The Manosphere as an Online Protection Racket: How the Red Pill Monetizes Male Need for Security in Modern Society

Abstract

To effectively manage, empathize with and respond to the implications and impact of the so-called ‘Manosphere,’ this paper is centered on the premise that researchers require an understanding of the draw factors that lead individuals to engage, affiliate with, and contribute to the various groups that constitute this wider movement. This paper seeks to contribute to the growing body of knowledge around the Manosphere by exploring how thought leaders propagate symbiotic cycles of ontological security and insecurity through YouTube in a manner that resembles a protection racket. It argues that these constructed ontological security cycles provide a powerful impetus to not only draw individuals into the Manosphere, but also to extract material and social resources out of them that can be reinvited to retain them within the movement.

Mainstreaming the Manosphere’s Misogyny Through Affective Homosocial Currencies: Exploring How Teen Boys Navigate the Andrew Tate Effect

“…For Tate, having wealth helps you become alpha and that gives you access to commodities, including heterosexual sex, which is why women are positioned repeatedly as subservient objects that can be owned and therefore dominated. Like many of the more niche manosphere influencers whom Tate apes, he trades in men’s fears about their place in the order of hegemonic masculinity, with men’s ability to constantly prove their heterosexuality and dominance over women as tests of their place in that hierarchy (Bujalka et al, 2022; Jewkes et al, 2015).…”

“…Manosphere leaders appeal to this authenticity in their emphasis on telling the “facts” or “truth.” For example, Jordan Peterson became a “guru” of the manosphere through his intellectual credibility as an academic and use of “science” and evolutionary psychology to help justify misogynistic and gender essentialist philosophies (van de Ven & van Gemert, 2022). Presenting as authentic and authoritative, these manosphere influencers also play into social media’s “affective economy” (Ahmed, 2004) by providing “solutions” and support for men’s feelings of disenfranchisement and masculinity in crisis (Bujalka et al, 2022).…”

“…For example, in two videos, Tate talks about his belief that many of us are being duped into believing that money will not make us happy; he concludes by saying his viewers can become rich, but they have to change their mind-set and work hard (Andrew Tate, 2022; Mike Thurston 2022). In this way, he takes the viewer on a journey where their constructed fears are able to be mitigated through the hope of learning; Tate offers just such a solution through his so-called entrepreneurial training program—“Hustler’s University.” This creation of need by playing on men’s insecurities is a strategy also invoked by influencers of the manosphere who create “symbiotic cycles of ontological security and insecurity through the YouTube and social media content they produce” (Bujalka et al, 2022, p. 2). Tate’s strategy to play on emotional and affective homosocial currencies that feed into hegemonic masculinity resonated with the ways some of the boys we spoke to reacted to Tate’s content and discussions about gender equality, which we will now explore in the next section of this article.…”

Manosfera y fútbol femenino: análisis del discurso misógino en la comunidad virtual del diario Marca

“…La manosfera se compone de un conjunto de espacios virtuales como blogs, redes sociales y foros en formatos variados, de naturaleza fragmentada y en constante evolución (Kyparissiadis y Skoulas, 2021), que permiten aglutinar a aquellos hombres que se sienten víctimas de un orden social que beneficiaría a las mujeres García-Mingo et al, 2022), y cuyo nexo de unión son las ideas antifeministas. Estas ideas antifeministas son difundidas por agentes que logran capitalizar el malestar de los hombres ante una supuesta crisis social provocada por el feminismo y que ofrecen un espacio de socialización para los hombres al tiempo que presentan una solución identitaria a dicha crisis (Bujalka et al, 2022). Tal y como afirman Delgado-Ontivero y Sánchez-Sicilia (2023, p. 189), más allá de meros espacios discursivos, "la Manosfera resulta un espacio social y comunitariamente funcional a la masculinidad" al ofrecer a los hombres una serie de ventajas como redes de apoyo, sensación de pertenencia, certezas políticas e incluso amistades.…”

Misogyny and the construction of toxic masculinity in the Spanish Manosphere (Burbuja.info)

“…Since then, the media, institutions, and academia have issued warnings about the expansion of the Manosphere -the virtual space through which misogynistic messages circulate and are perpetuated-and this ecosystem's influence in the real world, which has become a real threat (Ebner, 2021). Research carried out to date underlines the powerful appeal that masculinist communities have for both adult men, disillusioned with the expectations created by neoliberalism, and young men, weighed down by their own insecurities (Banet-Weiser, 2018;Bujalka;Rich;Bender, 2022;Sugiura, 2021;Van-Valkenburgh, 2021;Vingelli, 2019). It also highlights the similarity between anti-feminist communities and far-right ideology, with which they share a misleading and all-encompassing notion of masculinity (Bazzano, 2022 2022), this article aims to deepen the understanding of a phenomenon that is still in an initial phase of study in Spain by analyzing misogynistic messages on one of the most popular forums: Burbuja.info.…”