Watching the Louis Theroux documentary, apart from the obvious shock of hearing slurs and misogynistic remarks so loudly and thoroughly that you might think these manosphere men and society as a whole are doomed, I couldn’t help but see a blaring subliminal message behind all of the offensive noise. The manosphere wasn’t just incel aggression and social media manipulation; for me, it was a confused and misdirected Marxist critique.
Although comments by manosphere figureheads like HsTikktoky are often dismissed as ridiculous jargon, if you look past the shock value, they point to a deeper frustration. Their anger is aimed at what they call the “Matrix”—which seems like a schizophrenic othering from reality but is actually a metaphor for a system of exploitative labour and systemic oppression: capitalism. Therefore, whilst their followers seem to be attracted to fantasies of wealth, cars and women that the influencers sell, the real attachment is to an ideology about escaping a system they feel trapped within.
The reason why the gang leaders of the manosphere are respected and their following is so large and partly convincing is because, if you read between the lines, they are not actually mad at women, sex workers or “beta” unmuscled men. I am not excusing the volatility or harm of their language; instead, it reflects anger toward capitalism—a system of broken meritocracy which they feel traps people in endless work, rewards them with far less than they believe they deserve and sustains deathly wealth inequality. However, they are deeply ignorant and unaware, as they facetiously do not understand the same system they are fighting against, instead mistaking it for a gender war.
“Men aren’t born with value, women are”
For example, one of the fans that Theroux interviews makes a comment that “men don’t have anything in life” and that they are born without value, so they have to build value. He claims that no one hands you anything in life. When Theroux questions whether the same is true for women to another manosphere podcaster, he answers: “Women are born with value: tits and a vagina”.
Beauty is capital in the manosphere lens, and these men antagonise women who are well aware of this and can capitalise on their position in this thwarted society. This is why they particularly attack OnlyFans models and other sex workers, whilst caging and gaining support from dependent housewives as a way to reinforce their views and misdirect their hatred.
The red-pilled working man here directs his anger with his position in society incorrectly towards the “beautiful, young woman”, and even goes as far as to conflate her position in society as the reality for all working women. The reality is that 72.4% of women in the UK are working, only 5% less than 77% of all men. Therefore, the majority of working women are not constantly being taken out on dates by oligarchs or millionaires on private planes and yacht parties, nor being financed by men simply for having “tits and vaginas” as the men in the manosphere want you to believe. However, red-pilled men overemphasise this “sugar baby”, easy-sex lifestyle because they are jealous, angry and frustrated with the fact that some women do have the choice to not work for the following reasons:
- They are beautiful enough to be pandered to and financed by rich men.
- The patriarchal expectations in society have historically conditioned and forced all women to remain in the private sphere of the home. So they see even the working heterosexual woman as lucky, because her “Plan B” in a misogynistic, traditional society is to rely on a man—an option a straight man simply cannot have. “He cannot rely on anyone”.
They are essentially jealous of the loopholes that they think women have access to, which guards them from the naked frost of capitalism, without realising that most women in the West do not rely on men in this traditional way anymore. Even the ones that do are doing it at the cost of their agency and are essentially still providing free labour by being housewives, with the compensation being unequal to the services they are providing (referencing my article A Housewife is a Slave).
Who should they be attacking?
Here is where the Marxist critique comes in, because the men in the manosphere are rightly frustrated with the capitalist society they feel burdened by, and we are now in late-stage capitalism which Marx warns us about. For example, the “economic paradox” that Marx talks about—how as technology advances, we expect work to become more efficient and helpful for workers but, instead, it means work hours are longer, production demands are higher or workers are replaced by AI technology. So the benefits go to the owners, rather than those labouring to its development.
It is pretty clear that both the spearheads and the followers of the manosphere can affect elections and politics. Vice comments on how Barron Trump, Andrew Tate and Elon Musk helped dramatically shift the 2024 vote in Trump’s favour, with Tate announcing the election was “men v the gays n chics”, polarising America and pressuring men to vote Republican if they were “true men”.
Giving my friend Tommy a preview of my article a few days ago, he asked this question: “Why do you think the conclusion these men draw is the opposite, by glorifying the capitalist dream of driving fast cars and living in a penthouse?”
Because of the fetishisation of commodities.
In Das Kapital (1867), commodities are referred to as “use value” that form economic and social relationships that determine an exchange value. For example, when you see the manosphere leaders show their ample display of women, large houses and flashy cars, they are symbiotically showing they are free from capitalism’s slave chain of command. It proves they are “alphas” and assertive, signalling their position in society as “high-value” men, as all these commodities are granted a “magical quality”. They aren’t just fast, sexy and gorgeous; they are symbols of freedom and happiness—even if they are not creating that reality, they help paint an illusion of it.
Another analysis of this refers to the “bread and circuses” theory (based on Juvenal’s satires), which I discuss in my upcoming article Psychology of a Revolution. Here, I argue that modern societies fail to revolutionise when their immediate needs are met, even if it is in a short-term, artificial form. Achieving a flashy car is much more immediately satisfying and easy to do than actively reaching social consciousness and then toppling a regime built on your acceptance of your exploitation.
Lastly, whilst we know the real enemy that perpetuates an uncomfortable, divided society is the top 1% (bourgeoisie), they purposely prevent mass mobilisation against them by dividing the proletariat, using tools such as propaganda.
The way Marx famously explains it is: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.” Our ability to think for ourselves is limited; our ideas are shaped by the material conditions of life.
That is why Marx often described literature as simple propaganda for the ruling classes, because in feudal societies, chivalric romances would create cultural fantasies where aristocrats would rescue and save us from imaginary villains, glamorising their upper-class status quo. In this instance, social media has become class propaganda, where the new aristocrats—the manosphere leaders—use fantasies of working to the top through worshipping false gods such as “cryptocurrency”, “streaming” and “weeding out women” as a way to stay distracted from the real enemy at hand.
The top 1% benefit from working men and women being divided, or “alpha” men and “beta” men being pitted up against each other, because it distracts them from the true class consciousness they need to create collective political and social action against their oppressors.
Conclusively, red-pilled men are the epitome of “right message, wrong messenger”. Men have valid anger, yet its victims are caught in the wrong-sized holes of this internet discourse.
