‘He should’ve killed your ass’: Notes on Black women deserving death in the Black manosphere

Abstract

Netflix’s TV Series Adolescence (2025) has brought to the mainstream the harrowing implications of Andrew Tate’s outsized influence, the manosphere, and ‘incel’ culture and discourse. Adolescence makes visible the often-invisible connection between the manosphere and the murders of girls and women. While Adolescence has enjoyed broad praise, some critics have accused the show of ‘race-swapping’ and ‘anti-white propaganda’ because it features a white boy as the murderer. While this view has been largely debunked, the need to defend Black boys from white supremacist attacks that claim they are inherently prone to violence simultaneously creates challenges for acknowledging violence against Black girls and women. I argue that acknowledging the breadth of the manosphere – and particularly, the existence of the Black manosphere – is important to combat violence against Black girls and women.