"Best $2k I Ever Spent!" How To Be MENly

In the modern era, manliness is a complex social concept, wrought with misconception. The classic hallmarks of the "real man": fearlessness, strength, and leadership are no longer in steady supply. The classic lion of an Alpha Male has taken a backseat to the contemporary Alpha Male, whose skill set tends to evoke more of an obese house cat: cynicism, a degree of comfort with intimate public grooming, and a willingness to eat lasagna off of the floor. But is one form of masculinity more valid than the next? And what does the future hold? As we ventured to Echoplex to see MEN, we were looking for answers.

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Two modern men enthusiastically update and compare Angry Birds scores

Admittedly, our generation's interpretation of manliness seems at first glance to not hold up. We weep openly, but only about sports scores, which should pretty much guarantee that we'll never even get points for sensitivity. We listen to Death Cab For Cutie while we write articles for our blogs at the same age that our grandfathers were shooting down Zeroes over Tarawa. Even those who style themselves our nation's most musclebound toughguys dress like this.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, researching his role in the upcoming "Cobain" biopic

But it's not all bad news. First of all, we've already elected a President who wouldn't have been able to sit at a lunch counter in that previous generation and axed DADT, which, to me, is pretty courageous and admirable, and puts us one clear notch ahead. And, perhaps more importantly in this context, our lack of stoic frontier-sinness makes us much funnier. Have you seen humor from the 50's? It's like watching Dwight Eisenhower do standup. So we got them there.

The Big Man On Campus- Rhode Island School of Design edition

So in conclusion, although we may lack a certain aura of not being a complete wiener that "The Greatest Generation" took for granted, we've accomplished some stuff those old racist, sexist, homophobic douches could never have done. So maybe we'll call it even, or even give ourselves a bit of credit? Plus, after searching the crowd for a "real" man all night, we found Sammy Hagar. So there's hope.

As long as Sammy Hagar lookalikes roam the Earth, manliness will never die