‘Toxic’ manosphere phrases every parent should know after Louis Theroux's shocking documentary
If you've watched Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere then you may be interested in arming yourself with more knowledge about how this internet subculture operates and speaks.
For those who've spent a lot of time on the internet the names and phrases featured in the documentary may not be all that new, but there'll be plenty of people for whom this is a first look at an unfamiliar world.
It can be easy to forget not everyone is as well versed in the new slang of the internet, they don't know what 'based' means, think people talking about 'the matrix' mean the movie and if they are starting to learn about the manosphere it's probably because they watched Adolescence or Theroux's new documentary.
Parents in particular can have little idea what kind of worlds their children move in from the comfort of their own home, nor what a bunch of the phrases made popular online really mean.
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Fortunately we've got a guide for some of the more often used slang terms and what they mean, so at the very least you can decode the conversations.
The Matrix
A number of manosphere members featured on Inside the Manosphere have talked about this and when they mention 'the matrix' it refers to the idea that the current structure of society is designed and controlled with the purpose of keeping men down.
During the documentary you may have seen some of the men performing a hand gesture which is associated with this term.
The Manosphere borrows other terms from The Matrix film, including Red Pill which signals someone has accepted the manosphere's ideology and in their view sees the world as it really is.
The Blue Pill which signals they haven't and indicates disagreement, if you remember The Matrix movie you'll remember taking the blue pill is the option to stay ignorant and blind to the reality of the world.
The most extreme of these is the Black Pill which was made popular by an incel blog and indicates men who believe their only option is to accept the situation or respond violently.
Alphas and Betas
For a group of people who claim things are organised to keep men in their place, the manosphere certainly likes enforcing a hierarchy of its own over men.
To them an Alpha Male is one who has power, status and prestige and gets to be in charge, which to the manosphere means he gets his pick of women and exerts control over them.
Conversely, a Beta Male is the opposite and is meant to describe a man the manosphere has dismissed as weak in mind and body, thus to them they occupy a lower spot on the totem pole which makes them unattractive, meek and not in control.
This has led to the term Alpha F**ks/Beta Bucks, sometimes abbreviated to AF/BB, which is used to describe a manosphere theory that women would rather have sex with the former group but will settle into relationships with the latter group for their money.
This all sounds like a way for insecure men to tell themselves they're sexually appealing even if women are getting into relationships with other guys they think they're better than.
Beyond the terms based upon a scientific investigation into wolf pack dynamics that was eventually disavowed by its creator for being inaccurate is the Sigma Male, who has all the appeal of an alpha but is self-reliant and exists outside the hierarchy.
To the manosphere this is the rarest and most prized kind of man, above and apart from everyone else.
Chad
People who've decided they are alpha males may also describe themselves as Chads, and an even more extreme version of this is the Gigachad who is as high as one can be in the alpha hierarchy.
Those versed in meme culture will be able to spot some of the depictions of chads as being large and muscular.
The kind of people who would talk about themselves in this way also have a term for women, calling them Stacys, which refers to very attractive but vapid women, since the manosphere thinks pretty much all women are shallow.
In manosphere discourse Stacys are often portrayed as unobtainable, so they are simultaneously desired for their attractiveness and disdained for being out of reach.
-maxxing
This gets stuck on the end of a number of words to describe getting the most out of something.
Looksmaxxing has become a popular internet trend of people trying to make their appearance the best it could possibly be, though in the pursuit of their own attractiveness they've been getting up to some dodgy stuff.
Then there's the extreme attempts to get a laugh known as Jestermaxxing, while some have also taken to sorting out their health and finances as Healthmaxxing and Moneymaxxing.
Many of these are done with the purpose of being more attractive to women but it can lead to dangerous behaviours as some men have been smashing their bones with a hammer in the belief the stress will make them stronger.
People into looksmaxxing might do something known as Mewing, a clenching exercise they think makes their jawline more defined despite the lack of medical evidence.
They might also try Mogging, which gets its name from the term 'alpha male of the group' or AMOG, which is where one person looks so much better than everyone else around them they can make someone seem inferior.
There's that hierarchy again.
Cucks, simps and soy boys
You might never look at the superfluous hotel room chair in the same way again, but the manosphere also talks a lot about Cucks, which comes from the word 'cuckold' that refers to a man whose wife has cheated on him.
In the manosphere it's all part of humiliation and the idea a man might enjoy seeing his partner having sex with another man, since to these guys women are their property and they don't share so there'd be little worse than a man who doesn't control the women in his life.
For the men who they deem to be subordinate to women in their romantic pursuit of them the word they use is Simp, while men they see as weak or effeminate can be insulted as Soy Boys.
The Game
The manosphere owes much to 'pick up artists' (PUA), who talked about attracting women and the things they taught men to do in pursuit of this as a game, so having Game refers to being good at this.
Techniques such as Negging are part of this approach, where a man will give out backhanded compliments to a woman or put her down so she lacks confidence and feels she needs to gain this man's approval.
Many of these men talk about the Sexual Marketplace or people having Market Value were many in the manosphere believe a person's sexual attractiveness can be crunched into numbers based on their physical, mental and financial status.
Men who score highly on this, by being athletically fit and wealthy, can be described as High Value or Top Tier, while the criteria for women is to be young, attractive and submissive.
Women in their late teens or early 20s are sometimes described as being in their Prime, while the manosphere says once women reach about 30 they Hit The Wall and their value diminishes, while they'll also judge a woman on Body Count which is how many sexual partners she's had and for these men the fewer the better.
This view of relationships leads to something they call Hypergamy, which is where a person gets into a relationship with someone who has a perceived higher value than themselves, the manosphere uses it to put down women they claim are only interested in going after men who rate more highly than them.
Apex fallacy
The manosphere claims to be standing up for men, and as such another phrase they discuss is the Apex Fallacy, the idea that people look at the most prominent members of a group and assume all the other members are like that.
As far as it concerns men it refers to the idea that the struggles men face are being dismissed because the world's elite are still largely men.
Awalt
While the manosphere is quick to point out not every man is as privileged and elite as those at the top of society they don't extend this same courtesy to women.
The manosphere caricatures women as all sorts of negative things and uses the term Awalt, which stands for 'all women are like that', to try and pin negative stereotypes to every woman and portray them as a homogenous blob without individuality.
In their minds every woman is like this and can easily be stereotyped under this group term, they'll also refer to women as Femoids which is certainly not a complimentary term.
Hopefully now you know a little more about the language the manosphere uses and be more aware of what people are talking about with these strange words.
Topics: Community, Social Media, Parenting, Sex and Relationships, Documentaries, Netflix, TV and Film, Louis Theroux
Joe Harker