The Manosphere Playbook: How Masculinity Became a Multimillion-Dollar Business

After reporting my own sexual assault, I went undercover in the online communities of dating coaches and manosphere influencers. For months, I followed their courses, conversations and teachings, tracing a multimillion-dollar business selling men a playbook for confidence, success, sex and belonging.

It was a late night in November 2025; I was sitting up in my bed in a fresh pair of pyjamas. Dreading what I was about to do next, I needed to be mentally prepared. I was sexually assaulted by a "prominent" club promoter and dating coach influencer. After reporting my sexual assault, the experience of reporting and going through the court system became gruelling.

At every corner, it felt as if no one was listening to my concerns or demands for justice; instead, I often found myself being my own advocate, my own fighter, my own self-proclaimed lawyer. I knew that I needed to use my voice to push for change and accountability. So I decided that I would take matters into my own hands. The bounds of justice are not my fate to determine, and whatever it will be, all I know is that I want to at least help one person, and that is all I have ever wanted to come from speaking out and raising awareness.

I sat on my bed, holding my phone, staring at the white-and-blue Telegram logo. An app that has gained immense amounts of scrutiny for notorious violations concerning human rights abuse, terrorism, criminal activity, child sexual exploitation and more. Little did I know what I was stepping into, and that Telegram was just the tip of the iceberg. I gulped my water and exhaled.

It was time to make my account; I created a profile with the name Nikita and used a photo of a friend to set up the account. Since my boyfriend was Ukrainian and I had a deep knowledge of the culture, country and even an understanding of the language, I decided to portray myself as a young 20-year-old Ukrainian boy living in Toronto. I knew that entering these chats undercover as a woman was not going to be easy. Often, apps like Telegram or forums like Reddit, X, Instagram and more can become a breeding ground for violence, fraud, harmful ideologies such as the incel movement and, in some extreme instances, mass murder, kidnapping and human trafficking.

I was about to enter the same Telegram chats that the individual who sexually assaulted me was in; in fact, he was the one guiding and giving advice to the men in the chat as their 'mentor'. I had found their private personal chats and basically had an insight into how the online world of the 'manosphere' actually thinks. I entered their chats, and right away it became an instant echo chamber; for every one chat that you joined, five more recommended chats would pop up.

Naturally, I joined all of them, of course. Including Andrew Tate's 'The Real World" Telegram and his Substack email list. I even paid for membership courses and exclusive subscriptions to get as deep into their world as possible. If only I knew what I was signing up for at the time.

Immediately, as soon as I joined these chats, I was rather cheerfully greeted by other members of the chat saying, "Welcome!" Then they'd ask me what kind of 'game' I was into, and I'd reply with, "night game, of course." Before joining the Telegram chats, I watched a decent amount of the videos that my own perpetrator had made as a dating coach, and spent time reading his friends' blogs and websites detailing the different types of what is called "game" in the pick-up artistry industry. According to one website, "day game" refers to trying to pick up girls during the daytime, whereas "night game"... you guessed it, means trying to pick up women in the nighttime.

Truly, the list goes on and on and is quite extensive; one thing to know is that these online communities have their own language, their own vocabulary and words, sometimes their own lessons, teachings, morals and values. All of these factors combined are how they move undetected, recruiting more and more men to join their cause and promises of leadership.

It's important to note that this doesn't just end at dating coach communities. The manosphere itself is a plethora of communities ranging from dating advice, lifestyle, appearance, fitness and more. Some of these communities offer genuine sound guidance, while others are marketed or appear to come across as "the answer to all your problems" but instead lead to a rabbit hole of much darker, rather concerning behaviour.

Telegram has a feature which allows you to search for a certain word or sentence across all channels that you are a part of. At first, I tested it out with basic words such as "gym", "party", "drinking," and, of course, it displayed thousands of results. I decided to expand my search and typed in words such as rape, drugged, secret filming, drugs, sexual assault and more.

The results were astonishing, to say the least. I was met with hundreds of results with each search; one user even wrote, "Women endlessly rape claim and destroy men to the point where female evil is deeply understood by any man. They are not innocent damsels in distress but are actually satanic. You cannot name ONE THING women are passionate about that is good for the world." I felt a pit in my stomach reading that. I swallowed the lump in my throat and continued maintaining my undercover appearance in the chat over the course of months, and still to this day.

As time went on, I learned more and more about the darkness of the online world; the individuals in these chats were mostly men, of all different races, ages and religions. Yet the one thing they all seemed to have in common was that they were looking for a sense of purpose, community and belonging in their lives.

The dating coaches, influencers and lifestyle coaches often promoted themselves in the chats, advertising to their channel followers "exclusive flash sales" on courses designed to ensure that you 'maximize' your desirability, attract women and make money.

In my head, this just sounded like another one of those romance scams like the Tinder Swindler; it was simply just too good to be true. The thing is, the influencers were smart; they would typically rent cars, wear fake watches and clothes and hire photographers to shoot lots of content of them living lavish lifestyles, driving exotic cars and surrounded by dozens of women. This content would then be marketed across all social media platforms and websites, essentially advertising that "If you buy my course and take my advice, you can live a life just like mine." It was the perfect Trojan Horse to attract young men online looking for leadership or community by selling promises of desires and success.

Being on the inside, however, was a completely different story. One way that individuals were encouraged to elevate their physical appearance was by injecting testosterone. The need to change one's physical appearance in drastic ways is part of a new online trend targeting primarily men in what is called "looksmaxxing." Users in these chats would share their tips on how to properly administer the steroids into the body, and others went as far as comparing dosage quantities. Members of these chats would typically engage in frequent and regular discourse with other members of the chat, mainly talking about women, their lives and what they believed were the 'best bedroom tricks'. Such as crushing and snorting Viagra, a sex stimulant drug, instead of taking it orally for supposed faster and more enhanced 'performance', as they called it.

In between discussing dosages and bedroom tricks, users would share photos and videos of their wins and conquests within the group chat. This was done as a way to build credit and essentially move up within the community; the more women you sleep with, the more respect you will gain was their logic. You know how the saying goes: pictures or it didn't happen.

Most of the media shared in these chats and online were very clearly filmed without the other person's consent through the use of hidden cameras or META recording glasses. The individual being recorded and photographed didn't even have any idea that it was happening in the first place. Hundreds of photos of naked women and girls filled the media folder within the group chat. All beautiful women, of course, who would never know that their photos made it onto a Telegram group chat like some frat house scoreboard. Some of the content shared would even go past just nude photos; videos of women who were clearly intoxicated beyond the point of consent were filmed, naked.

In the pick-up artistry and dating coach community, it was a common trend to secretly film themselves attempting to elicit, or as they call it, 'pick-up,' women in bars, restaurants, nightclubs and more. These videos were referred to as 'infield', which meant real video footage or live recording of the individual approaching women. These 'infield' videos were also used as teaching guides by the dating coach mentors to teach their followers and buyers what to and not to do when approaching a woman you can potentially sleep with. They also had resources available that encouraged their participants to travel to foreign countries to elevate their lifestyles and partake in what is known as sex tourism.

Dating mentors would often encourage their followers to travel to foreign countries within South America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. One way they marketed foreign travel was by repeating the same phrases to encourage their followers, such as: "Travel is important to become educated, to see the world and have new experiences." Of course, that statement is true, but that's exactly how they lured individuals in. Then they would follow up by saying some ways to have these new experiences are by travelling to foreign countries to engage in sexual activity.

Users within the chat often proclaimed that travelling to countries outside of North America was favourable because, essentially, "Western women had a stronger sense of self, more laws protecting them and much more rights and freedoms in comparison to women living abroad in poverty, with fewer laws or little to no governing bodies protecting them."

Over time, users who had travelled abroad to partake specifically in sexual conduct would rank and review the accessibility and favourability of the place they visited in terms of getting laid. These reviews would then serve as guides to help individuals travelling to a certain location maximize their trip. Almost every country and city in the world had a review and a guide of the best places, times and locations to pick up women. Some were tourist attractions, others were local bars, hotels, restaurants and clubs. Some individuals would even plan meet-ups with other members in foreign countries, all with the same goal in mind: picking up women.

Eventually, a nickname was coined to describe individuals who travelled abroad to partake in sex, and they called themselves "Passport Bros". However, the proper term for those who partake in such activities is called Sex Tourism and is referred to as travel motivated by the pursuit of romantic or sexual relationships.

The act of doing such comes at a high cost with serious risks; the first being that often the primary targets of sex tourism are both women and children, contributing to significant gender inequality as well as economic inequality through financial power imbalances which can lead to much more serious harms like human trafficking, sex trafficking, child abuse, child sexual abuse, human rights abuse, sexual violence and more.

Notable 'manosphere' influencers and figures like Justin Waller gained popularity through his controversial opinions and motivational speeches, and he appears to maintain a close-knit friendship with prominent individuals such as the Tate brothers, Sterling Cooper, and Donald Trump.

Justin Waller's program, in comparison to the rather lower-tiered or lesser-known online male influencers, is rather much more sophisticated; for only a couple thousand dollars, you'll spend time with Justin, driving around in his exotic Lamborghini through the bustling streets of downtown Miami and the Brickell City Center, attend Michelin-star restaurants and puff the finest cigars on world-class rooftops. It was exotic and marketed as the most exclusive luxury retreat, aimed at maximizing your finances and lifestyle and promising to change your life entirely.

Each and every day I spent undercover in predominantly online male spaces, the more information I learned. It was like trying to navigate a labyrinth of information; at every corner there was someone new, claiming to predict the future, trying to sell something, hoping that you'll listen and maybe even pull out your wallet. Even as an observer, it wasn't easy. I felt just as guilty as the men in these chats who were taking these photos, having seen hundreds of photos of naked women in forum chats.

If there was one thing that the manosphere figured out, it was how to run a multi-million-dollar business model. One built off the commodification of intimacy, the exploitation of other human beings and the suffering of others.

Masculinity today is no longer just an ideal that defines men, but is a booming industry with quotas and victims. Influencers, content creators, podcast hosts and more, they've found the easiest way to make money: market insecurity and use psychology. Classic sales 101.

The scary part is, because of this, every day, new ways are being invented to further exploit others online. The online creators realized that all they had to do was prey on the vulnerabilities of human beings; the desire to be wanted, to hope to be loved, the connection we seek and yet they found a way to turn it into a pyramid scheme of exploitation, trafficking and assault.

I reflected heavily on what I had uncovered in these online spaces. One thing in particular became apparent after reviewing all the information I had gathered over the course of several months.

That realization was that online harm simply doesn't stay online. There are victims and survivors facing trauma and dealing with the reality of these consequences; some will never even know that they are a victim. The truth is, the responsibility to protect society also falls on the social media companies and platforms that allow for such abuse to be facilitated. The duty is on all of us to ensure that the future of technology deters perpetrators from committing their crime rather than enabling their actions, voice and words.

Everyone indeed needs to make a living, but when does the line get drawn when an empire is built on insecurity, the commodification of intimacy, and the degradation of women and children?

As I stared down at my screen, I saw blue text bubbles appear; users were going back and forth, having their latest conversation like normal. Today they were discussing how to record 'targets' (women) with a hidden microphone and what would be the best way to conceal it.

As blue texts were exchanged back and forth, I took one last look at the media folder. Photos and videos lined the media folder, from top to bottom. Almost like a trophy case of what they would call their wildest nights, secret fantasies and proudest achievements. The women, however, in the content, the products of content, the money-making machine talking point of the manosphere would never know that a part of them existed in a Telegram group chat. I let out a loud sigh and closed my eyes for a moment, and leaned my head against the headboard of my bed.

I thought to myself: how many of us women have been secretly filmed?