“What is the Manosphere?”

Image via UN Women

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Critically acclaimed English documentarian Louis Theroux has recently released a new documentary on Netflix titled “Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere.” The documentary is about several different popular male influencers who all belong to a certain side of the internet called “the Manosphere.” According to Theroux, “The manosphere describes a group of almost exclusively male influencers who provide content about fitness, business, and self-improvement. Many of them are relatively mainstream, but at the edge is a community of figures whose views are much more extreme, and that’s the focus of the documentary.” 

For the documentary, Theroux interviewed controversial manosphere influencers, including Sneako, HSTikkyTokky, Myron Gaines and Justin Waller. One of the core similarities among the participants in the film is the influx of hate speech and misinformation they spew, appealing most to young adolescent males. At the beginning of the documentary, HSTikkyTokky tells Theroux,  “I coach boys how to be f*cking boys, how to make money, be outside the system, how to not have a boss telling you what to do. I teach guys to be proper guys, not these little soy boys, little gimps that walk around in the modern day.” 

The 1999 film The Matrix is tied to the manosphere through an analogy that is also shared in the documentary. One of the most notable lines in the movie is “You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” The “red pill analogy” in the world of misogynistic influencers is a metaphor for “It often implies that learning male supremacist ideas (being “red‐pilled”) will wake you up to the feminine forces secretly oppressing men.”

One influencer who declined to participate in the documentary is Andrew Tate, self-proclaimed “misogynist.” Four years ago, he made headlines around the world not only for the divisive beliefs he shared on various social media platforms, but also for being convicted of sexual assault in Romania, along with his brother Tristan. Before being banned from YouTube in 2022, Tate said in a video, “I’m a realist and when you’re a realist, you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.”

“Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere” is not the first Netflix original to examine misogynistic influencers; last year, the series “Adolescence” premiered. The show follows a 13-year-old boy named Jamie who is accused of killing a female classmate, an act believed to be influenced by  the toxic incel culture that many adolescent boys are subject to. According to CNN, “Incel” is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibate.” In its most basic form, incel describes someone, usually a male, who is frustrated by their lack of sexual experiences.” Stephen Graham, one of the program’s creators and lead actors said, “We’re all accountable… I remember saying to Jack [Thorne] that it takes a village to raise a child. Jack replied that it also takes a village to destroy a child.”

As our world becomes increasingly digitalized and people, especially younger generations, grow more dependent on the internet, it is  no surprise that influencers hold so much power; they are, after all, “influencers.” Politics and the internet have become so deeply intertwined that the 2024 presidential election was coined the “Testosterone Election.” With the power that male influencers such as Andrew Tate and even Joe Rogan hold, it should not come as a surprise that they infiltrated the election. “This election was supposed to be a referendum on women’s rights. It wasn’t. It was a cold plunge into testosterone.”

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This article was edited by Karol Quinde.