Super-Curricular Documentary: Incorporating Clay Shirky’s theory - Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere

Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere Netflix documentary explores the unnerving nature behind the world’s most elitist, masculine-mindset men, normalising the oppression of women in today’s dynamic society, with notorious influences such as HS TikkyTokky, Justin Waller and ‘Sneako’, with some objectifying their wives, truly believing that one-sided monogamies should be accessible to all men, and men exclusively. Terms such as the ‘red-pill’, ‘anti-feminism’ and ‘alpha-male’ were highly prevalent and topical throughout the documentary, with the latter being men’s insatiable desire to be the ‘ultimate man’, both physically and mentally. Those leading a ‘white-supremacy’ lifestyle are devoted to practicing their own misogynistic culture, willingly and carefully selecting multiple women to spend time with. One of the most concerning elements of the documentary was not just the concept of masculinity being modernised and females being repressed as a social normality, but the influence that these men were generating, being titled as ‘role models’ and being ‘my biggest inspiration’ for a large proportion of the younger male generation. The prospect of these extremist ideologies filtering and perpetuating into our new media is becoming a challenge in society that is progressive faster than tradition. Theroux also considers what may be the contributing factors for men turning towards the ‘red-pill’ and anti-feminist values, finding a common pattern between an abusive childhood and the lacking of a ‘father-figure’ in households. Furthermore, the majority of the male influencers crave the monetisation of their success, yet seem to state that they do not own luxury cars for status, but as a result of their hard-work and efforts. This controversial concept of elitist men wanting to turn their content into dollars, their engagements with women into views, all to reap the financial benefits.

This documentary made me consider what would happen if this view monopolised society. Would we regress backwards to the historical gender inequalities that once corrupted our social values, or would women learn from the past to condemn these ‘toxic masculinity’ behaviours?

This documentary resonates well with Clay Shirky’s End of Audience theory, as the men who are engaging with the live streams and media content enabling a participatory culture. These fans and avid followers of influences such as HS TikkyTokky and Amrou Fudl are able to ‘talk-back’ on his media platforms and easily publish snippets of his content on their own social media pages. This was evident when Harrison Sullivan (HS TikkyTokky) was deliberately trying to aggravate Louis Theroux during a live stream, with many of his fans publishing and then filtering his content to position Theroux with a bad reputation, almost incorporating Strauss’ binary oppositions. These men will gatekeep information from a renowned and critically-acclaimed journalist - Louis Theroux (such as when Fudl’s girlfriend was informed to no longer participate and interact with Theroux in the documentary) in order to protect their status and censor private information from the mass media and target audience, particularly when the documentary will be published onto Netflix, an established, multinational corporation with a wide global reach.