The seductions and fallacies of misogynistic influencer culture: Looking through the lens of social bulimia

In recent years, educators, youth workers and professionals working in prevention of extremism roles have expressed serious concerns about the growing impact of online misogynist content on male adolescents. Via online portals and social media, a number of self-styled ‘influencers’, such as Andrew Tate, are melding patriarchal and sexist messages with promises of quick wealth, status and achievement of an ideal male body. Drawing from qualitative in-depth interviews with educators, practitioners involved in the safeguarding of young people and professionals involved in preventing extremism, in this article we excavate some of the key drivers that encourage participation in misogynistic culture for male adolescents. Deploying Jock Young’s concept of social bulimia we illuminate the attraction of male supremacist ideologies promoted by misogynistic influencers, whilst demonstrating the contradictory dynamics of simultaneous cultural inclusion and structural exclusion and the negative effects of turbulent experiences of ontological insecurity and precarity in contemporary society. In unravelling the gravitational pull of misogynist influencers for adolescent boys and young men, we present illustrative ‘bulimic applications’ as a mechanism for understanding the ideological mutuality between neo-liberal capitalist ideologies and misogynistic cultures. In emphasising the need to coalesce explanations for engagement with hateful online content that focus on individual vulnerabilities and susceptibilities with an appreciation of contextual and structural conditions, we explicate three illustrative applications: identity, technological cultures and ontological insecurity; aspirational capitalism and neoliberal ‘hustle culture’ , and knowledge and relative ‘truths’ . As we conclude, there is a disconcerting - but tangible - fit between capitalist neoliberal values and misogynistic beliefs that social media influencers seek to both exploit and nurture.