Staff Writer Lydia Bruce unpacks how screens have become mirrors for the modern man, with the manosphere corrupting self-improvement into self-destruction, and what we can all do about it.
This article appeared in condensed form within our December print edition.
In an age where online communities shape much of our social understanding, the rise of the ‘manosphere’ reveals how easily vulnerability can be manipulated. These digital spaces claim to support men’s self-improvement, yet often mask harmful ideologies that distort masculinity, fuel misogyny, and exploit loneliness for influence.
The ‘manosphere’ operates primarily online, as a ‘loose network of communities that claim to address men’s struggles’, from dating, to fitness, fatherhood and beyond. However, the content of these forums often promotes harmful advice and or attitudes and are ‘united by an opposition to feminism and misrepresent men as victims of the current social and political climate.’ The key here is in the word ‘misrepresent’, articulating how manosphere content is misleading by nature, and not rooted in any concrete fact. The attitudes towards women it promotes are dangerous and require intervention: 58% of young girls and women have experienced some form of online harassment.
The term has skyrocketed recently, with discussions surrounding and relating to its content fomenting heated debate and growing concern regarding modern notions of masculinity. The language and content it encourages is highly concerning. At face-value, the manosphere targets women, but in truth, it targets everyone.
The online world finds itself increasingly populated with self-proclaimed ‘masculinity influencers’—men who claim to be helping their followers ‘reclaim’ their confidence, strength or dominance. Figures such as Andrew Tate and the Fresh & Fit Podcast have amassed enormous followings across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, packaging misogyny as motivational advice. They position themselves as mentors offering ‘tough love,’ but beneath this façade of self-improvement lies a rhetoric built on aggression, control, and resentment towards women. Their content tells young men that success and masculinity are achieved through dominance: physical, social and sexual, rather than empathy, respect or mutual understanding.
The danger here lies not only in the messages themselves but in the algorithmic amplification of such content. Short, punchy videos snowball into narratives that “women’s equality has gone too far” or that women don’t respect men anymore, spreading rapidly and reaching millions of young viewers.
How the manosphere takes hold
One of the biggest challenges the manosphere presents is its initial innocent appearance. These online spaces are marketed as sites focused on men’s self-improvement. Only when an individual delves deeper into its content does the true intent behind the forums reveal itself. By this point, any engagement with such sites opens the potential for influence and internalisation of dangerous rhetorics. Young men are frequently encouraged to inflate their sense of selves at the expense of others, centring discrimination as fundamental to the manosphere manifesto.
The content the manosphere promotes targets a very specific clientele. In a world dominated by social media and online personas, feelings of male loneliness and social isolation have risen sharply, though the exact statistics vary depending on the source. For instance, research from Gov.uk reported that around 6% of men experience chronic loneliness, while other studies, such as one by Movember in 2024, suggest the figure is even higher when considering young men aged 18–24. What matters is not the precise number but the trend: an increasing proportion of men are describing themselves as disconnected, unseen, or without meaningful friendships. The manosphere capitalises on this vulnerability. The idea of finding community is an entirely natural desire, primitive at its core. Humanity has, and always will, seek belonging. The manosphere exploits this knowledge, turning loneliness into a gateway for control. Its communities offer the illusion of brotherhood and purpose, but behind that façade lies an ideological machinery that converts isolation into anger, and frustration into misogyny.
The expansion of the manosphere also aligns with a broader global shift towards cultural conservatism, one that views progress towards gender equality as a personal loss for men. These groups claim that feminism has ‘gone too far’, arguing that the empowerment of women comes at men’s expense. This attitude is far from new. In fact, it draws on a long genealogy of anti-feminist movements, from early 20th-century backlash against women’s suffrage, to the post-war insistence on traditional gender roles, to the rise of “Men’s Rights Activism” (MRA) in the 1970s. Today’s online manosphere inherits and modernises these ideologies through digital language, memes, podcasts, and viral videos, making the same age-old ideas about female inferiority and male victimhood feel new, urgent, and relatable to a generation raised online.
The blurring of online-offline spaces
The extreme language connected to manosphere content is not simply responsible for normalising violence against women, but also for building ideological bridges towards radicalisation and extremist thought. Online forums like 4chan or subreddits such as r/TheRedPill (before its removal) have demonstrated how easily discussions about dating frustrations can devolve into hate speech and even advocacy of violence. Several attackers, including those linked to the Incel movement, have cited such spaces as sources of validation for their actions. The manosphere’s language of resentment, entitlement and victimhood mirrors the same psychological mechanisms used in far-right recruitment, uniting both movements through shared hostility towards perceived ‘social decline’ and ‘loss of male power’.
Among the manosphere’s most troubling subcultures is the ‘incel’ movement – a group of men who believe they are entitled to sex and that women are withholding it. What began as an online support forum for men struggling with intimacy has become a breeding ground for hate speech, resentment and at its most extreme, violence: the 2014 Isla Vista Killings in California, carried out by Elliot Rodger, were explicitly motivated by incel beliefs. Similarly, in Toronto (2018), Alek Minassian killed ten people in a self-described “incel rebellion”. These tragedies expose the violent potential underlying the manosphere’s rhetoric.
More and more, this abusive microcosm is permeating the everyday. On a personal level, I’ve witnessed many of my friends subjected to hateful, abusive and often hyper-sexualised comments online, leaving them both scared and uncomfortable. I myself have been a victim of these comments.
Comments made hidden behind phone screens translate to a very real, physical fear in daily life. Only last week, I was out with some friends on Drury Lane for a night out at the Top Secret Comedy Club. A man sat next to me offered to buy me a drink: I politely declined. Instead of accepting my very respectful rejection, he chose to call me a ‘whore’, and began displaying more animated and aggressive behaviour.
This attitude, actively encouraged and promoted by online manosphere content, is unacceptable and calls for united intervention.
What can be done?
The manosphere impacts men too. Men with more restrictive and binary attitudes towards gender and masculinity are at a greater risk of engaging in self-harm and substance abuse. Instances of depression and poor general mental health are also much higher in these individuals. Although not an excuse for the outwardly abusive behaviour that follows, the men succumbing to these views most likely come from a place of poor mental health leaving them open to manipulation on a mass scale. We live in a world of increasing alienation and disillusionment with society. Many men succumbing to these feelings of isolation fall into toxic internet rabbit holes. The problem lies in the ease of accessibility of such content.
As individuals, we are responsible for calling out and reporting instances of misogyny when we see it in our daily lives, whether that’s online or in the real world. The views of the manosphere cannot be made to feel normalised. Every social media platform has report buttons which can help to erase some of the problematic content online.
Many activist groups, such as Zero Tolerance and Hope Not Hate, unite individuals together against misogyny, involuntary celibate content and acts of aggression towards women. These groups act as a supportive space for women to express their concerns and raise issues regarding instances of toxic masculinity either online or in person.
The manosphere targets women, but we are all victims – directly or indirectly – of this shift towards extremist viewpoints. To tackle this, we must consciously redefine as a collective what healthy, inclusive masculinity could look like in a hyperconnected world. Just as the manosphere has been socially constructed, so too can an opposition infrastructure.
For more analysis on gender politics, click here.
