Shame as a Driving Force behind David's Toxic Masculinity

Nicolas Padamsee "England is mine".

David is a shy, timid, painfully unoutspoken teenager trying to figure out his life. Most of the time, he simply disappears into the music of his favourite artist, Karl Williams, because real life offers little competition.

He lives between two worlds: his very middle-class, emotionally correct mother’s house, and his very working-class, proudly trashy father’s home, where keeping dirty dishes in the bedroom for days is not a problem but a lifestyle.

Shame, shame, shame...

David cares about certain things with almost embarrassing intensity. He is fiercely loyal to his father and obsessively devoted to his favourite music star, Karl - both of whom, in his eyes, have been “cancelled” by mainstream media and leftist communities.

When it comes to his father, he also carries a heavy load of second-hand shame over the fact that his mother left him and replaced him with a very proper, very polite, nice new man. The kind of man who says “good morning” with purpose.

Shame doesn't end at home. At college, David is continuously bullied by other lads from migrant Muslim backgrounds. There is no grand political meaning here, just boys humiliating another boy, because they can.

His already low self-esteem is further eroded by daily interactions with his mother, his step-sister, and college classmates who unintentionally remind him of everything he is not.

Passing on humiliation

One day, the bullying escalates. Public shaming turns into public violence. David is humiliated, attacked, beaten - a full trauma package, delivered in front of an audience.

Ibrahim, who watched anti-Muslim racists pee through their letterbox, finally finds someone weaker to punish. David, a middle-class white (relatively white) classmate, becomes the target. The humiliation completes its journey: anger and rage are not resolved, only recycled. Passed on like an Olympic torch from one boy to the next.

Naturally, David keeps this episode to himself. Shame prefers silence and secrecy. Instead of seeking help, David isolates himself and moves into an online life.

Isolation as an illusional ally

Comfort arrives unexpectedly through Call of Duty. There, he discovers he is good at killing Russians. Boys behind screens cheer for him. They praise him. They need him. For once, David feels accepted. Loved, even. His ego finally finds a place where it is not an inconvenience.

Things improve even further when David joins a private far-right online group that organises “air raids” against left-wing celebrities and communities. Harassment, but with strategy. For someone starving for recognition, it is paradise. Damaged boys are always welcome there, as long as they stay angry. When David is promoted to “general,” he finally becomes someone.

At this point, it looks like David has escaped the broken cycle of trauma. He feels strong. He feels seen. He feels heard. The reader knows this is absolutely the wrong place to look for strength but for David, it is the place. The only one available. The only one that opened its doors and didn’t ask uncomfortable questions.

Despite his mother’s attempts to pull him back into reality, David resists stubbornly, almost desperately. Trauma thrives in secrecy; it grows when hidden and rewarded. From the outside, the solution seems obvious. The reader wants David to move on, accept support, reconnect with reality. But David doesn’t experience “options.” He experiences escape. And escape means running from those who humiliated not only him, but also his father - the man he still worships.

So what happens when the last place that seemed open to him suddenly turns its back on him over a small mistake?

Anger that has to come out...

Like anyone stripped of power, David tries to erase his powerlessness through anger. Violence becomes the language. No surprise there - this is, after all, exactly how violence is produced in any society.

David completes a psychological circle so familiar it’s almost boring:

trauma –> shame –> low self-esteem –> isolation –> anger -> violence.

In his naivety, his narrow social bubble, and his limited contact with the real world, David believes he can regain his general status. Watching his father sink lower every day, he hopes his final act of “justice” will make him proud. Maybe even strong. Maybe respectable again.

As the reader grows increasingly frustrated with David’s choices, an uncomfortable truth emerges: David doesn’t really have choices. He is trapped between a daily life that treats him unfairly and a worldview too narrow to offer alternatives. His mother’s reminders that he was bullied even in primary school only push him deeper into isolation. His father’s decline and unrealistic fantasies of his son becoming a Call of Duty champion make him feel even more powerless.

The collapse is unavoidable.

Any learnings?

What David goes through cannot be fixed by one person, one parent, or one intervention. Boys are repeatedly shamed. Sometimes intentionally, through bullying. Sometimes unintentionally, through “normal” language, expectations, and social norms we pretend are harmless. To save Davids like him, society would need to change structurally and radically, adjust linguistically. We would need to stop normalising humiliation at school, on the street, or even at work. Negative feelings don’t stay in for too long; they externalise, sometimes with serious consequences.