Theroux Just Wants to Talk

Celebrated documentarian Louis Theroux is back at it again, this time honing in on the fringe elements of the Manosphere in his new doco “Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere”. The ripples since its release follow predictable cycles of everyone involved finding ways to shill their wares. HSTikkyTokky wants everyone to know that he absolutely smashed it and Bonnie Blue wants everyone to know she’s lining up Spring Breakers.

Almost everyone featured is selling a course, if you’re old enough to predate the term “manosphere” then you’ll recognise who these people are. They’re the next generation of online gurus with pyramid schemes and tiers of courses to sell. Except when you’re fighting the algorithm you need a little more on your side, sex ideally, outrage otherwise. Even better with both.
Talking to Tudum, Theroux offers an explanation for the rise.

“I think there are a lot of lonely men out there, and there’s now a whole industry dedicated to them. There are millions of hours of podcasts that talk about the masculinity crisis — how we’ve seen a decline in manufacturing jobs in the West and how there have been efforts to correct the patriarchal skew in society that has in turn triggered a backlash.”

“I think a lot of boys and men are lost, and when they see easy answers — when they see a muscular guy who seems to be very rich, telling them it’s not their fault and here’s who’s to blame — then that’s massively appealing. Perhaps most especially when you’re only 15, 16, 17 years old — I think it can’t be underestimated how young a lot of this audience is. It’s being marketed at kids, and sometimes for them it’s hard not to take it at face value.”

Media and the internet have seen a generation of teens grow up through a post-#Me Too movement feminist empowerment cycle, and this is the natural blowback from well-intentioned but ill-thought-out hashtags like #YesAllMen. Perhaps its only upside is that it offers a proactive, less negative outlook on life than incels have offered. Let’s face it, if these are the options being offered online to our teenagers maybe that Australian social media ban isn’t looking too shabby right about now.

Early on Theroux asks HSTikkyTokky, “Does the term ‘The Matrix’ mean anything to you?”

“The system.” HS responds. “The higher powers at the top of the world keeping everyone down keeping everyone broke. Keep the slave mindset going.”
“Is that a real thing?”

I feel like Theroux would have been less sceptical if the dudebro had phrased it more like “The System, as Marx says, the hegemony maintaining passive power via class exploitation and capitalist oppression.”

But then again, if he’d said it like that, he would have had his mancard revoked. Truly there is nothing new under the sun.

Theroux suggests that another cause with these influencers is unprocessed trauma, and perhaps a lack of a decent father figure in their own lives.

“What they’re doing is evangelising an outlook they’ve created as a survival strategy for themselves. If you’ve grown up in something horrific and have created a suit of armor or a set of tools to cope, then when you come out the other side you’ll value that. I think that’s why they so often present this warrior ethos, this kind of “ruthless, take-no-prisoners, you-against-the-world” mentality. I’ve been the beneficiary of a happy, loving upbringing, and I’m going to blandly announce that it’s not you against the world — rather, we’re all in it together.”

Upon rewatching his other documentaries I’ve come to the conclusion that Theroux is less passive than his long awkward silence style of interviewing initially portrays.

“At the end of the day, I’m trying to make TV that engages people — so a few fireworks don’t go amiss and some raised voices or a sense of menace is actually quite helpful.”

You have to admit. He knows how to make compelling TV.