My foray into the Manosphere
Research by a femme leftist, post 2024 US election
My algorithm is full of queer femmes and weird food videos, and I kept hearing on the news that Trump had done an interview on Joe Rogan days before the election, I asked my male partner if he knew who Joe Rogan was. He was like, where have you been? We realized that, though we are both leftists, our online algorithms introduce us to vastly different content. While he has been mildly awash in the edges of the Manosphere (see: misogny and queerphobia of different flavors) for basically his whole time online, my first exploration into the Manosphere had to be intentionally sought out and arrived at after the 2024 US election (so like, last month).
Through Joe Rogan I also discovered Andrew Tate who apparently helped launch what’s now known as the Mansophere online, and also learned that people on the right literally talk about “taking the red pill” (see: using a Matrix reference to now relate to being radicalized on the right with a big dose of transphobia across the board, and black pill being further into a nihilistic right that includes incels). The ironic thing is, The Matrix was created by two people who are now out as trans women (not noted by the Manosphere adherents).
So I decided to do some collegiate level research into the Manosphere, something I had vaguely known about, but was not interested in looking more into unless I needed to. And after the 2024 election I realized I needed to, to at least have some semblance of what might be to come, and how we got here. And also, maybe tips and tricks for how to get the far left to take the center stage of the Democratic party like the far right did with the Republicans.
To be clear, I’m not going on this rabbit hole search because I’m like, “oh man how did Joe and Kamala lose the election?” For my own self, I think I know how the Democrats lost the election, or at least how they inspired me to vote third party for the first time in my life. In my head the Democrats are just as bad when it comes to war and border politics and actual principles, and unfortunately for them those are things that I put a lot of my vote on. The genocide in Gaza, the amping up talk of border security, the walking back any talk of police accountability or transgender protection, and just being in bed with money in general has finally tipped me to the point that I see them almost the same as the Republicans. Except, the Republicans were coopted by the far right, so how do we on the left do the same with the milk toast Democrats?
I wanted to know how the far right gained power, if only in an attempt to see a path forward in politics for the far left (the actual leftist faction of America, not the so called “radical left” that Trump was trying to paint Kamala’s milk toast centrist ideas as).
My first stop in the journey, just because it was being talked about days before the election, was the Joe Rogan 3 hour interviews with Trump, Elon Musk and Vance. I buckled up, got a coffee, and prepared to detach from everything that makes me, me, and just watch with curiosity. I’ve met guys like them my whole life: trolls who find people’s buttons and then accuse others (most times women) of “being emotional” and “not logical” when we’re just trying to “have a debate” (and that debate has to do with your humanity as a women, a queer person, a poor person or a person of color). This shit winds me up so much, and so to be able to watch and study from afar as two conservative white men talk among themselves is much easier on my heart rate. But to be clear, I know these guys. I’ve met them a million times. But I’ve mostly tried to fight them or avoid them, I’ve never truly tried to watch them and find the chinks in their armour.
I will say, at this point, after logging about 20+ hours of Rogan, my friends and family are starting to side eye me a little bit. Like, “there must be something in that that you don’t mind, or else how can you stomach watching it?” I think they are worried I’m going to fall victim to these man babies.
I definitely don’t think I will, as a person who wants to abolish prisons, borders and gender roles, but I guess who knows? A few things I was shocked by right away: Elon Musk’s blatantly obvious eugenic views. He is truly the dark horse of this election. I have not heard the words “high IQ” and “strong versus weak” used to describe humans more in 20 years than I did within those few hours of Musk musing with Rogan.
Other things I’ve learned from my research is: Joe Rogan, and many others in the Manosphere are obsessed with transgender women. Like, obsessed. If they can shoe horn it into any conversation, they will. And it’s particularly fascinating because so many of them claim to be libertarians, and are all about personal freedom (including the right to abortion). But getting gender affirming surgery or simply asking someone to use different pronouns? They absolutely do not see the hypocrisy in their freedom worldview by making fun of trans people and saying they aren’t real and “need to grow up and get a job”. What happened to your “live and let live” attitude? Oh, letting people have freedom means you might be a little more queer than you realized? I’m pretty sure internalized homophobia is at the root of the transgender culture crusade on the right.
This “grow up and get a job” rhetoric is also kind of applied to all leftist or left of center culture issues. They will wax on and off about how “if people got jobs they wouldn’t be in their feelings so much and coming up with new identities”. I’ve heard this kind of talk my whole life when at protests, with cars driving past saying to “get a job”. As if, because you care about something outside of the monetary system and have principles that include your fellow humans, that means you are not a serious person and must not “have a job”.
When they start talking about how monetary and lobbying interests run the government, I agree even if I don’t arrive at the same conclusions. I get the anti-establishment appeal, obviously power corrupts. Where I go on to say that it’s a colonialist/ racist/ sexist system designed to extract wealth from the masses and give to the few, they usually go on the “work harder, make different choices” route. Which I can see could be appealing and empowering for young men to hear, to feel that they have a choice to “make it” instead of the system being rigged against them.
Which is what I’m still currently trying to figure out though is how they can square away criticizing the systemic corruption, while also still holding individuals without power accountable instead of the systems. And they do blame systems in particular cases, for example they are also very stuck on big pharma (which I agree is a problem!) However we arrive in different places and they take the anti-vaccine angle a lot of times. I’m not sure how we got here since anti-vax used to be more of a leftist conspiracy issue, not right wing one in America, which is also something I’m interested in exploring (the flipping of sides from left to right).
I also don’t get the masculine “be a hero” appeal as it seems super self aggrandizing and Marvel-esque, but my straight male partner (who is also leftist, and has been awash in Manosphere for years) says he was brought up with the idea of the “hero” male ideal, and he still finds it comforting though at the same time he is able to parse all the supremacy aspects of it (i.e. watching Westerns, etc). Obviously I have a long way to go to understanding, and I’m treating it like a puzzle to solve, not like a club to join. Don’t worry!
Alright, well it’s time for me to tuck into the next episode of my Joe Rogan stack- today it’s Jordan Peterson (someone I know to be “bad” in left circles, but have no idea who he is or what particular flavor of the Manosphere he inhabits). I do not recommend doing this to yourself unless you are truly sure that you are allergic to toxic masculinity, and then if that’s the case you can watch all you want. Well, that statement still pending. I’ll keep you posted. And please check in on me if I start saying things like “people just need to work harder” and “let’s bring back American values”. Make no mistake, I’m ready to tear it down and create an all new space in this settler colonial land. My research into the far right is an effort to make this dream on the left a reality, and to figure out what the next four years might look like and how I can best navigate it with my community.
