While listening to a podcast episode of three old friends savagely ragging on each other (The Greasy Pole episode 12 with TGO, Adam Pigott, and Aaron Clarey -- well-worth a listen) I got to thinking about male banter.
Why is it so awesome?
Male banter is a uniquely masculine phenomenon. Most men engage in it. As trivial as it can appear I argue it serves important purposes in society.
What is Male Banter?
Male banter is the ongoing verbal interaction men engage in while working together. It is light and unrelated to performing the tasks at hand.It is generally composed of jokes at each others' expense, challenges, and wordplay.
The content of male banter is developed by each group over time and includes inside jokes and references to past events.
New group members will have an onboarding period before they can fully participate. Women watch from the outside and will never understand.
What Purposes Does Male Banter Serve?
What purposes does male banter serve? My response to this question is speculative but I think readers will agree.Male banter provides group structure, defense against outsiders, and ongoing fitness tests of the participants.
Group Structure
Members of a group naturally subdivide into roles. These roles are social and may have nothing to do with the official tasks in which they are engaged. There will be the clown, the straight man, the prankster, etc. It's what men do. For whatever reason it enables us to work well together.These roles are part of the functional flow of male spaces. Female spaces have different dynamics and roles.
Male workspaces can be dangerous places. Male banter permits the development of the familiarity & trust required to work well together.
Defense Against Outsiders
An outsider is unknown. His skills, motives, and loyalties are unknown. The social structure provided by male banter creates opacity to outsiders.The group's language & social dynamics are a proxy for the group's work systems. He who does not know the one may be expected not to know the other.
Ongoing Fitness Tests
Because life is dangerous it is important for a man to be confident in the performance of his fellows. Male banter provides a useful analog for the challenges of life.Stress: If a man can't handle stress what good is he? The frequent abusiveness of male banter revolves around identifying & attacking a man's weak points over and over.
Inventiveness: It is necessary to turn problems into solutions. The humor of male banter is heavily based on reframing attacks back onto the attacker.
Addressing problems: Will the group stick together when the going gets tough? Interpersonal problems should be resolved in the safety of the village instead of on the hunt or the warpath. The persistent aggression of male banter allows issues between members to be identified & addressed while the stakes are small.
Who Does Not Engage in Male Banter?
There are two kinds of men who do not engage in male banter. One is the outlier. The other is the leader.The outlier doesn't have what it takes to perform on this level. Maybe he's verbally slow. Maybe he's a wimp. Maybe he's too nice. Maybe he's holding it all inside to be released at the worst possible time. Maybe he just doesn't know how to deal with people.
Alternately maybe he hogs the conversation and constantly attempts to impress everyone around him.
Whatever the case may be it is a good bet that a man who can't push back verbally or "play ball" is going to be somehow insufficient in other ways.
The leader is the opposite of the wimp. The leader's past performance is his proof. Engaging in general banter is a loss of frame for the leader; proving himself to the group means that he's auditioning for a lesser role. The leader may still engage in banter from time to time but on his own terms.
The State and Future of Male Banter
Male banter has been on the decline. Female workforce penetration has introduced incompatible players. Harassment laws have enabled those who can't compete to erase the game. Its inherent maleness is in the eyes of our new'n'improved masters an intrinsically bad thing.Still, it is out there. A coworker of mine spends time on oil rigs and spoke dizzily of the culture there. A rig is a dangerous place and he said he wouldn't work with someone who couldn't give and take abuse. It's still out there.
Where is it going? I think it will make a comeback. The future looks to be an increasingly dangerous place. Banter thrives in & addresses danger.
Banter lost territory because people did not culturally understand what was being taken & we had enough cultural reserves to accept the loss.
As margins thin and people learn the value & function of what they have or had they will fight for it. They will reclaim it.
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