to go to where they are. You need to speak to them in a way that actually galvanizes them towards a sense of purpose and meaning and service, all the things that every,

now is suddenly coddening onto when shit hits the fan. It's like, oh no, we need, we need to talk to the men. And we've been doing that. Where do we find them? Where do we find? Exactly. And so that's actually our special source is that they come to us. They come to us. We don't need to go looking. And because we have that, you know, incredible billboard, it's kind of an entry point to meaningful, you know, behavior change in many ways as well. So we've been able to fund heaps of programs all over the world and get guys to think about, you know, not only their own health and well-being, but actually that network effect, the fact that it is, you know, healthier men equals healthier communities, families. And that's how, especially within progressive

circles, we'll, I'm sure, no doubt, talk about this in a bit, but the idea that there are, on both ends of the political spectrum, there's a lot of heat that you can get for talking about men and boys, but for completely different reasons. You're either a Trojan horse, for feminism and the idea that you're trying to, like, soften men and just make them, you know, into women one way or another. Or you are secretly men's rights activists who are, you know, hiding behind the mustache and trying to get men to dominate and, you know, reinforce patriarchal ideas when either of those things. We are here on the ground to just make shit happen. And, Zach, what's your personal background and an area of expertise and sort of how you,

got into this and fit into this world. Yeah. So I'm a clinical psychologist by training. I got a PhD in male depression and suicide. Light topics. I was going to say that's going to be a real. Yeah. Joyful thesis. Yeah, of course, of course. But to be honest, I found joy in it because I'm fed up with the doom and gloom. And I think that right now, the alarmism, the crisis language that has no solutions infuriates me. I think that that's completely at odds with what the field needs. And so If I think about, you know, where I came from and why I'm obsessed with this topic and the idea of like manhood and masculinity, I've got two older brothers beat the shit out of me as a kid, you know, as happens all the time. I learned what masculinity kind of is and, you know, typical third child syndrome, just trying to make peace and understand what's happening, write stories, understand, you know, with this open curiosity around where I fit in and what matters. And I had, you know, an incredible father in my life who, he was a general practitioner.

He worked as a doctor in community. Anyone and everyone who came in, he treated with dignity and respect. And he modeled incredible ideas of fairness and justice and really what I think manhood and masculinity need to be, which is this idea of altruism and service and going beyond oneself, which, you know, our online, friends, you know, in various corners of the internet have just bastardized and lost, I think, in many ways. And so I witnessed that. I learned from it. And I got to a point where I really was in love with this field. But at the same time, my dad was going through his own struggles. He had his own demons, as many do. And he didn't have an outlet. He was the carer. He was the one

looking after everyone else. No one looked after him. And shame is a huge element of this, this idea that I have my own internal demons. I don't know how to talk about them. I can't possibly need help. And I watched that it was really disempowering in many ways as a son to try and lean in and connect with him and find ways to help when I was early on in my journey of becoming a psychologist. This was about 12 years ago. And I was overseas and I got a call in the middle of the night that he'd taken his own life sadly and thanks john and uh you know i i always say that i do what i do because of how he lived not because of how he died i'm very aware of his legacy and the the power of message around making change that that he gave and he was always you know

he was a public speaker he loved you know sharing with the world and so i'm trying to take that forward and movember is the greatest mechanism to do that especially within australia where we started and now I get to, you know, I've got team members all over the world, really trying to, moustache farmers, as we call them, trying to create programs, getting in community, you know, shift online narratives around men and boys and do things in a way that we know works. And so, you know, it lights my fire every day doing this stuff. And I'm about two months away from having my first kid who's going to be a boy as well. That's exciting. Offer me some father of advice.

Yeah, that whole intergenerational stuff is wild as well, yeah. I will say that's sitting here with a son who's five and one who's almost two, it gets better. Believe me, it's a little crazy at first. It gets good. It gets good. Everyone's right about that. For sure. You guys do a lot of great research as well.

I know you have a new report out. I want to get to that. But you guys released a report back in April that is right in the show. wheelhouse. It's called Young Men's Health in the Digital World. You talked to 3,000 young men, ages 16 to 25, U.S., U.S., UK, and Australia back in the summer of 2024. What were you looking to learn? So we did what we always aim to do, which is not go in with this idea of like suspicion, this notion of things are broken, you're all fucked, and we're going to find a way to prove it, which I honestly think is how most researchers are going about this. The term

Manosphere began very clearly as this like fringe, 4chan, community, you know, in cells, men going their own way, pick up artistry. Like it was a really clear niche ideology. And now, again, much like toxic masculinity or otherwise, it's become a placeholder for everything that is wrong when it comes to men and boys. We did not want to go in. We wanted to go in with this this notion of faith, goodwill, trying to understand what is happening in your world, why are you leaning into these narratives, what do they offer you? So we try and take like a Goldilocks perspective to research. That's what my team does.

And Christopher Fisher, a doctor, you know, who worked with me on this project, she's really pushing this idea of like, where is the sweet spot where we understand the health and the harm. And so when we came into this project, we were really trying to understand what drives young men towards this content. What are they seeking? What do they get out of it? And then when does it tip over? And so rather than going, everything's broken, we said, why do you watch this? What are you looking for? And they told us consistently, and I think this is so important, especially for progressive left to circles, to understand, which is like entertainment, pure entertainment, like transgressive shit, this idea of breaking things, this idea of having fun,

banter, that is what these men and masculinity influences, as we called them, really do very well. There's heaps of innocuous stuff going on here that has been bucketed under this idea of the manosphere, when in fact, it's like really nice, wholesome dating advice or like protein shakes or whatever. And it's like, no, no, no, it's all evil. And what that does is it creates this resentment narrative, which we're in right now, which is grievance politics, which I know you know very well, which is you are now on the outer. You are somehow to blame for everything. And so you guys should actually create an army of yourselves against the other, rather than understanding that there is a spectrum of content. And so that motivation, that desire to be inspired is so important for lots of young guys. Our research always tells. us, growth, self-development is the thing that pushes these guys into these spaces. They don't come looking for misogyny, but they leave with it. They leave with it. And so what we found is

that while lots of these young guys, especially who, the more they connected with this content, they actually had far more optimism for their own future. They had this idea that they were capable of far more, because they're being given this idea of, you know, girlfriends and Bugatti's and whatever else. But then over time, you witness their distress peak. You witness their risk-taking go up. They're suddenly taking steroids and they are driving like crazy and they're drinking and drug-taking far more.

And they are lonely and depressed because it's an isolationism. It is, you must do this on your own, this idea of being a lone wolf, this idea of being a secular, somehow, segregated and alone monk in some ways. All these dudes doing crazy workouts. There's no one else in the gym with them. They're on their own. And so I actually think that that's like the commercial model, which is to like separate these people, these guys from one another and leave them on their own so they can't share all of the difficulties that they're actually end up facing at the end of the day. So we have that two stream, you know, narrative here, which is that they gain a sense of

optimism. They gain a sense of self-belief in some ways, but reality then hits them when they cannot reach the standard of manhood that is being sold to them, because it's unattainable. Yeah, I was going to ask about that because I thought those two findings really stuck out at me that seemed to be contradictory, that they go in for this optimism and they have hope and agency, right, which all positive attributes that you'd want. And then they end up having these sort of riskier behaviors. So do you think it's more of a, the longer that they're there that the riskier behaviors and sort of the negative outcomes happen? Or is it just, are there contradictory sort of impulses that they get the whole time that they're engaging with this

content? I think it's that. I think it's that contradictory ongoing. You know, time always is an important variable here. And that's why rabbit holes kind of come from. But we know now that it's not a matter of months. It's like a week or days. And so we consistently are trying to actually understand young men's algorithms, how they're engaging with this stuff. And we did what I believe to be the world first study where we didn't do that thing where we created a dummy account of like a 16 year old. And it's like he starts with watching Peterson and then he ends up watching something wild. But instead, we asked young men to send us their TikTok data. We asked them to like download it, which apparently is extremely difficult, which is to be expected.

And they sent it to us and then we scraped the metadata of millions of videos to try and understand what they're watching and why. And that's where you see those entry points, those pathways, like on ramps. We always talk about off ramps, but no one's talking about on ramps, which is that ecosystem where they're all kind of connected. But it drags them down. And so they're getting that idea that the world is uncertain. And we have, we can sell you certainty 12 rules whatever it might be yeah whether it's health whether it's fitness whether it's politics culture dating all of its certainty right exactly and we will find clarity for you we'll offer you a mantra which is completely at odds with the way the world is moving around

you know modern day masculinity which is gray it's confusing now i often talk about this idea of like the door handle phenomenon talk with a 16 year old boy in an interview and he says to me I hold the door open for one woman and she thanks me and I hold the door open for another and she slaps me what is happening and it's this idea of like the grey the confusion the uncertainty around like contemporary and traditional norms of masculinity

we're in this like gender reckoning right now where young men need someone to offer them guidance it just so happens that that vacuum is being taken up by people who are like take back power don't let anyone else tell you what's happening rather than no, no one has any fucking idea what's happening. Let's all work this out together.

And not enough men, not enough role models, whatever, are willing to sit in that gray, the messiness of manhood, and be like, I don't know what's going on. Let's chat about it. Let's find out every podcast is like, this is what I did, this is how I succeeded, this is what you need to do now.

Five steps for $29.99 a month. What kind of influencers did these young men typically follow? like who came up the most, I guess, particularly in the United States. So we purposefully didn't release the list. Yeah, I kept looking. Everyone went looking. Well, there's a number of reasons for that, as you'd understand. So they had to have like a million plus young men specifically who were following them.

We also spoke with like 120 men like through long-term interviews to try and understand their day-to-day digital diets in a way. Because this is the thing, which is that we end up in this weird assessment. assumptions-based world where we've decided that there is this homogenous blob of young men. They exist in this single ether. They all talk the same way and think the same way. And then you just create a self-fulfilling prophecy consistently where you're like, oh, I wonder why we now have young men on the streets when, in fact, we kind of led them there.

We told them that this is who they were rather than believing that there were far more, you know, versions of manhood that they could live up to. So we really didn't want to go down listing them. The top 10 that you would think about are exactly the ones who were there. And the reason that we didn't name them is because, and we specifically said men and masculinity influences rather than Manosphere, because of where the Manosphere started, as I said at the start, this idea of fringe subcultures, it's wrong to use that term for where we are now.

We are in this ecosystem where there are so many different tiers of severity, and if you muddle them all up together, you listen to Rogan for three and a half hours, and he says some progressive stuff. He says some conservative stuff. He says some healthy stuff. He says some harmful stuff. If you decide that one episode, you're going to take a sound bite of that, and that is all there is. That's exactly how you lose. Right. The young male vote or whatever it might be because they go, you don't understand. You don't have the critical insight that we do. And so what they're telling us consistently is that they're like, we can take some stuff, we can leave some stuff. The crazy misogynistic shit, we will leave at the door. Do I believe that to be true? I'm still unsure. If you're watching, you know, three, I'm a therapist. I'll sit across from a young guy for an hour of fortnight. They then go and watch four hours of TikTok a day. I can't compete with that, you know? And so trying to understand the fact that they are, they're trying to discern what matters to them, what their values are. But when it comes to the name of this podcast, like, the algorithm is dictating. So many people have told me that the algorithm is a mirror. It's a mirror for who they are. I don't buy that. I don't buy that at all.

Like they enter in. They're watching this stuff. And it's telling them slowly but surely that this is who they should be. This is how they should adapt their behavior. they should resent women, you know, things are being taken from them. I just don't think that that is what the value system is at their very core. And I think that we need to find ways to offer them an enriching reflective capacity to be able to go, actually what I'm being told is not who I want to be.

Yeah, I mean, if it was just commercially, if it were just a mirror, it would get boring for people after a while. And so just in order to keep you on the platforms, it has to at least attempt to amplify some feeling or sentiment you may have and then sort of like persuade you to keep going and lead you in another direction. But why is anger gravency and resentment far more interesting than like positivity and joy? Because we know, we spoke about this last time. It's like going to be hardwired, right? But there is like, you know, veterans coming home to their dogs. Yeah. Like there's just dudes sitting at home crying on the toilet right now watching that, you know?

Like, why can't we amplify this? It's like positive tick, you know? And I think that it works to an extent. I mean, we try to do that politics and, you know, upworthy had its moment back in the 2010s before things got really bad. I think humor can be a positive force that, you know, that keeps people engaged. But I think that there's just something about we all fear the unknown. we all can get upset, right, when things don't seem like they are in control

or they don't seem like they're going well. And I think like one of the central fears of being human is the unknown and trying to get control over a world that is seemingly out of control. And I think something that reflects those feelings, content that reflects those feelings, I think is pretty powerful to people. But in the same breath, that content is saying

there's this loneliness epidemic for men and boys. And all it's different, doing is rupturing connection. All it's doing is finding a way to lead you into the darkness on your own. And we found very clearly

as well that these young guys are not disadvantaged youth sitting in their basement. They are educated, successful, typically white guys who have girlfriends as well. That's a very interesting finding.

I noticed that because there is a perception that it is like, you know, jobless dudes in their basement. But this is entirely like Movemba's DNA, which is just break shit and find out what the truth is here. Like we've been a catalytic funder because we've been like, no one believed that if you invest in this program, in this community, that it will actually work. And so no one took a gamble, but we did.

And in the same vein, if there is a narrative that has no evidence behind it, if there is a media furor around something that's happening. Why? Where does it come from? Is it pure stereotype? And how are you going to go about solving that? And that's apolitical. That is really our aim. We're just here to go, this is something that matters to men and boys. And why can't we galvanize them? They are so ready for action. It just so happens that they get pulled into action that is typically harmful in many ways, rather than this notion. of connection. So that loneliness piece, the idea that it is in fact not the guys that you conjure up the image of, but it's your friends. It's the people, you know, around you that

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slash offline for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. You know, I will say this, having done this podcast for a couple years, I would not say that I'm taking my own advice very well because I'm, I am still, you know, addicted to being online and the internet and social media. But it has helped me at least clock that, like, the actions I'm taking, why am I doing this? What am I looking for? Like, I'm better at that. And I noticed this the other day because I was like, why am I scrolling through Twitter again? And it's making me feel bad.

And I do think that the internet and social media, especially, podcast as well, it tempts you with the illusion of connection. Oh yeah. You know? Because you are feeling like I want to connect. I'm feeling like lonely or I just want to, I want to be in the mix. I want to talk to people. I want to see. And it is easier to do that than to just like call up a friend for a whole bunch of reasons. I mean, there's like, you guys talk about this. There's like feelings of rejection. If someone doesn't want to hang out with you. But there's also just logistics. It's hard. It's life gets in the way. And so then you go on because you're like, all right, everyone's talking about something on Twitter. There's a big conversation or blue sky or Instagram or wherever it may be.

And you go on there and, of course, because fear and anger are the emotions that drive the algorithm, that's what you're served up. And you don't leave feeling like, oh, I had a good connective experience just now with other people. You leave feeling like agitated. Yeah. And that's why, you know, social networking, this idea that being online is somehow going to build social capital and scaffolding for you is just bullshit like it's just not true and so I think that the really interesting thing they're around how we hear this from young guys all

the time that listening to a three hour podcast with guys hanging out together smoke and weed doing whatever they're doing that's the most connective tissue they have to the world and it makes them feel like there is a cultural relevancy that they have something to say but they don't have it to say to anyone else right and so they've picked up all of this stuff and so my My main mantra is like, you're so upset about being on your own. You'll do all of these things in order to find an in for a conversation, but you won't just pick up the phone. And that fear of rejection, that fear of somehow being ashamed of needing something, the other guy at the other end of the phone is just like pleading, waiting. We're all just waiting for that phone call to arrive.

And so, you know, there's a recent Gallup poll, which is really interesting that this idea of male loneliness being far greater than women's is just not true. Men and women experience loneliness at the same rates. Again, you just need to go to the second question, which is what do you do when you feel lonely? And men recede. They go further and further into this idea that they have failed, this success failure dichotomy, and they go, oh, I can't possibly do anything about this. They haven't been socialized into the notion of like social action. you know and and then we end up this is where social movements are led by women there's a reason you know galvanizing creating groups is a thing that they are taught this is not biological

fundamentally right and so what they do is they they pick up the phone and try and solve it and i think that we can all do with a little more of that reprioritization because when you look at transitions the saddest thing about becoming a man is that it is a process of grief and loss you look at a five-year-old you know you've got young boys their emotional spectrum is wild it's just as big as any girl it's this tantrum

it's this love it's this connection it's this longing for peers you know around them that's all that matters to them is having friends and then you watch over time they get to 12 and suddenly they won't touch their mates anymore they get to 16

they won't say I love you to anybody they get to 18 they leave school they go to college and there's this idea of success and attainment and protect to provided traditions which are so strong and so at odds with like being a human because they require you to like put your head down and just like you know harden up and find the way through this path because no one will help you whereas women at the same time are still prioritising social connections to the point where when they get married obviously they are the ones owning the social calendar. They're the ones who are, you know, deciding what you're going to do on a

Saturday night. And the guys just follow. And then you've got 50% divorce rates. And the man is left with nothing. He's left with no social scaffolding, with no skills. There's a skills deficit. He hasn't even attempted to because it didn't matter. Because it wasn't money and it wasn't looking after his family. But it is. It is. And that's the thing. It's like it's life saving and life giving. And it's not being sold as such. And so, Sadly, we just published a study showing that in the wake of relationship breakdown, at the point of separation, those first six months, the suicide rate amongst men is eight times greater. That is the greatest precursor, the risk factor for suicide is not what is your mental health history. Have you had depression before? It's not even substance misuse stuff. It is this idea of losing that connective tissue, losing that sense of success and,

the connection to love and intimacy because all of your emotional bandwidth is put on the shoulders of your wife. Yeah. And you sort of lose or maybe don't utilize sort of agency and do the work in a relationship of saying like, well, it's not like, you know, my wife has to control the social calendar or the or I have to then control the social calendar. It's like, well, we can both talk about it. But it's a joke. And sometimes compromise and figure out, okay, you want do that, I want to do that, let's think about a way to do this, and the kids want to do that. Like, you just, if you don't get involved at all, you're sort of along for the ride. And I do think that's where, like, resentment can build, too, because you're like, well,

I'm doing it because I've got to do it, whatever, but I'm kind of annoyed, but I'm going to do it anyway. And what else am I supposed to do? And it's like, well, did you say anything? This is why it chits me so much this idea of, like, self-actualization and self-betterment that is, like, being sold to these guys, when, like, autonomy and skills building is essential. and this idea of how you're going to create your network, not for pure financial or employment gain, but as a means to find your place in the world,

your sense of identity. It's just, I think that the ordering is completely off, and everyone is responsible for this. This joking around, I get so many guys telling me that they have to ask their wives for, like, time off to come and hang out. I'm like, please, I'm like, please,

I don't want to hear this again, you know? Well, it's also all my guy friends and our wives are all friends and we're all friends. And so that's nice. We have like a group. And the wives will plan on the calendar, dinners for all of us or gatherings, whatever, with the kids now or just the couples. And we're always trying to like follow up by having like a guy's night here and there or do this. And we're always behind because the wives will plan out everything in it.

advance and communicate and do what you're supposed to do. And we'll all just be like, it's like the Thursday night before. We're like, oh, can you guys all hang tomorrow? Yeah. Like, well, no, we can't hang tomorrow because I'm supposed to go to some dinner that my wife put on the calendar. And I didn't, but it's like if we had just taken the, uh, the steps ahead of time to plan and talk to our wives, it would have been, it's like, it's on us. We decided not to do it because we're not planning because we think that that's not our role. or whatever, or we're just focused on something else. And it's like, well, then we don't have the night where we're hanging out.

And it's been a month. And suddenly that sucks. Yeah. And that's the worst thing. This idea of somehow, like, not leaning into that. I end up being the guy. I'm the guy on all of, like, the group chats. Me too.

I'm that guy too. You know, but someone has to. I'm the planner, yeah. Has to do it. And it's like, where do we learn and build that skill set over time as something that is essential? It's funny because, again, you end up with this narrative where everyone is lonely and everyone is disconnected and the solutions are like we need more NFL players to talk about

anxiety you know like that somehow is is the answer rather than they're a really clear if we're going to create five rules it's like doing the texting weekly calling monthly seeing quarterly is like the easiest thing that we could sell as an app you know and so I want to break down this this thing that we call it November the perception gap which is this idea that somehow my own values are actually at odds with what I think society wants for men. It's like pluralistic ignorance. So this idea that if you ask 100 guys, do they have to be the breadwinner in order to succeed, you go around, you ask one guy, he'll go, I think 95 of the 100 believe that that is true. You then go and ask the 100, and it's actually like 30 or 40 of them. And you're

sitting there and you ask him, and you go, is that your value? Is that your idea? And he goes, no, no, no, but that's what culture is telling me. I'm like, well, I can tell you that all of your friends think it's crap. It's like locker room mentality. The misogynistic joke is told. Everyone is sitting around. Everyone laughs because they think that the guy next to them think it's funny and he doesn't want to be shamed and called gay or whatever it might be.

And we end up in a culture of complicity and silence. And that is the way with love and connection and intimacy and friendship and, you know, mental health and well-being. all of that is all tied together with this notion that there is some guy out there who is controlling is a puppeteer of manhood and we're all buying into it even though none of us believe it. And it's exhausting and killing us.

And so I'm like, where is the uprising? Where is the upheaval? Where is the notion of breakdown of this pressure because what social media is doing is just amplifying the shit out of that? Because it's disconnecting you and it's saying, this is what success is. This is the only way to be. And you don't go and talk to anyone about it so that they can myth bust it for you.

Instead, you go, this guy is the panacea. He's offering me everything, all of my solutions. It must be true. Look how successful he is. Look at his girlfriend. Look at his car. Just to go back to your point about children, the biggest misperception, Mike, when I found out we're having a boy And then a second, boys, everyone would be like, oh, boys.

And they're just, they're crazy and they're just going to run around. And it's, oh, you're going to be exhausted. And I talked to Ruth Whitman, who wrote boy mom. She came in here. And we talked about this as well. But, like, my boys are so far, like, so affectionate and so emotional. My five-year-old, we did not teach him this. But he'll talk about, he's like, I'm having some big feelings.

Wow. I want to talk about big, there's hugs. And dad's like, what the fuck is happening? Our, you know, almost two-year-old, he's like coming up, giving me a kiss and a hug, and they're so sweet. It's funny because I think a lot about, oh, God, what age is it going to change? Because I don't want it to change, like, I don't want it to change, you know? And it's a, and I still have a wonderful relationship with my dad, but it wasn't the, like, the affection that I have with my kids. And I don't think that has to do with either me or him.

But like in our generation, our dad's just in general weren't like that. And so it is cool to be like, okay, I don't have to be like that. I can be affectionate back towards my sons. But I do think, I feel like I'm on a clock. Oh, yeah. And that every new year of school, I'm like, is this going to be the year where suddenly he starts pulling away and he starts thinking like, oh, it's not cool to give my dad a hug when I see him in public.

And you know why that is. like Judy Chu, who works really closely with us, wrote this incredible book, like when boys become boys and this idea of watching. She did her PhD following young boys for like three years during preschool. And you see that beautiful affection, that intimacy. And this is the hardest thing for progressive parents, especially, to realize, which is that you don't have control here. Peers have control.

The power of ostracism is greater than anything that you can do. They simply want to fit in. That is so important. It's the same with girls, but there is far less aggression and violence at play here. Masculinity is purely a process of policing. It's what not to do. It's anti-feminization in many ways. It's this idea that if you are not a woman, that's how we're going to define ourselves.

That's where homophobia blossoms in many ways. And so you witness in those young boys the watching. You just witness them looking. out and seeing the repercussions of intimacy. You see them watching how they can be cut off from the thing that they believe to be their lifeblood. And I think that that's where, and John Heights speaks about it a lot around social norms. And like, if you can actually get the group, the 10 boys that he is hanging out with to lead with kindness, to find a way to actually let them lean into that that type of behavior that's where you're going to find it because

you can offer him whatever you want but i get worried about my boy growing up in a world where i'm hoping for him to have that emotional spectrum but you lose out with that in this world yeah because the world will not respond to a soft man with love and kindness in return and so we need to create an ecosystem where that leads to flourishing and thriving but also leads to the reward and reinforcement of social connection. Offline is brought you by Delete Me. Right now, the headlines are chockful of data breaches and regulatory rollbacks, making us all vulnerable.

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your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.join, join delete me.com slash offline and use promo code offline at checkout. The only way to get 20% off off is to go to www. join deleteme.com slash offline and enter code offline at checkout. That's www. Joindeletme.com slash offline, code offline. I want to talk about, I know you guys didn't focus on politics in this study, but I'm going to ask about it anyway because it's like 90% of my brain. I think that one explanation for the rightward shift among young men in the last election, and I think this is the one that seems simple and obvious and appealing to many progressives, is that Trump is a boorish, sexist pig, a lot of Republican politicians are too, those attitudes are also pervasive. within a lot of these sort of masculine influencers and podcasts, right? Ergo young men who follow that content

have started reflecting those attitudes in their political choices. Having read your study and others, I do think it's more complicated because I think some of your other findings about loneliness that we've been talking about, connection, male friendships, the attributes most valued by men in their friends,

you found in the study, but the perception that, you know, they want, and trust and kindness, I believe, were prioritized less than ambition, wealth, status, and this perception that we were talking about, that young men, that they have to be providers, I think all that contributes in a big way to the political choices as well, because to me, those findings line up with an important part of the reactionary politics and grievance politics practiced by Trump? What do you think about that? I think that the right is selling certainty. I think that, you know, this idea, especially within the financial hellscape that we find ourselves. And we saw this consistently in so many studies have come out being like providing this idea of the promise of financial security

sells very clearly. And if you have this notion of, I want ambitious status seeking, rich, you know, successful friends, especially, then you're going to vote for the people who you think, because I think you vote for the people that you kind of want to have dinner with as well in some ways, you know? And that idea of censorship, that idea of being shut down and not having that conversation that lots of these young guys really want to have, which is messy and is not ridden with red flags. I think we need to find a better a space to be able to have, you know, that type of disagreement. I know that Ezra, you know, Klein spoke about this with Charlie Kirk, obviously. I don't necessarily agree, but I do think that

we need to find more spaces where young guys can can have that out and can hear from one another that there is far more nuance and diversity in their opinions and their feelings than this black and white ideology that is being sold. But, you know, the same thing is happening on the right and left, really, I think, because the right is promising everything and really delivering very little when it comes to policy for men and boys. We see that consistently when it comes to men's health, especially. It just doesn't seem to be of interest to fix the services that are killing, you know, not serving them. And then on the left, you know, that the silence and fear around saying that this is important, that this is going to have a ripple effect in many ways, and being willing

to lean into the idea that it's okay for men to seek ambition, that it's okay for this status seeking, but there has to be flexibility. And I think that we are unable for some reason to lean into that narrative of you can have many of these traditional traits, but you cannot apply them rigidly regardless of context. And that's what healthy manhood should be. It's like, we're not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We're not going to suggest that all the things that you actually value, you shouldn't, which I think the left has done for a very long time. Don't do that. Don't be that. And then they go, okay, well, this guy's telling me what to do. So I'm going to do that instead. I really am very worried

if we don't find that middle ground of inclusion. It's funny because inclusiveness and men and boys doesn't really feel like, you know, they shouldn't coexist. But it is. It's around inclusion and providing, say, spaces for them to muddle through this and to get it wrong and to try again. And there are red lines around where you cannot go, but there has to be more bandwidth for fucking up, I think, in many ways. We talk about Democratic politicians and who's the last Democratic politician who young men really liked and thought were cool and obviously Obama comes up. and I think again there's like a simplistic explanation that is once again carrying through to today's sort of diagnosis of the problem and what to do which is like well Obama liked sports he could talk sports and so that's it and and he was kind of funny and and it's part of it right

yes and it's also he was willing to sort of live in the gray on some of these things and you know he was competitive in sports, but he was also competitive in politics and everything else. And so he had, you know, sort of traditional masculine traits, but also was willing to be vulnerable in how he spoke and complicated, crying in public, and also being willing to say, like, okay, maybe I don't agree with that, but I'm going to hear it out and I'm going to make some space for that. And I do think it would be a mistake if Democratic politicians just think, oh, well, to get the young men vote. I got to go on those podcasts and I got to really just talk. I got to be able to

talk about sports or something. And that's it. And then I'm going to, and then I'll be fine. And they can smell bullshit from a mile away. Right. Or be like really tough. Tougher against Republicans is the other thing, right? And I'm going to swear even though I don't swear in real life. And it's so, it's so naf. It's just like you can see it, you can feel it. That idea of that, that messiness that Obama was willing to lean into. Like accepting when you've done something wrong, realizing that you don't know something but are here to learn, being tough, being tough but at the right times. And with like this idea of awareness, this idea of purpose, this notion of what are my values and when am I going to apply them and when am I willing to be flexible and have that discussion

about where we're going. When we talk about men's health, it's so funny because people get obsessed with you know the biological side of things sperm racing which we can that's a that's a whole thing but yeah we're trying to we're trying to lean away from that but there is there is there is now what we're hoping for is this like holistic understanding like all of the marvel rings you need to you need to understand that you can focus on your physical well-being but you must understand that your emotional mental spiritual social if they are not in calibration You know, you look at Andrew Tate as an example, he who must not be named. The idea that, like, he's physically fit as hell, you know, and so everyone's like, that's men's health.

You would, in another world, he would be on the front of men's health magazine, you know. But everything else is out of whack. Like, all of those other scores are on the floor. And I want, and we want men and boys to realize how flawed that, that single, domain expertise is, that idea instead that if you can get a 75 on four of these domains, that's what we should be striving for. Like try and get some sense of stability across all of these and realize when you are completely neglecting one of them as well.

And that's what I think, you know, any progressive politician trying to engage with young guys realizing that there are many ways of connecting with them. across those domains. Well, your new report, which just came out last week, is called the real face of men's health and focuses less on the digital side of things, more on the mental and physical health effects of being a man today. What were the biggest findings there? So it's pretty staggering.

We've done these in, this is the sixth, we've done these in five other countries. We wait for America, just, you know, create this bulky, it's the biggest, the biggest one we could find. And it's taken a number of months and we've had incredible, authors with us from UPenn and otherwise trying to create this understanding for the first time. This data is it's up there somewhere on CDC websites but it's never been gender desegregated. There's never this breakdown actually of what's happening within and between men. We just keep doing this cul-de-sac of like men are dying earlier than women. Oh no, how did that

happen again? Rather than understanding that like black and Latino and native men, like there's there's just so many different groups of guys and then age demographics that we simply don't understand. So when it comes to like public policy, you can't begin to create solutions when you have a homogenous blob of men. Like people call me a specialist. And I'm like, no, I work with 50% of the population. You know, like that's, that's where we're at. And so what this report tried to do, like the real face of men's health, let alone the mustache pun, which is very, really where everything starts with us. We then move on to this idea of the fact that there is a very clear ripple effect for each man. This is how we work with women's health. This is how we work

in all different domains of understanding that for each guy, his health and well-being is, you know, the feeling is felt by everyone else in his life. And so that's how we galvanize guys. It's this idea of you should do this for others, not only for yourself, but for others. And what we found in the report, you know, America is moving backwards. You used to be 23rd, 24th out of 31 or so on the OECD, you know, list of when it came to men's health outcomes, now at 27th or so. And we use a really clear marker for that, which is premature death, which is 75. Okay. So in Australia, 33% of men die before the age of 75. And that led to crisis talks within our government. That was like it had never been spoken about before. We broke it down. We handed it to the prime minister. And we've now

got the largest funding packet in history when it comes to men's health that we and the rest of the sector have benefited from. Awesome. In the UK, we're at like 37, 38, you know, early 40s, it's pretty dieer, the Prime Minister has now moved towards creating a men's health strategy. Never happened before, creating policy. In the States, the number is 53%. Wow. The majority of men are dying before the age of 75. And 75 worldwide is considered like an early death. So you're now, you're now talking about the majority of fathers and brothers and grandfathers and it's really overwhelming to consider. And we talk about health equity when it comes to this stuff.

We used to think that, you know, being a white man in this country is like the greatest for your health and well-being. That's just not the case anymore. Asian-American men live far longer than white guys. It's about 82.3 or so. But then we've got this huge, as we're always going to find this huge disparity where you've got, you know, black men and Native Alaskan men, Native Alaskan men. Native Alaska men are at like 64, you know, and black men are at 69 or so.

That's the average life expectancy for these guys. They've just retired. Yeah. They've just retired. And they've got a couple of years before they're likely to pass away. So we're trying to clarify the extent of this problem and then lead on to solutions and actually break down some of these myths, like this idea, for instance, it's only, you know, young men who are dying by suicide, for instance.

Like, no one is paying attention to men in their middle years. Yeah, that like 45 to 55 year old age bracket. And as men age, across every racial and ethnic group, the suicide rate drops, except in white men. Really? Except in white men. It continues and then it actually goes up. As they get into their 70s, it just spikes.

What do you think the causes of that? There is no place for them. there is no narrative for them there is a complete it's like the transition out of the armed forces yeah the suicide rate is really low when guys are in the army and the second they leave it peaks because that entire sense of service that notion of meaning is gone we see that for older white guys where they don't have a community they haven't built a community they don't have culture to rely on in those circumstances and their sense of where they sit, where they belong is eroding, and they don't have friends. You know, the Harvard

longitudinal study shows this consistently. It doesn't matter if you smoke, you know, US surgeon general spoke about this. Obesity, doesn't matter. It is, it is quality of friendships that keeps you alive. And so, you know, we did geographic maps as well. You would expect that there is very clear, you know, red areas where things are, you know, doing poorly. It's directly related to financial security. In fact, that's not the case when it comes to suicide. It's this ban through the Midwest, through the mountains. Like Colorado and Wisconsin, it just peaks in some of these other states. So we need more nuance. We need more understanding. And that is the real face. It's like open up and consider the whole man and consider the fact that me and you

have very different experiences based on where we've come from, what we've learned, where we work, all of that stuff. And that's what we're trying to bring to the states. and working at a state level to do so because we don't think that a federal level is the way to go right now. As you were talking about presenting a plan to the Prime Minister in Australia and then the UK, I'm like,

I'm afraid to see what would happen if you presented something to this. Thankfully, Gavin Newsom in California is just as big as Australia. And you saw the executive order. He's very much in the right head space on this. And Wes Moore is talking about it and Spencer Cox is talking about it.

We're trying to, this is not you know, bipartisan is not a term that is thrown around here a lot, but, like, health is the way in. Health is the way into a bipartisan solution. No one wants their men and boys dying too young. No one wants to feel the burden of having to care for, you know, someone with ill health. So on a pure emotional level, this goes beyond politics. And I like to think that we can find ways. And there are different solutions, depending on which side of the spectrum you're on. But I think we can get everyone to the table.

Zach, this was great. Thank you. Thanks for the work you're doing. And if people want more info, where should they go? Well, firstly, you're going to grow a mustache in a couple of months' time, obviously. We do not want to see that. I'm going to be straight bore at in a little, which my

wife is going to be very excited about. But heading to Movember.com is obviously the greatest way. Bringing your community, bring your mates, as we say in Australia together. Like, have a barbecue. Talk about something real. Have a connection with one another. Use the month as a means for that. We've got a substack as well where we share all of our research findings. You know, the Movember Institute of Men's Health is the impact machine, you know, behind the scenes, using the funds that are raised to actually get stuff out there and make sure that we make change. So we're going to keep going

and doing our best to help those guys live healthier longer lives and promote the cause because I believe in it wholeheartedly. Look, my guy friends and I have been trying to get a guy trip on the books. I think we just tell our wives it's Movember and we're doing this. We're doing this for health reasons. I am your therapist today and I will call, I will call whoever needs to be spoken to and say, John needs this social prescription. Perfect. Yeah, let's make it happen. It's excited. Thank you so much. Thanks, John. Two quick notes before we go, Alex Wagner, who just joined Crooked Media, is coming out with

the new show. Alex wants to step away from the traditional media bubble and towards the folks most affected by our unprecedented times in her new show, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. She'll bring you stories from the front lines and the voices of those too often left out of the conversation. You can listen to the trailer now. Make sure to tune into the premiere of Runaway Country with Alex Wagner on October 23rd. New episodes drop every Thursday.

Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and watch on YouTube. Also, exciting news. Cricket Media Reeds is releasing our next book on January 27th, 2026th. It's called Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson, and the unraveling of the conservative mind by one of our favorite political journalists, New York Times Magazine writer Jason Zengarly. The title comes directly from Tucker himself. When he visited Hungary in 2021, he praised Victor Orban for being, quote,

hated by all the right people. For Carlson, being hated isn't an accident. It's the point. Why a book about Tucker Carlson? Because the key to understanding the Trump age is understanding how we as a society stopped seeking truth and started seeking outrage. And nobody shaped that shift more than Tucker. Tucker can be a lot of things, strident, shrill, offensive. But unlike many other right-wing media figures, he's not a buffoon. He knows exactly what he's doing. And hated by all the right people, Jason Zengali gives a fascinating, informative look at Tucker's political evolution and how his rise traces the rise of the MAGA movement. We just lock the cover art, so check it out and pre-order your copy of hated by all the right

people at crooked.com slash books. As always, if you have comments, questions, or guest ideas, email us at offline at crooked.com, and if you're as opinionated as we are, please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. For ad-free episodes of offline and Podsave America, exclusive content and more, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe. Subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. If you like watching your podcast, subscribe to the Offline with John Favreau YouTube channel. Don't forget to follow Cricket Media on Instagram, TikTok, and the other ones for original content, community events, and more.

Offline is a Cricket Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favro. It's produced by Emma Illick-Frank. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Jerich Centeno is our sound editor and engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seguyen. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music.

Thanks to Delan Villanueva and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to be. Thank you.