On The Michelangelo Signorile Show, Media Matters' Justin Horowitz explains how “manosphere” influencers are “repackaging Andrew Tate's violent misogyny”
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Listen to Media Matters' Justin Horowitz explain how misogynistic “manosphere” influencers lure young men into their world
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From the March 17, 2023, edition of SiriusXM Progress' The Michelangelo Signorile Show
MICHELANGELO SIGNORILE (HOST): Some of our listeners will be familiar with Matt Walsh and Cernovich, but tell us a bit about what they're doing now, what they're promoting, and what you're seeing as, obviously, Andrew Tate is no longer able to be online.
JUSTIN HOROWITZ (GUEST): Sure, so these sort of micro-influencers are repackaging Andrew Tate's violent misogyny for their own audiences and what they're doing is they're really kind of speaking to the fears and the real lives of young men.
So, things like rejection, alienation, economic failure, loneliness, all of these worries that young men usually don't talk about in person, or some that don't talk about, they're looking for influencers to look up to that kind of speaks to those issues. And, there aren't a lot influencers that can speak to young men in that way that these young men also respect. So, whether it's talking about picking up women, monogamy, non-monogamy, how to make money or make a name for yourself online, these are the sort of topics these manosphere influencers are really pushing.
And, they oftentimes can draw in these viewers and these audiences because they'll start talking about things like weightlifting or working out, it's a really good way for these influencers to really draw in an audience of young men.
SIGNORILE: Talk a little bit more about that because I think it's quite fascinating and I think not something a lot of people really get into, how these young men are almost indoctrinated into something that is filling a void, some sort of need, something that went on maybe in their own lives, something that's missing, that they can't fill and it kind of puts them into a different direction. Talk about that.
HOROWITZ: Sure, so it's kind of similar to the way that people fall into conspiracy theories. I wouldn't say that they're the same, but when there's a hole missing in the information that someone is trying to learn about, sometimes it's easier to lean on something like a conspiracy theory where there's a straightforward answer to why something is the way it is. Obviously, things usually have more nuance to them, but this feels the same, in a way.
Oftentimes when people are thinking like why am I getting rejected by women, why can't I be as social as the other people I see around me, why can't I be as strong or as motivated to work out as some of these other people? These influencers, they're really giving these young men an answer to their problems. And the answer to their problems that they're telling them is that women are the problem.
They have this phrase in the manosphere called the red pill. I'm sure some of your audience has heard of the red pill before in the idea of taking the red pill means you're going further to the right, but in the manosphere particularly, it means that you come to this understanding that women are the root of all problems and all evil. If you take the red pill, it's a way for you to kind of understand life from the point of view of women are the reason that I'm not getting laid or women are the reason that I'm not getting paid more at my job. So, it's just a really easy way for men to see the world through a really, really misogynistic lens.