“I Can Choose to be a Good Man Even if I Got a Raw Deal”: Neoliberal Heteromasculinity as Manosphere Counter Narrative in r/Stoicism

Abstract

This article provides findings from our dual-computational/qualitative analysis of r/Stoicism, a large subreddit in which self-presenting boys and men seek Stoic philosophical advice on various life matters. In choosing to investigate this decidedly (hetero)masculinized online space in which users share their anxieties and grievances, we expected to find substantial evidence of “toxic” manosphere-style discourse, while also hoping to uncover counter patterns which, like Maloney et al.’s study of 4chan, complicate assumptions around the discursive practices of boys and men in online spaces such as these. Rather, what we found was a complete absence of toxic discourse, and instead the presence of patterns which complicate the logics underpinning efforts at deradicalization and wider socio-positive masculinity agendas. Thorburn’s work has been important in foregrounding how the “neoliberal emphasis on individualism and a capitalist ‘hustle-culture’” underpin manosphere logics. Here, we see similar, albeit more palatable (to mainstream sensibilities), neoliberal tenets at work across counter logics, and reflect on why economic-structural explanations for boys’ and men’s anxieties are sidelined in such mainstream responses to the manosphere.

On December 29 of 2022, misogynistic social media influencer, Andrew Tate, was arrested (and later charged) in Romania on suspicion of rape and human trafficking. Reporting of the incident—and to a lesser extent of his banning from various social media platforms in the months leading up to it—exposed to the wider public the astonishing extent of the influencer’s popularity among the heterosexual boys and men to whom his content is geared. As part of the broader online “manosphere”—a loose network of anti-feminist and reactionary online spaces and communities—Tate’s popularity reflects the growing influence and normalization of this online culture’s views among a cohort of boys and men looking for role models and trying to make sense of their lives. Indeed, a recent YouGov poll (Smith, 2023) found that 27% of British young men agree with his positions on women, which include beliefs such as that they “bear responsibility” as victims of sexual assault, and that they should be principally socialized into the roles of “loving mother and loyal wife” (Tate cited in Das, 2022).

A substantial body of feminist media scholarship, most notably the work of Ging (2019; Ging et al., 2020), provides a thorough account of manosphere logics, while pointing to a broader trend of masculine anxieties over “men’s [shifting] position in the social hierarchy as a result of feminism” (Ging, 2019, p. 653). More recently, and with a view to furthering both deradicalization efforts and broader socio-positive “alternative narratives” (Roose et al., 2022) of masculinity, a number of “critically empathetic” (Lobb, 2017) studies have pivoted toward trying to better understand the preconditions and drivers—social, psychological, cultural and economic—which make individual boys and men vulnerable to being drawn into (or further into) this detrimental online world. For example, Maloney et al.’s (2022, pp. 2, 17) study of 4chan’s advice board found that users “yet to practice” reactionary, antifeminist outlooks were entering into this notorious manosphere breeding ground because they felt “safer expressing their vulnerabilities on 4chan [than] through conventional channels of understanding and support.” Complimenting this, Thorburn’s (2023a) study of two Reddit subreddits devoted to “assisting individuals [to] leave the manosphere” highlights “the greater need for conceptual nuance” in understanding how and why boys and men inhabit manosphere spaces, while also uncovering significant instances in which related platforms are being utilized as spaces of internal resistance and deradicalization.

Building on this nascent scholarly agenda, and specifically responding to Maloney et al.’s (2022) call “to explore other . . . similarly infamous online masculinist spaces, with a view to assessing the extent to which what has been uncovered here is more broadly echoed elsewhere” (p. 17), this article provides findings from our dual-computational/qualitative analysis of r/Stoicism, a large subreddit—with 572,367 members, and among Reddit’s top 1% of all subreddits—in which self-presenting boys and men seek Stoic philosophical advice on various life matters. In choosing to investigate this decidedly (hetero)masculinized online space in which users share their anxieties and grievances, we expected to find substantial evidence of “toxic” manosphere-style discourse, while also hoping to uncover counter patterns which, like Maloney et al.’s (2022) study of 4chan, complicate assumptions around the discursive practices of boys and men in online spaces such as these. Rather, what we found was a complete absence of toxic discourse, and instead the presence of patterns which complicate the logics underpinning efforts at deradicalization, such as those also uncovered by Thorburn (2023a, 2023b).

Literature Review

The Manosphere and Precarious Masculinities

As outlined, the manosphere is a “loosely connected group of anti-feminist Internet communities” (Van Valkenburgh, 2021, p. 84) spanning across video sharing platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Rumble; message board platforms such as Reddit and 4chan; and other online forums and spaces. Ging (2019) provides the definitive account of the manosphere’s aggrieved ideological logics, as well as its various subgroups, from the “turbocharged genetic determinism” of the pickup artist set, to the “beta factions” of geek culture which “embrace self-deprecating identifiers such as ‘incel’ (involuntarily celibate) and ‘betafag’.” As Ging (2019, p. 640) explains, “the key concept that unites” these subgroups is the notion of the “Red Pill philosophy,” an outlook which frames contemporary men’s issues and anxieties as products of a society in thrall to feminist (and more broadly progressive) forces aimed at subordinating their interests—especially white and cisgender heterosexual men’s interests. As its unifying logic, Red Pill philosophy is employed in manosphere communities to explain a range of contemporary men’s issues, including failure in the sexual and romantic marketplace, and difficulty in achieving meaningful and secure employment.

A substantial body of knowledge now exists, building on Ging’s (2019) framework. Notable examples include Dickel and Evolvi’s (2023) study of manosphere responses to the #MeToo movement; Krendel’s (2020) larger scale linguistic analysis which provides rigorous confirmation of the subculture’s misogynistic, and more broadly patriarchal, ideological underpinnings; and Ging et al.’s (2020) own study of satirical website, Urban Dictionary, as an example of the manosphere’s porous boundaries and the extent to which its “discourses of extreme misogyny and anti-feminism” have begun to spread to other, seemingly more banal online spaces. Particular attention has been paid to incels, no doubt partly due to the horrifying real-world implications of this subgroup’s grim worldview—such as the mass shootings committed by Elliot Roger and Jake Davison in 2014 and 2021, respectively—as well as its more clearly circumscribed presence. For example, through her notion of the “monstrous-feminine,” Chang (2020) provides a useful theoretical frame for understanding the central imagined figure around which the incel worldview orbits; and Cottee (2021) outlines how the subgroup does, and does not, meet criteria necessary to be defined as “violent extremism.”

As stated, less attention has been paid to what is driving increasing numbers of boys and men into manosphere spaces. Drawing on notions of “ontological insecurity” similar to Maloney et al. (2022), Bujalka et al.’s (2022) critical discourse analysis of manosphere “thought leaders” represents the most explicit effort at understanding “the impetus or draw” of the manosphere among boys and men, highlighting (as we do above) the neoliberal socioeconomic pressures on which antifeminist and reactionary narratives disingenuously feed. However, as with similar journalistic claims (e.g., Setty, 2023), the proposed relationship between socioeconomic drivers and reactionary cultural narratives remains, in this case, (reasonably) postulated and in need of further qualitative investigation. Furthermore, in their principal focus on the content produced by high-profile figures seeking to monetize their views, Bujalka et al. (2022) unduly reduce this complex ideological phenomenon to a form of profit-driven “racketeering.” The aforementioned study by Thorburn (2023a) provides important qualitative depth to the proposed link between socioeconomic anxieties and manosphere outcomes, with a particular emphasis in the dataset on issues of isolation, inadequacy, and “romantic rejection.” Finally, Puhrmann and Schlaerth’s (2024) Durkheimian study of the incel-dedicated forum, incels.is, similarly focuses on “the social forces that lead to membership,” articulated here as preconditions of anomie and a perceived level of disenfranchisement tantamount to “social death.”

Popular Stoicism and Masculinity

As an online space in which predominately male users seek and share what they understand as being Stoic philosophical advice, our investigation of r/Stoicism requires an understanding of what the concept itself might mean to this community. More broadly, stoicism is used to discuss three distinct, albeit overlapping, cultural phenomena, tied (in some ways awkwardly) together by a focus on how individuals can better manage their emotional responses to negative experiences. First, there is “capital S” Stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophical tradition—coalescing around the belief that “virtue alone is sufficient for happiness and that external goods and circumstances are irrelevant” (Sellars, 2006, p. 3)—with which this article is only tangentially concerned. More pertinent to this study are notions of “stoicism”—informing both gender scholarship and public discourse—as representing the suppressive “exercising of emotional control” (Martin, 2016, p. 100) in response to life’s challenges and hardships. The relationship between this notion of stoicism and Connell’s (1995) foundational conceptualization of “hegemonic masculinity”—“the currently most honored way of being a man, [that requires] all other men to position themselves in relation to it” (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 832)—has been firmly established across a vast range of gender scholarship, with the former seen as crucially reinforcing the latter. To explicate, hegemonic masculinity (within many contexts) codifies displays of emotional sensitivity as “feminine,” thereby discouraging boys and men from adopting such practices through fear of being seen as “girly” or “gay.” This gendered policing of behavior in turn reproduces and naturalizes traditional or orthodox understandings of what “masculinity” (especially heteromasculinity) is, and should be.

The third associated phenomenon is “popular Stoicism” which Dopierała (2022) defines as “a modern, simplified, and often commercialized version of ancient Stoicism” (p. 154). Surging in popularity over the last decade or so—across numerous best-selling “self-help”-style authors and their books, and a range of YouTube channels and other dedicated web spaces—this contemporary iteration remains unexplored in scholarship beyond Dopierała (2022, p. 163), whose groundbreaking Foucauldian study highlights how it is reimagined in these uses as a neoliberal-therapeutic “technology of the self.” A range of journalistic accounts have documented popular Stoicism’s increasingly widespread appeal, and how this relates to broader social and cultural realities. Referring to the phenomenon as “modern Stoicism,” Brunetti (2020) notes it as “receiving attention from the international media since November 2012, when the first annual Stoic Week event was organized.” In drawing distinctions between the ancient philosophical tradition and its contemporary popular iteration, Brunetti (2020) argues that “perhaps the most obvious difference between ancient stoicism and its modern form is related to their respective attitudes towards money and power,” with the latter often promoted as a pathway to better financial and social outcomes (vs. the former’s more metaphysical approach to wellbeing).

Love (2021) charts a comparable rise “over the last 10 years” while similarly attributing popular Stoicism’s appeal to how it complements broader trends of “capitalistic individualism [that] place priority on furthering personal interests or affluence.” Importantly, Love (2021) also highlights the outlook’s “outsized allure” among the sorts of male “tech-bro” types to whom Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Dorsey are role models. Described here and elsewhere (e.g., Makwana, 2023) as “Broicism,” this gendered subset of popular Stoicism’s devotees sees the phenomenon most clearly overlap with the manosphere communities previously outlined, positioning itself, to quote Bird (2023), as an “an antidote to ‘snowflake’ culture.” Pigliucci (2019) suggests an even closer relationship, describing Broicism as “an attitude that seeks in Stoicism the philosophical foundations . . . for the jumble of ideas popular within the so-called Manosphere.” Indeed, it is important to note that manosphere figures such as Tate (2023) have themselves often espoused a form of Stoicism that straddles the line between the success-oriented popular Stoicism (and its Broicism offshoot), and the “harden up” emotional suppressions associated with traditional/orthodox masculine ideals.

Methods

Data for this study were collected from Reddit using Python, specifically from the r/Stoicism subreddit. Posts were collected through the Reddit application programming interface (API) over a 1 year period, between 3 August 2022 and 3 August 2023. In total, 8,148 threads were collected, containing 69,602 replies. To understand the structure and discourse on the r/Stoicism subreddit, a mixed-methods approach was adopted, largely inspired by Maloney et al.’s (2022) “multilayered computational/qualitative” (p. 3) methodological study of 4chan. The computational inquiry engaged in here is more limited in comparison, involving a word frequency analysis of the entire dataset—Maloney et al. (2022) conducted a word frequency analysis, and broader analysis of posts and replies frequency—which we visualize in our “Findings” section in word cloud form. This provided broad and preliminary insights into discourse in r/Stoicism based on our overall interpretation of the most commonly occurring words in the dataset.

Following this, a qualitative thematic discourse analysis on a random sample of 2,000 replies was employed to gain deeper insights into the nature of the discussions occurring within the subreddit. Informed by the core digital ethnographic aim of “holistically and richly understand internet communities, while also allowing for the analysis of the motivations of individual participants within them” (Thorburn, 2023a, p. 3), our approach here—as illustrated in the introduction’s outline of the unexpected nature of this article’s findings, and how they challenged certain assumptions we held at the outset—was theoretically “grounded” and inductive, albeit within the boundaries of our interest in how users grapple with masculinity-related issues in a digital context such as this one.

This research design followed the ethical guidelines set by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Internet Research Ethics (IRE) 3.0 guidelines. Due to the large number of users, obtaining informed consent from them was impractical. However, the names, or any other identifying information, of users were not collected during the data collection process, which ensured absolute anonymity, safeguarding users (Wright et al., 2020) and minimizing the risk of potential hostility toward researchers (Jones et al., 2020).

Word Frequency Analysis

To develop some initial insights into the discursive themes within the r/Stoicism subreddit, the most frequently occurring words were identified through a word frequency analysis, conducted on the entire dataset. The outcome of this analysis was rendered as a word cloud, which can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

A word cloud that visualizes topical content within all posts, and their corresponding replies (n = 77,750) by highlighting the most commonly occurring words.

The word frequency analysis was conducted on all the posts (n = 8,148) along with their replies (n = 69,602), totaling 77,750 data points. Considering Figure 1, the prominence of words such as “stoicism,” “stoic,” and “reddit” are unsurprising, given the nature of the subreddit, and confirm that a significant portion of the discussion centers on Stoicism. The prevalence of words such as “life,” “advice,” “problem,” and “help” are notable, given that they suggest that seeking advice may be a significant feature of the subreddit. “People,” “person,” “friend,” and “someone” all occur frequently within the text corpus and further suggest that there is significant discussion of interpersonal relationships. In tandem with the prevalence of words related to advice, it was hypothesized that the discourse occurring within the r/Stoicism subreddit incorporated a large amount of help-seeking discourse, specifically relating to interpersonal relationships. The word frequency analysis was able to yield interesting, albeit broad and preliminary, insights into the discursive themes present within the r/Stoicism subreddit. However, the insights are general, and lack the ability to incorporate the context that surrounds prominent words. Here, a qualitative analysis was needed to complement the word frequency analysis, and to provide a more in-depth, complete understanding of the discourse.

Qualitative Analysis

This section reports on our qualitative analysis of the random sample set of 2000 r/Stoicism reply posts during the aforementioned 1-year period. In terms of how these data are structured, each unique reply links back to an original post to which it responded, and which we also collected for context. Therefore, while our analysis throughout this section principally focuses on replies as the best measure of the subreddit’s collective approach to life’s challenges, the overall volume of data surveyed (i.e., original posts and reply posts as parts of “threads”) was much larger. Of the 2,000 sample replies, 241 (or approximately 12%) related to purely academic discussions of stoic philosophy (e.g., how to find certain texts, or sources for specific quotes). Given this article’s focus on how users might employ r/Stoicism for making sense of their lives, and the potential role of gender and masculinity in this process, we removed this minority from further analysis, leaving 1,759 reply posts (and original posts for context) as our final relevant sample.

That the overwhelming majority of sample data (approximately 88%) from this philosophy subreddit—one ostensibly designed to encompass “all things related to Stoicism”—sees users sharing advice and support on life matters echoes the word frequency analysis outlined in the previous section, and firmly positions r/Stoicism as a de facto “space of ‘stranger intimacies’ [in which users] feel safer expressing their vulnerabilities” (Maloney et al., 2022, pp. 16, 17). Indeed, evidencing a community cognizant of the seemingly organic way in which their subreddit has developed in this way, the sample included occasional threads in which more academically inclined users bemoaned its use as self-help forum, only to receive pushback in replies such as “the whole point of developing a sage mindset is to help you live a morally good life through challenging circumstances.” Within this wider supportive tendency, four thematic categories emerged as clearly dominant: namely (and in order of prominence), “self-improvement,” “mental wellbeing,” “sex and romance,” and “emotions management.” Each of these categories is discussed in more detail in the relevant sections below. It should be noted that, in a small number of cases, reply posts spoke to more than one of the above themes (or indeed other, more minor themes). In these cases, posts were sorted into whichever category was dominant in the subject matter. To give one reoccurring example, there were a handful of threads focused on multiple discontents and/or grievances wherein specific failure in the sexual marketplace was paramount in both the reply and original post. These were therefore sorted into the “sex and romance” category.

Before we proceed, certain other characteristics across the sample (and across the four thematic categories) are worth noting. One commonly recurring reply (134 instances) was an automated one from moderators in which they provide a series of links to various sections of their own in-depth and Stoicism-grounded “Advice and coping with problems” resources post. These automated replies often appear to be elicited by original posts in which users either expressly stated or clearly implied an inability to continue with their lives under present circumstances. While it is beyond the scope of this article to assess the efficacy of these Stoicism-informed mental wellbeing resources, there was nothing in the material that would contradict the sorts of strategies and approaches found in more conventional mental wellbeing resources, online or offline (e.g., YoungMinds, 2024).

The moderators and community also exhibited awareness of Stoicism’s association in public discourse (and indeed gender and masculinity scholarship) with notions of hegemonic and “toxic” masculinity. In respect to the former, we contacted the moderators during the scoping period to see if they had any statistical data on the gender demographics of their membership. Having introduced ourselves and our research focus in the initial query—“with a specific interest in how men support each other in various online spaces”—moderator “mountaingoat369” was quick to assert (without any prior mention of toxic masculinity in our message) that “we are trying to promote a principled and virtuous culture for all folks and actively counter toxic masculinity tendencies among those who have a shallow understanding of the philosophy.” Interestingly, our sample suggests that moderators are not compelled to heavily police discourse on the subreddit for this, or any other, reason: instances in which posts were removed by moderators feature in our dataset as “[removed]” (vs. “[deleted]” in instances of users’ self-removal) and there were only 10 such instances across 2,000 reply posts.

In respect to the community, there were eight reply posts in the dataset—a small number in the overall scheme of things, but not insignificant given the topic’s specificity—relating to discussion of how notions of stoicism have become synonymous with toxic masculinity. With varying degrees of defensiveness, all of them rejected the association on the same grounds. Indeed, rather than challenge the critique along manosphere-type lines in which a “stoic” suppression of emotions is deemed a character strength, users here would instead argue that suppressing one’s emotions is not actually a tenet of the philosophy. Furthermore (and speaking directly to the popularity of manosphere ideologies among boys and men), one recurring thread linked to three unique replies saw users offering an original poster (OP) advice on “how to escape the red pill” such as “maybe you’ve been surrounded by loud opinions for so long that you’ve forgotten when [sic] your own inner voice sounds like” and “you will figure it out yourself with time and experience. Kudos to you for leaving that red pilled stuff behind.” What users in r/Stoicism do see as being the core beneficial aspects of their chosen philosophical outlook are explored in the thematic sections below.

Self-Improvement

By some margin, the most prominent theme in the relevant sample (537/1,759 replies, approximately 31%) saw users responding to either: statements and queries around how to apply stoic principles to improve life generally or in respect to specific aspects (e.g., careers or fitness); or testimonials from OPs about how their philosophical outlook had helped them meet life’s challenges. Of the four categories discussed here (and partly explaining its larger size), “self-improvement” encompassed the most diverse range of subject matter, and there were numerous instances in which the data spoke to themes overlapping with those explored in the other categories. However, where these other categories focused on users helping OPs overcome various problems of unhappiness, failure, and/or aggrievement, the discussions here are distinguished by an ontologically secure positioning, with users coming together to reflect on the value of certain principles and approaches, and celebrate each other’s biographical narratives of success.

Admittedly, the “self-help”-style data here are more banal than what we discuss elsewhere in these thematic subsections. However, the key patterns are nonetheless telling in what the community emphasizes as being the most important aspects of Stoicism. Moreover, they provide a useful foundation for understanding the advice offered in the other categories, and how r/Stoicism often acts as a space in which “the therapeutic ethos and the ideal of authenticity have become aligned with distinctively neo-liberal notions of personal responsibility and self-reliance” (Foster, 2016, p. 99). Most of the replies sought simply to either endorse, expand on, and/or clarify statements made by OPs about the utility of Stoicism in their lives. Commonly emphasized across these replies (and seeking to dispel perceived misinterpretations) were the notion of Stoicism as aiming toward a genuine acceptance of one’s circumstances—as opposed to apathy or emotional repression—and a complimentary endorsement of moderation in application—as opposed to rigid or ascetic self-discipline. To give three sentimentally typical examples:

To me stoicism is more about being aware of your emotions, and keeping them from influencing your decisions in a negative manner . . . I would point out that playing a video game with a friend to have a positive social interaction is no different then [sic] getting a cupcake or a beer. Social interaction is part of our nature, and nature is good. Being a friend is a purpose worth having.

Emotions are natural. Nothing wrong with being sad, happy, etc. Moderation is key. As Epictetus stated: it is okay to drink wine, just don’t drink a lot and act a fool. If we repressed all emotion we would be zombies. In times of hardship, personally, I use the Stoic exercise “a view from above.” Makes my problem look so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that it brings me back to neutral.

I think there’s a massive misconception that Stoicism and “acceptance” is just shrugging your shoulders and saying “woe is me.” It is not. Acceptance is merely acknowledging the reality of the world around us, withholding value judgments that aren’t about us, and choosing how to respond to it.

Here, as elsewhere, instances of gendered discourse, along with more specific evidence of self-identification—for example, references to being “good man” or “the man I want to be” and so on—suggest that the r/Stoicism community, much like Reddit itself (Gitnux, 2023), “overwhelmingly skews male,” to quote the moderator we reached out to. ¹ Furthermore, references to sexual and romantic relationships (more pertinent in the relevant section below) suggest that heterosexuality is similarly central to r/Stoicism’s “default avatar”—to borrow Salter and Blodgett’s (2017, p. 75) phrase for understanding the similar masculine heteronormativity of video gaming communities online.

Mental Wellbeing

The second most prominent theme (317/1,759 replies, approximately 18%) encompassed advice on issues relating to depression/hopelessness and/or anxiety/fear. ² While some of the original posts cited a specific causal factor ³ —such as grief-related depression over the loss of a family member, or feeling trapped and overwhelmed in a particular job—more often the sense of things being conveyed (and responded to) was either multidimensional or indeterminate and all-pervasive. Much like the previous category (and the ones to follow), instances of gendered discourse strongly suggest a predominately male and heterosexual community, and they most often emerged in posts in which intimacy was cited as being one of multiple key issues. No doubt a product of this community’s shared adherence to a specific philosophical outlook—and, more importantly, their shared understanding of what constitutes this outlook—replies in this category were uniformly supportive, and focused on providing practical advice, deeper reappraisals of circumstances, and/or simply expressing solidarity—often all within a given reply, to whatever extent.

The below reply to an OP’s multidimensional (encompassing romantic intimacy, work and family relations) lament that “life only gets harder, and it sucks” is indicative of the sort of in-depth practical advice commonly found in the data, in this case also veering into the other key patterns of deeper reappraisal and expressions of solidarity:

It’s not as simple but here are a few things that could help.1. When you wake up or go to bed, take some time to do nothing, it can be only 5 min, during those 5 min try to find at least one good thing that happened in the past and one good thing that’s coming . . . 2. Don’t try to tie everything to an ultimate meaning . . . Instead of searching for the ultimate meaning and goal, focus on small stuff that has meaning to you. “Why do I go to work?—so that I can invite that cute girl to another date and hopefully we will hit it off once more”[.] One small step at the time . . . 3. Think of good things and focus on those BUT keep in mind the eventual bad outcomes, nothing is perfect and you need to mentally prepare yourself for bad stuff so that when they happen you can accept them and get over them to embrace the good things that follow.4. Rebuild your relationships with family, friends and the rest . . . Do something nice for them and you’ll find yourself smiling when they smile . . . Stay strong my friend!

Typical of replies calling for a deeper reappraisal—and, like the above example, mirroring the previous category’s themes of acceptance and moderation—the following response to a user feeling “hopeless [and] uncertain about my future” conversely shifts toward the end into more practical application strategies:

100% certainty means 100% lack of choice or control. Would you still want certainty if it was certain you’d be miserable forever? [. . .] I imagine that you are feeling hopeless about the unknowable nature of the future. It helps me to frame that if I’m simply hoping something will happen, it won’t. If I’m trying, that’s better. If I’m doing everything I can that’s within my control, that’s the best. With that said, you have a chance to start doing something now. No—it doesn’t have to be something drastic. It can mean a deep breath, a declaration of what you value, a small moment to be grateful that you are alive.

Advice in this category most explicitly reveals r/Stoicism as a space in which popular contemporary interpretations of Stoicism are offered as salve for the pervasive “instability and unpredictability” (Dopierała, 2022, p. 154) of the neoliberal socioeconomic order. Echoed in another reply to an OP seeking advice on ill-defined emotional pain that “I can choose to be a good man even if I got a raw deal,” the emphasis here on acceptance, self-work and small victories speaks to a project of negotiating “the boundaries between that which is within one’s power and that which is not,” ultimately aimed at teaching “individuals to adapt to their unstable reality” (Dopierała, 2022, p. 154). While it is beyond the scope of this article to assess the efficacy of these approaches, the “collective intelligence” (Levy, 1997) represented therein serves to reinforce status quo logics by promoting a modest and individualized happiness that is attainable in spite, and regardless, of social or structural circumstances.

Sex and Romance

The third theme, very close in prominence to the second (310/1,759 replies, also approximately 18%), related to users responding to issues of sexual and romantic intimacy. The overwhelming majority of these were focused on either OPs’ abject failure in the (hetero)sexual marketplace—for example, “I really struggle with rejection” and “How to deal with unrequited love”—or their inability to cope with estrangement, betrayal, and feelings of jealousy—for example, “How A stoic Reacts to a Cheating GF [girlfriend]?” and “What is the stoic response to getting ghosted?” Again, responses to this range of predicaments were markedly uniform in sentiment, and wholly complimentary in their various suggested approaches and strategies. As the below examples demonstrate, advice here collectively runs counter to the “aggrieved entitlement” (Ging, 2019) associated with the incel subculture, and the broader manosphere, echoing Thorburn’s (2023a, pp. 3, 4) analysis of other, more explicitly anti-manosphere subreddits (r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill) which act as “grass roots” support structures to “deradicalise from extremist manosphere beliefs, while also helping others to avoid becoming radicalized to the manosphere at all.”

The dominant pattern saw users again call for acceptance, self-reflection and, in this case, also empathy for the girls and women toward whom OPs felt a sense of aggrievement. The following example posts capture this multifaceted set of responses:

It wasn’t your fate to be with her. Amor fati. Think of it as whatever you believe (for me it is God, but I know some people refer to the universe or other higher powers however I do not think this is the place to debate religion) not wanting that relationship for you, it is not your destiny.

You don’t need a partner to be whole. That’s an awful lot of responsibility you would be putting on them. Live whole, be whole in yourself, and enjoy whatever may come your way for the time that it lasts. Work out what it is that you want from life, and how you can work towards that . . . How about you seek out friendships instead, mix in groups who have common interests, and take it from there?

Some sought to reframe predicaments in even more positive terms, as an opportunity for the sorts of self-work outlined in the previous section. For example,

A difficult situation indeed friend. All can be done is to love your fate and be excited that you are now free for new experiences with other love interests. If you don’t have any at the moment, great[,] work on yourself both physically and spiritually. You had an experience many men in our society only dream of, sadly. But you had it and tho [sic] it didn’t end well you have the lessons learned to guide you forward . . . Be friendly with this person and wish her all the best. If you believe you can not do this in good faith then abandon it but give it an honest attempt . . . . You showed courage and temperance and we’re [sic] gifted some justice and wisdom. A stoic sees great bounty.

The final recurring pattern of advice—mostly limited to responses focused on supporting users struggling with failure and loneliness—was of a more practical nature, but also naturally aligned to the self-reflective and philosophical advice outlined earlier. To give two examples,

Join clubs. If I was single now, I’d be joining book clubs, D&D, board gaming, art clubs, tribute bands, sports teams—you name it.

Concentrate on self improvement, including daily exercise. Wort [sic] case you improve yourself. Best case you improve yourself and get a girlfriend. Win win. Just to give you some hope . . . . When in my early twenties someone aged 35 told me that around your late twenties the balance of power (wrong word) changes in men’s favour. Turns out he was right.

As illustrated in the second comment—and its hesitant “wrong word” reference to a “balance of power”—in occasional instances in which replies conveyed any overt sense of gendered ideological positioning, it tended toward a heteronormative, in some cases arguably hegemonic, understanding of hetero relationship dynamics. The “wrong word” hesitancy expressed in this example is important, however, implying a reluctance on the part of the user to have his “realist” reassurances of shifting gender relations over the life course misconstrued as an endorsement of heteromasculine dominance.

Emotions Management

The final prominent theme (290/1,759 replies, approximately 16%) encompassed advice to OPs with issues managing their emotions, mostly relating to interpersonal scenarios eliciting anger or frustration. Indeed, the majority saw OPs expressing aggrievement over what they perceived as being others’—whether friends/family, colleagues/peers or strangers encountered in everyday life—failure to treat them with due respect or civility, or act in other ways they deemed socially and/or morally appropriate. In a handful of cases relating to men’s dealings with other men, this sense of aggrievement extended into thoughts about the efficacy of violence, such as one OP’s estimation that “maybe life has taught me that in some circumstances . . . using violence or being aggressive once can be the best way to handle the situation, isn’t it?” Conversely, there were also a small number of original posts in which OPs lamented their emasculated timidity in dealing with disrespectful colleagues or peers, for example, “Am I being a pushover? How do I differentiate between being a good stoic and simply letting myself get taken advantage of?”

The collective sentiment expressed in replies to these issues broadly echoed the previous categories, with a specific emphasis here on fostering empathetic understanding of others’ deficiencies, and a reflective turning inwards to assess one’s own interpersonal expectations. To give three typical examples,

Are someone else’s actions causing you distress? Their actions should not change your course of action. Remember that every day, you will be faced with small, petty people and that we should have a certain tolerance for such things (within reason). You might also be that small, petty person. Only brutally honest self-examination will reveal the truth of that. But if you realize that it is you, you can change.

People’s words are not their actions. What I mean by that is when you feel disrespected, it’s often that someone did not meet your expectations of what they should have said. For example, I say please and thank you, why didn’t you respond by saying, “You’re welcome”? There could be any number of reasons: you didn’t hear me correctly, in your culture you don’t respond to those words to be polite, you were thinking about getting me the correct change instead. I am complicit if I let that hurt me. It’s on me not you.

Empathy. Use the mindset to put yourself in the person’s place and try to understand what they are going through to lead to that reaction. Then, help them through the process to resolution.

All but absent in the other categories, one notable feature of data here was the occasional tenor of gentle rebuke found in certain replies, such as “without knowing you personally, I would say that you’re part of the problem” and “If you can’t stop it, you can’t stop it . . . what is the point of this post?”

More fundamentally, we saw a marked convergence here of the core sentiments expressed in the “self-improvement” and “mental wellbeing” categories, on one hand, and the “sex and romance” category, on the other hand, namely (and respectively), an individualized/neoliberal emphasis on personal accountability coupled with a rejection of orthodox/hegemonic masculine expressions (in this case, dominance and aggression). Echoing Wolfman et al.’s (2021) “hollow femininities”—and the ways in which “working class men employed in service work” are pressured to adopt superficially softer, feminine-coded modes of being to “adapt to the demands of neoliberal subjectivity” (Wolfman et al., 2021, pp. 2017, 2020)—the following reply to an OP’s service sector story about being browbeaten by management captures this relationship most explicitly:

Examine yourself. Why does his behaviour affect you? Is it damaging your pride/ego? If you want to stop feeling . . . resentful, the key is to figure out why you feel that way. It’s all in you. We can’t control other people or the situations that affect us, but we can control how we react to them. I’d say ignoring him is the way to go, and catching your emotions in the moment is the way to work on them.

It is in such responses to work-related frustrations that the Stoicism collectively espoused by this community edges closest toward a form of neoliberal victim-blaming in which self-work and personality adjustment are viewed as cure-alls for issues deeply rooted in class and other intractable socioeconomic realities.

Discussion

As a large forum in which cisgender hetero boys and men seek emotional support and collectively make sense of their lives and identities, r/Stoicism reveals itself here as an important space of analysis for a number of reasons. First, discourses on this subreddit provide a clear sense—one which echoes Maloney et al.’s (2022), Thorburn’s (2023a, 2023b), and Puhrmann and Schlaerth (2024) respective studies of the precarity that drives manosphere cultures—of the emotional, romantic and interpersonal, and career-based challenges these boys and men struggle with in their effort to achieve normative ideals of heteromasculinity and notions of the “good man.” While our qualitative analysis has been focused predominately on how r/Stoicism users collectively respond to these narratives—and digital research such as ours can only ever offer a “partial and subjective glimpse into the experiences” (Thorburn, 2023a, p. 19) of users—a broader terrain of heteromasculine loneliness, frustration, anomie, and failing self-esteem nonetheless clearly emerges through our substantial dataset of such “glimpses.”

In terms of the responses principally in focus, the subreddit also illustrates the nuances and “contestations” (Maloney et al., 2019) inherent to contemporary heteromasculine ideals; and, specifically, the ways in which discourses and sentiments can often represent a tense negotiation between orthodox/traditional and hegemonic masculine ideals, on one hand, and more progressive conceptions in which “values of interdependence and care” (Elliot, 2016, p. 256) and an attenuation of social and sexual hegemony are endorsed. Perhaps best illustrated in the sentiments discussed in the “sex and romance” category, here we see a heteromasculinity that at once aims for a more self-reflective and empathetic engagement with women, while nonetheless remaining grounded in a view of heterosexual relations in which women represent markers of status to be had through the right kind of—in this case, empathetic—self-work. While there are clear strains here of a “hybrid” masculinity (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014) in which “ostensibly inclusive acts are incorporated into a wider repertoire of masculine behaviors that ultimately serve to maintain hegemonic dominance” (Maloney et al., 2019, p. 32), the accompanying sentiment of potential acquiescence—of trying to “stoically” move beyond failure by integrating it into one’s sense of self—significantly complicates such an analysis.

Our findings also add new dimensions to present understandings of the manosphere specifically: the anxieties on which it feeds; and the ways in which boys and men are constructing alternative online cultures at, and/or within, its porous borders. As a male-centered online space focused on making sense of life through the lens of an outlook widely associated with hegemonic masculinity (and on a platform in which it coexists alongside noted breeding grounds of antifeminism and misogyny), r/Stoicism turned out to be not at all what we expected. One might justifiably respond to this admission that, as scholars seeking to shed light on manosphere cultures, we should have simply “pulled-up-stumps” and looked elsewhere. However, we believe the unexpected nature of our findings raises significant questions about what the “manosphere” actually is—beyond the predominant focus on monstrous figures like Tate, and his cadre of similarly grandiose misogynistic influencers. Indeed, as Daly and Reed’s (2022, p. 31) study of incels demonstrates, there is an underacknowledged “diversity of thought” operating in even the most extreme spaces of heteromasculine precarity, one that essentially warrants continuing in-depth and critical case-by-case investigations. Moreover, as our data suggest, many hetero boys and men searching for meaning online seem to be doing so across a range of male-centered spaces: one day exposing themselves to explicitly antifeminist “Red Pill” forums; the next, imbibing alternative (or adjacent) perspectives in spaces like r/Stoicism. And through this process, they no doubt each construct their own distinct and fluid ideological patchworks.

Finally, it is worth considering the alternative to reactionary and antifeminist logics that is offered among the r/Stoicism community—one which, to quote the moderator again, seeks to “actively counter toxic masculinity tendencies.” As outlined earlier, the “stoic” masculinity envisioned here is certainly a softer, more self-reflective and empathetic one. It is also one that is more or less complimentary to mainstream and institutional efforts at intervening in misogynistic online cultures, such as the Australian Government’s (Rishworth, 2023) recently announced “healthy masculinities” initiative which aims to “better equip this cohort to develop healthier and more satisfying relationships” through school-level education programs, government-sanctioned “positive role models” and the like. As Dopierała (2022) notes of Popular Stoicism, such counter logics of therapeutic self-work represent Foucauldian “technologies of the self” that evade completely the neoliberal socioeconomic drivers of precarity, isolation and anomie on which Red Pill, and other reactionary, ideologies feed.

Thorburn’s (2023b) work has been important in foregrounding how the “neoliberal emphasis on individualism and a capitalist ‘hustle-culture’” (p. 467) underpins manosphere logics; and how we therefore need to understand this reactionary movement as a product of these broader cultural doctrines. Here, we see similar, albeit more palatable (to mainstream sensibilities), neoliberal tenets at work in counter logics—or what Roose et al. (2022) would refer to as socio-positive “alternative narratives” of masculinity. Both of these seemingly opposing ideological forces ultimately perform the same doctrinal function—like the bewildering “good cop, bad cop” technique employed by police during interrogations. While it is beyond the scope of this article to assess the efficacy of this neoliberal and individualized response to the manosphere, it is worth reflecting on the extent to which economic-structural explanations for boys’ and men’s anxieties are sidelined in mainstream efforts at countering its antifeminist appeal. Here, Fisher’s (2009, p. 7) core provocation in Capitalist Realism might prove useful, one that sees us all indoctrinated into the even more “toxic” worldview “that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.”