Reddit, The Manosphere and The Male Complaint

Abstract

This thesis examines the connective tissue that binds individuals together in the 'manosphere' - a collective of online platforms and forums devoted to men's interests, life philosophies and anti-feminist ideology. Members of the manosphere have been involved in misogynistic and violent harassment campaigns and attacks, including several terrorist incidents. Motivated by concerns over this violence, alongside interest in growing debate about masculinity in modern society and politics, this thesis seeks to understand how the manosphere arose, why men participate, and what it provides for individuals.

Using a combination of large-scale data analysis alongside in-depth qualitative readings of content, I study three manosphere communities on the social news and networking site Reddit. Inspired by Lauren Berlant's ground-breaking book The Female Complaint, I identify the manosphere as a mass-cultural intimate public - a space characterised by a belief that individuals already share a worldview, emotional knowledge and common historical experience. This intimate public is situated within and influenced by the network society, a post-Fordist economic structure in which social functions and processes are organised primarily around networks.

The manosphere enacts a belief that men's lives are not just their own, but an experience shared by other men. Individuals bind over an attachment to white heteronormative ideals of love and a complaint about the failures of said love, alongside men's broader position in society - The Male Complaint. While not necessarily rational or well founded, this complaint provides an affective pull for men, binding them together through a collective identity as injured subjects. Drawing on Wendy Brown's analysis of ressentiment and nihilism, alongside Berlant's notion of Cruel Optimism, the thesis then examines the consequences of this complaint for participants and society more broadly. Specifically, I conduct the first usage of social network analysis (SNA) on the manosphere on Reddit to explore the structure of community within and whether it achieves the promises made by the network society.

Through charting the manosphere as an affective space of attachment and identification, this thesis provides a unique entry point into the space. The thesis chronicles it not as a new aberration, but instead part of an ongoing historical current. This provides a strong basis through which to understand the connective tissue that attaches men to the manosphere, the social and economic structures that have led to its rise, and the nature of the misogyny within. Show more