What Does ‘Choosing the Bear’ Mean? All About This Simple yet Profound Trend

So, you’re choosing the bear, right?

A new question sweeping social media is being met with nearly complete unanimity among women, and confusion or anger by men. And while this may seem silly, it’s actually rather profound in demonstrating how little men understand about the lived experience of women in the world.

It all has to do with a simple choice: Are you choosing the bear or the man?

Confused? Let me explain, in this edition of TL;DR.

Give me the tl;dr.

A question floating around social media asks: Picture yourself alone and unarmed in the woods. Would you choose to encounter a bear or a man? Nearly all women (and I truly have not been able to find one woman who disagrees, but let’s just say nearly all) choose the bear.

Wait, I need more. What’s the background here?

It’s unclear where exactly this debate originated, though some are crediting the viral news TikTok account Screenshot HQ, which posted a video of two hosts debating the topic last week. However, they seem to reference a conversation already in progress, so the first to posit this question is still a mystery.

Still, the video from the account helped the debate go viral, where it soon spread all over the app. The question isn’t getting people talking because it’s a silly question, but rather the opposite. Because in just a few days time, it’s exposed a pretty wide disconnect between women and men on the app.

For women, the answer is a no-brainer. A strange man is undeniably a threat. I don’t think there is a woman-identifying person alive who wouldn’t be gripped with fear to turn around in the middle of a lonely expanse of woods to see a man, standing there, with nowhere to run. It’s literally the plot of every other thriller novel, and happens on countless episodes of Dateline or CSI. The truth is that men do women harm, every day. This is something ingrained in us from birth. We are told to stick together, not walk alone at night, to not jog alone in the morning, to not drink too much, to lock our car doors as soon as we get in, to not put our headphones on too loud on a hike, to literally not wear a ponytail because a strange man could grab it easier than a bun. Nearly every woman I know was given by their parents a can of pepper spray to put on their car keys when they got their driver’s license, just in case our new ease of movement in the world makes us more vulnerable to an attack. By a man.

So, of course we choose the bear! A bear attack is scary, but ultimately feels remote. Sure, it’s harder than we think to outrun a bear, we don’t understand bears, yadda yadda yadda, but sorry, we choose the bear!

But, as one TikToker named Shawnda put it in a video, this angers men for some reason. The app is now full of men mansplaining why we should really choose the man over a bear and maybe us poor little ladies just don’t understand how serious a potential bear attack could be.