I can't quite believe in its existence. Certainly there are content providers catering to men, some of them rather unpleasant, others less so. But to find an online space catering almost exclusively to men, with a coherent theme, seems impossible. Many groups supposedly in or of the manosphere seem to have opposing ethics.

When I became interested in financial matters, it was easy to find, say, fintwit- financial twitter. Not everyone agreed, but everyone was interested in finance.

'The manosphere' doesn't appear to exist anywhere. To listen to mainstream media, one may buy a ticket for 'the manosphere' and be immediately ushered into a carnival world of misogyny and cage-fighting. Where every guy is toxic, many are impressionable and The Matrix is ever lurking to ensnare the unwary.

I have a theory that what is called the manosphere is a disparate jumble of ideologies, with no guiding shared idea. And that the popular idea of the manosphere is a phantasm, a boogeyman, perhaps even a form of propaganda.

This isn't to say that various young men aren't feeling alienated and turning to negative male influencers to fill the gap left by society. But I'm suggesting that this isn't a cohesive hidden society of males, as claimed, and is instead more linked to a cult of personality with individuals, or an individual ethos shared by a small group rather than the imagined whole.

Why does this bother me? 1) because it seems disingenuous, and 2) I think it can be used to block discussion of boys and men's genuine needs and issues.