From the dark corners of the web.

An emerging mindset.

I am a loser if also we know wouldn't pay me either.

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

In Cells will be added to the Terrorism Guide.

I see literally zero hope.

This is In Cells, a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio, Season one, episode six, The Manosphere.

The guy who invented Graham Crackers invented graham Crackers to keep boys from masturbating.

I kid you not.

In the then diagram of in Cells and Tate, the circle where they intersect is rather large.

Andrew Tate, I got a lot of thoughts on him.

Well, none of the role models that in Cells have are positive.

I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at Kat's Studios with Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo, Connor Powell, and Carolyn Miller.

There's five point five billion people online and nearly as many on social media.

It's how we get news, buy things, and connect with friends.

For the two point seven billion men online, It's also where hate, abuse and misogyny spreads.

It's seeping rampantly onto school yards and into our homes.

Thankfully, the manosphere is coming to the forefront of conversations, even on daytime TV.

Here's a snippet from The Tammer and Hall Show, which aired on Monday, April twenty first, twenty twenty five.

According to the anti hate organization the Anti Defamation League, the Menisphere is an online network aimed at men and boys, often promoting harmful, rigid expectations of men, extreme misogyny, and aggressive in cell culture.

In cells are men who identify as quote involuntary celibate and blame female empowerment for their lack of sexual experience, and as a result, whose hatred and sometimes even violent against women.

Here's another excerpt.

It's from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

It aired on Tuesday, June third, twenty five.

Men may be lonely, but modern society has a solution, and you'll never get's the Internet.

It's the Internet.

Lately, I've been hitting the old doom swipe bees over here, and my mangorithm has introduced me to all sorts of new alpha friends, a wide world of podcasters and social media influencers, and roided out in man cubes that comprise the media landscape.

That has been dubbed the manosphere, where we men get to together to discuss professional sports, gambling, weightlifting, drinking, drug use, and women.

The manosphere is a collection of digital spaces that claim to support men's challenges in areas like dating, fitness, and fatherhood.

However, many of these communities spread harmful narratives and advice.

According to the United Nations Secretary General's Report on Violenced against Women and Girls, these groups share a common thread opposing women and framing men as victims.

Victimhood is something we've spoken about in depth as it becomes one of the most defining characteristics of many in cells personal identities.

Here's clinical psychologist, sex therapist and author doctor David Lay.

Manisphere is the term being used to describe these online influencer types that are speaking directly to man and that have larger audiences of men.

Joe Rogan is one that we can see has a tremendous amount of influence.

We've also got folks like Andrew Taate.

And what's unfortunate is that lots of these men are out there talking to young males.

They're not oftentimes putting out the healthiest messages.

They are oftentimes you know, talking about your more manly, by being physically violent, by treating women in a dominant manner, by not caring what women think.

Unfortunately, they are encouraging much more what we would you know, typically classify, as you know, hostile masculinity.

It is a sad, circular, self fulfilling prophecy that puts these young meals at risk.

A lot of the messaging in the manosphere is hostile and violent, but it's worth stating again that the absolutely overwhelming majority of in cells are nonviolent.

It's also worth stating how pivotal it is to understand just what kind of content and messaging is filling the minds of men and shaping a new generation of boys.

But it's not just the men who are impacted.

The effects on girls and women is very real and very concerning.

In real life, there's a growing number of examples of manisphere culture affecting interactions between boys and girls.

It's like little things like oh, you should be back in the kitchen, and even though it's a joke, some people take it really far.

There are games that I've stopped playing because every single time I joined, I'd receive a rape threat.

Me and my former roommate were chased on campus by two different men saying that they were going to have a lot of fun with us that night.

Those kinds of things have migrated from online worlds into real life, sometimes in ways that boys are just trying to be provocative, sometimes in ways that are really dangerous stepping stones on the way to more harmful and violent content and behaviors.

Here's criminologist and in cell expert doctor Sarah Daily.

So the manisphere is a collection of online sites and communities where they prioritize men's issues.

They can range from in cells all the way up to men's rights activists.

You have pick up artists who try to manipulate potential romantic partners.

You have men going their own way who just want nothing to do with women.

They won't work for them, with them, marry them, date them.

Andrew Tait would dislike everything about in cells.

They are beta weak men in his mind.

They're just sitting around and whining and crying, and that's against everything that he stands for.

The hashtag Andrew Tate has garnered billions of views, and he was the third most searched person on Google in twenty twenty three.

You may not know who he is, but ask any twelve to eighteen year old boy in your life.

Here's crime analyst Body Moven and Stephanie filling us in on Andrew Tate, the King of the Manosphere.

A new study published in the Journal of Gender and Education out of Canada is finding that boys are adopting Andrew Tate's misogynistic views and bringing them into class, which is quite alarming.

Teachers worry that the rise in Tate inspired misogynistic rhetoric will lead to tangible safety threats like gender based violence in schools.

So, who are the Tate brothers?

You've never heard of him?

Right?

So, Andrew Tate.

He is a former four time kickboxing world champion.

He was on Big Brother in twenty sixteen and he was kicked off because, as he was like on the show, charges were being filed against him in the UK for rape.

The UK authorities have cited his influence as terrifying, particularly in the context of radicalizing boys online.

And that's exactly what's happening.

Young boys too, middle schoolers in theory, right, middle I would say probably starts around seventh or eighth grade.

Around that time, he moved to Romania in twenty seventeen, saying in a now deleted YouTube post that forty percent of the reason he chose Eastern Europe was because he believed that sexual assault cases were less likely to be in investigated there.

He openly declares himself a misogynist dating an interview, I'm absolutely a misogynist.

There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.

Tate had a podcast on Spotify that was taken down after ninety two thousand people signed a petition complaining about the degree course he was offering.

The title of the course, pimping Hose Crime analyst Body Moven continues.

He's gotten banned from almost every single platform, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok.

He continues on X because X is kind of like the wild wild West, Right, everybody can be on X, but it's due to this promotion of this misogyny and statements such as women should bear responsibility for being sexually assaulted.

Tate and his money making subscription channels have been pulled off.

YouTube and other platforms, with TikTok citing his hateful ideology.

He runs a webcam company, and he would show other men or talk to other men about how to be a sex trafficker and how to scam money out girls in how women are your property and yes, you absolutely should be making money and stealing from them.

He moved to Romania in twenty seventeen, right, and he was arrested in twenty twenty two for sex trafficking seven women and money laundering and rape.

The Romanian courts abruptly reversed the charges and allowed Tate to leave the country after several high level Trump administrators took an official interest in this case.

Andrew Tate is a US citizen.

He's got dual citizenship with the United States.

In Britain, a lot.

Of people think that Tate brothers tell it like it is, that the younger generation needs role models like them to be men, and that women overreact to tates messaging, and honestly, it's pretty easy to understand what is so alluring about them.

Specifically, Andrew Tate is athletic, confident, and re He's often seen with a bevy of women.

And if you're sitting in your room trying to sort through hormones in middle school, or you're older and having trouble with confidence and women, all of these things are appealing here again, body Movin, followed by Stephanie.

I'd love to have a conversation about why, like what specifically about the Andrew Tate ideology is helping young men become men, because right now I don't think it's helping at all, And I think that if fathers were more involved in their children's life, they wouldn't need Andrew Tate to help them become men.

Is Andrew Tate messaging something that is equal to saying, hey, look yeah, sexually assault people ain't no thing right.

That's the scary part because even confident, well spoken, rich, affluent people can still be extremely degrading and violent.

It's in the bones ideologically.

How do we keep this conversation going without shutting it down and being myopic about it?

I asked Boddy about Andrew Tate's brother, Tristan Tate.

He's thirty seven years old, just one year younger than Andrew, and the two live very intertwined lives.

He runs the business with Andrew Tate.

They have a webcam studio where they employ as many as seventy five models, and what they do is they just scam in out of their money an online membership to the platform which teaches men how to get rich quick.

It's called Hustler's University, and the other one is called the Real World that serves like a really similar purpose.

Let's stop here for a break.

We'll be back in a moment.

We went to Hustler University's website.

You can get access to the services for forty nine dollars a month.

The website states we have proven results from members who used to be just like you.

The only difference is that they took action, while most of you are still hesitant, being afraid, and worrying that you may waste forty nine dollars which you can spend on a night at the bar with your broke friends.

The first question in the fac section is and I quote A, am I too young to join the community?

Answer?

No, as long as you have a device that connects to the Internet, you can join us.

Crime Analyzed Body Moven continues on how affle Mail's Andrew and Tristan Tate collide with the in cell community for reference, as many see the male hierarchy, alphas are at the top, beta's below them in cells, often placing themselves below the betas.

And he self describes himself Christian Tate as a pimp.

I mean, they're not hiding it.

These guys are not hiding that they're pimps.

But I want to quickly let everybody know that Tape Brothers are not in cells.

But what is important to know is that they share like really similar ideology.

They're all kind of misogynistic, and you know, some in cels admire Tate, seeing him as somebody who's escaped this powerless male role that they feel trapped in.

So Andrew Tate and the Tape Brothers are not in cells, but again they're in the then diagram of in cells and Tate.

The circle where they intersect is rather large.

Investigative producer Connor Powell spoke with Brian, a self described in cell we've heard from in an earlier episode.

Here's Connor followed by Brian.

I'm curious, are there certain people within the community that everybody looks to or thinks about good or bad?

Like?

I mean, are there are there.

Any positive real models or are there any really destructive role models?

I entretate, I got a lot of thoughts on him.

Well, none of the role models that in cells have are positive.

I'm thirty nine years old, so I'm one of the older guys, and I've lived more life and I'm a lot more calmer.

So I have a better moral and ethical compass than most of them do.

And none of them are positive.

Andrewtates admired because even though that in Cells are not like him, he speaks to them.

Brian's audio got garbled here, but this is verbatim what he said.

He basically is a light at the end of the tunnel of like, well, I was a nerd in the geek too, but I became a kickboxing champion and now I'm rich, and now women mean nothing to me.

Brian continues, So, even though he's nothing like us, he knows how to appeal to us, and he's not real.

People make him look at sound like he's a genius and this and that, but largely he made his money unethically.

He is totally toxic.

There is no positive role models for in cells.

They all kind of cling to this alpha male archetype that isn't even real.

And if you look at all that alpha melbs on the internet, you're probably thinking.

How are these guys getting paid?

Who is funding their lifestyle?

Who believes any of the bullshit that they're saying, well, in Cells believe them, and in Cells funded, and because we're so miserable, we'll pay four thousand and five thousand, ten thousand for their program.

In hopes that we can have a small portion of the success that they have.

Brian is talking about the businesses Body mentioned earlier.

According to a twenty twenty three BBC article, the Tape Brothers appeared to be bringing in around five million dollars a month in membership fees.

Here's Connor, the relationship with Tate is kind of fascinating because on one hand, it sort of speaks to that young male mindset, which is like, I want to be able to do what I want to do.

In so many ways, he doesn't line up with the culture of Insel community because you know, he gets women, he has women, he has money, and he has opportunity.

But like you said, he speaks to them.

It is just sort of he speaks to them as I can do whatever I want.

Right.

He's made outrageous claims and some people believe it, and smarter people like myself know it's not true.

Like he's a billionaire or he's going to be a billionaire.

Is Hustler's University.

I know about him only because in the in cell space, he's unavoidable, you know what I mean, Like we fund his lifestyle basically, not we fund it, but like, let's be honest, half of his money comes probably from his sex cam business.

I think he does have a broader appeal to young men.

People look at him and they see that basically he can do whatever he wants.

But mostly we kind of chase that dream.

We see him on gods and revolve as women.

Guys like him, guys like Dan Bolzarian, they're popular with us.

But the point is that there is no positive role model for an in cell.

Either it's an alpha male guy who's who's conning us for money and views to promote their message, or it's guys like Elliott Rogers who got so frustrated and just annihilated a bunch of people.

You know.

That's kind of the two role models for in cells, which is which is terrible.

Do you see in your communities any sort of hope in the sense that, like, are there older people your age, your generation that are offering at least some positive guidance or ways to approach these kids lives, especially for the younger ones.

Or does that not exist at all?

Absolutely not, it doesn't exist.

Being an in cell is a dead zone of negativity.

There are in cells my age, and they're stupid too.

I don't know if you know this one, but being an in cell at my age is a bit different because, like Andrew Tate appeals to younger people, but a guy my age, a boot camp might appeal to them, where you pay twenty thousand dollars to go off to Guatemala or whatever and go through grueling military training and you pay this twenty thousand dollars basically to get tortured for a week and dehumanized by life coaches in the hopes that after only a week it's going to change your life and you're going to be a better man and then you can get women and stuff like that.

There's no one positive in the in cell community, and it's unfortunate because all we have does each other.

Really, because most men, and I say most, I mean ninety percent of men don't know what it's like to be me.

We ask criminologist and in cell expert doctor Sarah Daily why she thinks Andrew Tate, the self deemed king of toxic masculinity, is so successful.

I think that he can certainly be a gateway, but once you jump into the manisphere, you can find endless issues or paths to take through it, and it's like a choose your own adventure, like where the algorithm gets you.

But I think this approach and his business strategy is one that we're going to see through a number of other ideologies, and that makes me very nervous.

Unfortunately, the most successful movements that aforce generally had a leader or a symbolic figurehead to lead them, and with Andrew Taate, you have that in a very symbolic figure of hyper masculinity.

That he is very athletic, he's toned, he leads a luxurious lifestyle.

But interestingly, this kind of is dissonant against in cells because he's more of a chad that's having sex with women.

So they're kind of railing against him because they can't have what he has and they can't be who he is.

What doctor Daly's describing is the contradiction at the heart of Andrew Tate's appeal.

He's everything the typical in cell claims to resent, successful, muscular, confident, yet he becomes a kind of mascot for the same movement that rejects him.

The image he projects isn't about connection or empathy.

It's about dominance and control, and for some men already feeling unseen or powerless, that image can become magnetic.

He has a very clear audience and a very clear goal of sharing this ideology or his worldview.

Given everything that he has said about himself, his target audience is not women, right, So there he goes with He's got fifty percent of the world that's a target audience and trying to show them the benefits of his lifestyle, right and of this mentality.

And I think, regardless of how much I disagree with or dislike his message, he has had a very clear, focused campaign and done a lot of things to make himself pervasive for better or for worse, around the world and influential.

And so yeah, he's a kickboxer.

He has all this sex with women.

Whether or not it's consensual is still being debated.

He believes men to have a whole host of advantages and he has made for many people a compelling case is to why this notion of the alpha male and how toxic masculinity can benefit men and men.

Only takes message lands at a time when many people, especially young men, already feel left behind.

Online comparison and shifting gender roles have blurred what success or stability even looks like.

For some, confusion turns into resentment, and voices like Tates offer an easy outlet for that anger.

It's not just about one influencer, It's about the emotional vacuum his message fills.

We are living in dark times where everybody is consistently overwhelmed, overstimulated, overworked.

Everybody is exhausted.

I think most people in the country right now are just working to survive.

But I think for men specifically, who were once told that the world was their oyster, for those who believed that they were entitled to a very comfortable life, who if they did everything the right way, they would get married, their wife would go dinner for them, into their laundry.

They feel like they're losing things that they expected, so having this societal scapegoat is easier for them than admitting their shortcomings.

It's easier to get mad at women for not cooking them dinner anymore or not dating them anymore than it is to say maybe my career in the coal mines didn't pan out the way that I wanted it to, and that's I should learn a new trade.

So I think it's much easier for men to be angry because Andrew take told them to be.

It's easier for men to send their blame outward and blame society and women and feminism than it is to better themselves and do that work.

Let's stop here for another break.

We'll be back in a moment.

We wanted to know whether this kind of gender backlash, the kind that feels so loud right now, has happened before.

Doctor Michael Kimmel, Professor emeritith of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stonybrook University and author of books including Manhood in America, Guyland, and Angry White Men, says it has.

In fact, he points to a long history of what he calls profits of masculinity, figures like Andrew Tate, who've appeared again and again.

At the turn of the last century, men were equally confused about dramatic social and economic changes.

No longer did you go into your little workshop and work with your hands.

You went to factories, you went to offices.

White collar work became one of the dominant modes of employment.

And we were concerned at the turn of the century that young boys were turning into you know, molly coddles, as the word was, And so there was a boy a boy's liberation movement at the turn of the last century.

The Boy Scouts, the YMCA all designed gymss proliferated in cities to help men work out, get stronger, get more fit.

All of this was an effort to stem the tide of feminization of boys.

At the time.

Men were confused about these buffeting changes, but the same questions, what's going to happen to us as men?

And there were all kinds of false prophets preaching all kinds of crazy ideas about physical culture.

They called it.

Sylvester Graham, the guy who invented Graham crackers, invented Graham crackers to keep boys from masturbating.

I kid you not, that was the goal because men were diluting their potency, men were diluting their energy, So we had to keep them from doing that.

And Graham believed that you could do that by helping them keep their bowels open and flowing and that wouldn't be corrupted.

And J.

H.

Kellogg was so concerned about this that He actually wrote books about how to keep your boys from masturbating and all kinds of you know, crazy solutions, like a wet girdle was what you would put on your twelve thirteen year old boy.

I'm not joking.

So the crisis for boys then was that there were all kinds of people.

Whether it was Baden Powell and Ernest Thompson seton founding the Boy Scouts in Britain and the United States, or the Boone and Crockett Club, or Young Boys Go Trooping Off to the Woods, or any of these movements.

These were false prophets, peddling new ideas to remedy a perceived feminization of boys.

Doesn't that sound familiar, Andrew Tait, Doesn't that sound familiar?

These are the false prophets of our era.

Throughout history, moments of social change have often sparked anxiety about what it means to be a man.

From the Boy Scouts to modern influencers, new profits emerged promising to restore order, each claiming to have the answer to masculinity in crisis.

And it's not the wrong confusion, they are saying to themselves.

In a world of greater equality, in a world of greater racial equality, sexual equality, gender equality.

Where do I fit in?

The ideas about manhood that I inherited from my father, from my grandfather do not work anymore, And so that means you are going to have to enter a world that you're unprepared for, and that's going to take some work.

And you can have these false prophits telling you, ah, it's the great replacement.

Ah, it's women's fault.

But truly, we're not going back.

Kimmel says that anxiety is real and in many ways understandable for young men.

The roles have shifted faster than they can adapt.

The world their fathers prepared them for doesn't exist anymore, and that loss of clarity can feel personal.

I think it would be a major mistake to assume that all in cells are alike.

I think large numbers of the young guys go to the in cell community for support, and you know, they've not had success yet in the dating world.

They're looking for support, for camaraderie, for validation.

That's not a bad thing.

The most likely outcome of in cell culture is they're going to be sad, They're going to blame others, They're going to remain ill, prepared for the world that they are entering.

The manosphere isn't one voice.

It's amaze of them.

For some, it's noise for others, a lifetime that turns into a dead end.

Beneath the slogans and algorithms are real people, men sorting through loneliness, shame, and a changing idea of manhood.

The stories and role models we amplify matter, especially to boys trying to figure out who they are.

If we want something better, it starts with what we show.

As example, the voices of them manisphere will keep shouting.

We don't have to echo them.

The real questions are who will shape book comes next?

And what will it be.

For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kt Underscore Studios.

In Cells is produced by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong.

Additional producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller, editing by Jeff Tooi music by Vanicore Studios.

In Cells is a production of Kat's Studios and iHeart Radio.

For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.