The media industry is abuzz with talks of a misogynistic takeover corrupting young boys, reanimated from the parental nightmare that was Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s hit series “Adolescence.” The source of this mania can only be traced back to British journalist and BAFTA winner Louis Theroux and his recent documentary investigating the male-supremacist manosphere, a cluster of digital communities rife with anti-feminist sentiment and misogynistic hate.
Extremist researchers have long warned that the manosphere has legitimate connections to offline harm. Sociologist Cynthia Miller-Idriss writes in her recent novel, “Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism,” that violent misogyny, stalking and the abuse of women are a constant across reports of mass shootings and terrorist attacks — one that is “barely acknowledged and even more rarely analyzed.”
She notes that a 2019 New York Times investigation found dozens of mass shooters across the ideological spectrum sharing a common threat: a history of hating women, assaulting their wives or broadcasting misogynistic views online.
Perhaps the most famous subculture of the manosphere, the involuntary celibates — better known as incels — have notoriously produced devastating mass attacks, such as the 2014 Isla Vista killings, in which the perpetrator deliberately targeted women, citing a denial of sex as justification.
Domestic abuse charity Refuge stated in response to the documentary that the manosphere is “directly connected” to real-world violence, as many subcommunities perpetuate the dehumanization, scapegoating and resentment towards women. Not only is the manosphere a conduit of this behavior, but it is also one of its main provocateurs.
Theroux’s documentary is not without merit, and his instincts as an embedded journalist do occasionally produce something revealing. Harrison Sullivan doubling over to wipe the floor at his mother’s request, Myron Gaines cradling his girlish poodle, Sneako rambling conspiracies through empty New York streets at 2 a.m. — these scenes do amazingly well to fracture the untouchable sigma myth these influencers have built their brands on.
The primary criticism of Theroux’s film is that he centers manosphere influencers, rather than focusing more on afflicted communities or the women in their lives. In his defense, Theroux’s several attempts to talk to the women featured in the documentary, such as Gaine’s now ex-girlfriend and his employee, as well as Sullivan’s mother, were interfered with by the influencers.
Yet Theroux makes no effort to incorporate expert or outside voices, as well as interactions with harmed demographics. The documentary remains firmly anchored in the perspective of the men it set out to interrogate.
Feminist activist Eliza Hatch, in Stylist Magazine, spoke plainly: “I personally would have loved to have heard a bit more from the women featured in the documentary and their perspectives, as well as the perspectives of the queer community or any of the communities the manosphere is oppressing — as well as young boys.”
The monetized structure of the manosphere is another element Theroux struggles to understand. The vitriolic sexism, antisemitism and extremist pseudoscience so forwardly stated by these influencers are, as The Independent wrote, “appalling, but also meaningless in a world that prioritizes pure attention over anything. Everyone is here, everyone is paying and no one cares.”
This is precisely the problem that partitions the manosphere from Theroux’s past investigations with extremist subcultures: Neo-Nazis and Westboro Baptists could all be disarmed by exposure because they operate under a model of shame. The manosphere, adoptive of the rage-centered, capitalistic model of the modern internet, is predicated on an attention economy that rewards manipulation and immorality. There is no “gotcha” that can expose a system that monetizes being caught.
Surprising to no one, Sullivan’s viewership spiked during filming, exposing him to new audiences he wouldn’t have reached on his own. It is the attention economy working exactly as intended, and Theroux walked straight into it.
And, as many have pointed out, Theroux is years late to the manosphere scene. Laura Bates, author of the 2020 novel “Men Who Hate Women,” covered the manosphere extensively through research and undercover work, exposing its effects and connections to women, young men and politics, offering solutions for a better future. And she is not the only one — researchers, practitioners and journalists have spent the better part of the decade mapping this ecosystem in incredible detail.
“Inside the Manosphere” arrives late, covers what we already know and then ends, offering nothing. No resources for frantic parents, no counter-narrative for educators, no answer to the question of what viewers are supposed to do with what they’ve spent the past two hours watching.
The manosphere will not be dissolved by giving some of its biggest names a bigger stage. It will be dismantled by understanding who it recruits, how it radicalizes and what it takes to reach those people first. ANROWS, Australia’s National Research Organization for Women’s Safety, recently released a practical guide for educators on how manosphere communities operate, how misogynistic narratives spread online and how schools can intervene before those ideas can calcify into something more.
American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab’s DUCC program is another free resource to educators that can equip youth with the digital literacy and socio-emotional skills needed to combat the very vulnerability that the manosphere, along with other extremist subgroups, historically prey on.
Upstream work preventing manosphere indoctrination is already underway — in Laura Bates’ writing, in ANROW’s educator guide, in researchers and in advocates who have been sounding this alarm for nearly a decade without a Netflix budget.
There is no shortage of people doing this work seriously. Louis Theroux just isn’t one of them.
