Are boys really toxic or are we in a moral panic?

Hasan Piker is a 33-year-old American YouTuber and online streamer with a following in the millions.

Young men love him, and he has been positioned by some hopeful people as a potential left-wing version of podcaster Joe Rogan, the enormously popular chief bro of the manosphere.

Rogan, a former mixed martial arts commentator, is one of the most listened-to podcasters in the world, known for interviewing controversial guests including Kanye West, Elon Musk and right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Trump and Rogan have reportedly fallen out over the president’s Venezuelan deportations.Credit: AP

Rogan, who this week “broke up” with Donald Trump over the US president’s Venezuelan deportations, had previously endorsed him after Trump did a three-hour-long interview with him.

Trump and his campaign managers focused heavily on the internet bro demographic at the presidential election last year, putting Trump out to appear with streamers, YouTubers and podcasters.

As a consequence, young men turned out for Trump in huge numbers, and pretty much deserted the Democrats.

Trump managed skilfully to align himself with the version of masculinity that is promulgated in the manosphere – assertive, powerful, “strong”, scornful of feminism and deeply paranoid that women are scheming to get the better of men.

In this world-view, men have been economically disempowered by the advances of feminism, and as a consequence, robbed of their traditional social role as providers and protectors.

There is, of course, a skerrick of truth to this, particularly for the working-class men who form much of Trump’s base.

The Democrats, who are wandering in the darkest of political wildernesses, are hoping to find a progressive manosphere-bro who can speak to these hard-to-reach voters for them.

As New York magazine puts it: “Discovering what … young men want has become a veritable holy quest for the liberal press and political class, the skeleton key to saving the Republic”.

The problem with Hasan Piker is that he is progressive in a way that doesn’t really suit the Democrats.

He uses words like “pussy” and “bitch” with abandon, but calls himself an intersectional feminist and begins each streaming session with a call-out to “ladies and gentlemen, boys, girls and enbies” – the “enbies” being an affectionate nickname for non-binary people.

He is an anti-Zionist, to the extent where he has been labelled antisemitic, and he got in big trouble in 2019 when he made the remark that “America deserved 9/11”.

Piker said he was being satirical.

YouTuber Hasan Piker. Credit:

Inspired (if that is the right word) by the huge popularity of the Netflix show Adolescence, which tells the story of a teenage boy radicalised into violence by the manosphere, I dipped my toe into it this week.

It may be a sign of my irredeemable middle aged-ness that I found Piker not on TikTok or Twitch (the streaming platform where he resides), but through reading about him in The New Yorker.

Intrigued, I sought Piker on YouTube, randomly choosing a video where he is providing live commentary of a documentary-style show that brings together feminists with men’s rights activists, including incels (men who identify as “involuntarily celibate”, a misogynistic online community who blame women for their problems).

Piker, hanging in his bedroom, is superimposed on the corner of the documentary screen, and pauses it whenever he wants to add commentary.

He is good-looking, articulate, sardonic and foul-mouthed, and he speaks to his audience with all the casual ease of a dude hanging out because that is precisely what he is.

He interacts with his audience in real time through instant messaging. We are watching him, but we feel we are hanging out with him too.

Piker remarks that the feminists in the debate are about to get owned because men’s rights activists are “talking-point machines … they are impossible to f---in’ deal with”.

He un-pauses the video just as the self-identifying incel tells the feminists, “I’ve studied evolutionary biology quite a bit” (which, he implies, qualifies him to comment on women’s innate inferiority).

Piker pauses the video.

“See? This is what I mean,” he splutters.

“Like, bitch, you’re a YouTuber incel, dude. What do you mean you’ve studied evolutionary biology quite a bit? Get the f--- out of here, dude.”

A minute later the incel guy compares women to children, seeking to justify why women should not be equal to men under the law.

“Imagine being, f---ing, this guy!” Piker scoffs.

“It’s like, dude, you would literally die if it wasn’t for your mommy … what the f--- are you even saying, dude? As if this guy can live in the wild.”

I am not the correct demographic, but I was surprised to find that watching Piker impugn the masculinity of incels was, indeed, a good hang.

I think this has a lot to do with how he clearly says whatever he is thinking, and is not worried about offending anyone.

The Adolescence series stars English actor Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller. Credit: Michael Howard.

Which is a large part of Trump’s appeal too.

There is a great deal of moral panic around the Adolescence series.

Some say it is a timely examination of toxic masculinity powered by the internet, and how it can burst into real-life violence.

Others say it is offensive to portray young boys (the kid in the show is 13) as potential murderers and gormless twits so easily influenced by men on the internet that they will go on to commit misogynistic violence.

Everyone agrees, however, that the four-part show is an incredible piece of television.

Each hour-long episode is shot in one continuous take, which makes for an immersive viewing experience.

This claustrophobic viewpoint means it is impossible not to relate to, and even root for, the characters we are following, including the teen killer Jamie.

The way the central character is written and portrayed – he flips randomly between boyish fear and mannish aggression, between emotional neediness and attempts at physical dominance – is genuinely moving.

The episode where Jamie interacts with a female psychologist, who has come to assess him, forms the emotional heart of the show.

We see the boy’s desperation to be liked by girls, and how that desperation curdles to hatred when the girls don’t comply with his deeply held desire.

Over on another show now streaming – White Lotus – we are also watching a meditation on contemporary young masculinity.

Saxon Ratliff (Patrick Schwarzenegger) in HBO’s The White Lotus.Credit:

Saxon Ratcliff, one of the show’s protagonists, is a protein-obsessed finance bro who hits the gym daily and treats women as conquests.

He is, notably, the central character in a kooky incest plot, which undercuts his projected masculinity and catapults him into an existential crisis.

Saxon is assisted in this crisis by a young woman who has rejected his advances because, she says, he has no soul.

His spiritual awakening begins when he realises, with dismay, that he cares about her opinion of him. That he respects her.

It is the kind of realisation easily made when you get off the internet and begin to interact with real women, in real life.

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