Manosphere: Lost Boys & Toxic Men

Welcome to Unwashed and Unruly, From the great unwashed to the gloriously unruly.

Today we'll be entering the deep underworld of the manosphere, exploring involuntary celibates who describe themselves as in cells, hyper masculinity and the sexual hierarchy.

Bring your chest hair and some roids.

I'm your host Lola Michaels with Doctor Deep Cut Ezra Saeed.

Hi, everybody.

And pop culture decoder Cam cruise.

What up, homies?

You can reach us at unwashedunruly@gmail.com.

What's responsible for the growth of online male supremacy?

Is today's in cell subculture that different from historical manifestations of misogyny?

In the depths of the manosphere there are red pills and black pills.

There's victimhood and suicide, anti woman content and real world aggression.

It's a phenomenon that's cultural, economic, psychological, and of course, political.

Some say this is simply another resurgence of traditional masculinity.

Others say it's a specific rollback to the gains of women's independence.

OR even a backlash to me too.

So let's first define some of these terms.

They're probably a lot of broad conceptions of what the manosphere is about, who the key players are.

One thing we can say is that these are people forming A distinct identity around what they view as an inability to have sexual and romantic relationships.

So what is the manosphere?

What does incel mean?

What are the bullet points of the core beliefs of these groups?

Cam.

Crack open the cold one, boys.

Jump on your hot rods because we're riding into the manosphere real hot baby Woo.

Thank you for that very feminine intro, Lola, that was beautiful.

Thank you.

So yeah, like you said, I'm going to take us around the manosphere today.

We're going to talk about some of the groups that make up the manosphere and some of the social conditions that created this manosphere.

The manosphere is made-up of a lot of different groups, but the all of the groups have certain things in common.

So one of the things that they have in common is they are all misogynist.

Yes, they all really don't like women.

They see women as deceptive or inferior.

Another trait of all of these groups is male victimhood.

They believe that men are the true oppressed class and that modern culture has sidelined men.

They believe in a hyper masculine picture, a really, really kind of traditional old school picture of what it means to be a man, what masculinity looks like.

They all have social hierarchies, they talk a lot about values.

They all have this internal lexicon that kind of pigeonholes different peoples and puts them into a hierarchical schema.

They're all anti feminist.

They all blame the feminist movements for having led to social decline and to male dissatisfaction.

And there's also a trend of loneliness and frustration that we'll see in all of these groups.

And lastly, these are all echo chambers.

These are not the kind of forums that you go to to kind of have debates or discuss different ideas.

Everybody's here just kind of on the same trend and kind of dumping on women and all on the same page together.

So yeah, this is a place people go to feel validated and to have their ideas kind of propped up.

So first, when you talk about this is where people go, where are they going?

So these are online spaces and actually some of them are more accessible than others.

So if you want to find about grind and hustle culture in the alpha male manosphere, that's really accessible.

But if you're looking for red pill content or in cell contents, these are actually terms that have been banned on Instagram and on Tiktok.

So if you look for forums that are for in cells, they're actually very hard to find.

So let's talk a little bit about what people who identify as part of this manosphere look like.

I can kind of assume that some of the stereotypes, at least when I think of an in cell in particular as white, young, heterosexual, conservative.

The first time I heard about male rights, I think, and in cells at least, was during Trump, one point O, when I was learning about the Proud Boys.

So the media connection that I made was with these MAGA types, but I know that people who are attracted to the manosphere kind of run the gamut in terms of race and sexuality and age.

So even if you don't have the exact demographic data, can you tell us a little bit more about what these people look like who are attracted to this online subculture?

A really big common misconception is that the majority of people involved in the manosphere are white, that they're young.

But what did we actually see when we look at the data is there's a really broad, diverse range of men.

And if you look at each facet of the manosphere, each of those facets represents a different reaction to the changing political climate and to the gains made by women.

So if I can take you guys on a journey through these groups, I'm going to start first with the pickup artist.

And pickup artist became popular in the early 2000s.

There is a book about it called The Game, and in this book he follows around a pickup artist.

And the pickup artist are kind of like the mathematicians of the dating world.

Their whole thing is they want to try to create specific formulas that men can use to attract and seduce women.

Most of those formulas are not like I'm going to be charming and kind to attract a woman or I'm going to be sensitive and intelligent.

They're mostly praying on insecurities and they're manipulative.

One of the most popular tactics that they use is a tactic called nagging.

And nagging is about giving underhanded compliments that kind of try to throw off the person you're giving the comment to.

So like, I might look at Ezra's shirt and say, like, oh, that's a really cool shirt.

My niece has the same shirt.

So it's like, I'm saying it's a nice shirt.

But at the same time, now Ezra is like, wait, if your niece has it, like, is that not so cool?

So it's kind of creating a dynamic where I have like a step above and I'm trying to get you to try to earn my approval.

So that's the idea behind nagging.

Pickup artists are men who go into spaces and try to manipulate women into sexual encounters.

And this is not about creating lasting relationships.

This is like basically about numbers getting in there, getting as many women as you can.

And the men who are in this group, the demographic is actually middle class to upper middle class.

And it makes sense because it's kind of a nerdy approach to getting women.

Like I'm going to study to get women.

I've discovered that the hottest girl, instead of approaching her group directly, if I were to approach an adjacent set, build social proof and draw the hot set in, I would get the girl from the second set.

She would feel much more comfortable with me because I'm with friends.

I'm a safe bet I'm pre selected by having women with me already and therefore I'm considered attractive to the second set.

Even as gross as that is, they're probably among the least repulsive and dangerous within the manosphere.

I don't know, it sounded like it was getting ready to go out for a hunt.

Exactly.

And like that's the idea is it's like if you say the right thing, if you present yourself the right way, then you'll be able to attract a mate.

So they have more of a self help approach as a response to the gains of feminism and to the changing culture.

Their ideas like to be that top guy that girls want to be with.

And so those are kind of the predecessors for the new kind of pickup artist we have who are the alpha male influencers, the grind set, hustle culture guys.

So those guys have taken what the pickup artist have done and taken it to the next level.

And they are kind of like the Cavemen of the of the manosphere.

They have a very silverback approach.

There are guys that hit the gym really hard they're guys who like are all about having a lot of muscles and having a lot of money of people who are in the alpha male influencer space talk a lot about like Bitcoin and get rich quick scheme.

So it's all about like raising your status to be a high value male so that women will want you.

You don't chase women, women chase you.

A lot of them will talk about being in one way open relationships.

So relationships where they're having five or six or seven different girlfriends and they're allowed to sleep with as many women as they want, as high value males and women just have to have the gratitude for having their attention.

There's another clip I sent you guys from a guy named Dan Blazarian.

And yeah, he talks kind of more about that aspect of the alpha male manosphere.

Dating 5 girls I think is harder than dating like 50 or 100 when you date.

Four or five.

Girls, they require more, they're actually more jealous and they're all kind of like competing for that main girl role when you're dating like 50 or 100 girls because you're just happy for the time.

And they're also so interchangeable that they 'cause you no stress, you don't care.

It's not even an idea that they might be exclusive to dating you.

But when it goes down to like 4 and it becomes more of like a possible reality, then all of a sudden like the claws come out.

I see.

I'm sorry, but as the honorary male in this group, I have to ask, are we supposed to believe this guy's dating 50 to 100 girls?

Well, that's part of his brand and the the like, the visual aesthetic is a really, really big part of all these alpha male spaces because unlike the in cell forums that exist on Reddit where everything is kind of it written, all of these alpha male influences are big on Instagram and on TikTok and so many of their videos.

They're just like all these like half naked hot girls around.

So they they really try to convey this image of themselves as having this harem of women falling at their feet.

Who are all interchangeable.

Who are all interchangeable.

And Dan Bilzerian, like you'll see he has a neck that's as thick as my thigh.

He's like a really big manly man.

And he has like a really heavy jaw.

And one of the weirdest things about the manosphere is there's so much focus on jaw lines, man.

There's something called jaw maxing that's becoming more popular within the alpha male set.

And that is like they have these kind of rubbery blocks that you put into the back of your mouth and you chew it and you chew it and you chew it until your jaw becomes really, really big.

Big because having a a head of like defined jawline is one of the most important parts of being a man, apparently in these spaces.

I should try it.

I have a really defined jawline.

Dude, I, I have to show you some pictures who of people who have jaw maxed and it looks like crazy because like they just have like these bulging kind of jowls.

It's, it's, it's, it's really funny.

OK, up next we have trad, which I believe would be for trad wives.

Trad stands for traditional, and the people who are in this spaces are mostly here for religious connections.

The biggest group is Christians.

And unlike all these other groups that are made of men, this is the one group that's comprised mostly of women.

And these are Christian women who have very traditional values.

They believe a man should be the provider and that it is a woman's job to take care of the household.

And a lot of them are giving Miss Maisel, you know, they're the kind of women you come home from work, they've got a full face of makeup on, kids are taking care of food on the table.

So they're really trying to achieve the kind of fantasy of the 1950s housewife.

A lot of them are anti feminist and talk about how the feminist movement is destroying the American family.

Some of them are not.

Some of them talk about how they want to have the choice to be a homemaker.

And that's like fine if other people don't make that choice.

But generally it's there's like a baked in idea that feminism is destroying the family.

Can I just?

Think about how so many of us since we were little, we were raised in this kind of boss babe feminist society that told us you can be so much more than just a mom.

You can be so much more than just a wife.

And so many of us listened and we, you know, tried to climb corporate ladders and we boss babed so hard now, like we're, we're a little bit boss babed out.

And some of us want to go a little bit more back to our roots, to our ancestors, to the women who came before us and live a little bit more, you know, like they did call us crazy, but we like babies.

We want to have baby.

I am getting big time Stepford wife vibes.

And that's definitely a part of the aesthetic.

This is one of those places that they call an aesthetic space because a lot of it is like, watch me go play blueberries from my backyard and make a pie.

Like a lot of these are rural girlies, farm girlies.

Like I'm going to milk the cows and then make yogurt for my babies, Like that kind of thing.

Well, that that actually answers one of the questions I was going to have because I was when she said this is the oldest way women lived, I was thinking, well what is she going to go gathering while her hubby goes hunting?

It kind of sounds like they wouldn't mind, honestly, from the way they talk about things.

Also, they're really big on Bible verses that are about serving your husband or your husband is always right, you know?

So yeah, that's trad wives.

It's kind of a religious space, and you can see how this works for Christianity.

Christianity is definitely the biggest representative, but a lot of religions have this kind of conservative, fundamentalist, fundamentalist bends.

So the next group we're going to focus on is the men's rights activists.

And these people take more of like an activist political kind of approach and they kind of want to roll black legislation.

Some of the things that they'll talk about are male suicide rates.

They'll talk about how family courts favor women.

So they're more focused on systemic things and like kind of trying to bring up statistics that show men are in crisis.

And like I said, some of those are kind of reasonable arguments, like there is really high suicide rates for men.

But then there's like people all the way on the other end of the spectrum who are just anti feminist and just want any law that was made to protect women or empower women to be taken away that you need to protect and provide at any cost.

But we've changed everything where it concerns women.

They now have access to everything men have always had access to, to education, to work, to whatever they want to do.

But they're not the ones driving the semis, and they're not the ones in the coal mines.

You don't hear the National Organization for Women complaining that there is just not enough female ditch figures.

It is still men carrying the lion's share for what it.

Takes to to operate and maintain the society.

And it is still the expectation that if somebody's going to go down with the shift, it's going to be meant.

Oh God.

There's so many problems with that.

Yeah, and they also have a really big problem with this phrase.

Women and children first.

They're always talking about how it's so fucked up.

They're like, our lives mean nothing.

I'm sorry.

What are we going to say, Ezra?

I was just going to say that when when you talk about, as you mentioned earlier, the high suicide rates and all that, it, I would argue that it coincides with the economy and the social and cultural outlook promoted by these types, that men are supposed to be the sole providers, the main providers.

And the reality is modern American capitalism isn't going to allow that.

And so, yeah, it creates a sort of internal crisis, the combination of the function of modern American capitalism and these people's ideologies combined together.

Yeah, and that's why I was saying some of the gripes are real, legitimate gripes.

But the approach is very anti woman.

And you can hear from the video, there's this underlying idea that men are doing the real work.

Men are the ones who are really holding things together and women are just kind of playing school when they go to college.

What is this next one?

The red pill.

So red pill is actually kind of more of a broad term that can be used to describe a lot of these groups.

The term red pill is a Matrix reference.

And in the movie The Matrix, Neo takes this pill and it allows him to see the world as it really is.

And that's what the red pillars are saying, that once you realize that, you're going to have an awakening that men are the true oppressed class and that feminism is destroying America.

So where these are kind of the more extreme versions of the men's rights movement, the men's rights movement draws on a lot of statistics, whereas the red pillars draw on a lot of pseudosciences.

There's a lot more misogyny.

And there's also some overlap with the alpha males in that they feel like their role as men is to dominate women and to provide.

And there's a sense of aggrieved entitlement here.

Aggrieved entitlement is a term that's used to express that men felt like women were old to them.

They talk a lot about how like in past generations, their grandfather's generation, he would get a wife no problem.

And like, of course that was because women physically could not live without the support of a man.

But they feel aggrieved by this change and by the fact that they're no longer a guaranteed to have a wife in the way that men in the past were.

According to a CBC report, men are bringing red pill ideas into their marriages by demanding obedience and treating their wives like subordinates.

A Canadian family lawyer says he's seeing a trend of men getting sucked into misogynistic ideals and the marriage starts to unravel.

One woman said her husband became controlling after binging this bullshit.

She said it was like he forgot I was his wife and started treating me like a servant.

So the clip we just watched was somebody talking about red pillars and I really was trying to find clips where people within the groups were talking.

But it was it was actually really hard because like I said, red pill has been a term that's blocked on TikTok.

So it's hard to find videos where people are talking directly from their perspective.

So that was the best I could find.

And I ran into the same issue with incel.

So we'll talk more about that when we get there.

So we've got two more groups that make up the manosphere.

The next branch of the manosphere is Men Going Their Own Way, and people call it MGTOW.

They kind of pronounce it by the acronym and men going their own way is unique because these men are a little bit older, or at least when this first, when this first came about, the men were older.

These are men who have been burned by divorce mostly.

So they're frustrated with the court systems.

They're frustrated by having to pay custody and they are opting out of the market.

They are dealing with having to pay these child payments, maybe struggling with where they're going to live and the dating market kind of shuts them out.

They have a really hard time and they give up.

So within in this community, the tone is very defeatist.

People who just decided that it's not worth trying anymore, you know, recently come to the conclusion that I've tried at this relationship thing and I've failed because if I was successful, I'd be married and we wouldn't be talking having a different topic on on on the podcast, right?

Yeah.

So I come to the conclusion that I can do bad by myself, meaning.

You can do.

Bad by yourself?

Yeah, I can just hang out, go to life by myself.

I'm at home, I don't have to hear any nonsense in my ears.

Yeah.

I mean, the sense I get from this is this very innovative thought that you have to be your own person.

Yeah, and and these guys have tried to be their own person and didn't work out.

Women are holding them back.

Women are holding them back.

Women are always positioned as the enemy.

They're always positioned as withholding, they're always positioned as manipulators or deceivers in some way.

So that's very that's very pretty much a commonality in all of these groups.

I would say on the extreme end of the megtau branch, guys who have decided they're going to opt out that they just don't even want to try anymore.

Those are where I placed in cells and in cells can be defined as people who set their identity around the perceived inability to forge romantic or sexual relationships.

These are people who just.

I've opted out of the dating market.

They've given up.

They see their fate as sealed by biology and social class.

So like a lot of these guys might be shorter.

Some of them have physical disabilities.

There's a disproportionate representation of autism, anxiety and depression in these groups.

So there are men who are struggling and they feel like they won't ever have the money or the looks or the muscles that it'll take to attract women.

So they have created groups where they vilify women and talk about how cruel women are for never giving them the chance.

They created this really rigid language that defines different people.

Like Chad is somebody who is handsome and popular and attractive to women.

A Stacy is a woman that is attractive.

So the idea is they are very bitter.

They blame women for their lot in life.

And these spaces are spaces they go to commiserate with other people who are facing the same struggles that they are.

Tell us a little bit about Elliot Rodgers before we move on, because that's obviously a a key figure in the incel movement that people know about in the media.

Yeah, so Elliot Rodgers is probably one of the most famous in Cells, and he is a British American who actually shot 6 people and injured 14 in the 2014 Vista killings.

He's kind of become the poster boy for In Cells.

But one of the reasons I wanted to make this show is because the violent sector of in cells is not as big as sometimes the media makes it out to be.

Most of the violence that we see on these forums is actually about suicide and self harm.

And we don't see a lot in terms of lashing out.

And even though this is a space where people come and they say a lot of misogynist things, a lot of defamatory things, a lot of experts are actually guessing that having these spaces may have a pacifying effect and that it'll gives men an outlet to express these things and that many times they're kind of venting.

And there are really rare instances that men are actually acting on any of these rhetoric that they have.

Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about that because I know we're not evolutionary psychologist, but I think what you were uncovering about the feelings of isolation and withdrawal, the inability to make connections or forge an identity, and like the amount of self hatred that exists in these subcultures, the high rate of autism and anxiety and suicidal ideation.

I think those are all mental health issues just to be aware of in terms of characterizing and understanding this phenomenon.

But I also wanted to tie in a little bit about the violence thing in terms of the Netflix show Adolescence.

Adolescence tells the story of a 13 year old boy.

He's arrested for fatally stabbing one of his classmates, his female classmates in episode 3.

In particular with the psychiatric evaluation.

It's this very powerful show of misogynistic anger, and this narrative unfolds through this interrogation.

The show was good because it opened a window into the world of young boys, But I was curious, how accurate is it in terms of the crime itself?

Like how common is this kind of knife incident or the infamous Elliot Rodger extremism?

Yeah.

So I think whenever we're looking at any group, there's always going to be a small number of radicalized members.

And I don't think it's fair to define in cells by their most radicalized members.

Yes, there are people who have caused violence within these spaces, but they're in the minority.

And like you said, these are people who are really suffering.

And one of the things that I think makes this whole phenomenon unique is that people feel really comfortable with making fun of in cells.

They've become the butt of many jokes in a way that doesn't really align with how we see mental health crisis these days.

Like, there's a general attitude that you shouldn't laugh or make fun of somebody who's struggling with a mental health problem.

But I think because of the perceived demographics around this group, it gives people the green light.

So because people perceive in cells as being white men, I think it gives them the green light where it kind of makes it a little bit more blurry if you're punching up or punching down in this instance.

And one of the things I think was really, really well done in the show Adolescence is that it really exemplified the really, really bitter anger that is a part of the discourse in these communities.

It's it's certainly represents the most radical, but it's not an exaggeration.

It's something that I, I mean, I wanted to do this episode today because I was thinking specifically about how these spaces are attracting young men and vulnerable men.

Yeah, so let's narrow in a little bit about boys in middle school or high school where it seems like they're getting these conflicting messages.

They're watching all these things about violence.

And so they're still getting some traditional messages about manhood, but then they're being told in school now that girls need to be upfront.

They're seeing girls maybe outperform in school.

They're hearing about, you know, girl power.

Do they not understand why that is the case?

They don't have the benefit.

Maybe Gen.

Alpha doesn't have the benefit of understanding what this is, a response to decades and centuries of women's subjugation and the repression of young girls.

So tell me a little bit more about how this is playing out in young boys and middle school age.

So boys are in this really precarious position where they're trying to walk multiple type roads, they're trying to meet the cultural definition of masculinity, they're trying to be sensitive, they're trying to step back to give girls more space.

And every kid wants to be inspired.

Every kid wants to be told to be the most and the best that you can be.

But that's not the message that we're giving all the way around.

And of course, this is starting to impact men in that they are seeking communities where their voices will be heard, where they feel like they'll have more value.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast is because I have a medical middle school student and I was talking to him one day and he started to use some of the vernacular I recognize from the manosphere, and I was really alarmed by it.

And I didn't really want to shut him down or shun on him, so I started asking him questions about why he was drawn to those things.

And he told me that he feels that everything in the school is geared towards the girls.

Everything is about lifting them up and focusing on them, and they kind of feel shut out.

And so without the benefit of context that you get with age, they kind of feel like they're being punished for the sins of the men of the past.

I work at a liberal school, and a lot of the education is shifted at these days.

You know, I tried to talk to them about Thanksgiving, but they do not learn about Thanksgiving the way that past generations have learned about Thanksgiving.

There's a big focus on highlighting oppression, and that villainizes mostly white men.

So a lot of the boys who are growing up in this environment kind of feel like they're paying for the sins of the past and they're confused about where they should fit.

And I do feel sympathy for that.

I, I can't help but think of the issue of alienation and the question of alienation.

And being what I am, I, I went back.

I was going back and thinking of Karl Marx, right?

Because he wrote quite a bit on alienation and some of it related to labor, but also a lot of it related to a sense of estrangement from your own human nature, your fellow human beings.

And his point was that this is not a personal failing, but a direct consequence of the economic structure of the society.

And I think you can see it playing out certainly in economics, but also in the outgrowth of that in the conditions of these young men feeling like they have no connection to the society.

So you talked about how in schools and and other environments you get this push about promoting young women.

And I, I just feel like one of the things we have to bear in mind and, and emphasizes, I don't think the society can answer the needs of either women's oppression or the conditions of alienation.

So when you talk about when these schools, and I'm not, I don't mean to belittle the intentions of teachers or anything like that, but I'm talking about the structure itself, the superstructure.

When these schools talk about opening doors for young women, they're just dealing in the, in the realm of tokenism.

They're just dealing in the realm of ideas and words without actually a challenging the material basis and the material foundations of women's oppression.

You see it in the corporate sphere to where you have similar language and it gets expressed there through quote UN quote efforts of diversity.

And I know diversity is under a lot of attack right now, but it's not it's being attacked from the right.

The problem with that, with this stuff about diversity is that it really does nothing about integration.

It really does nothing about actually talking about the the material of reason women's are women are oppressed instead of it's just if you have we can have in our company a few black faces and a few women in high places.

We've achieved diversity and we can move on.

And it's all cynical.

It all does nothing for the vast majority of human beings, and it's bound to have these repercussions that just reinforce the alienation that that many people feel in a society where just making, you know, you're supposed to be the again, just to reiterate, you're supposed to be the breadwinner and everything and you can barely make ends meet.

Yeah, and you're, you're totally right.

So many of these problems are really, really big and multifaceted and results of capitalist economics and they're kind of like, we can't really do much on an individual level.

But I think one of the things we can do is talk about how we educate young boys in these spaces.

And if you look at education as like very young people, kindergarten, first grade, and we look at the kind of content that are consuming, boys get Legos, they get trucks, they get building, they get action.

Their shows and their books are all about fighting or adventure.

And little girls get books that are about friendship and that are about sharing and that are about kindness.

So the way that we're educating our boys and our girls sets them up for social success or social failure.

And we're finding that boys are feeling more alienation than girls.

And you can't help but to look at the social education that girls have, the amount of time that girls spend socializing in comparison to boys and see that of course those things are going to make a difference.

And if we go back to in cells, one of the really interesting things, if we look at in cell forums, those forums are offering the kind of intimacy that men are craving.

They're able to be vulnerable there.

They're able to speak truthfully with people who understand them.

So it's kind of interesting to see that these men have opted out of the dating market because it's so unfulfilling.

And it's really easy to see why other these other spaces would they would appeal to them because within the in cell space, they're getting fraternity, they're getting a victimhood identity that allows them to externalize their problem.

They get a common enemy in the Chads and in the Stacy's.

They get a rich lexicon that gives them an in Group identity.

And they get to most of all avoid the discomfort of having to participate in the market, in the dating market, and instead trade that for the camaraderie and friendships that they have online.

But I want to just make a point.

The followers or the people get pulled into this for maybe those reasons or that need of, of alienation.

You're not talking about the Andrew Tate's and the grifters and the people who are leading the men's rights movement who view women as mere property at the main purpose of a wife is to be completely under control and subservient as a slave to her husband.

So I just want to make that distinction because even though we are digging a little bit deeper and looking into the psychology and the social elements that have created this, it's not an alibi in any way or a softening of our stance against these despicable leaders of this movement whose main goal is to push traditional religious conservative ideology on women.

Because to them, any notion of women's freedom or independence is something to loathe.

Yeah, it's definitely a threat.

And like you said, these people are essentially grifters.

They saw that there was a gap in the market.

They saw that there's an appetite for this type of rhetoric.

So people jump in to fill those voids and it's an opportunity for them to make money to gain popularity.

I think right now, I think there's a lot of factors involved we're looking at like the cause causality dilemma, right?

So like what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

A lot of people say that online misogyny is creating this behavior and subculture, right?

I don't agree with that.

I don't agree like the Internet is the evil person in this.

I think that the social, economic and political conditions in the society around gender roles and changing norms and the economy, as Ezra was saying, kind of created this world, right?

And I just want to speak a little bit about the Me Too backlash because, you know, you mentioned Me Too and this was going on around the same time as and we as we started to see and sell culture kind of emerge around 2017.

And so I think we can all agree me too movement had a lot of flaws, right?

As a goal, holding abuse of predators accountable and bringing attention to the casting couch that was felt like this cathartic response to sexual inequality.

Did it resolve sexual inequality?

Absolutely not, there was a massive disappearance of the most pervasive crimes carried out against poor and working class women.

Right.

Mostly bourgeois women, as feminism is, were presented as the victims.

Then you have the conflation of things like verbal harassment or inappropriate behavior that was put into the exact same category as violent crimes and abuse.

Right, so lumping everything into rape.

There were more people at the end of the Me Too movement that saw this as a kind of classic puritanical witch hunt, right?

Where a lot of people, a lot of men were getting cancelled by mere accusation without any evidence.

And it increasingly became this trial by media believe all women, no matter what.

So despite all those flaws, or maybe because of those flaws, let's put the manosphere in that framework, right?

There's also been over the last few years, a much more prevalent focus on trans rights.

There's been more trans visibility.

I think that you can say that these movements have been imperfect, but that just the premise of them fighting for some sort of equality or equal footing, though they never get there, had a radicalizing effect on men.

And they're the leaders of the men's rights movement where they could capitalize on this and say we are being punished for something we didn't do.

Very, very much so.

So I think the big take away from the Me Too movement for most people was believe women.

Believe women without question.

And of course, that puts men in a really awkward position.

And men who are in this space where their voices are being devalued started seeking other places to find that value.

So they sought out the manosphere.

And like, we're talking about the chicken and the egg.

I don't think the manosphere would be as big as as it is if it wasn't an appetite for it.

This is a response to social.

This is a psychological response to changes in the culture for sure.

I agree with that completely there.

There would be nothing for a manosphere if there wasn't a basis for it that would draw people to it.

And I think, yeah, believe all women.

One, yes, it does put men in a bad situation.

It also infantilizes women as though they're like not fully human beings who are capable of lying and deception like any other human being is capable of doing.

Having said all that, and having earlier talked about alienation and all these things, I make a distinction in my mind.

I can talk.

I can consider the question of alienation and its impact as a societal question.

And just like I can look at what drives someone towards the arm of a racist demagogue as a societal question being conditioned by his or her terrible economic situation.

That does not mean I'm going to sympathize with this person and what they think.

I, I, I want to answer the societal question because I think this, I think answering that is vital for the, the society as a whole, including for those people.

But I'm not going to suddenly go, oh, poor person.

He feels women have basically destroyed his life because they haven't he he's made that person has made-up a reality in their head to explain their conditions as opposed to looking at what the real source of their condition is.

Like you said, I I do want to emphasize that class is a really, really big part of this.

And like in the social conditions are a part of it too.

People are not making living wages.

So that's a big part of why these men feel they can't find mates too.

So definitely economics are part of it.

Yeah.

And I think it's just important, even if we don't have all the answers or, you know, just the three of us to really, I think it's important to look at it outside of the way that the media portrays it because inevitably it's going to be very shallow.

You know?

And this was kind of the theme of adolescence, too, right?

Like, how horrible it is it to have these boys going onto their phones and they can slip into this world.

And yes, that is a risk, right?

Like if you are feeling a certain way and you find an outlet, it will amplify.

It will amplify the voice that you want to find and the connection that you want to find.

But social media in and of itself, I would argue, is not what we're talking about.

It's much bigger societal and economic forces that are not going to be dealt with fundamentally until you actually look at where gender is going, where norms are going, how the family is changing in society.

Yeah, I think you bring up a lot of interesting points.

I think the reason that we see this space having so much fuel right now is because there's so much change in our society in terms of gender, in terms of women entering the workforce in greater numbers and with greater strength.

And each one of these spaces really represents a different response to those changes.

The pickup artists and the alpha males take a self improvement position.

They're going to be that top guy.

The trad people embrace it.

The men's right and red pill people are looking for political ways to legislate and rollback gains of the women's movement and big thousand in cells.

I have opted out.

So you can see that this is a response to changing shifts in our culture and yeah, just a lot of more of bigger, bigger group of people feeling disenfranchised and marginalized.

But also that there's a political administration that's more amenable to those ideas, to promoting them openly and explicitly, right?

Like overtly as opposed to.

We know that.

Misogynist ideals?

Yeah.

Yeah, we know.

What party?

Yeah, but I'm saying like the the Trump administration, like it's not an I'm not saying everything has to do with Trump.

That's not our position ever on this podcast, right?

Like that Trump is to blame for a societal ills, but Trump is a reflection of society, but he's also giving access in a way and reinforcement of these ideas because they're OK.

That's actually, yeah, you're you're OK if you think this way.

And, you know, we're going to change the laws to make sure that they reflect that ideology because the left has gone too far.

I think it's almost not an accident that this movement really comes viral around 20/15/2016, which is Trump one point O And if we look at it today, if I were to come up with an analogy, it would be so these men are facing real, you know, difficulties and they blame women for it and say women are the cost for for their condition and how society has sort of in their view, promoted women is the cause for their for their condition.

And I see an analogy with that and people who are facing also very difficult situations and say undocumented immigrants are the cause of my condition.

Undocumented immigrants taken my jobs and documented immigrants have booted me out of my livelihood.

And in both of these cases, what I see is someone that one I can see an explanation for, for why they think the way they do in sort of the breakdown of the economic structure of of America, of capitalist America.

But also their target is someone who's beneath them.

Actually.

They're punching down, not punching up.

And at the end of the day, while I want to understand where they're coming from and change the conditions that drive people into these situations, my level of sympathy for them is pretty minimal.

Yeah, So I can see why you don't have a lot of sympathy for these men.

And I think most of them don't deserve sympathy.

But I feel like I see each Group A little differently.

When I think about the alpha males, I feel like, yeah, these guys definitely don't deserve sympathy.

But when I think about some of the members of the incel group who are young boys who are just figuring out their way, who are dealing with social pressures that are confusing, who may be economically disadvantaged.

And I and I do feel some sense of sympathy for them as they're going through this.

I remember being in middle school myself and, and you know, it's a, it's a time where you're really vulnerable.

You're trying to figure out what your identity is.

You're trying to figure out how you to interact with the sex that you're attracted to.

And this rhetoric just kind of preys on that insecurity and leads people in the wrong direction.

Yes, I can sympathize with a child.

Of course, what I find very hard to sympathize with is once you've solidified an ideology that says women are the enemy and women are the cause of my problems, I may understand what societal framework that pushed you in that direction.

But once you've solidified that ideology, the image that conjures in my mind is the kind of person who cheers on the current deportations of undocumented or documented immigrants because they've now designated them the enemy.

And do with them as you will.

Yeah, it's a it's a toxic ideology that is falsely scapegoated women for sure.

So yeah, there's not much sympathy you can feel for that, for for grown men for sure.

I actually wouldn't mind taking a blue pill these days.

Yeah, I think we all can use a blue pill.

But we don't love anybody who doesn't love us.

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