Personally I think not enough attention is paid to how community atomization and sprawl, and the near elimination of the third place in America, has fostered a crisis of loneliness.
Young men chronically have no outlets through which they can socially interact with women. The only place it happened was at school and maybe some extracurriculars if they were especially social.
Society unconsciously brushes this crisis off with “well the real friends that matter are the ones you make in college anyways!” Ignoring how that doesn’t help guys that don’t have higher study in their life plan, or the fact that learning to properly socialize is kinda the point of those grade school friends you’ll probably lose touch with in adulthood.
All that was the case even BEFORE the pandemic hit, now even school’s been atomized, granted, rightfully so in the circumstances, with classes going virtual and leaving students in a situation where the Internet is the only place left in the world where they can learn any social skills, and that’s where the damned redcaps and chuds swoop in to prey on their insecurities.