A recording from Gadfly City's live video. Monica Cardenas and Staci Wilson discuss the new Netflix documentary called Inside The Manosphere.
In this Gadfly City live video, Monica Cardenas and Staci Wilson discuss the new Netflix documentary: Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere. They explore the themes of the film, the way Theroux handled the subject matter, and the problems that the film highlighted but ultimately failed to effectively investigate.
Watch the video here: https://gadflycity.substack.com/p/all-thats-wrong-inside-the-manosphere
-----
Gadfly City Presents is a production of Gadfly City, an online magazine that publishes stories that highlight disruption and the rebel side of society. You’ll find all of these shows and games on our Substack and YouTube channel as well
Join the Gadfly City Community to get access to every article, show, and event from the Capital of Weird.
Follow and subscribe so you don’t miss the content, games, community, and more:
Substack - https://www.gadflycity.com/subscribe
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@GadflyCity
-----
Music Credits: Albatross by Roie Shpigler & Human-Short Version by Rex Banner
Copyright 2026 Gadfly City
(00:00:15):
Thank you.
(00:01:00):
Thank you.
(00:01:35):
Second, so I don't know.
(00:01:36):
Maybe I'll start over again just in case.
(00:01:39):
A little practice run.
(00:01:41):
All right.
(00:01:41):
Yeah.
(00:01:44):
Okay.
(00:01:47):
Billy says five seconds.
(00:01:54):
But it's been more than that, so I'm not sure.
(00:01:59):
hilarious if this is actually live right now and we're just staring at each other.
(00:02:06):
Yes, here we go.
(00:02:07):
Here we go.
(00:02:10):
All right.
(00:02:10):
Again, this is our first live video with Gadfly City.
(00:02:13):
I'm Monica Cardenas.
(00:02:14):
I'm one of the contributors.
(00:02:16):
And I write mainly about political issues.
(00:02:20):
So far, feminist takes on political issues.
(00:02:24):
And that's why I wanted to talk about Inside the Manosphere,
(00:02:27):
the new documentary by Louis Theroux that is on Netflix now.
(00:02:33):
And I'm here with fellow contributor Stacey Wilson.
(00:02:38):
Hi, everybody.
(00:02:39):
Hi, Monica.
(00:02:40):
Thanks for having me on this show, our kickoff inaugural Gadfly City live show.
(00:02:48):
Yeah, here we go.
(00:02:48):
So I wanted to talk about Gadfly City,
(00:02:53):
or sorry,
(00:02:54):
I wanted to talk about Inside the Manosphere because it's had sort of a divided
(00:03:02):
response from the feminist community.
(00:03:05):
On the one hand,
(00:03:07):
you know,
(00:03:07):
there's questions about,
(00:03:08):
you know,
(00:03:08):
why would we platform these guys that are misogynists
(00:03:16):
And running these pyramid schemes, which we'll get into.
(00:03:19):
And on the other hand,
(00:03:20):
I think it maybe is helpful to show more people that aren't as plugged into this,
(00:03:27):
how dangerous it is.
(00:03:30):
And we'll talk about whether the documentary succeeded in doing that.
(00:03:34):
But first, Stacey, do you want to tell us a little bit about the history of the manosphere?
(00:03:41):
Because there's some claims in it or implications that it's a new thing,
(00:03:45):
which as you'll tell us isn't.
(00:03:48):
That's true, yes.
(00:03:50):
Louis Thoreau did a great job on the documentary.
(00:03:53):
I think it really kind of, I'm in the latter camp of the women who've seen this.
(00:03:57):
I feel like we're shining a light on the cockroaches,
(00:04:00):
you know,
(00:04:00):
and they're in our dark kitchens,
(00:04:03):
but we don't know it until we see them.
(00:04:05):
So I don't think you're really giving them a platform by giving them a Netflix doc
(00:04:09):
because you can really draw your own conclusions as well.
(00:04:13):
I don't think Louis Thoreau really, I mean, we can certainly see what
(00:04:17):
what he thinks of them, but he doesn't really hammer in a one-sided
(00:04:23):
point of view.
(00:04:24):
He lets these guys talk and kind of give themselves enough rope to hang themselves as it were.
(00:04:30):
But yeah,
(00:04:31):
one thing about the documentary,
(00:04:32):
just as a filmmaker myself and a film critic,
(00:04:35):
film historian,
(00:04:36):
I thought that the documentary just kind of made it seem like these guys sprang up
(00:04:43):
with TikTok,
(00:04:44):
which is not really the truth.
(00:04:45):
Of course, we've always known about misogyny and sexism and chauvinism.
(00:04:50):
But it has been organized for centuries.
(00:04:54):
There were the hellfire clubs in the 17 and 1800s.
(00:04:57):
I mean,
(00:04:57):
the secret societies of men who ran prostitution rings and influenced politics back
(00:05:07):
in those days.
(00:05:09):
And then, of course, we have...
(00:05:12):
Ross Jeffries,
(00:05:13):
who the Mackie character in the Paul Thomas Anderson movie Magnolia was based on
(00:05:20):
this guy who wrote books on.
(00:05:25):
Seduction techniques, but were very manipulative, incredibly sexist and woman hating.
(00:05:33):
And then, of course, we had Iceberg Slim, the pimp who wrote many books on, you know,
(00:05:40):
Pimps up, hose down was kind of his philosophy, which Ice-T picked up on as well.
(00:05:45):
And he made a documentary about Iceberg Slim.
(00:05:49):
There was Tom Likas on the radio who pitted men and women against each other as adversaries.
(00:05:56):
So, yeah, it's definitely not new.
(00:05:58):
This is something that's been going on in an organized fashion for many years.
(00:06:02):
I think the platform has just changed.
(00:06:05):
Yeah, like many things, social media has just given a new outlet to old ideas.
(00:06:13):
And I think one of the things that we talked about earlier that came out in the
(00:06:19):
film is this idea that men are born with no value,
(00:06:25):
whereas women...
(00:06:26):
I laughed out loud when I heard that one.
(00:06:29):
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
(00:06:31):
And the...
(00:06:33):
idea is that women have value because we have beauty and can use it to the claim
(00:06:41):
that some of these
(00:06:45):
men in the manosphere made is that we can use that to our advantage or to
(00:06:50):
manipulate men into getting what we want but men have to work for their value by
(00:06:58):
making money or being strong i guess um can you talk a little bit about that what
(00:07:05):
how you saw that playing out yeah absolutely i feel that it's just the opposite um
(00:07:12):
male children have always been instantly you know right out of the womb they're
(00:07:18):
they're valued you know if you look at royal families you look at um infanticide in
(00:07:25):
countries like china especially when they only had the one child rule um that i
(00:07:31):
believe has been abolished now but
(00:07:33):
Yeah.
(00:07:33):
So girl children have not been valued at all.
(00:07:36):
And we all grow up to be women and don't have that inherent value.
(00:07:42):
I think that men always have had.
(00:07:44):
So that was a really silly statement.
(00:07:47):
I think maybe what he was trying to say was that men are competitive against each
(00:07:51):
other and that they have to
(00:07:54):
prove themselves.
(00:07:55):
I think it's more of like a, you know, mutual admiration society with men for men about men.
(00:08:03):
Whereas, yeah, women don't really have that.
(00:08:05):
I'm not saying that there aren't some women,
(00:08:09):
many women probably who do use their beauty and their feminine wiles to get what
(00:08:14):
they want.
(00:08:15):
But yeah,
(00:08:16):
I just thought that was such a blanket statement that it should have been
(00:08:21):
granulated a little bit more.
(00:08:23):
I feel like the filmmaker Louis Thoreau, he kind of just let these scenarios play out.
(00:08:30):
It's kind of like we're watching what these people do.
(00:08:33):
But yeah, he didn't offer a lot of commentary, context, background or opinion.
(00:08:40):
I mean, that's his style of making a film.
(00:08:43):
I was going to say exactly.
(00:08:44):
That's what he does.
(00:08:46):
He just lets people talk.
(00:08:49):
He asks probing questions and just lets,
(00:08:52):
as you said,
(00:08:53):
gives them enough rope to hang themselves,
(00:08:55):
I think is kind of the theme that runs through his documentaries.
(00:09:01):
And I think the idea that a lot of these men spout about needing to create their own value
(00:09:09):
implies that they need to make a lot of money,
(00:09:12):
they need to be strong,
(00:09:13):
they need to be masculine,
(00:09:14):
and therefore their women need to be vulnerable and feminine.
(00:09:21):
And that's something we saw in the film repeated by the fans of these guys that
(00:09:27):
stopped them in the street to shake their hand and take selfies with them.
(00:09:31):
It was, yeah, really, I think one of the saddest points of the film is hearing...
(00:09:39):
people who,
(00:09:40):
young men who were truly in pain,
(00:09:43):
just sort of stuff it down and say,
(00:09:46):
repeat the things that they have been taught by the manosphere rather than,
(00:09:50):
you know,
(00:09:51):
being vulnerable and seeking help,
(00:09:54):
real true help.
(00:09:57):
Exactly.
(00:09:58):
They're not the most self-aware people.
(00:10:00):
I would say they, they don't dig much deeper than the,
(00:10:07):
you know, the surface level of their fancy cars, their Rolex watches, their big muscles.
(00:10:13):
And there's so much more to life and to our psyches and our mental health and our
(00:10:19):
physical health than any of that stuff.
(00:10:22):
So they don't really seem to value much else than the material.
(00:10:28):
And I think these guys at the top of the manosphere,
(00:10:32):
we'll say,
(00:10:34):
they've really rushed in to fill the void or the maybe,
(00:10:41):
I don't know,
(00:10:41):
lack of leadership or the so-called loneliness epidemic among men and give them
(00:10:50):
this thing to aim for that isn't really going to solve any problems for them.
(00:10:56):
The big thing is that,
(00:10:57):
as I mentioned at the start,
(00:10:59):
is it looks a lot to me like a pyramid scheme,
(00:11:02):
the way they set up their private chat rooms and their investment recommendations
(00:11:10):
and all these things that their followers have to buy into.
(00:11:14):
They're taking a piece of that.
(00:11:17):
Exactly.
(00:11:18):
Right.
(00:11:18):
Yep.
(00:11:19):
Yeah, definitely.
(00:11:21):
Definitely.
(00:11:23):
want to enrich themselves on the pain of other people or the insecurities of other people.
(00:11:29):
But, you know, again, that's nothing new either.
(00:11:32):
So, yeah, it's a sad but true fact of human nature.
(00:11:38):
The thing that really stood out to me is all through the film,
(00:11:41):
we kept hearing this repetition of you should reject the system,
(00:11:47):
level up your life,
(00:11:48):
you don't need to have a boss,
(00:11:50):
be the boss of your own life,
(00:11:52):
and follow their ideas for making all this money,
(00:11:57):
which
(00:11:59):
in the course of the film through invests 500 pounds of his own money into one of
(00:12:06):
these accounts and he says he makes it's almost gone by the by the time he's
(00:12:12):
finished so it's not working but I think the idea of the reject the system thing
(00:12:20):
was so infuriating for me to listen to because I think they're absolutely right
(00:12:25):
there are
(00:12:27):
manipulators at the top,
(00:12:29):
you know,
(00:12:30):
the 1%,
(00:12:31):
the multi-billionaires that really do make it hard for everyone else in the world,
(00:12:39):
men and women,
(00:12:40):
but these men are making it out as if only men are affected by this and only in
(00:12:49):
these particular ways and only men need to find a way out of it,
(00:12:54):
which
(00:12:54):
I found really frustrating because we could all be on the same team in terms of that problem.
(00:13:02):
Exactly.
(00:13:03):
I do feel that they are creating their own mini system where they're at the top of
(00:13:10):
this hierarchy.
(00:13:11):
That's again,
(00:13:12):
a sort of a blind spot or lack of self-awareness because they seem to be doing to
(00:13:17):
their followers exactly what the
(00:13:20):
multi-billionaires are doing to us on a larger scale.
(00:13:24):
So I feel that that is something that was not explored either.
(00:13:28):
But I think, you know, it is a thought provoking documentary for sure.
(00:13:32):
And it makes you want to kind of look into these things more.
(00:13:36):
But again,
(00:13:37):
like you said,
(00:13:37):
it's infuriating and there's really nothing you can do about these people except
(00:13:41):
bring them to light.
(00:13:43):
Yeah.
(00:13:44):
And like I said,
(00:13:46):
There has been a split among people of whether it was a good idea to
(00:13:54):
quote unquote, plot form these guys or not.
(00:13:57):
I think overall, I agree with you.
(00:13:59):
The film is more effective in making them look really stupid and hopefully dissuade
(00:14:07):
people from following them.
(00:14:09):
I didn't know how many followers they had before the documentary versus after.
(00:14:16):
I wondered if there had been a dramatic drop or increase, who knows.
(00:14:21):
to answer that question of whether the documentary has elevated or diminished them?
(00:14:26):
I don't know.
(00:14:27):
I think it would be more likely to enlighten or provoke the thoughts of people who
(00:14:34):
are not in the manosphere.
(00:14:36):
I don't really think it's going to change the minds of anyone who has those
(00:14:40):
feelings in the first place.
(00:14:42):
I think a lot of these people just kind of have to go through
(00:14:47):
these processes themselves and hopefully mature and learn and find out what life is
(00:14:52):
really about.
(00:14:53):
So I don't really think the documentary is going to make a dent in the manosphere,
(00:14:57):
so to speak,
(00:14:58):
but it will definitely bring an awareness to people who weren't that familiar with
(00:15:02):
it.
(00:15:02):
I mean,
(00:15:03):
I certainly didn't I didn't really hear of any of these guys before I watched the documentary.
(00:15:08):
That's just not not in my realm of interest.
(00:15:12):
But you don't say not really.
(00:15:17):
But yeah.
(00:15:18):
But, you know, speaking of the women in the in the documentary, it was really.
(00:15:22):
It was funny kind of to watch how these women were not really on board,
(00:15:26):
not all of them,
(00:15:27):
but I think the girlfriend of the podcaster,
(00:15:30):
I can't remember.
(00:15:31):
Yeah, that was very interesting to see.
(00:15:33):
Yeah, that was.
(00:15:37):
And I think at the end of the documentary, there was a note that they broke up.
(00:15:41):
Yeah, that was.
(00:15:43):
Shocker.
(00:15:44):
Ed Math.
(00:15:45):
Oh, no, that was Myron Gaines.
(00:15:47):
He's the podcaster guy with his girlfriend is Angie.
(00:15:52):
And they had,
(00:15:54):
I think,
(00:15:56):
similar with other guys in the film,
(00:16:00):
they had a one-sided monogamy agreement,
(00:16:04):
which is that the woman is monogamous,
(00:16:07):
but the man is not.
(00:16:10):
Yeah, well, that double standard has been around for ages and ages.
(00:16:13):
Yeah.
(00:16:14):
Anyone who watched Mad Men would know how life used to be.
(00:16:19):
But yeah.
(00:16:20):
Yeah.
(00:16:21):
But I think the men expected their partners to come on and speak to Louis and say,
(00:16:28):
yeah,
(00:16:29):
I'm 100% for this.
(00:16:29):
I think it's a great idea.
(00:16:31):
And none of them were convincing in that regard.
(00:16:34):
Yeah.
(00:16:35):
Yeah,
(00:16:36):
I mean,
(00:16:37):
it's interesting,
(00:16:38):
too,
(00:16:39):
to see,
(00:16:39):
like,
(00:16:40):
Louis Thoreau brings some humor to the documentary.
(00:16:44):
But these guys who are in the manosphere at the top of the hierarchy in this
(00:16:49):
documentary,
(00:16:50):
at least,
(00:16:50):
are completely humorless.
(00:16:52):
You know, like some people, like Wally George, who was kind of the age of outrage person,
(00:17:00):
you know, instigator back in the 80s.
(00:17:02):
And then we had Tom Likas and they were actually kind of funny.
(00:17:05):
I used to watch,
(00:17:06):
you know,
(00:17:06):
the Wally George show and listen to Tom Likas and they at least had some showman's
(00:17:13):
flair,
(00:17:14):
some sense of humor.
(00:17:15):
But yeah, these guys are just they're they don't see the humor in anything.
(00:17:22):
And it's kind of scary, actually.
(00:17:24):
Yeah, they really don't laugh about anything and they just
(00:17:28):
especially in the case of the podcaster he just tries to be cruel at any
(00:17:34):
opportunity um and i think that's a maybe a something that has come out of social
(00:17:42):
media is because they just want to stir the pot as much as possible even bad
(00:17:46):
attention is good on social media yeah yeah you bring up a good point there yeah i
(00:17:53):
think that um
(00:17:55):
there's kind of a fine line between the anonymity that the internet can bring you,
(00:17:59):
but also giving these people a platform who are,
(00:18:03):
you know,
(00:18:04):
probably started out as internet trolls and have elevated themselves to these
(00:18:09):
positions and they've kept all that cruelty.
(00:18:14):
Like you said, it's just,
(00:18:15):
they say the most vicious things to the women on their show.
(00:18:19):
And yeah,
(00:18:20):
it's,
(00:18:20):
it's really,
(00:18:21):
I'm surprised that some of these women would go on the show and try to go head to
(00:18:25):
head with these guys because it's the guy's show he's controlling everything.
(00:18:29):
There's no way you can look good on any of these things.
(00:18:33):
Yeah.
(00:18:33):
That is a curious thing about why anyone would participate,
(00:18:37):
but I guess,
(00:18:38):
again,
(00:18:38):
that is something that women do in,
(00:18:44):
in some cases too,
(00:18:47):
it seems like the easiest way to power is to attach yourself to a powerful man.
(00:18:52):
And we see that happening now with the trad wife trends and that sort of thing is...
(00:19:00):
to participate in the misogyny or in the patriarchy by partnering with someone who's powerful.
(00:19:09):
And I think in those cases,
(00:19:11):
those women are just imagining that they hold any power when really they can be
(00:19:16):
dropped at a moment's notice.
(00:19:20):
That's true.
(00:19:20):
I don't,
(00:19:21):
you know,
(00:19:21):
my recall for the people's names on the documentary is not great,
(00:19:25):
but there was the one
(00:19:27):
I believe he was the first guy that they spotlighted who,
(00:19:31):
he runs some OnlyFans type sites and he had one of the OnlyFans cam girls sitting
(00:19:38):
next to him and he called her disgusting and she just kind of laughed it off.
(00:19:42):
But yeah,
(00:19:43):
he thinks it's disgusting and that they're cheap,
(00:19:46):
you know,
(00:19:47):
I'm not going to say the word,
(00:19:48):
but you know what I'm saying.
(00:19:51):
And, you know, it kind of goes back to the Iceberg Slim days, the pimps, you know, who,
(00:19:57):
hated the prostitutes,
(00:20:00):
but they were the ones building the man's fortune,
(00:20:03):
you know,
(00:20:04):
is built on their backs.
(00:20:05):
So, yeah, it's the same kind of thing now with OnlyFans.
(00:20:08):
You know, a lot of these guys are trying to be pimps online.
(00:20:13):
Yeah, I think there's so much hypocrisy built into it.
(00:20:16):
I mean, they talk about not...
(00:20:21):
not using porn they don't think you should use porn they don't like porn they think
(00:20:25):
it's um that any woman who participates in is degrading herself however they they
(00:20:34):
use it to their advantage to make money um i'm not sure if we've lost stacy pardon
(00:20:42):
i should be but i will
(00:20:47):
keep going and hope she can rejoin ah stacy you're back okay yes i don't know what
(00:20:56):
happened little blip yeah i was saying the the hypocrisy um within these these uh
(00:21:06):
money-making schemes that they run they they are um
(00:21:11):
you know,
(00:21:11):
demean women who are who participate in pornography,
(00:21:16):
but they make money off them at the same time.
(00:21:20):
And then, yeah, it's full of all sorts of hatred, I should say.
(00:21:25):
I mean, they are anti gay, and say some anti Semitic things as well throughout the film.
(00:21:34):
So
(00:21:36):
They're just hateful all around, I think.
(00:21:39):
It's not just women that they despise.
(00:21:42):
But I think one of the things that made some feminists angry is that Thoreau sort
(00:21:51):
of tried to explain or look for reasons why these men are the way they are.
(00:21:59):
And some of the answers he finds are that they were raised by single moms or they
(00:22:04):
grew up in poverty or witnessed domestic abuse.
(00:22:11):
But yeah, there's go the other way entirely, though.
(00:22:14):
I've heard of many, many men who are raised by single mothers in poverty circumstances who.
(00:22:22):
honor their mother and really appreciate the lessons that they were taught by the
(00:22:26):
women in their lives.
(00:22:27):
So I don't know if it's a chemical imbalance,
(00:22:31):
if these guys may have personality disorders like narcissism.
(00:22:36):
So there's really no cure for that.
(00:22:38):
That's just an unfortunate circumstance of how some people are born.
(00:22:43):
But hopefully some of these guys will
(00:22:46):
mature and become more self-aware and change their ways.
(00:22:49):
Yeah, we can hope so.
(00:22:51):
There's not much we can do, like I said before, but put a spotlight on their behavior.
(00:22:55):
I really like the ending,
(00:22:57):
though,
(00:22:57):
where the one influencer's mother was there and having him clean up the house.
(00:23:03):
Yes, that was hilarious.
(00:23:04):
Yeah.
(00:23:06):
Yeah,
(00:23:06):
I think one of the things Thoreau failed to do was link this kind of hate to the,
(00:23:15):
you know,
(00:23:15):
pain and death that women experience as a result of this kind of thinking.
(00:23:21):
I mean, we can directly link the misogyny to...
(00:23:28):
to domestic violence.
(00:23:31):
The UN estimates that 137 women and girls are killed by intimate partners or family
(00:23:36):
members every day.
(00:23:38):
And that in 2024, 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members.
(00:23:46):
That's worldwide.
(00:23:49):
But he doesn't make any reference to that.
(00:23:51):
And I think maybe that's the thing that really is missing from the film is he doesn't,
(00:23:58):
make that connection between or he doesn't show the the true harm it's doing to
(00:24:04):
women in addition to the young men who pick this up and follow it that's true but
(00:24:10):
that just might be a different documentary i know um you know as a filmmaker you
(00:24:15):
can only put so much in and i don't really know what what might have
(00:24:19):
wound up on the cutting room floor.
(00:24:21):
But I think that the documentary still does encourage people to dig a little bit
(00:24:27):
deeper if they're curious about the origins of these types of behaviors and
(00:24:33):
mindsets.
(00:24:35):
Yeah, yeah.
(00:24:39):
Well, I think we covered everything that I had on my list.
(00:24:42):
Is there anything else you want to add?
(00:24:44):
No,
(00:24:45):
I would like to say though,
(00:24:46):
that I will be diving a little bit deeper into the history of these kinds of men in
(00:24:53):
my own sub stack.
(00:24:55):
I'll probably post that later on today and we'll link it to gadfly city and, um,
(00:25:01):
Thanks to you and to our fearless leader,
(00:25:04):
Billy,
(00:25:05):
for opening my eyes to this documentary,
(00:25:08):
which I had seen in my watch list,
(00:25:10):
but I wasn't sure if I was going to watch it.
(00:25:12):
But now I'm glad I did.
(00:25:13):
And yeah, just thanks for having me.
(00:25:16):
And I'm going to be digging a little bit deeper into this on my own.
(00:25:20):
Good.
(00:25:21):
And yeah, same for me.
(00:25:22):
I plan to share this week the women from inside the Manosphere to give them a
(00:25:30):
little more space,
(00:25:31):
more attention than they got in the film.
(00:25:35):
So look for that.
(00:25:37):
Yeah.
(00:25:39):
All right.
(00:25:40):
Well, thank you.
(00:25:41):
See you next time.
(00:25:42):
Bye.
(00:25:42):
Bye.