dismantling the manosphere with fd signifier & robert evans

Summary

Podcast Summary: Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) – Episode: "Dismantling the Manosphere with FD Signifier & Robert Evans"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)
• Host/Author: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
• Description: Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) is a weekly show hosted by Jamie Loftus that delves into the internet’s most intriguing characters. The show combines reporting, interviews, and personal anecdotes as Jamie navigates the complexities of online fame, memes, and notorious figures. It explores the impact of sudden internet notoriety on individuals, examining the blurred lines of consent and the psychological toll of unexpected fame.

Episode Overview: In this compelling bonus episode of Sixteenth Minute (of Fame), Jamie Loftus continues her exploration of the “Manosphere” — a collection of online communities promoting misogyny, toxic masculinity, and extremist ideologies. Titled "Dismantling the Manosphere with FD Signifier & Robert Evans," the episode features in-depth conversations with two experts: FD Signifier, a YouTuber and video essayist specializing in gender and masculinity, and Robert Evans, a seasoned reporter who has closely monitored and analyzed extremist online communities.

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1. Introduction and Apology

[03:45] Jamie Loftus: Jamie opens the episode by acknowledging feedback from listeners, particularly addressing criticisms regarding the lack of male voices in her manosphere series. She offers a heartfelt apology to her male audience members, affirming their validity and importance. Jamie states:

“To all the men listening, I just wanted to apologize if you felt silenced or quite frankly attacked by my bitchy little voice. You are valid, you are heard, you are kings.”

This sets a respectful and inclusive tone for the episode, emphasizing the importance of understanding diverse perspectives within the discourse on the manosphere.

---

2. Interview with FD Signifier

A. Background and Introduction

[06:21] FD Signifier: FD Signifier introduces himself, detailing his role as a YouTube video essayist with a focus on gender, masculinity, race, and politics. He describes his approach as a blend of investigative journalism and documentary-style analysis, infused with a deep understanding of nuanced social issues.

“I tend to focus on a cross section of gender and masculinity, race, specifically black issues and politics.”

B. Analyzing the Manosphere

[07:07] FD Signifier: Jamie inquires about what inspired FD to delve deeper into the manosphere. FD explains that his personal experiences as a married man and father led him to recognize the seriousness of the manosphere's influence.

“I was like, oh, this is actually way more serious than I thought... Let me maybe this is a real thing that I should get into.”

Key Points:

1. Growth of the Manosphere: FD emphasizes that unlike many of his contemporaries, he sought to understand the underlying causes and functions of the manosphere rather than dismissing it outright.

   “It’s more valuable... to have a developed analysis of how this world functions so that we can have better tools for how to make it not function anymore.”

2. Complexity and Empathy: He highlights the importance of empathizing with men trapped in these spaces, aiming to dissect the ecosystem that perpetuates toxic masculinity.

   “These are actually very complex communities with very intelligent, nuanced contributors. It requires like, that level of respect to understand what's going on.”

C. Origins and Influences of the Manosphere

[10:42] FD Signifier: When asked about the origins of the manosphere, FD traces its roots to white supremacy, patriarchy, and Western ideologies. He discusses how feelings of otherness among young men — stemming from factors like social ineffectiveness, mental health issues, and economic struggles — make them susceptible to the community and belonging offered by the manosphere.

“The impetus for how a lot of this stuff becomes appealing to the young men that get into it is they're outsiders, they're socially ineffective for a variety of reasons.”

Key Themes:

1. Belonging and Community: The manosphere provides a sense of community and power to individuals who feel marginalized or disenfranchised.

   “People that stay the longest and fall in the deepest is because that is where they found community.”

2. Misogyny and Racism: While primarily focused on misogyny, FD notes that the manosphere also intertwines with racism and other forms of bigotry, subtly or overtly promoting these ideologies.

   “Their misogyny can be very sublimated into, like, these just classical images of masculinity and gender.”

D. The Black Manosphere

[23:56] FD Signifier: Jamie prompts FD to discuss his work on the Black Manosphere, highlighting the unique dynamics within this subgroup. FD explains that the Black Manosphere predates much of the broader manosphere, emerging from historical gender conflicts within Black America influenced by slavery and segregation.

“...black men are trying to pursue manhood and masculinity in a way similar to white men do, and as black women try to pursue femininity in a way similar to white women do.”

Insights:

1. Distinct Characteristics: The Black Manosphere often presents itself as pro-Black while simultaneously perpetuating misogyny, making their harmful ideologies less overt but equally destructive.

   “Their misogyny can be very sublimated... because there's a feeling well, black people's problem is that the black family isn't in order.”

2. Historical Context: The historical backdrop of racism and gender conflict in Black communities adds layers of complexity to the Black Manosphere's motivations and actions.

E. Solutions and Parental Guidance

[28:03] FD Signifier: Discussing solutions, FD emphasizes the role of parents in monitoring and guiding their children’s internet consumption without resorting to authoritarian measures. He advocates for fostering open communication, emotional support, and challenging misogynistic behavior within the household.

“Tell your brother in law to shut the fuck up when he says something sexist and says it's a joke. Build into goodness with your child.”

Recommendations:

1. Balanced Monitoring: Parents should avoid extreme measures like spyware but remain vigilant about the content their children engage with.

2. Emotional Support: Encourage children to express emotions freely and understand that rejection in relationships doesn’t define their worth.

3. Challenging Misogyny: Actively confront and dismantle misogynistic attitudes and behaviors when encountered within the family or social circles.

F. Notable Quotes:

• FD Signifier [07:58]: “...no disrespect to a lot of my contemporaries, none of them were really putting in useful analysis as to the, like, true causes and underlying elements nobody had really broken down.”

• FD Signifier [10:56]: “It starts with patriarchy here in the States. It starts with American exceptionalism to an extent.”

• FD Signifier [19:24]: “It's panacea. It's. I can, I can solve the problem. This is a classic.”

---

3. Interview with Robert Evans

A. Early Observations of the Manosphere

[36:25] Robert Evans: Robert shares his initial encounters with hostile online communities while working at Cracked. In 2013, he observed a surge of anger and misogynistic behavior targeting his work, which he later connected to the rise of 8chan and the subsequent Gamergate movement.

“I started to see inklings of this in, like, late 2013... It became clear there was somewhere communities of people who were getting really angry.”

B. Evolution of Extremist Communities

[41:01] Robert Evans: Reflecting on his experiences, Robert discusses how extremist online communities evolved from relatively innocuous beginnings into more serious and dangerous entities. He highlights significant events like the Christchurch shooting, which underscored the real-world implications of online hate.

“By the time Alex Jones started getting deplatformed, he was so embedded in the culture and so influential.”

Key Developments:

1. Deepening Extremism: Over time, communities like 8chan became breeding grounds for extremist ideologies, moving from edgy humor to outright bigotry and extremist actions.

2. Impact of Social Media: The role of social media algorithms in amplifying harmful content is emphasized as a critical factor in the spread and entrenchment of these ideologies.

C. Deplatforming Efforts and Their Efficacy

[46:20] Robert Evans: Robert critiques the deplatforming strategies employed during and after Trump's election, arguing that they were insufficient in preventing the continued growth of extremist voices. He notes that while individual figures like Alex Jones faced temporary setbacks, the broader movement remained resilient and adapted by aligning with more mainstream figures like Tucker Carlson.

“Deplatforming never happened on a significant cogent scale.”

Insights:

1. Short-Term Solutions: Deplatforming can temporarily reduce the reach of specific individuals but fails to dismantle the underlying ecosystems that support extremist ideologies.

2. Adaptation and Resilience: Extremist communities adapt to deplatforming by finding new avenues and aligning with more influential figures to maintain their presence and influence.

D. Future Outlook and Potential Solutions

[50:44] Robert Evans: When discussing the future of the manosphere, Robert expresses uncertainty but highlights the persistent nature of these communities. He emphasizes the need for comprehensive solutions beyond simple deplatforming, such as legal reforms targeting social media algorithms that promote harmful content.

“You need to put in legal consequences for algorithms working the way they work.”

Proposed Strategies:

1. Regulating Algorithms: Implementing legal frameworks to ensure that social media platforms do not prioritize or amplify extremist content for engagement and revenue.

2. Community and Union Involvement: Robert suggests that unions could play a pivotal role in addressing these issues, though he acknowledges their dual role in both contributing to and solving the problem.

3. Critical Consumption: Encouraging individuals to critically evaluate the solutions offered by extremist groups, avoiding simplistic answers that often require financial support from followers.

E. Notable Quotes:

• Robert Evans [41:33]: “I think social media traps us at certain ages by trapping us in social circles and trapping us in patterns of talk and patterns of, like, in mimetic patterns that can lock us at periods of development.”

• Robert Evans [46:20]: “If that had been illegal from the beginning, if there had been immediate severe penalties that hurt the bottom line of these social media companies, I think we'd be in a different situation now.”

• Robert Evans [50:39]: “You can never just deploy a tool like the platforming once and say, well, we did it, Joe. You know, we're done. Right?”

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4. Conclusion and Upcoming Episode

[51:00] Jamie Loftus: Jamie wraps up the episode by thanking Robert Evans for his insightful contributions. She previews the next episode in the manosphere series, which will feature conversations with individuals who have left the manosphere and those who have been adversely affected by it. Jamie emphasizes the importance of understanding these personal experiences to develop effective strategies for mitigating the manosphere's negative impacts.

“Next week we're going to close this series out by talking to those affected by it. Young men who got out of the manosphere and the people who are targeted by the manosphere and what, if anything, we can do to turn this around.”

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5. Notable Overall Insights and Themes

• Complexity of Online Communities: Both guests highlight the intricate and multifaceted nature of the manosphere, emphasizing that simplistic dismissals fail to address the root causes and sustaining factors of these communities.

• Role of Social Media Algorithms: A recurring theme is the detrimental impact of social media algorithms in promoting extremist content for engagement, necessitating regulatory interventions.

• Importance of Empathy and Understanding: FD Signifier advocates for a nuanced approach that includes empathy towards individuals trapped in the manosphere, focusing on dismantling harmful ideologies within supportive environments.

• Challenges of Deplatforming: Robert Evans critiques the effectiveness of deplatforming, suggesting that without structural changes to how online content is promoted, extremist voices will continue to thrive despite attempts to marginalize them.

• Cultural Responsibility: Both guests underscore the collective responsibility of society to create environments that discourage misogyny and toxic masculinity, fostering positive models of masculinity and empowering individuals to resist harmful ideologies.

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6. Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jamie Loftus [03:45]: “You are valid, you are heard, you are kings.”

• FD Signifier [07:58]: “It’s more valuable... to have a developed analysis of how this world functions so that we can have better tools for how to make it not function anymore.”

• FD Signifier [10:56]: “It starts with patriarchy here in the States. It starts with American exceptionalism to an extent.”

• FD Signifier [23:56]: “Their misogyny can be very sublimated into, like, these just classical images of masculinity and gender.”

• Robert Evans [41:33]: “I think social media traps us at certain ages by trapping us in social circles and trapping us in patterns of talk and patterns of, like, in mimetic patterns that can lock us at periods of development.”

• Robert Evans [46:20]: “You need to put in legal consequences for algorithms working the way they work.”

• Robert Evans [50:39]: “You can never just deploy a tool like the platforming once and say, well, we did it, Joe. You know, we're done.”

---

Final Thoughts: This episode of Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) provides a thorough and thoughtful examination of the manosphere, leveraging the expertise of FD Signifier and Robert Evans to unpack its origins, evolution, and pervasive influence. By delving into both the general manosphere and its specific manifestation within Black communities, the episode offers a comprehensive understanding of how these toxic online spaces operate and impact individuals. The discussions also highlight the urgent need for multifaceted solutions that go beyond temporary measures like deplatforming, advocating for systemic changes in social media regulation and cultural attitudes towards masculinity and gender roles. As Jamie Loftus prepares to conclude the manosphere series, listeners are left with a nuanced perspective on the challenges and potential strategies for dismantling these harmful online ecosystems.

Transcript

[FD Signifier]

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[Robert Evans]

Perfect all the time.

[FD Signifier]

So make me a star. Let's take it too far and give.

[Robert Evans]

Me one moment of fam one more minute.

[Jamie Loftus]

Welcome back to 16th minute, the podcast where we talk to the Internet's characters of the day to see how their moment affected them and what that says about us and the Internet. However, we are not doing that this week. This is a bonus episode in our into the Manosphere series. In our last episode, we took a look at how the manosphere has developed in the last decade, beginning with Gamergate and the Isla vista killings in 2014, all the way through now, where Joe Rogan is getting name checked at a fascist acceptance event. It's a journey and today I wanted to share two conversations I've had with two really wonderful people who have been studying this area for quite some time. Which brings me to just a little bit of housekeeping at the top. An apology from me. Ian, if you could put on some like youtuber apology music. As I mentioned in my last episode, I've been getting some kickback on this series for not including the voices of men enough. And so to start to all the men listening, I just wanted to apologize if you felt silenced or quite frankly attacked by my bitchy little voice. You are valid, you are heard, you are kings. And obviously you didn't listen to the end of the last episode because I said that today I would be speaking with two men who I admire very much. But still, I'm sorry. I get it. You guys are like super, super busy, so let's get into it, shall we? Both of my guests today are talented and prolific writers and in a very weird coincidence, both just released very thorough analyses of Diddy. First, I was really thrilled to get the chance to speak with FD Signifier, a YouTuber I really admire who has been analyzing the manosphere on his channel for years and does something I've seen others consistently struggle to do, which is hold empathy for men sucked into that space while always prioritizing those most deeply affected by it. Beginning with a closer look at the Black Manosphere. Specifically, FD has gone on to look at the world of incels, speak to former members of the manosphere. Take a look at how popular media reinforces these narratives and has taken a look at how the manosphere preys on the neurodivergent. Truly, if you take in anyone else's work on this subject, let it be his. Here's my talk with FD Signifier.

[FD Signifier]

I am FD Signifier. I am a YouTube video essayist. For those who don't know what that is. We're kind of a mix between a. Think of like the classic newspaper editor, like journalists, investigative journalists, slash documentarian, slash big old nerd theater kid type energy. A lot of that, like, mixed into one. I tend to focus on a cross section of gender and masculinity, race, specifically black issues and politics.

[Jamie Loftus]

And you also have an academic background in talking. I mean, obviously not the manosphere explicitly, but that sort of expanded universe because. And I know you've said this in your work too, it's really hard to define what we're actually talking about.

[FD Signifier]

Yeah, yeah, my. My master thesis was on spree shooters. And as a product of studying that population, you end up in the same place as a lot of the manosphere, red pill, alt right stuff, because they're all kind of, as you alluded to, they're all kind of in the same house, just in different rooms. Once you've kind of broken down the function of one group, you've 60 to 75% broken down the function of all of them. Um, so, yeah, there's a lot there, and a lot of it has to do explicitly with masculinity. So there's a lot of there there.

[Jamie Loftus]

So when you started tackling this topic explicitly more on your channel, what led you to like, okay, it's time for me to dissect this topic. What were you not seeing in those discussions at the beginning of this work that you wanted to bring to the table?

[FD Signifier]

I'm older than much of my audience and all of my peers, which creates a lot of distance, but also a lot of perspective. And so me as a married man, father of two, it was hard for me to kind of fathom that this was so serious. As I sat, as I got more and more online, I was like, oh, this is actually way more serious than I thought. I started seeing it boomerang back to my real life. Why I would have parents of other children say, my son brought home this and started saying this stuff about femoids and all kinds of weird crap about women. And I'm like, oh, I actually know that guy. Yeah, that's. Let me. Let me maybe this is a real thing that I should get into. And then I also recognize, as I alluded to earlier, that no, no disrespect to a lot of my contemporaries, none of them were really putting in useful analysis as to the, like, true causes and underlying elements nobody had really broken down. Like, my first video is understanding the manosphere. It doesn't take much, especially amongst, you know, my audience, to say, yeah, this is dumb, these people are dumb, don't be like them. It's more valuable, I think, long term for more people to have a developed analysis of how this world functions so that we can have a better tools for how to make it not function anymore and more explicitly for parents, for like people who have these types of guys in their lives to know what it is that is bringing them, like, the first thing you'll see as a friend or a peer or a parent is really like the fifth step of the problem, right? When they start repeating these talking points to you in real life, they've already been deep in for a while where they get comfortable.

[Jamie Loftus]

They're dadsy, they're comfortable bringing it up.

[FD Signifier]

At school, they're evangelizing at that point. They're true believers if they've gotten to that point. And so, you know, what things did you miss up until that point? And like, if you are educated enough to see those things, how do you address them then? Better yet, what type of energy and relationships can you be building in the home to make this less likely with. With children and teenagers and peers and friends? And we didn't really have much for that. And so that's kind of one of the things I hope to contribute to. One of the things that is often a failure on our part to understand is that these are actually very complex communities with very intelligent, nuanced contributors. It requires like, that level of respect to understand what's going on. Otherwise you just, you just won't know. They've built their communities for the sole purpose of keeping normal people out by being repulsive or cryptic in the way they engage with each other.

[Jamie Loftus]

For you, in terms of like what the manosphere is and what its influence is, where does the story start? I've got a lot of different answers to this question.

[FD Signifier]

So white supremacy.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, yeah, I.

[FD Signifier]

Mean, it's a big part of it. It starts with patriarchy here in the States. It starts with American exceptionalism to an extent. It starts with Western ideology and thought. The impetus for how a lot of this stuff becomes appealing to the young men that get into it is they're outsiders, they're socially ineffective for a variety of reason. Might be because they're just not that attractive or not as attractive as some of their peers. They may be late social bloomers, late physical bloomers. They may have genuine behavioral or mental health issues that make it hard for them to socialize. They may have a physical disability. They may be poor. They may be a minority of some sort. All these things could, could contribute to a sense of otherness and then the targeting of ostracism. And that contributes to the desire to find places where you can feel belonging, community and power. Not all cases, not all cases. But in some of these cases, these young men become targeted by these different communities, different grifters looking to get a quick buck out of them. Oh, you're not feeling good about society. Well, take this class and I'll teach you how to be a big baller or whatever Andrew Tate was selling. Aside from offering them false like solution to their problem, the biggest thing that people don't get is that it offers them belonging. People that stay the longest and fall in the deepest is because that is where they found community. If it's community built around misogyny or racism or something else, fine. But it's more than the community they had, you know, away from their keyboard. Michael Kimmel, who has some good stuff on this. I have to obligatory point out that Michael Kimmel has a. Me too several MeToo cases out there. Michael Kimmel calls it aggrieved entitlement, which is connected to a lot of this stuff. And it's, you know, especially for white, young white men who, while this is a very diverse community, people don't give it enough credit for how diverse it is. But for white men in particular, these young white boys are told that they're the, you know, the protagonist, the heroes of their own story. It's in all of our media, it's in our mythology. And then they grow up and find out, no, you're just a peon at best, you're a worker, you know, and the people that you know have the power over you. Their parents also had the power over your parents and their grandparents had the power over your grandparents. And there's nothing you could do about it. It just lends itself to a unfortunate cocktail of toxic elements that for a handful of these young men makes a edgelord creator, talking about how women shouldn't be able to vote and that'll fix all our problems. It makes that appealing. So I as a young man did not have a lot of success with women. You know, I did not have any. I'd never had a girlfriend in high school. I had plenty of girls I liked. And I crushed on. No success. It wasn't until halfway through college that I started to kind of figure things out. And it was only after I had done some traditionally masculine things to make myself just service level more appealing to women. And there was a bitterness there around that. There was a frustration, there was some animosity and some misogyny involved in that experience. My general theory is that most boys that end up in this space, even today, grow out of it just by necessity of continuing on with life. They grow out of it. They may have some residual effects. I'm not saying everybody just completely perfectly grows out of it. But you grow out of the, like, danger zone, so to speak. But today it's just you don't have to as much like, I had to grow out of that to get on with my life, to go get a job, to continue to try to find partners, partners in love, et cetera, et cetera, to learn how to talk to women face to face. Because there was no swiping left or right. So, like, there's so much of our society has been atomized. I think young men who have those challenges are never put in positions to overcome them in productive ways. And then you have this entire ecosystem of grifters who are collecting money off of their pain, you know, and so that just kind of makes it stronger, makes it hold longer. And we're sitting here trying to figure out what to do about it now.

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[FD Signifier]

Oh, such a clutch off season pickup, Dave.

[Dave]

I know, right? I was worried we'd bring back the same team.

[FD Signifier]

Oh no. I meant those Blackout motorized shades. MVP of the room.

[Dave]

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[Robert Evans]

Hard to install?

[Dave]

No, it's easy. Even you could do it.

[Timothee Chalamet]

Nice.

[Dave]

I installed these and then got some from my mom too.

[FD Signifier]

But you fly across the country to do the install?

[Dave]

Nope. Blinds.com can do it all. All she had to do was pick what she wanted. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install.

[FD Signifier]

Look at you hall of fame son.

[Dave]

Oh, I just picked the winning team. They're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings in the world.

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[FD Signifier]

We have one more act for you this evening. I don't even need to say his name.

[Timothee Chalamet]

Mr. Bob Dylan, a complete unknown, is now a Golden Globe in critics Choice nominee for best picture.

[FD Signifier]

Bobby, what do you want to be?

[Jamie Loftus]

Whatever it is, they don't want me to be.

[Timothee Chalamet]

Timothee Chalamet astonishes as Bob Dylan in one of the best performances of the year and critics rave. Edward Norton is absolutely fantastic.

[Robert Evans]

70,000 people are here and Bobby is.

[Dave]

The reason for it.

[Jamie Loftus]

They just want me saying I'm blowing in the wind for the rest of my life. How does it feel?

[Timothee Chalamet]

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[Dave]

Turn it down.

[Timothee Chalamet]

And named to AFI and the National Board of Reviews. Top 10 films of the year.

[FD Signifier]

Make some noise BD track some mud on a carpet.

[Timothee Chalamet]

A complete unknown now playing only in theaters. Rated R under 1790. Middle without parent.

[Jamie Loftus]

What is the bait to draw, you know, people into this space. And has it changed over time?

[FD Signifier]

It hasn't changed. It's panacea. It's. I can, I can solve the problem. This is, it's a classic. It's what this, what salespeople have done since the beginning of time. You have a problem, I have a solution. The solution is insert awful thing here. The problem is that the problems are becoming maybe bigger and more, more difficult to, to address in any form of fashion. You know, the. One of the preeminent conversations in the manosphere, red pill, whatever spaces is, you know, income and being a high value man and, and making money because you need money to attract the mate. And that's just true. That's just reality. If you have less money, you will have less options in the dating market. That is more of a problem in 2024, in our modern economy, in our modern work world where making more money is difficult. Women have gotten to a point where they can make their own money. And we're not going back to the 60s and 50s when a woman needed a man to survive. And so you have a lot of dudes that never develop personalities because they thought they would just have a good job. There's so much to that. The dregs and scourge of late capitalism and. But these young men who grew up watching, you know, all these images of masculinity, who grew up being taught all these things about masculinity, they do not care. They want their trad wife and their, their factory job back. They will literally tear everything down trying to get it back. Tear everything except for the thing that needs to be torn down trying to get it back.

[Jamie Loftus]

Even though I feel like sometimes the way that the manosphere is sort of almost like scapegoated as like well, it was that, that was that. And so. And there was nothing.

[FD Signifier]

And that's what I'm alluding to. So there's something to the fact that he went on Aiden Ross and Joe Rogan's podcast that I think a lot of left leaning people really under appreciate, like did not appreciate how significant that was. There's something to that. But at the end of the day we're mostly just talking about racism and misogyny, right? Like it's not that it's not that deep. There's an angle there to discuss, but let's not. I think a lot of people are trying on purpose to miss the forest from the trees. Then that requires them to do some self reflection on their own politics. Yeah, we want to stick to the manosphere.

[Jamie Loftus]

People famously hate to do that.

[FD Signifier]

Yeah. The truth of the matter is the media is informed by the culture. It's not the other way around. And I think a lot of times, because that's something we can really respond to or control, and it also, again, alleviates responsibility on our part. We want to make it seem like, well, my son started watching these manosphere type people and then suddenly he became a misogynist. And I'm like. And I just want to be like, I just want to let you know, if your son gets in the manosphere, that's your fault. You. You have created an environment where that seemed like a reasonable response to his own pain and concerns and issues and. And you. And that is not just the individual's fault. That's a cultural standard. The norm is misogyny. The norm is racism. The norm is xenophobia. Those are American principles that we don't like to admit are there. And so, of course, individuals weaned in that culture, in that environment are going to respond without anyone to kind of like, hey, nope, not here, not in this house, not in this community, not in this family. If there's nothing to curtail that, it's going to be very easy for those types of messages to resonate, for those type of messengers to pull them into those spaces. And so we have to do two things. One, we have to be responsible with the culture and community we're producing so that it's less likely to produce those types of things. But the other big thing is we also have to, as, you know, as creators, spend a little more time celebrating and contributing to the creation of media. That's just. I talk about Star Trek. I wish I've talked about, like One Piece, which is an anime, and so many other types of media that are about a. A world that is more virtuous and kind of more gets to like the type of world we're trying to create through our politics as opposed to, we're gonna comment on how bad the world is through this dark white guy who does edgy things and is really cool and has a jacket and guns, but, you know, you're not supposed to want to be like them, but look at.

[Robert Evans]

How cool he is.

[Jamie Loftus]

But the scorpion jacket.

[FD Signifier]

The scorpion jacket, yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah. I also I wanted to go into your work on the black manosphere. You're one of the few creators I've seen who has really got into this and early. So could you tell me a little bit about this space? When did it crop up and how does it. Does it function any differently than other manosphere spaces?

[FD Signifier]

Yeah, so the black manosphere, they would say that they, as a formal, like, online space, predate the manosphere, which I would agree with. The black manosphere comes out of, like, a history of gender conflict within black America between black men and women, which is a byproduct of, you know, history of racism, the dregs and results of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, et cetera. And just the genuine fact that black men and women were never supposed to operate in America as men and women, same way white people were. And so that creates a just stew of issues and conflicts. As men, black men are trying to pursue manhood and masculinity in a way similar to white men do, and as black women try to pursue femininity in a way similar to white women do. And the. This creates all these different venues for conflict that has historically made the talk show with, you know, why are all men dogs? You know, why don't black women let a black man lead? That's literally going back to the 70s. That's been a thing in our media. And so the manosphere starts to become a thing in the 2000s with the onset of YouTube and Internet communities, because now these men who feel these things about black women, much like the normal manosphere, can come together and start to voice their. Their issues, yada, yada, yada. Beyond that unique, like, origin point, how that kind of vacillates through that throughout the. The culture, it's not that different. It's still misogyny and masculine conflict. It's still men and boys trying to claim a sense of power in their masculinity through the denigration of women. It's a little less racist most of the time. It's a little less xenophobic most of the time. It's just as misogynistic. There's a couple of differences. Like, a lot of the black manosphere people, some of them try to present themselves as pro black and pro black people. And so they can kind of sneak things in, in ways that if you're not alert to. To it, you don't hear it. So their misogyny can be very sublimated into, like, these just classical images of masculinity and gender, because there's a feeling well, black people's problem is that the black family isn't in order, which is true to an extent. There is validity to that statement. So that's why black women need to stop worrying so much about their education and stop telling black men what to do. So, like it.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, there it is.

[FD Signifier]

Exactly. Exactly. For me, talking about it was almost more difficult because there's a thing that happens when you kind of know your enemy. You cut deeper.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know that I mean, but I think even what you're describing, like, is a critical part of the work.

[FD Signifier]

Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's like processing your own feelings towards these spaces and then figuring out what is a constructive way to talk about it. Because I feel like, like you're saying, like, even creators, I enjoy a lot of people blow through the, like, let's just give the raw emotion to it as opposed to like really thinking about it. Because your work is so thorough and so thoughtful. And you're also thinking, you know, coming from the perspective of a parent, my sor worry is that this is going to turn into some kind of moral panic that will be deeply unproductive and send people further. Like send, you know, young men further into this feel more.

[FD Signifier]

I don't think it'll. I don't think it'll get that real moral panic energy. But I want, I want you to finish your question. But I disagree that it'll ever be the true moral panic. And I'll tell you why.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, please. Yes. My question was just if someone's listening who is a parent or has someone in their life who is clearly internalizing this stuff, where do you start to address it?

[FD Signifier]

I'm of two minds that are, I think, probably need to work together. I'm from a relatively traditional household where things like child autonomy and privacy were not greatly respected by my parents.

[Jamie Loftus]

Sure.

[FD Signifier]

And I think you have to be open to that idea. When it comes to monitoring what your child is consuming on the Internet, maybe you don't want to have like outright spyware. You don't want to be a full on police officer in your own home to your child because that just creates them being sneakier. But you definitely don't want to be complete. Like stop handing the tablet to your kids and saying, go nuts. These companies, these organizations, these, the AI, the algorithms, all these machines are trained to addict your child to the screen. And they do not care how they do that. And one of the most fundamentally predictable ways they know they can do that. You probably got this from one of the videos, is through making them upset, making them angry. Making them outraged. And one of the easiest way to piss people off is to so show them a woman doing a thing a woman's not supposed to do, like being sexy, but not. But in public or you know, wanting more money than she's willing to work for some other. Oh, she cheated on her boyfriend and then rolled her eyes. Like whatever. Like so many of the videos start with girl does thing and then gets put in place by alpha male. Like that's 60% of the video titles.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[FD Signifier]

And so when your 12 year old watches that, like stop letting them watch. That is what I'm getting to. The other thing is you have to be willing to dismantle. And this is why I don't think it'll become a true moral panic. Moral panics tend to be truly transgressive. Misogyny isn't transgressive. Misogyny is reinforcing the social norm. Transgressive is feminism. Transgressive is queer. Transgressive is black. Like, so those things create more panics. Heavy metal created the moral panic because it was, it was counterculture and subversive and anti authoritarian and all those things. This stuff is just a little too, it's embarrassing. Little, little Timmy says something really misogynistic to his sister and now I have to deal with this at home. And because it would shine such a ugly eye on the true nature of some people's households and some communities, I don't think it'll ever reach the true moral panic. Because according to certain people, this is what won the election for Donald Trump. But to fully go back to answering that question, you have to dismantle the utility of this ideology in your own home. And that doesn't mean you have to become like a hardcore feminist and read Judith Butler and Audre Lorde. Just make it so it's not so easy for misogyny to pass in your home. Tell your brother in law to shut the fuck up when he says something sexist and says it's a joke. Build into goodness with your child. Not based on their ability to perform masculinity, but in their innate goodness. Let them feel comfortable being emotional. Let them feel comfortable about crying. Explain to them how coercion is when they like a girl. Let them know, you can like this girl, she may not like you and that's okay. And that doesn't mean anything about you. And it definitely doesn't mean anything about them. And challenge this stuff when you see it. That along with a slew of other things that I don't have time to get into is going to be way more useful than even just sending them. One of my videos. One of my videos is more for you to understand it so that you can address it in reality. One of my mentors talked about the fact that this isn't an issue of misinformation. This is an issue of disinformation. The knowledge is out there. We just have to get it in the right places and get it into people's systems for real.

[Jamie Loftus]

FD Signifier thank you so much for your time. This is like, this is so wonderful. Thank you so much to FD Signifier. I cannot recommend his channel enough. And when we come back, the King of Boston, Robert Evans.

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[FD Signifier]

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[Dave]

Act for you this evening.

[FD Signifier]

I don't even need to say his name.

[Timothee Chalamet]

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[FD Signifier]

Bobby, what do you want to be?

[Jamie Loftus]

Whatever it is they don't want me to be.

[Timothee Chalamet]

Timothy Shallow astonishes as Bob Dylan in one of the best performances of the year and critics rave. Edward Norton is absolutely fantastic.

[Robert Evans]

70,000 people are here and Bobby is.

[Dave]

The reason for it.

[Jamie Loftus]

They just want me singing blowing in the wind for the rest of my life.

[Timothee Chalamet]

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[Robert Evans]

Turn it down.

[Timothee Chalamet]

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[FD Signifier]

Some noise BD track some mud on the carpet.

[Timothee Chalamet]

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[FD Signifier]

A clutch off season pickup Dave.

[Dave]

I know right? I was worried we'd bring back the same team.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh no.

[FD Signifier]

I meant those Blackout motorized shades. MVP of the room.

[Dave]

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[Timothee Chalamet]

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[Dave]

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[FD Signifier]

You fly across the country to do the install?

[Dave]

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[FD Signifier]

Look at you hall of Fame son.

[Dave]

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[Jamie Loftus]

Welcome back to 16th minute. My cat ate wrapping paper and I had to pay a medical professional $750 about it. And to close out part two of our manosphere series, I'm speaking with one of the producers of this very show, Robert Evans, who's been both reporting and commentating on Manosphere Space's specifically extreme alt right spaces for years and famously connected a series of mass shootings we discussed earlier to incel forums in this house. We love Robert. And so here's our chat because we've, like, talked about this before, and we've both spent the better part of our lives on the Internet. When did you start seeing communities like this cropping up?

[Robert Evans]

You know, I started to see inklings of this in, like, late 2013. And, like, the comments on Cracked articles, right, where we would do pieces that were talking about, like, rape survivors or the trans experience. And there would be these, like, you know, we would get a great response. They got a lot of people reading them, but we would get these, like, really weirdly hostile posts. And it became clear I would get some emails too, you know, so it became clear there was somewhere communities of people who were, like, getting really angry because I was, you know, I was more or less just a libertarian at that point. A libertarian who had, like, voted for Obama because Bush was a fucking disaster. Right. But I didn't really think about. I didn't think about, like, writing, you know, doing articles with, like, trans people about the realities of transitioning as like, a political act. I was just like, oh, I don't know much about what it's like to be trans. This is interesting, you know, but it was pissing some people off a ton. And so I was like, well, this is odd. And it all kind of crystallized in 2014 when back at Cracked, we did a sketch comedy video, the premise of which was, what if all of, like, the main websites on the Internet today were kids in a high school? Right. Okay.

[Jamie Loftus]

2014, baby.

[Robert Evans]

2014, I think it was. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, among the things in that is we had 8chan as a kid, 8chan, which had just come about. Gamer. I was aware of Gamergate as it was happening. I was not. I. I did not take it super seriously in its early stages. Like, I got. We all got some harassment, but it was like, these freaks on the Internet are, like, angry about girls. We've always known some of these people were there. It was not clear to me at that immediate point that this was like going to redefine how politics worked in the country. Right, sure. When it became clear to me, because those kids get kicked off of 4chan, 8chan is started and 8chan becomes their home. They develop a board on 8chan called Baphomet, which is where like harassment campaigns are architected and this video comes out and whoever wrote it, I forget which of our writers, like actually did the script, but they, they envisioned 8chan as like this little nerdy kid who was just constantly sexually harassing the like popular girl who was the stand in for Facebook. Right. And like it was not, not a super deep thing here. Like that was the joke, right? Is that like 8chan is the creepy kid harassing the popular girl? Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, it is wild that there was a time where Facebook was a hot girl.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. This is a wildly different time. Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

The blob from the end of the substance, I think of Facebook now.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. No, this was a very different period of time. Yeah, but, yeah, so, so we, we do that and these kids on 8chan find it and they don't go after the writer of the episode of the sketch who was a man. They don't go after the director. I think it might have been Adam Ganzer, but who was a guy. They go after the girl playing Facebook and they're like mailing dead animals to her parents house. They're sending her like pizzas, death threats and like, and they're chronicling it all live on Baphomet in like this thread that I. The day it starts, I find the thread and I'm like archiving and clicking. I wanted to report on it. My colleague David Bell wanted to start filming a documentary right then and there. Like, his premise, which I think in retrospect maybe we should have done, would have been like, what is the Internet done to us? Right. But we didn't, in part because it would have directed more harassment to this young woman. Right. Like that. That's why ultimately it was like no one went, no one said anything about it. But that is why, you know, in 2019, my career like really was ignited in a large way because of my reporting on 8chan during the Christchurch shooting. Well, I was, I had been stalking a. I had about once or twice, once every month or two. I had been going by 8chan and keeping an eye on how things were developing there ever since 2014 as a result of that. Right. Like, that's when I really got into looking at a lot of this stuff.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay. And as you were watching over there, I mean, like over the course of that, like half decade, you know, during which obviously a lot changes in that half decade, I feel like my into this was showing my college boyfriend in Anita Sarkeesian video and him being like, you're a idiot. You're, like, in feeling like, oh, oh, our edgelord comedy is a joke to me. But you. You might actually mean what we're saying, you know? Yeah, that kind of shit. When does it really feel like these communities get empowered and start to escalate?

[Robert Evans]

I mean, it started fairly rapidly after that point, which we know Bannon recognized the promise that these networks had. When I started looking at them, they reminded me a lot of about 20 degrees darker than where my friends and I had been in high school. Right near the end of high school, my friends and I, I think, like most kids, I think, honestly, like, Superbad is one of the movies that gets the way we talked back then best. But, like, you know, the f slur was like every third word out of my mouth and out of the mouth of, like, every kid I knew. Right. Like, that is. Was just incredibly common. Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

Like, most millennials are like recovering edgelords to some extent. Right.

[Robert Evans]

I remember on 911 on. On something awful when one of the first things someone did was, like, set the footage of the towers going down to yakety sacks, right? Like, we. We were. So I saw. I recognized. I saw familiarity in the way kids on 8chan were talking. And what just kept happening every month is like, the Nazi stuff is, like, less and less absurdist, nihilist humor and more and more just Nazi stuff. And it happened very quickly, perhaps. I think it always was more serious than I had initially recognized. I think maybe initially I saw it as a little less serious than it was because it was so familiar. And, you know, I think it says a lot about how social media traps us at certain ages by trapping us in social circles and trapping us in patterns of talk and patterns of, like, in mimetic patterns that can lock us at periods of development. Because, you know, my friends and I stopped talking that way very quickly after high school because we got out into the world and we made more friends who, like, wouldn't stand for that shit and realize, like, oh, you actually don't talk like that. That's actually fucked up, you know, And I think it's harder for that to happen to not everyone, but a lot of people. It is easier to fall into a loop. And some of this is very intentional. Some of this is just some of these different right wing, you know, Nazi organizations realized the promise that social media held for locking people into these loops. But you know what? However you want to look at it, the loops exist.

[Jamie Loftus]

I think a lot about how the role of like ironic humor in the 2010s kind of plays into this. But again, it feels like at every stage of this, or at least the way I see it. Let me know if you feel differently. Every time there's an escalation, some people leave and then other people double down and get even more involved in the community and pull more people in. You've written really cogently about how this, like, escalation of it starts as a joke and becomes real continued. And at this point, I mean, is there any spaces where it's still being treated as a joke at this point?

[Robert Evans]

I don't know that it ever really was. I think that there, what you do see is a calving off where the extremists get more extreme and less welcome elsewhere. Right. And you also see, you see folks who had been using some, who had been using some of that language, who had been edge lords, get, like, kind of adopting more like, you know, quote unquote, woke language in part to differentiate themselves from, like, the bigotry online. Right. That's part of the. That's part of the story of partisanship. I'm not, I'm not saying that as a way to say, like, and the. So the wokes are just as responsible for everything getting so divided. I'm saying it's like a natural reaction. You see this one group of people who you used to play games with and, like, with online become Nazis. You don't. You want to make it very clear, I'm not one of them.

[Jamie Loftus]

I guess around Trump's first election, there was this wave of de platforming of a lot of right wing, and I guess you could classify them as manosphere to some extent, influencers and that, I mean, at least I remember being posited as like, well, we've deplatformed them, problem solved. Or a lot of the, you know, like, rhetoric I was engaging with during the MeToo movement was like, we just have to get these guys away from us and, like, out of these spaces, which was effective to some point. But also they did not disappear into dust and a lot of them sort of doubled down, I guess. I'm curious of your feeling of that period of time, of the time where there was this de platforming movement. What did this space learn from that?

[Robert Evans]

I mean, for one thing, deplatforming never happened on a significant cogent scale. Right. Like, it's a little bit off, I think, to say that, like, the platforming failed because, like, well, we didn't do it. Right, Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

But, like, was it ever Even possible it did.

[Robert Evans]

The individuals had their reach decreased for a while. Right now also, you know, one of the things is that, like, these are live conflicts. Alex Jones saw his reach collapse. He lost a lot of money and a lot of people on the right readopted him and brought him closer than he had been to folks who had power and more kind of mainstream appeal, guys like Tucker Carlson, because that, like, that was what they saw as the smart direction in the fight, right? So it's not good enough. You can never, you can never just deploy a tool like the platforming once and say, well, we did it, Joe. You know, we're done. Right? Like they are. There's going to be a counter move. And the counter moves against guys like Jones, number one, they all came too late. Right? Part of it is that by the time Alex Jones started getting deplatformed, he was so embedded in the culture and so influential, you know, I don't know that like any of the kind of ersatz deplatforming, you know, strategies that were adopted could have really stopped him from being someone whose voice mattered. Right. Like, that's just a reality of the situation. Some of it is that, like, if you just kind of let this shit go on for a while, it metastasizes until the point that it's terminal. And ironically, I think there's a chance that like Alex and a lot of these guys who have been more on the. We're going to wind up fighting the left in the street side of things, have some trouble in the coming years as there's a lot less impetus, you know, for Trump supporters to believe that's happening. But I don't really know what's going to go down there. If you're, if you're looking back, like, what could have been done to have stopped this? There's only one very clear answer to me, and it is you need to put in legal consequences for algorithms working the way they work. That's what should have been illegal from the beginning, was algorithmically pushing people towards shit like fucking the boogaloo boys and militias and towards like neo Nazi, you know, race realist organizations exposing children to that at scale in order to get engagement hours and bring in ad revenue, revenue. If that had been illegal from the beginning, if there had been immediate severe penalties that hurt the bottom line of these social media companies, I think we'd be in a different situation now right now. Would that ever have been. That certainly didn't happen. So would it ever have been politically viable? I don't know.

[Jamie Loftus]

Especially with just how it's still not, you know, every algorithm is still extremely opaque. There is no incentive to indicate how your algorithm works at all. This previous mid-2010s, emphasis on we have to de. Radicalize people before it's too late. I don't really see that conversation happening now. Is it because it's just kind of too late to do that? Do you think that that is still like a viable route in any way?

[Robert Evans]

Shit, I don't know.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, me either. I wish I had like a, A clear answer to what the solution was here. The best advice I can give people, don't listen to anyone who is telling you, number one, I have a really clear and obvious solution. And number two, it happens to comport with what this organization I am in has been saying we should do all along. Just give us some money. Right. Be very, very. Not that there aren't. Like, for example, I think a lot of the getting out of this, I think, is going to. I think unions are going to be a very important part of that story. But I also think, like, unions are also part of the problem. Right. You can look at where the Teamsters voted, you know, in this last election. Right. I just be very hesitant of people who come to you peddling solutions and asking for your money. Right. One thing we should take out of this is that if the first thing out of anyone's mouth who comes to you with a solution is, so I need a donation. Well, Harris raised three times as much as Trump, and look where that got her. Don't do that. Be very careful with who you listen to. If they're, if they're coming to you and saying, I have a solution for you, and it's buy a gun, it's donate money to the Democratic Party. It's this very simple thing. Because what takes us out of this is not going to be simple. And be hesitant to embrace people who come to you with simple solutions.

[Jamie Loftus]

Do you see this space continuing to grow? Where do you see this sort of evolving into?

[Robert Evans]

Well, that's, that's interesting because I, you know, some of these people right now evolved into the, like, repeal the 19th amendment, you know, freaks. Right. Women shouldn't be voting. And Trump just made a woman who's clearly one of the only people he respects into his, His White House chief of staff. Yeah, I act. And also, I don't think, I don't see. Not that he's not going to put through a bunch of policies that are bad for women, but, like, a lot of women voted for him. So I don't necessarily see him as being like, well, repealing the 19th Amendment is my number one priority. Right. Um, he likes winning elections. And I do think that a lot of what he does once the own, the libs high comes down and they see that they're not going to get a lot of what they wanted because it's stupid and because it doesn't benefit Trump to give it to them and he had no problem lying to any of them. Trump is not particularly interested in giving you all of these crazy things that you want because, like, that's never been his politics. Right. Is Trump going to make us a Catholic fascist state? I don't think Donald Trump gives a shit about that. I don't think he's really that into Catholicism. You know, I don't know if that's the threat model. Right. I think that's more freaks online. I think that's more Nick Fuentes weirdness. And I think those guys, you know, there's a chance they get really angry as a result of, you know, as it becomes clear what they're going to get and what they're not going to get. I mean, I think in terms of explaining the manosphere to people, you say it's a. It's a group of content creators who are generally aligned by a financial reliance on selling supplements to make people huge, selling advice on how to pick up women. Their audience is largely frustrated young men who think that they are not having all the sex that they should have. And a lot of them have gotten into kind of Nazi adjacent racial politics as part of their general frustration at the things the world hasn't given them. And they see that their alliance with the right wing is because the right wing will make things harder for women and make them more necessary again. You know, like, I don't. I think that's important. Like, these guys are very influential. Millions and millions of people listen to him. It's a. It had an impact on the election. Right?

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah. Thank you so much to Robert. I'm pretty sure he has a podcast, but I don't remember what it's called. Check back with me. All right. I know that was a lot of information. I hope you're well. And next week we're going to close this series out by talking to those affected by it. Young men who got out of the manosphere and the people who are targeted by the manosphere and what, if anything, we can do to turn this around. We'll see you then. And for your moment of fun, let's hold some space for Defying Gravity. Thank you. Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our Supervising Producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad13. Voice acting is from Grant Crater and Pet shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my cats Flea and Casper and my pet Rock Bird who will outlive us all. Byeeeee With Kroger Brand products you can get all of your favorite things this holiday season. Because our proven quality products come at.

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