Louis Theroux Statusmogged the Manosphere
The manosphere is status-obsessed. Louis Theroux knew it--and hit them where it hurts.
I recently watched Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, the latest documentary from award-winning British journalist and documentarian Louis Theroux. In it, he follows and interviews notable manosphere influencers: HSTikkyTokky, Myron Gaines, Sneako, and Justin Waller, otherwise known as a “sleep paralysis-tier blunt rotation.”
Anyone going into this documentary (including the influencers themselves) is acutely aware that Theroux will take an anti-manosphere stance, although unlike some of the more shrill and outraged manosphere critics, he remains pretty measured, if not softspoken, throughout the whole thing. Instead of Theroux losing his shit and attempting fiery debates, simple and unassuming questions make some of the influencers’ kookier beliefs look ridiculous without needing to poke holes in them. For example: “So you actually believe that the singer Sam Smith is controlled by Satanists?” I mean, when you say it like that…
But Theroux touches on something I’m very glad he did, which is that these influencers, and their followers, despite their bigotry, are not an upperclass of “privileged oppressors.” At least not in their own view. These men often come from poverty and from broken, fatherless homes. Even though they’ve cozied up to white supremacists, almost all of them are people of color in a world where—not to go all Woke on you—whiteness is still associated with status. They are overcompensating with flashy and illusory displays of fame and wealth, with over-the-top musculature, with OnlyFans girls (who they condemn and humiliate) as accessories. And they are, ironically, overcompensating for the very thing they claim to have in spades, the thing that defines their entire worldview: status. Which Louis Theroux has always had, with zero posturing necessary.
He knows it—and he used it.
