An hour and a half of footage with some of the internets most controversial influencers, this week we saw the release of Louis Theroux’s new Netflix documentary ‘Inside The Manosphere’. The documentary featured several notable figures, British and American, who are self proclaimed entrepreneurs and centre their online content around finances and investment, their luxury lifestyles and enter into political territory with several of the opinions the express online, most notably how they see and treat the women in their lives.
Though the documentary featured views that were utterly abhorrent considering we are in the 21st century, it was ultimately satisfying watching Theroux ask simple questions and take a relaxed journalistic approach in order for the men featured to display just how silly they really sound when being questioned about women.
But, did the documentary really delve deep enough?
It has clearly been established what views these men represent and want to push to their followers, but why do they think like this in the first place?
HStikkytokky explained it plain and simple, a lot of what he says is for ‘farming’ purposes, so his content receives attention and clicks. He clarifies before he started making below the belt videos that his engagement was relatively low and he didn’t earn much income from it. However, the other influencers emphasised their genuine belief behind their content, exampled by Justin Waller and Myron Gaines who attempted to flaunt a polygamous lifestyle with multiple women, who were displayed as submissive and stereotypically attractive, despite their wives and girlfriends having a look of uncertainty throughout.
It is odd, however, that a lot of the views they publicise can be generally agreed upon amongst quite a wide range of people. The idea that the system is rigged and that those at the top are responsible for creating and expanding inequalities so that the working world doesn’t appreciate or provide properly for working people. However, I believe it is their approach for explaining and rectifying this issue which is responsible for the rise in the process of slowly radicalising men these days. Instead of directing the problems the average working person faces to their respective governments, it seems these influencers believe women are the problem.
Behind the ‘red pill’ and ‘matrix’ buzzwords used on their streams and podcasts, an alarming issue of true misogyny looms. Women are being blamed for the problems ‘masculinity’ faces, with language being used to describe us in a negative way, with a few common recurrences referring to women as second class to men, financial users and self centred in nature. Although, despite these criticisms, often dual and contradicting expectations of women are exacerbated by these influencers, usually through the importance of having a submissive, beautiful and family oriented housewife but also having the ability to sleep with multiple women and a positive emphasis on male promiscuity despite belittling the women they constantly sleep with face and the never ending devaluation of them as human beings. The view is simple: double standards are okay, because men’s place in society is higher than the woman, therefore they should be open to more privileges and be able to contradict their own views about traditional life. This new emergence of misogyny is almost a different strain, as it has shifted to an openness and therefore more accepting nature of female oppression and one sided polygamy. Real traditional values, which I still strongly oppose for its abundance of issues, were at least consistent in value and put an emphasis on gender roles but also promoted monogamy and faithfulness to a relationship and for a man to respect his wife (in some kind of fashion), despite their at the time, seperate roles in society. This new strain of misogyny is an example of a newfound toxcicity, that centres male dominance, aggression and superiority in a somewhat primitive nature.
I believe this is a rising issue as equality feels like oppression to these men. When you have been used to privileges over other social groups for so long, you become accustomed and demanding of it, believing it is the true and accurate standard you should recieve.
‘Inside the Manosphere’ could easily be a multiple part docuseries that not just analyses the behaviour of these male influencers, but how and why they hold the views that they do. To understand the pipeline young and impressionable men are falling down, it is necessary that every part of these male influencers behaviours are examined and a further analysis of social media, algorithms and the psychological pipelines created by these narratives are established.