I thought the documentary had a narrative going in, and it is telling that it was revealed that they deceptively edited scenes to make the influencer seem even more misogynistic than they are (which they are). I think the guy with the fresh and fit podcast, I forgot his name, released an unedited clip where he had set up his camera to film in the background, and it showed that Louis' team actually told the girl to help clean up, and then she came right back, but they cut her out of the rest to make it look like he told her to go clean up and that she didn't return. These people are very good liars, very competent at what they do.
At the same time I think the documentary did nothing to address the REASON why these people are popular. They pin it on 2 poor guys who had really hard lives. I think one of the guys said his brother killed himself, and he was trying to live well in his memory. That was the only genuine moment in the entire documentary.
Why are men looking for meaning? It's because society has said, for 30+ years now, that men are unnecessary, worthless, patriarchal, misogynist... the bad guys. And all women are just perfect victims and never do anything wrong ever. But every man my age has a friend whose wife took everything, took their money and their kids away from them. I have a friend whose wife spent the last 6 months of their relationship building a legal case against him, pissing him off on purpose and recording his responses over the phone, set up hidden cameras in the house to literally destroy him. He's still trying to get his head around it and be present for his daughter.
THIS is one of the many many reasons men are getting more and more frustrated, and turning to people who can defy the mainstream narrative that men are worthless and just say "screw them, get yours".
For what it's worth I think these guys are predators, making money off men who are struggling to navigate an impossible situation where the majority of them will likely end up on the genetic ash heap because of where our society is going. Dating is not working. Marriages are not working. We have to figure out a new way cos we all know it isn't going back to monogamy and community before God, not that I think it should. But until we find that new way there are going to be more and more men wondering why they pay all the taxes, pay for everything, and then get shafted and have no rights.
Yes, there are some women who are bitter and callously stick it to all men for the treatment they experienced from some men in the past. In the extreme look at the case of Noelia Castillo, who at 25 was granted euthanasia, dispite not being sick, but because she didn't want to live because of the way she was treated by males. As far as paying more taxes goes, all of us are massively subsidizing deadbeat Dads and feckless men who commit crimes and vandalism of all sorts. Our taxes go to paying for the children they abandoned, the prisons where we house and feed them, and repairing the vandalism they commit. Women pay the highest price caring for their kids. I don't know if she's still alive, but a happily married woman called June Stephenson wrote a book about it called, Men are Not Cost Effective. Very enlightening. I truly sympathize with all the good men who receive a raw deal, especially working-class men who are responsible fathers and work so tirelessly to create a decent life. They are also paying for the bad actors and the billionaires who are bleeding the rest of us dry with their government contracts and tax dodges.
Have you noticed that conversations about men's struggles tend to get redirected very quickly? As a society, we have invested enormous resources into addressing women's issues, which is understandable. But when men's issues come up, the response is often dismissal rather than engagement: "work harder, be better, you're the problem."
When women raise concerns, men largely don't respond by listing competing male grievances. They don't point out that men die by suicide at four times the rate of women, or that men account for 91% of workplace deaths, or pivot to "men have it worse." Generally speaking, those concerns are met with legislation, funding and genuine support.
So why is it that when women are bitter and callous, as you say, it is men's fault? But when men are struggling and bitter, it is also men's fault? A more consistent approach would be to treat men's suffering the same way we treat women's, with dedicated support and genuine help. People who feel dismissed and demeaned, as men have been for going on 30 years now, tend to lash out. Telling men they are a problem while simultaneously telling them the world was built for them creates a contradiction that is hard to process, and harder still to respond to constructively.
To be clear, a fraction of one percent of men hold positions of institutional power. Pointing to that group and concluding that men as a class are privileged ignores the overwhelming majority of men who have very little control over their own circumstances, and for whom there is no meaningful support. It is work and provide, or die alone for men, but women have infinite social safety nets. It's always "women and children into the liferafts first".
What is genuinely striking is how little room there is for honest, non-judgemental discussion of male struggles. The response is almost always a redirect to women's experiences. Both things can be real. Empathy is not a finite resource, and making space for men's pain does not require diminishing anyone else's.
Monogamy, supported by a culture full of it as the ideal, is the social optimum. For raising children. Every alternative will be sub-optimal for society in general, tho there will be small niche groups where some other arrangement is better for the adults.
Many marriages actually are working, but for those without a marriage ideal, some are happy some not about being unmarried.
Along with mostly normal women, there are a few female predators, who are mostly, unfairly, ignored. Such predators are also bad.
The documentary wasn’t about the manosphere. It was about a narrow subset of grifters who have attached themselves to the manosphere. It would be like a documentary about Christianity focusing only on the fringe churches that exploit their followers to make money, or the church leaders who are pedophiles.
The ubiquitous root of this problem where young people are captured into a cult - what this manosphere belief system is - points to the digital media-enabled attention economy.
Finding a niche of potential malcontent victims that can be followers and then hitting them with psych ops to feed their malcontent victim mindset… and monetizing the digital media connection… this is the game being played.
The biggest lesson in life I have learned… much of the population sits on a razor’s edge of psychological dysfunction that makes them easy targets for manipulation, influence and capture. It was an epiphany I had during my corporate management leadership career dealing with employee reactions and motivations.
The old media was the calming influence for these people. The day would fray their highly-reactive nerves, but then the nightly news with Tom Brokaw would deliver to them a pragmatic and rational explanation to pull them back to normalcy. Today, because everyone can be a Tom Brokaw, not only is the news media not performing as the calming influence, it is doing the opposite… enflaming the psychological dysfunction to capture loyal followers.
“Buy this”, “support this”, “oppose this” and “vote for this” messaging is flowing like a raging river though the network and into the brains of people lacking the self-discipline to reject it.
The irony here is that the manosphere cult is a response to the feminist cult.
You lost me on the last two words: like suffrage never should have happened you echo Peter Thiel's sentiments; the PayPal/Palantir billionaire who led the boycott against N. Carolina to allow men access to women's bathrooms and is now gobbling up war/defense contracts and vacuuming up data to surveil us all.
A documentary that won’t be made any time soon: normal people who like being married and enjoy raising their own children.
Next documentary needed—the women who love the men of the manosphere
I thought the documentary had a narrative going in, and it is telling that it was revealed that they deceptively edited scenes to make the influencer seem even more misogynistic than they are (which they are). I think the guy with the fresh and fit podcast, I forgot his name, released an unedited clip where he had set up his camera to film in the background, and it showed that Louis' team actually told the girl to help clean up, and then she came right back, but they cut her out of the rest to make it look like he told her to go clean up and that she didn't return. These people are very good liars, very competent at what they do.
At the same time I think the documentary did nothing to address the REASON why these people are popular. They pin it on 2 poor guys who had really hard lives. I think one of the guys said his brother killed himself, and he was trying to live well in his memory. That was the only genuine moment in the entire documentary.
Why are men looking for meaning? It's because society has said, for 30+ years now, that men are unnecessary, worthless, patriarchal, misogynist... the bad guys. And all women are just perfect victims and never do anything wrong ever. But every man my age has a friend whose wife took everything, took their money and their kids away from them. I have a friend whose wife spent the last 6 months of their relationship building a legal case against him, pissing him off on purpose and recording his responses over the phone, set up hidden cameras in the house to literally destroy him. He's still trying to get his head around it and be present for his daughter.
THIS is one of the many many reasons men are getting more and more frustrated, and turning to people who can defy the mainstream narrative that men are worthless and just say "screw them, get yours".
For what it's worth I think these guys are predators, making money off men who are struggling to navigate an impossible situation where the majority of them will likely end up on the genetic ash heap because of where our society is going. Dating is not working. Marriages are not working. We have to figure out a new way cos we all know it isn't going back to monogamy and community before God, not that I think it should. But until we find that new way there are going to be more and more men wondering why they pay all the taxes, pay for everything, and then get shafted and have no rights.
Yes, there are some women who are bitter and callously stick it to all men for the treatment they experienced from some men in the past. In the extreme look at the case of Noelia Castillo, who at 25 was granted euthanasia, dispite not being sick, but because she didn't want to live because of the way she was treated by males. As far as paying more taxes goes, all of us are massively subsidizing deadbeat Dads and feckless men who commit crimes and vandalism of all sorts. Our taxes go to paying for the children they abandoned, the prisons where we house and feed them, and repairing the vandalism they commit. Women pay the highest price caring for their kids. I don't know if she's still alive, but a happily married woman called June Stephenson wrote a book about it called, Men are Not Cost Effective. Very enlightening. I truly sympathize with all the good men who receive a raw deal, especially working-class men who are responsible fathers and work so tirelessly to create a decent life. They are also paying for the bad actors and the billionaires who are bleeding the rest of us dry with their government contracts and tax dodges.
Have you noticed that conversations about men's struggles tend to get redirected very quickly? As a society, we have invested enormous resources into addressing women's issues, which is understandable. But when men's issues come up, the response is often dismissal rather than engagement: "work harder, be better, you're the problem."
When women raise concerns, men largely don't respond by listing competing male grievances. They don't point out that men die by suicide at four times the rate of women, or that men account for 91% of workplace deaths, or pivot to "men have it worse." Generally speaking, those concerns are met with legislation, funding and genuine support.
So why is it that when women are bitter and callous, as you say, it is men's fault? But when men are struggling and bitter, it is also men's fault? A more consistent approach would be to treat men's suffering the same way we treat women's, with dedicated support and genuine help. People who feel dismissed and demeaned, as men have been for going on 30 years now, tend to lash out. Telling men they are a problem while simultaneously telling them the world was built for them creates a contradiction that is hard to process, and harder still to respond to constructively.
To be clear, a fraction of one percent of men hold positions of institutional power. Pointing to that group and concluding that men as a class are privileged ignores the overwhelming majority of men who have very little control over their own circumstances, and for whom there is no meaningful support. It is work and provide, or die alone for men, but women have infinite social safety nets. It's always "women and children into the liferafts first".
What is genuinely striking is how little room there is for honest, non-judgemental discussion of male struggles. The response is almost always a redirect to women's experiences. Both things can be real. Empathy is not a finite resource, and making space for men's pain does not require diminishing anyone else's.
Monogamy, supported by a culture full of it as the ideal, is the social optimum. For raising children. Every alternative will be sub-optimal for society in general, tho there will be small niche groups where some other arrangement is better for the adults.
Many marriages actually are working, but for those without a marriage ideal, some are happy some not about being unmarried.
Along with mostly normal women, there are a few female predators, who are mostly, unfairly, ignored. Such predators are also bad.
The documentary wasn’t about the manosphere. It was about a narrow subset of grifters who have attached themselves to the manosphere. It would be like a documentary about Christianity focusing only on the fringe churches that exploit their followers to make money, or the church leaders who are pedophiles.
The ubiquitous root of this problem where young people are captured into a cult - what this manosphere belief system is - points to the digital media-enabled attention economy.
Finding a niche of potential malcontent victims that can be followers and then hitting them with psych ops to feed their malcontent victim mindset… and monetizing the digital media connection… this is the game being played.
The biggest lesson in life I have learned… much of the population sits on a razor’s edge of psychological dysfunction that makes them easy targets for manipulation, influence and capture. It was an epiphany I had during my corporate management leadership career dealing with employee reactions and motivations.
The old media was the calming influence for these people. The day would fray their highly-reactive nerves, but then the nightly news with Tom Brokaw would deliver to them a pragmatic and rational explanation to pull them back to normalcy. Today, because everyone can be a Tom Brokaw, not only is the news media not performing as the calming influence, it is doing the opposite… enflaming the psychological dysfunction to capture loyal followers.
“Buy this”, “support this”, “oppose this” and “vote for this” messaging is flowing like a raging river though the network and into the brains of people lacking the self-discipline to reject it.
The irony here is that the manosphere cult is a response to the feminist cult.
Everything is a cult war.
You lost me on the last two words: like suffrage never should have happened you echo Peter Thiel's sentiments; the PayPal/Palantir billionaire who led the boycott against N. Carolina to allow men access to women's bathrooms and is now gobbling up war/defense contracts and vacuuming up data to surveil us all.
This you?