You may have to persuade yourself to watch Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere. The parade of bullish, wealth-obsessed young men, drunk on hatred and on their own voices, their hair, their gym bodies and their rich boys’ toys is nauseating. The Lamborghinis, the trophy apartments, the lackeys filming every vacuous, vainglorious move for social media content, the women flitting through as negligible props will chill the blood.

Watch again and the soulless, ignorant young men become savagely wounded children with podcasts, millions of social media followers and a guru in the shape of the alleged rapist and sex trafficker, Andrew Tate.

Watch the relentless scratching for the content to get clicks to lure more lonely, insecure boys into the squalid porn/crypto/investment/Ponzi schemes with the “cheat codes” which fund the toys that “prove” the success of the brand, luring in even more of the lonely boys. And so on. A perfect circle of exploitation.

The word misogyny requires a mention at this point – not to get all righteously indignant, but merely to note that a hatred of women is the spine of the endless rants. That means ascribing globe-conquering, men-destroying powers to the women – who are simultaneously seen as stupid sets of brainless breasts and orifices who shouldn’t have a vote. It means emoting about protecting your family while boasting about your “open monogamy” arrangement.

An Irishwoman in New York: ‘You can be who you want here if you learn to climb the ladder’

Martin was left with two........

© The Irish Times