A curious thing has been happening in classrooms in the last few years.
Teachers report that boys are asking questions that sound less like year 9 maths and more like the comments section under a YouTube video titled “10 reasons feminism destroyed civilisation.” Some refuse to listen to female teachers. Others bait them with rehearsed talking points. A few have even taken to barking at female teachers.
This week a new Australian guide for schools was released to help teachers deal with the phenomenon. Researchers say the influence of the so-called “manosphere” – a loose online ecosystem of influencers, podcasts, crypto grifts, forums and social media accounts promoting aggressive versions of masculinity – is now clearly spilling into the classroom.
And as if on cue, Louis Theroux has just released a new Netflix doco called Inside the Manosphere, in which he wanders, very politely, into this world of influencers who promise to teach young men the secret code of masculinity.
At its heart the manosphere offers a simple proposition to boys and young men:
The reason your life isn’t working the way you wanted is because the world has been rigged against you – and here’s how to take it back – not for everyone, just for you.
In a confusing world, that message has obvious appeal.
Young men today are navigating contradictory expectations. Add in a few disappointments – loneliness, rejection, stalled ambitions – and suddenly strangers on the internet who choose the faux-familiar title “bro” offer a neat explanation.
It’s not you. It’s women, or society, …or something. And the algorithm is only too happy to keep serving up more of the same.
There’s something fascinating about movements like this. They tend to begin with a genuine problem.
Many boys do feel adrift.
Male loneliness is real and getting worse.
Confusion about masculinity is real.
But grievance movements rarely solve the problem they diagnose. Instead, they redirect the pain somewhere else. In this case, the solution offered to struggling young men is not maturity or strength pressed into service – but resentment. And resentment is a disordered emotion. It can never deliver – there’s always a bigger boss over the horizon who’s holding you back.
Christianity has always offered a very different account of manhood.
Not domination.
Not grievance.
Not proving yourself.
Instead, the defining picture of masculinity in the New Testament is… Jesus washing feet the night before his execution.
Inalienable strength pressed into service.
Not exactly TikTok bait, but it contains a revolutionary idea: strength is shown not in control over others, but in self-giving love. The gospel begins with a truth that the manosphere cannot tolerate: You are not the hero of the story.
But it immediately follows with something far better: You are deeply loved by the true hero of the story.
And that reframing is unshackling. If your identity is secure in Christ, the gospel displaces the need to dominate anyone to feel significant. You’re free to serve. Free to listen. Men are free to honour women rather than fear or use them.
In other words: free to become the kind of free man the internet says it can make but never manages to.
One final thought: One of the most revealing things about the manosphere is how religious it feels. It has its prophets, conversion stories, secret knowledge and its vision of salvation.
What it doesn’t have is grace. Which means every young man who enters that world eventually discovers the same thing: you’re still not enough. You just need to rise earlier, grind harder, dominate more, win bigger.
But what if there was a community built around service of one another, powered by a humble God. A community where men and women could be vulnerably known by one another. A community where young men have ready access to older men who want their good. A community where we admit our failures and celebrate our hard-won restoration.
That’s the kind of counter-formational community that might be an antidote to the stranger bros online. Please take a moment to pray for our youth leaders and give thanks for church – it really is wonderful.
Grace and Peace,
Steve