{"id":484690,"date":"2026-03-19T21:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/484690\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:31:12","slug":"inside-the-manosphere-documentary-leaves-you-quivering-behind-the-sofa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/484690\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Manosphere \u2013 documentary leaves you \u2018quivering behind the sofa\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Louis Theroux, with Harrison Sullivan, aka HSTikkyTokky. | Credit: Netflix<\/p>\n

For his latest Netfix documentary, Louis Theroux travels to Marbella, Miami and New York to meet content creators operating at the extreme end of the \u201cmanosphere<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a loosely connected network of misogynistic male influencers. What he finds, \u201cas you can imagine\u201d, is \u201cextremely unpleasant\u201d, said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A terrifying watch<\/p>\n

\u201cI like horror films,\u201d but, as the father of two teenage boys, I was left \u201cquivering behind the sofa\u201d by this, said Wilson. I was \u201cgobsmacked\u201d by how this \u201cregressive spiral\u201d of masculinity is being sold through \u201cinternational tech platforms that should know better\u201d.<\/p>\n

Among the figures Theroux meets, said John Nugent in Empire<\/a>, are Myron Gaines (author of the charmingly titled tome, \u201cWhy Women Deserve Less\u201d) and Harrison Sullivan, a 24-year-old Brit known as HSTikkyTokky, who refers to his girlfriend as his \u201cdishwasher\u201d and who openly professes to being \u201cracist and homophobic\u201d.<\/p>\n

Neutral tone \u2018falls short\u2019<\/p>\n

Theroux takes a \u201cserious approach\u201d to these encounters but sometimes his trademark neutral tone \u201cfalls short\u201d. There is \u201cdisgusting rhetoric\u201d that he fails to call out and, although he is supposed to be skewering the influencers\u2019 views, they quickly start farming him for content, asking their followers to pitch in with questions for him, and then livestreaming his responses.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the film is \u201cclassic Theroux\u201d, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times<\/a>: \u201che holds unpleasant truths up to the light\u201d by adopting a \u201cfaux-naive curiosity\u201d. But, towards the end, Sullivan\u2019s mother asks him why, if he so disapproves of what her son is doing, he is making money by publicising it. \u201cIt\u2019s the documentarian\u2019s age-old dilemma but it feels particularly pertinent here, and is never quite resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Louis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[168011,96,172038,172039,36095,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-484690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-benji-wilson","tag-entertainment","tag-harrison-sullivan","tag-john-nugent","tag-louis-theroux","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484690","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=484690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}