Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere - Netflix

[needtoget]

Louis is just amazing in this so far. Him at around 6 mins is hilarious

They just want to make money and a lot of money. Behind all the influencer crap and showmanship, there are grubby money making scams such as pyramid schemes and dodgy investment companies. They are literally conning the men they are pretending to empower by distracting them with dreams of women and wealth.

Yes, for sure. You're saying the same thing in more detail.
... oh, you missed out the Only Fans pimping!

Sorry, you sounded like you missed the point.

Of course they exploit women as well but there is no pretense about that.

Something's more subtle I found disturbing was the linking of Saville to Louis Theroux. Anyone with any kind of brain cell knows that LT was exposing him. But the twisting of the narrative. So thick and yet it's the post truth culture. You can say anything and it'll work for you and your followers.

I've seen this kind of bullying in my son's school. Something will happen. And it'll be twisted and kept on to make the most sensationalist statement as an excuse to bully victims. E.g a boy bumped into a girl in a busy corridor by accident and it became he beats girls up. Loads of other examples of twisting the truth to accuse autistic kids of racism and all sorts.

I feel like it's gaslighting on a grand scale. Like I want the curtain pulling back so we can join the dots and see the wizard. So much manipulation and smoke and mirrors in this world. Conspiracy theorists and anti semites and misogynists and maga. Oh and the paedo hunting. It makes me feel sick. That beating people up while streaming and people egging them on. All the while someone is getting very rich because of this 'content'.

It makes me want to live far away from other people.

HS’s mum is so typical of mothers I’ve dealt with as a teacher. They don’t like what their child has said or done, but they’ve got this stupid misguided attitude that they still have to defend their child in some way. It’s one of the reasons that behaviour is so terrible in schools these days.

Oh I agree . And the “scientist “ that featured on the show was ridiculous too

What age is it suitable for?
was hoping to watch with my 14yo DS, I also have a 10yo DS, would it be ok for him?
EDIT- sorry, can see this has been answered upthread

Pretty sure a lot of men hate women regardless of sexuality….

That’s exactly what I was insinuating

I found that interesting the distraction technique turning on Louis Theroux (most of them didnt even know how he was at the beginning of the programme).....when things got awkward or uncomfortable, for them try to throw something at him to distract

Also how HS somehow backtracked and contradicted himself, in the presence of his mum. ...

My partner and I had been counting down the days until this came on Netflix! 😂 such an interesting documentary despite the feelings of annoyance, frustration, irritation and repulsion at listening to some of these utterly appalling excuses for men! Louis as usual was fantastic in this, I love the silences that speak a thousand words and how he refuses to get drawn down to their level. Ugh these guys are just an embarrassment though, how they’re like parodies of stupid sitcom characters! The only criticism (if you can call it that), is the difference of how it was filmed compared to his standard BBC documentaries. I didn’t love the cut scenes and the slow motions, very “Netflix” and felt a bit less hard hitting than the others. Not blaming Louis obviously! For anyone that hasn’t already seen it, there’s another really similar documentary along the same sort of theme on iPlayer. Great watch. Thanks @needtoget for starting this thread, I’ve been desperate to talk about it but I’m on maternity leave so my adult interaction is reduced 😂

@Fizbosshoes I guess it's what abusers do. It's DARVO. It's just disturbing that abuse 'techniques" have kind of gone mainstream. This so called manopshere isn't some niche thing. It's pervasive in our society.

I saw the documentary on iPlayer with a guy that had actually participated and then was interviewing other people who were currently in the "manosphere" i.e. cult.

It really reminded me of the female MLM/Lean In/Self Improvment/ Manifesting culture that has now morphed into trad wives. Its all a very base in an unreasonably narrow definition of what it means to be a man/woman.

Alot of the men are just very sad and unconfident. They don't quite have the skills and emmotional maturity to deal with rejection from women/homosexual feelings. I personally feel that as a society we hugely let young boys down by telling them that violence (to themselves and others) is more acceptable crying.

I don't have Netflix but I hope that Louis exposes them for the predators that they are.

Can you explain a bit more about the JS being exposed. I saw the first documentatry when I was quite young, and its no longer available so I can't back and see if he was subtly exposing him but I didn't pick it up at the time.

Also what was the twisitng of the narrative?

@2021x Louis Theroux's documentary on Saville was not literally an expose in the sense that he knew what he was. But, as with lots of his work, he was drawn to strange public figures and I suppose knew there was something to work out. That Saville was a mystery to be solved in some way. He did a follow up documentary after all the revelations and did some introspection.

LT is an intelligent and reflective filmmaker. I think that level of intelligence and nuance and reflection is becoming lost in this vacuous and downright nasty social media driven world.

The twisting of the narrative is that the online manopshere followers were saying LT was mates with Saville. By fact of his making a film about Saville which none of them would have seen, they were trying to say LT was guilty by association. So shutting him down so he couldn't question their influencer guy.

Louis Theroux is not an investigative reporter. He exposes his subjects by asking questions and putting a lens on people so they almost do the work for him, I guess. Give people the exposure (rope) and they generally hang themselves.

Oh I misunderstood. I thought you were saying it was obvious that the original Saville documentary narrative was being twisted by LT which I didn't pick up at the time. I didn't find him more strange than Paul Daniels and there wasn't anything shown in the original documentary that was a screaming alarm to the British public that Saville was a prolifiic abuser.

The follow up was interesting about LT took himself to task about how he didn't recognise it when on retrospect it was obvious. I wondered if this was twisting the narrative which appeared on the surface that LT was holding himself accountable but actually hid the fact that he did know but didn't do a good enough job to alert people at the time.

I meant that the narrative was twisted by the influencer and his followers. They were trying to shut down any criticism by saying LT was mates with Saville. Sorry if I wasn't clear @2021x

I see this happening often these days, as I said.

@Mumteedum good to know. Its a sign that he is a threat to their BS if they are going after him in a hard way.

i felt so uncomfortable with them as they were all so fragile and puffed up. Like little glass figurines. It was all so fake. The only one of them who actually seemed comfortable or truly invested in himself and believed it was Sneako. Obviously he was awful. But he dint seem fragile and lost and completely uncomfortable with himself.

Myron was awful. He was more “normal” when his partner was next to him same with HS and his mummy. It’s ALL just nasty grifting saying shit for clicks and bait.

Too thick to understand their own hypocrisy and too traumatised to grow into adulthood.

@2021x
I personally feel that as a society we hugely let young boys down by telling them that violence (to themselves and others) is more acceptable crying
I agree. It seems we fail to really see the problem until things are too far gone. When most of them have turned predator anyone who exposes their feelings has shown where their weakness are, they will become prey

If you are interested this is a good TED talk that challenged me to see to see what men go through as adolescents.

I watched the trailer (no netflix)
It's SO Grindah🤣

Im about 3/4 of the way through and wow, its really eye opening. I knew a bit about the toxic male culture and had seen clips of Andrew Tate but some of the other influencers I'd never heard of. I think most of them vastly inflate their 'wealth' as it looks good for their followers

Some of the dialogue with HS and his goons had me rolling!

HS: You've got big cameras
Louis: Yeah we're the real deal, we're not Youtubers

Random man: Is that a peado?
Goon: No, its Louis Fur-ox!

😂😂😂

Just watched it - so shocking.

As an aside, did it stand out to anyone else how reluctant Louis Therous was to answer the question, "Is Israel committing genocide?" I wished in that moment that HS had Theroux's interviewing skills and let that hang in the air for a bit, until he got an answer.

My male colleague said today how depressing and disturbing it is...I got home and my almost 17 year old daughter had watched it!

Slightly disturbed by that but I guess she is better off being aware of what is out there?