Manosphere dynamics

Marketising male insecurity: a causal loop diagram

Photo: Mario Alvarado via Pexels

Here’s another one. I doodled this a while ago while listening to a Guardian ‘visual deep dive’ on the manosphere. The manosphere is the network of online influencers who sell young men a monolithic, hard-edged image of masculine success. So while this is based on a serious piece of journalism, I am not claiming that this map is a reflection of scientific evidence.

The map is built up in nine steps, one loop or dynamic at a time. The colours mark the domain of each variable. Green circles point to the online world, lilac ones to the manosphere market, pink ones to the psychology of young men and peach ones to wider society. A grey circle is an external driver. A white ring marks a key enabler, a sentiment or the nodal variable. The italic notes in lilac carry illustrations, such as a quote or a figure I picked up from the Guardian piece.

1—Isolation

R1 isolation: time spent online → reduction of real-world interactions → time spent online

The map starts with the time young men spend online. Two structural factors push it up: the anonymity of online consumption and the algorithmic amplification of the platforms. The Covid pandemic adds a shock. It probably acted as a starter motor here, raising screen time and cutting real-world contact at the same time. Between those two variables a first reinforcing loop takes shape. More time online leaves less room for real-world interaction. Fewer real-world contacts in turn leave more time for the screen.

2—Two Roads to Engagement

Fueling R1: reduction of real-world interactions → search for social connection → attractiveness of belonging to MI communities → MI content engagement · time spent online → exposure to MI content → MI content engagement

From isolation two roads lead to engagement with manosphere content. The first runs through exposure. Whoever spends a lot of time online meets the content sooner or later. The algorithms also push it towards him directly. The second road runs through the search for social connection. The manosphere communities offer a place to belong. These are two chains that meet in one variable.

3—The Commercial Flywheel

R2 commercial flywheel: pervasiveness of MIs → exposure → MI content engagement → willingness to spend → MI revenue streams → MI affluence → time and resources to capture bandwidth → pervasiveness of MIs

Now the core. Engagement turns into a willingness to pay for the message. That produces revenue, and revenue makes the influencers rich. Their affluence buys time and resources to capture bandwidth, which makes them more pervasive. Greater pervasiveness raises exposure, and the loop is closed. The cloud gives a sense of scale. According to the map, Andrew Tate made £4.4 million from his Real World platform in 2024. The pervasiveness of social media itself sits beside the loop as an enabler. It keeps the influencers ‘just a click away’. R2 is the nodal loop, with the willingness of young men to spend money as its nodal variable. Most of what follows can be read as a supply line into this engine.

4—The Image of Success

R3 success as proof: MI affluence ⇢ performativity of MI success → comprehensibility of projected image of success → persuasiveness → MI content engagement → willingness to spend → MI revenue streams → MI affluence

The flywheel runs on an image of success. Social media make that image performative. It is put on display, and ‘it’s easy to show you’re rich’, as the cloud has it. Display makes it comprehensible. From comprehensibility two paths lead on. One runs through persuasiveness to engagement. The other runs through the codifiability and marketability of the success formula straight into the willingness to spend. I have added an arrow from MI affluence to the performativity of MI success foregrounding a third loop . The revenue earned from the formula becomes the advertisement for the formula. Success comes to serve as its own proof, which may be part of why it is so hard to argue against.

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5—Cultural Anchoring

Cultural variables: alignment with orthodox materialist values, alignment with orthodox masculinity values, zero-sum ethics of MI worldview → comprehensibility of projected image of success

Why is the image so easy to read? It confirms what is already half believed. Two value patterns feed its comprehensibility. Orthodox materialism treats money as a proxy for power. Orthodox masculinity sets the bar at being fit, being attractive to women and being able to provide for a family. The zero-sum ethics of the manosphere worldview comes on top. What one gains, another loses. These are slow variables. They do influence how much resistance the message meets, which is very little. The zero-sum ethics also has a second outlet, which appears in the next step.

6—The Grievance Loop

R4 grievance: male insecurity vis-à-vis women → reliance on dating apps → metricisation of popularity and attractiveness → negative self-image → projection of grievances on women’s empowerment → receptiveness to misogynistic beliefs → male insecurity

On the right hand side of the map sits the affective engine. The relative success of the women’s empowerment movement heightens men’s insecurity towards women. That insecurity sends them to dating apps, where popularity and attractiveness are counted and ranked. The counting weakens their self-image. The quote in the cloud gives its tone. A negative self-image is then projected onto the success of women’s emancipation. The projection raises receptiveness to misogynistic beliefs, which in turn deepens the insecurity. Another loop closes. Three further links tie this loop to the rest of the map. The feminist critique of traditional masculinity enters at receptiveness. Zero-sum ethics feeds the projection. Receptiveness also runs back to the comprehensibility of the image of success. Here the cognitive and the affective side of the map meet.

7—Tough Love

R5 failure loop: negative self-image → attractiveness of ‘tough love’ message → willingness to spend ⇢ negative self-image

This step couples the grievance loop to the flywheel. A negative self-image makes the ‘tough love’ message attractive. The persuasiveness of the image of success does the same. ‘Tough love’ flows straight into the willingness to spend. Personal shame is thus converted into purchasing power for the manosphere. Here too I propose a dashed arrow, from the willingness to spend back to the self-image. Whoever pays and sees no result probably feels even more inadequate. The failure of the product would then raise the demand for it.

8—The Societal Undercurrent

Societal stressors: competitiveness of the job market, cost of higher education, cost of living and housing → feeling of economic disempowerment → negative self-image · complexity and stressfulness of society → disempowerment, ‘tough love’ message · lack of alternative role models → lure of frictionless consumption society → negative self-image

At the bottom the structural pressure enters. Competition on the job market and the cost of education, housing and daily life come together in a feeling of economic disempowerment. That feeling weighs on the self-image. The complexity and stressfulness of society, fed by migration, climate and geopolitics, adds to the disempowerment. It also makes the simplicity of a tough message more appealing. Beside it stands the lack of alternative role models. It weakens the self-image directly. It also strengthens the lure of a frictionless consumption society, the fast food, video games and Netflix of the cloud. What enters here is broadly societal in nature. Through the self-image and the projection of step 6 it leaves the system as a grievance against women. A material problem is repackaged as a problem of gender relations. And it is precisely that repackaging that is itself offered for sale.

The Full Map

All loops together. There are five, all reinforcing. R2 is the commercial engine that drives the phenomenon. Three other loops drive this engine from within. R1 supplies the attention, by keeping young men online and on their own. R3 supplies the proof since the influencers’ affluence is what makes the image of success credible. R5 supplies the repeat demand as every purchase that fails to deliver deepens the shame it promised to cure. All three draw on a specific masculine affect world, a longing for status and recognition together with the guilt of falling short of it. R4 works on the same affect world, but turns it outward. There the shame finds an adversary in the feminine, and resentment at women’s progress becomes part of what holds the community together. The engine thus runs on two charges. One is aspiration directed at the self. The other is grievance directed at women. The ‘tough love’ message is where both are converted into revenue. The willingness of young men to spend money is the point where every supply line arrives.

What the map leaves open

There are no balancing loops in the map. Everything reinforces. That shows the escalation but it leaves out what slows the system down. Saturation of the attention market, solvency or platform regulation could play that role. Disillusionment is a less obvious candidate, since step 7 suggests it may just as well feed the demand. The map is also thin on social counterforces in the lives of young men, such as friends, sport, work or a club.

This map can be easily linked to the What’s wrong with the World map I presented in an earlier post. Manosphere dynamics are an emblematic manifestation of how elite control of narrative institutions fuels cultural frictions and polarisation, reinforced by broader societal dynamics of socio-economic and reproductive fragilisation. A pressure that might have fed redistributive force for change is diverted, into a market.

Thanks for reading!