Podcasts have become an important tool for knowledge production and the spread of ideological narratives in the current digital age. Including offering new ways of communicating about politics and gender. The manopshere, a network of interlinked online communities such as Incels, Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), Pick-up Artists (PUAs), and Red Pill groups, has grown in prominence across social media platforms, forums, and streaming, and have increasingly turned to podcasts to express their views and reach new audiences. This ecosystem is characterized by misogynistic narratives, anti-feminist ideology and the reinforcement of dominant white masculinities. While previous literature has examined these online masculinist communities, the growing presence of black men within these spaces, often referred to as the black manosphere, remains under researched. This paper addresses this gap by exploring how black men negotiate identity, belonging, and political agency within digital spaces organized around whiteness.
This study is grounded in theory on the manosphere and digital anti-gender discourse that situates it as a deeply gendered ideological space. It also draws on theories of black masculinity that highlight how black men navigate manhood in relation to both white supremacy and hegemonic masculinity. Additionally, the analysis is driven by work on group consciousness and group membership, which explains how individuals understand their political interests as related to a racial group and how marginalized individuals seek belonging within dominant-group spaces.
Guided by these frameworks, the central question is: How do black men collectively construct political masculinity and group consciousness within digital spaces structured by whiteness? To answer this, the study analyzes manosphere podcasts as a crucial site where these dynamics are articulated and amplified. Using critical discourse analysis, the analysis identifies recurring patterns in how hosts and guests talk about race, gender, and power and how they position themselves in relation to black communities and white hegemonic norms. This paper argues that these podcasts contribute to the formation of a distinct black political masculinity within the manosphere. This has important implications about how such constructions may affect political attitudes and voting behavior, raising broader questions about the impact of the manosphere in democracy.
