Louis Theroux enters the world of “alpha male” influencers and quietly exposes the insecurity, contradictions and business model behind the manosphere.
Warning: in this content I will be quoting the influencers inside the documentary, including some swearing and misogynistic content.
I love Louis Theroux. The man can ask the strangest people the most personal questions and they pour their hearts out to him every time. He’s interviewed cult leaders, gun extremists, drug dealers, the rich, the famous, the morally grey… He’s even read a bedtime story on CBeebies, which is frankly the ultimate green flag.
In my eyes, the man can do no wrong.
Whenever Louis Theroux releases a new documentary I hunt it down instantly. He could literally release a video interviewing a box of bran flakes and I would be hooked. In fact, give Louis twenty minutes with a cereal box and he’d probably uncover a secret cult hiding behind the fibre content.
Louis is that good.
Welcome to the Manosphere
His latest documentary, Inside the Manosphere, drops him into a corner of the internet I knew existed but had never really looked at closely. A strange ecosystem of influencers, podcasts, and self-proclaimed “alpha males” who promise young men success, wealth and women… while somehow managing to look perpetually angry about all three.
I quickly became aware of the buzzwords: red pill, matrix, cheat codes, slave mindset.
The claim was simple. The system is rigged against young men and the “red pill” reveals the truth. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
It was a world I had been vaguely aware of. I knew the big names like Tate and was aware enough so that I, being someone who worked with young people, I could recognise the rhetoric but beyond that I was ignorant to the extent of the absurdity. I guess, as a 35 year old happily married woman, I wasn’t really the target market.
So what joys did these men tout?
“I have personally f**ked over 2000 women, which is quite an achievement.” (Justin Waller)
Oh dear.
Shock as Content
Shock is the currency of these merchants. Screaming at women, berating people in the street, extolling violence, idgaf rants. It was all content.
What Louis Theroux made clear though was the hypocrisy.
Harrison, known online as HSTikkyTokky, openly condemned sex work. He called these women disgusting, repulsive. This was all while running an OnlyFans agency. He preached the idea of marrying a virgin while he surrounded himself with OnlyFans models.
Louis rightly termed the relationship between these men and women as symbiotic. The target markets are the same. They catered to those who felt repressed, hungry for connection and success. Part of that success, as Justin bragged about, was sex with as many women as possible.
Justin Waller, branded as a ‘success coach’ said his relationship was one of “one sided monogamy”. He said his girlfriend and mother of his 2 children (notably not wife) “didn’t look at other men”. Myron Gains, podcaster, frequently talked about how men needed to be the dictator in relationships and could demand sex whenever they wanted (a statement he literally backtracked on when confronted with it).
I’ve referred to these toxic podcasts before in my blogpost about Easy A and slut shaming. Read it here.
It was in this endless chase for clout that the sadness of the manosphere really showed itself.
Young Men Trying On Personalities
I work with young people and, as they grow, they like to try on different personalities. This often comes in the form of a hair cut or colour, an edgy t-shirt or, if they are really brave, trying on a swear word. However, in their hearts young people understand the morality of what they are doing. As such, I’ve always taken particularly politically charged views as a reflection of how they feel now but always let them know that doesn’t force them to feel that way forever.
That said, there is a huge difference between trying on your first pair of converse and screaming anti-Semitic statements on a live stream. The latter requires a dedication to ignorance.
This went through my mind particularly in scenes with Harrison, 23, who was probably the most juvenile presenting of the influencers. His behaviour was that of mob mentality, braver with the backing of the crowd online. His statements felt parroted and, as he admitted, he didn’t actually believe a lot of what he said. He would say anything to make money. He tried to bait Louis by throwing around the name Jimmy Saville (ignorant to the work Louis had done to expose Saville). Most tellingly, he did whatever his mum told him to do. Much like the teenager trying on a new style of t-shirt, Harrison felt less like a hardened ideologue and more like someone performing a role.
Perhaps what the documentary didn’t look at was the impact that these channels have on young people. However, that has never really been Louis Theroux style. He is polite, asks questions and listens. He allows the interviewee to explain their rationale and the viewer to then make up their own minds.
What viewers were to see in this documentary is clear. These manosphere influencers often appear to be selling a lifestyle that doesn’t really exist. They say the shocking for attention without any regard for consequence. They take no responsibility.
This is not the MO of masculine men.
The Most Masculine Man in the Room
It is with that I suggest that true indication of authority lay with Louis himself. He didn’t shout. He didn’t humiliate. He didn’t walk in with the intention of proving he was better than anyone else in the room. That is what it means to be comfortable in masculinity.
For me, this documentary extended beyond what I needed to know in my day job. As the mother of a young boy I do wonder what messages he will grow up with and how they may differ to the ones I had. I cried a little at the end, thinking about how the manosphere culture is so inherently lonely and sad. These are followers being told they do not have inherent value as a human being and that they need to meet a certain ideal to be worthy of the world. There are certainly parallel between this toxicity and the expectations women have been force-fed for decades. It is a set of dangerous and untrue ideals.
Young boys deserve better, and they could do a lot worse than examining the work of Louis Theroux.
Lastly, you may have noted that at no point in this essay did I refer to the manosphere influencers as men. They certainly wouldn’t be the example I would give young people when discussing healthy masculinity.
Oh and in case you were wondering, Louis read ‘Peggy the Always Sorry Pigeon’ and ‘We found a Hat’. You can find them on BBC IPlayer.
In this post, I mention my work. All views expressed here are personal reflections on culture and media and do not represent the views of my employer.
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