Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere

Their target audience is kids and teenagers. Most reasonable adults see through their BS, Irish do anyway imo, can't say the same for Americans

Work with teenage boys, most would have some interest in these influencers, Andrew Tate in particular.

I wouldn't see much of the mysogeny but definitely some would be into the macho look and feeling that they need to be tough all the time.

No doubt this thread will descend into nonsense about how men are being picked on and how there is really nothing to see here.

How do you not love the "I'm stupid" schtick? I find it such an embarrassingly effective technique, it's also hilarious.

I don't agree with that take. Im a regular boards user and yes there are a few people who you would wonder about, but on the whole its regular people with regular interests and perspectives.

Speaking as a man, can I get a big whoop when I say women are awesome. Are women equal to men? No they are better in almost every way.

what are you on about? Are you up for an award or something?

Did the documentary touch on the fact that the "courses" that the likes of Tate et al sell are just MLM, Pyramid schemes?

Haven't watched the documentary and probably won't, so I;m not commenting on the content of the documentary itself more the overall issue.

The manosphere is a massively overrated issue, they really have very little influence outside of a bunch of immature idiots who have always been around and always will be around.Also they tend to have a much bigger influence amongst "men of colour" which of course tend to get hidden by the media commenting on it who don't like it when it turns out white males aren't the biggest issue in the world.

The moral panic about the Manosphere is no different than the moral panic about Nuts and Zoo magazine and pickup artists that happened 20 years ago .It's a completely overstated issue that hasn't deserved the attention it's received in the media and it's an issue that will always exist as there will always be immature teenager boys and young men who believe in such nonsense.

Why do you think women are better than men in almost every way?

Thats the entire shtick, they need to be the (marginally) smartest person in the room to keep their even less intelligent devout followers worshipping them. Louis was a huge threat to the brand of "masculinity" they sell.

I thought the documentary did well to show you who these people are without doing what most of the subjects thought he would by tricking them. He didn't have to do a lot of prodding to get them to show who they were for the cameras, they did it themselves with just basic questions. Nothing tricky and they exposed their true colours.

I do find it weird that these grifters think so little of women but need to use them to make their money. If they had any pride they would not use any content from women to attract viewers to keep funding them and focus only on men and how to improve yourself. But that is not the goal for these people, in the end it is just a grift to make money for themselves and they will use women to do that.

I’d say a lot of it is on the never-never.

Remember those promos that the WWF wrestlers used to do with Gene Tunney in the 80s and 90s? It's all pretend obviously but the kayfabe meant they had to play the character when the cameras were rolling. It all hinged on a suspension of disbelief, a disbelief that was aggressively protected. As kids, teens we used to think it was all real but then we reach an age when the schtick is known and (most) grow up and see it for what it is i.e. people trying to make a buck or a million if their character becomes popular. It's the same with these fellas. Pretending to be alphas but really just immature grifters with father issues seeking to out alpha other grifters in making money off kids and young men (e.g. sign up courses…ffs) using their variation of kayfabe. I'd give young fellas the benefit of the doubt in eventually realising what spoofers these guys are and Therouxs documentary serves as an event horizon as such towards that realisation.

“Moral Panic” is used often to try and distract.

There’s a big difference to me with people getting swallowed into a virtual world of role models they look up to and seek guidance from, sending them money , constantly seeing it in their phone - compared with buying a 90s lad mag every few weeks and reading the articles.

The Louis Theroux documentary was a bit disappointing. I’ve no specific issues with it, rather the influencers themselves say a constant stream of ridiculous things, it’s hard create comedy nuggets or profound moments out of it.

Instead of just only criticising the guys, and their young male audience, - reinforcing their sense of isolation from mainstream society - perhaps it’s also worth extracting the small positives in some of the messaging: e.g. seeing potential in all young men to have ambition and work hard to be healthy and successful in life. But that’s about it really!

Absolutely never had any such vibes from him. At most he comes across as nerdy and a bit awkward which also makes him great at these kinds of documentaries, it makes the interviewees more willing to expose themselves. Being awkward really wouldn't be something I'd classify as remotely creepy.