She'd Rather Choose The BEAR? 

Kinda reminds me of the old Steve Irwin quote “Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.”

All the women who chose the bear have obviously never worked the night shift at a haunted pizzeria

I saw a woman choose bear, and she said "At least if the bear killed me no one would ask what I was wearing to make it hungry."

I've been charged by a bear. I threw my hands up and yelled "Go away!" It went away and left me alone. One night I was walking home from a 3-11 shift and some older man asked if he could walk with me. I said no 3 times. I crossed the street twice to try to lose him and I broke into a full on run. He yelled "wait up!" And I yelled "go away!" He laughed. The bear wasn't motivated by cruelty and wasn't amused by my fear.

As a man who IS a bear, I'm conflicted

I got drugged when I accidentaly changed beer with a girl at the same table as me. And it was a company party, so we had to work at the same company not knowing who it was.

As far as I am concerned, people that drug drinks are just free punching practice

The one explanation to give me pause: a woman said she would face more doubt and backlash from reporting a man than a bear.

I'm a trans woman and in my first two weeks of being out in public someone drugged my drink. Thankfully I had made a friend and she kept me safe. TWO WEEKS into presenting as a woman.

Women: I choose the bear. Men: What does he have that I don’t? Bear: HUR HUR HUR HUR HUR HURRR HUR HURRR *hands the woman a slice of 🍕*

Instructions unclear. I wore my hyper lifelike bear costume to a bar to be less threatening and animal control shot me with a tranquiliser dart and left in the middle of the woods 3 states away. :'c

I had a friend who grew up in the rural Ozarks, and he looked me dead in the eye when I said I was thinking of going camping there and told me "People aren't your friend in those woods. Don't strike up a conversation and keep a pistol on you, but don't tell them about it or show them. Nod respectfully, greet them if they smile and keep your distance but don't let your guard down. There's murderer's, felons on the run, and crazy people living in those woods where nobody can find them, and they won't find you either." Shit haunts me. I'm gonna buy the pistol he recommended too, small enough to be perfectly concealable.

As a man married to a bear... wait, what was I on about?

So I'm a 22 year old guy. Who had never been to a club as of last year. Then I started to a new school. On my way home from a movie night I met 2 girls on a bus and they invited me to come with them to a club. We went to a small place and danced, then went to a large club where both the girls got harassed by multiple guys. I got pushed and cussed at by a guy when I stepped between him and my friend. After a while of dancing one of the girls started colapsing on the floor. So we left the club, only to realise BOTH of the girls had been drugged. On my first time ever clubbing. I then spent the night telling guys who cat called to f*** off, holding the hand of the girl who was tripping worse, letting her bite my hand, trying to keep her from running in to the street while her friend called the police and talk to some guards at the central station in the city. Walking her to the hospital where we left her over night, because she couldn't go back to the dorms with her friend in that condition. Then I walked the other girl to the buss so she could get back to the dorms safely. After which I walked home cause I don't live at the school. That was my first time ever clubbing... And I live in Sweden. Those girls NEVER put their drinks to the side. We only drank water all night and it STILL happened. Which is why we assume the bartenders put the stuff in their water. And being the guy, I obviously didn't get drugged if it wasn't obvious from the story. If any guy questions womens feelings or fears... They do not know or understand the true extent of what women have to deal with all the time, and that's a fact. By the way. On that night I walked home alone at like 6AM and I live 40 minutes away from that central station, near a genuinely dangerous area and had to walk through that area where someone actually got murdered just a few weeks ago... where cars have been burnt (you can still see the scorch marks) and drugs are sold... And as a man I never once felt unsafe that night or any other. That would be impossible for any woman...

I'm from bear country. And we carry fire crackers in our vehicles glove box. Because that's all it takes to scare a bear away.

Sometimes I forget that Vaush's stream chat is made up of primarily 14-17 year old boys who are too scared to talk to strangers. This was a good reminder.

It's not about "most men." I have no idea of the statistics and it doesn't matter ultimately. It's not about how likely a woman may or may not deal with a violent/abusive man. It's about NOT KNOWING until it's too late. You know immediately the potential danger when you see a bear.

As a gay man, I often search for bears wandering alone in the woods. 😉

What’s sad about the wedding story is that I have a close friend that was roofied at a family wedding. They weren’t a plus one surrounded by people they didn’t know. This was their sister’s wedding. So women holding onto their drinks even at family events doesn’t surprise me

I've once read a comment on YT by a guy who expressed annoyance that women are afraid of him, the typical situation would be that they'd cross the street to avoid him late in the evening. He decided to show to one such woman how stupid it is to fear him cause he's NOT one of those guys by... crossing the street after her and following her, catching up with her and going "boo!" as a prank. The woman was pushing a stroller btw, and she was obviously terrified. He didn’t understand when people in replies told him he might be a sociopath with no empathy.

This video shows that, while Vaush may enjoy dabbling in misogynistic humor, he’s actually deeply empathetic towards how women under patriarchy feel. His community would go onto giving him so much shit, but he rightfully slapped back at them and accused them of insecurity.

I taught martial arts for a long time. One of the things I taught, aside from punches/throws/chokes and all that, was to watch your drink and consider it poison if it left your unobstructed view for even a second for any reason. This lesson was surprising to some people, mainly teenagers, and seemed to be a lightbulb moment for high school girls/early college girls in particular. There's unrealistic paranoid fantasy in self-defense, but there's also some pretty messed up reality.

I was at a club last week and this guy kept complimenting me, asking how old i was, asking to hang after etc. being a creep, i gave him the cold shoulder and walked a loop to loose him and he went off to harass (and i heard later tried to grope) some friends of mine. He ended up getting dragged out by security after making a big scene. In contrast: a few minutes later another guy came up to me. Opened with a high five (😂 love a quirky bro) gave me a compliment and asked for a dance. I thanked him and declined - I'm lesbian its not gonna happen lol - and he said aight, smiled, we did a fist bump and we went our separately ways. Its OK to ask / flirt with folks, just respect the answer they give you. The first guy could really learn something from guy #2.

My 29 y/o female partner got sexually harassed by a 60+ y/o guy who offered to teach them oil painting in a public space literally yesterday, so yeah this happens all the fucking time

Vaush needs an analogy to fit his audience "Would you rather meet a bear or order a pizza over the phone"

when i was 16 i was hanging out with a girl and she noticed a guy was following us, i didn't really think of it much but decided to walk her back home so she feels safer, at some point i noticed how much her hands were shaking and it was probably the biggest wake up call i had as someone who lived most of their life as a guy. it was insane to me that we allow this kind of shit to happen near the center of the second biggest city in the country. and that probably less than a percent of men are aware of it.

The most horrifying thing to see deep in the forest will ALWAYS be another human, that’s the primary draw of The Forest after all

This video and discourse reminded me of one Halloween. Think I was in my late teens or around 20. I was at a bar with a group of women. A friend of mine was just chilling and some random dude came out of nowhere and put his hand around her going: "Hey, what's up/You real hot/Wanna go dance." Drunk as a skunk. The friend AND the women around her went: "Nah, not interested. I'm/She's gay." and the dude's reaction was: "Well, is that a problem?" I was just looking at the situation confused as hell about his behavior and I eventually went: "Yeah, I've known her for ages. Believe me, she's not into dudes haha." The dude LOST HIS SHIT just screaming: "Do we have a problem dude? What are you trying, huh?!" Acted like a fucking gorilla thinking I was trying to mate with his partner or something. Later the dude left when one of the friends lied to him that the harassed friend's partner was at the bar getting drinks. But only after he thought she was "already owned" or something. Went to grind on some other random victim on the dancefloor. I think this moment really made me distance myself from anti-feminist/anti-SJW content back in the day. Just seeing that behavior so blatantly made me realize what things like "toxic masculinity" really meant and the "hysterical" stuff I thought feminists went too far with started to look very sensible. The reactions that dude had were so obviously gendered and ingrained to his interactions with everyone.

Okay. You chose the bear, but what if the man was a clown? Imagine you hear his squeaky oversized shoes walking around you.

I think women are calculating what kind of man is in the woods alone vs the general population. While men are calculating what kinda bear he’ll encounter.

when i was 12 i went to a youth church get together, and before i left my mother sat me down and explained how i should never leave my drink, that if i do for even half a minutes i need to pour it out, and to Never accept a drink from a man even if hes my friend, unless its an unopened soda bottle or can that you cant roofie

As a trans woman I cannot stress enough how much more dangerous it can be to present femme in public, whether you do or do not pass

Im a 32 year old man and I have always said the worst thing you could run into in the woods is another human 100%.

I can say as a transwoman, things guys say to you change completely depending on your gender. Even if you’re a guy and know this stuff is real, being on the receiving end of it really changes your perspective

A lot of people who don't understand the question seem to be under the impression that you're going to *actively* fight either the bear or the man. Arguing about how the bear is stronger than the average man is irrelevant. That's not the point.

Something forgotten in the premise is "alone in the woods". If the same premise is "on a public street with others nearby" probably more worried about the random bear in the street.

Ive had girl, friends for a large part of my life in part cos being pan lends to different social views and the amount of times ive had a first hand experience of friends being roofied and us having to carry them back home is fucking insane. Especially where i used to live in Brussels there were rings of bartenders who would roofy girls and guys for their buddies and then cover up for them. IM PICKING THE BEAR TOO BROTHER

This discourse reminds me of the Gillette shaving commercial that talked about how men should strive to be better towards women, which ended up offending so many people that it set the entire internet on fire for a whole month.

As a trans woman, the first time a man made me uncomfortable by making weird comments, I freaked out to my non binary bestie who was raised as a female. And I was surprised that they didn’t really think of it as a big deal (of course they were still there for me and helped me), but I was just like dude wtf this is crazy, but they have experienced that sort of thing so much they thought of my experience as “just another Tuesday” It woke me up.

So i know Vaush is controversial and has had some issues in the past, but i think that this is the kind of thing from him that's really valuable. Taking the time to walk his audience through this is really good and i honestly respect it

There are some creepy fucking guys in this discourse including one that said he was proud that he was scarier to women than a bear

As a nature nerd who has spent ages in the forest looking for bears. I absolutely understand women wanting to see a bear, they get to see men everyday seeing a bear is speacial.

Also, with women liking true crime, it is somewhat connected. Sometimes, people with trauma find other traumatic things safer than something that is safe.

…if I accidentally run into a woman on the trail, should I act how 99% of all black bears act and just run away into the woods huffing and puffing, crashing through brush?

I never choose bears. I always go for the Twink.

as a transfem, i'm starting to see women's side of this dynamic and it's really fucking annoying at times especially when my own guy friends' treatment of me is influenced by that dynamic

I’ve walked alone at night since high school and never once have been harassed(except cops) or tried to be harmed by someone else. When I’ve told this to women they are always shocked and ask if I carry any protection and when I say no, the absolute concern on their faces is earth shattering. Men and women live in two completely different worlds.

Let's me put it this way for those still unable to see the point of this: - Bear in the woods: The Revenant - Man in the woods: Deliverance

Being a lefty guy who didn't jump down women's throats over this crap feels like being Sony watching Microsoft talk about how the new X-Box has to always be online.

The man in the thumbnail gives me massive 'young conservative' vibes. On the other hand, the bear looks friendly and chill. I think I'm going bear on this one because I'd rather be mauled than listen to that guy for more than a minute.

I saw a a spinoff that was something like, "black women, if you were in a conference room before a meeting would you rather a bunch of white women walk in or white men." black women chose the white man and the white women in the comments section all lost their shit.

I was introduced to this hypothetical as “Would you rather be trapped in a forest with a bear or a human,” and just took it for a fun little tjought experiment. Like “oh, haha, the bear is just gonna go do bear things, probably not eat me.” “Oh, but I could probably try and work together with the human… unless they just decide to kill me, they might be worse than the bear.”

I've been sexually assaulted by both men and women (I'm a man) and the reason it didn't traumatize me, I feel, is that I was able to stop it. And if I needed to escalate it to violence to protect myself I knew that in all those cases I would prevail. It was never a situation like a supervisor or somebody with authority over me where I might feel coerced thank god. Being in those situations and feeling helpless would be sooo traumatic. I also got laughed at by my friends when I told them, but whatever. That's society I guess.

I go hiking and I can confidently say having run into both a bear alone and a man alone that I will be picking the bear.

I was once telling a man about how women know that they could be SA'd by any man they come in contact with, because they are just not strong enough to fight them off. He proceeded to , 100 percent seriously, tell me how hard it is to be a man, and not SA every woman, because they know they can.

I’m a male and trail runner that lives in the mountains. I would rather see a bear in the woods than a weird looking man. A mama bear and her cubs, that’s a hard choice.

My brother and his gf went out once and she ordered a drink but then decided she didn’t want to drink, so my brother drank it for her. It was spiked. Someone slipped something in there while she was camping the drink

In a sense, good men are victims here as well. When society treats every man like a potential rapist it can lead to increased social isolation which leads to depression and suicide. So evil men being violent hurts everyone, good men and women alike.

I would unironically choose the bear. I know the bear's intentions. It has simple animal instincts and doesn't act on malice. I have no idea what a human's intentions are. Not all men are bad, but ANY could be. That's the point. That's why it's not an argument against men in general.

I feel like the comment about feeling sad that women automatically see you as a threat isn't a "weepy member of the dominant class" thing. It just generally feels isolating. I'm not going to hold it against anyone, and I'd never bring it up in any way that would make someone feel sorry for me, It just weighs on me, in the background.

Helped a woman friend finish a drink someone bought her and ended up roofied. Almost every woman friend I've ever had has at some point told me a story about experiencing sexual violence. We as a society don't make healthy men and it's a problem.

As a gay bear, I will always choose the bear over someone of either gender.

The women love Feddy Fazbear. His lullaby is so soothing. Not a hard choice.

I’m a man, and I’d pick the bear. You don’t know what people are actually about until you’re alone with them where the government can’t find either of you. Yeah, bears are dangerous. But, people are insane.

If I had every penny for every time there was a man marrying a bear in Korean mythology, I would have 2 cents, which isn't much, but its weird that it happened twice.

As a man, I would choose the bear. Because the hypothetical man in the woods could potentially be Shia Lebouf.

Bears don't want contact with humans. They'll leave you alone as long as you dont accidentally sneak up on them and startle them. Thats why people in bear country wear "bear bells." Bears are genuinely safer than men, outside of some very specific circumstances.

I'd pick the bear. There's a 0% chance it'd try to start a conversation.

As a frequent hiker, i see men everyday, its boring, Ive only seen a bear once. Id rather see the bear

've been asked several times what the biggest red flag in a partner is to me, and I always say "if his friends are assholes." I dont care how kind you are as a man, if you let your friends harass others, support your friends cheating, or look away when your friend is drugging a girls drink I want NOTHING to do with you. Unfortunately, behaviors like this are all too common in male friend groups from what Ive seen. If you don't hold your friends accountable for their actions, your complacent in them.

See, the fact that I understand why women would choose the bear is exactly why, as a dude, I've always been very careful about how I behave around women I'm not friends with. Because I never want to make them scared, knowing how so many women in my life have had awful experiences with dudes. I cannot begrudge women for choosing Bear over Man. I don't understand why some men are like that. How do they live with themselves, knowing that they're creepazoids?

The Druid Halsin has entered the chat.

Thank God Vaush doesn't read his comment section on YT, cause he would have an aneurysm for the people who still can't get the point of the hypothetical. This is like when NonCompete couldn't understand the alien hypothetical.

One time, I was waiting for the bus at around 3am after a night out, and some guy tried to flirt with me. I was alone, half-drunk and still wearing my club outfit at that point, so I was extremely uncomfortable with randomly being approached by a stranger and I felt very vulnerable. Some other guy told him to stop and that he was making me uncomfortable, The second guy and I ended up being on the same bus and I thanked him for stepping in. This second guy proceeded to sit next to me and chat me up the whole time, and asked for my number. This was one of my least favorite interactions ever. I admit, the second guy didn't actually do anything wrong (he was very polite when I rejected him) but I felt so disgusted at the idea that the only reason this man even stood up for me was because he wanted to shoot his shot. I sometimes wonder whether he would have even bothered if he thought I was less attractive. Obviously not all men, but its hard not to think so when even the "nice" ones are still just trying to get in your pants.

As someone who used to hike, other people are some of the most dangerous things to encounter in the outdoors ESPECIALLY in the evening.

I just wanna be overly pedantic about one thing: the "no man knows a rapist" thing, are man supposed to ask their friends if they ever raped anyone? And if so, do you really expect rapists to tell the truth?

Watching chat tell on themselves is hilarious

Fear is involuntary. It is not anyone’s fault to feel more or less afraid of something or someone than others. Being afraid of a black person over a white person, male over female, priest over teacher, etc can not be blamed on the person having the feeling. If that person treats anyone worse because of those fears; that is a choice.

I’m just confused because we always make fun of racists who bring up anecdotal experience and racial statistics of crimes as to make a point of the moral quality of minorities, yet now that men are the target of the criticism this becomes a valid form of social commentary?

Everytime I see this discourse or anything similar I'm reminded of the bit in a Daniel Sloss special where he says, all women have a story about some creepy guy and if she hasn't told you about it, that says more about you than her. And lost of guys in the audience bood

Humans aren't very good at risk assessment. People will be terrified about home invasions (an extremely unlikely thing) and then not wear a seatbelt or ride a motorcycle (both verifiably terrifying things to do.) This thought experiment suffers the same problem. In the most painfully literal interpretation, encountering a man is, objectively, statistically safer than encountering a bear. But arguing that point is not very helpful, and it's easy to see people getting sidetracked. It's more important to understand why so many women would choose the bear, and how it reflects the real dangers they face on a daily and weekly basis.

I am all for empathy to women and being a father to two young daughters, these things scare the shit out of me both for the present and the future. However, using such an extreme example as a freaking bear, you have to also be empathetic to men who see themselves compared to literal monsters. Here is the thing about empathy, it applies on everyone including of course, women, but also men. I understand the point these people are trying to make, but when you make it in this bad way, it can also be counterproductive.

at some point this just becomes a conservative talking point: "see how scared women are, men need to protect them."

Bears are awesome. They're great cooks, fun at parties, good company. They can be bitchy at times, and tend to chase twinks, but otherwise, I'll take a bear every time.

Men need to not take everything so personally, the hypothetical isn’t even about an individual (or choosing at all, it was just a way of saying that “it’s scarier to be a woman than you might think”).

You are walking in the woods, there's no one around and your phone is dead, who would you rather spot? a bear or Shia LaBeouf?

I’ve had men in my life say that they didn’t realize catcalling was so prevalent because they never see it happen. That’s because when a man is out and about with a woman, it doesn’t matter if she’s his partner/friend/coworker/sister/etc, to other men, that woman is “his” and a man won’t disrespect another man like that. Women are catcalled when there are no men next to them. Same reason “I have a boyfriend” is safer than “I’m not interested”

Are we just not gonna talk about that intro? 💀

Angry incels raging over this are equivalent to Kanye on South Park not getting the fish sticks joke.

my family comes every autumn to forests, just to hike and forage mushrooms, i've been going with them since i was a toddler and every stranger that i've ever met in forests was either someone with those dorky nordic walking sticks or a bucket full of mushrooms, so i think i'd choose a man there. that being said, if we're talking like a shady back alley something with similarly bad vibes, 100% bear, no questions asked, he's just looking through trashcans for leftover food, i can just slowly walk away and enjoy not getting robbed and stabbed to death.

The concept and consequence of the answer to "Man versus bear" is exactly why I chose the industry as I did; driving commercial vehicles expedite over the country these past decade or so. However, for the past year and a half because things went downhill with that last job, I've been mainly living out of my car. I'd rather this solo transient lifestyle than ever again run the risk some creep chooses their desires takes precedence over my dignity. On another footnote, at the 10:40 you have exactly hit it over the head. My cousin James was murdered by a narcissistic domestic abuser that he took a chance on living in his home thinking the dude would correct his ways if only given a chance. The man shot him dead in cold blood in that same home, making like he lost a liquor bottle in the house moments prior.

Depends if I’m wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress or not… cos then the bear might blame me for what I was wearing. A man would never do that.

The real based take is that the world would be better if everyone stopped drinking alcohol

As one who's been on the receiving end of multiple forms of abuse, I'd 100% say the bear. I'm a non-passing trans woman, so I get all the ire from both genders, and have been straight-up assaulted in bathrooms 4x now. I would never leave my drink either. I try my best to always travel with a friend as well.

I feel like this is somehow an American thing, given you have those small fluffy black bears, and very few people actually go out in the woods. In Finland people go out in to the woods a lot, and no one is scared of meeting people in the woods. Plenty of women leave their drinks unattended. The police receives about 10 suspected roofie cases anually. Everyone is fucking terrified of bears. None of this is to try and argue against the underlying point, that the world is a lot more threatening to women than men.

I'm a guy and my friend (also a guy but somewhat feminine looking from behind) got roofied while we were out celebrating a friends birthday. He got *very* sick, puked out my window the whole ride home, and I nearly had to drive him to the hospital. We did some research on the symptoms after and if the dose were a bit stronger, it could have killed him. So yeah, the fact that some dudes will just do that means I don't blame anyone for choosing the bear.

This is one of the major reasons I am so much happier as an open woman. As much as I now have to be extra vigilant, at least now im a person and not an irredeemable monster to a sizeable portion of the population. Talking with other women is completely different when you're seen as another human being. It's also why I think I have so much more luck talking to and setting up dates with guys than my cis woman friends: I talk to and treat guys like they are humans and (while still being cautious) don't treat them like rapid animals. And I see the exact same 'all men are naturally predators' rhetoric turned against me and my trans sisters all the time from cis women. I understand why most other women choose the bear. I would choose it too if I knew it was going to be a violent encounter. I understand many women have trauma related to men. Just remember that demonizing an entire group of people based on something they can't change and treating them as the single worst monster you can think of has unintended consequences. Consequences like TERFs being able grow and thrive to hurt trans women because we are 'predators in disguise'. Like forcing trans men into the closet because if they leave they know they'll treated like a monsters. And alienating male allies because no matter what they do they'll be treated, at best, as 'docile, for now'. I've seen people I care about get hurt in all of those ways.

I'm a Trans Guy. I would choose the bear. Sincerely, FROM A GJY WHO LITERALLY NAMED HIMSELF BEAR.

I used to think that women were overstating their troubles too, until I heard a female friend of mine telling how she clutched her keys whenever it got dark. Later, I learned that another friend was being actively stalked by her ex and another one almost got assaulted by a guy we befriended in a bar when he wanted to play games with her. That was a harsh wake-up call.

**Watches the Revenant** Fuck that, I'm taking my chances against Jim