Louis Theroux has spoken to key male influencers on social media in the Manosphere for new Netflix project
Louis Theroux is concerned by the influence and claims of some male influencers, but gives them a chance to respond.(Image: Courtesy of Netflix)
As a concerned father-of-three, Louis Theroux has admitted he doesn’t know what his own kids are looking at online half the time. So this might explain why he has got involved with male content creators online, with millions of followers, who are part of what is dubbed “The Manosphere” for his new documentary.
Louis says: “These aren’t figures on the margins – anyone who’s got kids, and especially boys, will know that they are making inroads into the culture. Their influence is being felt in schools, in the workplace and all across the internet.
“Going back to the earliest days of my programmes I’ve always been interested in the taboo and people who believe things which run against the grain of values I’ve grown up with. Those in the manosphere embody a swaggering machismo that is by turns misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic and racist. So there’s a whole bunch of red flags there which I find interesting.”
TV host Louis, 55, starts the Netflix documentary by saying he noticed a few years ago “parts of the internet were being taken over” by a collection of male influencers who claim to give young men “cheat codes to win at life”.
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Asked about his own sons and what they are watching, Louis replies honestly: “I think as a parent you hope that your influence will outweigh whatever they’re being fed online, but truthfully they probably spend more hours looking at their phones than they do talking to us and we don’t always know what they’re looking at.”
In his 90-minute film, Louis explores how key figures, including Harrison Sullivan (known online as HSTikkyTokky), Myron Gaines, Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy (AKA Sneako), Justin Waller and Ed Matthews, are helping to reshape young men’s ideas about masculinity and fuelling a resurgent global men’s rights movement.
Louis immerses himself in their world, encountering prominent figures within the movement, each presenting their own interpretations of traditional gender roles and values.
Sullivan, 24, was handed a one-year suspended prison sentence at Staines Magistrates’ Court in November last year after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and driving without insurance.
He has also been disqualified from driving for two years. Asked what his message is, he tells Louis: “I coach boys how to be f**king boys, how to make money, how to be outside the system, how to not have a boss telling you want to do.
“I teach guys to be proper boys and not gimps that walk around in the modern world.”
These men online have similar ideas to those of influencer Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist.
A 2025 YouGov poll suggested one in eight Gen Z men (aged 14-29) had a “favourable view” of Andrew Tate, one of the leading figures of the manosphere, while more than one in three believed misandry – hatred or discrimination against men – was widespread in the UK.
Sounding worried about their impact, Louis said: “It was my kids who first made me aware of Andrew Tate – it would have been around 2022 and they kept referencing him and what he was saying – I had no idea who he was. Four years later, he’s still got cultural influence because he has millions of hours of content sitting out there for people to discover.
“As a parent I’m obviously concerned about the impact that that has, and it would be easy to say; ‘oh well, they don’t take it too seriously’, which a lot of the time I think they don’t, but at a certain point, a joke is no longer a joke – especially when it’s unchallenged and repeated. So we try to stay on top of what they’re watching and try to have conversations with them about it, but it’s hard.”
Louis encounters difficulties in the film which see the male influencers film him for their own social media and subject him to abuse and questions they receive from their followers whilst streaming footage live. It leads to Louis being abused about his previous documentary with the late Jimmy Savile.
He also witnesses homophobic behaviour by HSTikkyTokky whilst Myron Gaines speaks in front of his girlfriend about wanting multiple wives in the future.
Sullivan says he would “disown” his own daughter if he had one and she joined Only Fans, despite claiming to own an agency that represents girls on there. He also says he could not have a son who was gay.
There is also much discussion in the documentary on the notion of ‘red-pilling’ which Louis explains can mean “that men and women are fundamentally different and that women don’t want what they say they want – all they actually care about is big, rich guys with big dicks.”
Asked why he thinks the manosphere is attractive to many teenagers, Louis said: “I think there’s a lot of lonely men out there, and there’s now a whole industry dedicated to them. There are millions of hours of podcasts that talk about the masculinity crisis – how we’ve seen a decline in manufacturing jobs in the west and how there’s been efforts to correct the patriarchal skew in society that has in turn triggered a backlash.”
Louis also defended his decision to make the documentary in the first place, which could be seen as amplifying potentially harmful ideologies and helping the men to get even more followers thanks to them being shown on Netflix.
For him it is a case of trying to understand and challenge the ideas which are being pushed to youngsters.
He said: “My view is always I’m not trying to embarrass them or trick them in any way. I am trying to tell the truth and I will confront them appropriately. I’m not trying to pick a fight. I’m just trying to understand them, get my questions answered and then challenge and push back on the parts that don’t make sense to me or strike me as dangerous. At the end of the day I’m trying to make TV that engages people – so a few fireworks don’t go amiss and some raised voices or a sense of menace is actually quite helpful.”
In the concluding moment of the documentary, after spending weeks with these male influencers, Louis concludes: “In a world that’s changing at dizzying speed with narrowing opportunities, where the old entitlements of manhood have been challenged. It is perhaps not surprising that some have sought the comfort of a simplified world of game hacks and conspiracy theories. It struck me that the matrix they rail against more accurately describes the algorithmic prison they’ve created for their followers, an illusion of endless wealth and power that actually only enriches a few at the top.
“We are in a world where the fringe is no longer fringe. Where we are all increasingly, inside the manosphere, and it’s up to us how we get out.”
* Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere is available on Netflix from March 11.
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