I watched the manosphere documentary. Wow, are men OK? |
I watched the manosphere documentary. Wow, are men OK?
April 5, 2026 — 5:00am
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The most revealing moment in Louis Theroux’s new documentary, Inside the Manosphere, comes not when one of its preening influencer subjects flexes a bicep or spouts an antisemitic slur in the same sentence as asserting that men should be the “dictators” in their marriages. It comes when one of the documentary’s subjects, a 24-year-old known as “HS”, is berated by his mother for using a disrespectful tone with her.
HS, who calls his mother “Mummy”, is caught on camera impatiently rejecting her repeated suggestions that he drink a juice. He doesn’t want to drink a juice, he tells her, his irritation rising.
“Don’t embarrass me,” she snaps, pointing an index finger at him (the internationally recognised gesture of a mother who has been pushed too far). “Don’t be rude. That’s not the way I brought you up. Do. Not. Be. Rude.”
HS backs right off. A few minutes later, he is filmed on his knees, scrubbing the floor with a towel, as his mum castigates him for dirty marks on the villa’s floor.
HS is known online as HSTikkyTokky, an unmanly moniker that sounds a little like a pet name his mum might have given him, but which actually refers to one of the many platforms on which he grifts his grift.
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HSTikkyTokky – whose name is Harrison, as his mother insists to the documentary crew – is a star in the online constellation known as the manosphere, a loose collection of explicitly misogynistic, anti-feminist internet content creators who advocate a return to........