Clinical Psychologist Dr Mandeep Bachu draws on his clinical practice…
29 April 2026
I've been noticing a pattern in my clinical work with younger men. They don't usually come in talking about the internet or the manosphere. They come in describing a more general sense of being stuck or unsure what direction to take. It's only later, sometimes almost in passing, that these online spaces start to appear.
Watching Louis Theroux's Netflix documentary Inside the Manosphere, I found myself thinking about those conversations. It would be easy to dismiss those being interviewed as cynical grifters exploiting young men, and to hope that exposing them will shame them into becoming better versions of themselves. A great deal of commentary on the manosphere begins and ends with condemnation. Its leading personalities are mocked, their ideas seen as absurd, and their audiences dismissed as either dangerous or pathetic. At its worst, young men can be labelled in ways that push them further into the very spaces being criticised.
The more interesting question for me is why so many young men are drawn to this material in the first place.
There's a market for this
If the brands on display in the documentary were built entirely on nonsense, they would not have the appeal they do. What struck me watching it was how closely this maps onto something familiar in psychology: most successful systems tend to organise themselves around a perceived absence.
This is clearest in the people who dominate the current landscape. In the documentary, for example, HSTikkyTokky is held up alongside Bonnie Blue – two figures who, on the surface, represent opposite ends of a gender divide, yet operate on a similar economic logic. Both have been accused of exploiting young men for profit. But focusing only on their behaviour risks missing the wider pattern.
In the case of HSTikkyTokky, his appeal seems to rest on offering something that many young men feel is lacking elsewhere: a sense of physical and social competence. In the case of Bonnie Blue, one could argue she represents an extreme version of sexual liberation merged with raw capitalism. They are, in different ways, responding to the same underlying confusion and turning it into something scalable.
Something real is being missed
The manosphere appeals because it speaks to needs that are real, even when the answers it provides are often distorted or unhelpful. Many young men seem uncertain about what is expected of them and what kind of life they are supposed to build.
In recent years there has been a great deal of cultural language devoted to female advancement, disadvantage, and empowerment, much of which has been necessary. But in clinical conversations, I've sometimes found that male struggle is more difficult to articulate or is handled more cautiously. It can be quickly pathologised or dismissed, rather than explored in its own terms.
Over the past few years there has also been a focus on 'toxic masculinity', and many things are too easily placed under that label. Going to the gym, being stoic, approaching a woman, or wanting to be confident, have sometimes been labelled as 'toxic'. As a consequence, the confusion many young men experience is not entirely imagined. They are told to be emotionally open, but not weak. Ambitious, but not threatening. Respectful, but still confident and assertive. Caring about appearance is acceptable up to a point, but too much concern with status or desirability is treated as shallow or regressive. They are told that older models of masculinity are anachronistic, but what is meant to replace them is vague at best.
All this leaves many young men frustrated, and open to anyone offering direction. The manosphere steps into that space with a much simpler account of how the world works. The problem is not that it invents reality, but that it narrows it to a crude worldview. It has the veneer of honesty compared to the softened language elsewhere and answers the right questions in the wrong way. It recognises status anxiety, romantic frustration, and uncertainty about identity, then compresses them into something too narrow to be healthy.
The business of insecurity
The manosphere is compelling because it offers agency. Many young men would rather hear a hard message that gives them something to do than a softer one that leaves them stuck. Improve yourself. Train harder. Earn more. Stop complaining. Take responsibility. That kind of message lands because it provides direction. It tells a young man that he can become someone else through effort and discipline.
But that same message that promises agency quietly builds a market around insecurity. Loneliness, rejection, low status, sexual inexperience, and the fear of being ordinary are packaged as problems to be solved. The audience is told it is failing, then sold a way out. Courses, communities, subscriptions, coaching, all organised around a simple promise: you do not have to remain invisible. What begins as self-improvement turns into a business model built on keeping that insecurity alive.
Many of these young men are not simply trying to acquire things. They are trying to become someone who is seen differently by others. Desire, in that sense, is not only about what you want, but about how you are perceived. This is close to what Jacques Lacan was pointing to: 'Man's desire is the desire of the Other'. We do not simply desire an object; we desire to be the object of another's desire.
The manosphere identifies this and offers a rigid script in response. Recognition is framed not as something that develops through relationships or community, but as something achieved through visible signals: money, dominance, sexual success. The difficulty is that this kind of recognition is inherently unstable. There is always someone with more status, more wealth, or more attention. What is presented as a solution to invisibility can become a different kind of anxiety, one that keeps people engaged but not necessarily settled.
Why it still holds appeal
Boys and young men have always looked outward to understand what kind of man to become. When that guidance feels unclear or unconvincing, they look elsewhere. What they often find are voices that speak with certainty, offering rules that feel more solid than anything in their immediate environment. Even when those models are limited, they still provide structure. In practice, I've found myself recognising that a flawed model can sometimes feel more usable than no model at all.
What I've had to rethink is the extent to which dismissal or critique alone is unlikely to be effective. The manosphere often begins with ideas that are not entirely unreasonable. Discipline matters. Physical strength matters. Passivity can be limiting. Its influence comes partly from mixing familiar truths with increasingly narrow conclusions.
If there is a meaningful response, it may involve being clearer about what we are offering in return. That could mean taking male distress more seriously in its own terms, being more precise in how we use concepts like 'toxicity', and offering forms of guidance that feel both realistic and psychologically grounded. The aim is not to legitimise everything these spaces promote, but to understand what they are responding to. Without that, it is difficult to offer an alternative that feels credible. Until something does, these spaces are likely to retain their pull.
SOURCE:
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/understanding-appeal-manosphere(accessed 8.5.26)
No comments:
Post a Comment