Speaker 1: From the dark corners of the web. An emerging mindset.
Speaker 2: I am a loser if also we know wouldn't pay
Speaker 2: me either.
Speaker 3: A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at
Speaker 3: a deadly tipping point.
Speaker 4: In Cells will be added to the Terrorism Guide.
Speaker 2: I see literally zero hope.
Speaker 1: This is In Cells, a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Season one, episode six, The Manosphere.
Speaker 2: The guy who invented Graham Crackers invented graham Crackers to
Speaker 2: keep boys from masturbating. I kid you not.
Speaker 5: In the then diagram of in Cells and Tate, the
Speaker 5: circle where they intersect is rather large.
Speaker 6: Andrew Tate, I got a lot of thoughts on him.
Speaker 7: Well, none of the role models that in Cells have
Speaker 7: are positive.
Speaker 1: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at Kat's Studios with Stephanie Leideger,
Speaker 1: Gabriel Castillo, Connor Powell, and Carolyn Miller. There's five point
Speaker 1: five billion people online and nearly as many on social media.
Speaker 1: It's how we get news, buy things, and connect with friends.
Speaker 1: For the two point seven billion men online, It's also
Speaker 1: where hate, abuse and misogyny spreads. It's seeping rampantly onto
Speaker 1: school yards and into our homes. Thankfully, the manosphere is
Speaker 1: coming to the forefront of conversations, even on daytime TV.
Speaker 1: Here's a snippet from The Tammer and Hall Show, which
Speaker 1: aired on Monday, April twenty first, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 8: According to the anti hate organization the Anti Defamation League,
Speaker 8: the Menisphere is an online network aimed at men and boys,
Speaker 8: often promoting harmful, rigid expectations of men, extreme misogyny, and
Speaker 8: aggressive in cell culture. In cells are men who identify
Speaker 8: as quote involuntary celibate and blame female empowerment for their
Speaker 8: lack of sexual experience, and as a result, whose hatred
Speaker 8: and sometimes even violent against women.
Speaker 1: Here's another excerpt. It's from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Speaker 1: It aired on Tuesday, June third, twenty five.
Speaker 9: Men may be lonely, but modern society has a solution,
Speaker 9: and you'll never get's the Internet.
Speaker 4: It's the Internet.
Speaker 9: Lately, I've been hitting the old doom swipe bees over here,
Speaker 9: and my mangorithm has introduced me to all sorts of
Speaker 9: new alpha friends, a wide world of podcasters and social
Speaker 9: media influencers, and roided out in man cubes that comprise
Speaker 9: the media landscape. That has been dubbed the manosphere, where
Speaker 9: we men get to together to discuss professional sports, gambling, weightlifting, drinking,
Speaker 9: drug use, and women.
Speaker 1: The manosphere is a collection of digital spaces that claim
Speaker 1: to support men's challenges in areas like dating, fitness, and fatherhood. However,
Speaker 1: many of these communities spread harmful narratives and advice. According
Speaker 1: to the United Nations Secretary General's Report on Violenced against
Speaker 1: Women and Girls, these groups share a common thread opposing
Speaker 1: women and framing men as victims. Victimhood is something we've
Speaker 1: spoken about in depth as it becomes one of the
Speaker 1: most defining characteristics of many in cells personal identities. Here's
Speaker 1: clinical psychologist, sex therapist and author doctor David Lay.
Speaker 3: Manisphere is the term being used to describe these online
Speaker 3: influencer types that are speaking directly to man and that
Speaker 3: have larger audiences of men. Joe Rogan is one that
Speaker 3: we can see has a tremendous amount of influence. We've
Speaker 3: also got folks like Andrew Taate. And what's unfortunate is
Speaker 3: that lots of these men are out there talking to
Speaker 3: young males. They're not oftentimes putting out the healthiest messages.
Speaker 3: They are oftentimes you know, talking about your more manly,
Speaker 3: by being physically violent, by treating women in a dominant manner,
Speaker 3: by not caring what women think. Unfortunately, they are encouraging
Speaker 3: much more what we would you know, typically classify, as
Speaker 3: you know, hostile masculinity. It is a sad, circular, self
Speaker 3: fulfilling prophecy that puts these young meals at risk.
Speaker 1: A lot of the messaging in the manosphere is hostile
Speaker 1: and violent, but it's worth stating again that the absolutely
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of in cells are nonviolent. It's also worth
Speaker 1: stating how pivotal it is to understand just what kind
Speaker 1: of content and messaging is filling the minds of men
Speaker 1: and shaping a new generation of boys. But it's not
Speaker 1: just the men who are impacted. The effects on girls
Speaker 1: and women is very real and very concerning.
Speaker 3: In real life, there's a growing number of examples of
Speaker 3: manisphere culture affecting interactions between boys and girls. It's like
Speaker 3: little things like oh, you should be back in the kitchen,
Speaker 3: and even though it's a joke, some people take it
Speaker 3: really far.
Speaker 10: There are games that I've stopped playing because every single
Speaker 10: time I joined, I'd receive a rape threat.
Speaker 11: Me and my former roommate were chased on campus by
Speaker 11: two different men saying that they were going to have
Speaker 11: a lot of fun with us that night. Those kinds
Speaker 11: of things have migrated from online worlds into real life,
Speaker 11: sometimes in ways that boys are just trying to be provocative,
Speaker 11: sometimes in ways that are really dangerous stepping stones on
Speaker 11: the way to more harmful and violent content and behaviors.
Speaker 1: Here's criminologist and in cell expert doctor Sarah Daily.
Speaker 10: So the manisphere is a collection of online sites and
Speaker 10: communities where they prioritize men's issues. They can range from
Speaker 10: in cells all the way up to men's rights activists.
Speaker 10: You have pick up artists who try to manipulate potential
Speaker 10: romantic partners. You have men going their own way who
Speaker 10: just want nothing to do with women. They won't work
Speaker 10: for them, with them, marry them, date them. Andrew Tait
Speaker 10: would dislike everything about in cells. They are beta weak
Speaker 10: men in his mind. They're just sitting around and whining
Speaker 10: and crying, and that's against everything that he stands for.
Speaker 1: The hashtag Andrew Tate has garnered billions of views, and
Speaker 1: he was the third most searched person on Google in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. You may not know who he is,
Speaker 1: but ask any twelve to eighteen year old boy in
Speaker 1: your life. Here's crime analyst Body Moven and Stephanie filling
Speaker 1: us in on Andrew Tate, the King of the Manosphere.
Speaker 5: A new study published in the Journal of Gender and
Speaker 5: Education out of Canada is finding that boys are adopting
Speaker 5: Andrew Tate's misogynistic views and bringing them into class, which
Speaker 5: is quite alarming. Teachers worry that the rise in Tate
Speaker 5: inspired misogynistic rhetoric will lead to tangible safety threats like
Speaker 5: gender based violence in schools. So, who are the Tate brothers?
Speaker 5: You've never heard of him?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 5: So, Andrew Tate. He is a former four time kickboxing
Speaker 5: world champion. He was on Big Brother in twenty sixteen
Speaker 5: and he was kicked off because, as he was like
Speaker 5: on the show, charges were being filed against him in
Speaker 5: the UK for rape. The UK authorities have cited his
Speaker 5: influence as terrifying, particularly in the context of radicalizing boys online.
Speaker 5: And that's exactly what's happening.
Speaker 12: Young boys too, middle schoolers in theory, right, middle I
Speaker 12: would say probably starts around seventh or eighth grade.
Speaker 5: Around that time, he moved to Romania in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 5: saying in a now deleted YouTube post that forty percent
Speaker 5: of the reason he chose Eastern Europe was because he
Speaker 5: believed that sexual assault cases were less likely to be
Speaker 5: in investigated there. He openly declares himself a misogynist dating
Speaker 5: an interview, I'm absolutely a misogynist. There's no way you
Speaker 5: can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.
Speaker 1: Tate had a podcast on Spotify that was taken down
Speaker 1: after ninety two thousand people signed a petition complaining about
Speaker 1: the degree course he was offering. The title of the course,
Speaker 1: pimping Hose Crime analyst Body Moven continues.
Speaker 5: He's gotten banned from almost every single platform, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok.
Speaker 5: He continues on X because X is kind of like
Speaker 5: the wild wild West, Right, everybody can be on X,
Speaker 5: but it's due to this promotion of this misogyny and
Speaker 5: statements such as women should bear responsibility for being sexually assaulted.
Speaker 7: Tate and his money making subscription channels have been pulled off.
Speaker 5: YouTube and other platforms, with TikTok citing his hateful ideology.
Speaker 5: He runs a webcam company, and he would show other
Speaker 5: men or talk to other men about how to be
Speaker 5: a sex trafficker and how to scam money out girls
Speaker 5: in how women are your property and yes, you absolutely
Speaker 5: should be making money and stealing from them. He moved
Speaker 5: to Romania in twenty seventeen, right, and he was arrested
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty two for sex trafficking seven women and
Speaker 5: money laundering and rape. The Romanian courts abruptly reversed the
Speaker 5: charges and allowed Tate to leave the country after several
Speaker 5: high level Trump administrators took an official interest in this case.
Speaker 5: Andrew Tate is a US citizen. He's got dual citizenship
Speaker 5: with the United States. In Britain, a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people think that Tate brothers tell it like it is,
Speaker 1: that the younger generation needs role models like them to
Speaker 1: be men, and that women overreact to tates messaging, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to understand what is so alluring about them. Specifically,
Speaker 1: Andrew Tate is athletic, confident, and re He's often seen
Speaker 1: with a bevy of women. And if you're sitting in
Speaker 1: your room trying to sort through hormones in middle school,
Speaker 1: or you're older and having trouble with confidence and women,
Speaker 1: all of these things are appealing here again, body Movin,
Speaker 1: followed by Stephanie.
Speaker 5: I'd love to have a conversation about why, like what
Speaker 5: specifically about the Andrew Tate ideology is helping young men
Speaker 5: become men, because right now I don't think it's helping
Speaker 5: at all, And I think that if fathers were more
Speaker 5: involved in their children's life, they wouldn't need Andrew Tate
Speaker 5: to help them become men.
Speaker 12: Is Andrew Tate messaging something that is equal to saying, hey,
Speaker 12: look yeah, sexually assault people ain't no thing right. That's
Speaker 12: the scary part because even confident, well spoken, rich, affluent
Speaker 12: people can still be extremely degrading and violent. It's in
Speaker 12: the bones ideologically. How do we keep this conversation going
Speaker 12: without shutting it down and being myopic about it?
Speaker 1: I asked Boddy about Andrew Tate's brother, Tristan Tate. He's
Speaker 1: thirty seven years old, just one year younger than Andrew,
Speaker 1: and the two live very intertwined lives.
Speaker 5: He runs the business with Andrew Tate. They have a
Speaker 5: webcam studio where they employ as many as seventy five models,
Speaker 5: and what they do is they just scam in out
Speaker 5: of their money an online membership to the platform which
Speaker 5: teaches men how to get rich quick. It's called Hustler's University,
Speaker 5: and the other one is called the Real World that
Speaker 5: serves like a really similar purpose.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. We went to Hustler University's website. You can
Speaker 1: get access to the services for forty nine dollars a month.
Speaker 1: The website states we have proven results from members who
Speaker 1: used to be just like you. The only difference is
Speaker 1: that they took action, while most of you are still hesitant,
Speaker 1: being afraid, and worrying that you may waste forty nine
Speaker 1: dollars which you can spend on a night at the
Speaker 1: bar with your broke friends. The first question in the
Speaker 1: fac section is and I quote A, am I too
Speaker 1: young to join the community? Answer? No, as long as
Speaker 1: you have a device that connects to the Internet, you
Speaker 1: can join us. Crime Analyzed Body Moven continues on how
Speaker 1: affle Mail's Andrew and Tristan Tate collide with the in
Speaker 1: cell community for reference, as many see the male hierarchy,
Speaker 1: alphas are at the top, beta's below them in cells,
Speaker 1: often placing themselves below the betas.
Speaker 5: And he self describes himself Christian Tate as a pimp.
Speaker 5: I mean, they're not hiding it. These guys are not
Speaker 5: hiding that they're pimps. But I want to quickly let
Speaker 5: everybody know that Tape Brothers are not in cells. But
Speaker 5: what is important to know is that they share like
Speaker 5: really similar ideology. They're all kind of misogynistic, and you know,
Speaker 5: some in cels admire Tate, seeing him as somebody who's
Speaker 5: escaped this powerless male role that they feel trapped in.
Speaker 5: So Andrew Tate and the Tape Brothers are not in cells,
Speaker 5: but again they're in the then diagram of in cells
Speaker 5: and Tate. The circle where they intersect is rather large.
Speaker 1: Investigative producer Connor Powell spoke with Brian, a self described
Speaker 1: in cell we've heard from in an earlier episode. Here's
Speaker 1: Connor followed by Brian.
Speaker 4: I'm curious, are there certain people within the community that
Speaker 4: everybody looks to or thinks about good or bad?
Speaker 10: Like?
Speaker 8: I mean, are there are there.
Speaker 4: Any positive real models or are there any really destructive
Speaker 4: role models?
Speaker 6: I entretate, I got a lot of thoughts on him.
Speaker 7: Well, none of the role models that in cells have
Speaker 7: are positive. I'm thirty nine years old, so I'm one
Speaker 7: of the older guys, and I've lived more life and
Speaker 7: I'm a lot more calmer. So I have a better
Speaker 7: moral and ethical compass than most of them do. And
Speaker 7: none of them are positive. Andrewtates admired because even though
Speaker 7: that in Cells are not like him, he speaks to them.
Speaker 1: Brian's audio got garbled here, but this is verbatim what
Speaker 1: he said. He basically is a light at the end
Speaker 1: of the tunnel of like, well, I was a nerd
Speaker 1: in the geek too, but I became a kickboxing champion
Speaker 1: and now I'm rich, and now women mean nothing to me.
Speaker 13: Brian continues, So, even though he's nothing like us, he
Speaker 13: knows how to appeal to us, and he's not real.
Speaker 7: People make him look at sound like he's a genius
Speaker 7: and this and that, but largely he made his money unethically.
Speaker 7: He is totally toxic. There is no positive role models
Speaker 7: for in cells. They all kind of cling to this
Speaker 7: alpha male archetype that isn't even real. And if you
Speaker 7: look at all that alpha melbs on the internet, you're
Speaker 7: probably thinking.
Speaker 6: How are these guys getting paid? Who is funding their lifestyle?
Speaker 6: Who believes any of the bullshit that they're saying, well,
Speaker 6: in Cells believe them, and in Cells funded, and because
Speaker 6: we're so miserable, we'll pay four thousand and five thousand,
Speaker 6: ten thousand for their program.
Speaker 7: In hopes that we can have a small portion of
Speaker 7: the success that they have.
Speaker 1: Brian is talking about the businesses Body mentioned earlier. According
Speaker 1: to a twenty twenty three BBC article, the Tape Brothers
Speaker 1: appeared to be bringing in around five million dollars a
Speaker 1: month in membership fees.
Speaker 4: Here's Connor, the relationship with Tate is kind of fascinating
Speaker 4: because on one hand, it sort of speaks to that
Speaker 4: young male mindset, which is like, I want to be
Speaker 4: able to do what I want to do. In so
Speaker 4: many ways, he doesn't line up with the culture of
Speaker 4: Insel community because you know, he gets women, he has women,
Speaker 4: he has money, and he has opportunity. But like you said,
Speaker 4: he speaks to them. It is just sort of he
Speaker 4: speaks to them as I can do whatever I want.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: He's made outrageous claims and some people believe it, and
Speaker 7: smarter people like myself know it's not true. Like he's
Speaker 7: a billionaire or he's going to be a billionaire. Is
Speaker 7: Hustler's University. I know about him only because in the
Speaker 7: in cell space, he's unavoidable, you know what I mean,
Speaker 7: Like we fund his lifestyle basically, not we fund it,
Speaker 7: but like, let's be honest, half of his money comes
Speaker 7: probably from his sex cam business. I think he does
Speaker 7: have a broader appeal to young men. People look at
Speaker 7: him and they see that basically he can do whatever
Speaker 7: he wants.
Speaker 6: But mostly we kind of chase that dream. We see
Speaker 6: him on gods and revolve as women. Guys like him,
Speaker 6: guys like Dan Bolzarian, they're popular with us.
Speaker 7: But the point is that there is no positive role
Speaker 7: model for an in cell. Either it's an alpha male
Speaker 7: guy who's who's conning us for money and views to
Speaker 7: promote their message, or it's guys like Elliott Rogers who
Speaker 7: got so frustrated and just annihilated a bunch of people.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: That's kind of the two role models for in cells,
Speaker 7: which is which is terrible.
Speaker 4: Do you see in your communities any sort of hope
Speaker 4: in the sense that, like, are there older people your age,
Speaker 4: your generation that are offering at least some positive guidance
Speaker 4: or ways to approach these kids lives, especially for the
Speaker 4: younger ones. Or does that not exist at all?
Speaker 7: Absolutely not, it doesn't exist. Being an in cell is
Speaker 7: a dead zone of negativity. There are in cells my age,
Speaker 7: and they're stupid too. I don't know if you know
Speaker 7: this one, but being an in cell at my age
Speaker 7: is a bit different because, like Andrew Tate appeals to
Speaker 7: younger people, but a guy my age, a boot camp
Speaker 7: might appeal to them, where you pay twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 7: to go off to Guatemala or whatever and go through
Speaker 7: grueling military training and you pay this twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 7: basically to get tortured for a week and dehumanized by
Speaker 7: life coaches in the hopes that after only a week
Speaker 7: it's going to change your life and you're going to
Speaker 7: be a better man and then you can get women
Speaker 7: and stuff like that. There's no one positive in the
Speaker 7: in cell community, and it's unfortunate because all we have
Speaker 7: does each other. Really, because most men, and I say most,
Speaker 7: I mean ninety percent of men don't know what it's
Speaker 7: like to be me.
Speaker 1: We ask criminologist and in cell expert doctor Sarah Daily
Speaker 1: why she thinks Andrew Tate, the self deemed king of
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity, is so successful.
Speaker 10: I think that he can certainly be a gateway, but
Speaker 10: once you jump into the manisphere, you can find endless
Speaker 10: issues or paths to take through it, and it's like
Speaker 10: a choose your own adventure, like where the algorithm gets you.
Speaker 10: But I think this approach and his business strategy is
Speaker 10: one that we're going to see through a number of
Speaker 10: other ideologies, and that makes me very nervous. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 10: most successful movements that aforce generally had a leader or
Speaker 10: a symbolic figurehead to lead them, and with Andrew Taate,
Speaker 10: you have that in a very symbolic figure of hyper masculinity.
Speaker 10: That he is very athletic, he's toned, he leads a
Speaker 10: luxurious lifestyle. But interestingly, this kind of is dissonant against
Speaker 10: in cells because he's more of a chad that's having
Speaker 10: sex with women. So they're kind of railing against him
Speaker 10: because they can't have what he has and they can't
Speaker 10: be who he is.
Speaker 1: What doctor Daly's describing is the contradiction at the heart
Speaker 1: of Andrew Tate's appeal. He's everything the typical in cell
Speaker 1: claims to resent, successful, muscular, confident, yet he becomes a
Speaker 1: kind of mascot for the same movement that rejects him.
Speaker 1: The image he projects isn't about connection or empathy. It's
Speaker 1: about dominance and control, and for some men already feeling
Speaker 1: unseen or powerless, that image can become magnetic.
Speaker 10: He has a very clear audience and a very clear
Speaker 10: goal of sharing this ideology or his worldview. Given everything
Speaker 10: that he has said about himself, his target audience is
Speaker 10: not women, right, So there he goes with He's got
Speaker 10: fifty percent of the world that's a target audience and
Speaker 10: trying to show them the benefits of his lifestyle, right
Speaker 10: and of this mentality. And I think, regardless of how
Speaker 10: much I disagree with or dislike his message, he has
Speaker 10: had a very clear, focused campaign and done a lot
Speaker 10: of things to make himself pervasive for better or for worse,
Speaker 10: around the world and influential. And so yeah, he's a kickboxer.
Speaker 10: He has all this sex with women. Whether or not
Speaker 10: it's consensual is still being debated. He believes men to
Speaker 10: have a whole host of advantages and he has made
Speaker 10: for many people a compelling case is to why this
Speaker 10: notion of the alpha male and how toxic masculinity can
Speaker 10: benefit men and men.
Speaker 1: Only takes message lands at a time when many people,
Speaker 1: especially young men, already feel left behind. Online comparison and
Speaker 1: shifting gender roles have blurred what success or stability even
Speaker 1: looks like. For some, confusion turns into resentment, and voices
Speaker 1: like Tates offer an easy outlet for that anger. It's
Speaker 1: not just about one influencer, It's about the emotional vacuum
Speaker 1: his message fills.
Speaker 10: We are living in dark times where everybody is consistently overwhelmed, overstimulated, overworked.
Speaker 10: Everybody is exhausted. I think most people in the country
Speaker 10: right now are just working to survive. But I think
Speaker 10: for men specifically, who were once told that the world
Speaker 10: was their oyster, for those who believed that they were
Speaker 10: entitled to a very comfortable life, who if they did
Speaker 10: everything the right way, they would get married, their wife
Speaker 10: would go dinner for them, into their laundry. They feel
Speaker 10: like they're losing things that they expected, so having this
Speaker 10: societal scapegoat is easier for them than admitting their shortcomings.
Speaker 10: It's easier to get mad at women for not cooking
Speaker 10: them dinner anymore or not dating them anymore than it
Speaker 10: is to say maybe my career in the coal mines
Speaker 10: didn't pan out the way that I wanted it to,
Speaker 10: and that's I should learn a new trade. So I
Speaker 10: think it's much easier for men to be angry because
Speaker 10: Andrew take told them to be. It's easier for men
Speaker 10: to send their blame outward and blame society and women
Speaker 10: and feminism than it is to better themselves and do
Speaker 10: that work.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. We wanted to know whether this kind of
Speaker 1: gender backlash, the kind that feels so loud right now,
Speaker 1: has happened before. Doctor Michael Kimmel, Professor emeritith of Sociology
Speaker 1: and Gender Studies at Stonybrook University and author of books
Speaker 1: including Manhood in America, Guyland, and Angry White Men, says
Speaker 1: it has. In fact, he points to a long history
Speaker 1: of what he calls profits of masculinity, figures like Andrew Tate,
Speaker 1: who've appeared again and again.
Speaker 2: At the turn of the last century, men were equally
Speaker 2: confused about dramatic social and economic changes. No longer did
Speaker 2: you go into your little workshop and work with your hands.
Speaker 2: You went to factories, you went to offices. White collar
Speaker 2: work became one of the dominant modes of employment. And
Speaker 2: we were concerned at the turn of the century that
Speaker 2: young boys were turning into you know, molly coddles, as
Speaker 2: the word was, And so there was a boy a
Speaker 2: boy's liberation movement at the turn of the last century.
Speaker 2: The Boy Scouts, the YMCA all designed gymss proliferated in
Speaker 2: cities to help men work out, get stronger, get more fit.
Speaker 2: All of this was an effort to stem the tide
Speaker 2: of feminization of boys. At the time. Men were confused
Speaker 2: about these buffeting changes, but the same questions, what's going
Speaker 2: to happen to us as men? And there were all
Speaker 2: kinds of false prophets preaching all kinds of crazy ideas
Speaker 2: about physical culture.
Speaker 6: They called it.
Speaker 2: Sylvester Graham, the guy who invented Graham crackers, invented Graham
Speaker 2: crackers to keep boys from masturbating. I kid you not,
Speaker 2: that was the goal because men were diluting their potency,
Speaker 2: men were diluting their energy, So we had to keep
Speaker 2: them from doing that. And Graham believed that you could
Speaker 2: do that by helping them keep their bowels open and
Speaker 2: flowing and that wouldn't be corrupted.
Speaker 8: And J. H.
Speaker 2: Kellogg was so concerned about this that He actually wrote
Speaker 2: books about how to keep your boys from masturbating and
Speaker 2: all kinds of you know, crazy solutions, like a wet
Speaker 2: girdle was what you would put on your twelve thirteen
Speaker 2: year old boy. I'm not joking. So the crisis for
Speaker 2: boys then was that there were all kinds of people.
Speaker 2: Whether it was Baden Powell and Ernest Thompson seton founding
Speaker 2: the Boy Scouts in Britain and the United States, or
Speaker 2: the Boone and Crockett Club, or Young Boys Go Trooping
Speaker 2: Off to the Woods, or any of these movements. These
Speaker 2: were false prophets, peddling new ideas to remedy a perceived
Speaker 2: feminization of boys. Doesn't that sound familiar, Andrew Tait, Doesn't
Speaker 2: that sound familiar? These are the false prophets of our era.
Speaker 1: Throughout history, moments of social change have often sparked anxiety
Speaker 1: about what it means to be a man. From the
Speaker 1: Boy Scouts to modern influencers, new profits emerged promising to
Speaker 1: restore order, each claiming to have the answer to masculinity
Speaker 1: in crisis.
Speaker 2: And it's not the wrong confusion, they are saying to themselves.
Speaker 2: In a world of greater equality, in a world of
Speaker 2: greater racial equality, sexual equality, gender equality. Where do I
Speaker 2: fit in? The ideas about manhood that I inherited from
Speaker 2: my father, from my grandfather do not work anymore, And
Speaker 2: so that means you are going to have to enter
Speaker 2: a world that you're unprepared for, and that's going to
Speaker 2: take some work. And you can have these false prophits
Speaker 2: telling you, ah, it's the great replacement. Ah, it's women's fault.
Speaker 2: But truly, we're not going back.
Speaker 1: Kimmel says that anxiety is real and in many ways
Speaker 1: understandable for young men. The roles have shifted faster than
Speaker 1: they can adapt. The world their fathers prepared them for
Speaker 1: doesn't exist anymore, and that loss of clarity can feel personal.
Speaker 2: I think it would be a major mistake to assume
Speaker 2: that all in cells are alike. I think large numbers
Speaker 2: of the young guys go to the in cell community
Speaker 2: for support, and you know, they've not had success yet
Speaker 2: in the dating world. They're looking for support, for camaraderie,
Speaker 2: for validation. That's not a bad thing. The most likely
Speaker 2: outcome of in cell culture is they're going to be sad,
Speaker 2: They're going to blame others, They're going to remain ill,
Speaker 2: prepared for the world that they are entering.
Speaker 1: The manosphere isn't one voice. It's amaze of them. For some,
Speaker 1: it's noise for others, a lifetime that turns into a
Speaker 1: dead end. Beneath the slogans and algorithms are real people,
Speaker 1: men sorting through loneliness, shame, and a changing idea of manhood.
Speaker 1: The stories and role models we amplify matter, especially to
Speaker 1: boys trying to figure out who they are. If we
Speaker 1: want something better, it starts with what we show. As example,
Speaker 1: the voices of them manisphere will keep shouting. We don't
Speaker 1: have to echo them. The real questions are who will
Speaker 1: shape book comes next? And what will it be. For
Speaker 1: more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at kt Underscore Studios. In Cells is produced
Speaker 1: by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Additional
Speaker 1: producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller, editing by Jeff
Speaker 1: Tooi music by Vanicore Studios. In Cells is a production
Speaker 1: of Kat's Studios and iHeart Radio. For more podcasts like this,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.