Is the Manosphere the symptom or the cause..?
Loius Theroux’s explores the degree to which influencers will go to avoid doing the school packed lunch.
TOM ED
You’d have thought that the pearl-clutching moral panic by so-called liberals over male YouTubers encouraging men to get off screens and gaming chairs to pursue their own success in a western world that has successfully dissolved the valuable differences between men and women in the name of progressive politics might have died down since Andrew Tate faced charges of people trafficking, but apparently not.
It’s hard to hear yourself think above the BBC, etc consensus that boys are being influenced by non-vetted influencers rather than the State, and how dangerous this is for society. While not lingering on why the Libs are more upset about Tate than Asian gangs grooming white girls in care or even Epstein, this new documentary by Louis Theroux is one of those water cooler TV things – even if people now work from home to actually watch TV rather than talking about it in the office.
The biggest murmur on lips since the psychological nudge of Adolescence is Louis Theroux sneering his way through the admittedly idiotic outer reaches of the so-called manosphere. You can see his distaste from the start; a liberal who likes boys to be brainwashed by MSM propaganda rather than examples set by those committed to a mix of individualism, stoicism, sociopathy and Foot Locker wisdom. This nirvana is not where the meek inherit the earth, but where the most brash, coarse and narcissistic men aspire to biceps bigger than the national debt, shopping malls and impressive exit ramps from underground garaging.
The manosphere is the latest moral panic amongst liberals who prefer their men in dresses, or at least wimply consenting to the idea that masculinity is toxic, whereas femininity is (obviously) impervious to such malpractice. Loius Theroux is so worried that he has produced a Netflix documentary to fan the flames of the danger in men encouraging boys to go to the gym, make money and be their own boss. Theroux of course is no stranger to wealth himself, but prefers to hide it behind his painfully faux miscomprehension, coming across like a middle manager promoted above his pay grade, rather than an influencer wearing a tee shirt tighter than a parachute. There’s an alternative documentary to be made about the women such as Bonnie Blue, influencing girls to objectify themselves.
23 year old Harrison Sullivan is known as ‘HSTikkyTokky’ – his parents must be so proud. He has made an unintentional name for himself by demonstrating heroic masculinity by demonstrating his inability to keep £230,000 McClarens on the road in Surrey, and abandoning his injured influencer friend General G (!) on the ground. (Injured Influencer is a mid-life tattoo waiting to happen). HSTikkyTokky talks with that gangster affectation favoured by teenage boys, as though conversation has inconveniently interrupted him having a minor stroke. He also enjoys replying with ‘100%’ to any questions, as though it’s a spark of originality. He’s cocksure and struttingly proud of his hangers-on, pornhub girlfriend and his homophobia.
As per the job spec, these male influencers like to live outside the system – red pilled- although are tied to their own hamster wheel. The influencer world is a tough one. There’s relentless appetite for ‘content’ and interesting stories from people who aren’t that interesting: there’s only so much smug footage of palm trees you can handle. There’s also limitations to how many times you can say ‘you know what I mean,’ and ‘like’, although it doesn’t seem to be limiting their reach. Of course Theroux is so enmeshed in the system that he can’t see the sense from the nonsense, although its unclear how writing off supercars and running away as fast as a sagging Louis Vuitton tracksuit will allow, is smashing the system.
It’s a world of fitness, upselling and conspiracy theories, where apparently the idea that aliens might have built the pyramids is mockable. As ever, the theoretical aspect of conspiracy theories is lost in the need to adhere to the MSM narrative. We are already familiar with female secondary school teachers alarmed at boys will be boys, preferring boys must not be boys, and that a risk averse society is preferable. One teacher interviewed here is terrified at the message of these YouTubers, and their popularity competing with that of a water jug at a dowsers convention.
It’s a documentary determined to dismantle a manosphere that is mainly content providers aiming at male audiences, encouraging them to value masculinity and themselves against a society that increasingly vilifies it. This documentary focuses on its outreaches, where part of its congregation are morons with megaphones chasing down predators in Spain, and obnoxious podcasters, but sees its other values of risk taking, personal responsibility and enjoying souped-up cars as wholly toxic. It steps into the trap the programme is hoping to destroy. Men are capable of bravery, kindness and take more risks, which is to be celebrated.
The internet is an unsupervised playground (unsupervised by whom?) and these influencers are all kids, high on their omnipotence and propelled by a self-belief that if bottled could cure the western anxiety pandemic. They may not be as free from the beast system as they like to think – they have to work hard for ‘content’ even if it’s inane – but you have to admire their commitment to avoid doing the kids’ school packed lunches. Justin Waller is someone who talks about his wealth a lot. His main talent is an adeptness at sliding out of supercars in slow motion whilst taking his sunglasses off, although nothing screams success (or bankruptcy) quite like renting a characterless condo for $20,000 a month. He is also subscribed to one-way monogamy, which might be speaking what frequently already exists out loud; it’s not exactly unheard of in the middle classes.
Theroux does enquire why these young men have decided to adopt such uber personas, and unsurprisingly exposes an absence of positive father figures. You might say they have overcompensated for this via executive gym package memberships, misogyny and tight trousers; pouring their own idea of what a man should be while forgetting to say when. But Theroux misses a trick. What if it isn’t these alphas who are letting down boys, but society itself? What if the manosphere is the symptom and not the cause? Men are accused of toxicity born of an immutable characteristic, in race terms this would be racism, yet toxic masculinity is prevalent and pulls all men into its umbrella. We have a smothering health and safety society that is over-mothering, where you can’t climb a ladder without two day training. What happened to being careful and taking personal responsibility? It’s called the nanny state not the daddy state for a reason.
Thanks to this mollycoddling we have millennials with workplace phone phobia – we might be rightly questioning the doofuses in this documentary but at least they can answer phones without the requirement of a psychological support team. Meanwhile anxiety is rising like a psychological tsunami, probably fuelled by millennials wanting the workplace to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses, and demanding their workplace proves them with purpose. Gone are the days when you were shown a desk, a phone and a pen and told to get on with it, or indeed when finding purpose in your life was something you did in your spare time. Meanwhile, the male influencers’ love of swimming pools and automotive UV under-lighting might provide good reason for getting out of bed in the morning.
There’s no real winner here. On one hand, you have the Manosphere boys who look like they’d sleep with avatars of themselves given half a chance, with temperature controlled garages, mirrored ceilings and beards sharper than a draftsman’s pen, but on the other you have the Louis Theroux boys who look like they’d drown in a saucer of oat milk if left unsupervised, and claim to be third wave feminists, which is like Dodos campaigning for bludgeons. There’s also some odd reversal misogyny in Theroux’s insinuation that Justin Waller’s wife can’t make her own decisions about how she chooses to divide the labour within their relationship.
For parents’ of teenage boys with little interest in life beyond collecting virtual rewards for virtual successes in Roblox, the idea of an assertive and vibrant masculinity is a valuable one. It’s a shame that this programme presents it as a partiality to arcade punching bags, humourless insults on podcasts, aspirational one-way monogamy with porn-hub girlfriends, and the modern preoccupation with vacuous consumerism. In fact, we are missing the bigger picture of disenfranchised young males as a result of this misandry and vilification where an over-feminised society labels male characteristics as toxic, combined with computer games and screens addictions, social media and absent fathers. Fair play to Theroux for allowing footage of one of the pumped stoats reassuring passersby that he’s not a paedophile, but he’s missed a deeper trick here.
This article (Is the Manosphere the symptom or the cause..?) was created and published by Tom Ed and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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