The Myth-Made Man: Inside the Manosphere
- Sabaa J
- 5 hours ago
- 11 min read
Introduction
When boys get lost online, the world pays the price.
The manosphere is a loose network of online communities focused on men’s issues and masculinity, often reacting against feminism and modern gender norms. It includes groups like Men’s Rights Activists, MGTOW, PUAs, and Incels, each with differing views on relationships, society, and male identity. While some advocate for legitimate male concerns, most parts of the manosphere promote misogyny and extremist beliefs. These groups emerged in response to perceived threats against traditional masculinity, often promoting a false sense of security by opposing women’s rights movements and efforts to advance gender equality.
Born from backlash and nurtured in forums, the manosphere grew its roots in the internet's darkest corners of 4chan, Reddit threads, and YouTube channels. It began as male support spaces but devolved into a complex web of misogyny, pseudoscience, and political extremism. Fuelled by echo chambers, this digital underworld now moulds the identities of countless young men. And what’s more dangerous? It wears the mask of “truth” as an undercover harbinger of veracity; it harbours immense appreciation and support.
The early impacts of the manosphere and its creation are observed in the gaming world. One of the most infamous examples of how the manosphere's rhetoric seeps into real-world behaviour is the relentless targeting of female gamers, particularly during and after the Gamergate controversy[1], which erupted in 2014 but whose echoes persist across the digital landscape. At the centre of this maelstrom was Zoë Quinn[12], an independent game developer who became a lightning rod for misogynistic outrage after an ex-boyfriend published a blog post accusing her of unethical behaviour. It was a claim that, while personal and unsubstantiated, spiralled into a full-scale hate campaign. What followed was not a rational discussion about ethics in gaming journalism, as claimed, but a brutal, sustained assault against Quinn and other women in gaming, including Anita Sarkeesian[2] and Brianna Wu.
This collective online aggression wasn’t isolated; it became a template for future harassment campaigns. The pattern of discredit, dehumanise, and destroy has since been repeated against countless women in gaming, tech, journalism, and politics. These attacks are bolstered by a manosphere-fueled belief that women, by gaining visibility or success, are overstepping their place and therefore deserve to be “put back in line”. Through this example, we see how the manosphere weaponises gendered resentment into coordinated digital warfare.
Echo Chambers & Algorithmic Amplification
You are what you scroll.
Social media doesn’t show the truth, it shows preference. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok use algorithms that learn and reinforce biases. A boy curious about masculinity may start with Jordan Peterson, but end up in incel forums or watching Andrew Tate[3] rants. The shift from following Jordan Peterson to idolising Andrew Tate often marks a move from disciplined self-growth to hyper-masculine validation. Peterson promotes structure and responsibility; Tate offers quick, ego-driven appeal through dominance, materialism, and anti-feminist rhetoric. His worldview glorifies male control, devalues women, and fuels misogyny, anchoring followers in entitlement rather than improvement. He is just one of the several influential figures of the manosphere that frames women as inherently subordinate beings, embraces materialism and status as proof of masculine success, and rejects modern feminism as a threat to masculinity.
Such online personalities, when looked up to by young minds who get easily imprinted, with free access to platforms such as Reddit and 4chan[4], cause a severe disorder in society and its functioning, deterring it from the course of improvement and setting it back by several decades.
Like Plato’s cave, they only see the shadow, never the light. Echo chambers feed them what they already believe. Shutting their minds off to any nuances and questions, echo chambers encourage radicalisation.
The real question is: is it a real problem, and does its threat have implications? The case of the Buffalo mass shooting[5], 18-year-old Peyton Gendron’s chilling 180-page manifesto that surfaced, revealed his deep dive into anti-immigrant, far-right, and anti-Semitic ideologies. His views were shaped by dark corners of the internet, particularly the /pol/ board on 4chan and the white supremacist Daily Stormer. Moreover, disturbing chat logs from Discord further exposed his twisted plans for the attack. This confirms the severity of the problem, which is only exacerbated by the voices backing it.
Anti-Science & Misinformation Narratives
When opinion kills evidence, society haemorrhages.
In the male-dominated circles of the manosphere, science is labelled as emasculating, therapy is branded a weakness, climate change is a feminist bedtime story, and vaccines are a liberal voodoo trick. Here, reason is exiled for fear it might wear a skirt. Fundamental aspects of agency and safety are on the back burner simply because they could be a feminist encouragement.
Influencers label science as emasculating, promoting “grindset” or hormone hacks over professional care. As a result, male suicides go undiscussed, and dangerous supplements thrive. Vital conversations on forums covering issues like rape, sexual harassment, abuse, marital assault, consent, and women's safety, often compromised by male behavior are frequently dismissed or undermined. These urgent concerns are reframed as mere fabrications of a so-called "female-dominated" narrative, rather than acknowledged as pressing societal realities. Women's safety becomes a myth to be debunked, not a crisis to be addressed.
This whole circus is cloaked in a delusion: that a thriving society is sculpted from steroid-jacked gladiators with a strong libido and empathy on life support. Masculinity, in this world, is not earned; it’s injected.
Meanwhile, hard data from the National Institutes of Health paints a grim picture: it shows a rise in young men avoiding therapy, directly linked to manosphere rhetoric. Another study, “Editorial Perspective: What do we need to know about the manosphere and young people's mental health?” published in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, highlights concerns about the manosphere's impact on young people's mental health.[6]
Surveys and articles such as this unmask the farce of anti-feminist movements, noisy spectacles draped in false bravado, masquerading as crusades for male liberation while serving only to mock the very idea of manhood. The so-called “manosphere,” in its feverish rejection of feminism, becomes a grotesque caricature of masculinity: one that scoffs at empathy, scorns vulnerability, and dismisses male mental health as a weakness to be shamed rather than a wound to be healed. Whatever happened to men cloaked in chivalry and niceties - those who carried strength not as dominance, but as dignity? In its place stands a hollow fraternity, one that silences pain with cruelty and confuses rage for resolve. In the end, these movements don’t defend men, they abandon them.
Repressive Desublimation
Capitalism co-opts rebellion
Philosopher Herbert Marcuse warned that capitalism gains by giving people easy gratification instead of real transformation or liberation, and instead of channelling dissatisfaction into systemic change, it gets repackaged as entertainment, identity, or profit. [8] By selling rebellion as a lifestyle and packaging discontent into profit, an idea trades truth for traction.
While anti-feminist rhetoric spreads rapidly online, it’s not just an ideology, it’s an industry. These narratives are repackaged into podcasts, merchandise, personal brands, Patreon exclusives, and viral content, where rage becomes a profitable currency. By exploiting grievance and outrage as clickbait, influencers deliberately provoke young adults and teenagers, generating engagement through manufactured controversies.
Figures like Andrew Tate and Sneako have built lucrative digital empires by “dunking” on feminists and popularising terms like “alpha male” and “male liberation.” Under the guise of empowerment, they monetise discontent by selling online courses, e-books, fitness plans, and lifestyle coaching, offering a dopamine-fueled fantasy of dominance, control, and status. In reality, it's less about liberation and more about commodifying masculinity for clicks and cash, all this while also actively trying to defend themselves against the 21 criminal cases, that includes alleged rape and human traficking.
What the audience fails to interpret is that the empty notes of free speech handed to them are convolutions of a highly monetised algorithmic trap that one can rarely escape.
Nurturing collective bought identities, the manosphere thrives on the acute lack of critical thinking and emotional shortcuts to more ushered thoughts that are easily enforced on feeble minds. By conforming to ideas such as this, they have become social media’s most efficient content engines.
The Sale of HATE SPEECH and its Dramatics
Free speech isn’t free when it silences others.
In today’s digital landscape, hate speech is no longer confined to the margins, it is widely broadcast, monetised, and consumed. The manosphere doesn’t simply voice frustration; it turns hostility into a product, with platforms like YouTube and TikTok profiting from content that thrives on division. Misogyny [7], resentment, and conspiracy are stylised as empowerment, and the result is an ecosystem where hate is dressed as opinion and sold as truth. Free speech, once a principle to protect open dialogue and dissent, is increasingly used as a shield to excuse abuse and deflect responsibility.
Whenever platforms remove or restrict misogynistic influencers, there is an immediate backlash: accusations of censorship, silencing, or political bias. But this narrative overlooks a crucial distinction: censorship is not the same as accountability. When creators use their influence to spread harmful ideologies, the decision to remove them is not an attack on speech, but a defence of safe and inclusive public spaces. Calling every ban an act of oppression dilutes the meaning of genuine free expression and reduces it to a tool of self-preservation for those who incite harm.
Historically, powerful groups have cloaked exclusionary agendas in the language of rights and moral duty, religious absolutism, for example, once used divine authority to justify cruelty. Similarly, today’s manosphere manipulates “free speech” to legitimise rhetoric that dehumanises others. But hate speech is not just offensive, it is corrosive. It silences through fear, pollutes discourse, and alienates those already at risk. Protecting free expression means drawing lines between disagreement and degradation. The real threat isn’t that harmful voices are being removed, it’s that they were amplified and normalised in the first place.
Toxic Masculinity and Religious Misinterpretation
Samson wasn’t strong because he dominated; he fell because he refused to listen.
In certain corners of the manosphere, religion is not approached with reverence but repurposed as rhetoric. Sacred texts that are meant to guide, uplift, and temper the human spirit are selectively quoted and stripped of context to support rigid gender roles and control. Rather than embracing the moral depth and nuance offered by scripture, these ideologues reduce it to slogans that validate dominance and dismiss empathy. Toxic masculinity is reframed as divine intention, not through genuine theological study, but through ideological convenience. Yet across religious traditions, the core message remains consistent: wisdom, humility, compassion, and balance, not brute control, as often implied by extremists who selectively extract and distort nuances to serve their agenda.
Take Samson, a figure manipulated by manosphere rhetoric into a symbol of brute male dominance. But read the actual text: Samson’s downfall wasn’t due to women’s wiles but his arrogance, impulsivity, and spiritual disobedience[9]. He wasn’t a hero; he was a cautionary tale. And yet, manosphere apologists parade him as a martyr to “feminine betrayal.”
In the Qur’an, verses that promote mutual respect and kindness in marriage are often sidelined in favour of distorted interpretations that emphasise male authority. Surah An-Nisa (4:34)[6], for instance, is repeatedly taken out of context, weaponised to justify control over women, ignoring centuries of tafsir (interpretation) that stress moderation, justice, and spiritual equality between spouses. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself condemned cruelty and emphasised kindness toward women, famously declaring, “The best of you are those who are best to their wives.” But in manosphere sermons, this hadith never makes the cut.
Across both the Bible and the Qur’an, figures like Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad embodied humility, self-restraint, and emotional intelligence, traits the manosphere derides as “feminine weaknesses.” King David wept openly and repented. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. The Prophet cried at the death of his son and played with children in the street. None of these acts conforms to the manosphere’s idolisation of the unfeeling, hyper-dominant male.
Many figures who champion manosphere ideology cloak themselves in religious identity, claiming divine backing for their beliefs. But if they truly follow faith, then they are not enlightened; they are lost, disillusioned, and deeply out of step with the very principles they claim to uphold.
This ideological distortion isn’t new. Historically, patriarchal societies have often manipulated religious texts to maintain power structures. However, the modern manosphere amplifies ancient misreadings with a digital twist. Their sermons don’t preach faith, they preach fear of losing control. They don’t honour the sacred, they hijack it to sanctify misogyny.
In this warped theology, the pulpit becomes a stage, and scripture becomes a stage prop. Empathy is weakness. Control is a virtue. And moral corruption is recast as divine masculinity. It's not just a misunderstanding of religion, it’s a calculated defilement of it.
The Manosphere vs. Adolescence
Tweets turn into threats. Forums become courtrooms.
Defending Jacob and Adolescence (2025) are unsettling case studies in how social media doesn't just reflect the thoughts of vulnerable teenage boys, it cultivates them, distorts them, and weaponises them. Neither Jacob Barber nor Jamie Miller is born violent or cold, they are shaped by digital environments that normalise misogyny, emotional suppression, and nihilistic masculinity. Their screens become incubators, not of identity, but of ideology. Their isolation is not personal, it is algorithmically curated, click by click.
In Defending Jacob,[10] the menace of the digital world lurks beneath the surface. Jacob immerses himself in violent fiction and forums that ridicule empathy and elevate cruelty. Though his parents dismiss it as teenage angst, it’s a warning sign of something far more insidious, a mind becoming desensitised, stripped of emotional nuance, and trained to mask insecurity with apathy. The manosphere’s influence here is unnamed but unmistakable, manifesting in Jacob’s detachment and his silent, simmering rage.
In Adolescence,[11] the descent is bolder and more brutally explicit. Jamie Miller doesn’t stumble into toxicity, he is pulled into the abyss of irrational online content. After a humiliating encounter with a girl, he finds validation not in friendship or therapy but in a steady stream of manosphere content that reframes his pain as proof of female betrayal. He begins quoting “alpha” rhetoric, rejecting vulnerability, and spiralling into an identity built on control and resentment. When violence finally erupts, it feels less like a snap and more like a tragic inevitability, an act prepped, rehearsed, and normalised online.
Together, these shows expose a terrifying reality: social media is not just a backdrop to teenage life but is a formative force, especially when young men are abandoned by parents, institutions, and systems too blind or too late to intervene. The manosphere doesn’t merely radicalise, it grooms like a cult and nurtures like rot. In both, Jacob and Jamie, we witness the endgame of that grooming: not a bang, but a blood-slick whisper. And still, society clutches its pearls, gasping in performative shock as if the show hasn’t been played before.
Conclusion
The manosphere isn’t a mirror, it’s a funhouse. It distorts boys into monsters and calls it manhood.
From Cain and Abel to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, humanity has wrestled with power, identity, and violence. But today’s crisis isn’t mythical. It’s engineered, coded, posted, and streamed. The so-called “manosphere” is not a bastion of male empowerment; it is a blaring masquerade, a theatre of misplaced rage wrapped in digital armour, waging war not for men, but against their very humanity. What parades as strength is often just the brittle echo of fear; what claims to be truth is little more than venom dressed in rhetoric. These circles don’t uplift, they imprison, chaining men to hollow ideals of dominance, detachment, and derision. Gone is the man of grace and grit, replaced by avatars of anger who mistake cruelty for confidence and silence for stoicism.
Let us be clear: the manosphere does not rescue masculinity from modernity; it buries it beneath the rubble of regression. In their crusade against feminism, they have not forged better men; they have forgotten what it means to be one.
Article by:
Sabaa J
PES MUN Society
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