This is the third part of a series on the crisis of masculinity among young men. Earlier installments followed the story of Will Adolphy and examined the lack of strong male role models in modern media.
Will Adolphy was a young adult, but he still struggled with what it meant to be a man. Growing up in the United Kingdom, he had been a sensitive child, one who dealt with sickness and bullying. As he grew older, his quest to become what he calls “a real man” led him online to what is now known as the “manosphere.”
In that realm, where men complained that women were usurping traditional gender roles, he was drawn to one influencer who soon became a father figure. (Since going public with his story, Adolphy has not identified the specific influencer.)
The experience, Adolphy says, was “amazing.” Until it wasn’t.
“I was looking for intellectually stimulating self-help stuff,” Adolphy told Straight Arrow News. “I wanted to feel better. I felt so bad.”
It was around the time of the #MeToo movement. People were telling him how much easier it was to be a man than a woman. At a concert, the lead singer of a band blurted out, “Men to the back, men to the back.”
“It was relieving to be sat with someone who was saying, ‘There is nothing less valued than young men,’” Adolphy said. “That really spoke to a part of me that wasn’t feeling valued or saying that masculinity isn’t toxic.”
“It’s like having someone that has the answers,” he said. “It just feels amazing.”
Even if, as he later saw, the influencer he began following was “almost like a cult leader.”
What makes a cult?
The comparison of big personalities and cults isn’t a new phenomenon. Sociologists Chris Rojek, Dr. Stephanie Alice Baker and Eugene McLaughlin wrote “Cults,” which studied groups from the Manson family to figures like Elon Musk. They turned it into a podcast, “Twenty-First Century Cults,” with episodes exploring how Musk, Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and influencers Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate are “tapping into the crisis of masculinity to build cult-like followings.”
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Addictive screen use (social media, smartphone or video games) is associated with an elevated risk of suicidal behaviors or ideation.
“They’re more cult gurus who have established these online followings through digital and social media,” Baker told SAN.
“For many people, what society is now [is] the cult to which they’re attached,” Rojek added. “So this idea of a broad church, which we all grew up with, for younger people in particular, doesn’t seem to be commonly shared. Some people immediately think, ‘I’m a Jordan Peterson guy,’ or ‘I’m a Kanye West guy,’ rather than ‘I’m a British citizen’ or ‘I’m an American citizen.’”
The researchers say these “gurus” operate differently than traditional, in-person cults to which followers are unknowingly recruited. But the threads tying them together are a common sense of belonging and a common enemy.
“The cult gets stronger when it identifies enemies that must be conquered, and that’s a feature of cult formation,” said Rojek, the head of the sociology and criminology department at City St. George’s, University of London.
Cults of personality, especially in entertainment, aren’t uncommon. There have been conversations about whether fans of Taylor Swift could be characterized as a cult or how Oprah Winfrey gained a huge following.
Baker, an associate professor of sociology at City St. George’s, says another “defining characteristic of a cult is that people are actively recruited.”
Rojek says people struggling with mental health issues “don’t have their warning lights switched on,” so it is easy to engage with online creators “who aren’t necessarily acting in the best interests of the beholders who go onto the internet.”
Content addiction
The internet has made it easier to find communities of like-minded people. Experts say the easily made connections have upsides and downsides.
“Because (of) the web, you can find people like yourself,” Matt Englar-Carlson, a researcher at California State University, Fullerton, told SAN. “So, as opposed to being a loner by yourself, who kind of wanders around on his own, there are ways in which you can find community.”
Adolphy wasn’t alone in consuming this type of content. In the U.K., where he lives, 63% of young men watched masculinity influencers, according to a survey done by Movember.
However, the issue may extend beyond the type of content users consume. According to AddictionHelp, roughly 10% of Americans are addicted to social media.
Adolphy thinks Big Tech companies bear some responsibility for designing apps to “hook our brains.”
“It is an addiction; our attention has been hijacked by the attention economy,” he added.
Rojek and Baker say the algorithms that power the major video apps are more of a symptom of the issue than the cause. However, Baker agrees that social media companies have great power.
“As soon as somebody, say, for example, opens TikTok, they are straight away bombarded with constant videos that become more personalized as they click on certain content, engage with content and swipe off other content,” she explained.
That includes content posted by influencers.
“It’s really tempting to simplify the power of these figures to something like the algorithm, which certainly plays a part, but I only think it’s part of the reason why these figures are so popular,” she added.
Englar-Carlson traces issues with social media addiction to the advent of smartphones more than a decade ago.
“We’re going to look back and say, ‘What the hell were we thinking when it came to cell phones,’” Englar-Carlson said. “We already have the data that shows the significant increase in mental health issues in kids.”
Recently released research found that children addicted to their smartphones, social media or video games were more likely to report suicidal behaviors.
A sense of belonging
Adolphy listened to a single content creator for 3 to 4 hours a week.
“You get to know them,” he said. “It’s an intimate experience.
“It wasn’t necessarily about the information I was getting at times,” he said. “It was more about the relationship I had with the influencer and the fact that this person became a father figure to me. I had a painting of them on my wall and they took up a space in my psyche that was so prominent, I mentioned them in mostly every conversation I’d have with friends.”
Englar-Carlson says the connection can give a sense of belonging, similar to that of being a fan of a sports team or a musician.
“The association bolsters your sense of identity and your sense of masculinity in the eyes of other men,” he said.
Adolphy’s attachment made him shut out dissenting opinions.
“If someone brought a piece of information to me that may have been really valid and reasoned and worth listening to,” he said, “I didn’t want to hear it because it was threatening my attachment to the influencer.”
Breaking the addiction
Adolphy said he needed to isolate to come to terms with his addiction.
“I realized, ‘Oh, I’ve never spent time with myself. I’m always searching out,’” he said. “I’m always watching a YouTube video with a tub of hummus or thinking about what’s next.”
“I booked an Airbnb at this place. I went there on my own, and I put down my phone and my laptop, and I actually noticed a shift when I booked the Airbnb, like I’d taken an action towards facing myself. And it was in this kind of space where I didn’t have the phone, I didn’t have the laptop, where all of this stuff just came out of being. I was writing in my journal so many hours a day, just writing, just getting this stuff all out.
“And then I suddenly heard a voice in me say, ‘Oh, just train to be a therapist.’”
Recovery, however, wasn’t an overnight experience. Adolphy took part in a 12-step program and went offline for five years to “feel his feelings.” But at times, he wasn’t confident about the progress he was making.
“My moods always used to fluctuate, go up and down,” he told SAN. “And at first, it felt really boring… And then it just became something that I wouldn’t trade for anything because it’s just incredible to have that level of stability and to not feel like I’m having panic attacks anymore, to not feel like I’m in depression.”
He became a therapist and now works with M-Path — an organization focusing on men’s mental health in the U.K.
“We travel around schools, we deliver talks, workshops and staff CPD (continuing professional development) sessions and parent sessions, talking about the man box and modeling vulnerability,” he said of M-Path’s work. “We go there and we share our stories.”
He often sees young people exhibiting the tendencies he once showed.
“They’ll come in, and there’ll be this kind of sense of just being shut down, being disengaged,” he said. “And then by the end of a talk, they’ll be like, their eyes open, paying attention, and I’ll be like, ‘Wow.’ And that’s enough for me.
“I’m not going to be able to reach everyone, and that’s the thing that people find difficult. Sometimes it’s like, if a young person really doesn’t want to connect with me, I can’t fix them. I can’t change that. I’m here if they do. So, as long as I make it clear to them, ‘I’m here, when you’re ready, I’m here, I’m ready to connect,’ I might be able to reach them.”
