The online manosphere is an intriguing yet complex topic in this 20th century. With the rise of social media, political spaces and feminist movements, the manosphere has exploded in popularity online, creating a space in which men have found to feel seen alongside other like minded individuals. With the manosphere’s sudden rise in popularity, young men have been attracted to extremist negative views toward women, causing them to feel as if they have found a space to grow and learn about the world and themselves, in particular, the newfound mens movements, however, they are being stunted by harmful and manipulative content and ideologies about society from problematic influencers. Young men feel as if they are being left behind as society moves forward, and are becoming radicalized through online video essays bashing a progressive society, telling men what to do, how to act and what to feel. By consuming this content, men, especially young boys, are becoming violent towards not only women, but other marginalized groups, in an attempt to bring the world back to when it was non inclusive and a dangerous place to live for some, rather than accepting a progressive society. In this essay, I will discuss how the online manosphere is negatively affecting young boys and how they form opinions on society, especially toward women and other marginalized groups. I will be arguing how the online manosphere is a negative space for young men to grow up in, especially during developmental times in their childhood. I will do this by examining red pill content and how it attacks women and focuses its viewer base on young boys, examining young boys comprehension of extremist ideologies and societal roles, and finally, young boys’ mental health effects from consuming content from the manosphere, and what is attracting them to this online space in the first place. 

Red pill content and its effects on young boys is extremely significant, showing concerning statistics across the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In the United Kingdom, a study done on a group of young british boys aged 16 to 17 found that 80% of them had consumed content by Andrew Tate, a popular manosphere influencer, at one point in their time online (Over et al., 2025). The most interesting part, however, is that 60% of this same group did not know who their own prime minister was (Over et al., 2025). On top of this fact, fathers are not only approving of Andrew Tate’s content, but consuming it themselves (Over et al., 2025). The manosphere creates a sort of “online community” for young boys, going through life’s ups and downs of the teenage experience. It teaches young men how to navigate disappointment, embarrassment and rejection through an extremely discriminatory and narrow worldview, especially when they are at their most vulnerable (Over et al., 2025). By providing this type of content on a public platform, individuals who may be extremely vulnerable, including teenage boys, are susceptible to seeing enough of this content, and believing it as fact. Even if they had sexist views beforehand, these views can now become extreme, only causing more harm to themselves and others (Over et al., 2025). Not only is the manosphere targeting boys during their developmental stages, manosphere content creators are inflicting harmful ideologies toward young boys, causing a direct correlation of sexism and harassment with women and girls’ mental health (Over et al., 2025). Women and girls were found to be more depressive and had an increase in work-related stress symptoms in school settings in the United States with absolutely no relation found from their male counterparts (Over et al., 2025). Women are directly affected by this content, as it is focused on them as the enemy, rather than a counterpart, creating a strict divide of men versus women (Over et al, 2025). Due to these increasing rates, harmful ideologies are becoming more and more prevalent in school settings, such as hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, and rape myths, especially at a young age (Fields, 2024). Primary teachers have noticed alarming ideologies in young boys, exhaling crude words at their classmates, and occasionally, their teachers (Fields, 2024). With these ideologies being something that young boys are interested in, we are only going backwards as a society, allowing for the next generation to grow up not knowing how far we have come in terms of equity, equality and inclusivity. By raising young men in an atmosphere such as this one, they are being predisposed to beliefs that may have either never been on the table, or are finding somewhere where their extremist views can thrive even stronger.

Instead of a gradual introduction to society, to who we are as people and social roles, young boys are being exposed to extremist views and complicated ideologies for their age, causing an extreme shift in this upcoming generation, causing harmful upbringings for not only the boys, but young girls as well (Over et al., 2025). By doing so, younger boys’ views on equality, equity and inclusion are skewed, as they are made to believe that women have the full intention of taking over societal roles, such as, what the manosphere names “manly” jobs, and leaving them behind to fend for themselves (Lapan, 2023). To prevent feeling “left behind,” even though it is their largest claim to fame, the manosphere explains how to be less emotional and to internalize feelings of sadness or anger, except when it is towards women (Over et al., 2025). Through doing, Andrew Tate has claimed that men are able to get further ahead in life, by pushing everything aside and not feeling, men will be able to make more money, get stronger, and be with more women (The M Pod, 2024). However, by internalizing their feelings and taking these influencers’ words as gospel, young men become extensively misogynistic, and will start to comply with attitudes and behavioural norms that are common practice within their peers in the manosphere (Over et al., 2025). Especially if young boys are internally misogynistic to begin with, the manosphere gives them the freedom to be externally harmful towards marginalized groups, becoming radicalized through the messages that are being consumed online (Over et al., 2025). Not only are those within the manosphere proven to be externally misogynistic, manosphere influencers have also been found to be promoting racist and homophobic worldviews (Over et al., 2025). While this is extremely harmful for every party involved, young boys are being encouraged to consume this content. Fathers under the age of 35 are not only consuming this content themselves, but encouraging their children to watch it as well (Over et al., 2025). Due to this statistic, it not becomes a generational problem, where young boys are looking to their parental figures, their fathers, for guidance, and only seeing problematic behaviour, which they have no developed moral compass yet to understand how or why this type of behaviour is frowned upon and harmful to society (Fields, 2024). 

Not only is red pill content and the manosphere harmful to women and marginalized groups’ mental health and wellbeing, the effect that this type of content has on young men and their mental health is extreme. Young boys are meant to believe that mental health does not matter, by being told to push their emotions aside and get on with life, with their end goal becoming being the “man in the household,” and taking on all responsibilities in a family (The M Pod, 2024). By advertising this kind of behaviour, men’s mental health is only getting worse and worse, by denying mental health services and help from professionals (Lapan, 2023). As influencers are passing on the idea of denying mental health support, influencers are not only telling men to suppress their feelings, but denying the mere existence of depression itself. The manosphere is promoting the complete disregard of these feelings, as they are not “manly” and will only hold them back in the long run, allowing other men to “get ahead” while they are down  (The M Pod, 2024). The manosphere and the top dogs in the space are not only spreading misinformation toward young boys as they grow older, but radicalizing this same group, as they grow into men, causing them to think that the world has turned upside down, and they are the ones that need to stand up against the feminists and fix it (Lapan, 2023). However, feminism is not the problem here, toxic masculinity is. This idea that feminism is ruining society has created an outburst of domestic terror attacks on marginalized groups, whether that be racial hate, homophobic attacks or mass murders targeting women. Men who subscribe to the ideas of the manosphere are attempting to take the world into their own hands and “fix” what hasn’t ever been broken (Lapan, 2023). The manosphere is pushing an agenda that does not exist, telling susceptible children that feminism is a hoax or a way to put men down, however, this is only creating radicalized individuals, causing modern society to be held back. This is increasingly concerning as manosphere communities used to be hidden among the vast internet, but has now spread to mainstream social media, recruiting more and more members, especially young men who feel isolated by feminist movements (Lapan, 2023). This has become a widespread issue, especially with the prime example of the January 6th Capitol Attack, where a multitude of individuals got together through online groups to wreak havoc on progressive laws being made and society being moved forward, rather than staying in their problematic ways and holding society back even further (Duignan, 2025). The manosphere is not only harmful to the mental health of all, but is creating harmful individuals and harmful ideologies that men are thinking they need to follow. 

In this essay I discussed how the manosphere has been hurting a multitude of generations for years. With its sudden rise in popularity to its intense upkeep throughout the years of its success on the internet, men have flocked to a space filled with negativity, misinformation and harmful ideologies seeking a form of “refuge” from feminist movements and inclusivity within society. I did this by discussing the harmful impacts that the manosphere and red pill content has on young boys, not only for the outcomes of their behaviour towards women and other marginalized groups, but for their mental health as well. I also discussed the implications of red pill content that young men are being exposed to through the manosphere, by having their idea of women and society as a whole completely skewed due to the sheer amount of misinformation being thrown at them; never giving them a chance to step back and think about the implications of supporting these ideologies. Finally, I explored what is attracting young men to these online spaces and what is making them feel seen. Those involved in the manosphere are feeling “left behind” by progressive movements, and are making an attempt to bring themselves into the forefront by wreaking havoc among society, rather than joining the fight for inclusivity and equality. The manosphere is a dangerous place for children to be online, especially with influencers such as Andrew Tate and his popularity, it can be almost impossible to escape. Keeping not only children but parents away from this online space will be beneficial for society as a whole, allowing for parents to pass on positive ideologies to their children, rather than having the manosphere create children with skewed concepts of society, and skewed concepts of themselves.