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The manosphere is a varied collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.; ; ; Communities within the manosphere include men's rights activists (MRAs), (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), (PUA), and fathers' rights groups. While the specifics of each group's beliefs sometimes conflict, they are generally united in the belief that society is biased against men due to the influence of feminism, and that feminists promote misandry (hatred of men).; ; ; ; Acceptance of these ideas is described as "taking the red pill", a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix.; ; ;
The manosphere overlaps with the far-right and alt-right communities. It has also been associated with online harassment and has been implicated in Radicalization men into misogynist beliefs and the glorification of violence against women. Some sources have associated manosphere-based radicalization with mass shootings motivated by misogyny.; ; The manosphere received significant media coverage following the 2014 Isla Vista killings in California, the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, and the 2018 Toronto van attack, as well as the online harassment campaign against women in the video game industry known as GamerGate.; ;
Major figures within the movement include various social media Influencer, including Andrew Tate, Amrou "Myron Gaines" Fudl, Adin Ross, Roosh V, Carl Benjamin and Jordan Peterson.
Recent research traces the manosphere’s modern incarnation to early online men’s-rights discussion forums and pick-up-artist communities that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Its ideological roots reach further back to twentieth-century activist organizations that claimed men were disadvantaged in divorce and custody proceedings. Over time, these loosely connected spaces coalesced into a cohesive ecosystem united by shared frustration over perceived injustices against men, a development amplified by social networks and online forums. Scholars note that high-profile figures—through blogs, YouTube channels, and other web platforms—popularized these ideas, engaged followers, and helped establish the ideological framework that now shapes the broader community.
Building upon these early foundations, the manosphere gained momentum in the early 2010s as online influencers and content creators promoted “red pill” philosophies—ideas that claim society is systematically biased against men—through viral videos, podcasts, and debates. Media reports and academic studies have observed that many of these influencers intentionally use controversy and confrontational language to expand their audiences and generate revenue. A January 2020 study found that such tactics have spread misogynistic speech beyond fringe websites, fueling widespread online hate campaigns and, in some cases, contributing to violence against women.
The term "manosphere", a play on the word "blogosphere", is believed to have first appeared on Blogspot in 2009.; ; It was subsequently popularized by Ian Ironwood, a pornography marketer who collected a variety of blogs and forums in book form as The Manosphere: A New Hope For Masculinity. The term entered the popular lexicon when news media began to use it in stories about men who had committed acts of misogynist violence, sexual assault, and online harassment.
Journalist Emma A. Jane identifies the late 2000s–early 2010s as a "tipping point" when manosphere communities moved from the fringes of the Internet towards the mainstream. She hypothesizes this was related to the advent of Web 2.0 and the rise of social media, in combination with ongoing systemic misogyny within a patriarchal culture. Jane writes that the manosphere was well established by the time of the GamerGate controversy in 2014, and misogynistic language such as graphic against women had entered mainstream discourse, being deployed by men not necessarily identified with any specific manosphere group.
Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 United States presidential election, The Associated Press reported that an "emboldened" manopshere used Trump's win "to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online" and that it was no longer an online-only phenomenon. It highlighted the phrase "Your body, my choice" being used against women coined by Nick Fuentes, along with the phrases "Get back in the kitchen" and "Repeal the 19th" receiving millions of views on X. It also reported that the phrases had moved offline, "with boys chanting 'Your in middle schools or men directing it at women on college campuses", and highlighted a man holding a sign that read "Women Are Property" at Texas State University.
While the specifics of each group's beliefs sometimes conflict, the general ideology of manosphere groups centers on the promotion of masculinity, antifeminism, and misogyny. In particular, feminists are portrayed as ignoring male victims of sexual assault and encouraging false rape accusations against men. Journalist Caitlin Dewey argues that the main tenets of the manosphere can be reduced to (1) the corruption of modern society by feminism, in violation of inherent sex differences between men and women; and (2) the ability of men to save society or achieve sexual prowess by adopting a hyper-masculine role and forcing women to submit to them., quoted in Criminologist Lisa Sugiura writes that disparate groups within the manosphere are "united by the central belief that feminine values, propelled by feminism, dominate society and promote a 'misandrist' ideology that needs to be overthrown".
A central tenet of the manosphere is the concept of the red pill, a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix. It concerns awakening men to the supposed reality that society is dominated by feminism and biased against men.; ; ; Manospherians believe that feminists and political correctness obscure this reality, and that men are victims who must fight to protect themselves.; ; Accepting the manosphere's ideology is equated with "taking the red pill" (sometimes abbreviated TRP), and those who do not are seen as "blue pilled" or as having "taken the blue pill".; ; ; Such terminology originated on the antifeminist subreddit /r/TheRedPill and was later taken up by men's rights and MGTOW sites. Donna Zuckerberg writes, "The Red Pill represents a new phase in online misogyny. Its members not only mock and belittle women; they also believe that in our society, men are oppressed by women."
Men are commonly divided into "alpha" and "beta" males; ; within an evolutionary-psychology framework, where "alphas" are seen as sexually dominant and attractive to women, who are hardwired to want sex with alphas but will pair with "beta" males for financial benefits. Among MRAs and PUAs this argument is known as "alpha fux beta bux".
Reddit has been a popular gathering place for manosphere supporters, and several forums on the site are geared toward its ideas.; However, in the late 2010s and 2020s Reddit began to take steps to discourage more extreme manosphere subreddits. Some were banned, such as /r/incels (banned in 2017), its successor /r/braincels (banned in 2018), and /r/MGTOW (banned in August 2021); other subreddits such as /r/TheRedPill have been "quarantined", meaning that a warning is displayed to users about the content of the subreddit and users must sign in before they're allowed to enter.; ; ; As a result, some of these communities have found new homes on websites that are more welcoming of extreme content, such as Gab.
Major figures within the movement include various social media Influencer, including Andrew Tate, Amrou "Myron Gaines" Fudl, Adin Ross, Roosh V, Carl Benjamin and Jordan Peterson. Some women have also lent credibility to the movement, including Hannah Pearl Davis.
Arthur Goldwag described the manosphere in the Spring 2012 edition of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report as an "underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations... who devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones)." He added a caveat later that year, saying, "It should be mentioned that the SPLC did not label MRAs as members of a hate movement; nor did our article claim that the grievances they air on their websites – false rape accusations, ruinous divorce settlements and the like – are all without merit. But we did call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence." In 2018, the SPLC added male supremacy as a category they track on their list of . The British anti-extremism group Hope not Hate included the manosphere in its 2019 State of Hate report.
Some podcast bros extend their influence by monetizing their personas. They sell branded merchandise, offer premium content, and host subscriber-only events. This business model mirrors what The Wall Street Journal calls the “new-wave” political podcast: fresh commentary delivered in a familiar media format. Supporters argue that these hosts create community through opinionated, off-the-cuff discussion. Critics counter that the format can oversimplify complex social and political issues, risking misinformation and polarization.
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