I escaped the manosphere — young men are treated like ‘cash cows’

Pierce Sebastian, 30, first came across the ‘manosphere’ or ‘red pill’ content in 2019.

Aged 24 at the time, Pierce says he was trying to build his confidence and sense of belonging while being gradually more exposed to hostile content about women and gender roles.

He was soon consuming it for up to three hours every day.

The ‘manosphere’ is an online space where men share views that women should be subservient to men, brought into the mainstream public by prominent figures such as controversial podcaster Andrew Tate.

‘A lot of men crave validation from other men, and they don’t even realise it,’ Pierce, from Camberwell, south-east London, says.

‘It becomes a cesspool of toxicity where guys are rubbing each other’s egos for doing horrible things and speaking horribly about women.’

Three years later, he’s distanced himself from the manosphere, criticising it as ‘simple-minded.’

Pierce first began engaging with red pill content when he was in a relationship, between jobs, and feeling depressed.

‘I was lost,’ he admits. ‘I didn’t really know what I was doing with my life.

‘It all starts with self-improvement stuff. That’s how most guys get into it.

‘How to become more of a man, be more masculine, be comfortable in your own skin.

‘Eventually, the algorithm shows you different sorts of videos making more political statements or generalising groups of people.

‘Before you know it, it’s a perpetual cycle of confirming the things you already believe by controlling the variables that you see as part of the audience.’

Really it’s more about them selling you your insecurities back to you.

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Pierce’s favourite content was street interviews, where people – particularly women – would be asked about trending topics and gender roles, carefully edited to curate a negative image.

‘That spiked my interest more because it felt almost more rewarding to see real humans on the street have these stupid opinions,’ he says.

He began to feel understood, and the ‘little truths’ in the content made him feel he could take those parts and ignore the rest.

‘I was basically willing to bend my rules to get that,’ Pierce shares.

Pierce, a legal hearings organiser, began to live in his head ‘more than reality’ and picked up new habits.

He would categorise people he walked past, giving women a rating out of 10 and sizing men up ‘just in case’ he needed to beat them in a fight.

He believed that stricter gender roles would help improve his life, which he now describes as ‘pretty short-sighted’.

‘They sell that you’re not a man unless you can provide for a woman and put them into their place, and make them more submissive,’ he says.

‘That was just a complete fantasy because I was never in a position to provide for anyone other than myself – I could barely do that.

‘The main thing I believed was this idea of hypergamy, where women always date upwards and men therefore always date downwards,’ Pierce adds.

‘If I was a woman, why wouldn’t I want to choose the best partner? It’s common sense, so it’s hard to disprove.

‘Now I am fully aware that there are normal people who date normal people. Two truths can exist together.’

Initially, Pierce wouldn’t share the videos with his girlfriend despite their ‘open-minded’ relationship; it was only when he became more confident in his views.

‘I remember I had a conversation with my girlfriend at the time. I said, “I want to spend more time on my business and on my content, so that means you’re going to have to hold up the relationship side more,”‘ he recalls.

‘In retrospect, that wasn’t fair to her. At that point I was trying to play a character of being more dominant and demanding of my partner.’

Thankfully, his girfriend felt able to stand up to his behaviour.

‘Sometimes we would clash,’ he explains. ‘I wasn’t able to fully get sucked into it because I had someone next to me who would question what I would say and disprove things.

‘That is pretty rare. It allowed me to have a bit more of a nuanced view.’

After three years of engaging with red pill content, Pierce began to see the manosphere in a new light.

‘Eventually I started to think, I’ve heard this 10 times already,’ he remembers.

‘I had a moment where I was five minutes into a video, and I thought, I already know where this is going; it’s a waste of time.

‘My thinking is very black and white, so as soon as that happens I unsubscribe and block and it’s just all gone.’

Pierce’s recent autism diagnosis has also caused him to reconsider what he was looking for when he first encountered the manosphere.

The 30-year-old believes some of its appeal lay in the promise of clear answers to problems he was struggling to understand – how to socialise, be likeable, and fit in.

Now he wants people to question what media is trying to teach them, or make them believe, and to have active conversations.

Pierce believes the way to stop young men from falling into this content is to expand their lived experiences and encourage stronger media literacy.

‘A lot of the points brought up in the manosphere are just to distract you from real things,’ he claims.

‘These creators never talk about real-world issues. It’s very simple-minded individual issues, and there’s a reason for it.

‘They want to keep men’s idea of the world very small and self-centred, because that is what benefits them.

‘They use men as a resource, and treat them like a cash cow.’

Now Pierce uses social media to share his lived experience, directly address young men watching similar content, and highlight issues ignored in the manosphere.

‘Leaving the space allowed me to learn so much more about myself,’ Pierce shares.

‘I feel like my horizons are far wider.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@metro.co.uk

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