I escaped the 'manosphere' - and others can too

As a teenager, Will Adolphy became increasingly isolated from his family, following male influencers to figure out how a real man should look, feel and act.

He became drawn into the so-called 'manosphere': an online space where men share views that women should be subservient to men.

In Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett, Will talks through the hooks that drew him into online misogyny - and how he is helping boys and young men avoid the same experience.

At his school, there was a culture of what Will describes as “the man box”: a collection of rules that, as a boy, he felt immense pressure to follow.

“Don't be gay," he remembers thinking: "Don't be a sissy. Don't be a wuss. Be strong. Be stoic. You must be athletic.”

“It comes from everywhere,” Will states, citing everything from teachers, parents, films, adverts, to popular music. “This messaging is happening on a subconscious level.”

Will was sensitive. He wanted to do ballet, and be an actor, but his early teenage years were defined by seeking the acceptance of his peers.

“Being one of the boys was the most important thing in my life,” he states. “Not having the approval of others is devastating at any age but when you're a teenager it’s life or death.”

“That was a huge part of my childhood,” he adds. “That was a part of what drew me in later on down the line.”

When he was 17, Will’s parents split up.

“For many years, it was really tough,” he explains. “It was just an incredibly volatile home.”

He moved into his dad's office at the end of the garden, with his bed and his gaming station.

“I think that was my way of just kind of separating myself from the tension that I was absorbing in the house,” he says. “There were arguments, there was violence.”

A lot of the friction was over his gaming, which he had become addicted to.

“That Xbox was the only place and time in my life where I felt a sense of comfort and ease from what was happening at school; from what was happening at home.”

Will didn’t talk to anyone about what he was experiencing.

“I just didn't have the language to know what was going on with me. It was my normal.”

He began watching so-called 'pick-up artist' content, who were supposedly teaching young men how to be more confident around women.

It was the thin of the wedge into the 'manosphere,' and after university, he increasingly found himself drawn to this space - a loose ecosystem of influencers, ideologies, and platforms.

"I was still feeling pressure to be a real man and to be successful and I was failing," Will says. "I wasn't earning a lot of money."

"And then on the other hand there was this pressure that I was experiencing to not be toxic and so it felt like it was coming from both sides.”

When the #MeToo movement hit, Will found himself getting frustrated with what he perceived as the narrative.

As a straight white man, he was hearing that he was privileged; that he had it easy. But in reality, he was miserable and suffering from panic attacks.

“I really didn't want to be here,” he admits. “I was watching a lot of videos in my room and I was feeling a lot of resentment towards the world.”

"The very clear messaging was feminism is a poison,” he recalls. “It's bad for men, and the world is kind of rigged against men.”

He began to feel validated and understood by the voices he was hearing online. “That was what really pulled me in a lot of the time,” he says.

“I was primarily watching for self-help because I felt so depressed and anxious… And here was an influencer telling me how to not feel depressed and anxious.”

One particular influencer became like a father figure to him.

“It felt so relieving to have someone who had all the answers,” he recounts.

“I had a painting of them on my wall,” he states. “In every conversation that I was in with people, I would often quote them.”

“It created this suspiciousness around women that I was meeting,” Will admits.

“It really did feel like feminism was out to get me as a man. So, I remember leaving my house and thinking, I might come across a feminist who's going to attack me, so I need to be ready.”

It affected his long-term relationship. “It felt very hard to connect with her and let in and empathise with her experiences as a woman.”

“As I was watching more and more content, I developed a worldview that the world was against me and that the world was feminist and woke and that I had to protect myself from that world and hide.”

Will and his partner broke up. It was during COVID, he wasn’t working, and he became “submerged” in depression.

Then one day, something changed, and Will realised he needed to do something.

“It just became clear at that time… I'm either going to have a miserable life or I'm going to take my own life," Will says.

A friend suggested that he spend time away from all the noise, so he booked himself a week's stay in Wales.

He decided to put down the phone and laptop - choosing instead to walk, meditate and "face this within me".

This was a "mind-blowing" moment for Will: "All of this stuff just came pouring out of me… I was feeling the pain and I was okay."

It helped Will realise his purpose: to train as a therapist to help boys and men like himself.

He believes he is in "a unique position" to create empathetic spaces where men and young boys can open up about their experiences.

Part of the process was also accepting that, in his words, he was "blind to the kind of harm and the trauma of women and girls."

Will now understands where some of the anger and hostility towards masculinity was coming from.

“It wasn't just coming out of thin air, and I used to think it was… I wasn't able to empathise but now I do find myself in a position where I'm able to sit in a violence against women and girls’ space and truly listen.”

Will, now a public speaker, says the key to helping young men and boys is to "focus on the connection" - approaching them in a way that doesn’t shame them.

"It might be just having a cup of tea," he says.

“When there's a kind of safety and trust built, we can feel more readily able to talk about things that could be really useful to talk about.”

“What are you watching online? What are you coming across? What are your thoughts about the world? What do you wish I would know about what it means to be a teenager now? These are just some of the questions we can ask.”

Will is clear: "Rigid worldviews, they fester in isolation... I wasn't speaking to many people because it was scary and it led to arguments.”

“I look back at that time in my life and I can see why some of the advice was really compelling, really useful. And a lot of that harmful messaging seeped in.”

When the online world is offering boys the camaraderie and validation they are missing, that’s a “real hook,” warns Will.

For him, real-life connections were the cure - and he is keen to spread the message.

“Developing an attachment to an influencer, it just completely lost its allure and power when I started to connect to the actual world, to the actual people.”

You can hear the full episode of 'Escaping the Manosphere with Will Adolphy', and other stories like it, on Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett. Listen on BBC Sounds.