Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere 

Growing up, I feel I learned quite a bit about the world through watching Louis Theroux’s many documentaries. Through his discussion and time spent with people he often revealed important context for why people thought or did particular things. I’ve felt recently, maybe unfairly, that this ability has been blunted… A very tame looking spotify podcast and the recent BBC interviews he did with celebrities which inform or show very little and work as PR for famous people, informs this view.

In 'Inside the Manosphere' Louis, present a handful of manosphere influencers as they are; Grifters who fell into a way of making money off gullible people online. You quickly realise that all the bravado and ‘masculinity’ on camera is just an act to gain money through their various scams. Theroux does this primarily by trying to get the important women in their lives on camera. Once this happens they all seem unsure how to act. Do I treat this person like all my fans expect me to treat women, or do I treat her like someone I care about? 

Louis asks one of these grifters, something along the lines of - ‘why not be nice? You are a role model for kids etc’.. and the response which I think is genuine is that, the various algorithms on the short video and streaming apps wouldn’t have allowed him to get a following by being nice. So we have a system that financially compensates these men to perform as the worst version of themselves. Thanks nerds in Silicon Valley, good job on that algorithm! I wished more had been made of this, as without these apps these people have no influence or reason to act this way. 

Another disappointment for me was that there was no enquiry into why there is such a huge market of young men and teenage boys open to this slop of pseudomasculinity ideas. When house prices, cost of living, low wages means most ⅓ of men are currently still living at home well into their 30s. The young people who buy into these manosphere influencers, as the film showed, were desperate men who had very little going for them. 

This criticism aside, this documentary does a really good job at exposing these men for what they are: scammers, taking advantage of desperate people, all whilst offering them no real solutions. These people, enabled by the algorithms that support them, make the world unsafe for women. Hopefully a lot of people watch this and also more is done about systems that support and enable them… Sadly I fear nothing will.

Score out of 1000

680 out of 1000