The most astute person in Louis Theroux’s latest Netflix documentary about the manosphere was a woman. The mother of Harrison Sullivan, known as HSTikkyTokky asked of Louis Theroux: “If you don’t agree with what Harrison is doing, then why are you making money off of it on a programme by publicising it?” She got to the heart of the manosphere (or lack of it), by highlighting the absolutely central role that money plays in this debased world. Hats off to Louis Theroux for another great documentary where he used silence to allow the subjects to talk themselves into shameful embarrassment. And yet Theroux failed to get to the bottom of why the whole thing stinks.

As well as HS Tikky Tokky, also featured were Sneako, Myron Gaines and Justin Waller, friend of the Tate brothers. Brutal opinions were shared on their channels casually and maliciously about one-sided monogamy (where the man can play around but the woman can’t), the Jews, fat girls, thick girls, slag girls, the satanic cabal running the world. For me one of the saddest points in the documentary came where Myron Gaines and his then girlfriend Angie were discussing his plan to take on multiple wives. Poor naïve Angie visibly winced, becoming immediately sad and diminished (they have since broken up). Most reviews of the documentary have focused on this ugly aspect of the manosphere, with one Telegraph reviewer claiming it left him “quivering behind the sofa”.

Yet as HS’s mum clocked, there is more to this grim world than misogyny and antisemitism. It is imperative that as a society we look carefully and honestly at this issue rather than reflexively thinking the solution is just banning the content creators, unpalatable as they are.

I watched this on the same day my 17 year-old-son was shown it at his college. I hastily convened a focus group of his mates and asked their opinions. Like HS’s mum, they knew instinctively that there is more at play here than live-streamed hate speech.

Firstly the class element. HS is recognised as being a basic chav. Justin Waller was raised in a Louisiana trailer park. Here Louis Theroux is wrong in his final summary where he talks about the manosphere influencers feeling like they’ve lost the historic “entitlement of men”. Easy for Westminster and Oxford educated nepo baby Louis Theroux to believe there is such as a thing as ‘male entitlement.’ For men like HS and Justin Waller, basic chavs, roadmen and trailer trash, such a concept has never existed. Their lives and the lives of the men that preceded them has always been one of grift and often outright misery.

Sadly the manosphere offering, whereby these influencers livestream their daily lives insulting or ‘dropping game’ on women, is enjoyed by similar demographics, those who don’t have purposeful and loving lives of their own. It is the latest iteration of the class divide. Teenage boys from stable homes who go to college, play sports and music and have mates and part-time jobs have no time or need to watch this internet slop.

So one of the questions that should be urgently asked, is: who are the boys watching this, why have they got so much time on their hands? Presumably viewers overlay with the 510,000 male NEETs currently in the UK and half of the 1.2 million persistently absent school children. It was HS who said: “Thirteen year-old boys shouldn’t be watching my stuff. Why aren’t the parents stopping them?”

Secondly, the role of women. Given their overt mistreatment of women, it is discomforting that all the manosphere influencers rely on a steady stream of women willing to go out with them, join their harem, appear on their podcast or livestream with the manosphere men their Only Fans content. All the male influencers talked about their love of women and stood in awe of their beauty. There is a poignant longing to be loved by these goddesses combined with a revulsion for the same girls if they chose to place their affections elsewhere. Female sexual liberation is treated with contempt, yet monetised by these men who easily resemble pimps.

Read More: Louis Theroux’s Foray into the Manosphere Only Scratches the Surface of the Societal Malaise that Makes it Possible