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 scary movie that will haunt you well after the credits run. Weapons has nothing on the horror show that is the manosphere.
In the documentary, Theroux, the understated British journalism, calmly and a bit coldly explores the manosphere from the inside. In talking to the most extreme influencers — the peddlers in misogyny and anti-semitism, conspiracy and homophobia — he finds himself pulled in to the fight, made into content, taken out of context, and expertly trolled, even as he holds the camera. “He really don’t wanna be in the live,” one such British influencer says to the camera in front of Theroux on a particularly disturbing night out. “He don’t wanna be on the content. But he’s got no choice.”
We parents, on the other hand, do have a choice — to shield our kids from the depravity, to push back against the cultural creep, and to turn to other influencers. Influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk, the best-selling author, radio host, entrepreneur, and an unabashed dude who plays his part as the antidote to the vitriol of the manosphere. As an executive — CEO of VaynerMedia and Chairman of VaynerX — he’s a hard-nosed, fast-talking entrepreneur who believes in bootstrapping life. He also fundamentally believes in kindness. “I know I was well parented,” he tells Fatherly, “and I have all of my validation, and I mean all of it, wrapped up in being a nice guy.”
Parents can choose to be nice, sure, but Vaynerchuk also notes we can choose to be more accountable, to stop coddling our kids on one hand while taking charge on the other (taking away their social media access or phones if we need to). “Supporting your child is everything,” says Vaynerchuk. “Enabling your child is a disaster.” And walking that tightrope between the two? That’s parenting.
The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
What do you think is the real reason people are checking out — from the workforce but also social life — and how can we inoculate our kids, and especially boys, against this?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think modern parenting has lost its way. I think we’ve made a couple of crucial mistakes, and we’re blaming it on social media because we don’t like accountability. Mistake number one: I do think, especially for boys, we got a little too into eighth-placed trophies, a little too “fighting isn’t the way to resolve things”, a little too coddle-y-coddle-y. Listen, I’m a mama’s boy through and through. I also got into ten fights in school, and my mom had no opinions about it, meaning it was like, “Yeah, life.” I think we’ve gotten too in our kids’ business. Again, everyone grows up in different circumstances. There’s plenty of kids right now that don’t have parents in their business.
Let [your kid] deal with a sucky coach, because you’re going to have a sucky boss. … You’re going to have a sucky governor one day in your life.
Forget about the ’80s and ’90s. From the ’70s and ’60s, ’50s and ’40s, ’30s and ’10s, ’00s, and on back to the 1800s … parents did not go to school and yell at teachers for giving their kid a B instead of an A. But that is what has happened the last 20 years. … The f*ck are we texting our sons who are 27 because we have the family f*cking plan and knowing where everyone is? Let men be men.
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Who do you think wins in a fight: a lion that grew up in the Bronx Zoo, or a lion in the jungle?
I go with jungle.
We’ve raised a lot of zoo lions in the last 25 years. We need to take a little bit of our foot off the pedal.
What role do you think sports play in teaching some of this wildness, some of this conflict?
I think it’s everything. When my son was growing up, during a game, if there was a kid that cried when they lost, I used to, with the parents’ permission, I would be like, “It’s good that you’re crying kid. Don’t listen to your parents.” Multiple parents were happy that I was doing that for their kid.
I think if you have a kid that cries when they lose in sports, you’ve been given a blessing. And I think you should compound that, not suppress it. Teaching your kids that nothing matters is a bad idea — leads to depression. If someone said to me around a game of monopoly tonight, “Bro, it’s just a game.” I’d be like, “F*ck you, man. This is life. When I play, I’m playing for life.” So I think sports is everything, but I think parents get involved too much yelling at the coach. Let the coach cook — even if the coach sucks.
Let [your kid] deal with a sucky coach, because you’re going to have a sucky boss. Dad’s going to have a sucky day. You’re going to have a sucky governor one day in your life. Get used to people that have authority or leverage over you. You’re going to interact with a sucky policeman. You’re going to have a sucky doctor. You have f*cking 27-year-old men throwing temper tantrums because they never were taught how to deal with sucky authority.
Talk to me about humility. How do we get more of it?
Sports is where I learned humility, and it is my superpower. My mom would’ve not raised a humble child. I thought I was Superman. I literally thought I was the most athletic and most handsome person on earth somewhere around fourth grade. Because in my neighborhood, I had the best hand-eye coordination. And in my neighborhood, I was a little bit better athletically … I won a lot, and then it started to change. And that was a rude awakening. I mean, going through the journey of humility, first getting used to the taste.
I would lose, play again. I would lose, play again. I annoyed people. I feel it’s now coming clear to me, literally in real time right now with you, I feel like in second, third, fourth grade, I might’ve had excuses. So it took some time to acquire that taste, but much like caviar, much like sweetbreads and truffles … oysters, that initial [taste] is like, “Oh, it’s a little weird.”
They come to you because you’re their f*cking drug dealer. You’re dealing the drug of non-accountability. You’re dealing the drug of no consequences.
And now I love the acquired taste. [Similarly] I now love humility. I love it. It got me here. And now that I’m, quote-unquote, “at some level of success”, and I know people look at me, I love that the kids see my humility in meetings behind the scenes. I hope it inspires them to realize it’s a beautiful trait, not a loser trait.
You recognize losing is learning. There’s a sweetness to that.
Brother, I’m a little bit even weirder. I like losing. I swear to God, I like it, man. I like adversity. I like it. I’m addicted to the underdog, when someone’s an underdog, and then they become the champ. Or the reverse; Kobe, Tiger Woods. Tiger, early, loved, loved [them] early. But then I was like, when he was the main guy, I was like, “Ah.”
I’d like to jump into something you’ve said before and my wife and I use it a lot: “Your kid is not your friend.” I have a teen right now. I think that truth has kind of hit me hard fairly recently. Do you still believe that, and why? What’s the motivation behind it? What’s the evidence?
I mean, the evidence is I’m 50 fucking years old and I get 10,000 DMs a day, and I read the content, and I analyze the content. If you’re not the person for your child that teaches consequences and ramifications, it’s going to be a problem. They’ll learn it. Life will teach them, starting at 22, which … F*ck, man, to unlearn 22 years of that behavior …
Listen, supporting your child is everything. Enabling your child is a disaster, and that is a fine f*cking line. It’s been amazing in so many ways to watch the generation of women that are [now] 48-years-old and are straight best friends with their 15-year-old daughter. Kids are older, and parents are younger, so it makes sense to me. I think it’s actually beautiful, but I think there’s a lot of moms who lose the plot in the beauty of … the nirvana of such a gorgeous relationship, and I think they feel the ramifications later, and they need to be eyes wide open.
Being friendly is amazing. You know [parents tell me], “No, Gary, you don’t get it. I want them to come to me. I couldn’t go to my mom.” Yeah, your mom was treating you inappropriately too far in the other direction, but they come to you because you’re their f*cking drug dealer. You’re dealing the drug of non-accountability. You’re dealing the drug of no consequences. You’re giving them a little hit of, “It’s everyone else’s fault but yours.”
I’m wondering how that practically plays out when it comes to money. How do you teach your kids about money, the hustle, the passion, work?
Very easy. You stop giving it to them. And the question becomes, when? I have a big thing of 15, 16, 17, 18 feels in the right range. My parents make fun of me on this. If they watch this, they’ll call me and be like, “Eh, eight, nine, seven, 10.” They were earlier. But, man, I will say, and this is tough, because I know a lot of dads are going to hear this, if you have a 23-year-old son who you’re giving money to, you are destroying that child. They have to stand on their own two feet financially. Look, the old days, AKA the ’80s and ’90s, kids did borrow money from parents to get their first home, but they paid them back … with interest. That’s a foreign concept.
If you have a 23-year-old son who you’re giving money to, you are destroying that child.
Let me just drop the atomic bomb on everyone that I unearthed eight years ago. I started getting these weird DMs and messages from guys who were 25 sh*tting on their parents for giving them money. I didn’t understand, brother. I really didn’t. I have the humility to say that the first couple times I read stuff that was similar to this, it just wasn’t on my radar yet.
Let me get you all to the punchline: If you have a 27-year-old right now that you’re giving money to, he’s saying all the right things to you in your face, but let me tell you what he’s thinking at 11:00 at night when he takes his second Tito’s on the rocks: he thinks that you think he’s a loser.
He’s taking 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 nice TV in his pad. He wants to have an Equinox membership. He wants to have Uber. He wants to have Starbucks. But I’m telling you, through your actions, are saying to him that you don’t respect him as a man.
Because he’s not independent of you. The focus should be on independence, right?
I don’t think this is red-pilled or anything. A man at 27 should be providing for, minimally, himself, however humble he lives. I lived in a sh*tty apartments with four friends in college because I used my money, even in college.
When I talk about success and winning, I talk about peace of mind, lack of anxiety, not being in depressive moments.
And it helps us for peace of mind, not financial success. I’m aware that I’m a public businessman, but when I talk about success and winning, I talk about peace of mind, lack of anxiety, not being in depressive moments. I don’t know if you not paying for your kid is going to make them financially successful. I do know it’s going to make them a man. I just did another podcast earlier. I’m doing a bunch today. Someone said, “Who do you admire?” I said, “Somebody that works two jobs and takes care of their family, and doesn’t complain.”
I admire a man or a woman that provides for their family financially on backbreaking effort without a peep of complaining. Boy, do I put that person on a pedestal. And you add nice? Nice? That’s ultimate.
