Monday, August 17, 2026

The manosphere isn’t just an ideology–it’s an economy

The manosphere has infiltrated every aspect of our society—social media and content creators, dating, politics, businesses.

On that last point, my colleague Sasha Rogelberg has a new story in Fortune reminding us that surrounding the manosphere is an entire economy. She’s covering a new report titled “The Grift Economy: How Young Men Are Being Sold Fake Belonging and Fake Wealth Online.”

Indeed, while influencers peddling an anti-feminist view of the world that wants men to hold power over women have gone mainstream, much of what they’re selling is not based in reality. “A pipeline built on attention, grievance, and trust is engineered to convert young men into revenue,” the report argues. What’s being exploited and misdirected is men’s search for belonging and for economic security.

There are endless online courses; promotion of intense exercise, supplements and “looksmaxxing;” and streaming. Content creators who promote this kind of lifestyle are earning insane sums—one streamer named Adin Ross is raking in $30,000 to $50,000 an hour, Sasha reports. (And he has an equity stake in the platform he streams on.) Online courses, sponsorship, speaker fees: they all add up to between $1 million and $10 million a year for many of these grifter-manfluencers.

If you want to better understand this world and its impact on the rest of us, I highly recommend taking the hour+ to revisit Heidi Blake’s June New Yorker investigation into Andrew Tate, the ur-manosphere influencer. While the investigation covers the many allegations of sexual abuse against Tate and his brother Tristan (he has denied them, but he was arrested on new U.K. charges in July), it also lays out the vast web of business endeavors that makes his lifestyle possible—and leads thousands of young men to aspire to the same. According to the new report, his main platform draws $99 a month from 155,000 “students,” for a total of $184 million a year.

Identifying the manosphere as a commercial operation, whose actors are motivated by profit, rather than a true political movement is key to countering it. The full report is here.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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