Content warning: This article contains discussions of sexual assault, misogyny, misogynistic language, and stereotypes.
The popularity of man-centric podcasts and overall discourse surrounding ‘masculinity’ has recently increased on the internet. The ‘Manosphere,’ an online community preoccupied with all things masculinity, has been a source of both controversy and fascination for its apparently sexist and regressive approach to manhood.
Masculinity coaching and financial advice, which circulate on the Manosphere, are often a medium for some men to spread a superficial hustle culture mentality and misogynistic ideas. Whether it be through TikTok, Instagram reels, or word of mouth, these self-help gurus, finance bros, and entitled men rambling into the microphone have all entered our collective consciousness.
Here, I will be ranking five of my least favourite macho podcasts — and breaking down all the ways they spread misogynistic viewpoints. We all know they’re problematic, but I’ll be investigating: just how problematic are they?
5. The Art of Manliness
Do you ever long for the good old days of rigid gender roles? The answer for Brett McKay, host of the podcast The Art of Manliness, seems to be yes. His podcast is dedicated to helping men rediscover their masculinity in the modern world but at the cost of overly romanticizing the past. The very core of masculinity for McKay is to provide, procreate, and protect, but I find his categorization of masculinity forces men into conforming to traditional gender roles.
While McKay does not take this to an extreme, I find his emphasis on procreation as a measure of masculinity diminishes the masculinity of 2SLGBTQ+ men, among others. That being said, McKay does not publicly espouse a vast majority of hyper-masculine rhetoric peddled by the other podcasts on this list, and most of his lifestyle tips are genuinely unproblematic and helpful. For this reason, he is the least harmful of the bunch — one might just call him old-fashioned.
4. The Whatever Podcast
Sometimes a video title or a thumbnail is too tempting not to click. However, looks can be deceiving, and this is especially the case with the Whatever podcast hosted by Brian Atlas. While the podcast is still your typical sexist dating podcast meant to humiliate women and inspire anger, once you watch an episode, its problematic, dramatic moments are more sparse — and, frankly, boring. Atlas titles his episodes with clickbait like “PSYCHO Feminist KICKED OUT?! RAGE QUIT? CRYING?”, but the actual moments he refers to are quite tame; in this case, he merely asked a guest to leave for saying “all men are pedophiles” and she calmly, immediately complied.
In each podcast, Altas typically invites a mix of conservative commentators and groups of young women, often with careers as online influencers, to share their views on dating. One episode involves a guest arguing that a wife should stay with her husband even if he is abusive, saying that they should “go to church and have a relationship with God” instead. Although Atlas markets his podcast as humiliating “feminists” and “dropping truth bombs” on the left, in reality, his podcast is rather uneventful, filled with mildly sexist guests. For this reason, Atlas and his podcast are more bark than bite and ultimately rank lower on this list.
3. Emergency Meeting
It would not be a proper Manosphere ranking without the Tate brothers, but what have they been up to since their house arrest? Their newest podcast, Emergency Meeting, introduces a new component of fear-mongering to the familiarly sexist and hyper-masculine teachings of the brothers we’ve come to know on TikTok. In their most recent episodes, Andrew Tate frames their arrest and indictment for human trafficking and rape as an attack by the “matrix” for his outspoken views, calling men who speak out against him “eunuchs and cucks,” and the human trafficking case “bullshit sexual assault garbage.”
Andrew Tate’s obsession with the “matrix” — the powerful elite that Tate believes is responsible for suppressing ‘independent thought’ — suggests that he feels victimized by his indictment; the cause of his arrest, as he claims on an episode of Emergency Meeting, is that society “hates men as a whole.”
The influence of both brothers in the Manosphere cannot be overstated. Their reliance on the “alpha male” archetype — a man who is in control and gets what he wants — as an ideal, alongside their outward display of wealth and cars, appeals to many young men. The brothers advocate for a world where men are in control and act as the sole providers and protectors, glorifying aggression and gendered hierarchy. Surprisingly, the Tates do not rank number one on this list — unfortunately, there are even more toxic and hateful influencers out there.
2. The Pregame Live Show
The Pregame Live Show host, Hannah Pearl Davis — also known as @JustPearlyThings on YouTube — proves that women can also embody the same misogyny as some men. Davis perpetuates almost every harmful female stereotype and misconception on her podcast to reinforce the idea that women should return to their traditional gender roles.
According to Davis, women shouldn’t have the right to vote because of the effect it has on marriage; for her, women’s suffrage divides the family by making the parents vote separately. She continues to argue that, besides giving birth, women also do not contribute enough to society to garner the right to vote, stating on her podcast, “If women all went home tomorrow, I think society would function fine.” These takes are laughably, obviously ridiculous — but Davis contributes to the Manosphere by reinforcing the idea that women and femininity are inferior to men and masculinity, painting women as useless compared to their masculine providers.
1. Fresh and Fit
Taking the number one spot on the list — and the perfect embodiment of everything wrong with toxic masculinity — is the lifestyle, fitness, and dating podcast Fresh and Fit. Hosted by Walter “Fresh” Weekes and Myron “Fit” Gaines, the podcast truly encapsulates the sexist, hardcore “alpha male” energy that the other podcasts on this list merely touch upon. Their episodes usually consist of shallow and benign financial advice and generic fitness tips, but their sexist views appear primarily on their After Hours show, where they discuss matters of dating with guests. Instead of trying to generate meaningful discussion about feminism, Gaines and Weekes continuously slut shame and humiliate their guests, who tend to be models and sex workers.
The two men have insisted that “the reason why women earn less is because they deserve less” and claimed sex workers don’t deserve respect. “Women are allergic to the word ‘accountability,’” railed Gaines on an episode about sex work and modesty. He has also said: “A woman that does not follow your direction is not worthy of being taken seriously.”
Gaines even recently published the painfully misogynistic book Why Women Deserve Less, whose whole premise is that women are generally disinterested in men and simply use them for money in this “post-marriage society.” His account on X — formerly known as Twitter — is no different, with comments like “women control most of the useless jobs in society.” Gaines and Weekes’ misogyny dehumanizes women and blames them for their suffering, while their finance and lifestyle section provides them with ways to supposedly recapture their masculinity.
