Our Sons Didn't Choose the Manosphere. It Chose Them.

One of the questions I’ve been sitting with recently is: when our sons ask about what it means to be a man, who is answering them?

For previous generations, the answers came from fathers, grandfathers, coaches, teachers, mentors, religious leaders, and community members. The answers were not always foolproof, but there was at least a human being on the other side of the conversation. Today, boys are turning somewhere else - algorithms.

Many of the parents I speak with in my practice are understandably concerned about screen time - they worry about video games, social media, pornography, and endless scrolling. But what concerns me even more is not just the amount of content our sons are consuming, but the damaging messages hidden inside that content.

Because beneath the videos, podcasts, memes, influencers, and online communities lies a powerful story about masculinity: a story that is teaching boys how they should look, how they should feel, how they are superior to women, and what gives them value as human beings.

Far too often, that story is rooted in fear, domination, performance, and emotional suppression.

Many boys today are profoundly lonely, and lack access to genuine connection.

Boys today are growing up in a culture that tells them they must appear strong at all times, while offering very few spaces where they can safely be vulnerable. They are taught to avoid weakness, hide uncertainty, and suppress emotional pain. Yet those emotions do not disappear simply because they are ignored; instead, they often re-emerge as anger.

Leave a comment

They re-emerge as withdrawal. Resentment. Misogyny. Compulsive behavior. As a deep sense of isolation that many boys do not have the language to describe.

This is one reason why so many young men find themselves drawn toward outrage-based content and the online manosphere.

You may have never heard of the “manosphere,” yet your son may be encountering it every day online.

I’d classify it as a loose network of podcasts, YouTube channels, influencers, forums, and social media communities focused on masculinity, dating, success, fitness, and relationships. While some content promotes self-improvement, much of it is rooted in resentment, fear, and rigid ideas about gender roles, often teaching boys that vulnerability is weakness, women are adversaries, and dominance is the key to respect and happiness.

It thrives on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and podcast networks because algorithms quickly learn when a boy is interested in topics like dating, fitness, or self-improvement and begin feeding him increasingly extreme content.

Parents may hear terms such as alpha male, chud, foid, high-value man, sigma male, female nature, red pill, looksmaxxing, hypergamy, body count, simp, beta, or male self-improvement. While some of this language may sound harmless at first, it gradually pulls boys toward worldviews built on entitlement, anger, emotional suppression, and distrust of women.

The real danger is not that boys become interested in masculinity, but that many lonely, confused, or insecure boys are turning to the internet for guidance and finding influencers who offer simplistic answers to deeply human struggles. Over time, this can affect how they view themselves, how they handle rejection, how they relate to girls and women, and even how comfortable they feel expressing vulnerability, empathy, or emotional needs.

Instead of helping boys understand their emotions, toxic online spaces teach them to externalize them.

Instead of learning resilience, they are taught blame. Instead of learning healthy relationships, they are taught entitlement. Instead of learning empathy, they are taught suspicion. Over time, this molds manhood into something deeply spiteful, reactionary, and domineering, when real healthy manhood is anything but.

After reading all of this, you may be thinking: "What can I actually do? How do I protect my son from things I barely understand?"

The good news is that while we cannot control the culture our sons are growing up in, we can profoundly influence the environment they come home to each day.

Here are five conscious practices that can make a meaningful difference:

Boys are being told that their value depends on how muscular, attractive, wealthy, dominant, successful, or desired they become. These messages are constantly reinforced in media and the world around your son, maybe even in subconscious ways: movie and comic-book superhero physiques, male-dominated career paths, and outdated gender roles passed down through familial generations.

Help your son understand that self-worth cannot be built on performance. Make a conscious effort to find ways to celebrate his character, effort, kindness, curiosity, and integrity just as much as achievements, grades, sports, or appearance.

Talk openly about body image, fitness culture, ‘looksmaxxing’ trends, supplements, steroids, restrictive eating, and unrealistic standards online.

So many parents have never heard such terms, yet countless boys are consuming content focused on optimizing every aspect of their appearance. Jawlines. Height. Muscle mass. Body fat percentage. Calorie counting. Restrictive eating. Extreme gym routines. Supplements. Steroids.

If a young girl became obsessed with altering her body in pursuit of an impossible beauty standard, most adults would immediately recognize the warning signs - we would talk about body image, self-worth, and eating disorders. Yet when boys engage in similar behaviors, we often celebrate them as discipline, ambition, or self-improvement.

The truth is that boys can suffer from body dysmorphia too, and become trapped in cycles of comparison and self-rejection just as easily as girls. The packaging just looks different.

As parents, we should encourage movement, strength, and health because they make him feel good and support his wellbeing, not because he needs to transform himself into someone worthy of love or respect.

If the internet is teaching your son what it means to be a man, someone else is shaping his worldview.

If he talks to you about the creators he follows, try learn more about them and their content, to really dig deep into understanding what appeal this may have for your son - restriction without communication is just control, and will do nothing but alienate him further, or drive him even deeper into those spaces.

Help him encounter men who embody empathy, accountability, emotional intelligence, humility, courage, and respect. This could be local community leaders, volunteers, academic or religious figureheads, male family members, school counselors, local or regional activists. Boys need role models who show them that strength and tenderness can coexist.

If your son is consuming troubling content online, resist the urge to immediately shame, punish, or ban it. I understand, it can be extremely worrying to think about outside forces shaping your son’s mannerisms and ideologies, but in this digital age it is impossible to completely restrict.

Instead, start with curiosity.

Ask what he likes about these kinds of content and communities. Ask what problems it seems to solve for him, or deeper emotional questions it helps him answer. The goal is to understand the emotional needs that makes these spaces so appealing. Only once we do that, can we find alternative healthy solutions that actually stick, and he doesn’t feel obligated to interact with.

We must gift our sons the ability to hear “no“ without losing themselves.

They’re consuming messages that tell them confidence comes from being admired, desired, successful, or always in control. But when a young person’s self-worth becomes tied to achievement, appearance, popularity, or romantic success, rejection can begin to feel devastating rather than simply disappointing.

Help your son understand that rejection is not humiliation, disagreement is not disrespect, and failure is not evidence that he is unworthy. Whether it’s not making the team, being turned down by someone he likes, losing a competition, or hearing criticism, these experiences are not threats to his identity - they are opportunities to build resilience.

When your son experiences disappointment, resist the urge to immediately fix it, rescue him from it, or convince him it doesn’t matter. Instead, help him sit with the feeling, process it, and learn that difficult emotions are survivable.

Boys who learn to tolerate rejection become men who can navigate relationships with maturity, respect boundaries, accept feedback, and move through life without resentment. Healthy confidence is built from knowing that even when life doesn’t go your way, you are still worthy, capable, and enough.

The challenges our boys are facing today are not the challenges most parents were raised to navigate.

Previous generations did not have to contend with algorithmically driven content, online influencers shaping identity, pornography functioning as sex education, AI-generated realities, looksmaxxing culture, or digital communities that can influence a boy’s worldview before his parents even know they exist.

The truth is that many of the parenting tools we inherited were designed for a completely different era, for a world that moved slower, where children’s primary influences came from family, school, and local community.

Today’s boys are growing up inside a global digital ecosystem that is shaping how they think about masculinity, relationships, self-worth, success, and belonging every single day.

The future needs men who can think critically, love deeply, communicate honestly, and remain connected to themselves and others.

That work begins in childhood, and it begins with us.