Transcription
They're reacting against a real threat, and the fact that the reality of what they're reacting against is never fleshed out or even really touched upon. The manosphere would not exist in the way it exists if it weren't for 60-plus years of aggressive feminist attack on the family, on men's traditional roles, on masculinity itself.
You see, this is where I think Thuru made a mistake. Now, this time I'm joined by Jim Nuso, Tom Golden, and Janice Famo. Jim Nuso is the author of The Nuso Letter on Substack. Tom Golden is the host of The Men Are Good podcast, also on Substack. And Janice Famo, author of The Famo File on Substack and YouTube. Hi, guys.
Hello. I am excited to finally be talking about the Manosphere documentary. We waited a little because I really wanted these guys to join me on that one. And, uh, if you haven't watched it, maybe you shouldn't, but also maybe you should. This is Louis Thuru's new attempt to sort of crack the code of the manosphere. And the question is, is he really trying to uncover a hidden subculture, or is there something else going on here?
Apparently, he's a respected documentarian, Louis Thuru.
Oh, [ __ ]
Did you look at my arms?
The statue is not saying too much.
Are you getting triggered?
Who are you talking to?
Talk to you.
We're not on social media now.
There has been some talk about misinformation on the internet. This is what they're talking about. So, that's what we're going to talk about today. And we're also going to cover a new viral trend because we always cover viral trends here. Um, that's the Alpine divorce. We're going to get to that as well later on, and then we're going to answer some questions that you guys possible community chat. So, yeah, welcome. Let's start. We have some clips that we're going to talk about.
But, uh, if you haven't watched it, I think, um, to understand Louis Thuru, he follows four influencers that you get the impression that they sort of lead the manosphere. And the one he follows the most is someone called HS Tiktaki. He's a young guy. He's sort of the clout and chaos brand. And he doesn't lead with any heavy philosophy. He just sort of lives this hedonistic lifestyle and he livestreams absolutely everything, and it's all about making lots of money fast and getting really fit. It's his gym routines and that sort of gym culture and unapologetic wealth and this very performative, and he admits very clearly that this is a grift. This is something he does for clout and getting women, etc.
And then he also talks to Myron Gaines. He's the host of Fresh and Fit, uh, channel podcast, uh, from Miami. And he's a kind of sort of brutal honesty about female nature and dating culture, and that very logic-driven. And then we've got, he follows also Justin Waller. He's a sort of builder and traditionalist. Um, he's an entrepreneur, has a big company, and he's all over the podcast circus talking about masculinity. And then there's Sneo. I've really not seen before, but he's he just has this incredible fame among young men. They come up to him and take pictures of him, screaming at him. So, that was really shocking. Now, he's not going to be in any of these clips, so that's why I'm just putting him in here for context.
So, are you ready, guys, for the first clip? And then this is about men building society. It's Justin Waller and Thuru, uh, standing on his balcony. That was, uh, the first one.
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And now, let's get back to the conversation. And I would love to have first, uh, Janice talk about her takes from this clip because she just wrote an amazing article on her Substack on this. Janice.
Yes. Well, the method of operating of this documentary is to make common sense truth seem dangerous and outlandish, and to make ridiculous ideas, such as the notion that women have played an equal role in building civilization and that it's misogynistic not to recognize that and continue to promote it, to make ridiculous, outlandish ideas like that one seem normal, and to suggest that anyone who dissents from these allegedly normal and correct ideas is somehow a danger and somebody who must be in some way censored or reprimanded or scapegoated. Um, and yes, it's, uh, it is a fact that men build civilization and maintain it. Um, and, um, women do something else that's equally valuable, and everyone recognizes it. Um, they maintain the home. They reproduce the next generation. They love and nurture children and their companions, and they, uh, they are helpmates to their men. Um, and it's true that most women do want to have a family, and men have a very strong drive to compete, to create, to innovate. That's built into male nature. It's necessary for men in a way that it isn't for women. Um, and that, and that should be supported and recognized. And to pretend that the opposite is true, that women are equally capable, equally driven to innovate, is, uh, very ill-advised in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of most people who look around the world and see it for what it is. Um, and this, uh, documentary maker is simply trying to, you know, uh, he's trying to turn all of that upside down. And, uh, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's quite, quite a remarkable, um, a remarkable divergence from what a documentary should do, which I would say is it should approach its subject with something of an open mind. It shouldn't have predetermined conclusions, and it should have at least some empathy for the subculture in this case, or the, you know, people that it's, it's studying, and, and none of those things is the case here.
Yes. So well said.
Right?
In some ways, Tom.
In some ways, I think Thuru is pushing a conspiracy theory. As Janice says, this is just silly. It's crazy. And he's pushing the idea in an implicit sort of way that this is correct. And the research says he's wrong. Precarious manhood says men are pushed to do these things. They're pushed from the culture to succeed, to strive, to do their best. And testosterone from inside is pushing men to strive for status, to try and keep that status as high as possible. These things are known. They're just factual, and he's missing the boat.
Jim, you want to say something, um, about that? Otherwise, I'll go to the next clip, uh, because that's where I really wanted to have your thoughts. But first, on, really quickly, I just think Thuru was trying to catch him there at the end to get him to slip up, and he didn't slip up. He said, "If that's what a woman wants to do, then that's that's fine." So, he did a great job at answering the question as honestly. And these guys were pretty honest throughout the whole documentary.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Good. Good on them for being honest.
Yes.
Absolutely.
He was.
Exactly. That's the thing, you know, he, there's such a remarkable discrepancy between the, I would say, thoughtfulness and honesty of the subjects he interviews. I'd never seen any of these guys before. It just shows how out of it I am. But, um,
me too.
You know, like they answered his questions honestly. I don't think he's honest at all throughout. He's, you know, performing a certain kind of feminist-compliant masculinity. He clearly believes he is morally superior to the men that he's discussing, although he pretends to present himself in this sort of self-mocking way. There's a little bit of postmodernism in the documentary where he presents their view of him first off that, you know, he's going to do a hit job on them. Well, he does do a hit job, of course.
Exactly.
Signals that ahead of time. It's supposed to disarm us and make us think, oh, wow, he's really open about his agenda, but he isn't. And, and, um, you know, and the fact that ultimately he diagnoses all these men as suffering from some kind of masculine insecurity, uh, you know, in a world in which their, um, traditional entitlements have been stripped away. I just thought that was so ironic and hypocritical. He is the man who is suffering from insecurity, I think, and he tries to project that onto these men and work through it by performing his superiority. And, uh, yeah, I just think it's such a dishonest documentary, but I enjoyed it in the sense that it introduced me to, um, you know, some kind of interesting actors in it.
Exactly. Yeah. I enjoyed these guys. I mean, they were radically honest. That's just a fact. They were just radically honest. And they weren't very defensive when he would ask these personal questions, or they would go, "Well, I don't know. I'll think about that." Or it's like they didn't go, "Oh, you can't talk to me like that." They just kind of went with it, you know? I, I really respect that.
Yeah. Me, too.
Whereas he was had an agenda. You know, this was not really a documentary. This was an investigation.
Yes. A covert investigation.
To try and prove that these guys, and it says it from the very beginning. I mean, the first part, it says, "What is this manosphere? A radical masculinity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And it's just like, yeah, that's that's the case. It's not really a documentary. They weren't interested in hearing about what happens to them, you know, which you would think a documentary person would want to know, you know, the ins and outs and what things are like. But no, they were, he was, in fact, Anna reminded me sometimes of borderline splitting. You know, the questions he would ask often times were meant to split these people from their women. Like he'd ask the woman, you know, "Well, so and so said this about you, you know, does that?" And it's like, "Wait a minute, where does that come from? This isn't a documentary. You're trying to get these people upset with each other." And they didn't take the bait. They never took the—
We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But you're exactly right.
Yeah. I think, I think, um, well, it's quite interesting because he, he thinks because it's clear that he's on the side of the people who never hear the opposing opinion, right? So he doesn't know how to answer them. And when they then come across as quite reasonable and saying things like, like here, there were times where they weren't quite as reasonable as Justin Waller is, but he's good. Then they just have no idea what to do. I've encountered that frequently from feminists that they just, they never hear the opposing opinion, and then in the face of reason and logic, they just blank and they hope that that opinion will just speak for itself, that people will be so outraged that they don't even need to say anything back.
Okay, let's go to the next one, right? Because this was about, um, you know, women not building society, and that, in their eyes, clearly is just hating women. So, running through this is just, okay, these are all just a bunch of misogynists here. We got Myron Gaines.
I, I need guys to kind of have this mindset where it's like, you're the leader, you're assertive, you're dominant, what you say goes. I love women, and I actually understand them. So, since I understand them, I know what's best for them.
You think you know better than they do?
Yes, in many ways. Yeah.
Jim, can I have your thoughts on this, uh, statement?
Yeah. Well, it's, as I rewatch that scene now, I've got, um, I, I, yeah, I hadn't, um, thought about that particular scene. What's interesting is I actually found that in many ways, Thuru is trying to speak for the women throughout. So, although Myron is very explicit in stating it and has a sort of like a rationale behind it, throughout the entire documentary, Thuru is trying to be sort of the white knight or something that comes in and saves the women and speaks on their behalf throughout the documentary. It's like a very hidden thing, but if you look closely, you can see that's sort of what he's doing.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, um, but I only just kind of like thought about that after seeing that particular scene again. Um, whether these guys are hating on women. I mean, some things they say, you know, don't sound particularly great sometimes, but, look, I think there's a lot at stake for people to keep the narrative alive of misogyny and widespread hatred of women. There's a lot of interested parties in, uh, that are interested in keeping that alive, particular groups of academics who receive funding to write papers about this stuff and conduct survey research and so on. So, there is a, there are groups of people who are invested in keeping this notion that there's this group of people that hate men, uh, because they benefit from programs that are supposedly aimed to, uh, resolve this supposed issue.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. I know he keeps saying in the documentary, he keeps saying things like, uh, you know, these are men who think that by making a lot of money and flaunting that and being successful and performing hyper-masculinity, that they're going to attract women.
Yeah. And the documentary and everything in our world shows that that does indeed attract women. And so, if you're going to criticize these men for an allegedly Neanderthal approach to attracting women, maybe you better stop and ask, why is it that so many women are attracted to that version of masculinity? Did he ever honestly interview? I mean, it would be fascinating to do an unabashed, honest, non-judgmental documentary about why so many women indeed do seek out that sort of man and model themselves in precisely the way those men say they like. And when, you know, when Myron Gaines says that women don't necessarily know what they want, and he knows better than they, a lot of women will admit that they do want a partnership in which the man is the dominant actor, where they feel protected, they feel led, they feel directed. That feels natural to a lot of women. And yes, maybe in our modern world, that's also kind of uncomfortable making. It is for me, certainly, like, you know, is that what I want? Um, it, but it is, it's obviously true to a large extent. So let's have honest discussions about how we got here and why that is.
I remember one point in the movie, the guy asked, "What do you like most about so-and-so?" And she thought for a while and then she said, "It's money." It's like, okay, that's honesty, too. You know, I mean, she's telling the truth.
Yeah. And so, we're going to pretend that these men are wrong to have picked up on that message and to be organizing their lives so that they will be in that position where women are interested in them. Boy, that really sounds like they hate women.
They're giving them what they want.
Yeah. It's that, uh, inflation of understanding women's nature with, uh, misogyny, with the, yeah, that's hateful.
Um, so that brings us to the clip that is sort of a part of what we just saw, where, um, he interviews Myron Gaines with his girlfriend. And I just want to give a little bit of context, which I think is interesting. Um, after the documentary, the girlfriend breaks up with Myron Gaines. And she begs, she's been posting a lot about this. It was, it was not nice for her. And I think when you see the clip, you understand. Um, and she said she begged Netflix and Louis Thuru not to put in the part of her in this interview, and they refused. And I think that goes to speak with this sort of pretending to be a white knight for the women. He has no concern for this actual woman who he humiliates in front of everyone. So, that poor girl, that was all I kept thinking, that, uh, the poor woman. Um, Tom, I would be interested in hearing what you think about this, what he said, and the approach to, to lifestyle.
Well, the feminists say women need to have choice, and that idea that, that, um, there's a one lane and that she's going to have, you know, take care of the house and whatever, and have sex with him, and he goes out and does what he wants. I mean, that's an open idea about what we want. Do you want this or not? And if she says yes, and he says yes, who are we to say that's wrong? You know, it's like, women deserve a choice, and so do men. So, I don't know. It was interesting. I'd never heard the story that she broke up with him afterwards. That's curious. Do you know why she broke up with him?
Um, I mean, she said she wasn't aware of this, like how he really felt, and she was really put on the spot, and I think she saw that it didn't come, it didn't give a great look. That was my understanding of the reels I saw where she talked about it. It wasn't how she wished to come across.
But I mean, they live in the same flat now. Yeah, but they live in the same place where he does the podcast. So, I find it a bit hard to believe that she didn't know about everything that he's been saying and his content. So,
but I guess, you know, something like that, I'm not going to—
But that says that again, she had choice, and she chose to leave. So that's, you know, it's her choice.
Yeah. It came across a little bit different, you know, how he interacted with her and his clear, his being so uncomfortable afterwards than how he speaks when he's alone and when he's sort of camera-ready, that it didn't reflect what went on in the relationship.
Yeah.
Yes. It's an intensely awkward moment for sure, and, and I guess Thuru does a great job, uh, of, uh, driving a wedge between those two people and really, uh, heightening the, the, uh, uncomfortableness of that moment and of that honesty. Um, I mean, the reality is that, uh, you know, I think for most modern couples, uh, that idea of one-way monogamy is probably not ideal. It's not what, um, a lot of people want, men or women. But, uh, it's certainly not as unreasonable as the documentary makes it seem. Uh, it's been something that has been, I mean, this has been the norm in many, uh, European countries, I think, still until the present day, but certainly in the recent past, it was the norm that very powerful men, power, powerful politicians, business leaders, celebrities, all sort, you know, they, they were married, they had a—
Mistress.
Mistress, long-term mistress, maybe a number of long-term mistresses. The wife knew about it, um, might be fairly comfortable with it or not, to varying degrees. It was sort of generally accepted. It was worked into their lifestyle. That was that was the way it was. And, you know, as you said, Tom, this is an individual choice. And he's presenting it as this terrible threat to women. Well, there are all sorts of ideologies out there now. Communism, socialism, Islamism, feminism. They aren't choices. They aren't individual choices that people make. They are, uh, social systems that, um, that you're forced to adapt to. We've been living under the feminist system for decades now in law and policy. Uh, you know, so if a number of individuals decide that they want to live in this way, um, it wouldn't be my choice, but I'm way too jealous for that. But, you know, what's the big deal, really? It's, it's, you know, and traditionally, this was just, this was sort of in a way part of the, um, the contract. A man brings to a marriage his resources. That's what he brings. He is going to have to give all of his resources to looking after his woman and her children. Even if she leaves him, traditionally, he would still have to look after her and her children. What does the woman bring to that to get those resources? She brought her chastity because he had to know that those children were his. So, that has been traditionally the contract between men and women. Now, feminists, of course, don't like that. They see that as a kind of sex slavery for the woman, etc. But that's how it's worked for many, many centuries.
Yes. Well, I, I'll add to that from a traditional point of view, what that used to be, polygamy that used to be a protection for women. It used to be for widows and for women who didn't have a husband where the husband had died. The taking of a second wife used to be to give them safety, security. And you had to prove significant wealth to be allowed to take care of other women as well. It used to be a much better, um, a much better than the alternative for those women. So, that's an element that usually goes forgotten, that that was a level of protection for single women in society with no, with no better option.
And under those circumstances, was sex involved with the second and third and whoever's or not?
Yes. Could be, but it was mostly a, uh, an arrangement, uh, for protection and security.
Interesting.
Yeah. Could also be.
About that.
Right. Uh, let's go to the one that is attached to this topic, and then we'll get Jim also in, um, hasn't spoken for a while. Uh, also goes in this direction of monogamy, lifestyle. Right.
Um, I just want to say one thing to this, um, you know, being, because we have a marriage with very different lanes. So, I recognize what she's saying, and I always did the nights that was because my husband had a job, so with the kids when they were small. Uh, so I really recognize what she's saying, and it does work very, very well. It leads to harmony in the marriage when everyone just knows what their task is, and, and, um, it made me respect him more, going from a sort of feminist attitude to, "What do I get?" To, you know, he was allowed to take the space, that was allowed to take the space a man should be invited to take. So, that's my, my perspective. And also, um, what I missed here, and that is when I listen to Justin Waller, the one thing where I sort of am not completely in agreement is that, um, he says, "I would look at this as a successful thing for me," and they're not bringing the welfare of the children into it. Because if you have a child, what you want for that child is to be, is to be the child of married parents for their long-term success. That's what you want for your children, and it's not, it's not for you. And I think Tom can also come in here. I don't have the impression that having multiple women and going for that lifestyle is the best for men's mental health either. I think they're also gained by having a long-term stable relationship without the fear constantly of being divorced, obviously. So, I, I say nothing of this where I don't also say we have to get rid of the no-fault divorce laws. That's the only way we can sort of advocate for marriage is to make that safe for men. But it is what we want for our children and grandchildren. So, that's all I'm going to say. Tom.
Well, you know, to me, one of the fascinating parts of all this is that if you look at history, the men who killed the most intruders in old, you know, hunter-gatherer societies were the ones who got the most women. You know, it's kind of a similar state in some ways, you know, that, uh, but the things you gain in maturity from marriage and having children, you cannot gain any place else. You just can't get it. And it's just amazing how much you get because you have to learn to compromise. You have to learn to give up something. You have to learn to give out freely and lovingly. I mean, there's all kinds of things you learn from that. So, is that what you were looking for? Was the, the benefits of a mature relationship for both men and women? Because that's, that's, boy, I could sing about that one for a long time.
Right. That it's, it's because it isn't, um, I do have the, the, in my experience for men, uh, they also want to be in that long-term, uh, stable relationship, and they also want a couple of kids.
Yes.
Without that, it's not, uh, it's not good for them long-term. I mean, the more kids you have, the better. I'm thinking of what was it? Genghis Khan, is that who it was? That had so many kids, thousands of children. I mean, it's just, uh, it's built into men. I want more children. You know, I'm—
Oh, right.
But they do argue for that. That being said, he does say that he has two daughters, and, you know, of course, you should have kids. He just, he doesn't want the marriage, which I completely understand. The modern marriage contract is terrible for men. Um, but again, this, what do you want for those children that you have?
Yeah. And then his defense when he talked about his children, I had a sense that he loved them. He really cared about them. So, I would, uh, even though his demeanor was me first and kind of it's about me, I think underneath he's also saying, you know, I love these kids.
Yeah. You know.
Jim.
Yeah. One thing I want to mention here really quickly is a theme that they covered a little bit, and credit to them for covering it, but I think it deserved more coverage, and that is the history of these men and the fatherless home.
Yes.
So, they talk about this, uh, with Justin, that he came from a fatherless home. We learn some details. Um, it appears from what he said that the dad was not allowed to see them.
Yeah.
From his side of the story, we learned that the mother sounded like she was abusive. And then he tells the story that the mother burnt down two houses to get the insurance money. Through, I think, was saying that he tried to confirm that story and was unable to, but who knows what's going on there. So, we've got a fatherless home situation there. And then we had that with, um, TikTok, whatever his Harrison, Harrison also came from a fatherless home. Um, his mother, who's in the documentary, um, apparently his father was an international rugby player of some kind. So, his mother went for status with the international rugby player. And, um, so no one was asking her about that decision. Um, so, yeah, I think we should consider to what, and we don't know the situation of the other, um, two guys that are highlighted. But when we get back to talking about root causes of things. So, if we see some questionable decisions out of these guys or problematic behavior, okay, what are the causes of these things? And I would argue that you can potentially trace these things, some of these things, back to the fatherless home. And maybe, maybe that has something to do with one reason why Justin doesn't want to get married through the state. Right.
Interesting.
And, and of course, none of that is ever seriously taken up because that might involve some leveling of criticism or even simply raising questions about women's behavior and choices and what our society now enables and even encourages in terms of women's behavior and choices, that that isn't helpful for families or especially for the well-being of children. And, yeah, that, you know, a documentary that looks at a subculture and tries to explain it to an uncomprehending audience without talking about the larger social context is a lie. And I think you mentioned this, Hannah, in your framing of this clip, that we now live in a culture in which every man who marries knows that his family can be taken away from him on any woman's whim. Not that all women will do this, but that any woman can, if she so desires. And he can spend the next 20 years or more paying for children that he doesn't even get to see if his ex-wife doesn't want him to see them, or he may visit them. You know, he may become like an uncle in their lives to see them every second weekend and on Wednesdays. That that is now a common experience of men in the West.
Yes.
And to pretend that this idea that the man might go out and have affairs on the side, that that's completely horrible and wacko. But the state that we're in now where no man really knows that his children will remain his throughout his life, no matter how much he loves them and how much he tried to provide for them, that all that can be taken away on a woman's whim. To pretend that that isn't the most obscene arrangement possible, and that some men react to that quite reasonably, uh, that is just again, another outrageous dishonesty in this documentary. There was one more thing too about that in terms of the alleged selfishness of these men. There's at one point he's having a conversation. He's lecturing HS Tiktaki about, you know, how he's not a good man. Why don't you act as a good man? Why are you doing bad things?
We're getting to that. Spoiler alert.
No, are we? I'm sorry. Okay. All right.
Spoiler alert.
There's there's a structure to this, Janice. That's my game. Your homework.
Sorry.
So, there's one thing, um, that I wanted to have that we skipped. Tom.
Tom. Um, yeah. Yes. Uh, oh, indeed. There was this scene where they're talking about the Matrix and they're doing this sign. This one I never heard about it before. Um, so could you, could you take us a little bit through that? Because I think that's important to bring in because he did, through this whole thing, there's this level of suspicion that he he wanted these guys to seem suspicious of everything that they are sort of paranoid where they don't need to be, and portray them as a cult.
Yes.
You know, and this hand signal brings that message out. These guys are doing secret hand signals. They must be a cult.
Well, the secret hand signal is this triangle thing with your fingers and thumbs and whatever, but apparently Andrew Tate was the origin of this and it spread through a number of different influencers. But it's, I think it's basically an affirmation of, "Yes, I'm red-pilled," and, "Yes, we're the same." I mean, it's kind of a, it's not one like this, you know? But it's just saying, "Yeah, this is red pill." And I, you know, men have signals. We have signals all the time. You know, we have to have signals. You know, when a man is going by another man and he goes like that, what does that mean? What does that mean? When you shake hands with a man, what does that mean? These are signals. The signal says, "I don't have a weapon in my right hand. I have no weapon." And so, the signals are there for a reason. And I think that this particular signal may be there for a reason, too. It kind of says, "They don't understand what we understand, but I understand what you're saying. I'm with you." You know, it's kind of a way to say that without saying it out loud.
So, when you live in a hierarchy like men do, you have to have signals. You have to have ways of communicating. And, um, that's what men do. That's good. It's a good thing.
Right? I also thought it was this sort of, uh, to tell young men, maybe this might bear with me, that it's this signal to young men that you're not alone, that, like, I see you, what you feel is accurate, right? That the system is rigged against you, and it truly is.
Yes, indeed.
Yeah.
Indeed it is. That didn't come out in the documentary, though, did it? It did, very lightly and very patronizingly, like the way that he went into the stories a little bit where, you know, the, oh, the man who was live, the young, young man who was living out of his car, and the, I think, lightly mentioned that, uh, the way that he told the story, that the documentary told the story, I found, uh, was very sort of faux sympathy.
Yes.
It wasn't real.
Right.
It was just very condescending.
Yes.
Right.
Plastic.
Exactly.
It didn't make me really feel anything.
But when I've talked to other women about this, um, sort of normie women, they all they think about is they take that story. Oh my. Oh, they're so, and poor men. And it's not genuine empathy that they feel for men because they're not willing to do anything about it.
Now, now we're getting to the part, uh, where Janice, Janice, um, what do you think?
Well, for one thing, I thought it was really rich that a man who has made his living doing documentaries for the BBC, in other words, these are taxpayer-funded documentaries, has such scorn and feels, uh, such a right to lecture, provide moral lectures to guys who are trying to make their own living, uh, as if there is something inherently, um, dubious, morally dubious about trying to convince people of their own accord to pay for your content, whereas forcing people out of their tax money to pay for things that they may not even want and may actually strenuously disagree with is somehow morally pure. That's what he's been doing with his life. But he sits in judgment on these people, these men who are trying to, through the acts of persuasion and showmanship, etc., get people to willingly contribute their money. That really irritated me. But, you know, uh, he ends the conversation with HS Tiktaki, um, where, um, the young man says, you know, "I have done these things so that I can make money, and I want to make sure that my mother is looked after, and that my children," of course, he doesn't have children yet, "that my children are going to be looked after, they're never going to want." Right after that really quite powerfully moving and touching scene, he says, "The selfishness of his actions, blah, blah, blah." No, that was the exact opposite of what he was just saying. He's saying, "I'll do whatever it takes. This is a poor boy who grew up with nothing or with very little, and I'll do whatever it takes to be a successful man who can look after my family." And then we're told that's selfishness.
Yep. Right.
But I don't, I just don't like this. I find it interesting, uh, that when it comes to their gym culture, they're talking, you know, they're trying to encourage conscientiousness, right? Every day, and you have to, you know, keep doing it, and encouraging that, and, you know, nothing comes without work. They have that attitude. And then when it comes to earning money, it suddenly should be easy and quick. And that's where how he makes his, uh, his wealth. If, if he is wealthy, I think those doubts about that. But he's trying to get men to invest and sort of gain easy money. And that's, I mean, if that's a good thing, or not, it's, you know, it's, uh, men can choose also not to participate in that. But I thought that sort of that that difference between those two things. What do you guys think?
Jim.
Well, look, I, I don't know that I approve of all their, uh, behaviors and all their videos and the way they're going about things. I think in his case, he was maybe the youngest one, and he's figuring stuff out. And, um, to the extent, you know, he, that he does keep up some of the, I think there's, you know, videos in there where he's assaulting someone. I mean, so if you're going to keep up that behavior, he, it's going to come back and bite him, and it sort of has, right? So he got in that car accident, right? And so there were some charges related to that. So I think some of these guys that are a bit more outlandish, that go to the real, you know, extremes, things will come back and bite them. They will, if they go too far. And I think in his case, it sounds like with that car accident scenario, it did come back to bite him a little bit. Um, yeah, look, I think they'll just kind of keep finding their way. I suspect they'll get more mature as they age and refine themselves.
Yeah.
Yes.
Uh, yes. Tom, do you have something to add regarding the sort of the masculinity that they portray and, um, this, this other clip where he, uh, he's asked, "Why don't you just be a better man?"
Yeah. The clips about the better man part and the, "You should be a good guy." I mean, that was a good example of these guys not being defensive. The guy says, "That's a good question," and then he tries to answer it as best he can. It was just, uh—
That's right. To these fellows. And I also think that the influencers don't say that money is totally easy. They say, "You have to get off your ass and work. You have to get off your ass and try. You have to get out there and take a risk." And, you know, so I, I kind of think they're, they're playing both ends. They're doing all right. Not that I agree with everything they say, but I certainly agree with them more than Thuru. Is that the way you pronounce his name? Thuru.
Thuru.
Thuru.
Yeah. Sorry.
I think it was a huge improvement.
Yeah. Well, you know, I thought that was fascinating in that bizarre scene in which, what appears to happen is that HS Tiktaki, one of his friends lures a man to the scene. It seems to be a gay man. He's then assaulted, beaten, and finally escapes. But our filmmaker, who is of course very disapproving and, you know, wants to make sure this is in the documentary to show what terrible, terrible people these are. And, you know, I agree, it was a horrifying scene, done presumably not even out of conviction, but just to get views. Yet, what did Thuru do about it? Nothing. He's sort of coward in the background. And why didn't he step forward and stop it if he's so committed to being a good man who stands up for the right and encourages people to live by principles instead of just aiming to make money? His own masculinity seemed, uh, really, um, shockingly absent there. If masculinity is the, uh, capacity to act for good, which I think most of these guys would say it is, he, he was, was shockingly derelict. So, um, yeah, I, um, you know, again, I don't want to come across as, um, praising all of these guys unstintingly and, you know, simply, um, giving the okay to the more crass and, um, uh, hyper-masculine risk-taking that they embody. But it just, you know, my response to the documentary was, I think, to sort of take their side in the sense that I don't feel it's a documentary that tries to really understand them in any way at all or to put their lives in any sort of meaningful context. To, you know, even the idea that these men are reacting against a hyper-feminized society that they recognize intuitively, and maybe some of them can't even articulate fully,
Yeah.
Uh, but that they recognize intuitively is bad. It's bad for men, and it's bad for women. And so they're reacting against that. And sometimes their reaction against it is not healthy, and is not useful, and it may lead to violence and, and, you know, bad risk-taking behaviors and, and, uh, yeah, the promotion of a lifestyle that isn't ultimately going to be fulfilling. But they're reacting against a real threat. And the fact that that the reality of what they're reacting against is never fleshed out or even really touched upon. The manosphere would not exist in the way it exists if it weren't for 60-plus years of aggressive feminist attack on the family, on men's traditional roles, on masculinity itself. And that's never talked about.
Can't talk about that.
Right?
Jim.
Yeah, I just wanted to jump in real quick about sort of the violence aspect and, you know, one thing that's really lacking throughout the documentary is evidence of a bad effect of the manosphere. So, actually, like evidence, so data. And, and I say this because I'm in Australia, where, you know, the eSafety Commissioner now has the manosphere and this documentary up on the website, and it's trying to draw a link between the manosphere and gender-based violence, quotes around it, and they cite no evidence of that link. They actually provide no references to any studies or anything. And so, one thing you'll notice, I think, from the documentary is you kind of see, this is where I think Thuru made a mistake. He focused a lot on the consensual relationships, which a lot of people look at it and they say, "Okay, well, it's up to them. It's their relationships." And instead, what people may have been interested in more is what are the actual dangers, the supposed dangers of this? Show me the evidence that the group of guys watched one of these podcasts and then they went around and they beat up their wives or something. Show me that evidence. I would like to see that. But he didn't. They don't have that evidence to show anyone. So that's why he didn't focus on it. So their main concern is that this is, at least in Australia anyways, when you read through the website, you know, that it's going to, it's increasing misogyny and it may be linked to gender-based violence, but they're not actually showing us the evidence of that. They're just assuming that that's what it's doing. And just real quickly, I'll add one of the assumptions that is throughout this whole thing is that the male viewers are kind of ignorant. So they have no capacity to filter the information that's coming into them from the podcasts.
Yes.
So, any of us will watch a certain story or podcast, and someone might say something completely absurd, and we'll be like, "Oh, that was a really stupid thing for him to for Myron to say." But then you find that, like, 80% of his content, and you agree with it. So, but the documentary is assuming that the male viewers have no capacity—
Yes.
—to filter in good and bad info.
Right?
Yes. Well said.
Yes. Very well said. Yeah. Yeah. And always.
It's mentioned how many viewers, how many subscribers, how many followers these various influencers have. Always this with the implication that they follow blindly, you know, that they they give absolute allegiance rather than that. Lots of people follow people that they don't necessarily agree with. They just find them entertaining, you know, and a lot of this is entertainment. It's not necessarily even taken seriously as life advice or some aspect of it is taken seriously. And a whole bunch of other parts of it are just performance. They're high jinks. They're they're fun. They're for shock value. They're to give a middle finger to the establishment. I mean, there is certainly a great deal of suspicion justified, I would say, of the establishment of the mainstream of the normies. And through absolutely doesn't understand that in any way. He doesn't understand that being called a racist, being called a homophobe, being called a misogynist, these things are meaning meaningless to anyone under 30. Those terms have been thrown around to keep people in line for so long that they nobody even cares anymore whether they're called a racist. That just means somebody who notices reality or a misogynist. That's just somebody who understands something about how the sexes interact. And so he, you know, he absolutely doesn't get any of that. And so he can't really understand the phenomenon that he's, you know, allegedly um portraying.
>> Yeah. To me, the whole thing is just a big straw man that's built to protect the feminist and woke ideology.
>> Yeah.
>> Because they start by saying, "Oh, these horrible people are telling these vulnerable boys these lies." And they end by saying something about how um they're just trying to make the world safe with conspiracy theories. So they're telegraphing that this is all about a straw man. This is all about them trying to create something out of nothing that says that we can beat on that says that these conspiracy theories are wrong. They're wrong. They don't know what they're talking about. When in fact, we've looked at a couple of things today and said, "Wait a minute. That's not wrong. That's not wrong. And that's not wrong." So to me that's the biggest piece of this whole documentary is that it's a straw man.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> It's to to protecting the ideology by just sewing fear. It's supposed to to create fear in parents and I've heard that fear myself from friends who've talked about the documentary and the fear is automatically >> oh is this the world my daughter will enter? That that's what they say after yeah after what and then I realized okay, that's that's the goal. It wasn't an investigation of a subculture. This was to just create fear uh so we don't have to go and understand it.
>> It was very slick, you know, from the very beginning they portrayed uh thorough through whatever as a um sort of weak, you know, if you look at the uh the advertisements they have his head in one of these guys' arms like that. It's like he is a victim of them. He is a weak >> weak being. And how did they start the whole thing off? The first thing they had was >> he's at the mailbox of the place he's going to visit and he knocks, "Can I come in? Can I come in?" Have you ever heard of a documentary where the documentarian says, "Can I come in?" No. They're putting him in a one-own position to make him seem like he is less than. He is He's peaceful. He's easygoing. He's he's a nice guy and he's up against these terrible, ruthless people, you know. But that just that was a telegraph for me. This whole thing about can I come in? That was so weird.
>> And it made sense after the after I saw the whole thing what they were doing, you know. That's just it's a very slick slick uh >> straw man they have. I'm just going to quickly uh jump to some of the questions uh that you guys have gotten um before we talk about alpine divorce. Uh, so one uh one was I thought good, why is it so hard for women to have any empathy at all for men? So much so that any suggestion that a woman try to adopt a man's perspective to understand the other side of the coin is automatically dismissed as misogyny while demanding more and more of it from men. Anyone want to jump on that? I think that's very much in Janice's wheelhouse.
>> Yeah. Well, I just I think um not that I'm an evolutionary biologist, but like so many people who visit the manosphere, I've been influenced by it. I just think women did not evolve to need to have empathy. Women evolved to protect themselves and their children. That's how women uh evolved to survive. And by doing that, they they focused on on the survival, their survival. They focused on uh eliciting uh empathy from others, both women and men, uh to uh telegraph their vulnerability, their needs, etc. And and so that didn't involve feeling empathy for men. Uh, but that certainly involved eliciting empathy from men. And that's what we see in our culture. Men do, I think, have a lot of concern for women, a desire to to protect them. Women do not uh return the favor.
>> Yes.
>> In general, obviously, some do. And the moral typ casting research backs that up.
>> Yeah. You know, it basically says that women are going to get more empathy than men and men are going to get less empathy, >> you know, and they're scratching their head saying, "Why would that be?" >> That's how culture survives and that's how it that the the successful cultures had that >> all adjust based on that.
>> Yeah. And then of course there's the the the function of ideology as well. And uh Tom, you and I looked at that uh that research by the uh Israeli and American researchers on the tendency to interpersonal victimhood as a as a personality type. And once you have that ideology, it just increases that tendency. It takes it to the power of 10.
>> Uh, and you when you believe yourself a victim, as so many women do and some men of course, uh you you your empathy for others um absolutely leeches away. um, you know, you you you see those people as oppressors, as privileged, as almost non-human. And so um, yeah, you you you completely lack empathy and begin to believe that taking revenge on those others is is perfectly justified.
>> Yes. Justified. Yeah. And you know, the other thing that happens is people lose their joy. You know, when you lose that empathy, when you think you're a victim, you also lose joy of being alive because you're lost in the present tense. You don't have the present tense anymore. You know, you've got the past and the future. These terrible people, look what they've done in the past. We got to pay them back in the future. It's like you lose the capacity to to taste the strawberry shortcake. You know, you lose the capacity to be in the moment.
>> Mhm.
>> So, the others we've already uh answered, so uh excuse me if I don't read uh all of them out loud. Uh, but this one remains. I would be interested in knowing if Janice or anyone close to her was contacted by the documentarian and declined to participate. I suspect only the least suitable people were included by design.
>> Right.
>> Janice?
>> In this documentary?
>> Yeah, this this one.
>> Ah, yeah.
>> Were you were you or anyone you know about uh who might have been more suitable contacted? Is it something you can answer?
>> Five. No, I mean I I mean he does say to give him credit, he does say that the manosphere is a large, you know, diverse collection of actors and influencers and that that this is just a one, you know, very particular sub field in in the manosphere. And he wanted to choose the the the most alarming, the most extreme for his purposes. You know, again, he's not he's not really interested in understanding. He's he's he's got an agenda. Uh, he's a a far-left influencer. He's worked for Michael Moore. He's worked for the BBC. Uh, he knows exactly what he's trying to portray. He already had it in mind. And it was the danger and and uh, you know, how we have to you know, the answer will be more feminist programming.
>> That's right. God help us all.
>> Indeed.
>> Um, so Jim, uh, you made us aware of this Guardian article. Let's mention that quickly. Um, that was in April 2026 that argues that the modern manosphere is not a new phenomenon, but a it's a continuation from decades ago.
>> Do you want to how does it relate?
>> Uh, it's it's not a great article. I mean, nothing in the Guardian really is, but it's sort of um it's just trying to say that misogyny and gender-based violence have been around and hey, we've been warning you that this was coming and there were precursors to the manosphere and and you know, you weren't paying attention. Um, I guess the reason So, it's yeah, it's not a very impressive article. you don't learn a whole lot. But I think what it what it does demonstrate is uh they're going to latch on to this concept and they're going to ride this horse for as long as they can just like they've ridden the patriarchy horse for as long as they can. They are getting mileage out of this concept right now as a sort of enemy, you know, group to kind of work against. And that's why you just keep seeing a lot of articles coming out on this. You're seeing I can tell you from looking at academic journals, there continues to be more and more articles about the manosphere and its supposed dangers. Um, I've just mentioned that it's on the um, the website of the Australian e safety commissioner. So, I don't think this is I don't think they're going to want to give up this concept because it it is very useful to them. And that's why you're going to see a bunch of these little I'll call this sort of like an ancillary article. It's not like a heavy hitter or any way. It just provides a another little um piece of minutia just sort of saying, "Oh, we we should have seen this coming and I was I was warning you. I was I'm a journalist and I received a death threat once and that that's my story and we should have seen it coming." So my point being they're just going to continue to go with this in numerous articles.
>> And what about the rise of the gentle manosphere in the Dispatch? Did any of you read that one?
>> Where they're trying to point to other characters?
>> Yep. So that that article is by um I'm not sure how to pronounce his name correctly, Ari Bluff. And um he he is a he is a male friendly uh journalist and he he is kind of like a moderate on things. And in that piece he is sort of just saying that there um exists a sort of different type of manosphere. I think he calls it the gentle the gentleman's sphere and it's just it consists of people like Richard Reeves and and some of the other names.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I don't actually I don't think he mentioned Warren Ferrell, but I think Warren would fit into that group as well.
>> He does.
>> Oh, he does.
>> Okay. Great.
>> But yeah, but more sort of reasonable figures.
>> Yes. Yes. Yes. And but here will be the interesting thing is whether or not um the people that are so critical of the manosphere in academia and the government, you know, what what do they think of these individuals that are pointed out, the Warren Ferrells, the Richard Reeves. And one of my issues with this whole um sort of um attack on the on the manosphere from aca academia and so forth is I want to see a list of names and a list of of content creators and websites that you consider in the dangerous manosphere. Like give us give us the list. Who are you talking about? And they just continue to refer primarily to Andrew Tate. They may mention one or two other people every once in a while, >> but they won't tell us. Is Janice Fingo in this dangerous manosphere? I don't know. They won't tell us. But >> it's helpful for them to not give us specifics because it allows them to keep pushing forward with a >> correct >> dangerous floating, you know, concept in the air.
>> Yes.
>> Yes. Well, they'll never give a list because they and because and they would say I think that it's all dangerous even if um even if it's not directly advocating violence against women and male domination, it is in some way adjacent to those things. So even though the man is just giving fitness advice and encouraging young men to wake up every morning with a can do attitude and you know determination to be self-disciplined and have a work ethic that can lead into allegedly all this other stuff. So basically if it isn't an 100% feminist compliant it's dangerous.
>> And what they're clearly g gearing up for is mass censorship. If they had their way, these academics and other culture leaders, it would be mass censorship all the way. And all of the writing and discourse and so-called studies and documentaries is geared towards saying this stuff is all so dangerous that it just needs to be made to go away.
>> Yes. The New York Times has a list of manosphere websites that they follow. There's apparently hundreds of them, but they only tell you the 15 of them, >> just like what Jim was saying, you know, they keep it quiet.
>> Yeah. And um uh Right. So that that brings us to Alpine Divorce. We'll do Alpine Divorce in two minutes. Jim, help us through Alpine Divorce. You have two minutes.
>> Maybe we could take a pee break. Uh, al alpine divorce, you know, we talk about a lot of feminist buzzwords. Alpine divorce is a new concept going around. I saw it published in an article in the Guardian. The idea is that a man and a woman starting a relationship or dating. They go on a hike together and um usually the woman sort of can't keep up and then they have some sort of interpersonal issues on this little hike and then they eventually get uh divorced or they break up afterwards. So that's what this is all about. They made a big drama out of it. They covered a lot of different stories. Um, I have no doubt it happens because it happened to me but in reverse and I shared my story. Um, yeah. What else would you like to know about the Alpine divorce?
>> I just thought that was just ter just terrible with uh um yeah, you you should really go and look at the the thread that that Jim Jim made about this about his experience on X. It was very moving and very just telling of of female psychology.
>> Yes. The angle to me is that Alpine Divorce tells us that feminists are stretching farther and farther to be victims.
>> Yes.
>> How far can they go in order to be a victim? Because that's what they have to do. They're running out of things to be victims of. And so Alpine divorce, oh my god, there must be at least three women in the world who have experienced this. This is horrible. Yeah, I thought it was extraordinary in its uh reviving of all these assumptions about tra traditional gender roles and obligations. The man is absolutely obligated to be chivalric and to you know look after the woman. If she proves unable to keep up with him, he must not by any means go ahead even if she tells him to go ahead as in one of the examples. You know, that that's terrible. He's responsible for her. He's responsible for her well-being. He's responsible even if she's lied to him about her ability to, you know, make it through the hike. And uh yeah, I thought I thought women preferred bears like are are men obligated? Do women need men or do women not need men? And you know, men should just uh go away and do their thing because they're they're not wanted. uh, you know, the the uh old-fashioned assumptions about men's uh men existing to serve women even if it endangers their own lives uh were fully on display in that article and I'm sure there'd be another article in the exact same newspaper saying that men shouldn't you know men are too dependent on women or women don't exist um only in relationship to men. So uh it's just another example the utter incoherence of feminist ideology. The only coherent thing about it is that it always blames the man.
>> Yes.
>> That's right. That's right. The special treatment without any responsibility.
>> And uh Yeah. Oh, there was that article by the way that you just mentioned that. Don't you remember we guys were talking about the how menkeeping?
>> It was exactly that.
>> They shouldn't lean on women at all.
>> Yeah. Mhm.
>> That was great. I think we're through.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Oh jeez.
>> Um,
>> Thank you.
>> Anything you feel we've forgotten about? Uh, talking about the document. I think we covered really everything.
>> Yeah, it's good. Really enjoyed it.
>> Yeah, I really >> I always enjoy talking with you guys and um
>> We will meet up again, I think, to discuss uh more more viral trends. This is
>> one thing Yeah,
>> there's an article, a research article that shows that feminist hate does exist.
>> And I think that'd be a great one for us to do together. And if you guys are interested, let's find a time.
>> I'd love to. I would love to.
>> And I'll send the article out to everybody so you can have a look at what they say, but it's absolutely fascinating.
>> Send it to me.
>> Research the What's that? said, "Send it to me and I will put it in my feminist awful folder," which is now spelled correctly.
>> I'll send it to everybody. But it's the article is really worth reading and and knowing about and we need to spread this far and wide because it it's basically says feminists hate more than incels. Incelss skew more towards sadness. Absolutely fascinating.
>> Yeah, let's do that. And if uh any of you in the audience have things that you want us to discuss on the next one, then share it in the psycho bubble community. We'd love to hear from you and we'll bring up questions uh like we did this time. And uh then I'll say good evening from here and good evening to all of you. And make sure to check out Tee Handley. The link is in the description and the link to all of our to Jim and Tom and and Janice that will also be in the description. And then I'll see you next time. Have a nice day.
>> Thank you, Hannah. Thanks. See you.