Coaching Young Men Growing Up in the Manosphere

In recent years, many parents, educators and coaches have found themselves asking a quiet but unsettling question:

What is happening to our boys?

Online spaces often described as the manosphere have become increasingly visible in mainstream culture. They promise clarity, confidence and control to boys and young men navigating a world that can feel uncertain and unforgiving. And while much of the public conversation focuses on the harm these spaces can do to women and society, there is another conversation we also need to be brave enough to have.

I’m coming to this not just from curiosity, but from personal experience.

I’m writing this as a dad to both a boy and a girl, an uncle to a nephew, and a sibling to two brothers, shaped by the men in my life, including my dad, who modelled care, responsibility and presence every day.

I’m also writing as someone who works closely with coaches and sees, week in and week out, what thoughtful, curious conversations can make possible. While I’m not a coach myself, I’ve learned enough to believe that coaching skills have something important to offer us in responding to this moment.

What is happening beneath the surface for the boys and men being drawn in?

Understanding this question is essential, not to excuse harmful beliefs or behaviours, but to respond in ways that are human, ethical and effective.

What is the Manosphere?

The term manosphere describes a loose network of online communities, influencers and content that promote rigid ideas about masculinity, gender roles and power. These spaces often present themselves as sources of “truth” or “self improvement”, offering guidance on success, status and relationships.

On the surface, the messaging can appear confident and decisive. But beneath that certainty often sits a narrow and unforgiving vision of what it means to be a man, one in which worth is measured through dominance, wealth, physical appearance or sexual success.

Coaching teaches us to treat certainty with curiosity.

When something offers absolute answers to complex human questions, it’s worth asking what emotional need that certainty might be serving.

Who Is Leading the Charge?

Many of the prominent voices within the manosphere are charismatic, articulate and seemingly assured. They speak with conviction, and they position themselves as role models. 

They tell compelling stories about strength, discipline and success. And yet, when we look beneath the surface through a coaching lens, a different picture often emerges.

Certainty can be a defence against doubt.
Control can mask fear.
Dominance can conceal a fragile sense of self worth.

In coaching, we often observe that the loudest performances of confidence grow in places where vulnerability feels unsafe. The absence of emotional language does not mean the absence of emotion, it usually means those emotions have found other, less helpful outlets.

Who Are They Targeting?

The primary audience for manosphere content is boys and young men, often those in periods of transition, uncertainty or isolation.

These may be young people who feel:

• unseen or unheard
• unsure how they “fit” in a changing world
• disconnected from healthy male role models
• uncertain how to express fear, sadness or shame

Adolescence and early adulthood are times of profound identity formation. It is hardly surprising that simplified, confident narratives about what it means to be “a real man” can sound reassuring.

Belonging is a powerful human need. When healthy spaces for belonging are absent, people will find substitutes, even harmful ones.

Other Forces at Play

The rise of the manosphere does not exist in a vacuum. It intersects with broader social and psychological forces, including:

• a growing epidemic of male loneliness
• stigma around men’s mental health and emotional expression
• algorithms that reward outrage, certainty and polarisation

When boys lack language for their inner world, frustration often turns outward. When vulnerability is framed as weakness, connection is replaced with comparison.

None of this removes responsibility for behaviour, but it does widen our understanding of how we arrived here.

How Can Coaching Help?

Coaching does not aim to persuade, argue or correct. Instead, it creates space for reflection, agency and responsibility.

Whether you are a coach, parent, teacher, or simply someone who cares about the men and boys in your life, here are a few coaching questions that can help.

Rather than challenging beliefs head on, invite curiosity about emotions.

What might be sitting underneath this reaction?
What feels uncertain, threatened or unseen?

Naming feelings does not encourage weakness; it builds emotional literacy.

Young people are often surrounded by loud voices, and coaching can help distinguish the loud from the wise.

Who do you genuinely respect, and why?
What qualities matter to you in the men you admire?

Values offer a steadier compass than online approval.

Instead of asking “Why are you watching this?”, try:

Where do you feel you belong right now?
Where don’t you?
Who really knows you?

Belonging sought in unhealthy spaces often points to belonging missing elsewhere.

Coaching can gently redirect focus from external blame to internal authority.

What’s within your control here?
What choice do you have, even a small one, that would leave you with more self respect?

This supports accountability without shame.

What Can We All Do to Help

This is a tricky time to be growing up. Loud voices offer certainty, speed and simple answers, often at the expense of understanding.

Meeting force with force rarely helps. What does help is when adults choose a different stance: curious rather than reactive, open rather than closed, willing to stay in conversation rather than step away.

All of us can play a part in that. By listening well, asking better questions, and holding boundaries without shutting people down.

Coaching reminds us that meaningful change rarely begins with certainty or confrontation. More often, it starts with curiosity, compassion and the courage to stay in conversation.

And those conversations, held with care, can shape futures far more powerfully than algorithms ever will.