[ VOICES · COMMENTARY ]
The online culture quietly shaping how young people see relationships
A wave of online content is teaching young people that control is strength. Prevention has to meet them where they already are.
The dynamic, not the personalities
We are deliberately not naming individual creators here. Naming amplifies them. What matters is the pattern: content that reframes domination, surveillance, and contempt as confidence, sold to young men at scale through ordinary social feeds.
Those ideas do not stay online. They show up in how a teenager talks to a partner, what a young person believes is normal, and what a parent or teacher struggles to counter alone.
Why it matters for prevention
Abuse begins long before it is visible. Attitudes form early.
The most effective counter is not outrage, it is the steady, trusted adult in a young person's life.
What supporters can do
Supporting Rainbow helps keep steady, trusted, survivor-centered help within reach for families across Los Angeles County, including the parents trying to make sense of what their kids meet online.
Rainbow Services is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. This commentary is nonpartisan.