Down The Rabbit Hole: Navigating the Controversial Landscape of Red Pill Ideology
On March 31st, 1999, a film titled “The Matrix” was released, making waves across pop culture and becoming a household name that people reference to this day. One iconic scene from the movie features Morpheus — the perennial mentor figure of the story — presenting the film’s protagonist Neo with a decision. “You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Neo’s decision to take the Red Pill represents the beginning of his arc along the hero’s journey, the shift from the “normal” world he knows to an unfamiliar one rife with trials and tribulations that will test his character, inevitably leading him to realizing his full potential. In the real world, however, the Red Pill and the meanings associated with “taking it” have since come to represent something much different.
“The Red Pill” has become a widely used analogy among different social/political groups due its popularity among the general public and associations with guidance towards a “hidden truth”. The earliest known political use of the term was in 2006 by Kathleen J. Tierney (a sociology professor at the University of Colorado). In her case, she used it when encouraging those critical of the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina to “take the red pill” and realize that “post-September 11 policies and plans have actually made the nation more vulnerable, both to natural disasters and to future terrorist attacks.”
The term was further popularized by the neo-reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin, who first used it in 2007 — under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug — in a blog post titled “The Case Against Democracy: Ten Red Pills.” Yarvin argued that trying to convince people in the West that democracy is bad is equivalent to trying to convince a Catholic in 16th-century Spain not to believe Catholicism. He then offered ten “Red Pill” arguments (along with their “Blue Pill” counterparts) to make a case against democracy.
Today, the term is widely used in various communities — particularly those with right leaning inclinations. For example, Q-Anon uses “red-pilling” to describe actions that reveal the supposed “truth” of a nefarious deep state to those not yet aligned with their beliefs. Here, I want to specifically highlight one group that has gained prominence in the last two years, aptly referred to as “The Red Pill Community.”
Into The Inferno
My first real exposure to Red Pill content came while I was perusing my YouTube recommended page, eventually coming across a live stream of a channel called “FreshandFit.” On a whim, I clicked on the stream curious to check it out and subsequently found myself bombarded by a barrage of bizarre takes surrounding the “truth about men and women”.
The screen contained two men, Walter Weekes and Myron Gaines, sitting across from one another with around 9 to 11 provocatively dressed, clearly intoxicated women taking up the rest of the square table between them. For around 15 minutes, I watched as they spent the stream spouting claim after claim, exclaiming how the “modern women” had become conceited, more interested in playing a man for their paycheck than actually developing a real relationship.
I watched Gaines, purportedly the brain of the pair, argue with the women on the podcast, attempting to make them look stupid for questioning his ideas about “female psychology” and — for one unlucky lady — kicking them off the show for disagreeing too much. It was at this point that I decided I had seen enough, there was only so much self-aggrandizing machismo I could handle in one sitting, but as I went to click off, I noticed the comments in the live chat of over 6k concurrent viewers.
The chat was packed full of messages berating the women on the panel and thanking both Gaines and Weekes for exposing the “lies” of feminism and “putting those bitches in their place”. It was at this point that my interest was piqued, how could 6k+ people have such a divergent reading of the content from me, why did they identify so strongly with it when it did little more than make me laugh at the absurdity of the beliefs on display, what did they see that I didn’t, what was I missing?
After that initial experience, I decided to dedicate a small portion of my free time to going down the rabbit hole, investigating the content of FreshandFit as well as channels adjacent to them such as Rollo Tomassi, Donovan Sharpe, and JustPearlyThings, in time learning that they all belonged to something called “The Red Pill Space”. I had heard about Red Pill content previously in the news, when stories about the popularity of Andrew Tate began to come out.
I hadn’t really engaged much with it outside of the odd ad for kits and services from Red Pill creators, claiming they would teach me how to “get girls and get paid.” It wasn’t until I took this excursion through the space that I truly understood the depths of the narrative they sought to sell to their audiences. A narrative that placed men as a collectively discriminated against group, whose main opponent was feminism and the modern woman.
Roots of The Red Pill Community
The Red Pill community is a subsection of a broader space referred to as The Manosphere, a loose collection of online groups centered around men’s issues. Besides The Red Pill, the communities that make up the manosphere include Men’s Right Advocates (MRA’s), Pick Up Artists (PUA’s), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), and Involuntary Celibates (Incels). While these groups share in many of their underlying criticisms of “modern western society”, they also diverge in key ways regarding the narratives they spin and the prescriptions they push forward.
In 2010, a blog post was published by Imran Khan titled “The Misandry Bubble”, also commonly referred to as the “Red Pill manifesto” by members of the manosphere. The post represents an interesting insight into some of the early manifestations of ideas that would become the foundation of Red Pill ideology more broadly, expressing the author’s perception that the western world has slowly grown into a society that undervalues men and overvalues women.
2 years later, R/TheRedPill would be created, becoming one of the most notorious subreddits on the site due to the misogynist content shared there and amassing a user base of close to 300,000 accounts before it was eventually permanently quarantined in 2018. The page — initially founded by Robert Fisher previous to his career as a New Hampshire State Lawmaker — served as a place for men online looking to discuss their frustrations with dating, feelings surrounding masculinity, and ideas about inter-gender dynamics to converge.
The subreddit’s philosophy could be seen through the sidebar — as was explored in depth in this 2018 research article authored by Shawn P. Van Valkenburgh — and largely aligned with the tenants initially put forth by Khan in “The Misandry Bubble”. This shared basis of belief also spilt over into other online Red Pill content spaces such as a collection of blog sites like “Return of Kings” (a site where multiple figures still producing Red Pill content, Donovan Sharpe for instance, got their start in the space writing) and The Rational Male (A site run by self-identified “God Father of the Red Pill” Rollo Tomassi, which shares its name with his series of books discussing Red Pill ideology).
The space saw an even larger foray into mainstream consciousness with the rise of Andrew Tate as a popular and controversial public figure. In 2022, Tate was one of the most googled people on the planet as a result of his meteoric rise online until he was mass banned across multiple social media platforms. It was also during this time that other Red Pill content creators such as FreshandFit, JustPearlyThings, and TheWhateverPodcast began to see explosions in success.
An Illusionary Story
The narrative for the Red Pillers goes that in the past — back when society was run by men for men — masculinity was cherished and women recognized their feminine roles leaving the family unit in harmony, Gaines calls this the “old contract” in his book “Why Women Deserve Less”. However, once feminism emerged as a mainstream social movement, it not only led to a shift in societal dynamics but also disrupted the “natural order” of relationships between men and women. In this view, feminism empowered women at the expense of men, leading to what they perceived as a decline of traditional family values and male authority.
Here, feminism serves as a disguise for the truth of society’s oppression of men, similar to how in The Matrix the virtual world served as a disguise for the truth of human oppression at the hands of the machines. Instead of the illusion being one of human freedom, lulling the inhabitants of the Matrix into a false sense of normalcy, the Red Pill posits an illusion of female subjugation — referred to as “The Myth of Female Oppression” — which they claim is used to enable an exploitative societal standard for female–male relationships.
Creators in the space often point to things such as the differences in who initiates divorces, statistics surrounding criminal punishments between men and women, family court statistics, and affirmative action policies as examples of structural discrimination affecting men. They attribute this “discrimination” to what is often characterized as an increasingly “gynocentric” society. One that aims to pedestalize women while actively demasculinizing men, leaving them as nothing more than shivering, easily controllable, “beta cucks”.
Evolutionary psychology is often invoked, playing into a communally shared self-perception of Red Pillers as “truth sayers”, not afraid to recognize “objective scientific realities” about men and women that those in mainstream society choose to ignore. Concepts such as hypergamy, alpha/beta dynamics, the relationship between female premarital sex and divorce rates, cuckolding rates, and pair bonding are all ideas members of the Red Pill reference bootlegged evo-psych explanations for in order to fit them into their narrative mold. This in turn establishes an internal sense of epistemic credibility and authority within the community, used to discredit outside sources as obscuring the “truth” in order to uphold mainstream “delusions”.
It is ironic then that the basis of Red Pill epistemology relies not on the scientific method or any objective standard they attempt to co-opt the aesthetics of, but instead on common sense psychology (also known as folk psychology) relying on the intuitive sense of what feels correct rather than empirical measurement. People in the space when confronted with research contrary to their priors will often make statements along the lines of “don’t trust statistics, trust your own experiences”, despite the fact that they are highly motivated to reference statistics any time they perceive them as playing into their positions.
Many references to empirical evidence that become popular in the space rely on the selective citation of data, utilizing incomplete pictures of statistical information to enforce the underlying narrative frame Red Pillers support. For example, in his book “Why Women Deserve Less”, Gaines makes multiple assertions of “objective statistical fact” to back his analysis of modern social dynamics between men and women. In one case, he references how 97% of alimony payments go to women as evidence of the legal system discriminating against men and “why marriage is a sham”, conveniently leaving out the fact that the same source he pulled that number from also explicitly estimates the rate of Alimony being paid out in divorces at only 10%.
In another, he mentions that women initiate 76% of divorces, with the number jumping up to 90% among educated women as a way to show how feminism and the liberal educational institutions are teaching women to disrespect the institution of marriage. Again, Gaines includes the information that is convenient to his narrative, that educated women are more likely to be the ones to initiate divorce when it occurs in comparison to uneducated women, but ignores the facts that aren’t so convenient, such as the likelihood of divorce occurring in the first place being significantly lower among educated women than it is among uneducated women.
Gaines isn’t the only Red Pill creator who plays fast and loose with how they choose to cite research. Figures like Rollo Tomossi will commonly cite out of date evo-psych concepts like the dual mating strategy hypothesis. This is despite the fact that research supporting the hypothesis has been largely unreplicatable, and that even one of the early proponents of the theory — Steven W. Gangestad — has come out with more recent research discussing the empirical failings of said mating strategy.
The narrative always comes first, empirical data is only referred to in service of that narrative, and if some of that data is incongruent with the narrative it is either completely ignored or discredited as distortions of institutional biases to appease women. Truth-value becomes secondary to reinforcement of the core story that serves as the necessary precondition for the Red Pill philosophy to function.
A Distorted World
The beliefs here did not exist in a vacuum either, it couldn’t be that you believed in the Red Pill but had otherwise normal beliefs. As is the case in many other radical circles, the presence of misinformed ideas tends to cluster. There would often be statements about the existence of deep state apparatuses, support for figures like Trump and the idea that the 2020 election was rigged, 9/11 truthism, antivax rhetoric, and antisemitic tropes.
These clusters of misinformation create an echo chamber within the Red Pill Space, reinforcing not only toxic masculinity but also a host of other dangerous beliefs. The interconnectedness of these ideologies provided a sense of validation and belonging to young men who felt disillusioned by the complexities of the modern world. The paradigm didn’t just give you the answer to dating but every question you might have about the structure and problems of society as a whole.
Radical sects of the right have not failed to recognize these connections and take advantage of the opportunities they represent. For instance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has made it a point to target his rhetoric towards this cohort of men, railing against supposed attacks on masculinity perpetuated by the left and championing traditional mythologies of manhood as the ideal we must return to. Tucker Carlson produced a documentary called “The End of Men” released in April of 2022, hoping to tap into that same audience. The trailer boasts shirtless men engaging in stereotypically masculine things like shooting guns, being in the military, and wrestling — unsubtly playing into the male fantasy.
Other right-aligned figures such as Dr. Jordan B. Peterson have long embraced the role of speaking to boys and young men, tying some genuinely good — if not somewhat banal — advice in the form of epithets of “cleaning your room”, shadow integration, and embracing delayed gratification as means of getting his audience’s lives in order, with more socially regressive statements surrounding the social roles of women and the validity of trans-identities. These more regressive social attitudes are prevalent in Red-Pill spaces, one user in the Fresh and Fit discord for instance maligned “I’m so ashamed of my country 😭” in response to the crowning of a trans-woman as Ms. Portugal in 2023.
It’s important to note that the spaces aren’t uniform in the characteristics of those who inhabit it, there are those who genuinely seem to just be looking for connections with other men dealing with the same issues as they are. Not all the advice that circulates the community is necessarily horrible either, there are some genuinely positive messages surrounding self-improvement and keeping fellow members of the space accountable to those personal developmental goals. Many of these more positive messages tend to have to do with exercising and finding hobbies/skills to build proficiency in.
The people in this group — as is true with most groups upon closer inspection — exist within a spectrum of attitudes that shouldn’t be mindlessly flattened into a single over generalized mass.
Simulation and Simulacrum
There are many contradictions inherent to the Red Pill paradigm, one of which is the fact that it represents an overwhelmingly male community — though there is also a limited female presence in the community as can be seen in spaces like R/RedPillWoman — advocating unpopular opinions about women and the many perceived issues they have with them, but who are also almost entirely focused on attracting and seducing as many of them as possible. Present within the community is a potent sense of vitriolic rhetoric towards women, but also a sense that the primary means by which anyone within the space can measure their value is via their ability to draw the attention of the same women they are so critical of.
Here both differences and similarities to other manosphere communities emerge. In many manosphere spaces the primary mechanism by which the success of members is communicated is via their success with women — with the notable exception of MGTOW communities who promote a complete separation from women entirely.
Where things differ is the position along the spectrum of internal and external locus of control that groups find themselves in reaction to their perceived struggles. Incels, for instance, find themselves much closer to the external end of the locus of control spectrum — justifying their failures as insurmountable results of bad genetics, social ineptitude, or societal barriers. Red Pillers, on the other hand, find themselves further towards the internal end of the spectrum — focusing on ways they can better “play the game” in order to persist beyond their perceived barriers to finding success in the dating market.
There is a paradoxical nature to the fact that a community which so often rejects what they perceive as more “woke” points of view — seeing them as part of the “mind virus” that has infected Western society and led to discrimination against men — adopted the core analogy of the Red Pill. An analogy originating from a movie made by two trans-women who have publicly discussed connections between the films and their own experiences with transness.
The original analogy of “The Red Pill” was meant to refer to dealing with uncomfortable truths of the world, but has been warped to be nearly unrecognizable, now meaning the adoption of a specific collection of beliefs necessary to be part of a given social group. People end up referring to a simulacrum of “The Red Pill”, referencing a mere imitation of the original idea that never truly existed. In many ways, Red Pill narratives have become the true “Blue Pill delusions” relying on convenient selections of facts and observations to support the social groupings that have been formed to help relieve the dissonant feelings of the people who join them.
Men In Crisis
The audience Red Pill creators seem to target tend to skew towards young men ages 16–25. I was — and still am — a member of that cohort, yet for some reason, I seemed to be less susceptible to the appeal that other members of my demographic found in the content upon first contact. As I delved deeper into the videos, blogs, and forums within the Red Pill Space, I encountered a myriad of opinions, some extreme and others more moderate, but all rooted in a fundamental belief in the innate superiority of men over women.
In my quest to understand the appeal of Red Pill ideology, I discovered that many of its followers were drawn to it due to a sense of alienation and frustration. They felt disempowered in a rapidly changing world where traditional norms were being challenged, economic uncertainties were prevalent, and social interactions were increasingly happening online rather than in person. Red Pill communities provided them with a seemingly straightforward explanation for their struggles — blaming feminism and women for their problems became an easy scapegoat.
Furthermore, the allure of belonging to a community where their views were not only accepted but also encouraged was powerful. In these spaces, they found validation for their insecurities and frustrations. They found a sense of camaraderie in the shared belief that they were victims of a changing society that had left them behind.
There is some empirical grounding for these growing feelings of frustration. Boys, especially boys of color, underperform in K-12 education when compared to their female counterparts. Higher education has also seen a stifling among men, with the makeup of both undergraduate and master’s degree attainment in the U.S. having a ratio of 60/40 female to male on average. They are over represented in suicide as well as deaths of despair more broadly, and they’re struggling in the work place — especially with regards to men without a college degree.
It is undeniable that men still collectively hold dominance in various domains, such as corporate and governmental leadership positions, with there being more S&P 500 CEOs named Michael or James in 2020 than there were female CEOs period. Still, it is crucial to recognize that the individuals attracted to communities like the Red Pill do not perceive themselves as part of this privileged group. Instead, they harbor a distinct sense of personal disenfranchisement, a sentiment conveniently attributed to external factors like feminism within the Red Pill ideology.
More and more locations which traditionally functioned as sites for community building (such as churches, union halls, record shops, and amateur sports leagues) have disappeared, leaving us more socially fractured and driving us to be more online collectively. Social fragmentation has left many young men — and more broadly people in general — grappling with a profound sense of isolation, searching for connection in virtual spaces where extreme ideologies often find fertile ground.
This all ends up playing into the narrative of “the Blue-Pilled deception” society has told men, which serves as a common denominator across several manosphere spaces. In one post to Incels.co, a user vented “we have lived our entire lives believing the “bluepilled” lies that society tells us. Work hard and you’ll be rewarded. Just be yourself and you’ll find yourself in a relationship with a nice girl. But life has been hard on us, people have been hard on us, and none of this shit made any sense until everything suddenly clicked: we live a misreable life because we are ugly.” The idea that society has not only failed men but actively misled them on what they need to do to live a good life — said good life being largely predicated on having the ability to “get girls” — serves as a powerful rallying point for men frustrated at their lot in life who feel as though they have no guidance on how to feel better.
None of this justifies the vitriol these groups have pointed towards women as a result, but it does suggest why Red Pill spaces have increased their popularity. Because women are doing better in comparison to men in some metrics, the door opened for Red Pill figures to frame the downfall of men as being contingent upon the flourishing of women, selling the false idea that the success of either group is a zero-sum game.
Precarious Manhood
Anxieties surrounding masculinity are not a new phenomenon. In the mid 1830’s figures such as American writer Washington Irving criticized the American upper class’s tendency to allow their boys to grow “luxurious and effeminate” when they were sent abroad to Europe — offering the alternative of instead sending them to hunt on the prairies in order to invoke more masculine attitudes.
Victorian conceptions of masculinity were heavily influenced by societal norms and expectations, perpetuating specific ideals that men were expected to embody. Because this model of masculinity conceptualized manhood as an achieved state as opposed to an innate feature, significant worries around the prospect of losing it were prevalent. Moral panic about the “emasculated man” is nearly as old as our conceptions of masculinity themselves, so it’s not a surprise that the notion remains relevant to this day.
These anxieties play into a concept called precarious manhood, a psychological framework that posits manhood as a status that must be continually earned and demonstrated through behaviors associated with toughness and dominance. According to this concept, manhood is not a static or inherent quality but an ongoing performance that can be lost through displays of perceived weakness. The pressure to constantly prove one’s masculinity contributes to a pervasive sense of vulnerability among men.
This in combination with the less clear institutional formal rites of passage into manhood present in countries like the U.S. fosters an environment where adherence to traditional gender norms becomes a coping mechanism for men dealing with more ambiguous perceptions around the status of their own masculinity. Consequently, any perceived threat to these entrenched gender norms can evoke profound feelings of dissonance and insecurity. When not adequately addressed, this creates a breeding ground for reactionary ideologies like the Red Pill, which offer a seemingly straightforward explanation for these anxieties.
Fear-mongering narratives surrounding the “de-masculinization of men” persist, contributing to a broader societal anxiety about shifting gender dynamics. When figures such as Sen. Josh Hawley repeatedly make statements like “No menace to this nation is greater than the collapse of American manhood,” — as is written in his book “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs” — they make salient the precariousness of masculinity in the minds of their audiences. This in turn ends up exacerbating pre-existing fears rather than giving young men a practical path forward for developing healthier conceptions of manhood.
Deconstruction Without Reconstruction
Many positives have come from progressive approaches to applying a critical lens to masculinity as a structure in society and the expectations associated with said structure. Patriarchal norms must be questioned and many aspects of traditional notions of what constituted — and in many ways continue to constitute — men’s role in society not only harm women but also men and boys. Beyond that, this breakdown in strict adherence to gender roles more broadly has opened up room in the zeitgeist for broader conversations surrounding non-conventional expressions of gender identity.
However, this has historically mostly come from a position of deconstruction, breaking down popular notions of masculinity as a means of identifying its mechanisms and flaws. While useful, it has left a vacuum in regard to the creation of positive structures of manhood that may take its place. There are valid reasons for this, the reconstruction of a healthier masculine structure in society to replace the previous manifestations carry with it many complex considerations.
For one, there is the potential reinforcement of gender stereotypes by associating certain positive traits specifically with masculinity. The fear is that this could inadvertently suggest that these virtues are inherent to being a man, excluding women from embodying these qualities. Striking a balance between acknowledging positive aspects of masculinity without perpetuating gendered limitations remains a delicate task.
There is also a broader question surrounding the necessity of promoting gendered constructions such as masculinity and femininity in the first place. Some argue for a move toward a completely gender-neutral society, challenging the very notion of ascribing certain traits or behaviors to specific genders. This perspective suggests that focusing on positive masculinity might inadvertently perpetuate a binary understanding of gender, hindering progress towards a more inclusive society.
Still, it seems to be the case that a large number of people do find great value in having these kinds of gendered models present. If more progressive groups don’t posit strong positive cases for what masculinity could represent, other less scrupulous parties will be and have been ready to fill that gap.
When I consider why I personally don’t feel the same attraction to these spaces despite existing at the intersection of many of the demographic commonalities present in the membership, I think about the fact that it may very well just have been that I was lucky enough to have strong role models which served as protective factors. My father represented an image of manhood that contained many of the more positive traditionally masculine associated features (things like perseverance, stability, discipline, and competence) without the faux machismo celebrated in Red Pill spaces.
My mother, on the other hand, represented the fact that a woman who exemplified many of the traditionally feminine associated features (things like high empathy, nurturing, collaboration, and optimism) could also be highly successful taking on work and leadership roles that have historically been reserved for men. In fact, I didn’t really end up associating many of these positive features as strongly with masculinity or femininity as I did with maturity in general.
Because of this, I never felt a need to look to spaces like the Red Pill for guidance since anything on offer felt like cheap versions of the models I already had. However, not everyone has the good fortune of those same quality of models being present in their lives, and without them it’s not a surprise that people would take whatever alternative they can find, regardless of the issues.
Things like having more male teachers in primary through high school education may be a first step to giving boys more options of positive male role models to look to earlier in their development. During the 2020–2021 period, only 23% of K-12 public school teachers were men, with that number diminishing to only 11% of teachers when looking at primary schools specifically. Introducing more male teachers into these educational spaces can offer invaluable guidance, fostering a positive influence that extends beyond the classroom.
Support for grass root initiatives to connect young boys with healthy mentors may also help to address gaps currently being exploited by Red Pill spaces. Mentors can contribute insights, share personal experiences, and help shape a positive sense of self for young boys navigating the formation of their identity. These initiatives not only have the potential to provide guidance but also create a sense of community, mitigating the allure of extremist ideologies that often prey on individuals seeking validation and camaraderie.
Navigating this issue is complicated, requiring a careful consideration of language, societal expectations, and the intersectionality of gender with other aspects of identity. Still, if one wishes to have a persuasive voice in addressing the further growth of communities like the Red Pill, it is essential to have positive alternatives to offer those who find themselves drawn to these more regressive spaces. In many ways, these issues can be likened to ignoring a malignant tumor, you may be able to get by in the short term but sooner or later the consequences become dire.
To take the true “Red Pill” — not the one that has been mired in distortion and dog whistle over the past decade — is to look these quandaries directly in their faces regardless of the ugliness that exists there. The first step to solving any problem is to recognize and understand it. Without doing so you may as well be fighting with shadows in the night.
