How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Remember? The viral TikTok trend in 2023 where women asked the men in their lives how often they think about Ancient Rome, and it turned out they think about it a lot.
That’s been on my mind these last few months I’ve spent living in and reporting about the so-called “manosphere.”
But first, we should clear up a few things about the manosphere.
It was traditionally associated with the alt-right, with hate, and populated by overtly misogynist podcasters and influencers like Andrew Tate. Basically: the most toxic manifestations of masculinity.
But the term became more prominent last year after Donald Trump was said to have successfully leveraged the male-oriented podcast space to help him win the election. “Manosphere” started to be used broadly to encapsulate more mainstream male-oriented podcasters like Joe Rogan.
And lest we think all “bro” podcasters are the same, Joe Rogan (for all his flaws) is certainly not Andrew Tate. Indeed, painting them with the same broad brush only highlights part of the reason they are so popular in the first place.
Many young men, rightly or wrongly, feel like they too are being painted with a broad brush. They feel that in the wider cultural zeitgeist any form of masculinity is inherently “toxic,” and that “all men are the same.”
All men are not the same.
But much of the appeal of male-oriented podcasters, whether they be meek or macho, is the same. They talk about physical fitness, they promote traditional (but not necessarily toxic) traits of masculinity and they often share a deep appreciation for mixed-martial arts (MMA), specifically the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
And that can lead to the concern of many parents wondering how their Rogan-loving son might become a Tate-worshipping misogynist.
Nowhere, other than perhaps Washington, DC, does the mainstream and the extreme coexist more prominently than at the UFC.
The UFC is a useful parable in trying to understand the manosphere and wider male-oriented podcast space.
Millions of American men love the UFC for all the traditional masculine reasons you’d expect: strength, brutality, heroism. It may not be for everyone, but it is a legitimate sport that people enjoy without embracing any undercurrents of hate.
But the undercurrent is there — and just like how more mainstream male podcasters can be a gateway to toxic parts of the manosphere, the UFC doesn’t disavow the toxicity as forcefully as it could.
Take Bryce Mitchell, for instance, a 30-year-old UFC featherweight star from Arkansas.
Perhaps inspired by the success of other MMA world podcasters — in addition to his podcast, Joe Rogan is an MMA commentator — Mitchell started one of his own in January, naming it “ArkanSanity.”
On its debut episode, Mitchell said Hitler was a “good guy.”
“I really do think before Hitler got on meth, he was a guy I’d go fishing with,” Mitchell said.
Now, there’s no evidence Hitler took meth. And it’s very possible that many of the sports stars we have idolized throughout history, not least the ones who get hit in the head for a living, also had very, very dumb takes like Mitchell’s. They just didn’t have podcasts.
“That’s the problem with the internet and social media. You provide a platform for a lot of dumb and ignorant people,” Mitchell’s boss and UFC founder Dana White said in his unequivocal condemnation of the fighter’s ignorant comments.
Condemnation but not cancellation.
“That’s the beautiful thing about this business, for all of you that hate Bryce Mitchell, you get to see him hopefully get his ass whooped on global television,” White said.
White invoked “free speech” in his decision to not punish Mitchell for his hate speech.
Similarly, fighting against the perceived excesses of cancel culture and censorship is a huge part of the popularity of manosphere figures like Tate and more mainstream podcasters like Rogan.
The sentiment that cancel culture and social media censorship went too far is something that is felt far beyond the manosphere. A belief exacerbated for some when they felt constrained by pandemic-era vaccine mandates, lockdowns, school closures and other restrictions.
“I feel like we have to fight back with what we’re told we’re allowed to do,” Jake Shields, a former UFC star who also has a podcast, told me. “I just don’t like to be told you’re not allowed to talk to this person. Like, why can’t I talk to them? I’m not saying I agree with (their) ideology,”
Shields named his podcast “Fightback” — and while Rogan has welcomed “canceled” guests like Alex Jones, Shields has swallowed the forbidden fruit entirely.
In the last few months, he’s hosted David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who Shields described as a “nice old man,” and Thomas Rousseau, the founder of Patriot Front, one of the most active white supremacist groups in the country.
Shields isn’t as extreme as some of his guests, but he still regularly traffics in antisemitism and homophobia.
But what I found most interesting from listening to Shields’ conversation with Rousseau was that a lot of it was relatable.
They spoke about the need for men to have support systems for one another.
“I think we need a community,” Shields said, “I was lucky, I was troubled when I was young. But then I found fighting and that gave me a community, a purpose, a brotherhood, something to come in(to). And men need this. We need this brotherhood.”
Americans — men and women — are struggling. We are spending more and more time on our own. Things are so bad the previous surgeon general said loneliness had reached “epidemic” levels in the United States.
Rousseau offers a chance at community — however, it’s a fraternity based on white supremacy and hate.
How misguided some men’s searching for community became evident to Vera Papisova, a journalist who spent a year dating far-right men for a story for Cosmopolitan magazine, when one man brought her to what was ostensibly a gathering of neo-Nazis on a second date.
“This was supposed to be a political group,” Papisova recalled, “but they were talking about relationship problems.”
Some men who feel like they are falling behind are insecure and searching for answers and are finding them in the radical corners of the manosphere, Papisova says.
And that’s where we come back to the Roman Empire.
Once again — just like the UFC — it’s important to point out that a lot of guys like guy stuff. Ancient Rome is cool because of gladiators, Julius Caesar — and yes, the underlying lore of strength, bravery and epic feats of masculinity.
If your son, brother or husband is into this stuff it is most likely he’s just into it because he’s into guy stuff.
But it can get twisted.
I was surprised during my time in the manosphere just how much they talk about history, religion and philosophy.
But it makes sense.
Men are turning to these podcasts for lots of different reasons. But some are coming because they are lonely and lacking purpose. They are seeking answers to really big questions — like why isn’t their life working out the way they wanted it to? Why does it feel like they are falling behind?
They are not finding sufficiently satisfactory answers to these questions in the present. Indeed, some of them are looking for someone to blame. They don’t want to accept personal responsibility or engage with the inevitably complex socio-economic factors that have contributed to their station in life.
And on some podcasts, they get the comforting answer of “it’s not you, it’s them.” They’re being told to think “bigger picture” — it’s not their fault their lives are terrible, it’s “the Jews,” or “the gays” or “the immigrants” that are to blame. They’re being told that Hitler wasn’t a bad guy, and that Ancient Rome wasn’t just great because of the gladiators –— it was great because men were in charge. And whether they were looking or not, they’ve found the far right.
For those men, Papisova says, “people need to be more open if you have the capacity.”
“Because that one nice conversation you might have might change someone’s day enough to not have to seek out help in an online support group, which is actually a bunch of white supremacists using political beliefs as an excuse for how they feel,” she explains.
Her response to some of these men: “You don’t need to be a neo-Nazi: you need therapy.”
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