On March 11, a documentary will be released on Netflix that sheds new light on last year’s acclaimed four-part TV drama <em>Adolescence</em>. The latest work of veteran documentarian Louis Theroux takes him deep into the world of misogynistic social media influencers, whose main audience demographic is real teenage schoolboys around the age of Adolescence’s Jamie Miller.
Louis Theroux: Into the Manosphere focuses its lens on several prominent internet personalities whose content has helped propagate so-called incel culture. Much like Adolescence was inspired by true stories of teen femicide, this documentary aims to understand the real men inciting male rage and violent misogyny on a mass scale through their sizable online platforms.
Using an entirely different approach from the jaw-dropping drama and technical wizardry of perhaps the best short-form Netflix show of all time, Theroux should nevertheless lead us to many of the same conclusions as Stephen Graham’s 2025 masterpiece. With his unerring ability to catch his interview subjects off-guard, the presenter could unearth some especially uncomfortable truths about the “manosphere”.
Louis Theroux’s New Netflix Documentary Is A Real-Life Replacement For Adolescence
If there’s anyone you’d want making a documentary that challenges the growing trend of aggressively misogynistic rhetoric online addressed in Netflix’s award-winning miniseries Adolescence, then it’s surely Louis Theroux. The documentarian’s last project was The Settlers, his widely acclaimed 2025 movie about illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.
Theroux previously made his name getting up close and personal with strange and unsavory elements on the fringes of society in his TV series Weird Weekends, and getting under the skin of polarizing UK public figures in a set of celebrity interviews. Meanwhile, his movie about Scientology is one of the best documentaries ever made about a cult.
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere will draw on his immersive documentary style and signature interview techniques to expose the dubious and dangerous practices of social media influencers promoting a brand of hypermasculinity which effectively advocates for greater female oppression. In doing so, it will draw attention to the effects these self-styled “alpha” males are having on their audiences.
Inside The Manosphere Is About The Effects Of Toxic Masculinity On Young Boys
At one point in the trailer for Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, Theroux tells a content creator that the average age of those who watch his videos is 15 years old. At another point, an influencer he’s interviewing gets mobbed in the street by teenage boys who are fans of his channel.
When schoolboys are avidly watching TikTok videos arguing that women need to be dominated and subjugated by men, their sense of identity as young males becomes shaped by an extremely toxic view of masculinity. Luckily, Gen Z at large is rejecting similar trends in Hollywood movies, as mainstream ideas of masculinity are in the process of being redefined.
However, for teenage boys who feel marginalized by the unrealistic social expectations set for all adolescents in relation to sexuality and sexual desirability, the “manosphere” – an online space where violently sexist ideologies are rife – becomes an unlikely safe haven. With wildly misogynistic conspiracy theories, it offers easy explanations for the agonizing emotional pain and paralyzing social embarrassment they’re going through.
Adolescence’s Deeper Meaning Is About The Causes Of The Manosphere
It appears to be Jamie Miller’s initiation into the manosphere on these terms that serves as the catalyst for the horrific act of murder he commits in Adolescence. In the third episode of the show, we learn that Jamie is a deeply unhappy little boy with a very low opinion of himself, particularly when it comes to his sexual identity.
Through this extraordinary piece of television, Adolescence shows us how incels, misogynistic males who call themselves “involuntary celibates”, are created. It isn’t the physically strongest, most outwardly macho boys who tend to be attracted to the kind of content creators Louis Theroux interviews in Inside the Manosphere.
In fact, these creators prey on the vulnerabilities of boys who are made to feel small, weak and unattractive by their social environment. Adolescence highlights this issue in profound terms, demonstrating just how complex discussions around toxic masculinity actually are. Louis Theroux’s new documentary will only add further insight to this discussion.
