Netflix’s ‘Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere’ review: Disturbing but worth watching

Anyone who has seen the award-winning Netflix series Youth they will have heard the term “manosphere” – and many people who have used the Internet in recent years will have come across it.

The term refers to an online subculture where so-called “alpha males” – think Andrew Tate and the like – preach a philosophy of life that supports traditional, outdated, anti-sexual versions of masculinity such as dominance, stoicism and submissiveness of women.

In Louis Theroux: Inside the Manospherea legendary documentary maker immerses himself in this seedy world, spending time with influential people while trying to get to the bottom of where their worldview comes from.

The question is how successful is it?

What Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere about?

“I train boys how to be boys. How to make money, how to be outside the system, not to have a manager telling you what to do. I teach boys to be proper boys.”

This is how Harrison Sullivan (known online as HS Tikky Tokky) responds when Theroux asks him what his main message is. The rest of the feature-length documentary actually fleshes out this idea, examining how influencers like Sullivan come to grips with their ideas, how they make their money, and the kind of impact your content has on the fans who consume it.

To do this, Theroux spends time with Sullivan and a number of like-minded influencers, bouncing between live broadcast nights in Spain and tours of luxury homes in Miami. He talks to a friend of the Tate brothers, Justin Waller, and a controversial broadcaster Fresh and Fit podcast, Myron Gaines, both of whom support “monogamy” where they are allowed to have sex with other people while their partners are not. Theroux also spends time with previously banned YouTuber Sneako, who has moved from the manosphere to far-right politics and conspiracy theories.

“If I was doing good things, I wouldn’t have exploded on social media in the first place.”

Theroux’s interviews reveal many similarities between the activists he meets: They all share extreme, anti-feminist views, and – most importantly – they all have found a way to profit from sharing these views online.

Inside the Manosphere exposes the contradiction, and the money

With half a million people in his Telegram group, Sullivan is able to drive fans to OnlyFans creator profiles and financial apps, both of which provide him with a source of income. Throughout the documentary, however, his disdain for the creators of OnlyFans is evident. When Theroux asks him if it’s a contradiction to benefit from the creators of OnlyFans while disparaging them, Sullivan is unapologetic.

“I’m clearly saying that I don’t care, and I’m doing it for money,” he said.

Gaines’ relationship with the creators of OnlyFans is shown to be similar; he often has them as guests on his podcast, while doing his best to humiliate them publicly.

Waller, on the other hand, has a similar business model to Sullivan’s financial apps. As we see in the film, he promotes enrollment in a self-described “online university” created by the Tate brothers called The Real World, where people pay $49 a month for access — and Waller gets a cut.

The documentary makes it clear that while these various promoters may hold the ideals they preach, their primary motivation is financial – and Sullivan in particular says he’s happy to make money even if the means conflict with his philosophy.

“Why don’t you try to be a good person?” Theroux asks him at one point, in one of the documentary’s most interesting interviews. “Why don’t you try to lift people up, instead of following their worst desires?”

Sullivan seems to spend a moment thinking about it. “That’s a good question,” he said finally. “If I was doing good things, I wouldn’t have exploded on social media in the first place.”

Is there any danger in giving these people a big platform?

The Manosphere promoters aren’t the first controversial group Louis Theroux has spent time with. He previously held demonstrations at the Homophobic Westerboro Baptist Church, and in 2022 he did a show where he spent time with right-wing activist Nick Fuentes. There is sometimes a tension in his work when it comes to figures like this: Does giving them airtime actually raise their profiles, and therefore their influence? Could it be that in spending time with them, Theroux is doing more harm than good?

This is a question that appears in the documentary itself, in Theroux’s last meeting with Sullivan and his mother, Elaine. He puts it directly to the documentary’s author: “If you don’t agree with what Harrison is doing, why are you making money with the show by announcing it?”

He may have a point. But in the case of the manosphere, you could also argue that the problem already exists. And even if Theroux’s documentary risks giving Sullivan more attention, it also does a solid job of revealing what he and his peers are all about: profiting from their fans.

Rather than being seen as some kind of revolutionary philosophy that will help lift up struggling young men, the manosphere depicted in Theroux’s documentary seems more like a multi-level marketing scheme. Influencers present themselves as doing it so they can build a following, which allows them to make money off the people they say they are trying to help.

Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is streaming now on Netflix.