Manosphere Influencers Explain Women Are The Problem, Then Check If Mum’s Made Dinner

There is a particular genre of man currently flourishing online, and in Inside the Manosphere, Louis Theroux meets several of its leading thinkers, each bravely dedicating his life to explaining why women are both all-powerful and entirely inferior.

The film introduces a cast of men who have turned grievance into content and content into income, a business model that relies heavily on ring lights, protein shakes and the word “alpha” being used with complete sincerity. One influencer, speaking from what appears to be a Marbella balcony furnished entirely with gym equipment, explains that modern men must reclaim dominance, shortly before checking his phone to see how many followers have liked the clip.

Theroux, now slightly less inclined to pretend he has just landed from another planet, nudges his subjects with gentle questions. This proves mildly destabilising. Asked to define masculinity, one man offers a speech that begins with “discipline” and ends, several logical leaps later, with “destroy her life”. It is unclear what happens in the middle, though it appears to involve a subscription model.

The most revealing moments arrive accidentally. A brief mention of a disapproving mother causes visible panic, suggesting that the true apex predator in this ecosystem may in fact be a woman in her fifties asking why her son is shouting about “high value males” on the internet. Elsewhere, discussions of relationships reveal a preference for arrangements in which loyalty flows in one direction only – towards the man – who remains heroically committed to himself.

Throughout, the men insist they are simply telling hard truths. The difficulty is working out which part is the truth and which part is the performance. Theroux listens, the cameras roll, and somewhere in the background, the algorithm quietly nods its approval.