Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne’s new four-part drama, Adolescence, landed on Netflix this week. Filmed as a set of intense single-take chapters, the series describes 13-year-old Jamie Miller, who stands accused of a violent murder. It tackles the issue of online misogyny, the “manosphere” and its villainous poster boy Andrew Tate, returning the problem to the forefront of the public imagination.
This content comes hot on the heels of Kyle Clifford’s sentencing last week for the brutal murders of a mother and two daughters, where the court heard of Clifford’s exposure to Andrew Tate’s podcast content hours before his attack.
I have spent the past two years exploring the impact of masculine influencers on young men and boys, analysing media content in depth, and talking with 100 young men and the adults in their lives – and working with a range of organisations to explore constructive solutions to this problem of our times.
During that period, we have seen reams of media headlines, a series of horrific real-world impacts like those of Kyle Clifford, and a great deal of concern in schools, governments, families and the media.
We’ve seen Andrew Tate removed from social media platforms, only to be reinstated to X by Elon Musk, and witnessed the terrifying impact of the Trump campaign mobilising manosphere-adjacent influencers to pull young male voters into their orbit.
The impact of the manosphere has never been greater, and many intelligent, well-meaning people and organisations are trying to grasp what to do about it.
To have any hope of having a positive impact on this bleak situation, we have to look at the phenomenon in the round. It’s not enough to view masculine influencers as a problem to fix or as a content trend to be squashed.
Cultural narratives and new ideologies don’t emerge and thrive in a vacuum. They develop in response to the social context around them; they thrive because they’re meaningful for a huge number of people; and they survive because they adapt and remain relevant.
We have to examine why the manosphere’s predominantly young male audience is engaging with its content, what about it connects with them, and how it works. We must look beyond the noise and disregard our own reactions to truly grasp its power.
Boys and young men today feel ostracised by what they see as the dominant conversations in society. They find themselves problematised in gender narratives, framed as perpetrators of problematic behaviour, and portrayed as potential aggressors – before they have so much as made friends with a girl.
They’ve fallen behind their female classmates at school. They’re socially isolated – spending increasing amounts of time online, alone in their rooms. They’re prey to unrealistic body image standards, perpetuated by fitness influencers and a whole host of brand and media content (have you noticed how every topless man in a Netflix drama has a six-pack, even if they live in the 17th century?). In effect, boys and young men find themselves removed from society, struggling to meet impossible standards, excluded from the conversation, and failing fast.
And they’re desperately looking for a means to get out of this situation.
The initial route to the manosphere for the vast majority of boys is via an innocent online search for “how-to” content about fitness, dating or cryptocurrency. They’re searching for guidance around how to get fit, get rich and get the girl.
What they encounter are charismatic male influencers who play the role of father figures, offering them clear direction in motivational language. These figures make them feel seen and supported. They offer a virtual space, just for young men, using language that connects with a masculine social media audience. They act as role models who have got young men’s backs, who have their best interests at heart.
Once the influencers have got them there, they upend their worldview. They strongly transmit a model of hyper-masculinity that is traditional and restrictive, rooted in notions of emotional control, physical strength and solitary individualism. They argue for a return to “traditional” gender dynamics – man as provider and protector, woman as mother and caregiver. A place of surety that harks back to a time when everything was better – for men at least.
These traditional gender constructs then become supercharged the deeper young men lose themselves in this content maelstrom – until the narrative peaks into a form of violent misogyny: women are the source of your problems, and feminism has broken the world.
And this point is where the majority of us enter the story. This is the part we know about. It’s what we read in articles highlighting the monstrous rhetoric of Andrew Tate. It’s what we hear in the trial of Kyle Clifford.
But we’re missing the entire journey and why young men come here in the first place. They come for guidance and motivation that they don’t find elsewhere; they come to feel important and that their feelings are valid; they come because they’re desperate to change the situation in which they find themselves.
The societal demonisation of young men is not a new phenomenon. David Cameron exhorted us to “hug a hoodie” back in 2006. Young men have been a social scapegoat for generations. And this is where the problem starts. Until we welcome young men into the tent, understand their needs, validate their feelings and provide solutions that help their lot, there will always be another Andrew Tate, another Kyle Clifford, and another Jamie Miller.
Saul Parker is an anthropologist and the CEO and co-founder of The Good Side, an insight, strategy and creative studio focused on cultural change
