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- [00:00]
Chris Williamson
What wine are you drinking? That's what I want to know.
- [00:03]
James Bloodworth
It's a wine that someone. We had a kind of small dinner party yesterday and they left a bottle. So it kind of be rude not to have it the next day on a Monday. I know, but it's Monday. I worked on the weekend, so I bought tomorrow.
- [00:17]
Chris Williamson
Technically a Friday.
- [00:18]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, exactly.
- [00:19]
Chris Williamson
Brilliant. I saw a quote from Richard Reeves earlier on Today. I'm worried that the term manosphere is going to go through a similar journey to toxic masculinity, simultaneously being broadened massively beyond its original parameters and breaking out of academic circles and into mainstream discourse. What do you think about that?
- [00:37]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I think that's a. I like Richard's work and I think that's a fair, fair point. I think I've seen the. During the course of writing my, my book about the manosphere, I've seen the term has become very, very baggy in terms of how it's used. So I've seen, I've seen, I've seen, you know, the manosphere originally at least referred to, at least in the book. It's kind of a. It refers to like male supremacist communities, anti feminist communities, quite. Which is quite specific, I think. But I've seen it over the course of the. The writing of the book. It's kind of expanded to include almost, you know, if you read the Guardian sometimes or the New York Times, it's like anyone who does a bench press, anyone who can do a bench press is part of the manosphere. Yeah, Like Joe Rogan is like the part like he's. That's kind of accepted now in, in the media that he's part of the manosphere. Whereas I think. Well, not really. Maybe he's kind of. People in the manosphere listen to him, but so do lots of other people. So yeah, it has become so broad as it's become a little bit meaningless. The term toxic masculinity. Yeah, that, that, that kind of went. Underwent the same thing even in cell, I would say that term. Yeah, same trajectory just kind of became this weapon in the hands of people who would then use that to proselytize for their own sort of point of view.
- [01:51]
Chris Williamson
You know what I'm trying to think about? I'm trying to think about an equivalent sort of toxic negative term that's been used for the female side of the fence that's being captured by the mainstream. If you were to look at some of the terms coming out of the manosphere, stuff like 304s, like Alpha Widows and then just every other sort of slur, like not very inventive slurs, but I can't think of, I guess Karen in a way.
- [02:25]
James Bloodworth
Karen is probably closest. Closest. I mean, trad wives a bit in. In. In. In kind of intellectual circles or if. If you're kind of reading. Yeah, reading. Reading New York, the New York Times or something, or the Guardian again, maybe in those circles, but not really. It's not really caught on in popular culture at all.
- [02:44]
Chris Williamson
Yeah, I think an interesting place to start, actually is what the manosphere is not. And you've kind of highlighted there guys talking on a podcast, maybe manosphere adjacent. But if you. Again, if you broaden the term manosphere to include anything that men like, then like roller coasters is the manosphere and UFC is the manosphere and, you know, nickelback is the manosphere.
- [03:13]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean, it's partly the fault of the term itself because the term is just here. If you just heard the term manosphere and you didn't know anything about any of these subcultures that kind of claim, that mantle, you might think it's something relatively benign because there's nothing in the name suggesting otherwise necessarily. So that. That I think is part of it. But yeah, I mean, it's just these terms do get lazily applied to a political. Like woke is. Woke is an example on. You have kind of people on the right will call anything they don't like, oh, this is just woke. And it's just kind of a label to associate your opponents with kind of the worst aspects of something. So like the crazy, like hyper identity politics people. Whereas, yeah, if you people who want to discredit kind of any conservative politics will say, well, that's just part of the, you know, the manosphere. And.
- [04:05]
Chris Williamson
Red meat is manosphere Wearing a barbecue body spray.
- [04:11]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, yeah. Anything is. I mean, this was worse, I think, a few years ago. So I think people like Richard Reeves have allowed us to have a more of an intelligent conversation. I mean, in the mainstream, that is, I think there's. The media ecosystem now is obviously much more broad and there are all kinds of different conversations. But in the mainstream, people like Richard Reeves I think have made it a bit more cringe to just throw around terms like toxic masculinity everywhere. I hear that term a lot less now. I didn't use it in the book deliberately because I think it's unhelpful, but I think manosphere. Yeah, I mean, I hope it doesn't stop getting used just yet, because the subtitle of my Book. Yeah. I hope it does annoy me if I see it just kind of thrown around. Yeah. About just like guys just doing like guy ish things. Yeah, it's a.
- [05:06]
Chris Williamson
It's an interesting one because memes catch on because of how sticky they are. And unfortunately that can cause them to kind of have a really short shelf life. I often think about, to use woke, I think about political correctness and, you know, that was kind of a highly thrown around term. And then it became a meme pretty quickly. And the fucking speed of evolution from woke being an unironic term to satirized out of existence was a nanosecond. You know, it basically never existed as an unironic term. And I think the manosphere actually, actually got to. So it's interesting to say that you've seen a downturn in conversations about the manosphere, because then adolescents came in at the start of this year and I feel like that kind of really exploded and kicked off this conversation again.
- [06:00]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, And I wouldn't say I've seen a downturn in conversations about manosphere necessarily. I think the last few years there's been an uptick in conversations about specific individuals. So Andrew Tate, for example, and there's been. There's been kind of a similarly with. With use of the term woke. So the woke took on this kind of caricature and then no one was actually interested in looking at where it came from, the. Where the movements came from. It was just became this kind of term of abuse to associate people on the left with the most extreme elements of the hyper identity politics stuff. And, and you've seen kind of the manosphere be used in a similar way or is being used in a similar way where you have people, progressives sometimes, or ostensibly progressives, who will try to throw that at anyone, you know, right of center or anyone just. Yeah, doing kind of quote unquote manly things to try and associate them with the extremes like Andrew Tate or whatever. I think that the conversation on the manosphere has. Manosphere has become more part of like the mainstream culture, that conversation, but it's very much focused on these kind of very caricature individuals. So Andrew Tate would be the. The obvious example of that. Before it was the incels, you know, there was a slight, a bit of a moral panic around incels around 2018, 19. Jordan Peterson, another one. But my book is really looking at how the manosphere is this kind of much bigger, 30, 40 year thing going back to pickup artists, men going their own way, men's rights activists. There's a whole like basically ecosystem. Whereas the media now, it tends to just present the most sensation, sensational, basically big personalities, I would say.
- [07:40]
Chris Williamson
How do you come to think about the phases of the manosphere? I have a relatively white pilled, hopeful way of piecing it together. But how do you think about the different epochs that got us to where we are now?
- [07:54]
James Bloodworth
So, I mean, the initial kind of manosphere, really, I mean, you have guys before the advent of the Internet. Ross Jeffries is the guy you might have heard of the inspiration for Tom Cruise's character in Magnolia. I'm not going to say the line, nicely overused line, but Ross Jeffries, Eric. A guy called Eric Weber. These, these guys kind of selling their books at the back pages of men's magazines and stuff. Then the Internet in the early 2000s, late 1990s, the Internet is where you really see the rise of the pickup artist community as chronicled by Neil Streis, who you've had on your program before, who's who kind of, yeah, that the game was like a huge, huge selling book. And the pickup artist kind of community in the 2000, late 2000, late 2000s, early 2010s, it kind of morphs into the red pill community or kind of splits. And so you have the red pill community. The incels becomes much more political, much more conspiratorial, much more based around kind of resentment. So the pickup artists, you know, for all their flaws, it was kind of we, you know, I want to get a girlfriend or there was a lot of guys attracted to it, like just want to kind of learn a few lines. Yeah, there was a lot of manipulation involved. But then the red pill movement, it really is like trying to get back at women in, in some kind of cosmic way. So it's videos about, you know, berating women. Kind of the dunking on women economy kind of emerges. If you like the original guys, it was about kind of shaping yourself to be what women want or ostensibly what women want. Whereas a lot of the guys today, a lot of the red pill guys, it's more about shaping yourself in some ways for the male gaze, for like what you think to impress other men. So having the kind of harem of women, or being alpha and intimidate, making other men feel kind of uncomfortable, dominating every social interaction you're in. So it's, it's quite different in some ways, but there is that kind of thread running through it of this very kind of rigid view of men and women as almost like, you know, from Mars and Venus, a Separate species, et cetera.
- [10:00]
Chris Williamson
I think, at least in retrospect, the pickup industry seemed to kind of pathologize kindness and empathy in men.
- [10:09]
James Bloodworth
Yeah.
- [10:10]
Chris Williamson
How do you think that impacted the trajectory of male, female relationships, especially given where we're at now with the complaints that each side has about the other?
- [10:21]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean, there was a sense that, yeah, there were certain behaviors that many men found the pickup artist community and they behaved. And the stereotype is often wrong about those people. They were not these very aggressive guys. They were often. I mean, there were those sometimes, but they were mostly the ones. The guys I met in that scene, they were. They were mostly guys who really did need to be told to be a bit more assertive. So they would be.
- [10:46]
Chris Williamson
This Sprouse is like five foot six.
- [10:48]
James Bloodworth
Yeah. And there was that aspect of it. It wasn't just these men who just wanted to manipulate women into bed. Although, again, there is. There was that element. There was a lot of men who kind of didn't. They were ashamed of being masculine. They were ashamed of taking up space in the world. And, yeah, that was a big part of what. Attracted to lots of mental community. But then they would often put on a costume, if you, like, put on this kind of masculinity costume, which would be completely the other way. Like a cartoonish thing where. Yeah, you never show any emotion. Well, I mean, they didn't really say that quite so much. That was a bit more the red pill stuff a bit later, like, never really show any emotion, which is, by the way, is a terrible thing. Well, it's actually never show any emotion unless it's anger, which some, for some reason, didn't count as an emotion. But, I mean, that's a terrible way to form a. To behave in a relationship, I think. But, yeah, there was. There's kind of a lot of guys kind of going. Going the other way with that. And that thread kind of got even more kind of. In the red pill community. And what we see today, that stuff has got even more, like, entrenched. So it's like they double down on it now. So. Well, if this isn't working, it's just because you're not being alpha enough. And, yeah, it's a lot darker now than it was when I kind of first discovered the pickup artists in the mid-2000s.
- [12:09]
Chris Williamson
I mean, that says a lot that you consider the pickup community to have been more sanitized than the modern manosphere. You sort of talk about an increase in vitriol and victimhood in the modern version. What do you Think caused the manosphere to get harder, more spiky, more political as it went along.
- [12:33]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, so I mean I do. I don't want to sanitize like the pickup community, but it's ironic in a way that we're talking relatively here. Yeah, no, of course. But it's ironic when I look back on. So mystery was the. Was the main pickup Guru in the 2000s and you know, the main character in Strauss's book, he would kind of talk about how, you know, she's not a bitch, she's just a bitch to you. So. So it was basically what you're doing is why she's being rude to you. Whereas that's really. Nowadays it's kind of like, oh well, it's because she's hypergamous, you know, fickle. She just sees you as kind of a loser. Mystery. And those guys used to peacock was the term where they'd go out to the club in that ridiculous outfits, top hat, goggles, eyeliner. And nowadays if you know the red pill guys, you know that men wearing eyeliner is the problem because it's the kind of the collapse of like gender norms are participating the fall of western civilization. So yeah, I mean, why did it get darker? I mean, partly, I think after Neil Streis's book you had. You had all these people in the community kind of masculinity pickup entrepreneurs who it became this, this very much this.
- [13:44]
Chris Williamson
Shit show of social dynamics was one of them.
- [13:49]
James Bloodworth
Yeah. And guys getting ripped off, like paying these guys who would just take them out to a club, point at women for them to approach, which anyone could basically do and call themselves a pickup guru. And then they'd come away and they didn't have the supermodel that was like promised them by these gurus often get angry. And that was kind of how some of the incel movement started. Like anti pickup artist websites where guys who'd been ripped off or felt they'd been scammed and they said, you know, game doesn't work. And then they started to go down this much more deeper rabbit hole of very determinist thinking that if you're not like, if you're not 7 foot with like a square jawline and you're forever alone, you're genetic trash or whatever. Otherwise the red pill guys, I think it's just to kind of add quickly. I think the red pill stuff. I think social media has made a big difference to that. So we've kind of now that we all have short video and photos kind of on our smartphones. I mean, short video in particular, you have, it's kind of universalized, that kind of resentment that you're not having as much sex as other people. You're not living, you're not kind of living as fun a life as other people. That sense of pauperization. And I think there is that more generalized resentment now which you also see in the manosphere.
- [15:06]
Chris Williamson
I wonder whether part of it in the past would be because the Internet and your looks didn't follow you around in the same way when Neil Strauss and Mystery were doing their thing in 2006, that all that you needed to do was something that was effective to get your end goal, which was to get laid with women. Whereas now, because of the ubiquity of Instagram, your personal brand, your visual identity is scrutinized not just by women, but but also by other men. So by design, you're going to inevitably have to sort of move toward. Well, where is most of the criticism going to come from? Well, any guy that spent even a modicum amount of time in the gym knows that the first people that notice that you've got bigger from going to the gym are not women, it's other men. And the same thing goes for the way that you dress. And the, you know, intrasexual competition is way more salient to both sexes, even more to women actually than to men. But, but intrasexual competition is way more salient than intersexual competition. And you know, in order to get a girl to notice you, what is it? How many swipes men go right versus women go right? Like most men largely are at least visually invisible to most women, but most men are not invisible to most men. Like we see our competition and we use that to judge where we are in the status hierarchy. So I wonder whether the sort of pivot toward a more classic hyper masculine approach, as you say, is not for the benefit of men toward women, but for the benefit of men toward other men.
- [16:35]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I definitely think that's, that's plausible. I think that's, that's definitely plausible. I think also looks in some way have become more of a status symbol in their own right. So we have become a more look at society. So the critique of some of the intel groups often, obviously they go right off the deep end and adopt this very nihilistic worldview. But we, we are a much more looked society and we seem to become a much more looked society like with every passing year. So I mean, even if you look at, like, if you, if you arrived on planet Earth for the first time and looked at kind of music or films, you, you, you would assume that, that to be to musical talent kind of a prerequisite for that was being really hot. You would assume. I mean when I was a kid, Christopher Reeve in, in Superman was kind of. Yeah, he's a fairly, he's, he's, he's a fairly trim guy. He's in shape and stuff. Whereas now it's like Chris Hemsworth, Henry Cavill. Yeah, no, yeah. The kind of. The bodies have become like more extreme. There is more pressure on boys to aspire to a more. Yeah. I mean in some, in some of those cases, yeah. It's actually unrealistic ideal. Unless you're just working out as a full time job or juicing, you know, juicing as well. I find it hard to see that there's no correlation between that and the fact that you have 13 year old boys taking steroids now. Whereas that was not. That was, that was completely unheard of really, when I was younger.
- [18:01]
Chris Williamson
Yeah, you are. You dug into the relationship between gym culture, training.
- [18:07]
James Bloodworth
Wow.
- [18:07]
Chris Williamson
A second glass of wine. Let's fucking go. James Bloodworth. This is a Monday, dude.
- [18:11]
James Bloodworth
I love this. I've got so much freelance lifestyle. I don't do this every Monday.
- [18:17]
Chris Williamson
I was gonna say, do we need an intervention?
- [18:20]
James Bloodworth
Not yet.
- [18:20]
Chris Williamson
Yeah, talk to me about gym culture.
- [18:23]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean, gym culture. I know more just from going to the gym. Although when I was riding the bike, I didn't go as much as I would like. But you do have, I mean online, you do have fitness influencers sometimes who will talk a good game about the thing they know about the gym, about what you should do in the gym and your routine and your diet and stuff. But. And then people will kind of accept them as an authority figure because that's often how those relationships work online now you have your kind of guru in some ways. But then they will kind of start talking like Andrew Tate. I spoke to someone who discovered him through kickboxing. So he was getting into this stuff, was watching YouTube videos and it was like this guy was very charismatic, knew what he was talking about and even takes like when he doesn't know what he's talking about, he speaks with that kind of force, multiplier of conviction, which makes you kind of that charisma you kind of drawn in. Oh, maybe what this guy's saying is right. Trump, funnily enough, is someone who also has that kind of frame control. And then he said, you know, this Tate would talk about this stuff and then he Started talking about, you know, he'd, he'd pepper in, like, sprinkle in, like, stuff about feminism, about how the sexual revolution has, like, ruined it for men. And if you're not part of like the, the 80% of the 20% of men, you're just gonna be left behind. And, and all of this stuff, you've got to lie, you've got to present this, you know, ostentatious lifestyle to the world or you're never going to get a partner. So there's a lot of, kind of the way we, the way we get information now is not through institutions so much, it's through influencers. And sometimes, you know, they have their area of expertise, but then maybe they're not the right person to listen to on this other thing. But it's very easy to fall down that kind of silo where you have your kind of figure and then. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's Tate. That's a classic one with Tate with his, with his GM and kickboxing, but then kind of sprinkling in some of the other stuff.
- [20:14]
Chris Williamson
I, I see this in myself. I see this in myself, I see this in my friends. The allure of starting to get out over your skis. Nobody is an expert in that many things. And.
- [20:26]
James Bloodworth
But it's hard not to talk about it when you're asked like, yeah, I completely, completely see that.
- [20:30]
Chris Williamson
It's fucking seductive, man. Like, people care. People care about what I've got to say about evolutionary psychology. Why shouldn't I, why shouldn't I comment on the Ukraine? Why shouldn't I, why shouldn't I comment on the Middle East? I think I've got a really interesting take on immigration that people should, should hear. And there's an idea. I only learned this a couple of weeks ago, jester's privilege. So the idea that court jesters in the Middle Ages were permitted to say things that other members of the aristocracy or other members of sort of the ruling class would have been fucking hung for. And I guess if you push it too, then the jester would probably get hung as well. But that there was a degree of additional leeway that was given there. I certainly know that there is kind of like a bros privilege that I'm able to waive or comedians privilege that Rogan and his boys are able to waive as well. Like, ah, you know, if you're coming to me for your advice about fucking epidemiology or whatever. And I do get, look, I understand that this sort of gateway content, crank magnetism, Pipeline thing. I understand that that's a concern for people. I have a little bit of a, I have a little bit of a problem with too many accusations around that, specifically when it talks about jumping you from creator to creator. So for instance, if you start listening to Jordan Peterson telling you to clean up your room and then whatever the stat is, within 15 minutes of scrolling, you're delivered an Andrew Tate video. And then, you know, within five videos of his first video about kickboxing. It's a video about this thing. I, it doesn't to me feel like it's the fault of Jordan Peterson that Andrew Tate gets delivered to him. That seems like an issue of algorithm, not of on the creator. The same thing goes for me. I don't get to choose what the video below this one is. The algo. Hopefully it's another, you know, fantastic conversation, like our last one that we had three years ago, but we don't get to choose that. So the, the kind of like pipeline thing, the gym is a gateway drug to right wing radicalization. The watching of, you know, you watch UFC knockout compilations and before you know it, you're donning a fucking KKK hood. Like all of this. Yeah, you are. You're paying for a fucking dropshipping course. I, I'm real hesitant around, around.
- [22:53]
James Bloodworth
Whose.
- [22:53]
Chris Williamson
Feet do you lay the responsibility of that? Because, because it's not Jordan Peterson.
- [22:57]
James Bloodworth
No, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it was, was the fault of the individual creators. It's, it's. That's to do with the tech companies and the algorithm. That's, that's very much not. Yeah, I, I would absolutely say that's not the fault of someone like Peterson. I think, I think with, with Peterson, the more interesting thing is kind of his views have changed a lot. And since when I first came across him in like 2018, I, I have a lot of good things to say about Peterson. There's a lot, there's a lot I think is about his message, which is countercultural in a way that is not just like, it's not just something that conservatives can be on board with. His kind of. That you should not just always take the path of least resistance. That we live in a society that's kind of satiated with advertising, telling you, you know, watch, watch the pornography, you know, play the computer game.
- [23:43]
Chris Williamson
Just, just kind of thing.
- [23:45]
James Bloodworth
Do, yeah, do the thing that feels good. Whereas he comes along and says, actually no, do the thing that's painful because after you've gone walk through the fire, you'll Feel better than you would have ever felt by just taking the kind of consuming the cheap kind of. The cheap kind of sugar high. Which. That was a really. That's a really countercultural message in a way, that kind of aesthetic just not being kind of buffeted around in the breeze by kind of all these. Kind of all these interests basically telling you that you need to buy this thing that, you know, oh, you know, fucking with your dopamine and saying, you know, watch. Oh, look at these Instagram models on. You know, you scroll through the grid and stuff, but just kind of follow your own path. That was. That was very powerful. But his views are kind of. Yeah, maybe I don't want to listen to him when he talks about, like, the COVID vaccine, for example. You know, there's. There's kind of. There's kind of a. I think sometimes. But that's also the responsibility, if you like, on the audience, I think, as much as something, as much as the creators. Because, like, critical. Critical thinking, you know, they're not just, you know, it's, you know, follow those who. What is it? That's that old saying. Follow those who seek the truth, run from those who claim to have found it. Like. Like, actually, you know, evaluates people critically. Even the people who make sense when they talk about, like, the gym or something or. Or Jordan Peterson, you know, take what. What works and discard what doesn't.
- [25:02]
Chris Williamson
This is an area of sort of very patronizing, very. Actually sort of patriarchal, like, parochial view of what an audience member is, that it. It treats them as totally fucking passive. Like, oh, yeah, poor, like simpletons. You are unable to discern for yourself whether or not this person is chatting shit or is in a domain of competence that you should listen to. Please allow us to step in and sanitize or sterilize whatever it is that's going on with this. It's like, dude, the people that listen to shows like this one, or like Jordan's stuff, or even the people that consume, except for young kids. I understand when you get below 60, I mean, prefrontal cortex for men, mine at 37, I think is still developing. There are lots of people who are able to discern for themselves whether or not this person is adding value, even if they've added value in the past in a different domain, et cetera, et cetera. I. I'm hesitant around saying, you know, this person is just able to pipe beliefs directly into the prefrontal cortexes of, Of. Of the people that are watching.
- [26:09]
James Bloodworth
Yeah. I mean, it can be that, that, that argument. I remember even when I was back at college doing like sociology, there always, there was always kind of the theory of media. There was always some theories which were just too crude that like false consciousness can be, can be like that, that, well, they just don't know what they really think. Because, because from that then you can elect yourself as like a vanguard, a group of kind of political thing as well. But we know what's better for those people than they actually know themselves, which can get into quite dangerous political territory at least I think with the thing is with the Internet and influencers and just this glut of information. I think what's so during the manosphere research, one of the things all of them talk about a lot is like social proof, like status social proof. And it's one of their concepts which has some truth to it, that if you're. And not just in the sense that like, if you have a guy who's surrounded by women, other women often find that, that guy more attractive. But even just like, why do we buy the Coca Cola if we know nothing of Coke, why do we buy the Coca Cola over the own brand Cola? And it's kind of like it's a way of making the decision really quickly that, well, all these other people have bought this, so I'm just going to buy this or like a celebrity endorsement or something. And with, with the kind of the way there's so much information on the Internet now, I think sometimes our brains kind of defer to just looking for the status or clout that person has, like the, the number of tributes and likes that people are paying to them and just a kind of way to cut through the influence. The blue check mark is another kind of example of that stuff. Whereas it's kind of not always the best way to. I mean, it's not just with, with influences, it's just everywhere. It's not always the best way of making a decision that you trust someone more just because they have more kind of clout. And I think online it gets into particularly perilous waters where people can gain clout for kind of all kinds of stupid things. Like, you know, there are, there are kind of a lot of influences now and there are people like Tate, I think, just saying really outrageous things. But then the kid who encounters him when he's got like 3 million followers or something, he may, he, you know, he may not have seen all the other things, but it's like, oh, well, you know, your brain kind of, oh, I see the 3 million followers I'm going to listen to this guy more than kind of the person, maybe. Maybe Richard Reeves, you know, who doesn't have as many followers but is going to give a much more substantive message. I think that's an issue with the Internet and the way our kind of brains work and try to filter information quickly because we haven't got the time, obviously, to judge everything on its merits.
- [28:33]
Chris Williamson
Yeah. What are the. What sort of people are the lost boys? Who is it that you think are the audience members that are being spoken to?
- [28:42]
James Bloodworth
I mean, all kinds of. All kinds of boys. So, I mean, When I was 22, 23, I went on a pickup artist boot camp because I was. Yeah, like, 20 years ago this year, 20 years ago next year, in fact, I was just, like, very shy, lived in the countryside, went back to college, thought it would fix all of my problems, and then realized, like, there's still this kind of unbridgeable gulf between me and this. This girl I liked. And it's just. I don't know what. Never had a dad growing up. But then again, I don't know if that would always be helpful in that respect because my friends never asked their dad. They'd rather die than ask their dad for, like, dating advice. But I had these issues around, like, what the hell do I do? I felt kind of locked into myself when it came to that stuff. And so, you know, there was. There were gurus on the Internet who promised to have all the answers, and that was like, very appealing to me. Other guys I met is like, they just. Yeah, they just wanted a few pointers in that. In that space. Kind of. Kind of like where I came from. And then the more you hang around it, the more you kind of start to absorb the real, like, ideology behind it, the more you start. Your interactions become kind of more salesy and manipulative. You meet those guys and they've been around it for a few years. It's like talking to kind of an insurance salesman or something. Everything's kind of monitoring all the variables when they're talking to you other guys, just like they had abusive parents. I've met met guys who. They felt like they were never. They were never enough for their parents. Like, they always felt diminished as being kind of soft. Like, guys like, their stepfathers bullied them, their mothers bullied them. So you have that. You also did. I did meet guys who were just, like, manipulative and wanted to. They had. They had an issue with women to start with, and it just made them a more effective, like, manipulator. So that was why they got, it's like there was all sorts of people, there wasn't really a type. Often though, the thing, the thing with, with the, the newer influences in the manosphere is they would, like we said, we often talk about radicalization, like what was the vulnerability which kind of made someone susceptible to that content. And that's like an important conversation whether it's manosphere, Islamism, far rightly, whatever, that's an important thing. But the difference now I think with social media is often the insecurity is almost created by the creator themselves in some ways. So you have like a 13 year old kid who you know is on social media or something and is seeing like seeing these influences, say, you know, propagate the 8020 rule that, that we live in this post monogamy society where you're never going to get a sexual partner, you're never gonna get a girlfriend unless you kind of conform to this very narrow stereotype of what like an elite man, like an alpha male is. And, and then these guys come along and then, then present themselves, like diminish the person, say oh, you're just, yeah, you're just a beta soy boy and really kind of knock their confidence down kind of like in like a cult. And then come along, present themselves as like a savior and guide. And you buy, if you buy my course for 10,000, $10,000, I will fix you and I will. Yeah, there's one guru in my book who says, you know, this is like Noah's Ark, bro. You're going to be one of the surplus men. But there's a few places for you on Noah's Ark, so you just got to sign up and you know, put your credit card details in and you can live a lifestyle like mine. And then you look at his lifestyle on social media and if you didn't know any better, you, you think that this is insane like Dan Bazerian type type stuff. And if you know, even if you're not a 13 year old boy, that stuff can be quite compelling. Like, like what the hell is this? Who the hell is this guy? Like you kind of, you're intrigued if nothing else. But if you're kind of a teenage boy and it's being like circumventing any other socialization from your family or your school teachers or whatever and just straight to your phone, it's like I want to be like this guy. I don't want to like you do to be like my dad who hates his job or something. It's, it's Quite as like seductive thing. But they're kind of seducing you in a way, like manipulating you and pushing you down that sales funnel and in the process making you feel bad like, like advertising does even outside of the manosphere sometimes or has that that suggests.
- [32:43]
Chris Williamson
That it would be quite upward aiming, that there would be some sort of improvement that would come out the other side, that there would be results that would happen and that these men who go into it, that yeah, maybe, you know, the manosphere is using some manipulative tactics. It's creating a void that they are able to fill with causes and retreats and boot camps and stuff like that. But the suggestion here would be that out the other side of it you have an improved human, a better human who is more of themselves. But it seems like you're suggesting that it kind of becomes a trap. It's sort of liminal space that people end up in. So I'm trying to square this circle of how it can be that the answer is being suggested by this thing, but that then it pushes people further into sort of more victimhood ideologies.
- [33:35]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean it becomes a bit like, like shelf help. So you must, I'm guessing you've heard that phrase, that shelf help where. No, it's a, like where people get like, people get stuck in a cycle of like self help programs because that's kind of. They get addicted to the good emotions and the promise of change, but then not without actually changing. So you can kind of. And I can see how that can like you read like you go to a Tony Robbins seminar or something and no shade on like people who do that or anything. But as an example, you walk across the hot coals or something and then you get this thrill from being around all these people. You know, we're going to change our lives. And then for whatever reason because like life is complicated, it doesn't happen. But you can kind of get addicted to kind of the good feelings you have at these, these seminars. And I've, I've, I've kind of seen some of the stuff I attended during the research for the book how kind of addicted addictive that could be. These people kind of presenting you if you just follow this roadmap, like anything is possible. And it is really kind of, I know you can leave those places like really excited and then the good emotions kind of diminish over time and then the only way to get them back is to go to another kind of seminar. But also these gurus as well, the blame is always put on the student. So you go to these courses if you like. There's kind of an implicit no refunds policy. So you go to these courses and if you don't achieve the. If you don't, you know, achieve your dream life or whatever is. The blame is always put on you in that kind of. So there's that up by the bootstraps thing, like. But it's your fault if you, if you don't achieve it. You know, they've laid out the roadmap. Or maybe you just need the, the ex. This extra course that, you know, maybe you need the gold, the gold product or the platinum. The platinum course. And then if you buy that, that's, that's probably what you need, bro. There's, there's this kind of. They keep you in that perpetual thing, giving you these things that don't really work. And then you come back, it's like, well, this didn't work. And it's like, well, you didn't, you didn't apply it properly. Or, you know, this course wasn't quite right for you. Maybe you need this different guru. There's a lot of people trapped in that cycle I met who just go from banks from one guru to the next, and it's all variations of. Variations of this kind of same thing.
- [35:42]
Chris Williamson
There's an idea called spiritual bypass from the psychedelic community, and it describes a person who goes to the Amazon rainforest and drinks ayahuasca and has this peak spiritual experience, but doesn't actually integrate any of the lessons and comes back just the same asshole that they were when they left and then goes and does the same thing again. You kind of see it like spiritual tourism as well, that this person goes on holiday to have this peak experience and then comes back and is kind of addicted to that without the integration of the change. And I get the sense that it's not your too dissimilar. I mean, at least with drinking ayahuasca you can reliably be reliably informed that something's going to happen. I suppose the level of authenticity and legitimacy of some of the advice that's coming out of different areas of the Internet for both men and women is maybe not quite as powerful as ayahuasca would be. I'm going to guess that you saw the article in the Guardian Society may have overestimated the risk of the manosphere. UK researchers say this Ofcom thing. So for the people that didn't see it, it said many who engage are discriminating and value driven by the minority consuming extremely misogynistic content. A study for Ofcom suggests they found that while a minority encountered extremely misogynistic content, many users of the manosphere were critically engaged, selective and capable of discarding messages that did not resonate with their values. I think this is still in the aftershock of adolescence and sort of the conversation that was kicked off as a broader part of that. But it is nice to see the Overton window, kind of the bottom end of the Overton window. In the UK you can see with the Guardian and in the US you might be able to see with the New York Times. So the New York Times recently did a piece that was like a, maybe ADHD is being over diagnosed in young boys. Oh my God. If the New York Times is saying it, and it's kind of the same with the Guardian. Oh hell, like this has really hit the mainstream now. This is a real big deal. They've really pushed it too far making these claims about the dangers of the, the manosphere. But what, what is the end goal risk that you're concerned about when it comes to a pipeline of content in this sort of a way?
- [37:51]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, so I mean, the study, yeah, you mentioned. I saw, I did see the study. And I think the issue with that would go back to also our definition, what we talked about, the definition of the manosphere. So they also included Joe Rogan as people who watch Joe Rogan as part of the manosphere. So like to me hearing that, it's like, well, it's not surprising that to me that people who watch Joe Rogan have a whole bunch of different views, you know, and are a, you know, everyone who watches Joe Rogan isn't going to be an Andrew Tate. Isn't going to see an Andrew Tate video and say, oh, this guy's, you know, this guy's like right on the money. So I mean, I think their different definition was too broad to start with. I think with so, so the adhd, what you mentioned, adhd. I think there is a parallel in some ways between, that's that in just kind of a conversational way between like ADHD is massively over diagnosed among say, private school kids, for example, because it's very costly to get a private ADHD diagnosis, but it's under, under diagnosed among prisoners. So you have a lot of people in prison who display ADHD adjacent behaviors, or if they had actually a test, they'd probably test for adhd. But then you have a bunch of other people who are overdiagnosed because it's basically become a bit of A cheat code in, in some, not just private schools, but, but in private schools it's kind of a cheat code. You get kind of extra exam time. Similar in a way to being dyslexic. Could be back when, back when I was younger. There's, there's that kind of, there's, there's kind of two sets of people who, who, who that's of effects. So it's like is it over diagnosable? Yes and no. And with the manosphere, like adolescence was kind of a moral panic in some ways. Like you could say, are most people who consume manosphere content going to go and murder their classmate? It's like absolutely not. Absolutely not. There's examples of people who've done that stuff like Elliot Roger Lyndon McLeod was kind of a, I would classify that as a red pill murder that took place in 2021 in Denver, Colorado. But for the most part that's not what's happening when people are consuming this content. But I would say there's a lot of stuff that, that's going on in relationships, I think which can be negatively influenced by people watching this content. So you, you do see some attitudes from the mainstream like the 8020 rule permeating the mainstream. So you, I, I saw, saw a poll recently of Gen Z men and a majority think that women are just attracted to like a small subset of men. That's, that's something the majority thing of that age group thinks now, which to me that's like the, a transposition of the 80:20 rule onto kind of dating. You see kind of Andrew Tate is like people, most, most 13 to 15 year olds know who Andrew Tate is and like of course I have a positive view of him which is, you know, a lot of those people are going to be getting into relationships, are going to be conversing with the girls at their school. My auntie's a school teacher and says, you know, anecdotally that there are boys who've come into school and have been kind of mouthing this stuff, telling women, telling girls to like make a sandwich, telling female teachers to like get to the kitchen and stuff. And it's like, like verbatim, Andrew Tate surf. So I think it's more a low level thing, like a low level nuisance. But also if people already have that kind of predisposition for being, for domestic violence, it's kind of giving that kind of veneer of justification to that stuff. I think there's, there's, there's a more prosaic concern that this stuff happens behind closed doors, you know that, that is kind of rationalizing some of that stuff.
- [41:19]
Chris Williamson
I'd be very interested to know what the real world results of this end up being. I don't know if we're seeing increases in domestic violence due to manosphere content. I certainly don't think given the amount of lonely, sexless, unengaged men that we have seen a concordant amount of violence. I, I, you know, antisocial behavior, orders and sort of you should say also.
- [41:48]
James Bloodworth
Guys ruining their own, blowing up their own relationships by embracing this stuff. So if you, there's, I mean when I, when I was researching this stuff I used to go on the X Red pill forum and you'd, you'd, you'd, you'd have guys on there posting about, you know, I, I embrace this stuff and you know, my, all my brothers, you know, my brothers embrace this stuff. Now how do I kind of de, radicalize him? But, but you also start to get women coming on the site like my boyfriend's side so you know, refuses to show any emotion, refuses to do his bit of the housework and stuff because he's been listening to these people or like I've lost the love of my life because this guy's been listening to like alpha male dating systems or some, or some like one of these programs. So I think it's also guys ruining their own romantic prospects sometimes by following this stuff. And yeah, we don't hear it really hear about that stuff, but it's generally not contributing to the sum of human happiness.
- [42:39]
Chris Williamson
That's a good point. That yeah, the super kinetic newsworthy headlines might not be what happens, but you might have a particular type of virus that just low level damages the sort of foundations. What do you think happens to male identity when some of the traditional roles like protector provider and I guess as well procreator start to dissolve a little bit. What's, what sort of a role is that playing here?
- [43:05]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's part of it. So I mean that there has to be, there's a recalibration going on. Um, Richard Reeves obviously talks about this and talks about how fatherhood can be a kind of a new like proactive identity. I think you know, for those who do have children or plan to, I think that's really good, I think that's a really good thing to anchor your identity around. But obviously that's not going to be everything because many people don't have children or you know, life can't be just I think for men and women always, it can't just be like, not everyone wants to just anchor their whole life around their children. I mean, there's a recalibration going on and there's, there's definitely, there were definitely men in the manosphere who don't feel that they have status in society because those old roles that their fathers, grandfathers especially had are no longer there. And especially among working class people. So in my last book was going to former industrial areas of England where you have a very strong. Miners were the aristocracy of the working class. That was kind of how they saw themselves, that was how they carried themselves. And there was a sense that even if they didn't have loads and loads of money, there was that dignity. There was that you're doing something that not that many people can do because it's really hard. That physicality of the labor you were doing. The economy is much more like, you know, service economy. It's much more kind of feminine, if you like, whereas it much more about kind of human relationships. It's not that, that brute force anymore. And, and I think, I do think, yeah, that it is difficult. I mean, we have to, I don't think we should re. Industrialize again. I think that's kind of like that. That just doesn't really make sense because what are we going to compete with like Chinese steel or something? Or it's like you have to, you have to kind of keep moving forward, I think. But at the same time, a lot of these manuscript influences telling men that, you know, you shouldn't go to college, that education makes you a beta male. That's harmful as well. Because I think that you're, you're kind of. We are in this more professional world where you do need to have like more credentialized world where you do even like, even a pointless university degree in some ways you need to get your foot in the door of some jobs. And it's actually harmful telling men that, you know, well, the education system is feminized, so you shouldn't do this. So I think they're contributing to it, to a start, for a start. But also like, it's hard because the provider role. I mean, I want to live in a society where women feel like they can do what do, like, have the same freedoms I have. They can pursue a career if they, if a woman earns more than me, which actually my girlfriend does earn more than me, funnily enough. But I don't feel like emasculated by it and that's fine. And it's Like I don't feel like she's going to leave me if my, like because I'm freelance, my, my income can be like kind of up and down. If I have a fallow year, I don't feel like she's going to just immediately leave me. And she hasn't. So that, that proves my point.
- [45:51]
Chris Williamson
But it's like n of one over here.
- [45:54]
James Bloodworth
But it, but it can be, that can be something when you've grown up in a world where men do have these very kind of fixed roles and then that someone comes along for the manosphere and says, yeah, you know, your granddad was right, you need to be the provider or whatever. But that world doesn't exist anymore. It creates a sense of cognitive dissonance which I think then breeds the resentment, the insecurity, the anger that, well, you know, maybe she will leave me if I don't kind of have a six, six figure income or something by the time I'm 25.
- [46:22]
Chris Williamson
Yeah, I think it is represented by the fact that on average most women want to date a man that earns more than them. The hypergamy is still there. There's a really interesting study that I looked at from ifs that just came out. Uh, so the, if you're in the bottom 40% of earners for men, then your wife likely earns or your partner likely earns more than you. And if you're in the top 20% of earners for women, then it's likely that you earn more than your male partner as well. So we have got at the bottom end of the distribution for men, at the top end of the distribution for women. We have got either primary breadwinner in the first instance or at least over earner in the second instance. But for the vast majority of the middle of it, it's working in another direction. And I do think, you know, this is something. The ugly truth behind a lot of this stuff is that we can, we have a world which is changing more quickly than our preferences can adapt to it. And that there are a lot of kernels of truth in much of the evolutionary psychology underpinnings that then kind of get run with and, and, and turned into extreme. That do take a lot of liberties I think, with what the science and what the evidence would suggest. But then on the flip side to completely deny the fact that like how many women say that, you know, these guys, they're just, there's not very mature, you know, they haven't got their life together. What is it they mean by that? They mean that he probably doesn't have any goals, he probably doesn't have direction. He's not that fired up about his job. He doesn't, he's not going to make me feel safe in the fact that in future he's, if we have children, I feel like he's going to be able to look after us. Yes, living costs have gone up which means that a single family, a single parent income for two people to raise a third. Right. Is, is difficult. So you go, I. The kernels of truth I think is kind of what burst out into this.
- [48:14]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean I think it's, it's difficult with some of that stuff because I wouldn't discount anything, anything you said there. But I also think it's hard to know with this stuff. So I don't dismiss evolutionary psychology. I think the idea that evolution kind of stopped from the neck up is just kind of a bit. Yeah, that doesn't really make sense to me. But at the same time I think it's hard to disentangle some of the nature and nurture stuff. So I mean, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that say young women would want a man who earns the same or more than them when, if they, if they have a kid, it's women's earnings just kind of shoot down in this country. In Britain we have like two weeks paternity leave if you're a guy. So kind of the woman's expected to take the time off work and kind of jettison her career very often. So I mean, yeah, I wouldn't say that. Therefore, you know, that means it's definitely all like nurture. I think it's just really difficult to disentangle those things. And we also do have some way to go in terms of, in terms of sorting out some of the cultural stuff around like things like paternity leave and valuing the role of fathers in a nurturing role as well. And I think again Richard, Richard Reeves is very good on this. So yeah, it doesn't, doesn't surprise me. Even if you just, even if you take out the biological, biological stuff, which I'm sure some of that is right. Is actually still having that influence. Even if you take out that, I think there'd still be the same kind of impetus to find a high earning partner because of simply what happens to women when they have a kid and straight up wrong reality. The career drop off.
- [49:52]
Chris Williamson
Yeah, you've got this quote. Progressive institutions are telling men to embrace tolerance and equality. Meanwhile in their day to day lives they had to compete in an economic system that rewarded ruthless accumulation and coming out on top.
- [50:05]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean, sorry, you had.
- [50:08]
Chris Williamson
No, you go on, go on. It's just that that is a, a good identification of the crossroads I think that we're at.
- [50:18]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean sometimes I think some of the kind of progressive rhetoric around, especially in the late 2000s, the kind of hyper identity politics era where it's like Lockheed Martin has the like pride flag or I know we'd need more disabled drone pilots or this kind of that. That you just fix aside the kind of Hillary, Hillary Clinton elite feminism, whatever. When you just fix society by kind of having like a one legged lesbian in the boardroom and you know, therefore like socialism or just kind of. Obviously I'm exaggerating for effect, but it's like there was that kind of identity politics where you have these kind of lovies, like celebrity figures, you have these big companies who constantly preaching equality. And Amazon, you know, Amazon does this. Amazon was doing this anyway. Not, not anymore. But it was doing this in the 2000s and it's like I went undercover at an Amazon warehouse and it's like workers pissing in coke bottles because they can't get a toilet break. So there's that, there's that kind of hypocrisy there that like preaching to men also I think this manifests in a way like preaching to men to take up less space, that the future is female, that you're the problem. The basically you being born was like you winning the lottery basically like just by bit by, by dint of being like a white male. And then you grow up as like in certain places in the UK or America or Europe or wherever and life is a sharp elbowed struggle where you have to kind of be a bit of a dick, a bit of an asshole, a bit dominant, a bit like sometimes you have to be like assert yourself. Sometimes you have to be a bit, bit like at least fake it till you make it be a bit like dominant. You have to kind of not be the guy who's like pushed down, who doesn't speak up, who's. Who's meek or whatever. And I think particularly in the U.S. so from, from the time I spent there and you know, or just like poorer countries in the U.K. the U.S. is obviously richer, but it has a different economic model. But if my girlfriend's from Brazil and if like you go to Brazil and it's like there's a much more masculine that the culture there is much, there's much more like machismo and part of that you can say is like, yeah, that's partly because there's, there's just kind of is less progressive in terms of sort of gender roles. Yes, that's true. But it's also just because it's like a survival thing. You're just in this environment where you have to be a bit more masculine, you have to be a bit more like project strength a bit more because otherwise you're just going to get like crushed under, underfoot basically. And I just think that's that hypocrisy. There's where you have an economic system which does reward that kind of striving, that kind of assertiveness. Like you go into a boardroom or something and you have to kind of command attention while at the same time telling like young men in particular that well, no, you just need to be quiet, you just need to take up less space. And yeah, some people, that's true for them. Some people, they do need to do that. But then for people like me when I was younger or like for other guys, that's like not what they need to hear. They would take that to heart and then it leaves them in an even worse place than they were before.
- [53:20]
Chris Williamson
Why is there no left wing manosphere?
- [53:25]
James Bloodworth
I mean, yeah, I mean that's, that's a good question. I mean, why is then I think why is there no left wing manosphere if the manosphere is an anti feminist movement? I think that makes sense. But why is. I think a good question is like, why is there, why is like going to the gym and lifting weights, for example, often treated with suspicion in like the pages of comment is free in the Guardian or something? I don't know. I think it's partly snobbery because it tends to be something that working class guys do more than middle class guys. It's just like a cultural gap. So there's that lack of relatability, which also is why I think you see more lower middle class working class men getting into something like Joe Rogan. Because like that kind of the autodidactic aspect of it where you didn't have formal learning, but, oh, let's go to talk to this like astrophysicist or something. That's cool, like I'm gonna listen to that. And also, but also the relatability like, oh, this guy also goes to the gym. This guy also, you know, isn't, isn't averse to smoking a bit of weed or something. Someone who kind of is a bit of a, you know, has tattoos or whatever. There's, there's Just that kind of that superficial aspect which also works against guys as well sometimes from these kind of upper middle class people in, in the media, which it mostly is, who kind of just look down on people like that.
- [54:42]
Chris Williamson
I suppose that might explain as well why more working class men seem to be leaning right and not leaning left, despite the fact that ostensibly the party of the left is supposed to be the party of the working class and about lifting up class issues, not race issues or gender issues.
- [55:00]
James Bloodworth
Yeah. So I mean there's a whole bunch of stuff to unpack with that in that it's less electorally important for the left. The left doesn't really have that constituency anymore of that unionized men that it had in the past in the UK in the US like that blue collar, the red wolf boat is called in the UK it does. It's kind of fractured, it's kind of fracturing. It's not really that core constituency anymore. So it doesn't feel the need to. It prefers to talk to like people in cities, you know, graduates, Liberal graduates in cities. That's part of it. And I also think, yeah, the, the, the professionalization of politics as well. So you have a greater distance between politicians and just the kind of people they represent, which is most like tends to be, you know, lots of working class people. You know, that's the biggest. Most people don't have own capital. Most people are kind of working class. And also I think the death of local journalism is a big factor in that stuff as well. So just the distance between the professional class of politicians, Oxbridge private school often and just kind of working class people, especially among left leaning parties, they just kind of, it just that you can't really relate to the people you're. I think you can't really relate to the people you're voting for, which I do think is on some level quite important. And Trump talks about, even though I think he does less for men working class men than the Democrats. He talks about them, he acknowledges them. Whereas Kamala Harris in the US Election they had an okay platform from what I remember for working class people and men included. But they just, they're kind of very averse to talking, acknowledging that men have problems as well. So I think that's kind of sunk. Sunk some of these progressive movements.
- [56:42]
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Do you think progressivism is kind of uncomfortable at acknowledging male suffering unless it's villainized in that way?
- [56:50]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, for sure. I mean it's, yeah. I mean like intersectionality, like this, this like theory. I think the problem with, with a lot of that, that kind of distinct hierarchy of, of oppression. So, so black men are more likely to end up in prison or more likely to be stopped by the police or more likely to. To be failed by the schools, by the education system in, in the United States than, than black women. But because that kind of hierarchy, they, they're seen as like, as, as kind of they have more power than, than, than black women. Even though it's, it's complex. You know, I think these, these rigid taxonomies of oppressor oppressed lead to these, these situations where yeah, men's issues are often neglected. The fact that men can be victims of domestic violence, the fact that the men can. So I had a stalker a few years ago and it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was actually when you, when you talk about that, I don't think it elicits the same reaction as it does when a woman talks about having a soccer. And yeah, maybe because the, the threat of violence and is. Is not there, but it's still. I think emotionally that can be it. Personally, it was a terrible experience. And yeah, I have friends who had the same thing and it doesn't, it's kind of seen as a joke if you're a guy and you. And you kind of go through that stuff. So yeah, there is a bit of a double standard, I think.
- [58:10]
Chris Williamson
I wonder what a truly inclusive or male inclusive progressive politics would look like. I actually can't envision that U turn at the moment. I think that the intersecting hierarchy and the grievance culture doesn't really leave much room for that. So I get the sense that it's a little bit of a Gordian knot until something changes quite fundamentally.
- [58:38]
James Bloodworth
I mean, I think, I think the problem is, is the way we see our opponents politically is often shaped by a lot by social media to make a kind of trite point. But I think so if I go to. So I'm kind of center left. If I go to a, I know, conservative club or conservative meetup or whatever, have a glass of wine, of course, and I'll probably meet people there who I have a nice interaction with, have a nice conversation with and could be friends with. But then my impression sometimes if I spend a bunch of time online is like the conservatives who get promoted up the. Or the right wingers sometimes who get promoted up the feed is like. Or who, who just have that kind of who figured out the algorithm, whatever. It tends to be the most shrill voices, the most narcissistic voices. But also the same is true on the Left as well. So I mean, particularly a few years ago you have like feminists on Twitter, the ones who are kind of rising to the top is like kill all men and all this kind of horrible like rhetoric. But then if you actually go to some kind of, you know, garden variety feminist and they're not going to treat you like they think that they're not going to treat you as kind of that, your concerns don't matter. I haven't found that when I actually get out in the world away from the online stuff that I. People are more complex and I think sometimes we kind of. We did think that online everyone's kind of siloed into their own kind of information ecosystems where you're not seeing the opponents. I think it's actually that you see the worst of. I mean, this isn't really original point, but you see the worst of your opponents and that becomes like the left is like they're all these like communists and you know, they want to turn the Britain into Venezuela or Americans of Venezuela. Whereas like most kind of milquetoast people who have a kind of mixed like complex nuanced views about stuff. So I think social media is big part of the way we see our opponents in this really black and white negative line.
- [60:31]
Chris Williamson
The online world is not the real world. Shock horror.
- [60:34]
James Bloodworth
Well, increasingly it is, which I think is probably the problem.
- [60:37]
Chris Williamson
This is a great point that Freya Rindy made to me last year, which was people make that point and they say the online world is not the real world. Why are people getting so caught up in whatever it is that they're seeing on the Internet? But if you are a young guy or girl who spends six hours or eight hours a day of screen time, you're spending more time on your screen than you are asleep. The online world is the real world to you. It's how you mediate most of your experiences. You're definitely speaking to more people and seeing more people on the Internet than you are in real life, unless you're an outbound telesales person. So yeah, it's an interesting challenge because you're not going to get in and sanitize the Internet. You're not going to be able to sort of counteract this. I'm interested in how you think about sort of blending a desire to inspire men and give them something aspirational to look up to, to actually speak to what it is that they want while trying to not have predatory tactics or this sort of sense of lack that can create a vacuum that they get sucked into go into awe, go in the other direction and not understand what it is that men want. There was this breakdown of something else to do with the manosphere and an accusation thrown at Jordan Peterson that he was promoting ideas of mastery, self discipline and hard work often linked with problematic views. It's like, come on, holy fuck. Like not only is it totally tone deaf to not understand why that would be attractive to guys, but also look at any woman and say, hey, do you think that discipline and self mastery and hard work would be the kind of trait that you would look for in a future partner? And I bet that the author, female author of that article as well, is also. It's like the rules for thee but not for me thing. I just squaring this circle, finding a culturally acceptable in the modern world with all of the shit that's. That's happened and all the rest of it, but attractive to men place for the narrative and the communication to go. Is that an intractable problem? Is that just. Are we in two different worlds at the moment with what culture finds acceptable and what men find attractive?
- [62:53]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's intractable. I think that a big problem that I encountered with the mat through like my journey through the manosphere, so to speak, is it's attaching state is viewing women as status objects and deriving your status from power over women. So women as kind of a form of property or the, the kind of. So an interesting example I use in the book is you, you see in the red pill spaces you see some admiration for like Vladimir Putin, which, you know, there's, there's a whole bunch of stuff to unpack that. But Putin's like, they see Putin as like the alpha male. And, and one thing Putin did was he decriminalized domestic violence in Russia, partially decriminalized domestic violence. And he's like, why would he do that? And it's partly because he has nothing to offer Russian men apart from like poverty, war. But you know, you may feel like this outside of the home, but at least in your home you can be, you can feel like a feudal lord, so you can dominate your family. So, so there is that kind of sense that the part of the masculine role is you may not have a great deal of stake in society, but in that kind of hierarchy in the home, you're basically like an oligarch. You have that kind of. And something was similar was done in the American south before the Civil War where they got working, the Confederate got working class people, white working class men. On side by saying that, you know, you may have little stake in society, but at least you're above the kind of black population. At least you can kind of. You're an oligarch in terms of you can own. You can own a slave. There is that kind of, I think masculinity. So on the one hand is. Masculinity to me is like being comfortable in your own skin, which can take a long time. Growing up, you try on various, like, faciles, like very do like various facades where, you know, be the alpha male or be the, like, goth or, like, be the punk or whatever. But, like, getting older, it becomes easier. You kind of realize that no one cared, like, all along what you were doing, and you kind of just become comfortable. Like, you stop giving so much of a fuck. That's part of it. But it's also, I think when we talk about being the provider and protector, I think, yeah, there's aspects of that that can be really positive. But it's also as men, I think stop. We need to kind of stop deriving our status from like, the woman on our arm or the woman who we have kind of at home as, like in the past, it would be kind of a helper and like, servant. I'm not saying it's like that in most. Most relationships nowadays, but I think sometimes that kind of feeling of a woman as kind of a trophy object for like a correct performance of masculinity. And funnily enough, when I think when people stop doing that, they also do better in. With the opposite sex as well. It's kind of one of those weird paradoxes that you sort of only learn when it's too late. As you kind of. I'm 42 now. You kind of learn as you get older. And I've seen lots of guys go through this thing where you stop caring and then you kind of become more comfortable in your own skin and you don't kind of need those kind of external things so much. Again, it's a working progress. I'm not saying that I'm kind of enlightened or like the Buddha or something, but you become kind of where you're not deriving status so much from those external things, including what other guys think of, like your partner or something or whatever, or just like that kind of thing you think you should have. And. Yeah, I think there's something to that. Yeah, I think, like, I remember you listening to Eckhart Tolle, the pickup guys recommending, like, Eckhart Tolle, and it's like yeah, there's actually something to that kind of not putting so much into, like, attachments. And I think part of that is also like not seeing women as status objects, seeing them as like fellow human beings. They're not like from, you know, it's not like Mars. Venus is like we're more similar than we are different. Even though it's fine to talk about the differences, I think that's. That's part of it. And I think. I think we're still working through that. It's like we're talking now and it's like we're still kind of. The whole thing is like we're still kind of working through that whole thing. It's like relatively recent that, you know, people like my mum. My mum weren't allowed to kind of weren't treated the same way. And in the workplaces, like, you know, men. And it's still kind of. We're still working through it. So, yeah, I think it's too soon to say that there are kind of irreconcilable differences there. We're just kind of. All of these conversations are part of the working through of that.
- [67:10]
Chris Williamson
Yeah. It's an interesting challenge to think what can we do to play the game that men are naturally predisposed to? I get what you mean about not seeing women as status objects. Probably not good to wear them like you would a new Rolex. But on the flip side, it is unrealistic to tell men that they shouldn't derive a sense of satisfaction from being selected by a woman. You know, it's one of the reasons that I'm quite bearish on VR girlfriends. In the same way as no guy really flexes how many onlyfans girls he.
- [67:49]
James Bloodworth
Subscribes to, how much porn he's watched.
- [67:53]
Chris Williamson
Exactly the reason that there is positive reinforcement, the reason that a man feels good when he is with a woman, presumably one that he likes, is that there is a sense that there were many potential suitors for her and he was chosen. But if all you need is the price of a cheeseburger per month to pay for this OnlyFan model subscription or to get this VR girlfriend then that's not quite the same. Now I might eat my own words. In three years time, when everyone's fucking addicted to VR OnlyFans or something with a Apple Vision Pro number three on the heads, I just get the sense that so much of what men want is to feel competent. And part of feeling competent also involves feeling competent with women. And that involves being chosen. So even with that, I totally Understand what you mean. And you know, the best interpretation of it is, hey, treat them like people. That's a, that's a, probably a good place to start. But on the flip side of that, I, I would struggle to. I, I think most girls would say, yeah, I want my partner to feel proud that they're with me. I actually, there's a bit of me that kind of finds it a turn on for them to see me. Like a little bit of a trophy. Like, fuck. Like, I got this girl. I'm special, I'm lucky to be with her. And again, the devil is in the details. And as we become ever more like Internet autistic because we're spending so little time communicating face to face, the nuance of this, which is both things are true at the same time, Probably a good idea to treat women as actual humans. Also, both you and her will like the fact that you treat her like a, like a delicate fucking prize, like something that was, that was worthy of working hard for. But because if you don't, if you say, okay, like, you know, don't treat them like a trophy, it's a very slippery slope to be like, well, you're not gonna treat them well. It's like, why should you pay for the first day? Why should you hold the door open for them? And I'm aware that that's not what you're saying, but you know what I mean. Like all of this stuff, when you look at it through an analytical mindset, which is what everybody's doing because everything is so sanitized and sterilized, right? You're not spending time observing things in context. You're looking at them in isolation. This 10 second TikTok on street interview, this video, which is not contextualized, you don't know the person, you haven't spent time building them up. So I think that's a challenge. And I think the other side is so much of the dating advice for men, even the most modern, in fact, as much the modern iteration as the old pickup artist stuff, but in a much more subtle way that doesn't kind of identify itself up front. Almost none of it is actually advising men how to do things that are good for long term relationship development. So for instance, kind of the, the term being thrown around of being a simp within a relationship that if you were to post a photo on your Instagram of some flowers that you bought your girlfriend, your girlfriend that you've been with for six months, there is a pretty sizable cohort of guys who are red pilled that Would say, can't believe that you're simping for her, bro. Like, we've already lost him. It's like we're in a fucking relationship. Like, where does the line get drawn between me doing something nice for my partner and in your opinion, like, buying her affection by being so pliable as to need to offer her flowers in exchange for love and adoration? And you go, okay, so there is this sort of weird push and pull dynamic where you're purposefully withholding a level of love and connection and care and attention and affection for your partner because that's like being too pliable. And maybe if it was the first date and you turned up with a fucking huge bouquet of flowers, yes, that probably would be a little bit too much. That would be coming on too strong, telling her, make sure that you text me when you get in to let me know that you've got home safe or what, you know, all of the thing. But six months in or one year in, like, it's a very different world. And actually the things that you do then are about deepening connection. And unfortunately, so much of the advice gets centered around real short term mating strategies, which is fine if that's what you want. But as you've seen with sort of whatever it is, red pill rehab or X pua pua hate or whatever these guys get, they feel resentful for that because they think, fuck. Like I actually, especially as they grow up and they age out and it doesn't take that long for guys to age out. As they do age out, they get to this stage where they go, I really like the idea of someone to watch that new Netflix documentary about the Vietnam War with most evenings. And the only tactic that I have is withholding love, which necessarily caps the amount of investment I can get from a good woman in any case.
- [72:55]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, it's like neg, I'm gonna just go and neg my girlfriend of a year or whatever. Just like stuck in that loop. Just. She says something nice to you, just nega. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a balance. It's like moderation in all things. I suppose. So. So, yeah, there's nothing wrong with, you know, go out to a nice restaurant, you have your, your, your, your, your girlfriend's like, made lots of effort. Looks really nice. There's no, there's nothing wrong with obviously being proud. And yeah, it does feel like you're kind of, you feel kind of like the shit as well. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. I'd Say the problem is when it becomes like there's a slippery slope almost in both directions, where the problem becomes where you make that kind of a philosophy where you kind of. You need the validation of. Of. Of almost other men or other people to, To. To kind of validate your choices. Like, you, you value. You start to value that person. So I met. I met guys who got into the manosphere who were in the pickup stuff, in the status maxing scene, who would, like, they always didn't know what they wanted. So you'd ask them, like, what is your type? And it's like, they're going after women who is to impress their friends or to impress for social media or to impress these other guys. It's like they're not happy. It's like, but like, you got to figure out, you got to drill down on what, what makes you happy and what your type is. Someone who you have a. Somebody you're physically attracted to, but also someone who you have a kind of great vibe with. And I think that kind of, once you start kind of doing it as some performative thing, so making that a philosophy of your life, then it becomes difficult. It doesn't mean don't enjoy those. Doesn't mean don't enjoy having nice things and having people kind of giving that glance of, like, slightly envious. It's like, yeah, that's kind of a buzz and stuff, but it's not making it kind of the centerpiece of your life. Like, there's more to life than girls. There's more to life than, you know, having a nice car, whatever it is, you know, not to compare those two things, but there's more. There's more to life than having kind of people admiring you, you know, but also like the other aspects of the thing those, some of those, like, red pill guys do get right. And I will say that is in a relationship, you shouldn't just, like, stagnate. You shouldn't just be like, well, you know, I've met friends of mine, I've had friends of mine who've said, like, yeah, it's got married. And it's like, I'm just gonna let my. Kind of let myself go now. Yeah, people put on loads of weight, like, stop going to the gym. And it's kind of disrespectful to the partner that you do have to like, it's not necessarily. It shouldn't be unconditional, that kind of relationship, I think, to some degree, like, yeah, like, if one person gets afflicted with some illness or something, Then I think, I think, you know, you should stand by them. There's a deeper love that you draw on. There's a deeper love that, you know, a connection that you draw on. But you should just out of respect for yourself and respect for the other person, try and keep your shit together, you know, in a relationship. Go to the gym, keep your, you know, work stuff on point. Make sure you're, you're not, you know, getting fired or like slacking at work.
- [75:46]
Chris Williamson
You know, Sounding increasingly right wing here, James.
- [75:48]
James Bloodworth
Yeah, but, but it's kind of respect for the other person, you know, like, because otherwise if you don't do that stuff, you're gonna, you're expecting them to kind of bail you out. And, and I, I do think there's an element of that. Like, like you don't just like have a, you don't just get married or something and then that you like, stop. That's it. That's like everything. That's like, I've, I've caught her, I've like caught her now, so I don't need to like do anything. I think, you know, you should keep on top of your stuff as well, because, yeah, otherwise you're more likely, I think, to have problems down the line. They're more likely for those kind of resentments to creep into the relationship, even if they, you know, are not spoken out loud. I do think that stuff's important.
- [76:26]
Chris Williamson
James Bloodworth, ladies and gentlemen. James, it's timely for you to be digging into this stuff and I think whatever the next few years, it feels like this circle is going to have to square at least a little bit in politics it's going to have to happen because if young men keep getting ignored by the left, that's not going to be good for them. So there's going to have to be some sort of a pivot there. I think that the crisis of men and boys in schools, mental health, self harm, suicide, stuff like that is just the retreat from education and employment, the dearth of eligible partners that is going to affect both men and women. Men are going to be lonely, women are going to be lonely, birth rate decline. Like, you know, there is, it's a real concatenation of problems. So very timely for you to do your, your deep dive into it. Where should people go? They're going to want to check out all of the stuff that you've got going on.
- [77:18]
James Bloodworth
Yeah. Thank you, Chris. It's nice to be back as well. I mean, yeah, Lost Boys A Personal Journey through the Manosphere is my book. It's out in all good bookstores. Also non good books, less good bookstore. But it doesn't make any difference to me. Like I still get paid. So. Yeah, you can. You can find it in Waterstones, Amazon, wherever.
- [77:38]
Chris Williamson
And you're shouting at people on Twitter as well.
- [77:42]
James Bloodworth
Yes. So Twitter. I'm jbloodworth. Instagram is James Bloodworth.
- [77:47]
Chris Williamson
Okay, James, I appreciate you, man. Until you next time.
- [77:50]
James Bloodworth
Thank you. Chris.
- [77:52]
Chris Williamson
Congratulations. You made it to the end of the episode. And if you want more, well. Well, why don't you press right here one if you're wanting to read more, you probably want some good books to read that are going to be easy and enjoyable and not bore you and make you feel despondent at the fact that you can only get through half a page without bowing out. And that is why I made the Modern Wisdom Reading List, a list of 100 of the best books, the most interesting, impactful and entertaining that I've ever found, fiction and nonfiction, real life stories. And there's a description about why I like it. And there's links to go and buy it. And it's completely free. You can get it right now by going to ChrisWillX.com books that's ChrisWillX.com books.