You’re not a problem because you take creatine

Off the back of Louis Theroux’s Netflix Documentary Inside the Manosphere, the internet is blowing up about the sort of influencer who promotes shitty, sexist and outdated ideas to young men about what it means to be a man. Of course, none of this is news for you. But for your parents, teachers or caregivers who are late to the party and have never been exposed to it all, it’s all really worrying stuff. 

Mainstream media articles are popping off about Sneako and Clavicular, but it seems they are over-inflating how much impact their content has on young dudes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Sure, some lonely, overly online young men are streaming these shitty values into their brains, and we need to talk about it. But we also need to be mindful that every young guy who has a gym membership and a creatine protocol isn't portrayed as a rapist in waiting. 

Part of the appeal of Andrew Tate and all his Temu spin-offs is that for about ten years, the internet did do a lot of shrieking and blaming of guys for seemingly absolutely everything. So, of course some of those guys who felt attacked found online creators who spoke up for you, even if it meant ignoring or writing off as ironic some of the horribly sexist content that is put out. If you are feeling got at, you could write it off as harmless jokes, or ironic. Let’s be clear, it isn’t and wasn’t. That shit is toxic.

These guys, the Sneakos, the HS Tikky Tokkys, the Fresh and Fits of this earth, for sure have some serious followers, who need a lot of therapy and to get outside more. But I think a lot of young men, if not most, see their shit as cringe and just more online garbage to ignore. Yes, you can get trapped in this stuff, but most of us tend to grow out of it. Many people, I would hazard a guess, share Clavicular’s content because it’s insane, not because they want to emulate him. One hundred per cent, if your mate is talking about his sexual marketplace value, what the ideal body count is for a woman and “pair bonding”, it’s time to have a kind conversation, give him another point of view, and maybe start dispelling some of these garbage ideas.  

Predictably, there has been a bit of a mass moral panic off the back of Inside the Manosphere, as there was the Netflix show Adolescence. I think it’s important to say that if we go about talking about all this in the wrong way, we actually risk making it more difficult for young men and young women to find common ground. For real, political trends are getting in the way of people when it comes to things like dating. 

These outrage moments always seem counterproductive to me. Yes, the ideas role modelled in the manosphere do cause harm to young men and women. Yet, we can’t institutionally say all boys or even most boys are bad and being brainwashed by sexist, homophobic douchey streamers and podcasts. No one likes being mislabelled. No one likes being judged or stereotyped. Part of the appeal of the manosphere in the first place is precisely because of these sort of understandable, yet extreme takes. A whole range of voices were screeching that #menaretrash, hasn’t helped encourage anyone to #dobetter.  

Any young guy reading this, just a reminder, you are not a terrible human for taking creatine. Listening to Andrew Huberman or following David Goggins doesn’t mean you are a bad person. For sure, we should not stick our heads in the sand and ignore the hateful ideas that are out there. But, “What are we looking at here and why is it funny to you?” is a better way to dispel shitty ideas than waste your lunch break arguing in the comments.  

Let’s address the fact that algorithms do drive this stuff to help with its spread. It’s not organic; it’s by design, and we can actually do something about this if we collectively want to. I know that you know that our algorithms drive this shit into our feeds. You know how it is, if you look at it, you’ll get more of it. So curate your feed. Check out people like  @jerryxzenfg and @realjonjacobs who do some good stuff talking about masculinity that’s positive.

Yes, there are some really, really ugly narratives being sold to young men on social media, but I like to think that most of you guys can see through that, especially as you get older. We should aim to protect our younger bros from getting sucked into the black hole of the grifters trying to sell them a crypto course. If you and your mates are engaging with this harmful content, to undo the spell, start with maybe just asking yourself why? What is it you need that you’re not getting, what is it that you’re looking for? There are safe, uplifting and positive places online, where you can be seen and heard.