The (Post) Weekender, September 21, 2026: Chivalry

First, let me start off with an apology, because these Weekender posts have stopped coming on the weekends. I have a reason, rather than an excuse - I've got a couple of day-job/commercial projects running right now that are swallowing up a bunch of time, particularly on the weekends, and it's forcing me to prioritize my time.

But I'm still hanging in there. We've got six more episodes to go in Season 3, starting with Episode 15 which drops tomorrow, and those are popping out on schedule.

There's a bit of a kerfuffle out there which has been going on for a long time but it seems to be really surfacing in the past two weeks - namely, chivalry, or its decline.

There was that story of the woman on the plane from New York to Hawaii who had a big heavy bag stored in an overhead bin that she couldn't get to, and when she asked the guy next to her if he'd help he said no. She put something on TikTok about it and then the whole thing went viral when she got ratioed by a bunch of manosphere types who essentially said that feminism killed chivalry so get your own damned bag.

That combines with a million videos like this...

Somebody in the comments under that X post deduced that the real story, the one which the girl in the video didn't bother to explain, was probably that the men she's complaining about all know her and the reason they wouldn't help her is they really, really don't like her. It isn't that they're not chivalrous; somebody they didn't intensely dislike would get a heaping helping of help.

My guess is that's likely true. This phenomenon of the car confessions and the screeching about how there are no good men out there, all of which is sitting on TikTok and Instagram, is the social media attention-junkie manifestation of social failure in real life. This girl got a rebuke from coworkers at whatever the place is she works, so she had to go on social media to complain about it in a way that validates her repudiation.

Whether something similar happened on that flight to Hawaii, I have no idea, other than to say it isn't awesome to go and post all of your petty adversities online. We lampooned this a little with Peyton's character video, if you haven't seen it...

I'm not really going to weigh in on whether chivalry is dead in the real world. I think it's on the decline, and while I think feminism has definitely done a number on it - for all the complaining women do about men, men are every bit as tired of the modern female (and honestly, most of the married women I know agree with the men) - there are other factors as well.

I don't think men are as good as they used to be. I think we have a real problem with mentorship on both sides of the sexual divide, but boys desperately, desperately need male role models and they won't get them from the culture. God knows girls won't get anything useful from the culture, either.

Is this reflected in Oscar and Amber World? Well, Oscar is pretty chivalrous toward Amber, but that's really different. She's his companion robot - that's as much maintenance as it is chivalry. But with the women in his life?

With Peyton I'm not sure you'd say he's chivalrous. I'm also not sure how he could be. Peyton is a long-term relationship of sorts, but at the end of the day she's a plus-one and a booty call and that's how she saw Oscar. He's this guy who she didn't want to make an investment in, though she saw elements of his being husband material for her. So she used him, and he more or less did the same.

What you'd say about that is in the olden days, chivalry was a code applied to how well-bred men treated ladies, and Peyton, for as presentable as she might be, is no lady.

Erica certainly is. And Oscar is chivalrous toward her maybe to a fault. He came running to her rescue when Jim died, which was an arrangement with immediate benefits - they struck their relationship back up, and Oscar stepped in and saved Stafford Oil, securing the Stafford family fortune.

If you're current on Season 3, you've likely recognized the Oscar-Erica Romance Redux is on slightly shaky ground. They're not the same people who fell in love with each other all those years ago, and that's made it hard for them to truly connect. But it's not for a lack of old-school effort.

If there's somebody in the story who's truly chivalrous, it's Keegan. He white-knights every woman he comes in contact with, and it turns out to be a massive limiting factor in his life where Laura's concerned - but with Stella, whom he's sheltering following the collapse of her business (through ironic causes, to be sure), so far it's different. Why? Because for all of her goofy ideas and shit-magnet track record, Stella is actually a good girl underneath and she recognizes and appreciates Keegan. And so far, as I said, that's working out.

And maybe that's what the story has to say about chivalry. You get out what you put in. If you're a woman looking to surround yourself with chivalrous men, be a lady rather than a feminist complaining about men on YouTube Shorts. If you're a man who wants to be around ladies rather than snarling feminazis, craft a chivalrous persona and let yourself be seen doing helpful things toward women. There might be friction on both sides of that equation, but it'll all even out in the end and if you're doing the right things, the right people will find you more often than not.

After all, we all need a little love and appreciation. Right, Amber?