👉 Okay, settle in folks! Letâs tackle this wonderfully⌠prickly little piece of linguistic weirdness - the enduring and frankly rather alarming-sounding "guy like a control panel." Before I wade into that, let's just acknowledge upfront, there isn't really a formally defined, officially recognized way to describe someone as a âguy like a control panel. It practically sprung up overnight in a very specific corner of internet subculturesâmainly the aggressively, and frankly, rather niche corners dealing with toxic masculinity and obsession of domination.
Now, hereâs what I reckon is actually going on under the hood. Historically, the image of a control panel itselfâyou know the kind, all those blinking lights, fiddly dials, levers? It's immediately associated with authority . Think fighter pilots, mainframe computers, old-dude stuff that just screams "I have everything figured out and Iâm telling you what to do. When we tack on the dude as the control panel, it basically weaponizes this whole damn metaphor. You aren't saying he's simply a meticulous planner, right? No! It doesn't mean he has the foresight of some kind of competent systems engineer. Instead, heâs being described with an almost obscene level of detachment and cold, calculated precision. He's not feeling anything, he's just adjusting knobs . People are completely under his thumb, and he isn't even blinking. You don'
