The lights dim, the cameras roll, and out steps a man who once played superheroes for a living. Now he is something else entirely: a prophet for the disaffected, a guru of grievance, a man whose Instagram captions read like memos from a basement kingdom. Our cultural watchdog, the British Film Institute, has launched an inquiry into the rise of what they call ‘manosphere content’ among mainstream actors. But this is not a story about algorithms. It is a story about why a generation of young men is swapping the cinema for the podcast circuit, and what they are finding there.
He is not the first. There have been others, each one a little more polished, a little more dangerous. But this one is different. He is a Hollywood star, a man who once smiled from billboards and now sneers from thumbnail. His message is simple, seductive, and profoundly corrosive. It is the old myth of masculine decline, dressed up in the language of self-help. He tells his followers that they are victims, that the world is rigged against them, that the only path to redemption is through resentment. And they believe him.
The cultural watchdog’s report is dry, academic, full of terms like ‘post-feminist backlash’ and ‘digital radicalisation’. But on the street, the story is different. In London, in Manchester, in Glasgow, young men are gathering in living rooms and coffee shops to watch his videos. They are not angry. They are not violent. They are simply lost. They are the sons of a world that promised them everything and gave them nothing. They are the ghosts of a prosperity that never arrived. And he is their guide.
What is striking is the banality of it all. The content is not shocking. It is boring. It is the same tired complaints about feminism, about weakness, about the loss of some mythical golden age. But it is delivered with the conviction of a man who believes his own hype. He speaks in the flat, assured tones of a motivational speaker, but his message is a funeral march. He tells them that their pain is real, and it is. But he does not tell them why. He does not talk about the economy, about the collapse of community, about the loneliness of modern life. He talks about women, about power, about revenge. It is a lie, but it is a comfortable one.
The real story here is not the man himself. He is a symptom, not a cause. The real story is the void he fills. For decades, we have told young men that they must be strong, but we have given them no tools. We have told them to be providers, but we have taken away their work. We have told them to be leaders, but we have denied them a purpose. And into that void steps a Hollywood star, peddling a philosophy that is as old as patriarchy itself. It is a tragedy, and it is one we are all complicit in.
The cultural watchdog will release their findings next month. They will recommend regulations, monitoring, perhaps even censorship. But these are gestures. The real battle is not about content. It is about the conditions that create the demand for it. Until we address the loneliness, the economic insecurity, the erosion of meaning in men’s lives, the manosphere will continue to grow. And Hollywood will continue to supply its saints.
For now, the apostle of resentment gives his sermons to a congregation that only grows larger. They do not know they are being sold a lie. They only know that someone, finally, is acknowledging their pain. That is a powerful thing. And it is a dangerous one.
