Rap star and well-regarded British documentarian Louis Theroux recently released a documentary called “Inside the Manosphere.” It was one of the best things I’ve seen.
It mostly consisted of interviewing high-profile manosphere stars. People like Myron Gaines, Sneako, and a cadre of other somewhat less relevant people who I’d never heard of but apparently have millions of viewers like a fellow called HSTikkyTokky (or HS for short). It contained a number of interesting revelations about the manosphere figures, but perhaps the clearest one was how profoundly vacuous the leading manosphere figures are.
I think Nick Fuentes is vile but I can at least see his appeal. He’s very funny and reasonably clever (though sadly his cleverness does not carry over to any aptitude in forming true beliefs). But across the board, the manosphere guys in the documentary just seemed to be devoid of virtues. They were neither clever, decent, nor particularly funny. Behind the macho posturing and the fancy cars, there was just a void.
The manosphere, for those above the age of 30 and consequently unaware, is a cultural movement oriented around a loose cluster of ideas: the importance of financial success, the claimed fact that women are success-hungry gremlins who will immediately leave you if they can find someone with more money and status, the importance of traditional gender roles, a dismissive view of women, general right-wing populist politics, and more. The manosphere stars like Andrew Tate, Myron Gaines, and Sneako also share a tendency to conspicuously display wealth. They wear fancy watches, drive nice cars, prominently display young and scantily clad models in their orbit, and flaunt their expensive housing arrangements.
(Aside: I’ve always thought some EA billionaire should make a rap video where they brag about their extensive wealth, but instead of displaying fancy cars and watches, they instead show off the big checks they write to the Against Malaria Foundation. Please Dustin Moskovitz, you have the opportunity to do the funniest thing!)
Louis Theroux, for those under the age of 30 and consequently unaware, is a prominent British film-maker. His films very much lean into giving people the rope with which they hang themselves. He asks them pointed questions that get them talking and often they say outrageous and ridiculous things. This episode was no exception.
One of the more surprising bits of the video was the unchecked braindead conspiracism running throughout. The aforementioned HS joined a chant of “fuck the Jews,” and Myron Gaines claimed that Theroux was “owned by the fucking Jews.” Someone else in the video claimed the Jews “use vibrations that are going to get you down!” (The “cellphones/5G cause cancer,” claim is totally bogus, for those wondering, yet amazingly manages to be the least nutty bit of the claim.)
It honestly made me nostalgic for the old-school conspiracy theorists. At least they were interested in giving reasons for what they believed. The manosphere guys, in contrast, seemed to have a bizarrely post-modern worldview where beliefs were wholly beyond the reach of reason. They rarely bothered giving arguments for their extreme views, preferring instead to double down and describe them in increasingly “based” ways. When one 𝕏watches clips of the manosphere people, one witnesses a bizarre disregard for rationality—even as they tout its virtues when insulting women for their alleged irrationality.
One example of this occurred when HS (who advertises Only Fans models on his show) said he’d disown his daughter if she did Only Fans and then, to explain, clarified that it was similar to how he’d disown his son if his son had come out gay. Louis replied that being gay is considered normal these days and was asked what was so wrong with it. “Not my son,” HS kept repeating, “just not my son.” It’s as if these people have never considered trying to argue for their beliefs—it’s all just macho posturing.
The other thing that was interesting about the people in the video was that they seemed extremely stupid. Sneako, for instance, suggested that the strong evidence that there was a Satanic cabal running the world was that some magazine covers displayed a person with one eye covered (Satanic apparently) and that some celebrities pretend to be devils in music videos. Powerful brain genius Myron complained about the mainstream media’s “disingenuine,” reporting.
HS similarly explained that higher powers “at the top of the world,” are trying to “keep everyone down.” When Louis asked if the Matrix was real, he replied “of course it’s real.” He explained, “the people at the top of the world—why would they want the people below them to make a load of money and not serve them. It doesn’t make sense.” It is a very strange thing indeed to try to deduce the existence of a major global conspiracy from first principles, only to overlook the simplest bit of econ 101—namely, that people benefit from others doing well. In addition, the impacts that one can have on themselves from affecting others are fairly negligible so we shouldn’t expect…okay, sorry, I’ll stop, I feel like I’m insulting your intelligence by explaining such basic points.
HS later replied to a critic who claimed that it’s better to be poor and happy than rich and exploitative (this came up in response to the fact that HS markets Only Fans on his show despite denouncing Only Fans as evil—this would be a bit like marketing factory farmed meat on my blog). HS’s response was to ask why the critic thought it was a bad thing to be rich. But that’s obviously not what anyone with minimal understanding of the barest rudiments of rationality or the English language could think was implied. Compare: “I’d rather have neither a banana nor be beaten to death with a shovel than have a banana but be beaten to death with a shovel.” “So you’re saying bananas are bad?”
Another thing that was notable was that all the people in the video seemed like very bad people. They would tout the wickedness of the porn industry, only to go on to promote it to their fans. When asked, they would clarify that they “don’t give a fuck,” which is one hell of a way to explain why you do things that you know to be immoral. HS also ran an investment scam, which Louis invested a bit of money in, and then lost most of it.
HS’s crew also filmed a video that involved meeting a local alleged predator who had supposedly tried to meet up with an underage girl. They proceeded to beat him quite savagely. These predator stings are a common thing for HS—in another case, the predator was made to eat dog food. I am all for catching predators, but this sort of pugilistic attempt to turn it into video content without due process is sick.
There were also a number of clips that were completely bizarre. For example, when Louis went on Myron’s podcast and noted, “the stream started with Myron talking to a dating coach and penis extension expert named Sterling Cooper.” Very strange! My favorite clip from the whole show was 𝕏Louis’s stunned reaction to the claim displayed on Myron’s podcast—from an Instagram reel no less—that when women have many partners, their sperm enters their DNA and bloodstream, thus leading their future children to resemble their previous partners.
HS at one point said (in front of his Mom, no less) “Have I said in a clip ‘fuck the Jews.’ Yes. Does that mean I’m anti-semitic? No!” Justin Waller, another guy who appeared in the video, was asked if he had kids. Here was the conversation:
L: "So how many kids have you got?"
J: "I've got some, yeah."
L: "You know how many you've got, right?"
J: "Yeah, I think so."
L: "What's the number?"
J: "It's two."
There was also a bit when HS began talking directly to the camera, as if it was a live-stream, seeming not to understand the difference between filming for a documentary and a live-stream.
The last notable theme of the video was how much the manosphere stars seemed to wilt in the face of pushback. On podcasts, they’d be brash, argumentative, and abrasive. But Louis would simply ask them questions and stare them down. Almost always, their mannerisms would begin to resemble those of a small dog. When Myron Gaines was questioned by Louis about his “one-way monogamy”—his policy of sleeping with other people without permitting his girlfriend to do so—he 𝕏seemed to melt in real time, like a vampire exposed to the sun, before sort of meekly and apologetically ordering his girlfriend to clean the room.
Louis also talked to HS in front of HS’s Mom, who HS described as very opposed to racism, homophobia, sexism, etc (he explained that she “hates that shit.” In context, it was very bizarre: a bit like saying “oh yeah, the massacre of the innocent, pillaging, torture—my Mom hates that shit. Injustice too.”) With his Mom around, he became meeker. Beneath the public machismo, it seems that a lot of the guys are able to behave relatively normally in ordinary life.
What do we learn from the documentary? Here is the biggest thing I take away. Some of the more popular people who are looked up to by millions of teenagers are pathologically devoid of all virtues. Material success has displaced wisdom, intelligence, and decency as the hallmark of success. We are increasingly in a brazenly nihilistic culture that’s about fame and popularity more than virtue and kindness. In such a culture, these vacuous and craven posers are just about what you’d expect. Ideally society would shift in the direction of looking up to the based value-mogging Übermensch gigachad ideal male role model—Derek Parfit—rather than these guys.
