Reflection on the "manosphere"

I don't use AI - I write these reflections in one take, without looking back through them to see if what I said was coherent or not. the errors and chaos should be as noticeable as the lack of grammar so that you know it's a person, not an LLM.

Louis Theroux - Inside the manosphere - https://www.netflix.com/title/81920687

I watched Loius Theroux's documentary on the manosphere, where he meets some characters profiting off the world's lost boys. I'd seen another documentary on "incels" recently as well, although I can't remember the details of who did it. I think there's a really interesting thing going on with the psychology at play here, but both documentaries kind of missed it.

The interesting characters aren't the influencers, it's the followers. The influencers are easy to understand - it's a show and they're trying to stay on stage. The interesting thing is why do these messages resonate with young men? I think the answer is actually pretty clear - men need to feel part of a tribe, they need to belong and they need to test themselves and others. The traditional outlets for this have genuinely been eroded over the past few decades, and very natural instincts of conflict seeking, physicality and heirarchy have been stripped from places like schools, media and small social groups. And so young men who want to feel these things go looking for them, even if they don't know they need them. And they'll latch on to what they find.

We like to impose our will over things - we take risks, we fight, we explore. I've found outlets in wild places; as a soldier and as a mountaineer. I'd become so comfortable in these places and in the positions of danger that they took me by my mid 20's that I lost the need to compete, or to compare myself with others. It's one of the reasons I find the manosphere influencer so ridiculous. They're creating an impression of physicality, of risk or of achievement whilst remaining as sterile as possible - dubai decor and a rented sports car. What they're doing is entirely presentational, there's no depth to it. So why are the lost boys still following? I think it's because they're vulnerable. And they're vulnerable because they're young men.

As a young man, particularly one who looks physically capable - no one is coming to help you. No on holds doors for you or offers to help with a heavy bag (I can say this with absolute certainty as someone often struggling through doors with lots of heavy bags). The more physicality you have the less likely people are to smile at you. A young man can go all day and night without a friendly gesture made towards them. This has become worse, as the messaging around men has become something so much more sinister over the years.

A friend of mine died a couple of years ago. He had multiple sclerosis but otherwise looked like a robust soldiery type. Only he couldn't balance properly, had a prosthetic eye and struggled to navigate obstacles like a chair in a coffee shop. He was a lovely guy. He was treated with the mistrust and dismissal that the lost boys talk about, only for him, he was fucked. Asking a waitress if she could bring his coffe to a table for him rather than him carrying it shakily across the room was met with absolute disdain. You're a 30 year old athletic man, what business have you got asking for help in any context. help isn't for you, its for everyone else.

No one is coming to your aid at this point in life. I almost died because my very polite complaints of great pain were dismissed out of hand several times by the hospital (but you look fine). Kindness towards those who look dangerous is very lacking. and of course the idea of what is dangerous is very subjective. I think the lost boys have started to adopt the signals of being dangerous as a way to create their tribe (sleeve tattoos were the preserve of soldiers back from a lengthy tour in a desert somewhere, now they're an entry requirement for a barrista in shoreditch). By marking themselves as "dangerous" they can build a shield to the painful dismissals that they'll experience daily. Unfortunately, much as they try, many of them are not warriors, they are dressing the part and listening to frauds say the things they think make them tough - but they're not. It's the social equivalent of bodybuilding. It kind of looks like they're pretty strong, but they do nothing with the muscles. The lost boys need help, and they may need your help. just be kind to them, treat them with trust and see what happens.

I think the position we're in now probably began with the coining of "toxic" masculinity and the start of what was an aggressive bullying campaign that took place online before sweeping in to the media and eventually in to how people behave. I've heard all kinds of arguments about the toxcicity of masculinity and how it only refers to traits and not to half the population, but come on. you can't describe something in two words like that and not expect it to imply exactly what it sounds like it does - that men and the things they do are damaging to everyone else. It hurt people's feelings and the manosphere is the result of the lost boys being a bit upset and creating their own gang that you're not invited to.

If only we'd never got rid of the sticks and stones rhyme, then maybe they'd still be out there falling off walls and out of trees instead of pretending that spa days and loosing money FX trading were admirable actions.

There have always been good men and there always will be. There have always been dicks too. It's just that they're not getting regulated by peers in the real world any more, so they're growing up getting away with it for much longer. Scolding them online is not the answer, it's actually part of the problem. It's intangible and can be ignored or worse - leveraged.