SecondWhen he was 13, he fell down one of the many rabbit holes on the internet. His family had recently moved to another country, and he felt alienated, isolated, and insecure from his friends. YouTube became a source of comfort: When he wasn’t mountain biking, he passed the time watching videos that seemed like an easy solution to his unhappiness.
He said that while some of the videos started out fairly benign, they began to exploit his anxieties and turn them into misogyny. “I was going through puberty and was insecure about my body image,” says Ben, now 21 and studying in London. “Like other boys around me, I was frustrated. I started seeing videos asking why men were unhappy.”
He remembers that the content he consumed focused on “intimate things that caused your insecurities.” In some ways, some of the messages he saw online, including memes, were “very helpful — you deserve to be loved,” he said. “But it pointed me in the wrong direction— [my unhappiness] It’s all feminism’s fault. “
As a teenager, Ben thought he had now “completely turned 180 degrees.” He would watch a video titled “Feminists Get Destroyed in Arguments” and feel validated. He now saw that those clips showed only a partial view. “I thought ‘I’m the most rational person here’. It just snowballed from there.”
Ultimately, it was his father who pulled him out before he got in too deep. During long drives alone, the two would have “painful but constructive” discussions about his views. “There was no opportunity to walk away in the car, so I had to challenge the way I thought about things. My dad pointed out systemic causes to me, rather than the simple answers I got from the internet. I’m lucky I have a strong dad The image does it for me – I have other friends but no one can pull them out.”
Although Ben remembers arguing with his sister and mother over feminist issues, he says the anti-female bias at the time was too much for him to accept – although he now admits his mum’s arguments were “not inherently worse”. “It can be painful to let go of a worldview that provides comfort,” Ben said. “When you’re so caught up in that mentality, the difficulty of facing yourself…prevents a lot of people from changing their minds. I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me.”
Years after Ben’s online experience, teachers, parents and internet safety experts raised concerns about the influence misogynistic influencers such as Andrew Tait have reached among young men, with Labor this week pledging to help schools develop role models to provide balance. A recent survey found that young people aged 16 to 29 have more negative views of feminism than men over 60.
Young women also noticed divisive and extreme content clogging their feeds. Elena Wolfson, 20, a student in Warwickshire, enjoys lifting weights and follows a number of fitness accounts on Instagram. Lately, she says, her Explore page has felt like an onslaught of misogyny and harmful narratives.
“There are some very extreme views,” Wolfson said. “I see this narrative about men that there’s only one way to be a real man, and the whole narrative is ‘high value men’ [an online slang term about a “traditionally masculine” man]. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the fitness content I follow.If you look at the comments section of any female influencer, you’ll notice [comments] Saying horrible things because she is a woman. This is inevitable. “
Wolfson said the explosion of short-form video content, such as that on TikTok, has changed her online experience. “The way to communicate through viral algorithms — that didn’t exist before. It felt more like I was in a corner of the internet — anything can be shoved in your face now.”
Emmanuel, 16, has seen gender-related content specifically on TikTok, YouTube and his Instagram Explore page, which he believes is intended to “create a separation between men and women.” “This could be a street interview asking questions like ‘Should men pay on a first date?'” or “How much do you want your partner to earn and how tall should he be?”. The videos are popular, mostly with young people who grew up thinking that’s what people think, even if it’s just a minority. “
Emanuel, who is from Manchester, said it was impossible to avoid Tate in secondary school, although he hears less about him now. “People would quote Tate last year because he was so popular,” he said. “The more resilient you are, the less seriously you’re going to be talking to a girl.”
While misogyny is obviously not new, Lizzie Reeves, senior policy manager at online safety charity Internet Matters, said misogynistic content has become normalized online. “These views used to be limited to niche corners of the internet, and you had to look for them. Now, they’ve really become mainstream.”
Reeves said the rise of online misogyny was due to “a confluence of factors.” “We need to consider the success of misogynistic influencers in the context of financial insecurity, a pandemic, social isolation and tremendous mental health stress. The success of these influencers lies in their ability to stoke insecurities – their diagnosis It’s misleading and harmful.” She said it was in the financial interest of these influencers to “foster a sense of crisis.”
In addition to socioeconomic factors, Reeves said short-form videos are key to the growth of the “manosphere,” an online ecosystem of anti-feminist influencers and bloggers like Tate. “That’s how they get viral – they’re quickly viewed, liked and shared. It’s important to note that not all engagement, especially in comments, is positive. But the algorithm There’s no way to identify the type of engagement.” Shocking content that lacks nuance works well, she adds.
Misogynistic influencers “know how to comply with different platforms’ content moderation policies,” Reeves said, adding that some reserve more extreme content for smaller platforms and link to them. While Tate has been banned from multiple platforms, there are countless others vying for the top spot. “It’s a game of whack-a-mole with the platforms – they tear one platform down and get more loads. None are as big a name as Tate, but for the young people who are already attracted, it provides them with It opens up a wider world of influence.”
Dixie, an 18-year-old London student, no longer uses TikTok, but says her Instagram is a minefield of hateful content. “I was more inclined to see it on Reels; when it first came out, I thought it would be less toxic than TikTok,” but she said that wasn’t her experience. “There was so much sexism and racism, and it generated a lot of views and comments. There’s a running joke online – don’t open comments on Reels.”
She said the content recommended to her ranged from feminist conspiracy theories to promoting a raw meat diet. What it does is provoke a reaction: “No matter what your politics, it’s recommended to you and will either make you angry or send you down a rabbit hole.”
This type of content increases engagement by eliciting strong emotions. “Sometimes, that’s what you don’t want to see. If you scroll through the comments, that’s going to be seen as an interaction… It’s going to make you angry and make you want to keep scrolling until you see something you actually agree with.”
Today, Ben is in a much better place. He is in college, enjoys rock climbing in his free time, and his online life is very different now. But he fears today’s teenagers will be exposed to harmful content as “manosphere” influencers vie for Tate’s spot.
“The algorithms back then weren’t as advanced as they are now. I can’t imagine what they’re showing people now.”
Follow us on Google news ,Twitter , and Join Whatsapp Group of thelocalreport.in
