There’s been an inescapable buzz in recent weeks over Louis Theroux’s new Netflix documentary, Inside the Manosphere. The film sees Theroux bring his signature style of baffled dad Gonzo journalism to bear upon a selection of social media influencers who create extremist, bigoted and aggressively masculine and misogynistic content – riding the coat tails of Andrew Tate – targeted towards disempowered young men.
By combining this extremism with crude, half-baked critiques of capitalist exploitation, these influencers, instead of advocating for systemic change, predate upon their followers’ despair by boasting that they know the ‘cheat codes’ to game that system and get rich, and that their followers can do so too, if they buy into the range of scams or pyramid schemes that they’re selling. This channelling of popular discontentment into hatred and personal enrichment is straight from the playbook of the far right, with which the manosphere greatly overlaps.
A week before the documentary was released, a global survey was published assessing views on gender roles among different age categories. A key finding was that Gen Z men (born between 1997 and 2012) were twice as likely as Baby Boomer men to hold ‘traditional,’ i.e. misogynistic views. Thirty-one per cent of Gen Z men agreed with the statement that a wife should always obey her husband, for instance, compared to 13 per cent of Baby Boomers.
With that being said, the sample size used was relatively small, so these results should be taken with a pinch of salt – indeed, other surveys of UK men and boys paint a different picture. Nevertheless, the generational trend presented should give pause for reflection about online culture. Recent scandals over Elon Musk’s X, with its AI chatbot Grok being used to generate non-consensual explicit images of women and girls, also provide important context.
As I read more about the documentary and saw clips, I knew that the subject was depressingly relevant but began to question whether the film was actually helpful. I decided, with some trepidation, to watch it.
Some revealing moments
Over multiple interviews focused mainly on four of these influencers, Theroux sought to establish the extent to which they really believed the odious attitudes and behaviour that they promote for social media, seeking to get some idea of where this culture came from. These interviews had some revealing moments.
When talking to Harrison Sullivan, known as HSTikkyTokky, about his content, Theroux asks him why he doesn’t try to be a good person and uplift people instead of playing to their worst impulses. The briefest flicker of something resembling guilt flashes across his face, before he states matter-of-factly that he wouldn’t have got where he is now – likely worth millions from streaming views and brand deals – by being a good person. This is almost certainly true, and a grave indictment of our economic system. Social media algorithms actively promote hateful, bigoted content as rage-bait, because anger and provocation drive user engagement, and this user data is what the platforms sell to advertisers.
Also of interest was Theroux’s realisation that many of these manosphere influencers lacked healthy relationships with their fathers, which he suggests could have led them to cultivate a macho sense of self-reliance and aggression as a shield.
Woefully inadequate and lacking insight
As I feared though, the documentary was in most respects woefully inadequate. One major flaw I found was that little time was spent talking to the girlfriends or families of these influencers. A couple of the influencers did allow Theroux to talk to their partners about their relationships, which they characterised as ‘one-way monogamy’ (the man could sleep with other women).
However, these discussions were brief and conducted jointly with the influencers themselves. As a result, they were awkward, stunted conversations in which the woman, channelling the ambience of a hostage video, gave unconvincing support to her husband/boyfriend’s positions. These relationships appeared to approach domestic abuse.
It would likely have been more interesting and fruitful for Theroux to talk to these women one to one, perhaps even making them the focus of the documentary. But that probably wouldn’t have made for such sensationalist television. Perhaps Theroux was not so much interested in interrogating or challenging the manosphere but rather sought to piggy-back on its shock value.
The documentary also failed to trace real-world impacts of the online manosphere on women and girls more widely. The Office for National Statistics estimates that almost a fifth of girls aged 16-19 have experienced domestic abuse in the last year, with abuse among this age cohort growing faster than in any other.
The lack of solutions offered to combat the manosphere culture were glaring. There has been much discussion lately surrounding the regulation of social media, such as a recent UK bill (since defeated) to ban it for those under 16. Whilst I had reservations about that idea, you’d think Theroux might have mentioned it. Other moves, such as banning the use of smartphones during school hours, better coverage of online ‘toxic masculinity’ in the RSHE curriculum, or ideas being floated for nationalising social media platforms, were also conspicuously absent.
While Theroux mentions at the beginning of the documentary that being a father of teenage boys is a motivating factor for making the documentary, he gives little reflection on the role that parents, particularly fathers, can play in helping boys to explore notions of masculinity and providing positive alternatives to this online bile.
Fundamentally, we must confront an economic system which treats the majority of people as disposable, in which meritocracy is a punchline and the promise of a secure future with a decent standard of living is for most an ever-receding pipedream – while at the same time the wealth of the few is idolised.
Under such circumstances, is it any wonder that many young men, socially conditioned to believe that they should be masters of their destiny and provide for families, are falling prey to the snake-oil salesmen of the manosphere?
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
