Inside the Network of Manosphere Influencers Who Have Pushed Young Men to the Right

Thanks to social media algorithms, content about apolitical interests like weightlifting, video games, MMA fighting, and dating has become a pipeline to the right, as we saw on Election Day.

By Kylie Cheung  |  November 18, 2024 | 11:05am
In DepthMediaPolitics
Inside the Network of Manosphere Influencers Who Have Pushed Young Men to the Right
Trump poses with the Nelk Boys, whom he invited on Air Force One in October. Their video has since received over seven million views. Screenshot: YouTube

The day after Election Day, calls to the Trevor Project’s crisis services hotline for LGBTQ youth surged by 200%; online searches for abortion pills and emergency contraception skyrocketed, too. Queer youth, women, and girls were clearly concerned about what a second Trump presidency meant for their safety and their futures. But the country has been largely apathetic to their fears.

Instead, we’re being called to consider young men’s suffering—real and imagined—and the insidious forces that seemed to shift this demographic to the right. A sampling of post-election headlines includes, “We Asked Young Men Why They Voted for Donald Trump—Here’s What They Said,” “The ‘Lost Boys’ of Gen Z: how Trump won the hearts of alienated young men,” “What’s the Matter with Young Male Voters?” and “Trump Offered Men Something That Democrats Never Could.” Of course, Jezebel is now adding to that list, but what’s missing from some of these stories is the manosphere as an increasingly powerful political arm.

Exit polls show Trump received a larger proportion of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump by 11 points among men under 30. Last week, Trump beat Kamala Harris by two points. (Among young white men without college degrees, he beat Harris 56% to 40%.) Some of this should be taken with a grain of salt: Youth turnout dropped sharply from 2020, so these stats offer an incomplete snapshot of an entire generation’s views. But, as journalists, organizers, and the Democratic Party scramble for answers, one concern that’s come to the forefront is the manosphere—a fast-growing, unrepentantly hateful community of men’s lifestyle influencers, podcasters, and media personalities who glorify and preach misogyny to a new generation of young men.

Think: serially accused rapist and human trafficker Andrew Tate, hate speech-platforming Twitch streamer Adin Ross, or misogynist streamer Sneako, who once slapped a woman on camera as a “prank.” There’s also TikTok star Bryce Hall, who joined Trump on the campaign trail about a year after collaborating with proud neo-Nazis, including Sneako. One video from December 2023 shows Sneako laughing as he’s approached by young fans who yell, “Fuck the women” and “All gays can die.” He half-jokingly asks the camera, “What have I done?”

On Election Night, Trump handed the mic to UFC President Dana White (who, like Sneako, also slapped a woman on camera) at his victory party, and White directly thanked Ross, as well as the Nelk Boys and Theo Von, more popular manosphere influencers and podcasters who also supported Trump’s campaign. Over the last several months, Trump made numerous appearances on their shows and streams and hosted them at his rallies. And, because this seems to have worked, those who didn’t see Trump’s victory coming are now trying to understand this chilling sphere of influence that’s seemingly been radicalizing young men right under our noses.

It may be annoying, even disturbing to have to take this increasingly mainstream underworld seriously, but Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America (MMFA), tells Jezebel that understanding the manosphere is important to understand “what future generations are going to look like.” Carusone says MMFA researchers tracked at least 20 times that Trump appeared on manosphere podcasts—including those of Von, Hall, the Nelk Boys, and Jake Paul—since May. In 2023, Ross and other popular manosphere creators including JiDion, Steve Deleonardis, Jorge Masvidal, and alleged rapist DJ Akademiks, appeared with Trump at a UFC event. The meet-and-greet was set up by right-wing video platform, Rumble.

MMFA has been closely following manosphere stars for years now, watching them and the social platforms that host them profit off of mocking rape survivors and trans people, or joking about and openly celebrating violence against women to their impressionable, mostly teen and tween boy audiences. Young people who might turn to them for apolitical interests—weightlifting, video games, MMA fighting, dating advice—are increasingly inundated with out-of-context stats and arguments about how much easier it is for women to get jobs, or minorities to get into college, or trans people to succeed at sports. These audiences are radicalized to believe a liberal, feminist world order is crushing them. Now, thanks to social media algorithms, content about weightlifting, video games, MMA fighting, and dating has become a pipeline to the right.

Misleading, dangerous products have always existed, Carusone explained, “but you used to have to look for them. Now, they’re just being served to you in an endlessly refreshing feed.”

The Nelk Boys have operated at the forefront of this. Nelk stands for Nick, Elliot and Lucas Gasparini, and Kyle Forgeard, a group of Canadian transplants who host a bro-y lifestyle podcast and rose to fame for their viral pranks and sexist dating advice. Their pranks regularly veer into racism and transphobia; they’ve pretended to call ICE on immigrants, sent puppies to a Chinese restaurant, and once had a cis woman kiss men and then pretend to be trans. In the final months of the campaign, they spearheaded pro-Trump get-out-the-vote events catered to young men on college campuses across the country.

Carusone pointed out that this was the first presidential election without Rush Limbaugh, the most influential, almost inescapable right-wing voice in the nation for decades. Limbaugh, he said, would speak to now-older generations of men for two to three hours per day, and “give not just direct political info but a lens to see the rest of the world—he’s the reason they’d hear ‘happy holidays’ and start seeing that as a liberal, feminist threat.” Now, manosphere influencers are filling the void left by Limbaugh for a new generation, “creating a lens for young men to see the world.” And that lens is…  awful.

The rights of women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants have been eroding for years, but TikTok and YouTube videos that receive billions of views have completely buried this reality, instead convincing young men that they’re the real victims. “Let’s say one of their listeners doesn’t get the job or get into the school they want—they’ll connect that to what someone like Andrew Tate is telling them about how much easier it is to get a job when you’re a woman,” Carusone said.

These influencers have enjoyed wealth and fame for years now, but their successful, aggressive collaborations with Trump gave “them their first taste of real political power.” It’s unclear how or if people like the Nelk Boys or Ross will influence Trump’s policies, but, Carusone notes, what is clear is there will now be “even greater synergy” between the manosphere and the Republican Party.

As a reporter covering topics like violence against women, political disinformation, and MeToo and anti-MeToo backlash for the last several years, a lot of this—particularly figures like Tate—is familiar to me. I remember being told young people would follow the lead of voices like Greta Thunberg or the Parkland school shooting survivors and save the world. Instead, in 2022, I watched large swaths of Gen Z use their TikToks to mock and harass Amber Heard during her domestic violence defamation trial in a cultural phenomenon that one media scholar called “a public orgy of misogyny.” I’ve also fallen down the rabbit hole of massively popular tradwife content, in which female influencers offer up a rosy, glamorized image of traditional gender roles to young women. They often push dangerous disinformation about birth control, implicitly encouraging more restrictions on reproductive health care.  

What politicians and journalists need to understand about the right-wing radicalization of young men—and young people in general—is that “social media algorithms are a product,” Carusone said, and the same way consumer protection regulations govern all products, these regulations should similarly govern social media algorithms. 

Carusone pointed to one Media Matters study in particular, which showed how quickly violent, far-right content can swallow up your “for you” or “recommended” feeds. If you view even two or three videos of people filming themselves spewing homophobia, your feed almost automatically becomes overrun with anti-LGBTQ content. Misleading, dangerous products have always existed, Carusone explained, “but you used to have to look for them. Now, they’re just being served to you in an endlessly refreshing feed.”

The 30-year-old men who are upset, the Tucker Carlsons of the world, they need to get over it. They’re not who I’m talking about.

As Democrats convene yet another iteration of post-annihilation soul-searching, many are blaming the party’s messaging—Bernie Sanders pointed to the party’s neglect of the working class but also blamed its supposed embrace of “identity politics”; Mondaire Jones, who just lost his House seat, called on Democrats to cater to right-wing fearmongering about the border; Rep. Seth Moulton (D-NY), a prominent New York Democrat, cruelly suggested Democrats lost because they need to acknowledge that trans kids playing sports is scary. Whatever you may think of their explanations, Carusone raised that “even a perfect message won’t work until they stop the bleeding.” That means that first, Democrats and progressives need to address the right’s total monopoly on the media ecosystem, and pressure tech companies to rein in the hateful content and disinformation being rapidly funneled down young men’s throats. Until they do so, little of what they say or don’t say will actually matter. They simply won’t reach or appeal to large swaths of the electorate.

Nicole Regalado, vice president of campaigns at Ultraviolet, told Jezebel her organization has been tracking online misogyny campaigns since Gamergate in 2014, which saw an outbreak of rabid sexism, racism, and queerphobia against perceived feminist progress in the video game industry. But she’s been alarmed by sharp rises in online harassment against women in recent years. It doesn’t help, Regalado said, that at a time when the manosphere is surging, with the help of anti-MeToo backlash and a golden age of media illiteracy, “social media platforms are gutting moderation, trust, and safety teams,” while “platforming and profiting off hate.” A lot of this came to a head with the outcome of the 2024 election, Regalado said, which “followed months of disinformation and racism-misogyny about Kamala Harris” from popular right-wing, manosphere-type influencers. Trump’s victory has only emboldened this toxic stew of misogyny, culminating in the viral “your body, my choice” slogan.

I understand the importance of Democrats and progressives figuring out how to “reach” young men—the electoral stakes are high, especially for the most marginalized among us. But in the last week, I’ve often found myself frustrated, even disgusted by the idea that young men are uniquely suffering because they’re young men, that they deserve outsized sympathy and attention at a time when women and other marginalized communities are on the brink of perhaps one of the severest rollbacks of our rights in modern times. Teen girls and young women suffer from endemic sexual violence and misogyny, and many still find it in their hearts to not elect a fascist. 

Carusone says he’s struggled with this, too. But he’s made sense of it by understanding the manosphere and its toxic, mass appeal as a youth issue. “The 30-year-old men who are upset, the Tucker Carlsons of the world, they need to get over it. They’re not who I’m talking about,” he said. But manosphere content is poisoning the minds of children, shaping them to become violent toward other children, to grow up and inflict violence on marginalized people. “We have to think about this as it relates to kids. If we don’t do something about this now, we’re messing up kids,” Carusone explained. “As these boys and young men grow, they’re going to build and organize political power, and even worse, as they move into maturity, they’re going to be more violent and abusive than previous generations.”

 
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