Afterwords: Thoughts On My Interview With Ace Metaphor

7:25 PM 11/22/2023 Wed

Given the rather sudden and unexpected nature of my recent interview with Ace Metaphor on Tue, Nov 21, 2023(1), I didn't have my usual list of prepared questions; instead, I had to rely on an "on the fly" way of doing things. Originally planned for only fifteen minutes, our interview wound up going for well over two and a half hours(!) - so, I suppose I can do well in improvising when I have to.

It's been a long and winding road with Ace; as I recount in my interview with him, I first met him in person four years ago on May 4, 2019; that was the date that I attended the "I Love Me Self-Love Tour" that featured Ace, Stephan Speaks and Derrick Jaxn. While Jaxn was prancing around like a proud peacock, Ace was keeping his nose to the grindstone, greeting guests as they arrived and seeing about all of the nuts and bolts of their operation going off without a hitch. He was the first person my ladyfriend and I met, and in the years that I would attend his own events, he's been nothing but personable ever since.

My reason for attending that event in the first place, was to gather facts about what exactly these "Black Love Gurus" were up to in the 21st century; social media was still very new to me, but it was very clear that Ace and his partners were a decided departure from the Steve Harveys, Hill Harpers and Michael Baisdens of the late 20th century. I wanted to see what all the hubbub regarding Jaxn in particular was about, and see I did - it was the first of three very important takeaways for me as I left the place after the whole thing was over. Despite my being one of the founding fathers of the Black Manosphere - and something of a nemesis not only to Jaxn but the whole of the "Black Love Machine" - the fact remains that what I learned from what my ladyfriend coined the "Derrick Jaxn Cartel" would prove impactful; "The Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman" was born of that experience that fateful day, in fact.

After Jaxn's self-inflicted fall from grace in the spring of 2021, it remained an open question as to what would become of the "cartel"; but by the fall of that year, it became clear what Ace's plans were, which were quite ambitious. In Oct 2021, Ace held his own live event, now flying under the "Tonight's Conversation" banner, taken from Ace's popular dating card game of the same name. Again, my way of boots on the ground, "embedded" fact gathering and up close and personal observation and research, paid off.

That brings me to the current year, where I've attended Ace's events twice - once in Jan and again on Nov 18, 2023, barely a week ago as of this writing. On each occasion the turnout gets larger, and Ace has proven himself to be quite the competent businessman, showman, and leader of his own community. Despite our philosophical or ideological differences, it's been both a wonder and hugely instructive to see Ace's evolution and growth over the past four years, I must say.

That brings us to the interview yesterday. We covered a lot of ground, with Jaxn's fall hanging over everything; but for me, the highlight came when I asked Ace a question that made him really sit up and take notice: What were the three things about the Black Manosphere and the Black Love Machine that Ace and I thought were RIGHT about? Ace went first about the Black Manosphere:

1. The Black Manosphere is strongly PRO-MARRIAGE: This is huge due to the perception of the Black Manosphere being a group of guys online who aren't interested in anything long(er) term with (Black) women - indeed, this observation by Ace Metaphor about the Black Manosphere is actually corroborated by a very good article some years back on the National Public Radio website, that bore out the fact that nearly half of all single and childless Black men desired to get married or have a serious long term relationship.

2. The Black Manosphere promotes a Red Pill view of life when it comes to (Black) women: Ace freely acknowledged that many Black men are far too romantic for their own good, often being willfully ignorant about the realities of life for Black women and female nature. THIS IS HUGE, because you have arguably the single hottest name right now among Black Love Gurus AGREEING WITH US, that a Red Pill view of Black women IS A GOOD THING(!).

3. The Black Manosphere promotes an awareness of the realities of "Divorce Corp"(2), i.e., family court, etc.: The Black Manosphere has taken the lead on raising awareness of the current state of the court system when it comes to settling divorce disputes, child support and so on- something Ace freely admitted his side doesn't come anywhere near close to dealing with. ANOTHER WIN.

4. The Black Manosphere is PRO-FAMILY: Ace observed that the Black Manosphere is very much pro-family, and that Black men should ideally have kids within a married two-parent format - this again, is HUGE, due to the perception that the Black Manosphere is ANTI-family, and that the Black Manosphere upholds the idea that Black men can and should have kids completely disconnected from mothers, wives, families or community. Ace's observation in this regard is again reflective of the Black Manosphere's sociopolitical orientation of being right of center - something else that is trending toward Republican since 2016 (about 13% at the time to 20% today in 2023!).

5. The Black Manosphere advocates for GOOD GUYS: Ace said that the Black Manosphere stood up and spoke out on the behalf of the good guys of Black America, stressing the importance of "knowing your worth" and advising the good guys not to allow themselves to be mistreated by Black women. THIS IS HUGE, because let's face it, the Black Love Gurus, when they DO speak about Black men, it's almost always in a negative light - I can't remember the last time these guys even acknowledged that the good guys exist(!).

Though I asked Ace for three things he thought was good about the Black Manosphere, he wound up citing five(!) - and that is major.

Then, it was my turn - and I kept my list brief with these three simple observations, insights and takeaways I learned from the Black Love Machine and more specifically, the Derrick Jaxn Cartel dating back to the spring of 2019:

1. LOOKS MATTER: For whatever strange and odd reason, there has been a low-level and long-running debate in and around Manosphere circles about whether a man's looks matter or not - something that was absolutely downright weird to me, given the fact that every single dating and relationship coach for men that I have known and/or studied has gone on record in noting the importance of a man's looks in the mating dance. Nevertheless, what I took away from Ace and his compatriots, is that their fitness and overall physical presentation matters. A lot. It matters because women - and more to the point, Black women - place a very high importance on a man's looks. One is hard pressed to find many Rueben Studdard looking, "cuddly teddy bear" Black Love Gurus - at the very least they are slim and trim, and at most they are downright hard bodied body builders. Ace himself and Jaxn more previously - important here because the latter was a mentor of sorts to the former - are known dedicated gym rats (so is Tony Gaskins, someone else we discussed during our interview - a Black man with a long history in sports at the high school and collegiate levels). Bottomline and again, one is hard-pressed to find many teddy bears, pot-bellied guys or just generally out of shape and I'll say it, flat out FAT Black Love Gurus. Black women may pay a lot of lip service to the idea of a "no judgment zone" but their purses - among other things - do not lie: They're paying for eye candy, full stop.

In addition to this - and Ace himself freely admitted it - these guys are very good public speakers that are brimming over with charisma. And, they care about their grooming and dress, even if some of them do so along a "Rogue" line, to use Kevin Samuels' "Three Style Personality" schema. Ace himself looks like a brother from the block, and lots of ladies very much cotton to the Urban/Hip Hop aesthetic. Indeed, just about all of his male partners with the "Tonight's Conversation" crew present themselves similarly - much to the delight of the ladies. I know, I've seen it firsthand for four years running now.

The Black Manosphere needs to get brutally honest with itself - for all of our great ideas and cutting edge takes on the world of dating and mating in Black America, the cold fact remains that we live in a physical world. And, when it comes to the ladies - at home or abroad - how you look, matters. True, every brother won't hit the genetic lottery, be tall or facially handsome; but EVERY brother can be in better shape, dress better, groom themselves better, be better communicators and speakers, and, if not learn how to be charming, at the very least can learn how to be better at interpersonal relations. Because I know the Black Manosphere very well, please allow me to be clear: I AM NOT SAYING THAT ANY OF US HAS TO "BE LIKE THOSE GUYS" - what I AM saying, is that we can take a page out of their book for our own ends. After all, we want to be heard - to be taken seriously - right? Well, making a really good first impression, helps us get our ideas across and taken seriously. We are NOT merely disembodied, abstract ideas and concepts - and no matter how "right" we are, PEOPLE WILL GET TURNED OFF if our great ideas are joined at the hip to a physical presentation that clearly shows us not to care about such "trifles". Making an effort to look nice goes a long way toward getting people to listen to us, fellas. It really is as simple as that.

2. THE BLACK LOVE GURUS WORK TOGETHER: One thing I have consistently observed is that these guys are very good at working together - a decided departure from the usual bickering that is par for the course in the Black Manosphere. I'm not supposed to say this out loud, but the simple truth is that a major Achille's Heel of the Black Manosphere is that we have a very hard time working together. Indeed, there are voices in the space that make it a point of pride that we DON'T work together, that "it's not supposed to be like that". Some take pride in the idea that the Black Manosphere is a kind of living clearinghouse of ideas where brothers who merely "need information" can come and get it. Others fancy the space as a kind of virtual barbershop or even street corner, where brothers pull up and shoot the breeze - in and of itself that's not a bad thing at all. The problem comes in when the reality collides with the fanciful stories that we tell about ourselves, and something that I said to Ace during our interview: That the Black Manosphere tends to attract Black men who go against the grain of conventional thought and belief in Black America; who march to the beat of a different (their own) drum; and who are, simply put, contrarian. Many Black men in and around the Black Manosphere may be loathe to admit this, but many of them have been burned or mistreated - not just by "a" Black woman, but perhaps by a number of them, and not necessarily in romantic ways. Many brothers in the Black Manosphere have fraught relationships with female family members, or peers and colleagues professionally. Given that Black women make up at least half of the Black community writ large, it then shouldn't come as a surprise that a goodly number of brothers in the Black Manosphere are something of an outcast of the Black community - often rejected, mocked and dissed. These and other negative experiences have led many brothers to the Black Manosphere, where their observations and experiences are validated and reinforced by commiserating with other brothers with similar experiences. As a result, the Black Manosphere has developed its own world view that often runs counter to the pat or more conventional wisdom on matters pertaining to romance, love, relationships, and the like - and many of these alternative viewpoints have a basis in fact - scientific, data driven fact, that increasingly, our interlocutors on the other side have been openly conceding, as Ace did in my interview with him.

The problem, on the other hand, is that if left to its own devices, the contrarian bent that under more normal circumstances propel novel insights about the human condition in Black American form, runs the risk of descending into cynicism - of a deep mistrust, not just of Black women, or Black men who genuinely do not share the experiences and perspectives of the Black Manosphere party faithful (like Ace for example), not even of the whole of Black American society - but that mistrust and cynicism seeps into the Black Manosphere itself. Pretty soon, many brothers don't trust, or even like, other brothers within the space(!) - all of which seriously impedes, undermines and thwarts efforts to get anything in the real world done. This explains so-called "critiques" of say, the Black Manosphere Conclave, as little more than being "a grift", or of successful individual Black Manosphere podcasters and the like of merely "being in it for the money" and so forth. The Black Manosphere is left to remain an online gaggle of disembodied voices behind avatars with strange names, saying outrageous things that are at the very least shocking to onlookers, if not a heck of a lot worse. It all comes off as a seriously bad look.

The Black Manosphere is in many ways - this is how I certainly regard us - as the Skunkworks of Black America. Many of the ideas and concepts, the "talking points" that have increasingly become the coin of the realm on Black social media and beyond, found their origins in the Black Manosphere, and have truly become mainstream. But in order for the Black Manosphere to take things to the next level, it will have to go beyond mere "talking points" into the real world and in real time - and that will take the kinds of personal development, infrastructural investment and organizational administration that our brothers across the aisle on the Black Love Guru side have proven themselves masterful at achieving. I'm not privy to the inner workings of exactly how the sausage is made - I have no idea if these guys are fighting like cats and dogs behind the scenes - but the final product cannot be denied: I have personally witnessed it for four years straight how tight of a ship these guys run. It is a well-oiled machine - and these guys have unified around a singular purpose, no matter what we may think of it. And no, it won't matter if they're "wrong" and we're "right", either. The bottom line is that we simply have to do better in finding what we are FOR, instead of merely carping about what we're against. We have to focus more on BUILDNG, and a lot less on BEEFING - and in order to do that, we have to TRUST each other, have FAITH in each other, and have HOPE in our cause.

3. THEY REALLY KNOW THEIR MARKET: The final big lesson I took away from my four years of up close and personal observation of the Black Love Gurus, is that they really know their market - which happens to be Black women. Not to sound like I'm a pocket watcher, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that these guys are raking in the dough, precisely BECAUSE they know their market - Black women - so very well. Sure, we in the Black Manosphere may sneer in self-righteous indignation at their "pandering" and again, we would be right - but still lose the overall point. THESE GUYS ARE LEGITIMATE BUSINESSMEN. And even more to the point, these guys are using social media for its intended purpose: BUSINESS. That's very important to point out because many in the Black Manosphere simply don't see social media and attendant tools in the same way - indeed, we tend to see it as a way to coalesce opinion and thought, to be that aforementioned "clearinghouse of information", and to be a "barbershop" to merely "hangout". I think this is a shame, because there is a lot that can and should be done - and hey, we can't be mad if others more enterprising and on the ball take our "talking points" and make a killing off of it, if we're not willing to get our behinds in gear and do it ourselves. Again, I cannot stress this enough, HAVING IDEAS, EVEN GREAT ONES, EVEN ONES THAT ARE RIGHT, IS NOT ENOUGH. You have to promote, market and sell your ideas, too - and that's something quite honestly the Black Manosphere needs to seriously work on in the months ahead. SOCIAL MEDIA IS A BUSINESS and the Black Manosphere has planted its flag on the biggest piece of real estate in YouTube - which is a predominantly MALE platform. We've WON the "talking points war", we've been RIGHT about what we've been saying, and THE OTHER SIDE HAS CONCEDED THAT WE'RE RIGHT. What's next? That's the big, burning question for me.

And it should be the big burning question for you, too.

As I close this de facto report out, and as we come towards the close of 2023, I am of the personal view that the landscape has shifted quite dramatically this year - we are no longer a ragtag motley group of voices huddled together on the internet. The Black Manosphere has proven itself to be a dynamic, resilient and viable player in the social media space - very important in light of the untimely passing of Kevin Samuels - and the observations Ace made about the Black Manosphere above clearly points to the way forward for us to build on. But in order to move forward in the year ahead to come, it would be wise in my estimation to seriously consider what Ace and his colleagues have and continue to do and see what we can learn from them to adapt to our own operations.

The Black Manosphere's major strength lies in its "nerdy" ability to analyze situations and conditions obtaining in current day Black America, and from that to create novel ways in which to view them, the result being ways in which Black men can use the insights gleaned from all of this analysis toward practical ends, particularly with regard to modern Black women. We who are in the Black Manosphere have the truly unprecedented ability to use our mastery of facts, data, research and statistics, to illuminate the Black American condition along dating, mating and social lines, in ways that few if any have given any serious thought about. The Black Manosphere's greatest resource - our minds - is in my view and at the very least being under utilized and at worst is being totally squandered, by not harnessing this vast resource, combining it with my "big three takeaways" from the Black Love Gurus and "weaponizing" the two in propelling the Black Manosphere going forward. But in order to do that, the Black Manosphere has to be willing to focus on the aforementioned "big five" areas Ace highlighted, focusing a lot less on being contrarians and bickering with each other, using social media for more than merely hanging out and coming up with novel ideas, and using the power of social media to build up the Black Manosphere into a viable, scalable business - rooted in helping Black men become better Black men. Here, the Black Manosphere Conclave has a head start, with great promise - the third conclave back in Sep of this year was our biggest showing yet, and proved its economic viability. The insights in this report can and should be used to bolster and improve the conclave in many ways, most notably the ways outlined in the big five and big three areas above.

MOA

ENDNOTES:

1. "Ace Metaphor, Mumia Obsidian Ali & The Future Of Black Love!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6peTOD1WRE&t=5293s

2. "Divorce Corp Wikipedia" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_Corp