Into The Manosphere: Problematic… or Important?

In a world where movie nights are sacred, two best friends embark on an epic quest

to conquer the cinematic landscape one film at a time.

I'm Sarah, and I'm Cassie, armed with popcorn and the remote control.

We're here to help you answer life's burning questions.

Splurge on theater tickets or cozy up at home.

Each week we will bring you the 4-1-1 on Hollywood hits, Netflix binges, and everything

in between.

Grab your snacks, dim the lights, you're listening to popcorn paparazzi with Sarah and Cassie.

This week we're taking a closer look at a documentary that's getting a lot of attention

and for good reason.

Inside the Manusphere on Netflix, and let's just say it's not exactly an easy watch.

But at all, this film dives into the online space's shaping modern masculinity.

And the very real impact those ideas are having on relationships, culture, and young men

today.

It's one of those documentaries that leaves you thinking long after it's over and may

be asking a few uncomfortable questions.

And honestly, this may be a must watch right now for women, for men, and especially for

anyone raising teenage boys trying to navigate this digital world.

So we're breaking down what this documentary gets right and where it falls short.

And whether it's truly worth your time or just another heavy watch in an already overwhelming

media landscape.

Let's get inside the Manusphere.

Hey friends, welcome back and happy Wednesday.

So glad you are back to join us today.

First Sarah, you know we got to ask that question, how was your weekend?

Thank you for asking.

Weekend was good.

My nephew Cameron, we celebrated his 12th birthday.

Can't believe he's 12.

Happy birthday Cameron.

Happy birthday Cameron.

And then on Sunday, I went into San Francisco and met up with my sister-in-law Tatiana.

And we went to brunch and we went shopping.

And it was like a beautiful day in the city.

So all in all, very nice weekend.

How about you?

How was your weekend?

Weekend was uninspiring to say the least, except for one crazy thing that happened that

has been making news.

Okay.

It didn't just happen like in our state, but it's happening in different states across

the US.

And that is meteors falling from the sky.

Ooh.

So over the weekend, Donnie and I, we were, I think it was Saturday.

We were sitting in the living room.

I forgot what we were doing.

And then all of a sudden, we heard this huge, loud boom.

What?

And at first, we were like, what the heck is going on?

What is that?

But we didn't give it another thought until I saw on TikTok that in spring, Texas, a woman,

her home was actually hit by a meteor falling from the sky, obviously.

What's crazy is that this meteor was caught on camera.

But what's crazy is the video shows that it was falling down and then it curved and then

started to go back up and then curved back down and then fell again.

What?

I don't know if that's the same exact meteor as the one that fell in spring, Texas.

The meteor fell into her roof, dented the floor, bounced back up, hit the roof again,

I think.

And then it kind of settled from there.

Okay.

That I could see happening when it, just bouncing after hitting something.

But what's crazy?

The other one sounds crazy.

I know.

But what's crazy, too, is that meteors are also falling in Ohio.

And I believe Indiana and then also, I heard California was one as well.

But what do you know happen to know the size of the one that fell into the woman's home?

It looked small.

It looked to be like about this big.

So she's sowing about a baseball size.

It feels like it's like thick, though.

It's like thick.

It looks heavy, for sure.

I thought meteors were dark, like black almost in color.

But this one literally looked like a little block of cement.

Interesting.

I know.

Which people are up in arms, because they're like, for sure, it's aliens.

It's aliens.

Are we sure that it's just meteors, guys?

I have not heard anything in my area being in California about that, but I will keep

an eye because I've actually paid money to own meteors.

So it would be great if I could just get one for free.

That would be amazing.

And I would love to hear if anyone in any other state, or even the state that I mentioned,

Ohio, Indiana, California, if you've experienced something with the meteors, let us know, because

I'm so interested to know more about what's going on.

What it could be if it truly is a meteor, or if we're welcoming guests from other planets.

I kind of know how to dress for this, you know?

Totally.

Popcorn Pop Rotsie podcast at gmail.com.

Let us know.

Grab your popcorn, because the gossip is about to pop off.

All right, it's time for a little extra butter.

And this week we're channeling a little female empowerment.

After watching inside the manosphere and hearing the claim that women haven't invented

anything or built anything that this man could physically see in the moment, who thought

it was the perfect time to set the record straight and celebrate the women who have been

driving innovation all these years.

So let's rapid fire this one.

Let's go.

All right, we're going to start with iconic inventions by women, windshield wipers,

Mary Anderson, Kevler, used in bulletproof vest, Stephanie Kualik, Wi-Fi technology foundations,

Hetty Lamar, and this is frequency hopping spread spectrum, computer programming, the

first algorithm, Ada Lovelace, compiler for programming languages, Grace Hopper, and

how about every day life game changers, dishwasher, Josephine Cochran, electric refrigerator

improvements, Florence Parpart, paper grocery bags, the flat bottom design, Margaret E.

Knight, modern electric iron improvements, Mary Florence Pots, foot pedal trash can, thank

you.

That's an amazing invention, Lillian Gilbert, health and science breakthroughs, liquid

paper, aka white out, Betty Nesmith Graham, stem cell isolation techniques, and Sukimoto.

Several syringe improvements, Latisha Gear, infant incubator advancements, Dr. Maria

Telkis.

She also worked in medical and energy innovation, transportation and safety, car heater,

Margaret Wilcox, the circular saw, the early version, Tabitha Babitt, fire escape, metal

design, Anna Connelly, signal flares for maritime safety, Martha Costan, building construction,

Haybrick, Anna Wagner Keiglein, the lightweight fire proof and insulating brick designed

to improve building safety.

First civil engineers in the US was LCEVs, long life battery systems, Olga D. Gonzales

Sanabria, an infrastructure and backup power systems, reduced pollution and noise, Mary

Walton, and she helped make urban environments livable.

Modern tech and innovation, Google search algorithm contributors, Google search algorithm

contributions, Susan Wajasiski, the early Google leader, DNA double helix discovery contribution

was Rosalind Franklin, space software engineering, Margaret Hamilton, solar heating systems,

and we're giving a second shout out to Dr. Maria Telkis.

Basically you guys, if you drove today, you cleaned your house, you used Wi-Fi, you sent

an email, or you didn't freeze in your car, you probably have a woman to thank.

Mike Drop, and we'll be right back.

Alright Cassie, my popcorn's buttered, the gossip's been spilled, and our listeners

want to know, is this documentary worth a watch?

What do you say?

I say, and I'm sure we're going to be saying this a lot throughout the episode, especially

me, but this was really, really hard for me to watch.

There were several moments where I honestly wanted to just turn it off and be done, but

I do think at the same time that discomfort is kind of the point.

I do think that if you are a parent, whether your kids are young teens or even young adults,

it's important to understand who and what is influencing them.

I think you have to be informed, so yes, as difficult as it is, I do think that this

is something that is worth watching.

What about you?

This is going to be a very interesting episode, because I don't disagree with you on what

you're saying, but I don't think that this is worth a watch, because I feel like this

documentary was a shallow look at a shallow but serious topic, and that's why I'm saying

no to it.

Everything you're saying though is true, I just didn't think the packaging for this

one worked.

I do think the documentary is timely and necessary, just like you're saying, and I do think that

there is a need to expose this growing online culture that is trying to shape young men,

but this specific documentary, I just, it missed the mark for me, and for those who don't

know, let's break this down, what is the atmosphere, right?

And basically, it's like a loose online term, and it has these like three pillars, right?

Women, fitness, and wealth.

And they focus on this alpha male status, these extreme self disciplines, this misogyny,

which in case people don't know what that word means, it's a hatred, contempt for prejudice

against women and girls, basically these men's target audience, even though they claim it

is not in the documentary, is most definitely young boys and men.

Yeah.

And I think we should also mention this ideology around the red pill, taken from the movie

The Matrix, and I feel like all of these men need to calm down with that movie The Matrix.

Taking the red pill means believing that modern society, culture, and laws are skewed

in favor of women, obscuring the reality of male oppression.

Yeah, basically take this red pill and have this metaphorical awakening to the belief that

society is fundamentally biased against men and dominated by women.

Girl, what world are they living in?

First of all, exactly.

And honestly, if it was dominated by women, we would be an amazing country, because-

I was just about to say we would be in such a better place where we are right now.

Let's make that clear.

I do want to touch on things that I do feel the documentary did well.

And one of those is really showcasing that these men have no real knowledge whatsoever.

These men claim to know what women want better than women do, which is funny because I'm

a woman and I feel like you have no idea at all what you're talking about.

They frame everything as all women this or women are wired like that.

But the second Louis Thoreau asks any type of follow-up question you literally see in

this documentary that it all unravels.

There's literally no substance, just a lot of very confident word vomit, and that's all

it is.

It's just word vomit.

Yeah.

So true.

And I've never seen anything else that Louis has done before.

So this was my first documentary of his that I've seen.

Have you seen any of this stuff?

I've seen clips of another documentary that he did.

I think the person's name is Jerry Saville.

And he was, I think he had like a show on TV for kids.

And he turned out to be like a really bad child predator.

And Louis, through his documentary, kind of helped expose him for that purpose, that reason.

Hmm.

Okay.

Maybe you're then a little more familiar.

But to me, obviously, his interviewing style is a lot more like calm, observational approach.

Yeah.

He's not going to really get into it with you.

And I think that's probably one thing that at first I liked when I watch a documentary,

like by him doing that, it kind of helps pull out those exact things you were just talking

about, which is their contradicting of each other, of their own thoughts, their insecurities.

And so I appreciated that from Louis coming in and interviewing these influencers, which

by the way, on the documentary, we've got three influencers that he's talking with.

We have H.S. Tickety Tickety Tocky.

Tickety Tocky.

God.

I really, H.S. Come on, like that's just brutal.

I was going to say A.K.A. just call him Harrison.

Exactly.

We'll call him that going forward.

We've got Justin Waller and Myron Gaines.

And so he's interviewing these guys.

And then at one time we get him interviewing Myron's girlfriend and another time we get

him interviewing Harrison's mother.

And he's just got a real nice kind of subtle approach in trying to expose the gap between

their confidence is online and who they are in real life, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of the things that is showcased well in this documentary is the fact that he asks,

Louis will ask a question and let them answer.

And I feel like it almost becomes very uncomfortable for the influencer because he's just standing

there, like waiting.

Yeah.

He does sit in the silence very well, which is like he's kind of waiting, can you give me

more?

Where are you going to want to take this?

Let's then fill that uncomfortable silence, which actually is a very hard thing to do to

not want to jump in and fill silence, right?

Yes.

Even on the podcast, you know, even one of this and other podcasts, I will notice when

some people interviewing let someone just have dead air to kind of see if they're going

to give you more.

Yeah.

That's very hard to do.

So I'll give them props for that.

Another thing that I felt like he did pretty well is exposing the grift, the con that

these influencers are pulling and exposing them themselves as being a grifter.

It's a grift, grifter, expose, expose.

These men are selling a very specific lifestyle, like you already mentioned, the money, the

women, the success and positioning themselves as the blueprint to get there.

But what we actually see is a business built on selling that image through courses,

memberships and content, which I think is just really just clickbait.

The lifestyle feels more like a product rather than reality.

And the film makes it clear, there's again, not much substance behind any of it.

And when he starts out in the documentary, he's talking to Justin Waller and Justin's

kind of going over his sign-up plan, right?

And the different levels, you can pay like 50 bucks a month, whatever, and it goes up.

And so Louis puts in 500 bucks to see what his money can do.

And by the end of the documentary, when they had filmed it, he had lost that money.

So it was like.

The stock market game was not great.

Not great.

And you really have to be so it's so hard.

I mean, we're all, we all want to make a fast buck.

We all want to, you know, do well and people like these guys just pray on people who are

trying really hard to pull themselves out of wherever they're at.

Like you said, and I agree.

The manosphere is just a business model built on loneliness and selling power, these

like power fantasies, right?

And it was interesting because after I had watched it, August and I were talking about

how remember when like boys would have the poster of like a Lamborghini with like a model

in a bikini lane, right?

Yeah.

That was kind of like the, the look that boys would have in their rooms or whatever.

And how like this is just a variation on that poster in a way, right?

Which is selling this.

Much more dangerous.

Well, it's dangerous.

It's a dangerous version because obviously their messaging is terrible, but it's selling

that if you are wealthy enough and successful, you can have these objects.

Yep.

Right?

Women as an object.

Cars as an object.

I guess what I'm saying by that analogy is that this isn't anything new except it's just

now getting more and more toxic as far as they're messaging about women's place within

this world.

Right?

Yeah.

A couple of things I would love to talk to you about are some of the wording and statements

that were made on the documentary.

Because there were so many, there were so many things.

Here's a couple that stood out to me and by all means throw in anything that I missed

that maybe stood out to you.

Okay.

All of these influencers have the same messaging.

They are, they have the same talking points, right?

Yep.

And one of the main things that they kept saying was one wave monogamy, which for anyone

is not heard this term because I had not heard that term before watching this.

It's basically you are in a relationship and your man can go and do whatever he wants

with whomever he wants and you can't get mad about it.

You have to accept it because he's doing you a favor because women, they only want one

partner.

So they are good and men need multiple partners.

So if you accept that, you could have a happy relationship.

I think is so like, are you trying to be like Mormon and have multiple wives?

Like, what lane are we choosing to be in here?

I don't know.

I just, I think it's so stupid.

So let's take example, which is Justin Waller and his quote unquote wife.

They're not legally married, but he calls her as wife.

They have two children one on the way, right?

She is interviewed.

And first in the documentary, he doesn't want her on the show.

And gee, I wonder why?

Uh-huh.

I want just like Myron.

He picked the price for that one because he did.

And she broke up with him while this was in production to be released.

Yeah, because she's like, this is going nowhere and this guy's a fool.

Thank God she got out of that.

Back to Justin.

So the finally he brings the wife on and she's talking about this and it's interesting

that her viewpoint is that she's been lied to before by previous boyfriends.

She's been cheated on basically.

And she'd rather know the truth and be upfront about it than have a lie of someone sneaking

behind her back and lying.

My thought is, is he gaslighting her into believing that?

Is it him planting that seed in her head or does she truly feel that way?

Well, I'm sure she's her reasonings for being cheated on.

I feel I probably legit.

I can't imagine like how he would gaslight her on that.

But gaslighting her on like, this is better if I'm just upfront with you.

And that's what I mean.

Yes.

And that's what I mean.

You know, at the end of the day, like she's a grown woman and she has decided that him

breaking women home and having three sums is okay with her and fine.

But God, I just, I don't know, I felt like, you know, not all guys are like that.

You know, and you could have found someone who wouldn't have told you like, I'm going

to go out.

The thing is fine.

If that's what you want, fine.

But let me also, if I want to do that, I can do it too.

Not this, you don't want to do this because you're a woman and a woman, no, they don't

like multiple partners, but men do and therefore that's what it is.

Yeah.

And you know what got me about that conversation too is when Justin was like, if this was

over tomorrow, I have two kids.

And I have great memories.

But what does she have?

She will have nothing.

She will have nothing.

He's not going to give her money.

Yeah.

She'll have no legal rights to any money of his.

No legal rights whatsoever.

Yeah.

Exactly.

It still doesn't seem like a winning situation.

Yeah.

Or equal.

Exactly.

Yeah.

What about on Myron Gaines' podcast?

People can pay him to have their comments read on the podcast.

And while were those those comments horrifying?

Well, audience.

So they're going to be horrifying.

We live in a capitalist society and if people are dumb enough to pay to have their comments

read, I mean, I think it's dumb, but but on the other hand, Cassie and I are happy to

read your comments on our podcast for every $20 of these.

We're happy to read your buckets of popcorn on a move that you want us to.

Yes.

Yes.

Send those in, please.

Send those in.

But one more thing that I'll just bring up that I thought was just classic misogynistic

at its core is that women should only ever have one partner being their husband because

sperm stays in women forever.

Oh my God.

You might end up having a child that looks like a previous boyfriend or lover of hers

because the sperm is in there forever.

I mean, tell me again how you don't understand not only women, but how science and biology

fucking works.

Like, and let's talk about you guy who actually said that in the video.

He is gay.

Oh my God.

You are gay.

It's okay.

To be gay.

Just be yourself.

Don't do this stupid shit.

Tell me you're stupid without telling me you're stupid.

I literally had to, this is the moment where I was like, I got to turn this off because

I just cannot believe that there are people out there who would believe.

You know what?

Garbage.

You know what though?

It didn't even rattle me in that same way because I'm like, this is the same people

who believe the earth is flat.

Like, this is just, there's dumb people in the world and they're going to believe this

kind of stuff.

And I just, I can't even waste my anger or frustration on people who would say this

or believe someone who would say this, like, so crazy.

And overall, just seeing the way that they try to embarrass women at every turn, that

really got me going, I so badly wanted to be in the room when Myron would bring on

this groups of women, usually only, only fans women, yeah, of course.

Basically, just try and make them look as stupid as he possibly can.

And do stupid stuff, make them answer questions when they're nervous, and then laugh and make

fun of them, make them describe their perfect man and then tell them they're not going to

get that man.

So they should stop trying.

Just all those things, man, did I wish I would have been there?

And I could have just stood up for those girls and put those dudes in their places.

You know, all of these men, all of these influencers, they're all giving small dick energy.

Girls, yeah, I would rather, Myron was talking about how one of the girls on there calling

her fat, calling her all of this, calling her disgusting, yeah, I would rather be fat

than have a small penis.

Yeah.

So, preach it, sister.

One of the things that I really wish that this documentary had was include more women's

voices, especially women who actively work with or are affected by these guys.

And just like Sarah mentioned, like we just said, there were a few women featured.

The women on Myron Games' podcast, we talked about Justin Waller's girlfriend, and even

Harrison's mom, but those moments felt very, of course, surface level.

We never really get anything deep or meaningful from their perspectives.

And I think the documentary would have been so much stronger if we had more women.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree more.

And here's for me, where the documentary let viewers down, let me down.

Not only did it lack exposing the impact of this on women, but what I needed for this

documentary to be better, and for me to be able to say, yeah, I think it's totally worth

a watch.

Or I'm giving it, you know, for three, four, five buckets of popcorn, is it needed things

like interviews with the psychologist or a therapist on how we got here.

Yeah.

How did we get here for men?

I mean, yes, we should be uplifting women, and we're doing that, and I don't want to

leave men behind, and boys coming up like, so how do we get here?

What happened?

Give us a little bit of backstory and background to understanding that, because if you don't

understand how we got here, how you're going to understand how to stop this train, right?

Yeah.

So we don't know.

They didn't cover that at all.

How about parents whose sons have fallen for these influencers?

I am a parent of a 16 year old son.

I would love to have heard from parents.

Yeah.

How did you find out?

Was your kid saying certain things?

Was your kid doing stuff like in the documentary, they talk about this hand signal that all

the guys do in their talk, right?

You know, things like that, like I wouldn't even know to look for that, but had we had

parents on there being like, these were the red flags that popped up that I didn't know

were red flags.

That would have been so much more impactful, right?

How about other men talking against these viewpoints?

Yeah.

I wish we had something like that.

Yes.

Like, come on.

While I was watching it, it was reminding me of an interview I had heard on Oprah's

podcast.

She was interviewing this New York University professor Scott Galloway, and he was talking

about a variation on this theme.

I mean, he wasn't talking about manosphere, so to speak, but he was talking about kind

of how men have gotten in this spot where they're feeling left behind or they're feeling,

you know, like their issues are not being taken care of or whatever.

And he made a couple good, really good points that the documentary just kind of touched

on one being that these influencers for one in the documentary lack a male role model,

right?

They did not have fathers in their lives.

And he made a statement and I don't know if this is true or not and this, you know,

whatever.

But he said that single moms raising daughters do the daughters do better than single

moms raising sons.

If you don't have a male role model in a son's life, interesting.

That can be very detrimental for them as they become men.

Very interesting viewpoints.

I mean, he talked about the importance of front male friendships and also like things

are changing in our world, right?

Things are a business now.

Yeah.

College is a business.

It is getting into college so freaking hard, but you need that in order to get any kind

of life.

Like he made the example that when he went to school, he got into Berkeley, 74% admittance

rate, 74% of people that applied to Berkeley back in the whatever late 60s got it.

Now that number is nine.

What?

Nine.

It went from 74% to nine percent.

Nine.

What?

That is crazy.

Government has stacked the cards against all of us, not just men, not just women, which

is yeah, makes things so much harder.

Do you know that for the first time in our nation's history, 30 year olds aren't doing

as well as their parents did at that age?

Oh, yes.

I see that.

I mean, let's let's look at how much the world has changed in just that short amount

of time.

Yep.

Inflation, the cost of housing, yeah, the cost just to survive.

It's like the generation before us, they got what they needed, right?

They got their homes, they got good jobs.

And then they decided we don't want anyone else to build more houses around us.

We don't want anyone else to be doing this.

We don't want to pay taxes on this.

And now we are suffering.

Generations will suffer if we don't give back, like you have to give back.

So that's what I'm saying.

Like in the end, the documentary just didn't go deep enough for me.

And I think throws style of let them talk, didn't challenge them enough.

I know he wants to have it come out of them on their own.

I needed more pushback at it was only at the end when they started talking about like

the Jewish stuff that he did do a little pushback.

But he needed to do that for women too.

Like if he's doing this documentary and their main talking point is that women in the

world are the problem and that we should only be at home, he needed to put a little bit

more for me assertive in standing up as a voice for us in that documentary.

Because like you said, there wasn't any other ones doing that.

Mm hmm.

I'll round it out with then again.

I can see that those influencers frail male egos probably couldn't have handled that.

And they probably would have walked away from filming, to be honest.

And some of them did.

I think Harrison said he didn't want to do any more like we saw him kind of freak out

because he didn't even know who Louis Thoreau was and he was like getting all of these messages

about the type of person that he is, the documentary and that he's going to whatever the case

may be.

Exactly.

They're all tiny, tiny, tiny, fragile ladies.

Okay.

Totally.

All right, guys, stick around.

We'll be right back with our buckets of popcorn and a sneak peek at what's coming next

up.

I would give into the manosphere three buckets of popcorn.

Again, this was a tough watch for me.

I found myself feeling frustrated and very angry at times.

But like I said earlier, I do think it's an important film to watch.

Next to it out is how much insecurity is driving a lot of this behavior.

There's a constant need for validation, especially from other men.

And it often comes across as performative competence rather than something actually

genuine.

A lot of what's being presented feels rooted in contradiction, confidence on the surface.

But something, again, much more fragile underneath.

And I think the documentary does a good job of letting that reveal itself.

And what was your popcorn pairing?

Well, I was all excited to have my 2D fruity boobs, but, but I had to sit it down because

I was getting like I said, it's just so worked up.

And I had to grab an alcoholic beverage.

I grabbed a bee box.

And that's what got me through it.

I got it.

What about you?

What are you giving the film?

So, sadly, I give this documentary two buckets of popcorn.

I do think this is a wake up call, especially for parents and anyone trying to understand

teenage boys today and what they're facing, especially online.

But if you are interested in this topic and learning more about it, I think your time

would be better spent researching it online than watching this.

And what was your popcorn pairing?

I agreed with you.

This film was one that you just really couldn't watch and eat food and enjoy it.

Yeah.

So, I did not have anything.

I just graded my teeth through it and then was glad it was over.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Bottom line, we're divided on this one.

Sarah says, doing your research is better than watching the doc while I say watch the

doc.

But either way, do your research.

Find out what your kids are doing.

Next week, guys, we are for real.

This time, headed to space with Ryan Gosling in Project Hill, Mary.

I know we were supposed to see it this week, but obviously this documentary had a lot of

hype around it, so we flipped it.

But we are definitely going to the theater next week.

Science teacher, Ryland Gray, swakes up on his spaceship with no recollection of who

he is or how he got there.

As his memory slowly returns, he soon discovers he must solve the riddle behind a mysterious

substance that's causing the sun to die out.

As details of the mission unravel, he calls on his scientific training and sheer ingenuity,

but he may not have to do it alone.

Again, really curious if he's going to be meguivaring some stuff here.

Totally.

And if he does it for us today, see you back here next week, and until then, enjoy the

movies everyone.

Bye.

Bye.

Lights, camera, and that's a wrap for popcorn paparazzi.

We hope you enjoyed our insights and laughed a little.

Join us next time for more cinematic adventures.

And remember, the popcorn's always hot and ready.