When his editor suggested he write a book about the manosphere, James Bloodworth replied, “Why would I want to do that?” You can see his point. Who would intentionally spend their days immersed in the toxic online subculture where men go to blame women for everything and plot their revenge? Who would choose to listen to endlessJordan Petersonpodcasts or watch interminable Andrew Tate videos? Well, the answer is quite a lot of men, even though Bloodworth doesn’t really seem to know why.
His book begins with an excellent chapter in which he describes how, as a callow 23-year-old, he forked out a couple of grand to take a course in seduction. This was the era of Neil Strauss’s 2005 bestseller The Game, which taught geeky men how to pull hapless women. A bundle of nerves, the author ended up chanting a mantra of “Right here, right now!” on a night out in the West End. As he prepared to approach a “target”, his coach informed him encouragingly, “Your organ is a spear.”
Unfortunately, for a book subtitled “a personal journey”, this reminiscence is as personal as it gets. The author has interviewed some leading lights of the manosphere, including former pickup artist Anthony “Dream” Johnson. He has gone to several conferences where participants wear baseball caps printed with the slogan “Make Women Great Again”. He has even worked as a coach on a course in how to design social media profiles to attract women. (The signature Instagram pic of the tutor, Michael Sartain, has him surrounded by scantily clad women with a grin on his face.) Yet we never again get the same level of detail. We get little idea of how Bloodworth landed that job, or how he felt doing it. Was he nervous, for instance, that he might be unmasked as a left-leaning investigative reporter?
This leaves us with more generic material, which is sobering all the same. According to Lost Boys’ broadly chronological account, noughties pickup culture gave rise to the manosphere proper as men who absorbed the lessons of Strauss’s book found they still weren’t having any luck, and got angry about it. Those who were successful posted clips online of themselves chatting up women, and worked out that the ones where they insulted their targets were the most popular. So they posted more clips like that. We learn about theRed Pillbrigade, who believe that the world is secretly run by women and most men don’t stand a chance. And so on.
Strangely, there’s zero consideration here of the explosion of online pornography, which encourages hyper-sexualisation while arguably exacerbating the sense of inadequacy felt by the viewer. I would have liked to have read more, too, on the accelerating effects of social media algorithms, as a result of which, Bloodworth notes, a boy showing interest in the relatively cerebral musings of Peterson will, within the hour, be exposed to Tate’s more extreme messaging.
At its best, Lost Boys itself acts as a kind of red pill, exposing the fact that the manosphere is really run by an assortment of more or less sleazy grifters. When I followed Sartain on Instagram to learn more about the kind of course to which Bloodworth contributed, within minutes I received a DM from Sartain himself: “You here for the girls & lifestyle or the recent social circle vid I just did?” “Girls & lifestyle,” I replied after a pause, keen to see how far the racket would go. I’ve since had five more messages steering me towards his 21 Day Social Circle programme, which costs about $7,000.
Meanwhile, as Bloodworth points out towards the end of the book, the White House has enthusiastically embraced the slang and stylings of these hucksters. Trump dismisses his enemies as “beta”. His vice-president, JD Vance, describes himself as “red-pilled”. The manosphere may be a tawdry subculture. Is there a danger it becomes the culture at large?
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Lost Boys: A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere by James Bloodworth is published by Atlantic Books (£17.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy atguardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.