Louis Theroux Takes Us Inside The Manosphere — But How Do We Get Out?

“Nothing in this Netflix documentary will shock me,” I turn and say to my partner, sitting upright on the sofa after a long workday, before we’re led by Louis Theroux Inside the Manosphere for 90 minutes.  

Six years ago, when I was a writer at British Vogue, I interviewed Laura Bates, author and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, about her latest book, Men Who Hate Women. I had sought out a copy, curious to read what I didn’t yet fully know of. Bates had entered the manosphere for her book, posing as “Alex”, spending just under two years conducting undercover work in toxic online communities. It was my first time inside it, and it was more chilling and horrifying to read than any Stephen King novel. In it, she met with incels or “involuntary celibates” who fantasised about murdering women who wouldn’t have sex with them. I found myself panting with rage and disbelief that I needed to keep pausing, pressing the opened book against my chest. “The more I uncovered, particularly around grooming and radicalisation, and realizing the extent to which they were infiltrating young men’s networks online, the more it felt like there was a sense of huge urgency,” Bates told British Vogue in 2020. “I had to keep going, I had to write this book. There’s this huge threat to our society really, and particularly to women, that nobody even knew existed...” 

Now, in 2026, some of us know the manosphere exists. As I sat on my sofa watching the inside of it, Theroux puts it to us: “We are all increasingly inside the manosphere, and it’s up to us how we get out”. It’s hard to imagine getting out of it when it’s clear from Theroux’s documentary the tight grip it already has on society, particularly young boys. These young boys know that being part of the manosphere it to be “red pilled” (a topic we've covered at R29 through the lens of relationships). Taken from the movie The Matrix, it’s the concept of waking up to the realities of the world, while the likes of you and me are “blue pilled” or “normies” (incels are "black pilled"). I wonder if that’s why Theroux chose to head inside the manosphere now? Is it because its effects are already taking hold of young boys across the world? Is it because we’re all still talking about Netflix’s Adolescence? Or reading recent reports like that almost a third of Gen Z agree a wife should obey her husband (according to a global study conducted by King’s College London)? It’s necessary now because it’s thriving.  

In it, we meet 23-year-old British influencer Harrison Sullivan, known as HSTikkyTokky, while he’s in Marbella in Spain. I’ll admit I’d never heard of him, but many young boys have. Coming up to Sullivan on the streets, these young impressionable minds seem to adore him. And his content, which seems fuelled by misogyny, violence and hypocrisy, is made for clicks and money. The main agenda being pushed to these young boys is how to be more successful and more attractive by being aggressive, in every way. At one point, he says: “I dictate when I wanna put my dick in you, bitch … Women love guys like this, that tell it like it is.”  

Sullivan’s not the only one, we also meet Justin Waller, Myron Gaines and Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy (known as Sneako). Influenced by the likes of Andrew Tate — and let’s just say as a female journalist, I’ve felt the effects of Tate’s followers firsthand — these influencers have millions of followers, gain millions of views on their content — and there are more of them. This patriarchal network rooted in misogyny also gives way to more extremist views which we watch play out on camera with racist, homophobic and antisemitic slurs being hurled. It’s horrific to see.  

All of them verbally echo the same statement, telling Theroux: we love women (aka no, no we couldn't possibly be misogynists). So where are they? Throughout the documentary, we hear from wives, girlfriends, female colleagues and mothers in small, controlled soundbites. For many of them, we see and (barely) hear from them in one scene and then never again. To Theroux’s credit, he tries for more, but is pushed back by the influencers. There's no doubt about it, the documentary needed their input, their voices and their stories. Their little involvement sums up the main aim of the manosphere though. You see, women know this is a tale as old as time: men linking love to submission so they gain and retain full control of women. The influencers are given so much airtime, at points you wonder if it’s helping or hindering their own platforms? I’ll hope for the latter because so many people need to see this documentary, they need to see inside and now outside — so we can all get out, together. As I predicted, shock didn’t consume me while watching Inside the Manosphere, but an urgency to escape and stop it did. The same urgency Bates sounded the alarm on years ago.  

Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is now available to stream on Netflix.  

If you are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224 for confidential support.