‘Are you struggling to keep it up?’: problematic content in day-trading adverts targeted at men on Instagram

Masculine insecurities around wealth and status may be exploitable through social media advertising. Investment day-trading is potentially marketed as a high-status activity despite being a high-risk ‘gambling-like’ activity associated with financial losses. Little research has examined how these advertisements position day-trading within masculine identity narratives or what insecurities they may produce and frame as resolvable through trading. This study therefore utilized grounded theory to analyze 100 audiovisual day-trading adverts from 68 UK Instagram accounts regarding their potential to contribute to gambling-like harms among men. Three major categories and thirteen sub-themes were identified. First, adverts constructed trading as an accessible opportunity for financial transformation, promising easy, low-risk money through technological advantages and supportive communities, while specifically targeting young or inexperienced men and those with previous trading losses. Second, adverts encouraged viewers’ insecurities through social comparison and direct shaming, emphasizing perceived low-status and failures to adhere to masculine ideals. Third, adverts positioned day-trading as the transformative solution to these inadequacies, promising rewards such as expensive cars, Rolex watches, exotic travel, and attractive women, all presented as attainable through trading success. This conceptual model was cyclical, as the inevitable trading losses were attributed to personal failures, while the number of distinct advertisers and their varying approaches also served to re-hook previous losers. These findings highlight the varied ways that gendered insecurities can be promoted and exploited via social media, and underscore the need for further research and policy attention toward gambling-like advertising on social media platforms.