These toxic influencers hadn’t heard of Louis Theroux. That was their first mistake.

Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere ★★★★

Louis Theroux does a thorough job in this feature-length documentary about the extreme edges of online masculinity culture. That is to say, the veteran documentarian weaponises his quizzical eyebrows and uses his apologetic embarrassment as a tool for access, all the while getting at the ugly truths and delusional hunger behind a movement trying to turn the mobile phones of teenage boys and young men into an indoctrination tool and ATM.

It’s both a valuable explainer – this is what “red-pilled” means – and a viable public disinfectant.

A long-time BBC fixture, Theroux uses Netflix’s reach to get access to the comrades and camp followers of Andrew Tate, the first name referenced regarding toxic online misogyny. One of them, Briton Harrison Sullivan, aka HSTikkyTokky, hasn’t heard of Theroux and doesn’t know what to make of this trim, bespectacled 55-year-old with zero game.

“The structure’s not saying too much,” Sullivan says, sizing up Theroux’s biceps. That’s the last thing he should worry about.

As he’s always done, Theroux is unassuming but inquiring. He lets his subjects talk, believing that the exposure they receive will be more revelatory than rewarding. That’s certainly the case here, where online provocateurs such as anti-feminist Myron Gaines discover that a Theroux conversation can casually zero in on their hypocrisy.

Without being forensic, Theroux establishes the monetary gains that underpin the constant bluster about passing on “the cheat code”. And he shows their fan bases, whether excitable boys or solemn adult acolytes, in telling street scenes.

American influencer Justin Waller, a Mar-a-Lago guest of Barron Trump, explains to Theroux how he practises “one-sided monogamy” with his wife, Kristen. Later, in a home visit, Theroux runs those comments by Kristen, whose sales pitch isn’t as polished as her husband’s.

It’s telling how Theroux ends up interviewing the women, whether partners or mothers, who see the reality behind the sales slogans. Gaines, his girlfriend Angie notes, is a “different person” when the cameras are off.

By the time Theroux gets to right-wing commentator Sneako in New York – who earnestly points out celebrity magazine covers as a sign of a Satanic cabal “running the world” – Theroux has found the conspiratorial end point of the aggressive hustling and demonisation. He doesn’t need to expose that much because his subjects tend to self-destruct. Sullivan spirals online after Theroux’s visits, espousing antisemitism and becoming violent in his constant livestreams.

Online culture and the vast corporate platforms that house it, Theroux notes, “incentivise extreme behaviour”, but Inside the Manosphere shows how this belief system is neither complex nor plausible. That structure, it turns out, is saying plenty.

Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is streaming on Netflix from March 11.

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