Why young men turn to ‘manosphere’ influencers like Andrew Tate

I started hearing kind of intellectuals talk about the left and it all started off very reasonable

You know, the left's going a bit too far, right? I was looking for intellectually stimulating self-help stuff

I wanted to feel better. I felt so bad. What happens when depression, anxiety and a feeling of being lost in your masculinity

leads you down an internet rabbit hole? In Straight Arrow News' series on the crisis of masculinity, we followed the story of

Will Adolfi, whose struggles as a young man led him to connecting with a manosphere influencer

much like a father figure to him. A lot of the influencers I were watching, they were very, very

resentful towards the left, right? Woke culture, political correctness, feminism. And that really lit a fire in me. It was relieving to be sat with someone who was saying

there is nothing less valued than young men. That really spoke to a part of me that wasn't feeling valued

or saying that masculinity isn't toxic. And I really think that was about almost like a cult leader

It's like having someone that has the answers. It just feels amazing, man

Will doesn't say who the specific influencer was, but his description of a cult leader may not be too far out there

They're more cult gurus who have established these online followings through digital and social media

For many people, what society is, is now the cult to which they're attached

So this idea of a broad church, which we all grew up with, for younger people in particular, doesn't seem to be commonly shared

some people immediately think I'm a Jordan Peterson guy or I'm a Kanye West guy

rather than I'm a British citizen or I'm an American citizen. Chris Rojek and Dr. Stephanie Alice Baker are researchers at City St. George's University of London

They wrote Cults, a book which studied groups from the Manson family to figures in the digital age like Elon Musk

They rolled that into a podcast which focuses on Musk, Peterson, West and Andrew Tate

They say these conversational gurus operate differently than groups like David Koresh and the Branch Davidians

Traditional cults are often considered brick and mortar cults where the followers are recruited unknowingly

knowingly That the thread in all cult groups is not just a sense of belonging it also a sense of others that you must oppose The cult gets stronger when it identifies enemies that must be conquered

And that's a feature of cult formation. This isn't a new phenomenon

Cults of personality aren't uncommon. There have been think pieces on whether fans of Taylor Swift reach cult status

or how Oprah Winfrey established her fervent following. The other defining characteristic of a cult is that people are actively recruited

And again, this is not something that they are usually voluntarily entering

But having a big fan base doesn't necessarily equate to a cult

Becoming a fan of a musician, entrepreneur, or even a social media influencer is more of a choice

One thing that does line up for Will, he says it distorted his worldview

I really did believe that the entire world hated men. I really did believe that there would be a feminist on every corner waiting for me and I had to be prepared

The people who were lost also don't have their warning lights switched on

So they're responding to people who aren't necessarily acting in the best interests of the beholders who go onto the Internet

And because of the web, you can find people like yourself. You know, so as opposed to being a loner by yourself who kind of wanders around on his own, there are ways in which you can find community

Matt Engler-Carlson is a researcher at Cal State Fullerton focusing on metamasculinities

As opposed to a pro-social community, the community is based around essentially a degradation of women, but also of yourself

So we essentially kind of connect around our own misery. While it's easy to focus on the transgressions of individual influencers, part of the issue is content addiction

According to Addiction Help, about 10% of Americans are addicted to social media

Moreover, in the UK, where Will lives, more than 60% of men engage with masculinity influencers

We have to talk about the tech companies because they've designed these apps

that are the kind of mediums for these messages. They've designed them to hook our brains

It is an addiction. our attention has been hijacked by the attention economy and by capitalism

The difference with algorithms which proliferate on a lot of these short video platforms

is that as soon as somebody say for example opens TikTok they are straight away bombarded with

constant videos that become more personalized as they click on certain content engage with content and swipe off other content Before you know it you realize that oh there lots of people like me out there And more than ever before there a bloom that kind of happens

and these things start folding in upon themselves. And you find yourselves in these places with charismatic people, right

So it's not just a den of loneliness. And it's really tempting to simplify the power of these figures

to something like the algorithm, which certainly plays a part. But I only think it's part of the reason why these figures are so popular

Dr. Baker and Rojek say the attraction to these types of influencers

come from a dwindling faith in traditional pillars of society, like government

And there's something to that. Public trust in the U.S. government has dwindled since 1958

It's really hard to not be pulled into screens and what it does to our brains

We're going to look back and say, what the hell were we thinking when it came to cell phones, honestly

Like we already have the data that shows the significant increase in mental health issues in kids starting at 2012, which is the advent of the smartphone

In fact, new research found kids addicted to their screens in one way or another are significantly more likely to report suicidal behaviors and thoughts

But Will says while he didn't go that far down the manosphere rabbit hole

he felt comfort with his direct line to the influencer. If you listen to a three or four hour podcast a week of someone

you really feel like you get to know them. Like it's intimate. It's an intimate experience

So for me, it wasn't necessarily about the information I was getting at times

It was more about the relationship I had with the influencer and the fact that this person became a father figure to me

I had a painting of them on my wall and they took up a space in my psyche that was so prominent

Like I mentioned them in mostly every conversation I'd have with friends

That sense of belonging can bring comfort and the feeling of being part of a community

It's a bit like being a fan of a sports team. It's the same way of kind of being well versed when maybe, you know, a certain musical genre or a certain kind of thing that is kind of cool at the time

so you're aspirationally kind of like trying to lean into that because the association

bolsters your your sense of identity and your sense of masculinity in the eyes of other men

when a person develops an emotional attachment to an influencer it becomes impossible to critically

think because if someone brought a piece of information to me that may have been really valid and like reasoned and worth listening to I didn want to hear it because it was threatening my attachment to the influencer i was smoking a cigarette one day in this state and

the voices in my head were chewing me alive like they were just shouting at me and just all it was

just chaos in there and then i was walking into my flat after having a cigarette and i just said

enough! I just shouted, enough! To eventually break his content addiction, he had to isolate

from technology and spend some time on his own. Because I realized, oh, I've never spent time with

myself. I'm always searching outside. You know, I'm always watching a YouTube video with a tub of

hummus or thinking about what's next. And so I booked an Airbnb at this place. I went there on

my own and I put down my phone and my laptop. And I actually noticed a shift when I booked the Airbnb

be. Like I'd taken an action towards facing myself. And it was in this kind of space where

I didn't have the phone. I didn't have the laptop where all of this stuff just came out of me. And

I was writing on my journal like so many hours of a day, just writing, just getting this stuff

all out. And then it suddenly just kind of, I heard a voice in me say, I'll just train to be

a therapist. Will says he took part in a 12 step program and went offline for five years to

understand his feelings. But recovery from content addiction was a work in progress

I remember calling up my sponsor or the therapist I was working with and just, you know

questioning, am I getting better? You know, I feel like, I feel terrible. Is this me getting better

You know, my moods always used to fluctuate, go up and down. And at first it felt really boring

I was like, oh, this is boring, man. I was like, oh. And then so surely it just became something

that I wouldn't trade for anything because it's just incredible to have that level of stability

and to not feel like I'm having panic attacks anymore, to not feel like I'm in depression

Will's journey led him to study to become a therapist, and now he works with Empath

an organization focusing on men's mental health. He says that while you can't get through to

everyone, there are a lot of rewarding experiences. We travel around schools, we deliver talks

workshops and staff CPD sessions and parent sessions, talking about the man box and modeling

vulnerability. We go there and we share our stories. They'll come in and there'll be this

kind of sense of just being shut down, being disengaged. And then by the end of the talk

they'll be like their eyes open, paying attention. And I'll be like, wow. And that's enough for me

For more on Straight Arrow News' coverage of the masculinity crisis, search Crisis of Masculinity at san.com or on the app