Talk:The Man

Haters
I move that Haters should be added to this article seeing as it is becoming the 21st century version of "The Man". "The haters be bringing my crew down" is the modern equivalent of "The man is trying to bring us down". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.224.130.249 (talk) 20:04, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The Man is quite separate from the haters. Although both are trying to get you down, they do so for different reasons. The Man is trying to get you down so he can control your life, take your money and change the laws of the land so that The Establishment will be able to hold control over our lives forever, the haters, on the other hand, simply hate people, sometimes one persons in particular, sometimes many people, simply because they are haters and, as the saying goes, "haters gonna hate". So the point I am trying to make here is that while The Man is trying to bring you down and crush your spirit and the spirit of all mankind to bring about some kind of Orwellian nightmare, haters are far more benign, and simply hate, without trying to brainwash, subvert the course of history or force you to employ doublethink. CybergothiChé (talk) 08:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Delete this!
Please, it's pointless! And looks like something that belongs to encyclopedia dramatica or something!!
 * Dude, "The Man" is a popular expression with cultural significance. Besides, "encyclopedia dramatica"? Slartibartfast1992 21:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought "The Man" was an abbreviation for "The Management" -- is that not the case? --12.34.246.80 (talk) 00:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Then how come there is less than one page for this article? It's a underused expression By the way encyclopedia dramatica it's a unfunny site that tries to imitate wikipedia, go figure!
 * Well, it is an expression that isn't used that much, but it still means something and people know about it. You don't talk about hydroxylapatite, for example, in your everyday life, but it's still in Wikipedia. Needless to say that The Man is way more important than "hydroxylapatite", so I think it's worth keeping. Slartibartfast1992 23:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Is this article meant as a parody of Wikipedia? Because it seems like one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.188.169 (talk) 14:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If you think it looks like a parody, do something about it and fix it instead of whining about it. --Slartibartfast ( 19 92 ) 22:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of this article is exactly what "The Man" wants from us...... CybergothiChé (talk) 17:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

stock character?
Is this really a stock character, like it is currently categorized? Sholdn't we remove this category from the article? Peter S. 21:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * You only want to do that because you're working for The Man 70.251.96.67 01:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

the man is everything that is wrong with the world; an immortal force that will forever exist, we all need to fight the power, fight the man, and stick it to the man,


 * Checking out the stock character list it seems to fit ok. Steve Dufour 20:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleted
"Right now, in the U.S, there is one weary warrior, still fighting against "The Man" her name, Jasmine Anenberg. Although she acts like a hippie, many believe that is a ruse to lure The Man out of his hiding, so she can finally end his evil reign with one faithful swipe of her mighty sword, "The Cavemanyou"."

Reason: WTF? Google has no idea what this is about, and neither do I. Motmot 20:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Good work. I think it was a joke.  :-)  Steve Dufour 19:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Featured article?
I think this has the potential to be a featured article, with more references and citations which shouldn't be too hard. Steve Dufour 19:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to do a little to distinguish between the term "The Man" as in "The Man around here" and "The Man you want to talk to" and "the Man" as in "You're the Man!". One is an indication of seniority or authority while the other is a genuine compliment but with a slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, and a more modern parlance. 68.166.68.84 17:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Counterculture?
I will remove this. I think the expression "The Man" is used by lots of people, not just the counterculture. Steve Dufour 19:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It originated as a counterculture term, and most of its use outside of such a context is ironic or satiric. It is as much a counterculture expression as any mainstream thing can be. -Silence 19:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That sounds fair to me. I was thinking that saying "counterculture" might sound a little POV if the article in nominated as a featured article.  Steve Dufour 20:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Socialist newspaper?
Through the electronic collections of my university I came across a publication called "The Man" based out of New York. The electronic archive hosted by Proquest does not provide any general historical information about it, but from that I can gather it ran from February until December of 1834 and, based on the overall rhetoric from many of the articles I read at random, it was a socialist oriented publication.

I came here to see what I could learn and this is the page I was brought to. Should a section be added to this article, as a stub, in an attempt to extract more information from those who may have it, regarding the publication?

Regardless, I think it may shed some more light on the history of the term "The Man". Opiumbrella 22:14, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

the quote about "the man" and "rock n roll" is from school of rock isnt it?

Sticking it to The Man
Shouldn't there be a section on how to stick it to the man? This is just describing him. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tapd260 (talk • contribs) 19:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

it's worth acknowledgement that mention of "sticking it to the man" in a wikipedia page itself constitutes "sticking it to the man", and may therefore violate rules of impartiality and fairness, which were after all written by -- the man. Macevoy (talk) 02:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes stick it to the man by deliberately leaving doors slightly ajar (though not if it's like, an air-conditioned room, because that would be sticking it to Mother Nature, who definitely is not The Man)

Dale Earnhardt
I removed Dale Earnhardt from the "See also" section because the Dale Earnhardt article contains nothing about "The Man", just that The Man in Black was one of his nicknames, there is no point in linking to the page on him because it doesn't expand on the topic. It seems like someone stuck him in there almost as vandalism. Mattwolf7 05:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Homie The Clown:
Does he play that?

Capitalization
Can someone provide justification of capitalizing it as "the Man," as opposed to "The Man" or "the man"? Seems awkward as is. 75.37.16.142 03:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I believe it should be The Man, being The entity named The Man. Slartibartfast1992 00:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Keith Tison
Haven't seen anything about him on google or anywhere else on Wikipedia, so I deleted this. Feel free to re-add if it belongs here.

WAY too much trivia here.
I'm gonna remove the whole section, per WP:BOLD. If anyone wants to integrate any of it appropriately, then fine.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 15:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Geez, I wish you would've suggested the deletion first here for discussion. Now that you have gone ahead and deleted it I wish you would've included a link to it like this (the man's in pop culture) so that editors could at least have an opportunity to integrate the text into the prose of the article.
 * I oppose this deletion and I vote to reinstate the entire "In popular culture" section to it's previous state. Ozmaweezer (talk) 15:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Uh, this isn't a deletion, it's just a removal of trivia, and you can revert it. I'm neutral on this discussion. -- Slarti bartfast  1992 19:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Double uh, you say potato, I say po tot o (deletion/removal), and you're assuming I'm not aware I can revert the edit. 'Tis all for now. Ozmaweezer (talk) 09:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * First sentence: Wha...? (deletion isn't the same as removal). Second sentence: sorry if I misunderstood, by the way you were writing, I assumed that. -- Slarti bartfast  1992 21:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * "(deletion isn't the same as removal)" — What's the diff? 24.6.66.193 (talk) 19:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

what i really want to know is what and who is a man.. when you will call the person a man? we have an oral defense tommorrow,please help. thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.111.234.73 (talk) 12:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

You only deleted this section because The Man told you to. 90.199.213.104 (talk) 12:32, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Bismarck quote
''The use of the term 'the man' as a form of praise has an older provenance. One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's actions at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."''

I think we need some source, and some context, for this. I rather doubt that (a) it was meant in the modern sense of "way to go, you is da MAN!!" and (b) that Bismarck said it in English... Flapdragon (talk) 10:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * According to Wikiquote, he said that in response to a question about who the centre of gravity was at the Congress of Berlin -- in other words, I think someone was asking him "who was the one who really influenced events and got things done?" and his response was along the lines of "that man, Disraeli" or "Disraeli is the man you are asking about", not in the modern "yo, Disraeli is totally the man!" sense that seems to be implied here (though it's slightly confusing, since of course he did mean it as a complement.) Also, according to Wikiquote, the actual quote was Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann. --Aquillion (talk) 22:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Etymology
So is the term derived from "The Management" or not? One time someone told me that, and I just sat for a while mind-blown. Because it makes so much sense, but I'd never thought of it before. Comments?--Onion Cloth (talk) 07:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Popular Culture
Under the popular culture section, shouldn't it also include references to "the man" in song, such as "working for the man every night and day" in Proud Mary and also some line about "the Man" in Living on a prayer??--Coin945 (talk) 06:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

and also in School of Rock when Jack Black talks about the invention of rock and roll, and the subsequent invention of MTV (by the man) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.202.192.112 (talk) 04:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

It's a quite common slang term for "hustler, pimp, drug dealer, kingpin" as in Lou Reed's lyrics to Waiting for the Man, where it clearly refers to a narco dealer. 188.150.64.57 (talk) 23:00, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Gendered connotations
I feel that there perhaps should be some mention of the potentially gendered connotations of the expression "the man". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.202.192.112 (talk) 04:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

But The Man is not necessarily a man. The Man can be a man, a woman, or an organization or collection of people, who may or may not be all of the same gender. The question at foot here is not whether The Man is in fact a man or not, but how he is keepin' us all down and how we have to stick it to the man, and so on CybergothiChé word to your mother 02:00, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Amen, brother! (or sister... or otherwise gendered individual.... or collective) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.72.143.80 (talk) 05:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hamilton quote

 * Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man

I have similar doubts here as was expressed above for the Bismarck quote. Could someone add more context. What is the rest of the context, is the Man a referent to a previous sentence? Did he really mean this is the modern you da man sense.

Also, why do we think this is the earliest example? (Ie. do we have an actual reason to claim this, or is it just that no Wikipedia editor has thought of anything earlier?)

Also also, if this is true, then it would actually also be "Use as praise" (see the later section of the article)

Generally, I have to say most of this article fails the smell test. --192.75.48.150 (talk) 14:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The meaning of "the Man" in this Hamilton quote is utterly and obviously different than the oppressive sense discussed in this article. Deleted. Ghosts&#38;Empties (talk) 00:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)