The manosphere’s grip on Kiwi boys — and why teachers are worried

Wednesday, 8 April 2026

When a 13-year-old told Annabel Reedy he wanted “a loyal female in these times”, the secondary school teacher was shocked.

He had written it down as part of a list of “wants” versus “needs” for an economics project, so she quizzed him further.

“I asked him what it was about and he said, ‘oh well, because I'm ugly I might not find a girlfriend’,” Reedy said.

Despite telling him that was not true, she said he continued to criticise the way he looked.

“He told me he had a negative canthal tilt, which means his eyes have a slight downward tilt at the outer corners … and he had ‘prey eyes’,” she said.

“Prey eyes” meant he felt he looked like a prey animal, rather than a predator, and in the “looksmaxxing” community, an internet subculture that promotes extreme methods to maximise physical attractiveness, it isn’t considered a desirable trait to attract women.

Reedy was saddened that her student had such low self-esteem. But his next comment alarmed her further.

“He then said he was ‘too currypilled’ to get a girlfriend. He was Indian,” she said.

It was then, after he’d used a racist term to describe himself, that Reedy, a former criminologist who’s studied internet culture, knew exactly what her student had been consuming online. The content he was echoing is not hard to find.

‘They're essentially being scammed’

Looksmaxxing influencers, such as Clavicular, claim to have improved their facial qualities by smashing them with a hammer and taken methamphetamine to lose weight.

Their videos are rife on TikTok and Instagram and they preach drastic physical measures to help boys become more “masculine-looking”.

Taking steroids is encouraged. So too is “bone-smashing”, the false claim that someone who hits themselves in the face can make their bones grow back stronger and denser, and therefore more “manly”.

The movement is nestled within the “manosphere”, the now ubiquitous term that describes a male-dominated and often misogynistic viewpoint online.

The subject was explored in the Louis Theroux documentary Inside the Manosphere, among the most-watched programmes on New Zealand Netflix for weeks. Reedy said the influencers Theroux spoke to are among those resonating with Kiwi boys.

“Male students [are] saying that they're worried about their looks and that they are bad-looking and that they'll never get a girlfriend, or that they need someone to teach them how to be a man.

“They're essentially being scammed. These men [the influencers] are telling them, ‘you're not good enough, but I know how to make you good enough … I can teach you how to be the best version of you’ … which is entirely unrealistic,” she said.

“Currypilled”, which Reedy’s student used to describe himself, is a derogatory term that means Indian men are unattractive to women.

The term was once confined to far-right forums and Incels, an internet subculture of mainly young men who identify as “involuntary celibate”.

Carol Harrington, Victoria University senior lecturer in sociology, who’s studied the manosphere, said much of the content is racist, with audiences often told there is a hierachy of attractiveness, with white men at the top.

“There’s this huge intersection, that's quite confusing, because quite a few of the manosphere influencers are not white, and yet they promote this racial hierarchy,” Harrington said.

“It’s this incredibly rigid thinking about how the world works and that the world is this attractiveness competition. There is a danger of sort of being drawn into this whole other set of ideologies and being radicalised,” she said.

It’s a girl issue too

In the 12 years that Paul Stevens has been a teacher, he’s seen a significant shift in how young boys view themselves.

“I do see an increase in the number of young men who do seem very, very focused on their appearance. It feels quite strong,” Stevens said.

“You've got a 15-year-old who might be using protein powder, for example … that's pretty low-level, but it has become more common.”

But as young men have adopted a hyper-masculine and sometimes misogynistic worldview to attract women, Stevens has observed a polarising shift in how young women have responded.

Some female students have said they now have “little hope” of what a future relationship could look like with a “straight man”.

“It’s almost led to a cynicism or a pessimism around the dating world for some. It's really sad to see,” he said.

However, other teachers have told him there’s been a rise in female students adopting a more traditionally conservative outlook for their future.

“So ideas around being a ‘tradwife’ or not needing to focus at school because their plan is simply to support traditional ways of thinking about gender,” he said.

A tradwife is a social media subculture where women adopt pre-feminist gender roles, focusing on domestic work and submission to their husband. The movement is tied to the manosphere, with many influencers arguing that women should be submissive and subservient.

“It seems to have become quite prevalent,” said Stevens. “It’s often talked about as a boys’ issue, and certainly I think that's where a lot of the these subcultures have started, but the prevalence of it [in girls] really has surprised us,” he said.

‘Trying to scare the audience into watching them’

Harrington said she’s found some of the influencer’s videos “hard to watch”. If anyone consumed them regularly, she said it would have a negative impact on their psyche.

“What alarmed me the most was how much they berated the audience if the young men didn't aspire to be millionaires or multi-millionaires, or didn't work out everyday,” she said.

“They were almost trying to scare the audience into watching them. It seems to me, if you were watching that all the time, it could really distort your sense of self.”

Reedy said the manosphere’s rise is a reaction to the uncertainty of the future in an increasingly complicated world.

“I think teenagers in particular are very scared about what comes next … wars, price hikes, AI … they're trying to identify themselves … and it’s much easier in a world where traditional masculinity would feature,” she said.

In a world where young people were constantly being told to “self-improve”, the teacher said she tried to be a positive role model and help her boys have greater self esteem.

“I will have a discussion with them and say, ‘look … there is no one image of what a good man is … you don't have to listen to someone tell you how to be a good man … you are a good man by doing good things and caring about the world around you.’”