Discourses of New Masculinity in the Romanian Manosphere: Theological and Anglophone Scripts

Romanian digital influencers hybridize global manosphere tropes with local religious revivalism, post-socialist entrepreneurialism, and aspirational Westernization to re-entrench gender hierarchies. Drawing on multimodal critical discourse analysis of digital content produced between 2022 and 2025 by four high-visibility Romanian platforms, I show that manosphere influencers deploy cross cultural code-switching (between Romanian and English) to reference ethno-religious authenticity, legitimate wealth accumulation (sacralized materialism) and frame market success as masculine duty (patriarchal entrepreneurship). They reframe financial self-optimization as redemptive mandate, cast market success as male identity, and use English jargon to signal cosmopolitan authority. The findings demonstrate how everyday sexism is normalized through a cyclical rhetoric of crisis and salvation that melds notions of predestination with hustle culture. By foregrounding discursive diffusion at the nexus of class, religion, and nation, the article advances scholarship on masculine identity formation in post-communist Europe.