Significant global shifts in boys and young men are prompting serious conversations and heightened awareness of these mental health changes.

The world is waking up to significant cultural shifts that have had a profound impact on boys and young men growing up. Callous influencers are reportedly causing a crisis among young men, sparking debate on toxic masculinity and incels. Within this group of boys and men, crimes previously unthought of by young boys are increasingly making headlines worldwide, and society is asking, “Why?”

A recent Gallup poll, using aggregated data from 2023 and 2024, found that 25% of American men between the ages of 15 and 34 reported feeling very lonely the day before. This is far higher than the national average of 18% and the total for young women, which is likewise 18%. Is this related to what we are experiencing in the manosphere?

One question is, “What does the manosphere mean?” Are enough of us conversant to know what the term means and how it has impacted various aspects of our lives, including culture, law, and politics?

The word “manosphere” describes the vast network of anti-feminist websites, blogs, and forums that spread messages of male superiority and sexism. It promotes the unacceptability of emotions (see my article) and emphasizes power, wealth, and the inferiority of girls and women, who are seen as mere tools for their pleasure.

The rise of the “manosphere” — a network of online communities promoting male supremacy and anti-feminist ideologies — has become one of the most pressing concerns for parents, educators, and policymakers in 2025. With the success of Netflix’s drama “Adolescence” bringing these issues into mainstream discussion, and ongoing concerns about misogynistic influencers like Andrew Tate, understanding how young boys are being targeted and radicalized online has never been more critical.

Understanding the Manosphere: Definition and Structure

The manosphere is an international network of social media influencers and communities promoting male supremacy and antifeminist ideologies. It encompasses various online groups that create, consume, and distribute content aimed at men and boys, all largely united by anti-feminist messaging. These communities discuss masculinity alongside topics such as health, gaming, politics, and finance, but consistently frame their content through a lens that positions women and feminism as the root of men’s problems.

What makes the manosphere particularly insidious is how it disguises hateful rhetoric through memes, comedy, and trolling, presenting extremist content as self-help, entertainment, and tools for financial success. This packaging makes it difficult for parents to identify harmful content and for children to recognize the extreme messages they’re being exposed to.

The manosphere includes multiple interconnected groups with different focuses but shared anti-feminist philosophies. These range from “Men’s Rights Activists” to more extreme communities like “incels” (involuntarily celibate), who view themselves as unsuccessful in obtaining romantic relationships and blame women for their perceived failures. Incels have become particularly notorious due to their association with real-world violence and their ideologies that view women as genetically inferior, manipulative, and simultaneously owing men sex while being shamed for having sexual agency.

The Scale of Exposure Among Young Boys

Recent research reveals the alarming extent to which young boys are being exposed to manosphere content. Hope not Hate found that 80% of 16–17-year-old boys in the UK had consumed content created by Andrew Tate, the most prominent manosphere influencer. Even more concerning, 59% of boys accessed manosphere content through innocent and unrelated searches, meaning most adolescent boys will encounter this material without actively seeking it out.

The reach extends beyond individual influencers. Research indicates that 50% of young men aged 16–24 now believe feminism makes it more difficult for men to succeed, demonstrating how deeply these messages are penetrating young people’s worldviews about gender relations and equality.

What I’ve found is that the manosphere is highly effective at targeting the legitimate fears and anxieties of boys and young men and then scapegoating women as the root of all their problems. This targeting is not accidental but represents a sophisticated understanding of adolescent male psychology and social media algorithms.

Video Games: The Gateway to the Manosphere

Video games play a particularly significant role in introducing young boys to manosphere ideologies. The connection isn’t just about the games themselves, but how gaming culture intersects with broader online ecosystems that normalize misogynistic attitudes.

Many video games rely on problematic gender representations that position “successful” men as strong, wealthy, aggressive, and heterosexual. At the same time, women are represented as highly sexualized objects or relegated to supportive roles. These stereotypical portrayals create a foundation where manosphere ideologies can take root and seem normal to impressionable young players.

Research on incels has shown how spending long periods on social media and gaming sites exposes young men and boys to incel content. Gaming becomes particularly dangerous when combined with social isolation. Too much time playing video games, along with a lack of a social life and limited interaction with women and girls, have been stated by men as reasons for identifying themselves as an incel.

The escapism that gaming provides can become a refuge where prejudice goes unchallenged, allowing harmful ideologies to flourish. Many incels find comfort in online gaming environments where misogynistic views are normalized and rarely confronted.

Social Media Algorithms: The Radicalization Machine

Social media platforms have become sophisticated tools for spreading manosphere content through their algorithmic systems. Due to platforms such as TikTok, X, and Instagram prioritizing engagement and profit over content quality or equality, algorithms further contribute to the spread of incel ideologies.

The mechanics of this spread are particularly insidious. Misogynistic content elicits intense reactions and controversial discussions, which tend to attract more likes, shares, comments, and views. Such content is therefore more likely to be recommended and circulated by algorithms, regardless of the harms it may cause. This creates a feedback loop where the most extreme and harmful content gets the widest distribution.

Social media platforms and search engines enable the manosphere’s hatred of women and even profit from their content. Everyone has to be aware of the spread of this toxic misogyny and how it can radicalize young men and lead to real-life cases of harassment, violence, and mass murder.

The Podcast and Streaming Ecosystem

Podcasts have emerged as a particularly powerful medium for spreading manosphere ideologies. Video game streamers who espouse rightwing views often use streaming platforms like Rumble and social media websites such as X to spread gender-based hate. While some may not identify as incels or explicitly tell followers to join incel communities, their views align with incel ideologies.

The podcast format is especially effective because it can oversimplify complex social and political issues, risking misinformation and polarization. Unlike traditional media, podcasts often lack editorial oversight and can present extreme views as reasonable commentary. Some podcast personalities extend their influence by monetizing their personas, selling branded merchandise, offering premium content, and hosting subscriber-only events, creating financial incentives for increasingly extreme content.

These platforms regularly boast about being immune to “cancel culture.” However, this means that they often allow streamers and influencers to disseminate misogynistic worldviews, conspiracy theories, and ideologies associated with the manosphere more broadly.

The Normalization Process and Psychological Impact

Repeated exposure across various platforms creates a strong normalizing effect. Men and boys’ repeated exposure to social media that promotes incel ideology can normalize such perspectives. When young people encounter the same messages on gaming streams, TikTok videos, podcasts, and social media posts, these extreme views begin to appear mainstream and acceptable.

The manosphere employs an expansive lexicon designed to incite hatred towards women and fuel rivalry between men. Terms like “red pill,” “alpha,” “sigma,” “beta,” and derogatory language like “foid” (female humanoid) and “AWALT” (All Women Are Like That) create an insider language that reinforces group identity while dehumanizing women.

Much of the content spreading in the manosphere is based on disinformation or pseudoscientific theories that provide easy frameworks for men to assess their status while blaming women for their problems. For example, the “80/20 rule” refers to the pseudoscientific theory that 80% of women are only attracted to the top 20% of men, used to justify sexual and romantic rejection as women’s fault rather than encouraging self-reflection or improvement.

The content also promotes dangerous physical transformations through “looksmaxxing” — extreme measures, including facial surgery, designed to increase perceived sexual value. These practices can lead to body dysmorphia, dangerous procedures, and unrealistic expectations about physical appearance and social success.

The manosphere creates multiple interconnected problems for society that extend far beyond individual attitudes and behaviors. Preliminary data suggest that the manosphere is encouraging sexist attitudes, exacerbating existing inequalities in schools, and spreading dangerous messages about mental health.

Violence and Extremism

There have been documented incidents of real-world violence linked to manosphere content. Multiple acts of extreme violence and even murder have been attributed to groups within the manosphere, particularly incels. While not everyone who engages with this content will commit violence, the ideologies actively glorify violence against women and normalize aggressive behavior as an essential part of masculinity. Picture the young men with the tiki torches in the Charlottesville incident.

The violence isn’t limited to physical acts. Boys are repeating manosphere talking points in school and even harassing female teachers. The digital consumption of this content translates directly into real-world harassment and intimidation of women and girls.

Educational Disruption

Teachers report that gender equality has become one of the most challenging subjects to teach, with many students refusing to believe sexism is a real problem. The manosphere’s influence has made classroom discussions about gender, equality, and respect increasingly challenging as students arrive with pre-formed hostile attitudes toward these concepts.

Mental Health Consequences

Paradoxically, while claiming to help men, manosphere content actually harms boys and young men by promoting unrealistic expectations, extreme physical transformations, and poor self-esteem. The content preys on vulnerabilities and insecurities of boys, especially those related to social isolation and sexual rejection. Still, it offers solutions that often worsen mental health problems and can lead to suicide in extreme cases.

The manosphere promotes a view of masculinity that is rigid, aggressive, and defined in opposition to women and femininity. This narrow definition of acceptable male behavior can be psychologically damaging for boys who don’t fit these expectations or who have more complex emotional needs.

Evidence-Based Interventions and Solutions

Current research suggests several evidence-based approaches to help young boys and prevent further radicalization:

Parental Engagement Strategies

Parents need to actively engage with their children’s online consumption. Research shows children are more likely to encounter harmful content when parents are less involved in their online activities. Specific strategies include:

Exploring Online Content Together: Watching content related to children’s hobbies and sending them content you think they would enjoy can help train algorithms to promote more moderate content, while also opening avenues for discussion. Engaging online with children should focus on understanding why they enjoy specific influencers rather than immediately intervening or critiquing.

Open-Ended Communication: Parents should ask simple questions, such as “How do boys in your class talk about girls?” or “Have you ever heard of…?” without judgment, thereby creating a safe space for discussion. What parents hear may be shocking, but approaching it with curiosity rather than dismissal helps maintain open communication channels.

Recognizing Warning Signs: Changes in how boys talk about women and girls, withdrawal from family and friends, and frequent use of manosphere terminology can indicate problematic influence. However, parents shouldn’t panic if children use these terms occasionally, as they may not fully understand their meanings.

Media Literacy Education

Teaching children to be skeptical about online content can protect them from misinformation. This includes helping them question statistics, “academic” reports, and influencer claims they encounter. Research suggests that exposing children to misinformation with proper oversight can actually inoculate them against future manipulation.

Asking children why they trust specific influencers and where they think their friends get information helps develop fact-checking skills without seeming like formal instruction. The focus should be on developing critical thinking rather than simply prohibiting certain content.

Institutional Responses

Schools require more effective support and resources to address these issues. Recent guidance on teaching about misogyny in schools is welcome, but broader social institutions need to develop comprehensive interventions to prevent radicalization.

There’s a need for more research on the specific mechanisms by which young people are influenced to join misogynistic spaces, including what specific streamers and influencers they engage with. Government policy should be explicitly informed by research on gender-based violence to tackle this as a gender-based issue rather than a general extremism problem.

Platform Accountability

Resistance or outright denial of their role in creating and maintaining this unhealthy culture of the manosphere is apparent. But, despite this obvious financial resistance, the research suggests urgent needs for digital platform reform:

Algorithm Reform: Platforms must prioritize safety over engagement in their recommendation systems, shifting away from algorithms that amplify controversial content solely because it generates interaction. The main issue, in addition to the damage they can do, is that profit is driving them.

Content Moderation: Stronger policies against gender-based hate speech across all platforms, with consistent enforcement that doesn’t rely on claims of protecting “free speech” to avoid responsibility.

Alternative Spaces: Creating positive online communities that offer belonging and male role models without toxicity, providing healthy alternatives to manosphere content.

Professional Support Systems

When concerning behaviors develop, resources are available, including mental health services through organizations like Young Minds, counter-extremism guidance, and government services like the ACT Early radicalization helpline. These services provide support without criminalizing young people, focusing on intervention and education rather than punishment.

The Path Forward

The increase in behavior associated with incel radicalization does not happen in isolation. Both offline and digital environments, including online games, which normalize misogyny and interconnected prejudice, lead to societies validating impressionable young boys’ anger towards women.

Addressing this crisis requires coordinated action from multiple stakeholders. Parents need better tools and education to engage with their children’s online lives. Schools require resources and training to address these issues in an age-appropriate manner. Digital platforms need to take responsibility for the content they amplify and profit from. Policymakers need to understand this as a serious threat to gender equality and public safety.

Most importantly, we need to provide young boys with positive models of masculinity that don’t depend on the devaluation of women and girls. This means creating spaces where boys can explore their identities, process their emotions, and develop healthy relationships without being told that aggression, dominance, and misogyny are essential components of being male.

The research consistently shows that while the manosphere poses serious risks to young boys and society, early intervention, media literacy, and supportive family engagement can help protect vulnerable youth from its harmful influences. The challenge is implementing these solutions at scale before more young people are radicalized and more harm is done to both the boys themselves and the women and girls in their communities.