Cool Media.
Hello sixteenth minute listeners, Happy holidays. This is Jamie. Do I have your attention? Please keep listening. Quick thing right at the top of this show, I am going on tour with my.
Other weekly podcast, The Bechdel Cast.
If you're a listener of the show, it's an intersectional feminist podcast that I co host with my friend Caitlin Durante, and we're going to be doing a few tour dates in January. So if you live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Portland, Oregon, we are going to be in your town, and even if you're not, there's going to be live stream tickets available.
So if you're a.
Fan of that show or you just want to be weird in parisocial, those are the places to do it. We're going to be in Los Angeles on January nineteenth at Dynasty Typewriter. That's going to be a variety show with some of our favorite past guests of the show and just a celebration of the show in general. You can get tickets live if you're in the area or live streamed.
Then we will be in San.
Francisco at San Francisco Sketch Fest on January twenty third covering Titanic. We did something called the Shrek Tannic Tour last year, which is I know, brilliant inspired, nothing better than that, where we will cover either Titanic or Shrek. There are no live stream tickets for that, so if you're in the San Francisco area, that's the only way
to see that show. And finally, we're ending our mini tour in Portland, Oregon, home of Sophie Litterman, and we will be covering Shrek at the Curious Comedy Theater on January twenty sixth in Portland and there will be live stream tickets for that available. There may be some special guests, I mean, I don't know, come and see. So yes, if you've been listening to the Manuscare mini series, I really really appreciate it.
And if you want to come and hang in chat Bachtel Cash shows are always super super fun.
Hope to see their happy holidays.
Here's the show. Joy stay you.
Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we talk to the Internet's characters of the day to see what their moment was like for them and what it says about us and the Internet. Set not today one last time, because this is our final installment of our into the Manisphere,
and folks, it's been a journey. We've checked out the origins of the Manisphere, mind you, not a history of misogyny or I would truly never sleep again, but rather the history of these organized male supremacist groups coming to prominence in response to gains of not just feminist movements, but virtually any progressive civil rights movement. Like Seasons one and two have lost, which are the only ones I've watched so far.
It's all connected.
We followed these male supremacist movements onto the Internet, where they split into subgroups performing their own version of freeform jazz misogyny. The in cells they pick up artists, the men's rights activists, the men going their own way, and all of the subvariants therein. We've followed them to forums,
into radio, and eventually YouTube and podcasts. We've looked at the historical third and fourth wave feminist touchstones they've responded to in the crimes and harassment movements they've turned into news stories amplified by algorithms. The Manisphere is absolutely still recruiting, if reports from the last.
Few years are to be believed.
To kids as young as ten years old. The more I learned about it, the more I really do feel like it is an important space to talk about, and I think for parents and teachers especially a space to have a basic understanding of to as my guest FT signifier expanded on last week, to be able to recognize when young people are engaging with it. I'm not suggesting there should be a moral panic that means that nuking
the Manisphere will solve the problem. The Manisphere is an extension of the problem that systemic failures have reached the point that grifters are able to take advantage of unregulated Internet spaces and a screen addicted population to spread ideas that are far more profitable than any progressive or leftist idea tends to be. The Manisphere is well funded, and so even if you don't engage with it directly, it's more likely than not that it's affected you at some point,
whether we're talking inside or outside the Manisphere. The Overton window of how we talk about these systemic issues and ignore others has been reduced to phrases like the Internet isn't real life, which is interesting because there's no shortage of young people who have taken their own lives after being bullied online that clearly felt very differently, and it's no mistake that this often dismissed phenomenon is becoming increasingly prevalent in black youth, in girls, and in queer youth.
More than one thing has to be true here. The Internet and the real world are very clearly not the same place. But to downplay the tremendous influence one has on the other dooms you to be an eternal boomer. It pushed away young people and it does not serve the young people in your life. But what I've really hoped to stress through this series isn't just the idea that the manisphere is a space that's boosted and further normalized, mask off hatred toward not just women, but queer people,
trans people, poor people, and anyone who isn't white. It's a symptom of late capitalism. But when it comes down to it, the way that the manisphere affects you and to what degree it affects you, has everything to do with who you are as an individual. And so to close this series out, I wanted to share some of those perspectives, and thankfully many listeners reached out who have either interacted with or been fully pulled into this space. In the past, I've talked to people who have exited
the manisphere over a period of three decades. I've talked to people who have studied and been kind of traumatized by it relatable, and I talked to a young teacher who's just trying to figure out how to speak to there's students about it without being shut out entirely. So for the rest of this episode, I'm going to let their stories take center, and because some names have been changed, let's get to know their voices.
First.
A non binary person socialized as a man who entered the manisphere well over two decades ago.
Tom, I'm forty five and yeah, I don't know. I have four kids. Part of what drew me into the father's rights bullshit was I kind of got pulled into that by my bitterness over my divorce and my anger around what I perceived was at my mistreatment by thesodial and child sport systems.
This is Alyssa, a leading researcher on in cells.
Hi, my name is Alissa Davis, and I am a third year PhD student in sociology at Vanderbilt University.
This is Arna, a German Man in his late twenty who entered the Manisphere after a year abroad in the US in the early twenty tens.
I'm Anna. I am twenty nine years old and from Germany. I am a massive student in psychology and I definitely was in the Manosphere for a while. And yeah, I got out of it. Now, am I seeing Flea or Casper? I know this might be?
This is Caasler.
Here's Isaiah, who's in their early twenties and grew up deeply entrenched in Christian Conservatism.
My name is Isaiah, and I'm currently a student, and I identify as queer, neurodivergent, among other things. And yeah, I survived the Manisphere.
And finally, Paige, who was a non binary former high school teacher in Texas.
My name is Paige. I am a former high school science teacher. I started teaching it would have been twenty twenty two at that point, kind of a remedial physics chemistry class. So I had all nine through twelve.
And when we come back, we talk to the survivors of the Manisphere. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. Has anyone else seen this incredible six hour long movie? I've been hearing about called Santa University. Let me know, I hear it's amazing and that the woman who wrote it is really beautiful. All right, let's get into it. These interviews have been edited for time and clarity, and here are the expats of the manisphere.
And about when did you leave these spaces for good?
Let's say around two thousand and eight, Okay, it was nine ish. I was in my twenties, and you know, I wasn't really you know, aware of the shifting window of politics going further to the right. I was a rock against Bush while also like accepting this like cesspool of monsters. So it was very much based around how father's rights was about, like fathers don't have access to as robust child support needs and they don't often qualify for public assistance stuff, and family court judges were biased
against fathers and that sort of rhetoric. The problem that as I see, you know, as I eventually saw it, was that problem was coming from inside the house. You know. It wasn't that you know, women were poisoning the system against us. It was that the system as fucked up because of misogyny.
As you said, it's been around for like a while, so I guess I'm more in like the modern era of in cells host reddit bands. I actually started my research for my master's thesis. I was originally going to use a subreddit that was called I think it was brain Cells, and in cels had gotten banned in twenty seventeen.
This was twenty twenty one. Brain Cells was still around, but right as I was about to start collecting data for my thesis, brain Cells got banned, and so I was like, oh no, what am I going to do?
And so then I found, in particular our slash in cell Exit, which mainly focuses on men who have I guess identified themselves as in cells in the past, expressing a desire to leave the group, which then led me to kind of these other spaces that since in cels have gotten pushed out of, I think the sites that they originally sprung up on, which is Reddit in four chan. Now they're going into different areas of the Internet and creating their own websites and forums that function very similarly
to Reddit. In one of the papers that I published along with my co author had their Keechrie. There's kind of this idea of free spaces that has been studied among scholars who look at extremist groups, and these free spaces function as places where individuals who are members of extremist groups can can move into and are isolated from the mainstream while also having I guess, the opportunity to
continue to foster these ideologies. So in that respect, they're really hard to get out of because you're insulated entirely and the only people you talk to are people who I think agree and support those ideological functions. The danger of having like such an insulated community is that it does become an echo chamber, and it does become I like what you said, like a death cult essentially, where
they're simultaneously each other's only like support system. But then also that support system is so negative and so harmful.
I think it is decent to mention here. I was undiagnosed ADHD autism. It's a STIL definitely had negative experiences as in bullying when I got to like, let's say, middle school, Germany system is a little different, but I still had some friends that I brought over from like elementary school when we went to the same class, but I definitely was no longer as outgoing as fun and I also struggled with just social interactions. If I am thinking back on it, I am still cringing hard on
the things that I did. Yeah, so internet it was very German focused. Now, I did to say that, like the internet is ninety five percent in English. I don't know on the actual percentage, but five's wise. That sounds about right. Yeah, before getting into the minosphere, before really discovering the Internet came through my exchange here that I did, which would be junior year in the US to Florida.
Actually I remember that I was told about Reddit, but I was back then still nine gag kid for like internet. Oh yeah, YouTube, like filter Franco. I think I discovered what are other people? Because I don't watch them anymore. They're kind of slipping my mind, PAUDYEPI was back then twenty eleven, twenty twelve.
That sort of developed when you were in the US for.
A year, Absolutely exactly, And so I kept that. And that's why I also kept by English, because I stayed connected and like kept developing my English online. Even though I didn't I was more of a lurker. I still got content because there's way more people who speak English and way more content in English, you will also the top notch things that the extream of the crop will still outrank what you would find in Germany.
I am a creature of the Internet, unfortunately, and you know, I had seen like all of the TikTok's YouTube video essays, everybody, look at this nonsense, this is bad. Before I was teaching, I was a rock climbing coach and I had kids as young as fourth or fifth grade trying to tell me about Andrew Tate and that that was disturbing.
So I think that there is a level of like, if you didn't grow up adjacent to understanding what these spaces are, it can kind of go over your head.
And like, it was really interesting, honestly being in that position because I don't know that I was the youngest teacher at my school, but like, damn near it. Some of my kids understood that, you know, I'm not that much older than them. A lot of them did not. I felt like I was the only person that saw that the emperor had no clothes.
So I was like born and raised in evangelical Christian household. It was like not a lot of exposure, and I remember kind of having this thing called the Internet or like I think YouTube in like early twenty ten and just being like not able to have any access to like internet and having very weird media access rules within my family, but then having my friends as actually going
to like public school in Vancouver. It was interesting to see some of those, like I want to say, like cooler kids, but the kids who have access to the internet.
You said, you you sort of the algorithm, was guy to give more towards the red pill pipeline.
Yeah, some of that like red pill black pill type content. I do want to preface that, guy, you was never really deep in it. But what I will say is when you are surrounded by evangelical Christians and you're surrounded by the space that's very purity culture, and then it's reinforced with what content is being produced online and what your friends are watching and what they're suggesting, and how
that media is affecting it. I really experienced like the manisphere from two different perspectives, and that was really vicarious. Lead through my friends and through my social interactions.
The one that I remember this kid that was in one of the medial classes that I taught, and he was definitely a bit higher achieving than at least the other students in that class period, and I usually left him alone to his devices because he would turn his work in and I was like, whatever, you were the least of my worries. But at one point I started looking at his work and I could tell that he was just phoning it in whenever I was talking to him about it, and I was like, man, you just
got to put in like a little more effort. I know you are better than this. His argument was that he didn't really care to put a whole lot of effort in as long as he could like play football like he wanted to and whatever, because he was going to graduate and then make a bunch of money with this thing that like Andrew Tait had been talking about
bitcoin and stuff. It was like that kind of thinking where it's like I don't have to do the same things that ever everyone else here does and act the same because I have this cheak code that you know, this man on the internet gave me.
I remember when I was in Florida, there was a moment where, even after I've thought that I redeveloped myself, that I'm now extroverted, why are girls not interested in me? And so I also were able to ask these questions down in English, I mentioned dread. I found our slash seduction, for example, and I think I discovered the simple pickup YouTube channel who are like, oh, you know, you just need to go out there and like talk to people
and fake do you make it? And like have a thirty day challenge in which you need to just be extreme and like have no more, no shame and like that to just break that barrier that you're afraid of. And I was unable to do so. Like I was watching those videos, I'm like, yeah, that sounds great. I know I should do this for a month. And I never took the train into a hamper.
Two.
The seeds were planted for why don't girls like me? What is wrong with me? Something must be wrong with me? And I think that's interesting because later on, when I got closer into the manosphere, I changed from like it's wrong with me to like, oh, no, the reason are actually equitman, It's not you, it's clearly half of the population. Absolutely that must be it.
If you're moving into a space that continues to kind of foster this echo chamber ideology, extremism becomes more and more rampant or apparent so my more recent research where I've actually gone on some of the more extreme insult sites, I was seeing things that were horrific for me to even view, like acts of violence that were being endorsed or committed, or videos or being shared, as well as advocating for the self harm of the insults themselves, so
suicidal ideation, a lot of self hatred, and that kind of being endorsed and supported by members of the community, this overwhelming ideology of like, you cannot leave this group because this is who you are biologically.
But really what got me into it was I started my university, struggled a little bit to make friends. Also, it's despite being neurodivergent, if you get a degree in math, you will meet more in your divertin people, while nowadays I vibe a lot with people who are in your divertu. I struggled to make friends there. So I went to like an orientation and then there was a woman of a few years my senior who was interested because I sat there with a chessboard and like not talking to people,
and so she decided to sit down. We started playing chess, like kept talking throughout that evening and like kept contact for another week. It's a truism or a trope that men don't pick up on hints from women. Yeah, one hundred percent. In my case we started dating. But also she was very much interested in the red pill. She even sent me like I think and my first week APDF on a book that would translate to the praise of sexism. You know how there is benevolent sexism and
hostile sexism. I forgot who the researchers are who developed that idea, but there's those two types, and it's much more in praise of like benevolent sexism and like, oh no, okay, women definitely won the trad wife lifestyle is having my first kiss at nineteen. If that is what my girlfriend believes, then obviously that must be true. That must be the reason. Also, it explains so much if I already struggled for like why don't let me? Oh, the answer is hypergrima. I just didn't present myself.
Well.
Now, does that already go into the face of how she approached me when I was a loner on a chessboard. Absolutely did I think about that?
Nope?
Do we know how she got there?
Hard were her friends who probably discovered it, and she was much more tomboyish, so she had much more male friends and more like, oh, I'm different to other girls. I'm not like at the girls almost sure, right, which was like early twenty ten, I think was much more of a common you know, to bring out the site students. We all fall for confirmation bias. We are. If you're invested and you're doing that in a social thing, of
course you're going to see it that way. To a certain extent, she already had a previous social circle that was interested in these things, and so I think that's probably how she got into it.
I'm also curious how these spaces relate to masculinity and you navigating your own gender.
Does that intersect at all?
I have always been queer, you know, I've known I was bisexual since I was in college. My queerness of gender didn't come about till the pandemic. You know, obviously I'm very masculine presenting in retrospect and you mentioning that, you know it does it was probably pretty performative. There's a lot of aggression, performative rage, if that makes sense.
I would feel this anger right about perceived slights against me in these you know, online spaces, you know, I would vent about this, but I would almost play it up to like get sympathy from these other angry men, the very like jocular, like virtual backslapping, like you know, it's okay, buddy. There's this like sort of like social incentive to exaggerate your anger and your feelings to get
that false camaraderie. You know, men are socialized to be so lone wolfy and solitary, but like that's not how people are. We need community and we need people, and we need to have a place where we can feel things. And when the only feeling that's allowed is that rage, that you know, we kind of go all in and end up in this horrific display of anger, age and violence.
I'm curious, like how you would approach talking to students who had clearly taken this in.
That was really hard being a queer teacher in Texas, right, And I mean I wasn't even out, I didn't use like my proper pronouns or anything, but like I if you interact with me for more than a few minutes, like it's written on my face. I definitely had quite a few kids that I don't know for sure that they like, you know, specifically fell within that community space of the manosphere and everything, but they had a lot of the same attitudes. The way they would argue and stuff.
They would definitely push the queer issue if the opportunity came up. I had a really big conversation with a couple of my classes about referring to women and girls as females. I don't know if it's just like being in the part of the South that I'm in that it's like super super common. It feels like a bit more than at least whenever I was in school, and it really bothers me. It feels a little dehumanizing. Obviously, I would always just provide a little bit of pushback.
If I were to come down like super duper hard on them and be like, hey, you can't do this in my classroom, then they have the bad guy, you know, coming down on them and oppressing them, and that can reinforce I almost phrased it as like a the same like cheat code thing, like hey, this is going to take you far in life. Don't do that. Sometimes it works. It would be like why, and then other girls in my class would chime in and be like, well, it
feels like a nature documentary thing. It feels like, you know, you're not actually acknowledging us as people like you're acknowledging us as specimens. I feel like providing that opportunity for them to hear how that is affecting the population that ostensibly, you know, most of these boys are interested in. You know, sometimes it works. Sometimes they were just like, nah, y'all
don't know what you're talking about. You're just sensitive. But the conversation is worth it for a couple of kids that are gonna get it.
Going deeper into these spaces. Was neurodivergen something that was discussed openly.
I don't think so, not at all. I think it was. I mean, I will also say that I was much more of a lurker as well, So like from there, I went then to like r Slash the Red Pill and went to top of All and discovered that most posts are from twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, which is when I was online. So interestingly enough, I was there when it to a certain extent, I guess peaked. Now. That's probably because nowadays it's quarantine, so it's not going to
be shown to the front page anymore. It is more restricted and I bet that that means there's less draw to it, or there used to be, at least in the red pull space, three main people and they were the three rs. That is Rolo, that is Roysy and Rashie. I think I think it's rashbe is how he was written. I'd have to look that up again. And they were very prolific and people were reading aspects of them.
Now.
Roolo Tamasi had books that came out and I remember buying them and listening to them through audible. That was the Rational Male, and I know there's a trology even well. Another cringing moment is I gifted my uncle that book like right around that time as well. That one's also talking about like you should spin plates, you should not
be emotionally invested in women. So the idea is like spinning plates, you should always have at least too so you don't get too much invested in game and social swellness your wealth of course, and your physical looks as well. So there it very easily came. Like I was familiar with in cell communities and had I not had a girlfriend, I think I would have gotten much closer to in cel.
You also mentioned that you got into Jordan Pearson.
Could you tell me a little bit about that.
Yeah, it sparked about him for you.
I think that one was the algorithm with like YouTube And yeah, I will mention that I broke up with my girlfriend early twenty sixteen. I think at that point I no longer have like the social support for lack of a better term, to like reinforce my beliefs. But I definitely am kind of left there. And I'll mentioned this. I was raised by a single mother. I didn't really have I met my father for the first time when I was eleven, and she's actually a really chill dude,
but we're bros. Like, he's not a father figure per se. When I was trying to figure out what is a man? The manner sphere obviously is also another point where that they give you answers. They're like, you know, oh, all these poor young guys who are raised by your mother and so they don't know how to treat a woman right now means about it, that's what's wrong.
Yeah, I am like I am your prototypical saved, unsaved person. You know. It was definitely like there was no space where I felt like I could perform like Isaiah perform myself. It was always you go to church, you have to perform a certain way. You go to school, you got to perform a certain way around that. Yeah, that was just a really tough space to kind of look for.
And I will say, like the hardest part about the manisphere and the masculinity that the manisphere sells you it's not necessarily the vision as much as it is a lack of imagination. I think that lack of imagination of who you could be and who you might be able to versus what you should be is what robs.
A lot of people.
And when I'm looking back on how the Manisphere and how this vision this corporatized product of what masculinity should be, ultimately I think about all the lost time of me trying to be something that wasn't rewarding and that wasn't helping me and wasn't helping others.
The danger of it is they're becoming more extremist in their beliefs. I would say so Historically, insuls have kind of been There are acts of violence and mass violence that have been committed by them, such as is Silvista shooting, the Toronto van attack, more and more instances of these mass acts of violence are popping up, but holistically, the broader community of insult are nonviolent, and instead they're very
self hating, self deprecating. I actually was talking to this co author of mine the other day and she mentioned I can't remember the name of the book, but a book that she was reading, and in this book there was a case of an in cell and I guess like his friend where they had met on one of these online spaces and they both had I guess, participated in sexual activity with a person. And after this instance occurred, one of the guys broke down, was like, I don't
know who I am anymore. My life is over, my friends are gone, Like I can't say I'm an incell anymore. I'm like actually having a complete breakdown. And the other man and the woman that they engaged in this activity with, they were comforting him and saying like, no, no, we don't have to tell anyone, you don't have to tell anyone, Like we can keep this a secret. It's okay. And so there's this huge community element of it, and then also identity component that I think really keeps them like
wrapped in this space. Ultimately, like profound loneliness and mental health issues.
This school that I was at was very, very low income, and I was, you know, teaching remedial students, and that's just different. I mean, it felt like there was a lot more insecurity, at least, like from those kids that were really engaging in this you know, shitty rhetoric. The kids that kind of I guess had the most to prove and didn't have a whole lot to fall back on. These weren't my kids that were my super high achieving
by the most part. They were my kids that were struggling and maybe didn't get a whole lot of help at home and didn't have a whole lot of guidance. All of these students that I've actually been thinking of the ones that I really tried to have the most conversations with and check in with the most, because I didn't want to sit here and just argue with them. I wanted to be constructive and to not feel like I was just sitting here criticizing, criticizing, Like that's not my job here as a teacher.
You know, I got out of my previous social situation, and I think that's one of the things it is really important that the people that you're around. If you are able to change your environment, you as a person might change drastically. And that's really what happened to me
during my exchange here during high school. I'm gaining a community again, I'm gaining a social support And what has drawn me into the record was being with my girlfriend and then being online not really talking with other people, potentially getting rejected for people who are like, I don't know about that. That seems a little iffy, And instead of being like, yeah, maybe you're right, I'm like, no, no, this is explicit. You know my worldview. Things are being
explained to me so nicely, so clearly you're wrong. The algorithm is still there. Who's feeling me things? But I maybe even through proximity, they're realizing, oh, you're now at university. You're on a university and maybe ContraPoints is someone who you would find funny because you're coming from this edgy humor that we know. This person seems to resonate with people like you. One aspect that all THEO radicalized me is I am very lucky for my socioeconomic status. I
was able to fail and get back up again. But like in that financial security, that that is not a major factor of ratalization. The radicalization came from why don't girls love me? Rather than why is my life complete shit? In every regard? You know, why am I being failed by the system?
Yeah?
I say, show me less on YouTube, and it keeps showing me the same amount. It's ignoring my desires, and I'm getting more and more frustrated with that, to the point where I then decide, okay, so clearly my account is tainted. That that is also part of where I then started to move out of that sphere. I'm making friends. I have my social sort problemand building where I have
people that I look up to. I meet my now wife at university where we're starting to talk about it, and she points out to me, like how it's watching a study, and the study itself, if you look into it, is the exact opposite. She's she's way smarter than me, clever and intelligent, and I love her so much, of course, but also like she is taking the effort and time.
I got lucky that I had friends with my doctoral student, with my now wife who took the time to like, hey, I think this isn't really right.
My girls were angry, Like there were like a couple of instances that like, some dudes in the corner would be talking really really poorly about I don't know, one of their friends that posted whatever on Instagram. Oh and no, she looked so slutty whatever. This one instance is that I'm thinking about. This girl got really really upset because that was one of her friends, and she was like, you cannot talk about us this way, like this just is not okay, and frankly got pretty aggressive about it
and became a behavioral incident. But I normally in something like that, I would have referred off. It would have been disciplinary action and whatever. But I didn't want to do that because she was right, which kind of ended up being the conversation I had with her. And I mean, I didn't have another issue with her about it, Like she would say what she needed to say and then be done. And I hope that that rubbed off on
the rest of the girls in that class. But I also had at one point in time another queer student that was in one of my classes that did have a couple of kids that had specifically talked about Andrew Tate at a couple of points and interrupted my class to do, so they ended up actually transferring out of my class. They felt like they were being kind of targeted in a lot of the speech about it, and you know, didn't feel comfortable there, which I don't blame them,
and it made me really, really sad. It's hard for me to say, you know how that affected a lot of my other queer students because being in Texas and you know, in the public education system as a teacher, I could have lost my job. I could have there there was a whole lot of shit associated in my particular district with being out at the time. But for students,
it really wasn't that safe either. I mean a lot of the teachers, you know, were very we were all very protective over our queer students, but it was more worry about parents, honestly. I mean, that's just what it made it hard. In general, they're not going to say anything about it because they don't want to target on their backs, and I can't really necessarily ask them about it because then I'm overstepping and now there's targets on both of our backs.
Increasingly, we're finding out that there is a hugely intersexual component to this, where there's older men in it, there's men of all different races. They have horrible names for men of different races, and they structure them on their own hierarchy. My research kind of focuses on is like, how is masculinity constructed in society? How is masculinity displayed in society? What's considered to be the masculine ideal, because these men feel as though they're not meeting that, whatever
that is. And it's been established that this is like the possession of what's called hegemonic masculinity, where it's a particular type of masculinity that includes like wealth, that includes racial components, that includes access to women, and all of these different things that make up what is considered to be the ideal man. These men feel as though they're
not fitting. So I think a lot of it is wrapped up in intersectional identities, and then also just how our society constructs understandings of ideal masculine performance, what it means to be a man.
Having been in that space and now reflecting on it, what do you make of how these spaces are being presented to us and what they mean right now?
I think there is an unfortunate amount of like apology for them. You know, I feel like too often people will try to couch it in this like, well, dudes need a space to be dudes, and dudes will be dudes, and the society bends over backwards even more for you know, an empowered group, and you know, they see queer people getting fraction about fraction more power, and then they freak out and everything has to go twelve steps backwards, Like it is possible to fucking get out of that shit.
It's cheesy to say, but you know, there's hope as long as people are willing to actually communicate, which is yeah, I think the biggest challenge there is to actually be introspective and be thoughtful and you know, actually talk about shit.
I think we often frame men as the were men, identifying individuals as the victims of men sphere content and masculinity, but it completely underplays the fact that like, at the end of the day, the manisphere is informing people who are performing masculinity and that's impacting women, that's impacting people
who are queer. And in some ways, I've heard people talk about like the manisphere and they almost placate the massive amounts of impact that's had on women, right, Like first dating partners and you're having You're having this like boyfriend or partner who is trying to perform what the manisphere is telling them dating or being a boyfriend should
be like, and it's disastrous. But I can't imagine how harmful that might be or how kind of difficult it must be to not only have a partner who is subscribing to this idea of masculinity, but also perform what is expected of them from like a femininity standpoint of the manisphere. Right one of my own personal I guess, like talking about like my queer identity a little bit more, taking on more of like a non binary identity has been like really a reaction to how little I want
to associate with like masculinity. At this point, I'm actively sad by like the impact I might have had or still have by my actions just unknowingly right, like unlearning masculinity is so difficult, but I think it's it's so necessary. I think men's rights, like the whole men's rights movement is like a way of lacating men's responsibility to realize that they their actions have massive consequences on other people.
I honestly think that the bigger thing that scares me is the thought patterns behind it and the way that information is presented. I think that that is also a
lot more contagious. My kid that I had talking about their get Rich Quick scheme they got from Andrew Tatan friends, that line of thought is going to be able to spread to a lot more kids, And that way of thinking is going to spread to a lot more kids than say, you know, women should do X y Z. That I think is like entirely my job as a teacher, especially a science teacher, is critical thinking and being able to point out bullshit arguments and when something is not credible.
I think if kids and people are equipped to be able to look at the way that these are constructive, to tell that this is predatory, be able to be told to see that they're being sold a product, then it's less likely to spread. People aren't going to fall for it.
Is this an important space to be aware of?
How is it effective to talk about it?
I mean, I definitely do think that it is something that should be talked about a lot more like the big thing that is making its rounds in professional development stuff is you know, how do we deal with AI and all of that and I'm not saying that's not important, but this doesn't affect you know, how our kids are writing their essays in all of that, but it affects how they operate as people. And I really really wish
that it was a bigger conversation. I really think the biggest thing is just talking to your kids and like really investing in like, Okay, this kid needs like some guidance. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to grab their hand and yank them into what they need to think. It's building the relationship and being the role model that probably inspired you to teach right. Kids need that, especially if they are at risk like this.
You know, it's the shaming that exists is something that people struggle with. But I do hope that they find better, healthier resources, like, for examplement to look like round table, where you're working towards something proactive, something positive, rather than trying to find an explanation that feels good but that leaves you still disconnected and frustrated and somebody else. I think if you're getting frustrated somebody else, that is very
profitable for algorithms, and that is something a memory. I think it's scary for the nearer generation. It really is not something that the loneliness will be talked about, but the reasons for that and this idea of like something is wrong with you, Here are ways to find that out, Like going to a therapist is something that is if you feel lonely, there is no shame in trying to tell that to someone and trying to find a solution for that. I think that's extremely important.
I about asked before if while I'm researching, if I feel empathy towards this group, and at times yes and at times no. At times I feel like profoundly disgusted and angry. And also there's been moments where I've had to shut my laptop, go in my room and like cry for a minute because I've seen things that are so horrific. When I hear something like the male loneliness epidemic, I'm like WHOA, Like why is that our responsibility? Like
figure out? And I think that men have been socialized in a way to not value to repress their emotions. I guess I would say therapy and understanding that perhaps you have a mental illness can be constructed as weak or not believed by certain people, And so that's like a social construction that people who have been socialized as men have to battle, I think to a degree, which
then I think does breed this. But then also there is a sociological theory that's called like the concept of aggrieved entitlement, which is the idea that we've socialized men in society in a way to believe that they're owed certain things for just being men. Access to women's bodies is one of that, and so then when they don't receive that, sometimes these groups pop up and they're angry about it. I think it's like the steps of harm
reduction and the steps of creating community. It's like almost there, but then they like blame it on women at some point, and you're like, wait, you were so close. What's going on?
I think it's really men have to come up with the self realization that they're hurting others and that their identity and their idea of masculinity has impacts on others. It has been marginalized communities. It's been the mothers, it's been the sisters. It's been the partners who have had to do the leg work sitting their spouse, their partner, their brother down and saying, hey, these attitudes are not there.
I think it's really on men to realize that, and I think we have to keep the respect onsibility on men. The moral panic that's going on right now about the manusphere almost stops conversation on like what are people getting and like, really how systemic manisphere content is because I think people like it's so hard to generalize, like what are we talking Andrew Tait? Are we talking about Joe Rogan.
If we label people as manasphere content and dismissive of their like potential audiences and their potential communities, I think that could really alienate people. And I think it's the alienation that is really going to be causing people to act with prejudice and act with stereotypes. I think it's trying not to put people in a situation where they feel like the victim, but more so understanding their actions from potentially victimizing others.
Thank you so much to everyone I spoke with in the process of reporting on the Manisphere. I am so so so grateful, and not just to the folks I talk to today, but to everyone I've spoken to for
this show. Obviously this wasn't a quantitative study, but I think it's telling that the first three people who reached out to me when I put a call out who had been in the Manisphere were either closeted queer folks or neurodivergent and lacked a support system that understood them while they were being pulled.
Into these spaces.
And of course I'm not saying that everyone in the manisphere is either queer or neurodivergent. That's obviously far from the truth. But to me, this demonstrates how the manisphere praise on those who do not meet the stereotypical masculine idea and encourage them to turn on others even more disenfranchised than themselves instead of just rejecting that image of masculinity.
So my conclusion with this series.
Honestly, I don't love it, because what's obvious from everyone I've spoken to is that the clearest solution is a healthier community. Tom and Arna both detailed how finding more empathetic and purposeful groups of friends made them feel better and more purposeful themselves, making it somewhat easier to get
out of the Manisphere altogether. And of course the ability to do that will always intersect with class, and Isaiah was able to keep their distance from the Manisphere because of queer, anti capitalist role models that they found on YouTube. And that's wonderful, but there is still this kick in the back of my mind, the kick that tells me that the centrist men behind laptops are still going to turn around and say the Manisphere will go away if women and non binary folks can just be nice to
men who are still in these spaces. Page experienced that as a teacher, Alyssa experienced that as a researcher, and still there is this pattern if you keep track of places like r in cell Exit. Something that Laura Bates mentions in men who hate women that one of the more common experiences that that extracts young men from this space is just a woman being nice to them. Here's a little clip I wanted to save for the end from Alyssa.
There's one post that it sticks with me where it was literally titled let women prove You Wrong, And it was this whole story about how this person had had a really positive interaction with a woman and was like women are human, and like that's amazing, and like you really should talk to women and let them prove you wrong. They're not evil. People think like interesting from multiple levels.
One because I think it's I guess profoundly sad that he had been socialized to believe that women were so evil that it was surprising he had a positive interaction, or perhaps he'd never had a positive interaction with a woman and that was truly his first one.
I mean, come on, and if you are someone who has that patience and that willingness, then that's incredible. I'm not discouraging it at all, and there have been times where I've had that patience myself, and I also know plenty of wonderful people who are way better at.
It than I am.
But it's the expectation that this will happen in order to dismantle this space that I still find really frustrating. I want to echo what Isaiah said earlier. It's on other men. I would rather a man be embarrassed while trying to talk a friend down from the manisphere than
ten women get doxed. We've talked a lot about how there is a gradient for how misogynists these spaces can get, but there's also a gradient of consequences for its targets, ranging from a fundamental diurth of respect for our personhood to being a literally lethal space. And this isn't a consequence of the manisphere specifically, it's just what the manisphere is upholding. I'll remind you that domestic violence against women has the statistics to support one of the leading causes
of domestic terrorism, but no one ever says that. Because domestic violence against women is so normal, the media that covers these spaces will always prioritize the perpetrators and rarely interrogate the cause. It's a digital manifestation of misogyny that skews into every marginalized community therein misogy, nore transphobia, you name it, and these are equally under discussed and can be even more lethal. To conclude, the manisphere is a
response to expectations under capitalism. You hate to hear it, but it's simply true. There are so many men out there who feel that they are failing to meet an ideal, most often because the system is failing them. We heard today from people who were not meeting theseis hetero successful male ideal because they were queer or because they were neurodivergent. But there's so many sources of this feeling of not measuring up because of how White's embassy and capitalism makes
everyone feel to be anything. Butt white isn't measuring up to be anything, butt rich isn't measuring up. And we're living in an increasingly diverse society where we're being pummeled with wealth inequality, so you would either have to be tremendously lucky to measure up to these standards, or more often, just become a fucking grifter or yourself.
The manisphere doesn't.
Really interrogate any system at all, instead encouraging men to push their rightful anger at targets who have always been considered fair game women, or to be more specific, anyone who is not a snisman. Doing so will continue to thwart progress. It will accomplish nothing in changing these men's feelings of insecurity and failure, and it will mean that there's a generation of girls and non binary kids that will internalize this space, regardless of whether they take action
for or a gain it. So sorry I had to tell you all that, and that's it for this mini series. Thank you so much to everyone who has been listening. This was a very challenging series to put together with a show that is on a weekly schedule, so I really hope you've gotten something out of it, and if you did, please subscribe to the show. Engagement talk like comment, subscribe, tell your friends, or I haven't slept in three weeks for no reason. You can also join our reddit board
at our slash sixteenth minute. It is the rare, wholesome reddit board. You can follow me on Instagram at Jamie christ Superstar or at Blue Sky just under my name, and you can come back next week for our final episode of the year to hear who I have declared the Internet's main character of the year. My answer is not surprising. It is Hawked toa Bye.
Sixteenth minute as a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophie Leick Derman and Robert Evans. He Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is from Grant Crater and Pet.
Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kat's Flea and Casper, and my pet Rockbird, who will outlive us all.
Bye