An Anthropology of the Manosphere (Featuring Sandman)

Sandman, a pioneering figure in the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement, joins Malcolm and Simone to trace its evolution. They discuss the roots in Men's Rights Activism and pickup artistry. Sandman explains how society tries to reel MGTOW men back in since they refuse to participate in traditional relationships. He predicts virtual girlfriends, declining birth rates, and other tech changing dynamics. While unsure where it's heading, Sandman helped catalyze the withdrawal of men from unfair systems.

Transcript:

Sandman: [00:00:00] I had dolls sent to me for free to review and post on my channel. And for a while I was promoting the technology it weighs 70 like you get a workout before you work, get into bed like you're like ready to fall over before you, you're like, imagine changing positions on this thing three or four times.

Sandman: You're out. You're white. You're like, it's like getting a full workout in the gym. . Yeah,

Malcolm: your doll bod. Yeah, your doll bod. Yes. Yes.

Would you like to know more?

Simone: Hello. We are very excited to be joined today by sandman MGTOW the preeminent MGTOW figure talking head, or I guess I should say faceless talking head.

Simone: You're very mysterious. Representing the movement of men who've chosen to go their own way, which is for those not familiar with it, basically, a lot of men have realized that they're getting a really raw deal in society and they're like, you know what, I'm out, I'm not going to opt into traditional female relationships, a lot of this b******t, and I, for one, am here for it.

Simone: It makes a lot [00:01:00] of sense to me. I think if I were a guy, I'd be a MGTOW guy.

Malcolm: And what I am excited to talk about on this podcast is the anthropology of MGTOW, the anthropological history, and it can start when you started getting involved with it or where you saw who were the figures who were the progenitors of the movement?

Malcolm: How did it first start? What communities did it start in? How did it spread? What have been the major trials of the community? I am just very interested to see it as a cultural movement.

Sandman: Okay, so you had MGTOW 1. 0. And that was around, the early 2000s and the idea was. We were going to take masculinity and instill it in men and we're gonna take femininity instill it in women So it was more like back to tradition, but this is back in 2000 And so that didn't really go anywhere up until about 2008 2009 and then a creator named Barbarossa showed up And he made a video called, I think it was called post feminist man.

Sandman: And he did, [00:02:00] he basically laid the foundations for MGTOW all the way from 12. Then, another creator named Stardusk was around back then. And then when I came in around mid to end of 2013, it was dying down. Nobody was really making content. When I always look at an opportunity in any avenue, like in, in terms of economics or attention or whatever you want to do, I look at something that's something I want a lot of.

Sandman: I want some content. I want something, but there's not enough people supplying that content. So before we go

Malcolm: further on this, because I think you've already passed this in the timeline. How did MGTOW relate to the red pill movement?

Sandman: So you've got, you get the MRAs, which are the men's rights. Activists,

Malcolm: and they're old school. They were back up in like in the

Sandman: nineties, right? But every generation of men has a different movement at the center. So the RAs were, let's say the second half of the boomers and the first half of Gen X, that was the, that's the MRA sweet spot.

Sandman: So if you go to anm a conference, that's your [00:03:00] demographic. Those are men that had relationships that were good. For the most part, and they said, okay, we want these relationships. We want to continue to be married, but we just want to fix things and we want things to go back to the way they were.

Sandman: And so that's the MRAs. So the MGTOWs came in and that was the second half of Gen X and the first half of the millennials. And that's like your MGTOW sweet spot. And so I'm You know, in the middle of that. So I could see the, I could understand the younger guys and understand the point of view of the older guys.

Sandman: And MGTOW was saying, look, we can't fix these problems. You've tried to fix them for the last 10, 15 years. It's not working. What we have to do is fix these problems for the individual male. We have to make sure that the individual man has a solution for his own life. We can't change society, but you can change your own life.

Sandman: And that's why MGTOW was so powerful. And, but also we have to understand MGTOW men had relationships. They just weren't very high quality [00:04:00] relationships and so and then okay, so then after that once that kind of passes now You're in the age of the incel So you're now talking about guys who haven't had any formative relationships with women They haven't had those sexual experiences And so they're just that's why kind of incel has moved forward and taken over and it was originally that was called true force loneliness So if you watch the original true force loneliness guys back in 2014, 15, they were angry and they were more masculine.

Sandman: So when people say the incels are violent, yes the older incels, they were sex deprived and they, for the most part, they were a lot more aggressive than the, you the younger incels who are a lot more passive. And I think a lot of that also has to do with the with the testosterone levels.

Sandman: I think the testosterone levels are dropping. So because of that, you're starting to see men, that are 18, 19 that are saying, I don't want sex. And I'm, the fact that you have young males in their prime that are, have no sex drive. Should be worrying to all of us. [00:05:00]

Malcolm: So this is analogous to like the herbivore male movement in Japan.

Sandman: Yeah. Herbivore men, like a lot of people said they're MGTOWs. A lot of people said they're incels, but they're more MGTOWs because they're choosing to walk away. So there's a choice there,

Sandman: okay. So then in the midst of all of this, you had the P ways, the pickup artist community, and the pickup artist community is now what is referred to as the red pill movement, because they I guess they just take the label for themselves.

Sandman: Now, the problem with the, with MGTOW was on in November of 2018, the entire MGTOW community on YouTube was demonetized every single channel on one day. Was hit. So what happened was once that happened, you can see the peak on YouTube search results and then you see a decline from that point on.

Sandman: But all of the other communities were still allowed to continue to be monetized. So all of the other. So people started shifting. They said I can't make money making micktau content. I'm going to make [00:06:00] red pill pickup artist content. So they took all of the knowledge that they had And they started like shifting their, target audience a little bit.

Sandman: Like I'm still one of the few hardcore content creators that managed to survive after all of that. But the majority of content creators, they were either like thrown off the platforms and now they exist in, like all tech platforms or they just gave up. So you saw within six months, like 90% of the MG