If you haven’t seen Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, make a date with Netflix. This is must-see TV for parents, especially parents raising boys. But a word of warning, it’s like a horror movie that will haunt you well after the credits roll. Weapons it has nothing to do with the horror show that is the manosphere.
In this film, Theroux, a low-key British journalist, calmly and coldly examines the manosphere from the inside. When he talks to the most extreme promoters – peddlers of misogyny and anti-semitism, conspiracies and homophobia – he finds himself dragged into battle, made content, taken out of context, and deftly trampled, as he holds the camera. “He doesn’t really want to be live,” said one British promoter on camera in front of Theroux on a particularly disturbing night. “He doesn’t want to be in the middle. But he can’t do anything.”
We parents, on the other hand, have a choice – to protect our children from corruption, to retreat from cultural norms, and to turn to other influences. Advocates like Gary Vaynerchuk, a best-selling author, broadcaster, entrepreneur, and shy man who plays his part as an antidote to the vitriol of the manosphere. As an executive – CEO of VaynerMedia and Chairman of VaynerX – he is a hard-nosed, fast-talking entrepreneur who believes in bootstrap life. And he fundamentally believes in grace. “I know I was brought up well,” he told Fatherly, “and I have all my assurances, and I mean all, wrapped up in being a good young man.”
Parents can choose to be nice, sure, but Vaynerchuk also notes that we can choose to be more accountable, stop manipulating our children on one hand while controlling them on the other (taking away their access to social media or phones if necessary). Vaynerchuk says: “Supporting your child is everything. “Empowering your child is a disaster.” And walking that tightrope between the two? That’s parenting.
The following discussion has been shortened and edited for clarity.
Gary Vaynerchuk is an insanely wealthy businessman. But his sensitivity to self-improvement and kindness raises an important question: What’s the point of being rich if you’re an unhappy criminal?
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
What do you think is the real reason for people to test – from workers but also to social life – and how can we protect our children, especially boys, against this?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think the modern parent is lost. I think we made a few critical mistakes, and we blame that on social media because we don’t like to answer. The first mistake: I think, especially for boys, we got a little too much on the lips of the eighth place, a little “fighting is not the way to solve things”, a little too coddle-y-coddle-y. Listen, I’m a mama’s boy. I also fought ten times at school, and my mother had no idea about it, which means, “Yes, life.” I think we have also entered into our children’s business. Again, everyone grows in different circumstances. There are a lot of kids right now who don’t have parents in their business.
Allow [your kid] Deal with a bad coach, because you will have a bad boss. … You will have an evil ruler one day in your life.
Forget about the ’80s and ’90s. From the ’70s and ’60s, ’50s and ’40s, ’30s and ’10s, ’00s, and from the 1800s … parents didn’t go to school and yell at the teachers for giving their kid a B instead of an A. But that is what has happened in the last 20 years. … The f*ck are we texting our 27 year old sons because we have a family entertainment program and know where everyone is? Let it be men.
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Who do you think wins the battle: the lion that grew up in the Bronx Zoo, or the lion in the jungle?
I go with the forest.
We have raised dozens of zoo lions over the past 25 years. We need to take our foot off the pedal a little.
What role do you think sports play in teaching some of this wilderness, some of this conflict?
I think it’s all. When my son was growing up, during the game, if there was a child crying when he lost, I used to, with the permission of the parents, say, “It’s good that you are crying, child. Don’t listen to your parents.” Many parents are happy that I do that for their child.
I think if you have a child who cries when they lose in sports, you are blessed. And I think you should embrace that, not suppress it. Teaching your kids that nothing matters is a bad idea – it leads to depression. If someone said to me about the solo game tonight, “Bro, it’s just a game.” I’d be like, “F*ck you, man. This is life. When I play, I play for life.” So I think sports is everything, but I think parents get too involved in yelling at the coach. Let the coach cook – even if the coach sucks.
Allow [your kid] Deal with a bad coach, because you will have a bad manager. Dad will have a great day. You will have a cruel ruler one day in your life. Get used to people who have authority or power over you. You will negotiate with a brutal police officer. You will have a nasty doctor. You have f*cking 27 year old men who are angry because they weren’t taught how to deal with bad authority.
Talk to me politely. How do we get more?
Sports is where I learned to be humble, and it is my greatest strength. A mother would not raise a submissive child. I thought I was Superman. I thought I was the fattest and best looking person in the world somewhere around the fourth grade. Because in my area, I worked very well with the hand and the eye. And in my neighborhood, I was a little better in athletics … I won a lot, and then it started to change. And that was a rude awakening. I mean, going on a journey of humility, it starts to get used to the taste.
I couldn’t lose, I could play again. I couldn’t lose, I could play again. I pissed people off. I feel like now it’s becoming clear to me, in real time right now with you, I feel like in second, third, fourth grade, I might have an excuse. So it took a while to find that taste, but it’s like caviar, like sweet breads and truffles… [taste] it’s like, “Oh, it’s a little weird.”
They come to you because you are their drug dealer. You are facing the drug of irresponsibility. He uses a drug that has no effect.
And now I love the acquired taste. [Similarly] Now I like to be humble. I love it. It got me here. And now that I am, quote-unquote, “at a certain level of success”, and I know that people are looking at me, I like that children see my humility in meetings behind the scenes. I hope it will encourage them to see that it is a good feature, not a missing feature.
You see that losing is learning. There is fun in that.
Brother, I was a little surprised. I like to lose. I swear to God, I love it, man. I like difficulty. I love it. I’m addicted to the underdog, when someone is the underdog, then they become the champ. Or the opposite; Kobe, Tiger Woods. Tiger, just starting out, loved, loved [them] it’s early. But then I was like, when he became the main guy, I was like, “Ah.”
I’d like to go into something you said earlier and my wife and I use a lot: “Your child is not your friend.” I have a child now. I think the truth has hit me hard lately. Do you still believe that, and why? What is the motivation for that? What is the evidence?
I mean, the proof is that I’m 50 years old and I get 10,000 DMs a day, and I read content, and I analyze content. If you are not your child’s person who teaches results and consequences, it will be a problem. They will read it. Life will teach them, from 22, which … F * ck, man, to release 22 years of that behavior …
Listen, supporting your child is everything. Empowering your child is a disaster, and that’s a f*cking fine line. It has been amazing in so many ways to watch the generation of women that exist 1776120931 The 48-year-old are also good friends with their 15-year-old daughter. The kids are older, and the parents are younger, so it makes sense to me. I think that it is actually beautiful, but I think that there are many mothers who lose the plot in the beauty of … the nirvana of such a beautiful relationship, and I think that they feel pain later, and they need to open their eyes.
Friendship is wonderful. You know [parents tell me]”No, Gary, don’t you hear that I want them to come to me, I couldn’t go to my mother.” Yes, your mother treated you unfairly on the other side, but they came to you because you are their drug dealer. You are facing the drug of irresponsibility. He uses a drug that has no effect. He gives them a little song about, “Everybody’s fault but yours.”
I wonder how that plays out when it comes to money. How do you teach your children about money, hustle, passion, work?
It’s very simple. Stop giving them. And the question becomes, when? I have a great deal of 15, 16, 17, 18 feelings in the right range. My parents make fun of me for this. If they watch this, they’ll call me and be like, “Uh, eight, nine, seven, 10.” They were in front. But man, I will say that this is difficult because I know there are many fathers who will hear this, if you have a 23-year-old son who you give money to, you end that child. They must be financially independent. See, in the old days, AKA the ’80s and ’90s, kids borrowed money from parents to buy their first home, but they paid it back … with interest. That’s a foreign concept.
If you have a 23-year-old son that you give money to, you destroy that child.
Let me just drop an atom bomb on everyone I’ve exposed in the last eight years. I started getting these weird DMs and messages from guys who were 25 sh*tting their parents by giving them money. I didn’t hear my brother. I really didn’t. I’m humbled to say that the first few times I read things like this, it wasn’t even on my radar.
Let me inform you all: If you have a 27-year-old kid who is giving you money right now, he says the right things to you in your face, but let me tell you what he thinks at 11:00 at night when he takes Tito off the cliff for the second time: he thinks he thinks he is the key.
He takes it because he wants to keep up with the Joneses. He wants to be able to take his girl on a date. He wants to go on vacation. He wants to get a good TV on his pad. You want to have an Equinox membership. You want to have an Uber. You want to have a Starbucks. But I say to you by your actions you say to him that you do not respect him as a man.
Because he is not independent of you. The focus should be on independence, right?
I don’t think this is a red pill or anything. A 27-year-old man has to take care of himself, a little, no matter how humble. I lived in dirty apartments with four friends in college because I spent my money, even in college.
When I talk about success and winning, I’m talking about peace of mind, lack of anxiety, not being in stressful times.
And it helps us to have peace of mind, not financial success. I know I’m a social entrepreneur, but when I talk about success and winning, I’m talking about peace of mind, lack of anxiety, not being in stressful times. I don’t know if not paying your child will make them financially successful. I know it will make a man. I just did another podcast earlier. I made a bunch today. Someone said, “Who are you admiring?” I said, “A person who works two jobs and takes care of his family, and doesn’t complain.”
I admire a man or woman who provides for their family financially through hard work without complaint. Boy, do I put that person on the shelf. And add the good? Good? That’s the last one.
