Man or bear

The debate originated from a TikTok video published by Screenshot HQ in April 2024 which interviewed eight women on the question, with seven out of them picking the bear.^[1] The post went viral and gained over 16 million views in two months.^[2][3]

The online reception to the Screenshot HQ video was divided.^[4] Most women responded to the debate saying they would also choose the bear.^[5][6] One of the main reasons they chose this answer was that men are more likely to commit sexual violence against women than bears.^[6] Other popular arguments included that bears are unable to commit acts worse than murder, that they are more predictable, and that they treat women as people.^[1]

When posed the same question, many men also chose the bear.^[1][7] Many men also negatively responded to the common choice of the bear among women.^[8][9]

Some journalists compared the response of women sharing their assault experiences online with the #MeToo movement.^[5][10] Femi Oluwole of The Independent argued that the debate showed that men need to be more informed about the dangers women face in society.^[11] Journalists highlighted various murder cases such as Grace Millane's and Furuta Junko's.^[11][12]

Rachel Ulatowski of the feminist magazine The Mary Sue called men's backlash to women picking the bear "bizarre" and "laughable" due to weak arguments with misused statistics and claims of misandry.^[8] Some journalists compared it to the #NotAllMen movement.^[10][6] Clarissa-Jan Lim of MSNBC argued that discussion focusing on the actual hostility of bears misses the point, which she said was the "dangers that women experience in [a] world" with men.^[7]

The World Health Organization states that one in three women face sexual or physical violence in their lifetime.^[13] In contrast, there have been 664 bear attacks over fifteen years with most being non-fatal, which means bear attacks are far less common.^[6] Bear expert Jean-Jacques Camarra says that bears have evolved to fear humans, and would therefore most likely run away.^[3] Wilfred Reilly of the National Review criticized the bear-favoring statistics people shared as an example of the base rate fallacy that he stated was widespread in modern American politics.^[14] Megan McArdle of The Washington Post argued that those statistics were a confusion of the inverse fallacy that "reinforce harmful stereotypes" of women being "irrational, neurotic and bad at math".^[15]

Later in July, the influencer Amanda Wylie shared a video to TikTok about her encounter with a bear in the woods. She compared it to the "man or bear" debate, saying she would still "choose the bear".^[16][17]

Kayleigh Donaldson of Paste associated the novel Bear (1976) by Marian Engel with the debate.^[18] According to Tamlyn Avery of The Conversation, Julia Phillips's 2024 book Bear alludes to the debate during a scene with the main character Sam at a family funeral.^[19]