Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere offers a very raw look at the lives of some of the internet’s most notorious creators in a genre of content online that’s all about empowering men who wish to rule over women. Ironically, the term comes from a film directed by two transgender women. To be red-pilled is to have woken up to the truth of the world according to the Manosphere. That truth being that women have ruined the world through feminism. Over on Quora, a self-identified red piller offers his own definition:

“Let us start with the most basic concept first, gynocentrism. Society is set up for the benefit of women. Men are irrelevant and disposable.
This is almost self evident. Consider the practise of saving women and children first, and sending men off to war. Male disposability does make sense, populations recover faster if most of the dead are men. They are also bigger and stronger, more able to carry heavy loads of bombs and bullets. This gynocentrism, along with feminism, and female own group preference ensures that women are treated better than men in society.”

Tony Wallace on Quora

These arguments are familiar to me. As a feminist content creator who’s been engaging with these ideas online since I was a teenager, I saw the Manosphere take shape. I, along with many other feminist content creators were harassed by content creators who at a different point in time, described themselves as “anti-SJWs”. The anti-SJW often argued for this idea of “Female Privilege”, that privilege being, as Wallace says on Quora, that “women are treated better than men in society”. Common examples being that men are the last to be saved on sinking ships, they’re overwhelmingly responsible for doing physical labor, they are often given the short end of the deal in divorces, and that women, more than men, are able to use their appearance to get ahead. Fast forward and the Claviculars of the world have attempted to subvert this idea through “looksmaxxing”, where young men try their hardest to improve their appearance and “mog” other men by excelling at their beauty routine. What we politically incorrect and mildly homophobic millennials once described as “metrosexual” back in the day, now passes as the height of heterosexual male gender performance. Frankly, the shift has been fascinating.

In one of the most recent Epstein drops, it became fairly clear that Epstein had a direct connection with the shift I witnessed being the subject of ire from anti-SJWs. At the time, I struggled to understand why my content, or Anita Sarkeesian’s, elicited such a violently negative response. At the time, there were several feminist content creators who worked pretty hard to make their message palatable to an audience that wasn’t really primed to understand, let alone accept feminism. I’ll never forget finally watching one of Anita’s videos and recognizing that it was very basic feminism 101. One of the main messages is that women deserve to be more than supporting characters in men’s narratives. That women are more than damsels sent to satisfy the protagonist, who, of course, will always and forever be a male. It all seemed like such a simple idea to me, but in reality, the idea that women can exist independently of men is still quite radical.

Steve Bannon was at the scene of the crime back then, and he’s on the scene of the crime now. He helped weaponize a base of young, disaffected men through Gamergate, which some argued was about “ethics in gaming journalism”, but I always knew was plainly about misogyny. Suddenly, after years of being associated with older people, Republicans were starting to make headway with young people. They did it, in part, by granting the misogynistic premises often held by young men who’ve yet to truly form their own identities or experience much of life. They learned through that movement that they could organize around these young men, whose rejection of feminism (well, let’s be honest, just women) easily fit into the capitalistic Western chauvinism favored by White Nationalists. As Epstein helped bring Bannon into more power, podcasters like Joe Rogan used their platforms to host a slew of people who appear in the files. The idea was to present, normalize, and mainstream ideas that were once quite fringe. White Genocide, the idea that white people losing the ethnic majority in North America is a genocide, was once a fringe conspiracy predominantly whispered about outside of mixed company. However, these days, the richest man in the world spends his days on X talking about it.

In Louis Theroux’s documentary, there’s a scene in which he interacts with Myron Gaines of the Fresh and Fit podcast. Myron is seen by many as one of the main figureheads of the Manosphere movement, which argues that women’s main value to men is their bodies and how submissive they’re willing to be to the needs of men. The girlfriends and wives of these men also have to accept that they’ll get bored one day and want to mix things up by adding another woman, probably a younger and hotter model- you understand, right?

As Theroux speaks to Angie, Gaines’ partner, who has apparently never had sex with him, it becomes clear that he’s uncomfortable with her speaking to him when he isn’t around. He must be there to control the narrative; she cannot write one on her own. On his show, he invites OnlyFans models to have conversations about topics like their “body count,” which is the number of men they’ve had sex with. The podcast episodes often degrade into fights, and more than one woman has walked off set after Gaines degraded them in one way or another. But while he degrades them for their profession, they use the platform to promote their pages. Gaines benefits financially from presenting these women on his show, yet he also condemns them for doing sex work and making money for themselves for the same reason.

In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published a report examining the impact of loneliness and it’s where many people have gotten the idea of the “Male Loneliness Epidemic”. I think it’s worth a read.

One study found that among men, deaths due to suicide are associated with loneliness and more strongly with indicators of objective isolation such as living alone. In this study of over 500,000 middle-aged adults, the probability of dying by suicide more than doubled among men who lived alone. The same study showed that for women loneliness was significantly associated with hospitalization for self-harm.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy
Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023

This topic came up in my feed today as a video by Anthony Pillarella, and it inspired me to write about it on my blog.

Firstly, I appreciate this creator’s transparency and open dialogue. The anti-SJWs never wanted to hear this, but I’ve always believed that men do indeed have issues, even if they benefit from patriarchy. I agree that the Manosphere caught on for a reason. Contrary to popular belief, I was raised with a present father, and from what I’ve gathered, many of the men who fall for these things often did not. This frequently causes them to seek out a sort of masculine, patriarchal figure, and that’s what men like Myron Gaines are to these young men. As he says in this video, these men offer more than “be nice” or “go to the gym”. They tell men how to “gain value” and offer them a step-by-step guide. Maybe men shouldn’t need that, but it’s clear to me that many of them do.

While I don’t want to lay it on too thick here, I think men do indeed have a reason to feel drawn to a community of men who work to teach each other how to be men. The problem is, the solution they’re often presenting is a disempowered woman who is willing to be submissive to them and essentially maintain this way of life, where they never quite have to grow up. This content creator acknowledges that this is all a pipeline that leads to indoctrination, but makes the point that these men need a soft place to land, or they will continue to feel that these misogynistic spaces are the only ones for them. He says that we should not dismiss these men as simply men who hate women, but my question is, what does loving a woman even mean when your version of it is that women should only play a supporting role in their own story?

I find some of these conversations to be frustrating because while there are several premises I can grant about men needing community, needing support and having a reason for being how they are, I think what’s often missing is a full acceptance of just how terrible misogyny actually is for women. There’s a lack of fully acknowledging that misogyny frequently puts women in a position where they are encouraged to put aside their own needs to satisfy those of a man. Many women are raised with the understanding that their future is only productive if it includes a man. They’re raised to satisfy a future husband, only to realize once they’ve met that guy and started doing what they were raised to do that it just isn’t what they want. Quite frequently, misogyny makes women feel as if they do not deserve to prioritize themselves at all. They are constantly told they are selfish for prioritizing themselves, and women who do are the main targets of criticism in the manosphere. As a childless woman in her 30s, I fairly regularly get people who seem almost offended that I don’t have children, or want them. I’ve even been lectured about it. It’s as if at every step, women are not fully allowed to live on their own terms for themselves at all without being shamed for not being tied to a man. It’s as if by saying I do not have children, I’ve in some way slighted men. I’m reminded of Dr.K’s comments on Diary of a CEO.

What I think men miss is that when we hear “The Male Loneliness Epidemic”, even if it’s true that men, for a myriad of reasons, are genuinely lonely for a systemic reason, we know that we are going to be told that it’s our job to solve this problem.

“Aw, come on, you gave me blue balls! Can you at least touch it? Sorry! You’re just so hot, I can’t help myself!”

We know that because it is often expected of us. It’s what’s translated to me every time a man says, “smile, sweetheart”. The message transmitted to me is that I exist in public to serve and satisfy men in one way or another. If I grimace back, I’m a bitch, if I smile, I’m followed. If he touches me, I led him on. I’m sure if you’re a man reading this, you’re one of the good ones, but I don’t think men fully recognize the degree of entitlement men have generally to women and why it’s easy to take our experiences with men and say that the so-called “Male Loneliness Epidemic” is self-imposed.

Abbie Chatfield, the host of the It’s A Lot podcast, pushed back slightly on this creator’s video, and I found his response quite telling….

Right out of the gate, you get that he is frustrated by this question to the point of finding the question to be borderline insulting. This response made it clearer to me that he understands and receives the idea of “Male Loneliness” quite differently than most women. Obviously, as a man who once consumed manosphere content, he grants the premise that men are lonely, but doesn’t understand that loneliness being viewed as a uniquely male epidemic is indeed making the argument that men are more lonely than women.

“There were no real gender differences found — men and women experienced similar rates of loneliness — nor were there major differences based on political ideology or race or ethnicity. However, adults with more than one racial identity had much higher levels of loneliness: 42% in this category reported they were lonely.”

What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness and How Can We Fix It? by Elizabeth M. Ross on Harvard.edu

Perhaps I could stand to do more research, but it seems like there has been a bit of a game of telephone when it comes to Murthy’s report. It seems like while men and women may experience similar levels of loneliness, men are far more likely to be violent towards themselves and others because of it. However, since that report was published and “OUR epidemic of loneliness” became “the male loneliness epidemic”, it has certainly shifted to that meaning, which I think will always illicit a negative response from women. If women are also experiencing loneliness, the message being sent when people argue that men are uniquely lonely is that even if you are lonely, even if you’ve got good reason to not sideline your life to focus on fixing a man’s misogyny, it is your duty to do so. This creator isn’t explicitly saying this, but it’s what you can gather from how he responded to a woman asking whether the premise he was willing to grant was even truthful, and how he shamed her for even asking the question. Interestingly enough, I think this is a good microcosm of how women’s labor is often viewed as something that should come naturally to them. If you were to ask many women why they left their marriages, many of them would say that it was the way their husbands took advantage of their labor and valued them less for it. It is just a continuation of the same misogyny that tells them that their lives hold less value than a man’s. And in this conversation specifically, the demand is that we meet these men with empathy and help them, even if up to this point, they’ve spent most of their lives disrespecting women and have only truly been invested in themselves as men. Men underestimate that women are often raised to prioritize men’s feelings regardless of their relationship with them.

It’s not that I don’t understand what this creator is trying to say. Someone shouldn’t need to be worse off for you to want to help them; this much is true. However, within the demand for help, support, and acceptance, there is a lack of fully understanding how deeply misogyny impacts women. I do not think women are wrong for rolling their eyes at the idea of the male loneliness epidemic, and I don’t think they’re wrong for saying that men who view women as sexual objects that they can both degrade and capitalize on, actually just hate women. They may be led astray, but is it really a woman’s job to lead them back on the right path after they’ve survived so long under misogyny?

So whose job is it to help these men? My answer has always consistently been…other men. If you pay attention to how men within the Manosphere interact with each other, it’s a constant dance of trying to impress other men by one upping on them in one way or another. Many of these men are grifters who barely care about other men beyond using them to make money, because they know it’s an easy scam. These men saw a weak point and decided to exploit it, and I do think that one of the only solutions to this is for men to want to foster community for other men because it’s healing for them, not because it makes them money. The men who appear in Theroux’s documentary have no real desire to help these men. They are selling them cryptocurrency and trying to get them to subscribe to the women they manage on OnlyFans, and there-in lies the problem.

Loneliness is a very real thing that many of us are experiencing right now, as our social interactions are increasingly monetized and spaces for community are shrinking. I know “it’s capitalism” isn’t a satisfying answer to some, but if you understood how much of our society is constructed around squeezing every penny from you, it would make slightly more sense. COVID-19 really hurt our ability to leave our homes, be in communal spaces, and foster relationships with others.

Had I not essentially moved to Los Angeles with a desire to be social and surround myself with diversity, I think I’d be lonely too. Before the pandemic, I filled my calendar with interesting events and singles socials around the city. Now I even host one, and my social network is quite large, but I treated making social connections like a job. Many people not only don’t have the time, but also the access. The internet was the only way many people could make connections during the quarantine, and many began to recognize how dehumanizing it was to put your personhood into a dating profile and measure your value by how many people swiped on you. Then, half the time they did, they’re asking you what exactly you bring to the table and measuring you based on where you’re at in your life at that moment. We are increasingly entering into a quite shallow era in our society, where it’s becoming more commonplace to measure someone’s value by how well they match beauty standards. Beauty standards that may or may not be obtainable through wealth. When I hear men complain about how women only want to date men who are 6’2, with muscles, and very wealthy, I don’t think they’re getting that from nowhere, but I also know that conclusion is indeed out of step with the average woman who isn’t pining for Clavicular or Myron Gaines. The Manosphere capitalizes on men’s insecurities to sell them workout routines and wealth-growth strategies. Gender binarism is a great tool of manipulation by the capitalist because we exist in a society where gender is still very much seen as a value system.

Essentially, I think this creator is making the same mistake Rogan made, but on a much smaller, less harmful scale. He is entertaining the very premise of a “male loneliness epidemic”, thus justifying it as a real thing. I think the only thing the “male loneliness epidemic” and the “Manosphere” have in common is that they both believe that women should serve men’s needs and that they should never choose to be centered in their own lives. People who validate both premises believe that women who don’t even care about men at all are in some way slighting them. But let’s get real for a moment: we are rapidly entering an era where women are going to have less power. Right now, women are dying on the delivery tables because they happen to live in states where abortion is banned. Women no longer have complete authority over their own bodies and are having forced C-sections so that they can deliver men’s children. The SAVE Act is aimed at taking away a woman’s right to vote, explicitly if she’s married and their name doesn’t match their birth certificate. Men want to own women, and this much is clear from many of the arguments made by the Manosphere.

For many women, the safest thing they can do is de-center men and instead cultivate a strong foundation of friendship and community with other women. That, not violence or sexual abuse, is often how women solve their loneliness. Men’s friendships with other men are often shallow and based on competition. Men don’t want to lean on each other’s shoulders, which is why they often expect women to take care of them. Men often feel as if they can’t be vulnerable with their male friends for fear of being ostracized from the group. If a man seems sensitive, he’s often met with homophobia from other men, which causes him to feel like these emotions must be directed towards women. This desire to make women speak delicately to misogynists is just a continuation of that misogyny.

In conclusion, I think the Manosphere benefits from the framing of the “male loneliness epidemic”, which is why they relate to each other. However, these have been the arguments being made about men my entire life. What I do know is that there are plenty of men in happy, functional relationships with women. They’re often the ones who truly see women as independent human beings who do not exist solely to play a supporting role in their narrative. I’m not single, but a lot of the time when I interact with men socially, there’s this strong sense that they want me to be a side character in whatever narrative they’re trying to construct for themselves. Maybe I’ll write about this in another post, but it’s almost as if my disinterest in this makes me more appealing to them. I think men in general truly need to unpack their desire to conquer and control women, and they need to stop seeing women as the answer to their loneliness because men certainly aren’t the answer to most women’s loneliness.