172. One Less Lonely Boy

Hungover from our joint weekday bender, we take stock of our habits after watching Netflix’s three-part Matthew Perry docuseries, asking ourselves questions about addiction, substance abuse, and New York’s always-one-more-round drinking culture, all before learning which decile we land in among America’s top drinkers. Then, we get into the New York Times story on why 30-year-olds aren’t hitting the milestones their parents did by key ages — marriage, kids, a house of their own — and the forces behind this generational shift: $6,000 two-bedrooms, freelance instability, and the impending doom of one bad medical bill. Plus: a seven-drink Greenpoint bar crawl, NA beer math, ketamine therapy, and what it means that neither of us is in the right headspace to cook a basic dinner at the ripe age of 33.

We dig into the New York Times story on dark nutrition, the next wave of hair-loss drugs like MP404 and extended-release oral minoxidil, the gray-market peptide boom, Chinese fentanyl-precursor suppliers adding peptides to their lineups, and why we’d risk an illicit drug over one that might actually be good for us. Plus: the joys of comfort-watching normie YouTube, America A vs. America B, and our embarrassingly low wellness scores.

We check into Clavicular’s $7,500 Camp Looksmax and follow one GQ writer’s AI-powered face audit as we ask why so many men are turning their bodies into numbers, and whether all that data delivers real answers or just a comforting sense of control. Along the way, we get into the rise of niche dating apps like A-Team, how self-help traded hope for despair, and what boys growing up online are being sold now that beauty standards have come for them too. Plus: You Can See Everything, Ben Lerner, the new wave of ads cynically targeting GLP-1 users and their side effects, dead hangs for an extra inch, Vulgar Wave 2.0, and a gentle reminder that five-seven is a fine height.

Comeback jitters (mostly) gone, we dig into The Cut’s “My Husband Has No Friends” as we ask ourselves: is this feature of the so-called male loneliness epidemic a cry for help, or are partners just getting the ick from men with no life outside the relationship? Maybe both!Plus: whether Master of None holds up, pelvic floor flare-ups, Emilio’s hair panic, cortisol supplements, talking ball, the Gen Z stare, the New York Times robbing Mad Men, Merritt Wever in Primetime, and Gilberto Mora’s record-setting goal for Mexico.

After 15 months of radio silence, tails between our legs, we finally crawl out of our content coma for this hiatus-breaking episode, in which we try to understand why we ghosted you and stopped doing the show for a year.Plus: the state of our skin barriers, gray-market retatrutide, PRP, ditching health trackers, Spencer's Spa, finally having to pay for our own skincare, and a $20 scalp massager.Editor's note: Please forgive our podcasting rustiness as we fumble our way through doing this again. We just had to get this one out to shake off the jitters. More to come soon.

Use code DEWYDUDES at greatmany.com for $150 off your next PRP treatment.This week, we chat with Michael Pollak and Steve Klebanow of Great Many, the NoHo studio offering personalized hair loss treatments with PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections at its core.Michael and Steve explain how PRP actually works, who it’s for, and why taking early action on hair loss leads to better results. We also talk about the shifting stigma around baldness, the low-grade obsession with hairlines, the limits of DTC telehealth fixes, the soft rebrand of the toupee (sorry, hair system), and how today’s dome maintenance should focus on long-term upkeep.

This week, we break down Magazine Dreams (2023), the unsettling and often frustrating indie drama about a troubled Black bodybuilder chasing aesthetic greatness while unraveling under mounting internal and external pressures. We explore the film’s take on masculinity, wellness, and image-obsessed culture, as well as how Jonathan Majors’ real-life domestic violence case—he was found guilty on two misdemeanor charges—reframes his performance. We also examine the film’s quiet, complicated rollout and how Majors’ off-screen scandal complicates its reception and legacy.We also dig into the film’s portrayal of performance culture, the physical extremes of bodybuilding, and its place in a long line of psychologically dark character studies, questioning whether it adds anything new to the genre.Also: gym alienation, performance-enhancing identity, and what happens when self-improvement turns into self-erasure.

Subscribe to Dewy Dudes on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at dewydudes.com to hear this full hour-long episode. We chat about Bathhouse’s alleged UTI problem, fresas in NYC, acid reflux, swaggy ENT doctors, allowing yourself an “hour in the yard,” nasal saline spray, avoiding microplastics, “regulars” etiquette in the hospitality industry, Austin Abrams going full frat demon in The Line (2023) and much more. This episode was recorded March 31. We know more updates have come out about Bathhouse since then.

Subscribe to Dewy Dudes on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at dewydudes.com to hear this full hour-long episode. This week, we dive deep into ice bowls of Saratoga, giving our two cents on the hostage-taped wellness influencer who became last week’s character of the week with his viral video of his five-hour morning routine. We also talk PRP hair regrowth, gym strength humiliation, Channing Tatum’s body transformation, gray hair patches and how a Sofie Pavitt facial momentarily restored Emilio’s will to live.Plus: how to Photoshop your way into signing a NYC lease (parody), trimming your eyelashes to look more masculine, death chat via White Lotus, Bryan Johnson’s alleged naked office antics, Big Dumb Baby and much more.

This week, we chat with writers Sophia June and Layla Halabian, co-founders of Language Arts, a Substack spotlighting indie and emerging literature, about the potential for Project X-inspired literary keggers, the masochism of Biologique Recherche’s Masque Vivant and the beauty of looking a little sleepy.We also get into anti-Kindle arguments, men reading Sally Rooney in public, Great Jones Spa, P50 1970 nostalgia, eating your skincare via Jell-O, Boston Rob, acupuncture-induced existential clarity, the misunderstood brilliance of pigeons, tretinoin purges, sauna etiquette and much, much more.