The “manosphere” is a loose collection of movements, groups, and ideologies that are connected by certain views on masculinity, femininity, and relationships. It includes the Red Pill, the Black Pill (a more extreme version of the Red Pill), MGTOW (“Men Going Their Own Way”), incel subculture, pick-up artists (PUA), men’s rights activists (MRA), GamerGate, and a large portion of the alt-right in general. The manosphere ideology is based on misogyny, antifeminism, toxic masculinity, and the general view that sexual relationships are transactional (creating a zero-sum “sexual marketplace”). It also has a strong tendency towards white supremacy and anti-LGBTQ+.

There are a couple of concepts that are central to much of the manosphere that, when understood in context, totally undermine the way they are used within the manosphere.

The red pill and the blue pill

Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about? … Do you want to know what it is?

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. … That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.

Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)

Part of what makes this scene from The Matrix so compelling is that, up to this point in the movie, the mystery has been building as Neo has painstakingly sought out Morpheus to get an answer to the question: “What is the Matrix?” What I think makes this scene rise above mere suspense to be one of the greatest scenes in filmmaking is how Morpheus’ speech rings true to many viewers. Many people do feel like there is something wrong with the world. They don’t necessarily understand what it is but they see it everywhere and feel it everywhere. It’s constantly with them. It feels as if a deep truth about their reality is somehow being concealed or denied by the world they see around them. Morpheus’ offer is an intriguing one: what if you could take a pill that resolves that nagging feeling?

Anyway, The Matrix is an allegory for transness. The Wachowskis have said this explicitly. Unfortunately, as a cool action movie, it became popular with many dude-bros, a subset of whom twisted the meaning of the red pill into “waking up to a harsh reality” in general and specifically into accepting the supposed reality of, well, insert ideology here. The Red Pill has come to represent “female nature” as fundamentally selfish and manipulative, toxic masculine beauty standards, the idea that white men are under attack, the idea that “western civilization” is on the verge of collapse, the genetic and cultural supremacy of whites, the idea that vaccines cause autism or are dangerous, and even the flat earth and other outlandish conspiracy theories.

Overall, this has reduced the meaning of “taking the red pill” to simply agreeing with an ideological position that is unpopular. “Based and redpilled” is a common refrain in the manosphere. The association with “waking up to reality” is particularly important however due to the alt-right’s obsession with “facts and logic.” Ironically, the vast majority of alt-right views are driven solely by emotion, with no scientific evidence to back them up. Men (especially young white cishet men) who are emotionally dysregulated and struggle to find and maintain romantic relationships end up lashing out at others whom they perceive to be causing their problems: namely, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people of color. They deny the reality of their own struggles by blaming others. They think of this as waking up to a harsh reality because this “reality” for them is a world that is incredibly hostile to them, when in fact this is a maladaptive coping mechanism. Each such person is worthy of genuine love and is capable of having genuine love for others, but accepting this would leave them too emotionally vulnerable.

Alpha and beta

A thing that is ostensibly “evolutionary psychology” is central to much of the manosphere ideology. This is generally speculation based on very simplistic understandings of both evolution and psychology. In most cases, there is either zero evidence or there is evidence directly to the contrary. A favorite for constituents of the manosphere is the idea of the “alpha male” and “alpha female,” as well as “beta males” and “beta females” (sometimes extending this further into the Greek alphabet). This is supposedly an idea from ethology (animal behaviorism).

Here’s the problem: there was a single study that introduced this idea, the study had nothing to do with human behavior, there was never at any point any suggestion it could be extended to humans in any way, and the study was later discovered to be completely incorrect in the first place. The original study was Rudolph Schenkel’s “Expression Studies on Wolves” (1947), and took place at a zoo in Basel, Switzerland. Several wolves from different packs had been put together in a very small enclosure, and Schenkel observed that they fought with one another for dominance and in particular for access to food and reproduction.

For decades afterwards, it was assumed that this was how wolf packs in the wild were structured socially. This was corroborated by observations that, within a pack, there is typically a single mating pair who is clearly dominant (e.g. eating first while other members of the pack wait). Eventually, though, it was found that wolf packs in the wild are family units. The parents are dominant over their pups, and they are the only mating pair in the pack (since any other mating pair would be incestuous and is thus naturally avoided by the wolves’ mating preferences). When wolves mature, they typically go out to find a mate from another pack and together form a new family pack. The zoo in Basel in the 1940s is now recognized as an exceptional and unnatural situation for wolves to find themselves in.

Right off the bat, it would be absurd to extend this to humans even if it were accurate about wolves. Wolves and humans are not even terribly closely related; our last common ancestor lived about 100 million years ago. That’s long before even the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Since we observe a variety of social structures in animals more closely related to us (as well as among animals more closely related to wolves), it would be beyond unreasonable to guess that human and wolf social structures are connected evolutionarily. Human and wolf social structures absolutely, without a doubt, evolved separately. Now, it is possible that many people use the term in analogy to wolves, rather than implying that there is actually a connection there. But again, this has never been observed and nothing in science suggests it even might be the case!

While alt-right types very much like the veneer of science, they mostly have little to no interest in actual science. The explanation usually provided is that any science they don’t like is part of some kind of left-wing conspiracy within academia. Never mind that they are virtually never willing to engage with the content of the science itself, nor can they actually form coherent critiques of scientific studies they believe to be wrong. Instead, they dismiss entire areas of scientific inquiry out of hand because the results make them feel uncomfortable (how’s that for a “blue pill?”).

Final thoughts

As a man who has personally struggled with emotional dysregulation, I have a lot of empathy for young men who get pulled into this toxic subculture. I often think that, had I been exposed to different things in my youth, I easily could have fallen into that way of thinking myself. I was fortunate to have positive influences in my life, especially my older siblings. Many people are not so fortunate. I still struggle with emotional vulnerability, as do many people. It is not too late for these young men; they must be shown that their beliefs are wrong and that many of their behaviors are unacceptable, and that they themselves are valuable and worthwhile people who can contribute positively to the world and lead fulfilling lives.

There is another side to the manosphere, however, which is the grifters and “influencers,” from Andrew Tate and Logan Paul to Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson, who make money and advance ideological goals by offering their “advice” (or even just their image) to men. This is the part of the manosphere that is, in my opinion, genuinely sinister. If we are to address the problems facing young men, these individuals must be opposed at every turn.