11 Red-Pill Influencers To Watch Out For, If You Hear Your Kid Mention Their Names
Brb, Googling “how to block the manosphere forever.”
If you’re raising sons in the U.S., chances are you’ve lost at least a little sleep worrying about his online influences. Whether the international news headlines about Andrew Tate made you more aware of this, um, digital footprint, or Netflix’s Adolescence was your first foray into understanding red pilling, today’s parents are having to think a whole awful lot about what ideas their sons are absorbing online. If you want to preemptively block some bad influences, these are a few red-pill influencers you could start with.
If you’re new to the jargon, being red-pilled (as in The Matrix) means being awakened to the world as it actually is, in the views of manosphere believers. The manosphere is an online community that believes in male supremacy, with followers “fighting against progressive (or ‘woke’) ideas about gender equality,” according to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
When it comes to preventing their children from becoming part of the manosphere, parents are divided on whether they want to keep their kids offline altogether or use the content as a media literacy lesson. In any case, it’s helpful to know who some of the most prominent faces of the movement are so that if you hear their names around your house, you know it’s time for a conversation. (And don’t hesitate to visit Reddit to see what the consensus is about your kids’ faves — unfortunately, there’s no shortage of red-pill influencers on the World Wide Web.)
Andrew Tate
He’s the face of the manosphere, who also just so happens to have been detained by Romanian authorities for alleged rape, human trafficking, and organized crime (the Tate brothers are also being investigated by U.S. officials). And all of that started with his journey to become the ultimate man, doling out advice to younger men online about how women lose value with each sexual encounter they have, for example, and they should clean up around the house without having to be told.
Jedediah Bila
If you want advice on attracting a “high value male” or to be torn down for literally anything you could possibly do as a woman, then Bila’s account is for you. (I’m assuming your answer is a big fat “no thanks.”) The insidious thing about women espousing anti-feminist beliefs is that, to young men, it can legitimize these ideas even more, so I think it’s important to know about those figures, too.
Hamza Ahmed
The Guardian calls Ahmed “the most prominent manosphere influencer in the UK, with 2.28 million people following his controversial advice on dating, health and making money.” He runs an online academy that claims to teach boys how to become “top 1% men” for a cool $999 lifetime subscription fee, while also pushing hypermasculine beliefs in his online content.
Joe Rogan
Rogan himself is already a controversial figure, but the format of this podcast — one of the most popular in the world — allows his guests to really dictate the conversation. An analysis by Alexandra Klocker at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University found that, of Rogan's nearly 2,500 episodes most include a guest, 89% have been men, 11% have been women, and four individuals have been transgender.
Some of the guests have included Stefan Molyneux, a white supremacist and men's rights activist; Christina Sommers, an author of books critiquing feminism and advocating for men's rights; and Jordan Peterson, a psychologist and author who promotes gender essentialism. Oh, and some guys who apparently tried to get an "altered, misogynistic" version of Mein Kampf published in a feminist journal? Super.
Adin Ross
With over 4.5 million subscribers, your teen is likely to come across an Adin Ross video at some point, like the one where he flips a Cybertruck to see if it’ll dent. But according to Redditors, he has fallen down the alt right pipeline in recent years — in fact, he actually takes some credit for swaying the election in Donald Trump’s favor after having him on as a podcast guest. And he makes plenty of episodes being really critical of women.
Walter Weekes & Myron Gaines
These two host the Fresh and Fit podcast, which bills itself on YouTube as “the #1 men’s self-improvement podcast in the world” and boasts 1.57 million subscribers. Episodes center on themes of becoming an alpha male and talking about traditional gender roles, as well as inviting women onto the podcast to essentially tear them down. They promote male supremacy and offer audiences a chance to see women get “put in their place” — a very scary thing for teen boys to see as normal, if you ask me.
Sneako
Internet personality Sneako (real name Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy) is “a conservative online content creator who has faced bans from YouTube and Twitch for spreading misinformation and comments deemed as antisemitic,” according to The New York Times.
A report from Congress on the dangers of manosphere content also references Sneako, saying that while he may have started with “man on the street” interview videos, his content has become an imitation of Andrew Tate’s that is “misogynistic and hateful.” He’s a frequent Fresh and Fit guest, for example.
JustPearlyThings
H. Pearl Davis posts anti-women, anti-trans, men’s rights content on her platforms. As that same report from Congress summarizes, she has “defended men cheating and leaving women for gaining weight, not cooking, or not sleeping with them. She has gone on a crusade against women for being what she describes as ‘shitty wives.’” She has also had plenty of problematic guests on her channels, like known white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Charlie Kirk
Kirk is the co-founder and executive director of Turning Point USA; a lot of his online presence revolves around extreme right-wing politics. But he also espouses a lot of hyper-traditional values: that men must get married, have children, and be providers in order to be their happiest, a plethora of anti-LGBTQ takes, and what X users call out as thinly veiled racism when he can swing it.
Steven Crowder
He’s another man with a microphone, and even conservative women who also promote traditional values are not safe from drawing his ire. The Louder with Crowder podcast and website generally slam anyone or anything promoting gay and trans rights, and his opinions tend to align with red pill and alt-right ideologies.
Dan Bilzerian
I’m not going to share any of Bilzerian’s content here, because it’s just a lot of objectifying women on the internet and brandishing of wealth. Let’s just say his posts definitely promote a very specific, hypermasculine way of being a man that leans... extreme.
Reading and listening to this kind of rhetoric can be a lot, but it’s important that we know what’s happening online so we can talk to our children about it, too.
