“So far, unlike most other European countries, we don’t really have any Irish male supremacist influencers,” says Prof Debbie Ging, “and long may that last”.
Ging has been keeping tabs on the so-called manosphere for the past decade. Through extensive research, she has traced the early beginnings of this previously obscure online world right up to its current status as the talking point of the day.
The conversation about the manosphere has been given fresh legs by Louis Theroux’s recent Netflix documentary, titled Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere.
But anyone shocked or appalled by what they saw in Theroux’s programme should not take too much solace from Ging’s contention that Ireland has remained an outlier.
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“The research I have done indicates that most manosphere content that Irish boys and men engage with comes from the US and the UK,” she says.
“When we collected this data in 2023, it was all US or UK content.”
Theroux studied the male influencers who encourage young men and teenagers to embrace what they describe as “traditional masculinity”, which generally translates into promoting male dominance over women. The manosphere refers to the wider network of websites, forums and influencers that push this doctrine.
The programme has proven shocking to the many people who still are unaware of what goes on within this group – a loose coalition of social media figures who (mostly) rave about big muscles, having lots of money and bedding as many women as possible.
[ Louis Theroux’s exploration into the manosphere chills the bloodOpens in new window ]
Their (online world) view of the real world is one in which men have been demeaned and subjugated by women and the economic system – and that they hold the answers.
Many of these figures have made fortunes from their online profiles – and wear this wealth on their sleeves. They encourage their followers to shun “Betas”, in other words, men who they deem as being subordinate to women – and instead to aspire to “Alpha Male” status – dominant, assertive and sexually successful.
Until recently, places such as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates were held up as the aspirational locations of choice for wannabe Alphas. Their wealth comes from their followers, who are encouraged to invest in what are, in many instances, essentially get-rich-quick schemes.
But it is not just about money and lifestyle. In addition to demeaning narratives about women, racist and homophobic sentiments are also commonplace across the domain.
Theroux confronts Harrison Sullivan – aka HSTikkyTokky – about his homophobic and anti-Semitic rants. Sullivan contends he is just “clip farming”: making outrageous statements to draw eyeballs.
Irish youngsters have been digesting this type of content on social media for years, but the vast majority of it originates from abroad.
It taps into existing grievances that many younger males have about their place in society and – in some cases – suggests that feminists, immigrants and other minority groups are to blame.
So where are all the Irish manosphere influencers trailing in the wake of the individuals Theroux has profiled?
Despite the apparent preponderance of these types of influencers, Ireland appears to have curiously few of them.
According to researcher Darragh McCashin, an assistant professor in psychology at Dublin City University, Irish content tends to be less obvious.
Instead, he has identified overlaps between the manosphere inhabited by the likes of the Tate brothers – and that of fitness influencers and “self-help motivational gurus”.
“In fairness to Louis Theroux, he said at the outset he would be dealing with the most extreme end of the scale,” says McCashin.
“There are no figures here on the same scales as the Tates.”
British-American influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate are, for many, the household names of the manosphere and their online personas are typical of the genre.
In the UK, the brothers face 21 criminal charges, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking – and an extradition warrant is outstanding against them. They also face similar charges in Romania, all of which they deny.
McCashin says various Irish online communities here are instead “borrowing the template” of the manosphere, even if the content is not explicitly misogynistic.
“Sometimes they pull on the same strings,” he says.
“You’ll see a self-help guru curate a video and it will have a click-baity quality to it, almost like a Joe Rogan podcast video,” he adds, referring to America’s biggest podcast host.
“They can see that that kind of thing works.”
This makes identifying questionable content all the more difficult. On the face of it, what at first can appear to be a straightforward fitness influencer on closer inspection can turn out to have a wider agenda.
Likewise, says McCashin, “well-intentioned” content creators in a similar space run the risk of getting lumped in with the “Alpha Males” and their familiar narratives.
Ging, along with McCashin, was involved in a major study by DCU’s anti-bullying centre in 2024 that examined the impact of “masculinity influencers”.
Her research demonstrates how young males are essentially filtered towards “toxic” content by social media algorithms.
Ging set up 10 fake 16- and 18-year-old male accounts on video sharing websites YouTube and TikTok to explore how the social media platforms directed and funnelled material to young men and teenagers.
Seeking out dating advice, the fake accounts were at first fed what seemed simple coaching videos on how to talk to women.
But even at this stage, says Ging, these accounts would be telling them that men were different from women because “they were logical” and that if you don’t make a woman feel inferior, she won’t believe she’s “dating up”.
[ What is the manosphere and why is everyone talking about it?Opens in new window ]
Likewise, she found that when these fake accounts went looking for financial advice, the material they were served up was “aggressively masculine”, encouraging boys to become social media influencers in order to attain “high status”.
Ging suggests these early interactions prime young males to accept “darker” ideas that algorithms later populate their feeds with. She found videos were being pushed on to these fake accounts that suggested women “enjoy sexual aggression and violence”.
From here, the classic “Red Pill” motif followed.
Borrowed from the Matrix movie – where the hero is offered a red pill to break free from his fake reality – it is the idea that the manosphere reveals the true nature of the world. This world is one in which boys and men are dominated by feminist narratives.
Ging says social media algorithms, as well as filling feeds with voices from the manosphere, seem to be directing young males towards right-wing voices from the US.
“Boys in the schools I’ve been visiting lately tell me that, as well as the masculinity influencers, they also receive a lot of American Maga content,” she says, referring to the acronym for Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
This includes the likes of Charlie Kirk, the late conservative activist and Trump ally; white nationalist Nick Fuentes; conservative pundit Ben Shapiro and Trump himself.
This is in addition to “quite a lot of Irish far-right, anti-immigration and anti-trans content and some Conor McGregor stuff too”, says Ging, referring to the mixed martial arts fighter.
So why has Ireland not produced clear-cut copycats figures?
McCashin says it would be nice to think there is a kind of Irish exceptionalism that has led to a healthier society, “a tradition of good journalism and protection of free speech”.
Instead, he speculates it has more to do with the fact the algorithms make it very difficult for newcomers to crack a scene dominated by such big names and the noise they make.
While he underlines just how influential these big names can be at home, he also points to evidence that young men and boys in many cases can discern between straightforward fitness advice and the more toxic messages.
In the research, he says, there are examples of viewers saying they might enjoy a particular influencer’s fitness tips and financial advice “but hate it when they start talking about women”.
[ How to speak to young men about masculinity influencersOpens in new window ]
Whether the manosphere will have a lasting impact on attitudes among Irish men as they get older is unclear.
A Women’s Aid study, Evolving Manhood, carried out two years ago, defined 39 per cent of respondents as “traditionalists” when it came to thinking about the role of men and women in Irish society.
Intriguingly, it found a higher proportion of “traditionalist” views among those men in their 20s and suggested that this was down to the influence of “contemporary online figures who promote traditional masculinity”.
Among those aged over 30, there was a “marked shift” towards more moderate views.
This, the report’s authors speculated, might be due to the simple fact that these men had lived more life and had developed more nuanced views on their relationships with women.
The report suggested that more intergenerational conversations about what it is to be a man could give the algorithms a run for their money.
