By Freja Love
Documentary maker Louis Theroux has weighed in on the ‘manosphere’ and it’s as bad, if not worse, than we thought.
In the 90-minute Netflix show, we meet UK-born influencer Harrison Sullivan, better known as HSTikkyTokky, and his close friend Ed Matthews. From the US there’s Myron Gaines, Justin Waller and Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy, better known as Sneako.
Five men, different platforms, but broadly the same worldview: a messy Venn diagram of beliefs about masculinity, success and women’s place in the world. Most of it, I hope, will shock viewers.
We should all be worried. I have two younger brothers, and after watching this documentary they’re the first people I want to talk to about it. This is what scares me the most.
These men present their opinion as fact. I should have counted the number of times something was described as “the truth” – whether that was advice about making money, how to be “proper boys” (not “these little soy boys or gimps that walk around in the modern day”), how to live “outside the system”, or which conspiracy theories to believe.
One topic they are particularly confident about is women. What we want. What we should be.
(Did any of you get the call because no one asked me?)
According to Myron Gaines, because he “understands” women, he also “knows what’s best for them”
“Better than they do?” Louis asks
“Yes in many ways. That’s how women want it. They want a man who can lead and dominate them”
Cringe.
At one point, standing on a balcony, Justin Waller gestures towards the buildings around him, claiming, “Men build, invent and maintain society, that’s a fact.”
Louis looks unconvinced. “Don’t women do that too?”
Apparently not.
Justin is firm. Women are “by and large looking for husbands and want to have families”.
Another moment comes during Myron Gaines’ late-night livestream. He plays a video of a supposed neuroscientist claiming women “absorb and retain the DNA of every man they’ve been with via the sperm”.
“Ever wonder why a kid resembles an ex more than the father?” the clip asks. “This is usually why.”
(I have never wondered that, personally.)
Louis quickly points out the misinformation, but Myron doubles down, claiming there has been “some scientific data that reflects this”.
I dread to think what other nonsense has been shared as gospel across the thousands of episodes where Louis Theroux was not there to push back.
HSTikkyTokky, who promotes and profits from OnlyFans creators on his Telegram channel of around 500,000 people, repeatedly expresses disgust for women doing the very work he monetises.
“I think she’s disgusting bro. I think she’s absolutely repulsive as a person,” he says about Bonnie Blue. In the same breath he happily shows Louis a video of himself being “sucked off by a girl the night before”.
His latest venture was House of Heat – an OnlyFans content house where adult creators lived together and cross-promoted one another. He boosted their accounts across his own platforms, taking a percentage of the income generated.
He and Ed Matthews also film so-called “cheeky” content rating women at beaches and festivals, looking for girls in “the tartiest outfits”. Ed, who films women without their consent for these videos, also posts “predator sting” content… It feels contradictory.
Elsewhere, Myron invites a group women onto his podcast seemingly for the purpose of humiliating them. Their knowledge, jobs, “body counts” and appearances are all fair game but when they push back – which I’m certain is the point of the segment – they are labelled “pressed”, “triggered”, or told by viewers to “shut the f**k up”, along with a lame insult about their looks.
There is a word for this. It’s gaslighting. And the whole thing is grim.
The most baffling thing, though, is that all of these men insist they love women. Which means they are teaching young people that this is what loving women looks like.
At best it is backwards. At worst it is dangerous. And with two younger brothers navigating the world online, it’s beyond concerning.
The dangerous effects are starting to show. A study recently found that 31% of Gen Z men in their teens and twenties believe “a wife should always obey her husband”. The study’s co-author says social media has played a “huge role” in shifting attitudes worldwide, exposing boys to “shocking levels of misogyny, both online and offline”. Terrifyingly, many young men are simply “mimicking what they see online without really understanding what that actually means”.
Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have all taken action against prominent figures, such as Andrew Tate, who was banned for violating policies on hate speech. But while governments try to keep up with big tech and implement new laws to govern the world online, it can feel like a losing battle.
So what exactly is it about women that these men claim to love?
Not much, it seems.
Across the entire documentary there is barely a single moment where these men describe liking a woman for who she is. The women they speak about exist mainly in terms of what they provide: children, loyalty, domestic labour, sex.
Justin praises his baby mama, Kristen for giving him two children and being open to threesomes. The “lanes they’re in”, he explains, are clear: “she handles diapers and cleaning,” while he “provides”.
That is about as deep as the description goes.
I am not sure whether these men genuinely know nothing about the women in their lives, or whether this really is all they care about. Probably both.
Young women reading this, please, please choose a partner who wants to know – and appreciate – everything about you and likes you for something real. I promise you, they do exist.
Another thing that frightens me is the sheer volume of content people like this are producing. If you are ‘doomscrolling,’ as so many teens and young men are, it would be almost impossible to avoid it entirely – and once you hear something often enough, what stops it starting to sink in?
Research has found social media algorithms amplify extreme content, such as misogynistic posts, which normalises harmful ideologies for young people. In an algorithmic modelling study by UCL, the University of Kent and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the level of misogynistic content in the “For You” page of TikTok accounts increased fourfold in just five days on the platform.
The documentary is full of young men approaching the manosphere influencers, shaking their hands, asking for photos, shouting their names and consuming their content. They say young people’s brains are sponges, and these men are lucky for the cognitive plasticity of youth.
HSTikkyTokky insists that 13-15 year olds are not his main demographic, but it does not take much digging to see that younger boys are very much part of the audience. At one point, Justin Waller even congratulates a “13-year-old follower who is making more money than their parents”.
So they know who is watching.
And the reality is that many teenagers probably know more about influencers’ lives and opinions than they do about the people around them, even their own families. Spend enough time on TikTok or Youtube Shorts and those voices start to feel familiar, even authoritative. Before long, the language spreads: boys barking at female teachers, repeating misogynistic phrases, absorbing the idea that there is only one acceptable way to be a man.
The men in the documentary want to make it very clear that they DO NOT CARE what other people think, or how they come across online. But whenever Louis pushes for deeper answers about why they do what they do, the mood shifts. They become cagey.
“Here we go, you’re setting me up…” Justin complains at one point. HS calls him a tw*t.
They hate that Louis Theroux, the investigative journalist, is ‘digging’.
But if they genuinely do not care what people think, how do we hold them accountable?
We can tell young people the content is misleading or harmful. We can warn them not to take it seriously. But if the voices on their screens are louder, more constant and more confident, we may already be fighting a losing battle.
And that is something I find hard to shake.
The documentary itself is compelling – I watched in equal parts fascination and horror – but when it ended I mostly felt sad.
Sad for the young men absorbing this worldview. Sad for my brothers who could have this nonsense pushed to them in feed or have a friend influenced by the dangerous narrative after seeing it too many times online. At least my brothers have me to tell them what’s up.
I’m angry for the young women who will be forced to deal with the dangerous consequences.
And disappointed that, somehow, this is where we are again.
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