We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson - The SHOCKING Truth About What Young Men Are REALLY Learning From the Internet! | Were Talking: Masculinity

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Paul sits down with three powerful voices - YUNGBLUD, Jordan Stephens and Big Zuu - for raw, emotional and deeply personal conversations that challenge outdated ideas of what it means to be a man. In this week's episode, We’re Talking MASCULINITY. They discuss identity, emotional repression, toxic male spaces, and what young boys are really learning from the internet. ◽️ YUNGBLUD opens up about rejecting shame, owning his masculine side, and why he worries for his 12-year-old cousin growing up online ◽️ Jordan Stephens dives into emotional literacy, homophobia, and the consequences of limiting male intimacy ◽️ Big Zuu reflects on being raised by a strong woman, embracing both feminine and masculine traits - and why young men need connection now more than ever (00:00) Intro (00:49) Yungblud on the Messaging That's Been Fed to Young Men Online (04:54) Jordan Stephens on Emotional Intelligence in Today's Men (11:47) Big Zuu's Advice for Any Men Who Are Feeling Lonely and Disconnected (17:55) Paul's Takeaways Support charities: Samaritans: https://g2ul0.app.link/qcJLJLhBjTb MIND: https://g2ul0.app.link/Ne9MpdtBjTb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill? Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news. Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. And we'll give you a better deal to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. That's Verizon. Best Network based on Route Metrics, best overall mobile network performance U.S. second half 2025, all rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. Welcome to We're Talking. This week, I'm sitting down with some incredible men for what were some of my favorite conversations on the show. Together, we challenge old ideas of what it means to be a man, what masculinity really looks like, and how we can support young men today. Some of what you'll hear is tough.

So we've included links to support charities in the episode description. These conversations reminded me just how vital it is for men to have safe spaces where we can be on show vulnerability and lean on each other. So let's get into it. Today we're talking masculinity. Youngblood. What is so incredibly sad is that whenever I see a violence happening with youth

and it's really it's a femicide, right, where you're seeing a young boy or young man taking the life of a young woman, you'll find out inevitably that typically it's some type of regime that happened. Yeah. He was rejected. She denied him. She said, I'm no longer want to see you.

And he didn't know how to take the rejection. No. The hardest thing about being a young man, and especially at the minute, have you not adhered to the trend, you're a weirdo, you're a freak, you kind of, you're isolated. It makes us kind of terrified

to formulate any personality at all. I feel like what's so strange around kind of young men at the minute is is the glamorization of the inability to fail you can't fail you can't fall off your bike you can't like I don't know like drop plates in the kitchen you can't cry you can't like it's it's like don't fail don't fail don't fail succeed succeed succeed and then when you eventually do fail then what happens is the humiliation is 10 times or a hundred times that's what i'm saying i'm really glad we're talking about this at the minute because i think it's kind of taken me 27 years to fundamentally really kind of like own my masculinity like i'm in a period

of my life of 27 where i'm like and that's such a crazy thing to say in 2025 yes isn't it it's such a ridiculed thing to say i think we have such a duty at the minute to really talk about that it makes me really scared for young men at the minute because they have nowhere to turn to you know what I'm saying? There's such a big anti-men thing happening on the internet and for a 12-year-old boy

to see that, it's like, ooh, who can I be? And then you end up finding someone like Andrew Tate and then you turn towards that. And I always get really concerned for my little cousin who's 12 and he's a legend and he likes go-karting and he likes football

and he likes blah, blah, blah. And I really get worried about like, okay, who is he looking at on the internet? Because if you take this kind of anti-man thing that's going on, which is justified. Like, take that out of my generation,

or my dad, or my granddad, or my great-granddad. Fine, but this 12-year-old boy been exposed to this kind of thing going like, oh, oh, I can't be that when I'm formulating my ideas, but I like this. And then he's on the internet every day,

and then he finds, again, like the far right and this kind of position of power. Like, it's really dangerous. Because what my point is, people like me and people like you are afraid to go, I'm masculine. You can listen to me

and the biggest part of masculinity is Ireland in a boxing gym, right? With boxers. I walk in, I love it. I'm full of testosterone. I'm aggressive. I'm about to box.

I like boxing. Youngblood likes boxing. Yesterday I'm wearing a skirt on stage. So this morning I'm in a boxing gym, you know what I mean? And the biggest beautiful kind of thing I learned from that is like I love the masculinity

and respect in my gym because I'm like, everyone goes around each other and says hello to each other. And that is the problem. You've got this on this side, you've got this on this side. And in every regard at the minute, like us liberals, if you want, are afraid to take the gloves off

and the gloves need to come off. Yes. Even what's happening with like, like, everything regarding, like, trans people in America right now, like, the far right are taking the gloves off. If we're not doing it because we're too scared, they're going to find someone who isn't scared who is preaching darkness

and a step backward in the world. Jordan. Men, we have a challenge around identifying what the emotion is. Yeah. Do you feel like there is actually a kind of crisis in terms of men being able to be honest about how they're feeling, about life and society in the West.

Absolutely. I think all over the world. And what I notice, and I do this with a lot of the television shows, it's funny enough, I was filming, I guess I could say it, I was filming Married at First sight yesterday, and there was a gentleman that I was working with.

And I asked him, I said, so tell me what emotion do you have in this moment right now? As you sit with your, wife what emotion is it he he he had no words and he he wasn't armed to be able to articulate the words he doesn't know what an emotion is yeah so i said if if you cannot tell me what the emotion is you can't tell me what the feeling is therefore you definitely can't tell me what your partner's emotion is yeah and you definitely can't tell me what your partner's feeling is and if you can't tell me what your

partners is, then you can't hold space for them. No. That means you can't connect with them. It's like the most important thing. It is. And you said it. It is. It is.

Like, do we start like a heartbreak high or, you know, just some space where you, where we can just ink? Why at school is that not the utmost priority to be, I think it's one hour a week in the UK, PSC, personal social education, one hour a week. Well, when I went, one thing that all children and young people need to understand. is how they feel, how they engage with people interpersonally every day of their lives. Yes. And this would, and I bet you you feel the same.

This will definitely get us both into trouble, but I'll say it. So it'll get me into trouble is trigonometry. Yeah. When I was in ice. You used that today, right? Yeah, I was going to say, I have not used trigonometry. Oh, what? Since I was, but yet.

Acute angles, though. Yeah, no, we, I have no idea. I didn't even not trigonometry. Yeah. It's like it is almost pointless, if not pointless, right? However, being able to identify your emotion, feeling is everything in life. Everything. Everything in life.

Like I'm saying, this is what spins me out. The basis of these huge political, social, economic shifts is a human being. Yes. Like a human that is feeling something. And that feeling is a part of the fucking decision. Yes. Like how much better would decisions be if we were emotionally regulated when we made them? That's all I'm asking.

Yeah, yeah. And this is the reason why I think these conversations are so important. Yeah. This is the reason why being considerate parenting is so important. This is the reason why, you know, normalizing these conversations with friends, especially among men. Definitely. You know, one thing that I notice is that, you know, I think, one of the most toxic places for men other than the internet.

Yeah. Is the barbershop. Brilliant. Uncle's telling old stories, I know. And you know, it's so, I mean. That's so funny. So clearly I don't have to go to a barbershop, right? But my boys do.

The one, yeah. And so it was, this is, this is, this blew me away. So for years, I would cut my, my boys hair. Right. And part of it was, I was cheap. Yeah, yeah, sure. Then the other, and I was like, they're young. They don't care.

They're dad. Like, they don't care right. Then I brought them to the shop. Yeah. And I was like, oh, no, no. I can't keep them in this. No way. Because they were bringing stuff back.

So I was like, I'm going to bring them home and I'm going to cut their. Then I thought, this is bad parenting because they're going to get exposed to it anyway. Yeah. So what's the best? What's best is, okay, I need to be there so that we can have conversations around this. Yeah, you can go and chat to the other guys around it. Oh, my God. But what is said is just, and this is not.

And this is not every barbershop. In London. But this is in London. We're in barbershops in south London. South, London and South. And once again, I'm not throwing all of our, all of these barbershops under the bus. But what I am saying, though, is that I think that. You're going to get dragged for this.

Yeah, yeah. I'm definitely going to get it for this. But what we do need is we need to have conversations around these topics that we're talking about. Yes. in the shops. One of my biggest frustrations with, obviously I'm being

generalizing here, but with the male community is this internalized homophobia definitely rooted in misogyny where anything outside of this heteronormative framework, anything is just, it's gay, it's, you know,

there's all these kind of phrases that are thrown around like, why, why feed out or no homo, pause, Like all of these phrases are, and I said gay as an insult when I was a kid, which is, again, hilarious because I was so, I was so not homophobic. It was just, I was just trying to fit in, you know. I think everyone did my, in my generation, as a slur, you know,

and culturally it was way more acceptable to be like that about it. But it doesn't make any sense to me. I honestly, I cannot get my head around the concept of homophobia. So I just ask myself questions, what can lead to that? And I think there's a lot of issues in society that are rooted in this immediate limitation on boys' sense of intimacy, you know? Like, there's so much in the world that seems to be as a result of boys and men who, if not gaining that intimacy from a woman, there's no chance that that's happening from their male friends because there's this fear. And I remember seeing these pictures online Like there was these photoshoes

They used to happen in like the late 1800s or something I don't know And there were men who were best friends And you can look at the positions that they did They sat each other's knee Head on the shoulders Yes They were very tactile

And then there was an introduction of heterosexuality and homosexuality As a means of understanding This human psyche So you're saying that In essence Society has shamed us Yeah

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Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Got your happy price, price line. Big Zoo. I can see that without question, it was your mother who shaped you. 100%.

I am her. You are. Last weekend I had a conversation with my boys, two boys, 11 and 14, around masculine traits and feminine traits. Yep. So do you believe that you

embody both traits? Yeah, for sure. Because I was raised by a woman. I wasn't raised by a man. so there's a lot of masculine traits I don't have because I wasn't installed in me growing up you know my mum is a scandalous lady and she takes care of herself

so I love like skincare and stuff which maybe might not be the most masculine thing but I think it's super important so like come to my house and you go to my bathroom I got bed owner serum eye serum cream like do you know what I'm saying like

and like I find it hilarious And obviously, I'm very loving. I cook. I'm a, like, cooking is also sometimes synonymous with women in their house, you know, even though a lot of chefs are men, like, like the most predominantly most successful chefs are men, which is quite weird, I'm quite weird.

But like, the trait of cooking is normally auntie, grandma, mum. Whereas me, I'm the chef, which is quite weird, because as a guy, I'm also this, like, Grime MC is very tough, and I'm a big, so I'm a big lad, like I man them. So it's like, I've always had this, this balance

that it's like, I'm from the hood like, I gotta be tough, like, you've got to be a G, I'm also quite a soft tender man, which I get from my mum. And I think nowadays, compared to when I was young, that is celebrated.

I think what we're doing for young men is giving them a chance to express rather than suppress. And put them feelings in the box. So you having that conversation with young kids is a convo I never had growing up. I never had that convo about feminine and chasing,

masking chase. I just followed up my friends told me. And actually just what you do. Because we all want to be in unison. And I feel like young men, when it comes to what you're saying, is that they go with whatever their friends are telling them. Their friends are saying,

we're going to go here and do this, that's what you do. If they say this is cool, that's what you do. Whereas now we're realizing, you can still be part of a group, but you can also be individual. So I have friends who are so different to me. We don't have to align on everything.

We don't have to have the same traits, but we can still be great friends. Whereas I feel like before, we almost felt like to be in unison, to be in a group with other men, you had to align with what they liked. Same way it's like, growing up in England, it's like, do you have football?

Yeah, yeah, I like football. Who do sport? Oh, you sport this team? Oh, we're a gang. But then you meet a guy who doesn't like football. You're like, what's wrong with you, bro? You ain't got a team. What?

that's mad. Whereas now it's like, yeah, fine. What do you like? I mean, masculinity is a topic that always pops up. Yeah. You know, on the show. In particular, the relationship that men have with each other.

Yes. In particular, because what we see with all the research is that men are having fewer relationships, fewer close relationships. Yeah. And becoming lonelier over the years. So when you think about your social circle, it feels like, to me, though,

that you're very connected. Yeah, me and my brothers, we're gang, man. Yeah. We've got a big, like a big group of us. We're all, like, we're all just, we're all really close. We all tell each other, like, where we're at mentally. We're all, we're all there for each other. We all support each other.

I'm really lucky, man. I've got a really big group of, like, just really good friends, man. The fact that you just have conversation around where you are mentally is not the standard. Yeah. Which is quite mad because for me it feels normal. Like, if I'm going through some stuff,

call the lads, man. Go sit down, go get a food. We're just, I've got really, like, we're almost family. Me and my brothers are family. Wow. So what do you say to the person listening who doesn't feel like they have that family

but wants that, needs that in their life? I would say, don't be afraid to speak to random people. I feel like that's what the UK has, like, has definitely done to people was like you get on a train and like no one speaks to each other. Like a person can be on fire in front of you. And people are like read the metro, that person's fine. Are you okay?

Yeah. Like England's very like that. And I feel like people that are stuck going through that like loneliness or don't have that connection. I would say the best thing for that, I mean, it goes back to youth work. Community hubs, man. Type him with your local community like, like volunteering. Volunteering is a great way. to get into a group of people.

You know, some people, they move to London and they don't have that community, they don't have friendship around them or they've taken that leap of faith and gone to a new place and they don't feel accepted. I always say, volunteering and going to a local community.

If it's not your community hub, I would say, like, sports is a great way to get into it. Like, because I have a lot of friends where me and my lives, we always play football together or we box together. Sports is a great way to connect.

So if it's not sports and it's not community, sometimes they're just finding people that are like-minded, that like the stuff you like and going into that, like, whether it's like gaming or whether it's like food or whether it's fashion, like, I feel like that for me is the fabric of society, is people's niche, random things that they love, connecting with people on that.

If you love music, like, go to an open mic night, or sometimes it's having that confidence to step out of your comfort zone to go lean into what you love. That's the hardest step I think that young people or people in general face. And if there's anything, any word of advice I give to anyone listening, who's looking to take a step away from what they,

do in their everyday life and find something in their passion is you've got to take that leap of faith. You have to do, because at the end of the day, you're going to feel so much about. Hearing from Jordan, Youngblood and Big Zoo really drives home how complex and personal masculinity is. It's not about fitting into a mold, but about breaking free from it. Their honesty reminds us that vulnerability isn't weakness, it's strength. If we want to support the next generation of men, we need to create spaces where we can be open, connect, and be ourselves without judgment. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, real change starts with real conversations.