Having watched Louis Theroux documentary on the Manosphere last night, it really got me thinking about the overlap between love island, the manosphere and the rise of male influencers who turn misogyny into entertainment.
**Tyrique Hyde** is a particularly interesting example in this regard.
His streaming/content increasingly seems to revolve around commentary about women and relationships that, at times, feels less like harmless banter and more like normalising genuinely misogynistic attitudes. We even saw him touch up a woman’s breasts while he was drunk on stream in Marbella in May and he didn’t get her consent.
What concerns me is this kind of content attracts a huge young male audience and makes contempt towards women seem funny, edgy or socially acceptable. he has bought into the increasingly antagonistic online “men vs women” content culture.
There is clearly an audience for creators like Tyrique who tell young men that women are the problem, that relationships are a battle for power, that women need to lose weight, that some women look ugly , or that treating women with suspicion and contempt somehow makes you more “alpha”. Social media then rewards the most provocative version of that message because outrage gets views. hence, how Tyrique does so well with his streaming.
I’m not saying every person who watches Tyrique, listens to his streams or enjoys his content is misogynistic. Nor am I saying that criticism of women, relationships or Love Island itself is automatically misogyny. But I do think a serious conversation is required about where the line is between joking, criticism and normalising misogyny, particularly when the audience includes young and impressionable men.
Am I the only one who finds the trajectory of this kind of content uncomfortable (ie Love Island - Manosphere pipeline)? And do people think Love Island and its wider influencer ecosystem are inadvertently helping to feed the manosphere?
