{"id":473212,"date":"2026-03-13T10:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/473212\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:12:13","slug":"i-watched-louis-therouxs-manosphere-film-with-my-teens-this-is-what-they-really-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/473212\/","title":{"rendered":"I watched Louis Theroux\u2019s Manosphere film with my teens \u2013 this is what they really think"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the quite legitimate criticisms of the new Louis Theroux<\/a> documentary<\/a> Inside the Manosphere can be summarised with the phrase \u201cOK Boomer\u201d. For people who have been following, writing about or worrying about the manosphere<\/a> for nearly five years, Theroux wading into this particular quagmire now seems to lack his usual impeccable timing and sharp eye for cultural controversy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If this were 2022, his interviews with Harrison Sullivan, aka HStikkytokky, Myron Gaines, Sneako, and slightly odd man out, Justin Waller (he looks more like an estate agent) might have been shocking. In the early days, their red-pilled, sexist, money-obsessed paranoia scandalised anyone vaguely progressive and attracted millions of mostly young men and boys thrilled by the more extreme ends of the galaxy-sized manosphere. <\/p>\n

However, after half a decade and billions of hours of livestreams courtesy of these jacked-up bros commodifying young, male pain with the belief that feminism and 9-5 jobs (\u201cthe matrix\u201d) are the root cause of their misery, it\u2019s likely the audience were a lot less shocked than Louis looked. <\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t to say the interviews and revelations in Inside the Manosphere weren\u2019t depressing and shocking \u2013 they\u2019re just not exactly new to a lot of us. A lot of the content was well-worn manosphere fare: women are second-class citizens and only useful for washing-up and sex; it\u2019s fine to make money from OnlyFans models while calling them \u201cslags\u201d and \u201cwhores\u201d; men can be unfaithful but their partners can\u2019t be; wealth is king provided it doesn\u2019t come from conventional jobs \u2013 real men make money from crypto.<\/p>\n

Some of the interviews were unintentionally funny: \u201chard man\u201d HStikkytokky mopping the floor because his mum had told him he\u2019d made a mess was a moment. Some were a bleak reminder of what a sewer the manosphere can be, with women being humiliated and men beaten up for ratings wins. The casual intersection with other prejudices was everywhere, with antisemitic and other racist tropes baked into the toxic narrative. Theroux didn\u2019t do much to interrogate many of these darker elements hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n

But what did teenage boys \u2013 and their parents \u2013 make of Louis\u2019s exposure of the \u201cmanosphere\u201d? Judith, 47, is a speech therapist. She doesn\u2019t do social media<\/a>, doesn\u2019t have a website and frequently forgets to charge her phone unless one of her sons reminds her. She has two sons, Justin, 17, and Tom, 15, and watched it with them and Justin\u2019s friend, Anton, 17. <\/p>\n

She was so appalled by Theroux\u2019s interviewees that she struggled to believe the characters were real and initially thought the documentary was a satire. She explains: \u201cI kept saying to my boys, he\u2019s not real, he\u2019s not real, he can\u2019t be real, because I can\u2019t believe in 2026, there are people with views like that on women, and apparently all these boys that take them seriously! <\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad grew up in working men\u2019s clubs and he would have found them awful. And these guys have girlfriends! What\u2019s the matter with these girls?\u201d <\/p>\n

Her sons, Justin and Tom \u201ccouldn\u2019t stop laughing at their mum\u2019s expression as we watched it\u201d. Justin admits to having been a big fan of Sneako and HStikkytokky when he was 14 and 15 and explains: \u201cI definitely felt a bit of a bond with a lot of the creators, even Andrew Tate, because lots of them talk about growing up without a dad especially, and I don\u2019t really know my dad. <\/p>\n

\"Macho<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Macho maker: Theroux meets the influencer HSTikkyTokky (Netflix)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe documentary sort of touched on it, but that\u2019s definitely the appeal to a lot of lads who might feel a bit odd one out. It\u2019s like being let into a gang where there\u2019s sort of jokes and a bit of an arm around your shoulder or someone telling you to man up. Lots of boys need that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Why, I asked Justin, did the appeal of these kinds of influencers wane in the last couple of years? He points to Myron Gaines \u2013 certainly the least appealing figure in the documentary for his open aggression towards women, one of whom he calls \u201chuge\u201d and unattractive and an \u201cembarrassment to society\u201d before ordering her out of his studio. He is also known for not believing women should be able to vote or serve in the military and expecting them to be subordinate to a man\u2019s demands. <\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely the Myron Gaines stuff. I have a girlfriend and mates who are girls, all that really hardcore \u2018girls are all slags and thick\u2019 stuff is nasty,\u201d Justin says. \u201cHis content is bullying, and it sort of put me off the whole thing, as you realise a lot of the content is just picking on weaker people. It\u2019s just hate for hate\u2019s sake.\u201d <\/p>\n

Anton still follows several manosphere content creators, but mostly for fitness tips, and, like Justin, is tiring of the content, mostly because he\u2019s realised how \u201cscammy\u201d it is: \u201cThey are always promising you\u2019re going to make sh**loads of money, but I don\u2019t know anyone who has. One of my mates lost a couple of grand on one of their crypto offers. I think I\u2019ll do an apprenticeship instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Screen testosterone: Theroux with British influencer Ed Matthews (Netflix)<\/p>\n

Tom, who has been aware of this content since primary school, was even more disparaging about the documentary. Tom and his friends have progressed to more thoughtful and alternative content creators like Joshua Citarella, who hosts the podcast Doomscroll, which interviews thinkers, activists, and internet figures about digital culture and politics. <\/p>\n

He describes the guys on Theroux\u2019s documentary as \u201cmarble-sucking d***heads.\u201d When I asked what he means by that, he explains: \u201cThey all talk like they\u2019ve got a mouth full of marbles. They\u2019re all such playground bullies. Did you notice how they were all quite polite and reasonable to Louis\u2019s face, but the second they were back with their \u2018boys\u2019 online, it was all the hardman routine? Talk about beta. They\u2019re try-hard idiots, most people I know think that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Markus Buhmann works in technology and watched with his 15-year-old son, and like Judith\u2019s boys, picked up on the \u201clost boys\u201d narrative of some of the manosphere\u2019s followers. Perhaps the most sympathetic people in the documentary were the two young men in Malibu who really believed the manosphere had saved them from grief, poverty and hardship with its motivational drive. <\/p>\n

Markus said it felt like the manosphere had a cult-like hold on vulnerable young men like them, like many who get involved in extreme movements during low or confusing times in their lives. This, he thinks, offers a glimpse into the enduring appeal of the manosphere even if money, women, and cars aren\u2019t magically delivered as promised. It means that these influencers are now being increasingly associated with loserville than the \u201cwinning mentality\u201d they purport to portray. They just look and sound a bit, well, sad.<\/p>\n

\"Theroux<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Theroux with the American \u2018success coach\u2019 Justin Waller (Netflix)<\/p>\n

Lewis Wedlock is the author of Masculinities in Schools and spends a lot of time talking with boys about male identity, misogyny<\/a> and the manosphere. He has real concerns about the documentary, believing many boys \u201care likely to watch this and find it entertaining or activating instead of educational\u201d. <\/p>\n

He thinks, ultimately, the documentary has done its viewers a disservice by \u201cfailing to acknowledge the harm that directly impacts women and girls through the increasingly mainstreamed perpetuation of misogyny<\/a>, sexism<\/a> and violence against women and girls\u201d. <\/p>\n

There is certainly a total absence of female voices and perspectives in the documentary, except for the wives and girlfriends of the creators, who all affirm how great their lifestyle is \u2013 even the ones who have a traumatised look about them. <\/p>\n

Reflecting on Judith\u2019s initial belief that Inside the Manosphere was actually elaborate satire, the end of the documentary did bring to mind a classic sketch from the 1990s. Losing patience with Theroux\u2019s prodding, Sullivan, aka HStikkytokky, shouts at Louis before flouncing off. In many ways, it reminded me of the Harry Enfield\/Kathy Burke sketch when Kevin and Perry are constantly storming off from their mums. It\u2019s not shocking, it\u2019s just a bit juvenile and sad. Embarrassing even. <\/p>\n

Of course, we all know Kevin the Teenager eventually grows up, gets a girlfriend he likes and becomes a much more pleasant person. We can all live in hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the quite legitimate criticisms of the new Louis Theroux documentary Inside the Manosphere can be summarised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-473212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}