Research shows how manosphere draws boys into misogyny

A doctoral study at Tampere University, reported by Yle, shows how misogynistic online communities known as the manosphere use stories to undermine gender equality.

The manosphere is a network of online communities that includes men’s rights movements, incel communities and networks of male influencers.

Researcher Matias Nurminen found that emotionally engaging stories that spread effectively online strengthen the communities’ group identity. They can also normalise anti-feminist and misogynistic attitudes.

The stories may offer boys advice on their appearance or even normalise violence against women.

Memes make the manosphere more accessible

Nurminen’s first contact with online men’s communities came more than 10 years ago, when he became interested in online seduction practitioners and the stories they created about seduction.

“A culture emerged online as early as the beginning of the 2000s in which men sold other men advice on seducing women,” Nurminen said, according to Yle.

At some point, the men who had been selling seduction advice became radicalised, and their message turned misogynistic. Nurminen began his doctoral research around the same time, when the manosphere was still a marginal phenomenon.

Nurminen considers storytelling, references to popular culture and memes the main factors behind the phenomenon’s move into the mainstream.

“They have made the manosphere easy to approach and easy to share.”

One example of popular culture’s influence on the manosphere is the concept of the red pill. The term refers to the film The Matrix, in which the main character chooses whether to take a red pill to see the truth about the world around him or continue living in a happy fantasy.

In the manosphere, the supposed truth is that men are being oppressed and that a feminist conspiracy exists.

Stories promote a misogynistic ideology

In addition to memes and film references, the manosphere uses stories to influence its audiences.

According to Nurminen, one of its most common forms of storytelling is the counter-narrative. Counter-narratives have traditionally been seen as a way for oppressed and marginalised groups to make their voices heard.

In the manosphere, however, a misogynistic and anti-feminist agenda is packaged as a counter-narrative in which men are portrayed as oppressed and discriminated against, and as victims of bullying by cruel feminists.

“The stories may appear to be personal experiences, but their purpose is to guide the audience towards a particular ideological interpretation,” Nurminen said.

Social media and its operating logic have also contributed to the manosphere’s rise into the mainstream. The most shocking content receives the most attention.

At the top of the manosphere’s communities are celebrity influencers such as Andrew Tate, whose message is systematically distributed to thousands of followers, Nurminen said.

The most important target groups are boys and young men, who are sold the idea that a man should be a successful alpha male.

For some people involved in the communities, promoting the ideology is a business in which money is made from the insecurities of men and boys.

Nurminen said the manosphere also shares advice on exploiting women. He cited the loverboy tactic used by Andrew Tate, in which a woman is deceived into sex work by someone who pretends to be romantically interested in her.

Manosphere narrows the image of men

Nurminen said that preventing the spread of misogynistic and polarising online content requires narrative literacy: the ability to recognise how stories influence emotions, identities and worldviews.

“It is always worth considering who is telling the story and for what reason.”