Incels make the world go round 

A profesor at the University of Indiana once told me, “Fathers are raising their sons for a world that no longer exists.” That really got me thinking.

It's crazy how normal teenage insecurity was monetized and SEVERELY enhanced....dystopian as fuck.

Theres this quote I love from Brennan Lee Mulligan, quoting his professor: "... people are not motivated by ideological codes. People are motivated by impulse and construct ideological codes to justify and rationalize what they were already going to do. An old professor of mine had this great thing. He said, “On the level of individuals and civilizations, personality predates ideology.” Meaning that before you were a fascist, you were a bully and an asshole".

25y/o, I’m AFAB, but my 49y/o MARRIED dad has been listening to and repeating a lot of manosphere stuff in recent years. This man has 3 daughters and a wife (plus my brother who has thankfully not fallen for this bs), and any time I’ve tried to push back on his rhetoric he just goes on about how I don’t understand and then he just walks away while I’m mid-sentence. He speaks to my mother like she’s a toddler. He says rude shit about my little brother for not being “masculine” enough. He just sits at the kitchen table, drinking and watching “triggered libs,” Andrew Tate, and other misogynistic creators like JLP all day and ignores or condescends to us all day. I truly feel like the manosphere (among other ideologies) has stolen my dad from us.

"a lot of these people were shitty before they found andrew tate" - YES, TY, NOT ALL OF US ACCIDENTALED OUR WAY INTO A NAZI PHASE, THAT SHIT IS NOT JUST SOME NORMAL TEENAGE RITE OF PASSAGE

As a lonely guy who struggles to meet people and navigate romance... I think a lot of guys forget how many women are in that exact same situation and how little they are being listened to.

what's crazy to me when they talk about incels is how men can acknowledge that it's a human need to have sex and yet in the same breath can say that women deserve to die in pregnancy BECAUSE SHE HAD SEX and that is her fault..... make it make sense.

If there is ONE THING I have been able to be proud of myself for, it’s that I NEVER got into the manosphere despite my depression, low self esteem and worsening mental health. I knew that, despite my suffering, to be arrogant and blame my suffering on others was a delusion. I found the problems from within.

23 Year old lonely bitter dude here, got into the whole redpill and manosphere stuff when I was 19 because I was bitter that I wasnt desired by people. Only thing it made me was more bitter and depressed because I was everything the manosphere says women despise. Short, brown, funny accent, weird eyes, weird nose and a weird smile. Took me a while to get out of it but I did eventually. Still dont like myself BUT at least Im not as bitter as i was. It was your videos on the manosphere and some others that got me to start questioning it. Im just ranting at this point but your videos were great help to get me out of that weird circle (Ps I'm Pakistani and English isn't my first language so I apologize if some parts don't make sense, trying my best)

“Men these days are too feminine discourse stretches back to the 1800s” Michel Foucault traces it back even further, to ancient greece, where one writer complained about young men of his day indulging in “feminine” expressions such as theatre and dance.

His salary buys less, but his pride begs him to say, “The woman in my life doesn't have to work, and I like it that way.” What he really may mean is that although his harem has only one occupant at a time, he does not want her wandering about too freely without the veil that the home provides. He is not nearly as secure in his masculine role as he would have others believe, and he allows his mate’s growing independence to threaten him emotionally.” Men’s Liberation Jack Nichols 1975

I have 2 daughters, and my 7yo hangs out with a few boys in my mom's neighborhood when we go over on weekends. One is a really sweet kid, the other is a bossy asshole. He is definitely raised with those toxic ideals of masculinity, I've met his dad. But I've noticed that just being around a girl who isn't intimidated by him and coming over and hearing how we talk with kids and each other has made him chill out over the past year. My daughter is more than happy to explain to him about having 2 dads and how one is trans (she's likes being the LGBTQ expert among them). He's also really impressed that I'm a molecular scientist; he asks me about science whenever he can. Hopefully, he won't end up falling into the manosphere. Not when one of his best friends is a girl with queer parents who can literally pick him up and throw him (that child is crazy strong).

Ironically a manosphere dude complaining about you brought me here 😂

"If you don't raise your son, someone else will."

I've never been the type of man who tried to show I was a man by dominating woman...and it never made me less of a man...your manhood isn't measured by dominating others, but by standing on principle, standing up for what's right, and taking care of your family...

I'm a clinical mental health counselor who works with 16-24 year olds. And most if my male clients will at least reference the manosphere as a positive source of information. Some of my female clients are dating some of those same pro-manosphere guys and are in psychologically abusive relationships. They are property to be dominated and ran.

thank you for addressing the autism side of this conversation. i’m an autistic woman and i’ve been so frustrated about how the “autistic school shooter” image has damaged our community this past decade.

Five years ago I found out about my wife’s many infidelities throughout our fifteen year marriage. I was completely traumatized. I was working through my recovery and stumbled upon MGTOW content. It was really easy to fall into the trappings of those ideas because I was so hurt. Fortunately my affair recovery program and therapists pushed back on these ideas and I didn’t stay in there too long so I empathize with men who fall into because it’s very enticing when you feel so broken. When you feel like you’re not enough. Today I’m much healthier and I’m grateful for content like this because it helps me from falling back into the trappings of manosphere ideas and rhetoric. F.D, you are appreciated

I’m a lonely disabled 22yo, so I really appreciated the segment about disability and loneliness. As a disabled person, a lot of the time I feel like I’m not allowed to talk about my own loneliness, about my needs and desires for touch and intimacy as to not make everyone around me uncomfortable. It’s even harder (for me) as a straight disabled man because a lot of the discourse around disability and dating are typically dominated by people trying to date men (straight women and gay men), not saying their perspectives aren’t valid or useful, but having a disabled man talk about his experiences on trying to date women, just feels more relatable and validating to me. It just makes me feel less alone seeing someone as close to me as possible, struggling with the same things I am. I’d be lying if I said that I’m still not a little frustrated with my loneliness, but I think making a video talking about my difficulties with self confidence and feeling deserving of love and reaching out to other disabled people on their experinces, would be a much better use of my time than sitting here bitter on my phone lol. (I’m going blind in both my eyes btw, Retinitis Pigmentosa and ADHD)

As an Autistic woman: Thank you!!! Thank you for talking about the elephant in the room in such a nuanced and empathetic way. Making space for Autistic people's loneliness and social struggles, addressing the con artists who exploit that, all without letting incels/blackpilled-/redpilled men off the hook.

Aw c'mon man I'm trying to get back on a normal sleep schedule...

"Natural way of things" to me is basically the same as saying, "I can't explain my emotional position, so you're just going to have to accept it."

Funnily enough. The 1950s housewife ideal didn't exist in the black community back then. Both were working outside the home 😂

Yooooo HAHAHA THE THUMBNAIL HAS ME DYING

As a short man with Asperger’s, I spent most of my twenties being depressed and bitter that I wasn’t desired by women. My brother often advised me to watch videos by pickup artists, etc. But I was never really interested in that stuff. Just seemed like a con to me. Anyway, a few years ago I met a woman by chance through Instagram, after I started posting music vids. We texted back and forth and became friends and eventually started dating. I was 34 and honestly never expected that somebody would love me, but she really seemed to. And whilst it boosted my self esteem for a short time, it didn’t completely heal me in the way I imagined a relationship would. I still struggled with depressed, and anger, and was still insecure about my masculinity. These battles are ongoing. I suppose I’m saying to anybody who is struggling like I was, don’t count yourself out yet, new people can come into your life at any time, probably when you’re not expecting it. And also, a relationship doesn’t fix you. I don’t really know what fixes a person, but I don’t think it comes from an external place.

I remember a while back there was some online voice check thing to see how “manly” your voice was on a number scale. If you got a low score you were told to buy some “medicine” to improve how you sound. If that’s not evidence that this manosphere thing is nothing more than a business to prey on insecure men I don’t know what is.

I can't wrap my head around how someone can claim being an "alpha male" while also being a dutiful follower of other men who tell them what kind of man they should be. I can't imagine anything more beta than that. I also love that they insist that there's no gender spectrum, but then went ahead and invented their own (alpha, beta, sigma, soy boy, etc etc).

As a 34yo virgin on the spectrum the closest I've gotten to the manosphere was checking out a MGTOW forum once but being appalled immediately after the first(!) thread I saw was a man from Saudi Arabia complaining about having to drive his wife around because she's not allowed to drive herself (this was before 2018) and framing that as somehow his struggle and the fault of feminism, with the replies just being full of people patting him on the back and 'understanding his struggle'. It felt like satire, but it really wasn't... So yeah, no matter how much I listen to people analyzing the manosphere, I will still never understand how people can turn off their introspection and reflection to such an degree as to be able to accept these manosphere philosophies as factual and helpful when they so obviously are neither. It's baffling. If you look inside you WILL figure out the reasons why sex or romance hasn't happened for you and at least try to fix them while blaming everyone but yourself will never make you fix those problems but instead just create more...

I just want to say I'm not a guy but I am autistic and the "autistic people are going to be more likely to have life experiences that push them into online echo chambers" bit is absolutely correct. Many of us have far better social outcomes in online spaces where things like tone and body language play less of a role in communication, and because of the nature of the internet this can cause a spiral of rejecting face to face interaction in favor of comfortable online echo chambers. To be clear, I think online hobbies are valid, I think having online friends is valid, but your entire life cannot be spent locked in a box filled with people trying to sell you things.

I moved home when covid hit in 2020 and immediately noticed my 12 yr old brother slipping into manosphere content. He was the only child living at home but still neither of our parents noticed despite my dad being very aware of incels bc he was a cop and they had to do trainings on the community. What you said about passive parenting of boys is incredibly true. The second I started questioning him and actively engaging with him in a serious way, initiating conversations about his thoughts and beliefs a lot of what he was learning began to crumble. He’s 16 now and has a really sweet girlfriend. He recently mentioned “before u moved back I think I was going down the alt right pipeline” and I realized that even tho I was putting in a lot of work to educate him, because I was questioning him and challenging him as an equal he didn’t see it as lecturing he saw it as discussion that allowed him to come to his own conclusions. I explained that I noticed, was worried about him, and really cared about how he was feeling since it was a sign to me that he was feeling some type of turmoil. We kind of laughed about it but honestly I’m happy that we can talk it out now in reflection rather than as something that continued to grow and fracture our relationship. Whenever friends complain about statements boys in their families make I always ask how they’re engaging with it. Maybe people say that they don’t. I know that there is a line with harm but these boys are our community. They need to be payed attention to and they need to be cared about! I hope this makes sense it kinda makes me tear up reflecting on this time but I’m really proud of him and all the other boys who worked hard to question their worldview and came out the other side to something better ❤

I’m a 24 yr old queer woman who has never been in a relationship, intimate or not, with anyone. I grew up feeling very undesirable compared to my peers, so I can definitely commiserate with ppl who find solace in the manosphere. The crazy part is that there was a period of time (around when I turned 17) when I was consuming a lot of the “feminist owned” and alt right content bc I resented the women/girls in my life for being chosen over me or prettier than me. I was quickly becoming a femcel and a “pick me”. I can only imagine how easy it is to fall down that pipeline for men, especially young boys. I was radicalized in 2020 during the BLM protests, seeing videos of police brutalizing innocent people constantly. From there, I became increasingly aware of the systems of injustice and oppression that control our society, the most common denominators being patriarchy and capitalism. Fast forward 4 years and I’m still single, but I’m also a far left socialist with a deeper understanding of the circumstances of why my self esteem is so low. It’s not women’s fault, rather, it’s the fault of patriarchal systems and capitalism. It’s just crazy to me that all of this shit revolves around hating women, minorities, and poor people.

As a woman who loves men I have empathy for the isolation and helplessness many must feel. This world can be tough and unforgiving. But I lose all sympathy when their unhappiness turns into abuse toward women, minorities, and frankly other men. Dominating and devaluing others is NEVER justified.

This video hits close to home. I have to proactively protect my oldest son from this stuff online. It’s a HUGE market and full of people targeting young boys. Parents be cautious and attentive!!!!

As a young black man in my early twenties trying to figure out how to be a good traditional masculine man without a dad, i was completely sucked into the manosphere when covid hit back in 2020. After years of watching that content i used to be very prejudice of women because I believed the rhetoric that was being given to me by the creators in that space. It wasn’t until recently when i stoped watching the content and all of the rage bait and started to improve my social skills that I realized how much of a negative mindset i used to have. I’m so grateful that there are creators like F.D signifier who make these great video essays to explain just how much damage the manosphere is doing. Thank you mr. Signifier for your hard work 👍🏾

Never underestimate the power of exploiting insecure men

I would love to see you make a video disecting The Passport Bros as an offchute of the Manosphere and how their ideology speaks to a wider divide between men and women. I feel like you could bring some insight to that topic! Great video!

Im 34 now, I fell into MGTOW around 27-28 after my I was cheated on by who I thought was the love of my life. Slowly graduated into redpill without actually realizing it. Funny thing is that even while I was knee deep in the space I still never felt like it was a mindset i should adapt to. I knew it was a horrible way to think but I had trouble escaping. My life didn't improve, my love life didn't improve (it got worse) and my mental health plummeted. I wish for every young man that enters that space to mature gracefully and escape the nonsense. The Manosphere has destroyed more men than it has created

OK but have we tried sitting FD down in a room full of Only Fans models?

As an Autistic person who is also queer, physically disabled, and often perceived as a "screeching SJW" by misogynists (I work in tech, so this is every day for me), thank you for addressing the topic of Autism within the manosphere so maturely and responsibly. It's real, and it's important to talk about. It's also a very easily misused and weaponised talking point against an extremely vulnerable community. Thank you for representing that nuance.

Late diagnosed autistic adult here. This shit kinda stung, honestly. For the longest time autism was just "broken kid disease," we end up with a pretty awful relationship with the rest of the world. Think i gotta sit with ans interrogate this feeling some more

I’m an autistic girl and I’m so thrilled you brought up ASD. I’ve had boys tell me about their diagnosis; often they immediately follow with “but I haven’t told anyone else.” Autistic boys are usually teased even without disclosing their diagnosis to others since boys in the spectrum are usually more visibly “weird” than girls. With the stigma around autism, taking the step to be open about disability is extremely intimidating. Sometimes receiving the information that your friend is autistic is enough for someone to end that relationship. The autism experience is still difficult for girls, but the struggle is often more internal (mental illness, insecurity, loneliness) than downright degradation or bullying that boys experience. Of course this isn’t an excuse for toxic behavior but at least presents an explanation for autistic migration to the manosphere and acknowledges how the treatment of autistic people directly fuels this type of behavior. I love my autism. It brings me down knowing that our current culture tends to cultivate shame in neurodiverse folks and tell them they have to be normal. This isn’t true; autism is not something that needs to be fixed. There is still a long way to go in our society in terms of autism acceptance but I’m glad it’s starting to be talked about more critically. :)

As an academic and researcher I appreciate your pyramid of proof chart! We need an inverse one that puts "dude I saw on Twitter" and "that one video I saw on RU-vid" at the bottom.

Dude predicted he hit 1M views in a couple of months, and its already half way there after 10days😂, those manosphere lifers and casuals really boosting the views 🎉

The most sobering experience was watching men around me fall into this shit. It’s exhausting.

Hey, FD. I'm a clinical social worker and I work with young men in recovery. Many of them seem to subscribe to manosphere ideology and your content has been very helpful. Thank you for doing what you do! I encountered your channel when the Dave Chapelle video was recommended. After that, I saw the thumbnail for the Bo Burnham video. By then, I was hooked. Whenever a new FD video comes out, be it on the main channel or B-Sides, its always an exciting time for me. Thank you for helping this cis, het, white male's brain grow and eyes open.

I’m a totally blind person and I am just so happy that you brought up disability and all this! I was literally thinking a minute before you mentioned it: “why doesn’t anybody bring up disability? “Blindness definitely affects the way that I interact in a sighted world as far as socialization goes. Groups of more than three people. Total are still a challenge for me, and when I was younger, forget about it. And it way had an effect on how I perceive dating signals, and just general friendship stuff, because sighted people use a lot a lot a lot of visual, communication and iContact and passing conversations by looking at other people. So important thank you for mentioning disability!

I'm a man who was never sociable or very popular with the ladies, but I still consider me blaming the rest of the world for my own shortcomings is probably the _least_ "manly" shit a guy can do.

On the topic of Jordan Peterson's prior expertise on the field of psychology, I think there is a not-insignificant portion of the population who can't divorce success and acclaim in one field from their lack of knowledge of another field. Similar to your B-side video about separating the art from the artist, we need to be able to do that with non-artistic roles as well. I grew up in Baltimore, where Dr. Ben Carson is immortalized as one of Johns Hopkins most accomplished neurosurgeons and he absolutely deserves all of the accolades for that. But we all saw during his political campaign how uninformed and flat out wrong many of his other takes were. Just because he is a brilliant physician doesn't mean he is anything else besides a brilliant physician. Peterson is much the same: he may have been a great psychology professor, but we shouldn't use that one tidbit of his livelihood to determine if any of his other statements are worthwhile. As always, love the video and thank you for your long form content!

Glad to have videos like this to help me understand what’s going on with this shit on the internet. I am a 44 year old father of 3 boys 10 and under. I need to be educated on this front to make sure they don’t go down the manosphere rabbit holes.

It just occured to me the other day that creating insecurity in order to exploit people is a really fundamental form of evil in the human experience, and it has always had it's forms in all the past eras, and how many "traditional masculine roles" like soldiers and factory workers have also been forms of exploitation of insecurity - and the irony is that so many people think those roles are how things should be. Naah, you just got socialized into the idea, and are now suffering from a stockholm syndrome.

One statistic I'd be interested to see is how many people came out as trans after exiting the manosphere. I'm trans and I was in the manosphere myself for a solid 4, maybe 6 years or something. Oddly enough, my girlfriend at the time pulled me in; and my conservative Christian community I was in didn't help me out of it. I felt something was off about masculinity not because I noticed it as a whole, but because I felt off about my OWN masculinity. I hated weddings because I had to wear a suit; and internalized a lot of expectations from others (getting a wife/kids, having a stable job) to the point where I was miserable working a job I hated only at 15 when I was clearly Autistic, had ADHD, was severely depressed and constantly overstimulated, had physical health problems my family never took seriously because I had to "push through it", the list goes on. But I just had to power through that because I had to "man up". Seeing my neurotypical peers at school during an outdoor biking program be completely fine through me for a loop, and I was really envious that they could just push through everything, so I engaged with masculinity in a different way: Through red pill ideology and content. Regurgitating that rhetoric made me feel like I was actually "being a man", and it was also the only way I could get my girlfriend to see me as "manly" as well. In reality I wasn't trying to attain an internal standard of manliness that I wanted for myself; I was trying to attain an external standard set by everyone else. It wasn't until two years ago, when my dad invited to his and my step-mom's wedding and I had to wear a suit yet again, that I realized I hated masculinity on me. The dysphoria hit so hard, and my dad putting on external manly expectations on me again also had me realize that this is how I have felt about it all my life.

FD sig is like the father i never had lol. his content is so comforting like even his humor everything

I remember once when I was in the military and going through some shit mentally (mainly: that I shouldn't be in the military) I was talking with someone about my bad luck in dating. To clarify: it was quite literally bad luck, I wasn't looking for something super committed but every time I got into a casual relationship either the other person had a total change of heart or she got stationed somewhere else. It was all reasonable situations and none of it was bad because I learned a lot about relationships growing up. It was a such is life thing, and I was still engaging on my own terms but I was just a little bummed. I remember telling this person "yeah I don't really date. If something happens that's fine but..." and I was about to explain that I was only going to start looking for commitment once I was no longer in shitty ass military, this person goes "oh, are you lie, a Man Going There Own Way? Because I totally get that." Mind you this was a cis woman who was married and who was probably just totally middle of the road in terms of someone in the military, but I remember thinking to myself "fuck me is that the vibe I give off?" It got in my head for like weeks. Every relationship insecurity I had manifested at once. I was only aware of the thing because of stuff I saw online making fun of guys, but I immediately starting looking through stuff within the phenomena. The sexism was obvious immediately and I couldn't jive with it as someone who grew up with older sisters and women and queer friends. I started looking at normal dating social media places but I specifically sought out opinions of straight women and queer people. I started to recognize that there WERE aspects of my personality that were primary bricks in the build but were affecting my presentation. I was trying too hard to hype up my accomplishments, I was avoiding discussing passions of mine that weren't "cool" or that may have been interpreted as lame. Really everything was just me getting close to what I really felt and letting sleeping dogs lie. The only "change" I made was doing more grip and forearm workouts because that was like the only stereotype I consistently saw from people interested in straight guys lol. But really as soon as I got out the military and got a stable job, literally everything started working out and I'm super happy with my partner now, who is someone who my friends literally says "where were you all of his life?" when they meet her. I look back at that day and my reaction the weeks after and thinking "thank god I had the tools to avoid the toxicity" and I worry about others who were in similar circumstances or who are more alienated than me going down that same track but not having the off ramp. I guess the point of this anecdote is to say I appreciate people like F.D, Noah, etc that do provide an offramp. The content is always gonna be there, the motivations will always be present under fascism, capitalism, and fascist capitalism, but there is validity in the whole "alternative" aspect of this issue.

HONEY NEW FD SIGNIFIER JUST DROPPED

A while back, an author I like that is autistic shared a Jordan Peterson video saying he’d stumbled across it and thought it was thought provoking. Several fans stepped in and called out Jordan Peterson as a grifter and explained some of the pipeline of his stuff and how he will take a nugget of truth and use that to hide poison. Author actually said thank you to people as he’s found himself easily pulled into stuff in the past, and doesn’t always have best critical thinking skills about intentions so warning was appreciated. Was actually a very healthy online interaction

I love seeing little little glimpses of zatzman's unhinged editing here and there when he does these videos. As much as he's trying to reel it in for FD, I can tell he's not stopping himself entirely and it's really really working.

Thank you so much for having me on, F.D Signifier! I had a really nice time chatting with you.

Two things I had to note before the 10 minute mark: 1. Gotta get that Tekken footage in there 2. Zatzman has the chin of Andrew Tate's deepest wishes.

There was an academic article published this year that looks at Incels through life course theory and aligns with what you found in your informal study; the majority of incels are young men that go onto the internet seeking advice or community, and get caught up in this cycle of self-loathing and hate (adolescent-limited). The ones that carry out the acts of mass violence are much rarer, generally older, and have other underlying issues going on (life course persistent). If anyone is interested it is by Liz Utterback and was a good read.

Commenting for the algorithm. More people need to see this. Great work, I’ve been watching you since the very beginning when a friend of mine introduced me to some more diverse voices on RU-vid. I think you had 37k followers when I first started watching, a cis white girl from Kentucky. Not exactly your target audience, but still loving and watching every video you make

I remember being around 11 years old in 2012, using the iFunny app and constantly being fed casual misogyny. You know, the nonstop "women in the kitchen" type shit? I'm sure it had some kind of effect on me since I almost fell into the incel rabbit hole around 16 because I couldn't find any romantic encounters. Obviously, I'm not there now, but knowing that there are others like me kinda worries me.

I got ADHD, and so long form videos like these are actually REALLY hard to sit through. I’m so pleasantly surprised that I was able to sit through this without getting bored. But ALSO, I’m autistic as well, and as other autistic women have pointed out in these comments, I have been bullied and made fun of my entire life and even now into adulthood, and I just adopted a cat and am focused on work. I don’t want to sh**t up schools or hurt people because I have a hard time in social settings, I just actively chose to opt out of society and people. I just go to work and come home, and that’s it

This reminds me of my time in the atheist community in the 2010s. At first I loved it coz I could relate coz Christianity stories have never made sense to me, and I've always questioned them. And when they all started targeting feminists, I knew something was wrong, but I just went along with it coz it sounded funny. When they went after Muslims, I didn't like it, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt "maybe they're just talking about religion and not the people." But when they came after black people (I'm black BTW), my eyes were finally opened, and I left immediately. Ironically the "Anti-SJW" people, constantly going after minorities, started out as SJW's: "just coz I'm atheist doesn't mean I'm evil."

I think the Western idea of masculinity is very deeply rooted in colonialism. Early “pioneers” were encouraged to arm themselves (2nd amendment) and go west. When I was younger many books and movies celebrated and romanticized the “Indian fighters” who “won the West”. John Wayne’s characters are popular examples of how being a violent sociopath who rejected compassion as a weakness so he could annihilate Indigenous people to make way for “civilization”. And traffic, enslave, and exploit others to work that stolen land. I hope you’ll do a deep dive on this topic one day. ❤

I always grew up with guy friends, as a girl. When I, and those friends, hit puberty it always confused me how differently we were treated by the world and just how lonely some of my friends became. I understand how 12 - 13 yr olds are the most vulnerable group. Its when you really become aware of how society treats you differently based on your sex and gender.

today i learned the manosphere skews really young. Im 38 and i thought it was for guys like me who had a divorce or maybe lost a long term partner and were reentering the dating pool. knowing they are manipulating kids is insane to me.

The Stylistics song in the intro is noticed and loved.

Love this video. I wish you would change the title. As a therapist who works with a lot of clients and families who would benefit from this as a resource, I can’t share it because the use of the word “weak” is so shaming and perpetuates the insecurities that steer men toward the “manosphere” in the first place

The thing about the "get a hobby!" advice for lonely men is that it runs totally counter to the way people are usually taught to go after the things they want in life. In most other parts of life, if we want something, like a dream job or wealth or fitness or success in some art form, we're told to actively work hard at that goal as much as possible in the hopes of getting our shot at success. For men (and everyone else tbh) who are starved for touch, affection & intimacy, it is incredibly aggravating to be told to do something entirely unrelated to dating ("get a hobby") that will potentially help you meet people, because "meeting people" isn't intimacy, it isn't touch or affection, it isn't the goal. And I think we all understand that you can't turn up to a new hobby, like a dance class, explicity looking to pursue people there who will give you those things - that makes you a creeper. Personally, I hated every minute of using dating apps and I consider myself lucky to be in a relationship which didn't necessitate the use of one, but I think dating apps don't get the respect they actually do deserve - they are a tool to clearly and unambiguously seek out exactly what you want, instead of having to passively "be yourself, have some offline interests, and hope love comes along one day". To be clear, I think that the advice to be always on the grind is also bad when given for the other forms of success I mentioned, it perpetuates the false narrative that the world is a meritocracy and simply working really hard at something will eventually pay off, when in reality high levels of success are usually down to luck, with competency being an important secondary concern. But, at least with those other forms of success, you *can* grind away at them, becoming more competent and hoping to get your shot. With relationships, a lot of realistic advice gives no suggestion to **do** anything that will provide immediately observable progress towards the goal, like your bank balance going up does for people who want to be rich. This is why people like Andrew Tate sell the myth that being jacked and having Bugattis will attract women - because at least being jacked and buying Bugattis are concrete goals to work towards, regardless of whether women give a shit. There was discourse recently that "the left gives brain-dead advice to young men", but in reality the left just doesn't lie to men about the messy, complicated, and unordered ways the world works. There's no bank balance, there's no number to track, for finding love.

16:23 I think the reason why these manosphere characters tend to be men of colour with patriarchal beliefs is because a patriarchal systems grants them *power* in a world where they have *less power than the white man*

I enjoy the life cycle of an FD SIgnifier video. Firstly, I watch and enjoy it on Nebula. I then watch the title/thumbnail changes on RU-vid and run to the comments to see who took the bait. Lovely stuff.

I said this on a different video, but I’ll say it again. These men do not want a relationship. Once they get it they will realize how much work goes into caring about another person on an intimate level and they won’t want to put the work in. Especially if you are getting with someone just to have a relationship.

As a woman who tried to write about Gamergate for uni in 2015 and got shot down by (male) faculty, thank you SO much for outlining those connections. I went on to work in video games and.. as you said, the tiki torches were NOT a surprise.

I'm autistic and I have multiple mental illnesses. Thank you SO much for not resorting to any form of ableism or sanism in your section about autism, while still pointing out bad behavior shouldn't be excused. Thank you for pointing out the studies that prove abuse victims usually don't become perpetrators. _Thank you._ I will say that not all autistic people dislike being infantilized, as long as it helps people treat them with the level of support they need with their developmental delays/disorder. For example I'm, relatively, a little childish. Sometimes/often I need people to explain big concepts like I'm a kid, even though I'm 26. But yeah generally the low support needs autistic community dislikes being infantilized, but that's just them

I just looked at the new thumbnail and BUST out laughing 12:20 am. 😂😂😂

As an autistic individual I specifically started seeing stuff like Honey Badger Radio, MGTOW-related stuff and men's rights activism shit not just through RU-vid back in the early 2010s, but also through a little social circle of people I was, at the time, happy to know. Those same people had left me, in the aftermath, with extremely messed up ideas of how to talk about any personal problems and bring them forward. What started as a bunch of shut-ins laughing inappropriately at dumb stuff turned into a select few people who mocked the Christchurch massacre and readily cast out anyone who wasn't enough in favour of their increasingly isolating white supremacist bullshit. I was initially just kept around as an awkward butt monkey, a fellow of mine was kept around as a "cute" little minority person, and questioning any of this just meant you were taking it too seriously. And yet I felt like it was all I had in terms of connections, and I felt dependent regardless. So in the end it was a disturbing contest of how low I was willing to crawl in order to keep being tolerated by people who had clearly intended to ditch me years ago. I am fully responsible for the mistakes in judgement I made in that mental state, but those people? Doubtful they'd ever acknowledge anything. And even if these people weren't strictly associated with any of these circles, they were all about the edgy. And oh, does the edgy unite the worst elements. I hated myself for being autistic, I hated the notion that I could be transgender because it would mean that I'd be at risk within the social circles I was within, and all I really had as a tool to deal with anything was pure unbridled impotent rage. As a result I was a loose cannon, harmed whoever I could and then found life to ultimately feel hollow. It took a few people willing to talk with me and guide me into different directions to finally change my personal path in life and, well, thinking back about that time just makes me think about how sheltered people are readily exploited by the worst elements in society, and the insidious nature of how any of this can so quickly happen. Because talking about these kinds of experiences to people who aren't so online? Good luck getting them to understand *any* of what's being said. And that in and of itself is a good testament to just how dangerous that kind of disconnect can be. Love and solidarity from Belgium, Signifier.

0:26 holy shit that’s so fucking absurd. I wonder if Tate actually thinks he’s a SEAL Team Six badass or if he’s posturing. And I mean on some level does it matter?

As a woman who is probably autistic, I've been thinking for a while about the connection between autistic men and online far-right ideologies. I think many of us are aware that a disproportionate number of 4channers, incels, etc. are on the spectrum, but until the video that responded to you, everyone seemed to be afraid to touch the subject--and understandably so; progressive-minded people don't want to stigmatize a disability. I'm glad we're finally addressing the topic with the nuance and sensitivity that it deserves.

I’m a white mom in the suburbs raising two little boys and I’ve been hyper-aware of incel culture since 2015. I first encountered the r/incel community before I had my first child. It was bewildering at first and also made me feel afraid for my safety since I wasn’t sure how many guys secretly were incels or incel-adjacent. I’ve told other women about it, including my MIL but many of them don’t want to believe it. They hear these extreme views that some young men have and think it’s exaggerated or something. They view my concerns as a little conspiratorial I think.

I've been single my whole life. That's 33 years in a few weeks. At some point, all of the rejections you've been through, the negative feelings you have accumulated spill out and need to go somewhere. I kind of understand how some men can end up hating women after being hurt. They need a simple solution, a culprit. It's stupid but it's an easy release valve. I think most men simply end up hating themselves. I do. It's hard work but it's that or hating half of the planet's population. At least I have good friends I care about and who care about me. It helps. That probably makes me luckier than most men in my situation.

I may not be part of your target audience but I really appreciate the education that I get from your video essays - so thank you very much.

Listing to this with my 4-year-old son sleeping in my lap makes it seem so profound and also scary.

Thank you for helping me help myself and my loved ones, as well as random folks at while waiting in line. Please keep making awesome videos.

I really appreciate the conversations around how physical touch and community are actual needs, not too far behind food and shelter. It would be unthinkable to our ancestors, honestly.

I think data tracking over IP address can also play a role. I do internet research as my job and work from home, and when I research a company my husband will end up with ads on his phone for it. I started watching this video on Friday and came back to it today and now he's getting ads for Jordan Peterson content. So if one person in the household is consuming content, maybe an older sibling or a parent, even if it's a video like this one, I'm guessing it's possible the younger people in the household will have their recommendations affected as well.

The only “dating coach” I ever found worth listening to was Stephen Erdman. He taught really innocent stuff like getting the negative assumptions out of your head, and replacing them with the assumptions that 1. Most people are potential friends until proven otherwise. 2. Most women are kind, so the approach is nothing to fear.

The one thing in this video I would semi-disagree with is the notion that it takes "more work" to raise a shitty boy, than it does a kid that's nice. There's a point when a kid is like 4 or 5 years old when boundaries start to be pushed and the kid's needs/wants and how they achieve those take shape. Sure when they were toddlers all they wanted was to be loved and liked. But now they want certain types of attention, maybe they simply want that toy another kid is playing with. And how they GET that, and the repercussions, I think play a huge role in shaping their developing minds. Maybe the kid asks the other kid for the toy, and is handed it. Learning that if you ask politely, you get what you want. Maybe tho, he or she snatches the toy away from their classmate. But the teacher doesn't see it, and the other kid loses interest. So with zero friction, the kid just learns they can take what they want. If anything, its laissez faire, "easy mode" interactions that kids have that can often turn them into monsters. Not the hard work of misogynist parents, or the broader culture. As you said, while it makes one feel like the moral majority, "Where are the parents?" is a hugely pertinent question with these boys.

So glad to see you featuring Munecat!!! Love love love both of your content. You add such important value to this platform! Also, YAY Pushing Daisies!

1:13:10 I'm glad you put these two clips in. I really hate the way a lot of online anti-incel types engage with people who really don't fit the profile. It's just straight up bullying in a lot of cases. All it does is reaffirm their inadequacies.

I knew you were gonna slip a Tekken reference into this video and I'm glad I didn't have to wait long for it.

WAKE UP BABE THE NEW F.D. SIGNIFIER VIDEO ESSAY JUST DROPPED

A long time ago, my brush with the manosphere ended when I found out most of them dislike black people. Many young men did not like the idea of dating a single mothers, moreso with a child of color, and it took me a while to understand what they meant by "thuglet". This, I think, were the early days of the "Great Replacement" rhetoric that took root. Once I started seeing Confederate and Nazi avatars (and to a lesser extent a certain type of anime avatar) it took some self realization and understanding my situation helped me leave it altogether. First step is to take responsibility, and not to take rejection personally even if the rejector is insulting you. If you're in a group where the group is laughing at you for your efforts, leave the group. They're not worth your energy. All they've done is save you potential months, if not years of heartache down the road. Life isn't fair, and sometimes you can spend your life looking for love and never find it, but you can at least be happy with yourself and all you can accomplish. There's also the pressure to marry and have kids by a certain age, I can tell you lots of dudes take their wives for granted, (yes the opposite is true, but it's far less common). Seriously, pay attention to how the women at work or at a social gathering that are having a rough one constantly dog on her successful man that doesn't help around the house, or help raise his kids. It's truly an eye opener.

The “commodification of our grief” 😮 truly thats how we’re exploited in this capitalistic world. Young lonely men vilify women for their pain/suffering when woman are equally suffering loneliness/pressures of modern life (economy, technology, debt, stress)

as short objectively ugly dude who had long interactions with these types of ideologies(RedPill, MGTOW, Incel) i can tell you no one has the solution and no one can tell you how to live your life most people are just trying to figure it out some are better than other and some more gifted than other but the end of the day you have to live your life no matter how good or bad the days are no one can live your life for you let alone someone on the internet . i would say disengage from this stuff and focus inward try to figure how you can convince yourself to push through this and try to build a place of some happiness for your self (for me it gaming , origami , running ) . when you log of from the internet the world is pretty complex and un predictable in some of my most desperate times it was mainly women who offered to help me it is mainly women who considered me their friend despite me thinking every one was out to get me and no one is my real friend . so the best thing you can do is live your life and dont get to caught up in other people telling you how to act and what to think . *You wouldn't buy a game and watch a tutorial on how to play instead of playing it your self so why are you doing the same with Your life*

Dude I can't tell you how much I appreciate you being clear that the data you collected has not been done so in a rigorous manner. I want people to understand when they are presented with data they need to doubt the viability of it until the process has been vetted r. Samples like these are still valuable but it is really good to hear you be the one to tell us to take it as a sample and not a study.

I am neurodivergent...I'm a father and have been through a divorce. Haven't had much success with dating at all for the past 2 years...and even though I greatly struggle at times with social cues and dating, I still don't use my neurodivergency as an excuse to be cringe and constantly blame other people. I work tirelessly every day to become a better person for myself. I find it all from within.

I'm a therapist and I had a patient who was both on the spectrum and into Andrew Tate. What you stated in the video rings so true.

One confounding variable between "age joined" and "number of years spent in" would be "age at which you left." I'd be interested to see the age at which most of these men outgrow the childhood reliance on the manosphere worldview, as well as what events in their life causes them to leave.

I am Autistic and have recently came out of the manosphere and now have a girlfriend. Everything u said about Autism and the manosphere perfectly aligns with my experiences. However, I still find it difficult to not sink into my old misogynist thinking when I am judged and ostracized by my girlfriend’s neurotypical female friends and it is openly about my Autism, which makes me feel a lot of hurt and rage. I write a lot of raps regarding my experiences of this and Autism in general, but I have really found F.D’s videos instrumental in better understanding the nuances of understanding the world. I really hope to personally connect with F.D signifier and help him in a video about the struggles and ramifications of what Autistic people go through and how we can work to make us feel more included. To be honest, it is the rejection that I always dealt with and still do struggle against that pulls me to the manoshere and other toxic thought patterns.

New sub here 🙋🏽‍♀️ love your content….these incels literally drove me off this app lol. I’m laughing but totally not funny. I post fitness content and they would flood my comment section with the most hateful, vile things and regurgitating the same talking pieces from these manosphere podcasts. I can tell they were young and they assumed I’m a lot younger than I am (I’m 39 btw). I had to turn off my comment section too many times until I just no longer found it enjoyable to even post here so I completely stopped. I’ve had horrible experiences over the years with incels but NOTHING comes close to how bad it is now. Thank you for your work here.