Apr 17

I TRY TO FIGURE OUT THE MANOSPHERE AS A NON-BINARY QUEER PERSON

PART THREE OF THE FRINGE BELIEFS SERIES BY FINNIALLA

Written by Finnialla, one of our current world events writers, and edited by Stephanie O., our editor-in-chief.

INTRODUCTION

Dear god, I’m back. I didn’t throw my computer out the window and run into the woods, despite my best efforts to do so. I’ve taken a break from organized religion for this month. I’m not Catholic, but I’ve decided to give up on having to research Christian Fundamentalists for Lent. Wish me luck on my journey of healing. Don’t worry, they’re making a comeback soon. Unlike toddlers, I cannot just drop them off at the zoo and hope the animals act like they did in the Jungle Book and raise them.

For my third installment, I’ve decided to research something that has taken the collective consciousness of the internet by storm the past few years. This is something that could count as a cult if the people in it could learn to get along. And that is the Manosphere. It’s not, as I thought, a colosseum for men to watch like monster trucks and start fires or something. Kinda mad that it isn’t because that sounds fun. The real Manosphere is definitely not fun.

As I read articles and books researching this topic and learned entirely too much about this, I realized how glad I am that my two brothers never fell down this rabbit hole. I also realized that this Manosphere isn’t one specific group with one specific goal. It’s a myriad of hate groups and people who have taken misogyny and made it a business.

From incels and “Men’s Rights Activists” to Andrew Tate and the Proud Boys, it’s a conglomerate of men who have podcasts who definitely shouldn’t, all of which I’ll try to explain and define here. It’s a lot of noise to weed through, but hopefully by learning more about the ideology, we, as a society, can stop it from doing any more harm than it’s already done.

WHAT IS THE MANOSPHERE?

As I said, it’s not one thing or one group. The Manosphere is a big group full of little groups. Like a turducken of hating women and queer people. Some of the groups are even mainstream. I mean, we all know about incels, even people who don’t spend their lives stuck on the internet, like me or you.

Did it start because of the internet? Yes, in a lot of ways, and no. Men hating women isn’t new. Misogyny isn’t new, either. We just have a fancy name for it now. Throughout history, there have been societies (i.e. like ninety-five present of them) that are men dominated and ruled, that count on women for being seen and not heard and keep things in a patriarchal hierarchy that relies on the submission of minorities to keep the status quo. That’s not the Manosphere’s goal.

The people getting sucked into this are already unconsciously aware that as usually white, straight men, they hold the privilege in Western-based countries. The problem with this is how young and impressionable the audience of men have become, and how little there has been to stop it.

Even the modern movement that would inspire the Manosphere is only from the 60’s and 70’s. The men’s rights movement started as a counter of second wave feminism. The Men Rights Movement (or Men’s Liberation Movement) leaders believed that the rise in women’s rights, and subsequently, gay rights, would cause men to lose theirs. They saw women entering the workplace, getting equal pay, and genuinely having a life outside of a home as tipping off the status quo, and in a way, they’re right.

It was a big shift for equality. What men’s rights activists failed to realize is that the concerns they were bringing up, like the idea of spousal abuse from women, the failing mental health crisis for men, and the structures that cause many men to feel like failures, is talked about in intersectional feminism as issues of everyone living under a patriarchal society.

This didn’t stop men’s rights activists from changing, evolving, and getting involved with right-wing propaganda. Yeah, they are on two different levels. So, when the Internet came around, and the idea of confronting someone face to face went away, it was a free for all.

See, the Internet is beautiful, and terrible, and most of the time, just a place we’ve all decided to congregate towards. The rise in hate speech against women has skyrocketed with the invention of chat rooms and social media. Anonymity is powerful, and many have taken it for granted to spew vitriol. You don’t need me to tell you that. If you're a female-presenting person or any sort of minority, you’ve probably had your fair share of harassment. I know I have.

While the Manosphere is a group of people with common ideas, it’s also not. It’s like a giant ball of stuff that’s been stuck together. Kinda like a Katamari ball but it reeks of Axe body spray and desperation. Or like a gobstopper and I’m trying to get to the center. What lies there and do I even want to know?

I do. I need to know. There’s an answer in this. I mean, why does this place exist? We know how we got to the Manosphere, but it takes a catalyst to explain the spike in its interest right now. I was hopeful people who are smarter than me knew the answer and thank God they did because I’m not spending any time on Reddit or 4chan if I can help it.

WHY DOES IT EXIST?

So, smart people called sociologists believe they might know why the Manosphere has gained the amount of followers it has. Three theories that the Canadian Museum of Human Rights have put out are as follows:

One theory is that, “changes in the global economy have reduced the security and availability of many traditionally ‘manly’ jobs” (CMHR), which is just fancy talk for the real threat of job insecurity in what they think are men's jobs, which is a real concern for everyone, not just men. Also, there is no such thing as a man or woman job. A woman changed my oil today, so it’s just a smokescreen for misogyny.

Another theory is “gains in gender equality and 2SLGBTQI+ rights are challenging and changing traditional ideas about gender roles.” (CMHR) This is just being mad that white men have to share the world with other people. It’s the ideas of gender that cause a lot of the problems men’s rights activists try to say is happening to them because of feminism. Another deep-rooted misogynistic take.

The last theory actually holds some weight. Many say that “men have high (and rising) rates of mental health problems, including loneliness, depression, and suicide.” (CMHR) This is a real issue. Many men are told that they’re emotions aren’t valid unless they fit into a specific idea of how men should act. It’s damaging to assume a person, no matter the sex or gender, needs to act a certain way, needs to bottle up pain. Seeking help can be very hard for men, as it’s seen a lot of times as being “girly”. It’s not. Mental health is just as important as any other health related issue.

I am going to state before, intersectional feminism addresses the nonchalance and diminishing of men’s feelings. It’s something that is rooted in the patriarchy, and it’s actively damaging men. The idea of feminism is not to hate all men, because if you are thinking it is, you’re practicing it wrong. It’s about building a society of care for all genders, not just females, and undoing the societal infringements that cause people to live in pain.

Let’s be real, the ones leading the charge on researching the Manosphere are women. It makes sense. I somewhat fit into that category. I am an AFAB (assigned female at birth) nonbinary person, but if you met me in person, you would probably mistake me for a woman. It’s not something I’m mad at. I understand my curves kinda give me away.

Anyway, women have a stake in figuring out what is going on in the Manosphere because it affects them, and me, personally. Not only do they hate women, but their vitriol for queer people gives me a lot of skin in this game. I stand with my sisters and queer community in trying to quantify the hate so we can live without the threat of physical harm.

Tracie Farrell led a wonderful research team to study Reddit’s misogyny through the most popular subreddits that house parts of the Manosphere. Annie Jones of the University of Central Florida tracked incels and their movements online. Karen Lumsden looked at r/mensrights and the real domestic abuse that it translates to.

While these men in the Manosphere might believe they are on the right side of history, they absolutely are not. What they believe isn’t just hurting others, it’s hurting themselves. Their link to right-wing extremism found by the Southern Poverty Law Center shows that their priorities lie in anger, not for change and growth. The hatred is palpable, and it crosses over into the real world quite often.

FROM ONLINE TO REAL LIFE

When this hateful speech is contained to the internet, with its lax or even nonexistent moderation, it can fester, and it eventually spills out into the real world. Because the Manosphere and right-wing extremism are two peas in a terrible pod, a lot of these men have taken it upon themselves to do something about it, often with deadly consequences.

The harassment is the tamest of the punishments these men think women and queer people deserve. When you’re constantly surrounded by men who hype up your extreme behavior, it’s going to translate elsewhere on the internet and into physical experiences with women. When that’s not enough, many turn to doxxing and swatting. Doxxing is posting people’s personal information, (address, social security number, etc.) online, causing that person to be put in danger. Swatting is when someone calls in anonymously that a certain person has committed a crime when they haven’t, causing the police to show up at someone’s house.

If that’s not bad enough, a lot of men take it even farther. All over the world, young men are getting radicalized, and their path of terror might just be beginning. Certain shooters, people who I will not name for the sake of the victims, have used misogyny to justify killings.

The Brighton shooter, who would go on to kill five people, including his mother, and injuring two others before deciding to end his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound subscribed to the incel lifestyle. He would go on to say he was “blackpilled”, a term I will explain in the next chapter. The Toronto killer murdered 10 people by running them over in a van before getting caught. He directly praised the Santa Barbera killer in his “manifesto” video. Speaking of the aforementioned Santa Barbara shooter, he shot six people after he felt rejected by women online, dubbing himself the “kissless virgin”.

From attacks in Canada, the UK, and across the entire United States, the rates of mass killings because of misogynist talk in the Manosphere have risen in the past couple of years. It’s obviously something that needs to be taken seriously, and at the moment, it’s only a big deal when something bad happens in the real world. Most regular people aren’t aware of the intricacies in the manosphere; from the different groups involved, to the way they talk, to the memes they use. Now everyone has a basic understanding of what and why it exists, but not how to spot it online.

Let’s talk about it.

TERMINOLOGY

The Manosphere has its own language, its own ecosystem of sadness with bad memes and outdated references that don’t even make sense. Anyway, to understand these groups, knowing what the hell they’re talking about is a big first step.

Let’s first talk about the whole Alpha, Beta, Omega, and Sigma thing. One, they’re Greek letters. Alpha (α), Beta (β), Omega (Ω or ω), and Sigma (Σ or σ/ς) are also very common with Greek life in American colleges, which allows 19-year-olds get HPV on the weekends and live with 20 other attractive people in one house. In the Manosphere, they all mean something completely different in the incel community.

Alphas are apparently the most dominant of the men. They say they are “leaders of the pack”, you know because we’re all wolves, I guess. Any man who calls themselves an alpha should be shot on sight in my opinion, but they believe that it gives them this immediate attraction, causing all these women to flock to them. They also believe that if you degrade a woman, she’ll just be instantly attracted to them, which totally works all the time. Test it for yourself if you want.

Betas, or soyboys, or whatever else these people call them are men who are submissive to women. Usually, it’s used in the context of men who respect women or left leaning men who may not have hyper masculine traits. The term soyboy is because drinking coffee with non dairy milk is one of those arbitrary rules that makes you feminine, and because soy has estrogen in it, incels believe you will get more sensitive if you drink it, which isn’t how that works, but whatever.

Omegas are apparently, even lower than betas, but I haven’t found an actual definition of why and I’m not willing to go on Reddit and ask. They have confusing metaphors.

Sigmas are also confusing. They’re like alphas, but more alpha, from what I read. I don’t know, they’re just trying to outdo themselves at this point. I would watch a YouTube video about it, but I can’t stand their voices and would one hundred percent turn it off.

If you think you’ve heard alpha, beta, and omega before, you have. It comes from a defunct scientific theory from wolves, saying that some wolves lead, and others follow and the whole survival of the fittest thing. Well, it’s kinda true. Wolves have leaders, but they are to protect the weakest or oldest member of the pack, which kinda throws the whole survival stuff out the window.

You might also have heard about it because you were a Wattpad/AO3 child. I’m not explaining that one. If you know, then I don’t need to traumatize you further. From one 2013 Tumblr fandom kid to another, I know all too well and I’m sorry.

“Chads” is a term for a conventionally attractive man who incels are thinking of taking all the women and treating them like crap before dumping them. You know the meme of the badly drawn blonde haired buff dude? That’s what they think a Chad is.

“Stacys” are female Chads, or to them, as I’ll put it nicely, “ladies of the night.” Fake boobs, fake breasts, fake lips, skimpy clothes, and all that jazz.

“Beckys” are the less attractive Stacys. Incels believe that Beckys go after Chads, but will be rejected and date them, which is hilarious. It’s almost that they don’t value women’s opinions and minds, who would’ve thought? I didn’t.

“Blue Pilling/Red Pilling” is a specific reference to the movie, The Matrix. In the movie, Morpheus (Lawrence Fishbourne) offers Neo (Keanu Reeves) two pills, one red and one blue. The blue pill lets him return to the “real” world and forget everything that had happened in the film at that point. The red pill shows Neo the true world of the Matrix and everything the world has been hiding. In the movie, Neo takes the red pill.

In the context of incels, being blue pilled means following mainstream feminism, you know, because women are human beings, whereas being red pilled means you have woken up to the truth of the world (i.e. women don’t want to date me because I’m an asshole and I’m gonna be mad about it).

Not that these people know The Matrix was a trans allegory or that the creators are both trans women, and I would assume most of the cast would be disgusted with this complete contradiction of the source, but you know. Nothing says alt white dick better than colonizing something and making what was considered harmless into something terrible.

The Black Pill or Black Pilling, which is not in the movie unless Lawrence Fishbourne grows another hand, is basically nihilism. The world sucks, nothing will ever change that, and it's women’s faults. When incels have decided that they are black pilled, it’s terrifying. Many of the shooters I mentioned previously have considered themselves as taking the black pill because they have become so disillusioned with right-wing and misogynistic propaganda that they have no feeling of emotions for women and queer people left.

In the vein of vocabulary, there’s no shortness of weird and stupid words that incels have made up to spread hate. Most of them I can’t say here because they are incredibly explicit. The aforementioned words are the ones I will use moving forward into the next part of this article, where I go into detail about the terrible groups that make up the Manosphere.

In that sense, I should warn you. One, there’s more groups than you think, so I’m sorry in advance, and two, they somehow get worse the longer I keep reading about them. These are split into the two categories of the Manosphere, the hatred of women and the degradation for pleasure of women. Then, I’ll synthesize all the different groups that have on queer people, which is actually pretty similar. The first subgroup is the hatred of women. These are listed from least threatening to most.

…

MEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

The first group to pop up in the Manosphere, coming in like a bad case of crabs, are Men’s Rights Activists, which is what they’ll give you if you spend enough time alone with them. While they pose the least amount of threat to women and queer people, they still undermine them at every turn.

Born out of the Men’s Liberation Movement that sprang up in the 60’s as a counter to second wave feminism, it usually is the legal end of the Manosphere, trying to take their alleged victimhood and change it into policy and law.

Their ideology focuses on the idea that men are being oppressed in a number of ways, like…

The disproportionate rate of sexual assault and molestation against women is far more reported and accepted than that of men. This is true, but it’s insane to think that feminism, real true feminism, is to blame for this. Feminists fight for the idea that men can be victims, and that we need to treat them with the kindness and love we show female victims. It’s the patriarchy that forces men to think they deserved what happened to them, which is wrong.

Women are using sexual harassment to abuse men, most notably in recent years, with the #MeToo movement so they can ruin men’s careers. While some may be using false claims to get back at men, it shouldn’t discount the majority of victims. Also, the #metoo movement includes men, notably many Hollywood celebrities who were victims of sexual harassment by other celebrities.

Men have been disadvantaged more than women. When this comes from the majority of men in this, they are white. That doesn’t mean that there are only white men in the Manosphere, that’s not true. The ideas of misogyny have permeated in every race, but the idea that white men are oppressed is just not true. I’m not even going to argue it.

Again, this is the least hostile group of men who inhabit the Manosphere. They’re misogynists and their thinking is completely wrong, but it usually stays in the realms of the Internet. They’re like diet Manosphere participants. Like, it’s kinda the same, but you can definitely tell it’s different. They don’t want to kill women; they want an impossible narrative. When they descend further, it gets a little more complicated.

MGTOW’S

MGTOW’S, or Men Going Their Own Way, is a little more extreme on the misogyny scale, but like the Men’s Right Activists, they don’t really cause harm. It’s more that their beliefs are more extreme, but as I said about the MRA, most of it stays on the internet.

The big thing MGTOW wants is a separate society for men and women. They believe Western society has been corrupted by feminism, most notably intersexuality, body positivity, and redefining gender roles. They think that the double standards of women in certain circumstances and therefore, all men are oppressed in our society, which like, no. No, they’re not.

Because of these beliefs, they believe women and men should be separate. Men who identify as feminists or as direct threats to their worldview are also stuck on the “woman side” of the fence. Basically, it’s an excuse to not go outside and talk to people who might not agree with you.

They have different stages of being a MGTOW. They are…

The Red Pill – Remember earlier when I said it was figuring out that feminism is “corruption”? Yeah. That’s this level. You apparently can still talk to women though, which like, great. They really want to talk to you. They’re just gonna be flooding your DMs any minute now.

The Purple Pill – Trans people really need to take back The Matrix. This is getting ridiculous. Anyway, the “purple” pill is the idea that you’ve separated yourself from the prospect of long-term relationships and marriage and are only hooking up, which feels like cheating. If you aren’t going to talk to women, you don’t get to hook up with them.

The third level is that you don’t talk to any woman at all. There’s no fun pill color for this one since it seems like a sad reality they’re living in. Maybe call it the beige pill? The slightly off-white color they use for hospital ceiling tiles pill? The color of psych grippy socks pill? Just putting it out there.

Also, no women? Buddy, that’s just more for lesbians and bi people like me. Played yourself there.

The final level, again no pill color, is when they just detach from society and only talk to MGTOW’s. Wow, that’s actually horrible. One hunched over Vitamin D-deficient weirdo is enough for me, thanks.

As I said, they aren’t harmful, but they’re just sad. It just feels like a waste of a human life, but I can’t stop them. They’re like incel lite, but just with clinical depression and carpal tunnel.

INCELS

Oh incel, why? Why are you guys like this? I just have to ask, who hurt you? Please go to therapy, we’re all begging you. Anyway, incels are the most dangerous of the Manosphere, and if you keep reading, Andrew Tate’s on here, so these men are something else. Basically, it’s if a MRA and a MGTOW had a terrible baby, and that baby grows up to be a serial killer.

Incels blame women and society for the reason they can’t find love, which is definitely not it. They don’t want to date incels because they’re assholes who believe women should be in the kitchen. It’s actually not that hard to understand. They hold some kind of deep-rooted belief that the romantic playing field has changed, and women have the upper hand.

See, incels give the Manosphere many of the words earlier, like Chad, Stacy, Red and Blue Pilling, and so many more. That’s not the dangerous part of any of this. This is just more online discourse. What makes them dangerous is the crimes they commit.

Incels are to blame for the shootings I described earlier. They are the ones who are routinely attacking women and queer people in public, often with very violent methods. Not just harassment, but the purposeful assault, both sexual and non, and attempted murder through the use of weapons. These men have been so far down the rabbit hole that they see the only way forward is violence.

And this isn’t a one-off incident. This type of crime has been slowly rising all over the world for the past ten plus years, and it seems that it’s not going to slow down anytime soon. When these men do commit these types of crimes, they are praised by the other incels in chats with them. They are propped up as heroes and martyrs for the cause, and it needs to be stamped out.

As you’ve noticed, I haven’t named any of the shooters or violent incels I’m describing, but if you want to know, I have linked all the research at the bottom of the article. I refuse to use their names out of respect for the victims and their families. Their names are the only ones that deserve to be remembered.

In this case, incels are worldwide and are growing, and without proper moderation, will continue to harm women and queer people. As I will explain later, there are ways to help put an end to this, but these types of people are only half of the Manosphere. The other half is just as dangerous, but in a completely different way.

…

The second group is the degradation of women. These groups are different because they want to interact with women in a patriarchal traditional household or as objects for pleasure, whereas the first group distances themselves from women in general. Like the last one, it’s listed from least extreme to most extreme.

PICKUP ARTISTS

If you don’t know what Pickup Artists are, consider yourself lucky, but they somehow kind of still exist and are one of the most famous and thankfully, one of the smallest groups that make up the Manosphere. You can trace them back to the late 80’s, and unlike other things from the late 80’s, like jerry curls and acid wash jeans, they are sadly still around.

When you’re not choking to death on their cologne, many of us can think of a thousand stereotypes about them, and most are accurate. They teach men how-to pick-up women, and boy, are they full of advice that’s borderline sexual harassment.

Most Pickup Artists use Neil Strauss’ book, ‘The Game’ like a holy bible to teach other men how to manipulate women into sex. Do any of their methods work? No, they don’t. Being an asshole to people doesn’t usually warrant that person wanting to sleep with you. Pretty simple.

From the constant degradation of women as sexual objects isn’t unappealing enough for you, you also get the bad pick-up lines, the dick pics that no one asked for, and probably a fedora or two.

Pickup Artists were around in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and they straddle the line between fully being in the Manosphere while still talking to people in the outside world. I mean, the amount of sad men who come out of a Holiday Inn Express conference room with way too much confidence and the penchant to now call waitresses “sweetie” is too high for it to be okay, but they are a dying breed.

While there are some online Pickup Artists artists, like the fresh and fit podcasters who got banned from TikTok, or that weird Russell Hartley dude who compared women to horses; the days of spiky hair, wraparound cop sunglasses, and bad graphic design button downs have truly been lost to the rest of the Manosphere.

PROUD BOYS

So, many people don’t put the Proud Boys with the Manosphere because they are not in some of the same message boards as the rest of these people, but I believe they are, and I’ll explain my thinking. The Proud Boys are an organization that focuses on the return of “chauvinistic” America, and Canada too (wow, don’t you feel special) in their handbook. It speaks very plainly about the separation of roles and duties of men and women, and women aren’t allowed in their special little club.

They even abstain from masturbation and sex until marriage, which could be more on the Christian Fundamentalist ideals deeply ingrained in this group, but it still gives off big Manosphere vibes. Their message is not dissimilar to the other groups on this list, and I’ve decided they are in it.

For those reasons, let’s talk about the Proud Boys. They are definitely the most vocal in public about their terrible views, well, until most of the leadership went to prison for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, but they are still around, somewhat. You’ll probably spot them in black and yellow plaid and tactical gear, cosplaying as a bumblebee U.S soldier. They are frequented to protest drag queen library hours, pro-abortion rallies, and gay pride. So, you know, assholes who don’t like having fun and stuff.

Their leader is currently in prison for Seditious Conspiracy and Obstruction of Congress, but who knows, maybe another terrible man will take his place. Now, the leaders are different, but many of the rank-and-file members masquerade in other parts of the Manosphere, they also just like to make a fool of themselves in public by dressing up like their friends and playing pretend in public.

These people are not as harmful with most of their leadership behind bars, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been in the past. I mean, they stormed the Capitol, so, they aren’t something we as a society can just brush off. The fact that there was a place for that many now incarcerated men means it was always there. It pushes progress back to the time when the only people with rights in this country were white men.

Just because they aren’t killing people in mass shootings doesn’t mean someone can’t springboard from a group like this to one more extreme, like incel or right-wing domestic terrorist. Groups like these start off as what they call “fraternities” and turn into full on hate groups. The Ku Klux Klan was a fraternity before they decided to scare, hurt, and murder black people for fun. This can absolutely be one of those moments with the Proud Boys, and just like the KKK, the rituals won’t even be cool.

So, you got your black and yellow plaid and want a wife? Well, there’s a bald man with a terrible accent who might just have the answer for you.

ANDREW TATE

I feel if I say this man’s name three times, he’ll appear and blow cigar smoke in my face, but hate him or despise him, Andrew Tate was a huge impression on a lot of men, and that’s a bad thing. Now, it depends on when you’re reading this, but Andrew Tate is either stuck in house arrest, on trial, or in jail for human and sex trafficking in Romania. Wow, that’s a lot to take in. How did we get here? Let’s start at the beginning.

Andrew Tate was a professional MMA fighter and asshole. That last one never changed. He was an okay fighter and had a pretty good average, but he wanted more. He believed he had a set of beliefs that other people needed to hear, which they didn’t. He was first known as the clown he is today when he was ejected from the Big Brother UK show because a video had surfaced of him hitting a woman with a belt.

While many, rightly so, called him out on his abuse, he was never charged. He would go on to gain popularity for his terrible right wing takes, eventually guest appearing on Infowars with Alex Jones multiple times.

At the same time, he was starting up his YouTube channel and Hustler’s University, which was a scam so you could hang out with like-minded weirdos. He had made millions by grifting men into thinking if you acted like him, women would just flock to you. He’s the Pickup Artist times 100, and his views reflect that.

He was anti-mask, anti-abortion, pro-Trump, and pro keeping women as sex slaves. Such a diverse pile of crap he was. I mean, how are you going to grow your empire if you don’t make women work as cam girls while you get all the money against their will? I don’t know, but the Romanian police decided enough was enough and arrested him last year. After his stint in jail, and the beautiful tweets that showed his descent into madness, he was released and put on house arrest.

Now, we can blame all of this on him and his brother, and in some ways, we should, but his fanboys are just as responsible for the rise of his fame, and his reach with young boys. When he grew popular, all of the fans of Andrew Tate, which is the biggest red flag on a dating site, ladies, started to spam the TikTok for you page with clips of his videos, and I mean flooded. In 2022, he was one of the five most Googled people. Young boys were watching this man who they deemed cool talk about misogyny, and they adopted a version of that hate.

The damage is done, but it could’ve been prevented. Moderation is key to stop people, especially minors, from seeing damaging and extremist stuff, and TikTok dropped the ball on that, but it wasn’t just them. Tate’s image was plastered on any and all social media sites, and content moderation was too slow to block the reposts and ban Tate from their platforms.

While his empire now exists on Twitter, it’s still possible to get it from his website and Hustler’s University. He is, until he’s forced to go back to jail, still influencing people, and he’s accused of sex trafficking, so, maybe it’s time to ban him from the internet all together.

QUEER HATE

Now, I’ve talked a lot about how these groups hate women, which they do, but they all have different hatreds for women. When it comes to queer people, it’s all kinda the same. To them, being queer is seen as feminine or sinful in the eyes of God. While they still hate gay and lesbian people, the entirety of the Manosphere hates trans and non-binary people even more. The attacks on trans people, especially POC trans people, is staggering. It’s known that trans people have a higher mortality rate than cisgender people, and these groups are one of the causes for it.

Every single one of these groups want a reality where 2SLGBTQI+ people are still in hiding, forced to express themselves in dark alleys and hidden bars. A lot of misogyny ties into homophobia, and therefore, the Manosphere’s hatred of gay people is just an extension of their hatred for women, or anything overtly different from their very narrow set of ideas for what men and women should be.

For a queer person like me, it’s scary for me to think of how many people subscribe to this ideology. It’s something that I worry about for other members of the queer community who can’t mask as well as others. I know I’ve talked about women for most of this, and they are absolutely a primary target, but queer people are also victims of violence from these men, whether it be physical or online.

There really hasn’t been a way to stop this. Every site that gets taken down; another one pops up. It’s time for someone to do anything to keep women and queer people safe. Here are my suggestions.

…

MODERATION

This seems like a broken record talking point from me, but with anything relating to the Internet, I am going to stress every time that we need better content moderation. These groups are largely allowed to go unregulated for huge swaths of time without anyone getting any sort of accountability measures levied against them. What is the use of moderation on apps and websites if they aren’t going to help?

While we can argue free speech law, at least in the U.S, all day, it does nothing when that speech is used to harm others. That’s not protected speech. Harassment and doxxing are not protected speech. While we know that content moderation is about as sad as it can be, it doesn’t have to be like this. We could pass laws that protect victims of stalking and online violence but considering the U.S government is about as old as dirt; it might not happen anytime soon.

In that case, it falls on social media and website hosting sites to find and delete hateful content. Yes, that is much easier said than done, but companies need to be incentivized to push towards a safer internet on that subject, especially with minors. Many of them have made it harder for kids to not be exposed to this type of rhetoric, and that’s scary. Kids are impressionable, and while I’m not for social media bans, I am for making sure kids stay safe online.

The next thing is that the authorities need to start taking cybercrimes seriously. The amount of abuse you have to receive before any preventative measures take place is not okay, and it’s actively causing a lot of people to end up physically abused or worse. When someone threatens a woman or queer person online, we have to believe they are serious. It’s been too many times where the police step in too late, and people end up dead.

The last thing would be comprehensive gun control, at least here in the U.S. Many of the shooters I mentioned earlier obtained their weapons legally. This goes hand in hand with content moderation. When someone’s posts become increasingly violent or extreme, we shouldn’t wait until victims are dead to stop them. This isn’t even about just mass shootings or INCEL shootings.

This is about things like domestic violence and rampant homophobia/transphobia. It’s not okay how easy in this country it is to buy a gun. Most responsible gun owners want stricter gun control, yet there are more and more stories of another person hurt by this type of extremism. We as a country need to come to a reckoning on what we want to protect, people, or this so-called notion of free speech that is just a way for men to harass women and gay people online.

These laws are not on the books. These laws are not being written. What needs to happen is for people like you and me to contact their representatives in Congress and ask them to stand for what we want. Remember, they work for us, not the other way around.

Find your House Representative

Find your Senators

In the meantime, it’s important for everyone to stay safe online. I have some tips that I use.

1. Use a browser that doesn't sell your data. This is how people can find where you live and work. I personally really like Firefox. If you can, also use a VPN. Firefox also has one that is pretty cheap that I really like. The other one that I’ve used that was good was NordVPN, but it was more expensive.

2. Google your name. I know it sounds pretentious, but like, do it. Does your address show up? Yeah. Mine did. Here’s a tutorial to get Google to take it down.

Honestly, if you’re going to be on the internet, follow the safety rules laid out in this terrible yet beautiful Garfield internet safety poster.

3. If you are being harassed, document all the cybercrimes against you. Evidence is key in court for restraining orders.

4. Learn how to protect yourself. Carry pepper spray or knives or other defense items if you feel your life is in danger. Take classes to use them properly if you want, but never be unprepared. It’s a sad reality of the world we live in, but it’s good to be prepared if someone is coming after you.

5. Cops may not help you. Learn the law and your rights in your state. If an attacker or stacker or INCEL comes after you, know you have a right to defend yourself from harm.

If you are being cyberbullied, reach out:

- Crisis Text Line - Free mental health support. Supports texting and whatsapp too.

- Trevor Project - LGBTQ+ anti suicide and mental health support hotline. Supports chatting.

- Suicide Hotline - Anonymous hotline if you need to chat.

CONCLUSION

I guess what I learned from this deep dive is that there are more pickup artists around now than I thought. On a real note, I went in with this baseline knowledge, but came out a changed person. This is pervasive. All the components of the Manosphere all lead back to the Alt Right pipeline. In a sense, this is just a subgroup of the online cults I covered in my last part. The only difference is its decentralized leaderless organization. Every other component is still there.

The world is such a beautiful place, but extremists can take hold of that really quickly and twist it towards anger and resentment. It’s our duty as enjoyers of the internet to do something. We need to write congress to pass laws about cyberbullying and harassment, we have to pressure social media companies to crack down on moderation, and we need to take it upon ourselves to teach the next generation of boys that this extremism isn’t the way to a happy and healthy life.

Again, I am glad neither one of my brothers is in this movement, but I can’t imagine how hard it is for someone who does. For the people who directly see this in their own families, I hope that they learn how harmful these groups are before it’s too late. The things we can all do is advocate for victims, fight for change, and call people out for the appropriation of The Matrix. It’s the only way we’ll get through this.

RESOURCES

HISTORY AND TERMINOLOGY

Basu, Tanya. “The ‘Manosphere’ Is Getting More Toxic as Angry Men Join the Incels.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 2 Apr. 2020, www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/07/349052/the-manosphere-is-getting-more-toxic-as-angry-men-join-the-incels/.

Baumgärtner, Maik, et al. “Hatred against Women: The Dark World of Extremist Misogyny.” DER SPIEGEL, DER SPIEGEL, 10 Mar. 2021, www.spiegel.de/international/germany/from-digital-hate-to-analog-violence-the-dark-world-of-extremist-misogyny-a-832ed3cb-21d1-4e84-8c28-089365e91a83.

Blake, Mariah. “Mad Men: Inside the Men’s Rights Movement-and the Army of Misogynists and Trolls It Spawned.” Mother Jones, 28 Jan. 2015, www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/warren-farrell-mens-rights-movement-feminism-misogyny-trolls/.

Ellis, Emma Grey. “Reddit’s ‘Manosphere’ and the Challenge of Quantifying Hate.” Wired, Conde Nast, 10 July 2019, www.wired.com/story/misogyny-reddit-research/.

“The Extremist Medicine Cabinet: A Guide to Online ‘Pills.’” Anti Defimation League, 6 Nov. 2019, www.adl.org/resources/blog/extremist-medicine-cabinet-guide-online-pills.

Faehrmann, Alexander, and Dr Steven Zech. “The Great Replacement in the Manosphere: Implications for Terrorism.” GNET, 30 Nov. 2023, gnet-research.org/2023/11/30/the-great-replacement-in-the-manosphere-implications-for-terrorism/.

Farrelll, Tracie, et al. “On the Use of Jargon and Word Embeddings to Explore Subculture within Reddit's Manosphere.” Open University, July 2020, oro.open.ac.uk/70529/1/WebSci2020%20(1).pdf.

Fountain, Aaron. “It’s Not Just White Incels. We Need to Talk about the Black Manosphere, Too.” The Black Youth Project, 28 Dec. 2018, blackyouthproject.com/its-not-just-white-incels-we-need-to-talk-about-the-black-manosphere-too/.

Jones, Annie. “Incels and the Manosphere: Tracking Men’s Movements Online.” STARS, May 2020, stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020/65/.

Lewis, Helen. “To Learn about the Far Right, Start with the ‘Manosphere.’” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 7 Aug. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/08/anti-feminism-gateway-far-right/595642/.

Lubsden, Karen. “‘“I Want to Kill You in Front of Your Children” Is Not a Threat. It’s an Expression of a Desire’: Discourses of Online Abuse, Trolling and Violence on r/MensRights.” University of Aberdeen, Apr. 2019, www.researchgate.net/publication/332601717_%27I_Want_to_Kill_You_in_Front_of_Your_Children_Is_Not_a_Threat_It%27s_an_Expression_of_a_Desire%27_Discourses_of_Online_Abuse_Trolling_and_Violence_on_rMensRights.

“Male Supremacy.” Southern Poverty Law Center, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/male-supremacy. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.

McCullough, Steve. “Online Misogyny: The ‘Manosphere.’” CMHR, 12 Sept. 2023, humanrights.ca/story/online-misogyny-manosphere.

“Misogyny: The Sites.” Southern Poverty Law Center, 1 Jan. 1970, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/misogyny-sites.

Woodward, Alexandra, et al. “Incels: Inside the World of Involuntary Celibates.” NYU, Dec. 2021, archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/63962/3/Incels_ Inside the World of Involuntary Celibates - Alexandra Woodward.pdf.

“The ‘Manosphere.’” ISD, 30 Jan. 2024, www.isdglobal.org/explainers/the-manosphere-explainer/.

“The ‘Manosphere’ - ISD.” Institute of Stategic Dialogue, 2022, www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Manosphere-ISD-External-August2022.pdf.

SHOOTINGS

Janik, Rachel. “‘I Laugh at The Death of Normies’: How Incels Are Celebrating the Toronto Mass Killing.” Southern Poverty Law Center, 24 Apr. 2018, www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/24/i-laugh-death-normies-how-incels-are-celebrating-toronto-mass-killing.

Nelson, Libby. “‘It’s a Way to Retrieve Your Manhood’: A Cultural Explanation of the Santa Barbara Shooting.” Vox, 29 May 2014, www.vox.com/2014/5/29/5754786/the-santa-barbara-shootings-and-angry-white-men.

ANDREW TATE

Artsy, Avishay. “How Andrew Tate Sells Men on Toxic Masculinity.” Vox, 10 Jan. 2023, www.vox.com/culture/2023/1/10/23547393/andrew-tate-toxic-masculinity-qa.

Das, Shanti. “Inside the Violent, Misogynistic World of Tiktok’s New Star, Andrew Tate.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 Aug. 2022, www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/06/andrew-tate-violent-misogynistic-world-of-tiktok-new-star.

Jennings, Rebecca. “The Indictment of Misogynist Influencer Andrew Tate, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 4 Jan. 2023, www.vox.com/culture/2023/1/4/23539528/andrew-tate-arrest-jail-rape-human-trafficking.

Miller, Lisa. “Tate-Pilled.” Intelligencer, Intelligencer, 14 Mar. 2023, nymag.com/intelligencer/article/andrew-tate-jail-investigation.html.

Moisescu, Cristiana, et al. “Andrew Tate Indicted on Human Trafficking and Rape Charges in Romania.” CNN, Cable News Network, 20 June 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/06/20/europe/andrew-tate-charges-trial-intl-gbr/index.html.

Radford, Antoinette. “Who Is Andrew Tate? The Self-Proclaimed Misogynist Influencer.” BBC News, BBC, 12 Mar. 2024, www.bbc.com/news/uk-64125045.

“Who Is Andrew Tate, the Misogynist Hero to Millions of Young Men?” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 30 Dec. 2022, www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/12/30/who-is-andrew-tate-the-misogynist-hero-to-millions-of-young-men?ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoKeuBhCoARIsAB4WxtcX0Hucla038Y3RMd2rD-4NdO4NvTtptZkmbb0o_jZQjzs1fSHCxlcaAg87EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds.

BOOKS

Bates, Laura. Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All. Sourcebooks, 2023.

Nagle, Angela. Kill All Normies Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. John Hunt Pub, 2018.

PODCASTS TO LISTEN TO

BEHIND THE BASTARDS

ANDREW TATE

Part One: Andrew Tate and the Mythopoetic Men's Movement

Part Two: Andrew Tate and the Mythopoetic Men's Movement

Part Three: The Andrew Tate Story

Part Four: The Andrew Tate Story