Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - How the 'manosphere' is turning classrooms into blaring alarms for the future (with Luc Cousineau)

00:00:00.000 the golem ass picture of andrew tate the you know all of these moments where you can just 0.99

00:00:05.040 point out that the guy's the guy's a loser he really is like to his core do you have a favorite 0.98

00:00:10.480 insult regarding andrew tate um so like part of me is like even his nicknames are just so cringe 0.94

00:00:21.280 that i mean they're like a they're like a self-owned sometimes they are um but like

00:00:27.040 my favorite one is actually um in our data there's a teacher that talks about his followers

00:00:33.920 as tater tots yeah um and uh just deep in my soul uh that makes me laugh just thinking about them

00:00:43.280 as tater tots and for some reason that makes me think of him as just like a big tater tot with

00:00:48.000 arms i love that uh which i mean and that's just a funny that's a funny picture in my head

00:00:54.800 Uh, and sometimes I need that to like, sometimes, so.

00:00:58.220 Ooh, that's good.

00:01:04.800 Hello, I'm Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person's least favorite journalist.

00:01:09.280 Welcome to Bubble Pop, a weekly show where we break down the biggest headlines and juiciest

00:01:14.660 news tidbits so you don't have to doom scroll.

00:01:17.540 Today we're talking about something that makes me want to vomit, the manosphere.

00:01:21.600 Unfortunately, a growing number of worryingly popular misogynistic influencers 0.91

00:01:26.680 make their money by telling men to hate women.

00:01:30.340 While it's hard to imagine this wouldn't have an offline impact,

00:01:34.260 research is emerging that is starting to tell us just how bad that impact really is.

00:01:39.180 A new paper from Emilia Sandow and Luke Cousineau,

00:01:42.420 published recently in the journal Gender and Education,

00:01:45.440 is one of the articles that paints that picture.

00:01:47.880 titled Trying to Talk White Male Teenagers Off the Alt-Right Ledge and Other Impacts of

00:01:53.260 Masculinist Influencers on Teachers. The researchers use data collected from the

00:01:58.200 teachers subreddit community on reddit.com to dig into how users describe the influences of

00:02:04.100 a resurging misogyny on the jobs of teachers in the classroom, since those teachers are

00:02:09.680 on the front lines, being bombarded with the rhetoric these kids are learning from 0.85

00:02:14.800 manosphere douchebags. The researchers found that students are, quote, actively parroting male

00:02:20.480 supremacist rhetorics at school, and that is serving to devalue women teachers and make

00:02:25.220 classrooms less safe. In the end, the researchers concluded there is cause for concern regarding the,

00:02:30.840 quote, immediate impacts as well as long-term consequences of masculinist and male supremacist

00:02:36.720 ideologies on youth, teachers, and schools. As a result, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network has

00:02:42.340 launched a petition that you can sign right now against male supremacy violence and harassment in

00:02:47.440 Canadian schools. I'll have the link in the description for today's episode. Now to help

00:02:52.080 us dig deeper into this seriously scary issue, I am thrilled to have one of the researchers behind

00:02:57.560 this new paper on the show. Luke Cousineau is the co-founder of the Canadian Institute for

00:03:02.780 Far-Right Studies and an instructor at Dalhousie University. He's an expert on several issues,

00:03:07.960 including men's rights groups and far-right extremism all of this makes him an excellent

00:03:12.280 resource for helping us to understand the scary side of the influencer world one that is having

00:03:17.800 real offline impacts for all those reasons i am so excited to welcome him on the show luke welcome

00:03:23.960 to bubble pop thanks so much for having me i'm excited i'm excited i i'm like this topic is one

00:03:31.400 that i think is so um important right now and it's like very fascinating in a very scary way

00:03:39.560 so i'm excited to talk to you about it um you know i i do want to start with a big question

00:03:47.400 because we might have some viewers here some listeners who are blissfully unaware of the

00:03:53.880 world that you've spent so much time researching and that i've unfortunately dipped my toe into

00:03:58.680 as well could you explain like what is the manosphere oh oh the bliss of not knowing

00:04:06.600 the answer to that question um and i'm sorry listeners that now you're about to get it so

00:04:13.080 yeah um so yeah i may be blissful not to know but i think important to know and so there's i mean

00:04:20.880 there's a few ways that we explain what the manosphere is but the kind of easiest way is

00:04:25.340 understand that they're kind of a the manosphere is kind of a loose collection of different

00:04:30.780 ideological groups and their sort of unifying focus is generally anti-feminism um but that

00:04:39.340 extends in all directions so sometimes it is anti-women period sometimes it is anti-equity

00:04:46.780 sometimes it is um anti uh custody court for example and so in the manosphere you're gonna

00:04:54.300 to find a bunch of different groups again loosely aligned so you might have men's rights in there

00:04:59.960 you might have the red pill which is this movement about like kind of finding alpha masculinity

00:05:06.200 through going to the gym and being rude to women and other bad stuff um you're gonna find some

00:05:14.200 people would put incels in there i think if you asked a lot of incels they say no no no we're not

00:05:18.180 part of the manosphere but they kind of fit in there different ways uh it's a group called mig

00:05:22.540 tau which is men going their own way um with that's the real sort of anti-women we don't need

00:05:28.060 women at all in our lives um and then and then some other groups in there too and sort of subsets 0.55

00:05:34.860 of those groups sometimes we might find nofap in there um which is a no masturbation thing uh

00:05:42.700 viewers can look that up if they're interested in it i that's not my area of expertise as a

00:05:48.140 researcher but there are folks who do research uh that particular subgroup um and they're sort

00:05:53.900 of loosely connected again mostly by by anti-feminism and so it's a big um a big cluster of

00:06:04.380 folks i mean uh it's hard to they're hard to describe and then and then you have sort of

00:06:09.580 the surrounding the cluster uh what we might call this sort of masculine masculinist uh grifter

00:06:17.500 sphere um who make money and and often prey on these folks and they're embedded in these

00:06:23.660 communities but also it's not oh pickup artists speaking of grifters our pickup artists definitely 1.00

00:06:28.860 fit in there as well so um yeah a bunch of different groups that really don't like women

00:06:34.460 most of the time yeah i think i actually had an encounter with a pickup artist back when i was a

00:06:39.020 waitress um and it turned out later that this guy was going around and like filming women that he

00:06:43.820 was hitting on uh without asking and um yeah i don't know if he ever if he filmed our interaction

00:06:49.580 but i just remember he was really gross and i was like 18 19 like so young anyways um just like a

00:06:56.780 very greasy uh world and it kind of exists like so what you were describing too like there's

00:07:02.940 communities and there's like influencers so is it mostly on social media is it more forum based is

00:07:09.740 Is it more like figurehead based, like, or is it kind of everything?

00:07:12.980 Because it sounds like it's a really broad movement.

00:07:16.000 Yeah, I mean, I was just going to answer yes, because it's, you know, it's all of those

00:07:21.200 things, and certainly in person.

00:07:23.840 And so communities like the pickup artist community, while there is, remains a significant

00:07:29.600 pickup artist community online, they were, had a big, like, sort of in-person thing through

00:07:35.460 the 90s, especially, and centered around a book.

00:07:38.040 um i mean we don't need to go too deep into it because i don't want people to go and find him

00:07:42.200 buy that book it's awful um but i mean you have these big sort of in-person movements uh and a

00:07:49.320 lot of the current movements actually grow out of those and so like through the late 70s and the

00:07:53.280 80s you had the mythopoetic men's movement which is like think like loincloths in the forest and

00:07:58.840 like banging drums and howling to the masculine moon and stuff like um yeah it's a real like sort

00:08:06.100 of uh finding true masculinity in that space and those were in-person meetings sort of pre

00:08:13.220 everybody being on the internet all the time now we're seeing still some certainly in person and

00:08:19.940 this is manifesting in person but uh forums um social media sites like certainly reddit for

00:08:26.740 people doing interactive stuff and then like just an overwhelming amount of content on tiktok and

00:08:33.540 youtube uh and and instagram a sort of more one-way content where people might interact

00:08:40.740 after but the sort of influencers and the producers of that content are sort of producing it

00:08:45.780 and loosing it into the world awesome so great yeah isn't it isn't it just a delight yeah just

00:08:55.060 a smorgasbord it's just anywhere you turn you can find some um i one thing that i find confusing

00:09:01.700 probably in part because like i'm a woman so it's not exactly designed to appeal to me

00:09:06.900 um but you know like i don't understand how this became such a popular style of content when it's

00:09:17.460 so disgusting and like why some young men specifically are so drawn to it what's what's

00:09:25.380 been your impression of that the answer to that and i know it's hard because it's a broad movement

00:09:30.900 with like a lot of different iterations, but are there any themes that you've noticed?

00:09:36.420 Yeah, I mean, that's a super important question, right? And part of the reason why folks like me

00:09:43.220 spend their time and energy looking at groups like this and their effects, it is important to do a

00:09:51.620 little bit of splitting apart, right? Because I think that what draws folks to say the incel

00:09:57.540 movement can be quite different than what might draw them to the red pill or um other content

00:10:04.580 other sort of misogynist content but that isn't sort of based on involuntary celibacy and that

00:10:11.140 sort of thing um they remain linked to get really academic real quick here uh you know it's really

00:10:16.740 it's really a complicated set of social phenomenon what it kind of boils down to and you see this in

00:10:25.300 other studies of extremism as well is sort of looking for sense of self uh and looking for

00:10:31.860 belonging uh in a lot of times that's i mean what brings people into the group setting certainly

00:10:38.020 uh but on an individual level especially if you look at a lot of the incel exit work

00:10:43.140 um talking to formers from these groups or even sort of people that are currently in there one

00:10:49.380 of the things that young men are looking for in particular is somebody to tell them how to

00:10:56.260 be a man today right and if you are you know if you represent like i do you know i'm a cishet

00:11:04.260 white guy uh i look like this um and so if i'm if i'm being told that you know other people

00:11:12.420 need to have opportunities that means that didn't well didn't i have all of these opportunities

00:11:18.660 before and doesn't that mean that i'm losing because of it right there's this some really

00:11:22.720 complicated social things going on around seeing sort of power and privilege and access as zero

00:11:29.500 sum and so if somebody else is getting some of that then i'm getting less uh so i might get

00:11:35.360 aggrieved right like so there's these layers of like aggrievement of feeling loss of just sort of 0.68

00:11:43.340 not giving shit about other people sometimes. And that comes under capitalism. There's all of these 0.95

00:11:50.880 really complex social layers, but we have especially the younger men looking for role

00:11:58.380 models. And then if the role models they're fed through the fire hose of media that they're getting

00:12:04.620 are all saying this, then, oh, I guess that's how I should do it. And so there's, you know,

00:12:13.120 it's really, it's really complicated. There's a lot of sort of nuance and individuality there.

00:12:18.540 Some folks can't, you know, some young men aren't going to be able to achieve the

00:12:22.720 sort of idealized masculinity, and that might push them into the incel community, for example.

00:12:29.540 And, you know, the extreme of that is really nihilistic. That's where we find the extreme

00:12:33.160 violence um and so i mean i've given you kind of a kind of a long and convoluted answer but the

00:12:40.840 reason for that is that if we if we don't start right at the beginning being like this is really

00:12:47.560 really complicated and we have to spend some time uh thinking and talking about the elements of that

00:12:54.600 and why it's so complicated we can never get anywhere in our discussion about well like because

00:13:01.160 Because, you know, eventually we have to come around to like, well, what do we do about it?

00:13:05.500 And if we're not willing to acknowledge that it's really, really complicated, then we can never come to the right kind of answer.

00:13:13.140 Because you can't solve a really complicated problem with a single response.

00:13:17.580 It can't work that way.

00:13:19.100 It won't ever.

00:13:20.220 And we have lots of evidence to demonstrate that.

00:13:22.960 And so I don't mean to sort of drag it on and have people go like, oh, man, this guy like really went down the hole right away.

00:13:29.940 no no you're good you know it's that it is that complicated yeah and it's you need to understand

00:13:35.940 that like right from hop so totally totally and you know one thing that kind of struck me when

00:13:42.080 you're uh doing going through these sort of definitions and and the different um ways that

00:13:47.780 this manifests itself and what draws people to it is you know this doesn't sound like i i mean i

00:13:53.080 thought that in some ways this was a relatively new phenomenon but it sounds like there's been

00:13:57.640 something going on for decades where, you know, there has been this sort of masculinist theme

00:14:04.280 in a lot of these, well, I guess, with men, period. And is there anything like, because it feels like

00:14:13.960 it's really reaching a fever pitch right now. And I think that in some ways, your paper does

00:14:18.300 describe that, that teachers are seeing this rise. Is, maybe this is a chicken or egg question,

00:14:25.860 but like is there something unique to this moment that is prompting more young men to feel like

00:14:33.060 they're they need to seek out these behaviors or are they seeking out these sort of um influences

00:14:39.700 or these you know communities because they exist in the first place and they're being like fire

00:14:45.540 hosed with them like is it more them seeking it out or is it more that they can't get away from it

00:14:50.420 so i mean good i i think good that you sort of go qualify that as sort of a chicken or egg

00:14:59.940 question but i do i do i do think that there is a an answer to that question a little bit which is

00:15:07.300 yes these things have existed we can kind of trace the history of the men's the sort of men's rights

00:15:14.580 movement really directly um from sort of the late 60s mid 70s in particular we can like do that work

00:15:21.460 and there's some great writing um that people can can read about how this sort of men's rights

00:15:27.060 movement comes to be and all of this stuff kind of pulls out of there um and it's all boiling

00:15:34.980 under the surface what changes and what allows this kind of what i'd call a resurgence so it's

00:15:40.660 not a surge that we're seeing now it's a resurgence of these ideas that have existed there just like

00:15:47.540 i mean we're seeing we're seeing uncloseted fascism in the united states this isn't a

00:15:53.220 a new thing that never existed in the us before right like this is just a resurgence of that

00:15:59.540 uh and we're seeing sort of the same thing here and what allows for the resurgence of this

00:16:03.860 like really sort of more hardcore misogynist and masculinist movement um now is absolutely

00:16:11.860 the media landscape that it gets to exist in and so we are in this this position now where um if

00:16:20.580 you look at the the internet use data for example so we have quite there's decent data of the united

00:16:26.100 States, um, talking about like where people are getting their media, right. And more and more

00:16:33.760 our media, our news content is coming off social media rather than sort of legacy, um, media outlets

00:16:40.580 and our social media landscape is absolutely a fire hose. It's a great analogy to understand

00:16:47.720 if people have never sort of handled or seen a fire hose, it's just like so much content,

00:16:52.920 so much water right like if you don't have several people to hold on to it you're gonna get knocked

00:16:56.920 over um this this is true of our social media content it's like sort of an unhandleable amount

00:17:04.680 of content that content is produced on and controlled by companies private companies whose

00:17:13.800 impetus and drive is to make money. And so both funding the production of content and what content

00:17:24.280 gets eyes on, I mean, it is content that sort of feeds the machine. And so while we can't say for

00:17:36.600 sure kind of who what comes first is it the idea or is it the it's sort of um existence as a social

00:17:43.960 phenomenon as we see it we can track really closely what we're talking about now uh at least

00:17:50.360 in theory we can sort of track that to an overwhelming volume of media content that is

00:17:58.680 algorithmically controlled right the algorithm's job is to keep you watching

00:18:04.040 and that doesn't care if you're like i love all of this or i hate all of this and it makes me

00:18:11.440 so angry it doesn't care in fact it kind of likes the part that makes you angry because if it makes

00:18:18.240 you angry there's also somebody that that likes it and so that's double the eyeballs right and so

00:18:25.300 you also see as the you know we had vine and then vine kind of went away and then it just came back

00:18:30.260 it's called tick tock now um but like we have this shorter version of content and one of the reasons

00:18:36.820 why some of these some of the guys in the sort of masculinist sphere come into real prominence like

00:18:44.180 andrew tate is he figured it out i wrote a piece in the conversation in 2022 about how there's not

00:18:50.340 one piece of messaging that guy has that is new at all it's old and it's tired and it's boring

00:18:58.420 what he was really good at and now we're going back what three years is designing content for

00:19:05.940 the media platforms that he was trying to get on so uh doing youtube videos but making them

00:19:11.700 so he you could cut them up easily saying to his followers take my videos cut them up post

00:19:16.660 them elsewhere and then he was everywhere yeah yeah i found that really interesting actually

00:19:23.220 um in in the paper that you published um you know the fact that andrew tate was banned from

00:19:29.220 most platforms but as you explain that didn't stop his rise like um he had all those clips

00:19:36.820 going everywhere and you couldn't escape him and i think it was an interesting sort of i guess

00:19:42.340 challenge i don't want to give them too much uh i don't think that social media companies

00:19:47.460 companies feel a huge impetus to actually deal with these things so i don't want to act like

00:19:51.700 they uh you know were grappling and struggling with this but oddly enough like if you say andrew

00:19:57.460 tate's name in content even if it's critical that can sometimes get flagged but then these videos

00:20:03.620 of him will go super viral it's just i think that they don't always handle it super well but um like

00:20:09.060 to say the least but um could you explain like i guess i mean you kind of just answered it but like

00:20:16.260 why he was able to be so successful despite despite his um de-platforming and what challenges

00:20:23.860 this presents for dealing with these kinds of influencers because if we can't de-platform them

00:20:28.020 like what what do we do so i mean this this brings up a couple of questions right and we're sort of

00:20:36.340 into content moderation which is is not my area of study but something that i absolutely can't

00:20:43.300 get away from because i study you know men's rights communities and red pill communities 0.98

00:20:47.620 other contentious communities online um so the idea of content moderation is sort of ever present

00:20:54.580 and the question that we should be asking both sort of as citizens or as policy makers

00:21:01.140 um you know folks out there parents uh for sure is is the content moderation that's happening

00:21:08.020 if it's happening so let's be really clear right the the big american social media companies post

00:21:13.780 trump 2 election we're like oh we don't have to do that anymore we're just gonna quit and on your

00:21:19.860 on your episode with amar actually um he made a really good point that we were headed in quite

00:21:25.700 a good direction with content moderation uh and then trump gets elected for the second time and

00:21:31.140 all the social media companies goes great we can save a bunch of money by just like not doing this

00:21:35.300 anymore and we're probably fine if there's more nazis or whatever uh clearly they were um yeah

00:21:41.860 right but but content moderation the first thing we have to ask is is this a performative act and so

00:21:50.340 the technologies behind these platforms are i mean it's really hard for a lay person to

00:21:58.180 understand it's really hard for me to understand i've been reading about them for years the power

00:22:02.340 that they have so when they do content moderation and sort of banning of andrew tate for example

00:22:06.900 they're not banning tate's likeness necessarily they're banning content produced by him and so

00:22:15.140 if you've spent as he did an entire year which doesn't sound very long but in a social media

00:22:20.500 ecosystem that's like forever telling all of your followers you can take my content you can post it

00:22:28.100 up elsewhere chop it up like use these little i'm sort of recording in these little clips and if i

00:22:33.380 ever get banned post it more well when you ban him then that's exactly what happens right he has this

00:22:41.380 following it's going to do that and so so then does the banning of that become a performative act

00:22:46.900 do i think that that is something we should never do like should we not ban content of course

00:22:52.260 not we should absolutely ban content right like there are things that shouldn't just sort of live

00:22:59.140 willy-nilly on the on the internet that everybody including children can can access right like

00:23:05.380 that's something socially that we need to do um but are there more effective ways to to do it and

00:23:12.500 so that i mean that's kind of the first thing around content moderation i mean he set himself

00:23:17.380 up so if i ever get banned no big no big deal and it drives traffic towards his you know really

00:23:24.020 lucrative other um money-making operations secondly and this is sort of a more nuanced uh

00:23:31.780 kind of academic response but one that i think is really important um is that not all of his content

00:23:39.140 is violently misogynistic and that's really really important it's sort of the same thing

00:23:45.300 if you go back a number of years to kind of an older set um the same thing that we had with

00:23:50.660 jordan peterson right not all of his stuff was insane um right and and and this creates a really

00:23:58.820 sort of um complicated way for us to need to understand it so if we're talking about tape

00:24:04.660 he's got he's got videos that are going to say and like regardless of what you think of the guy

00:24:09.700 like he's clearly in pretty decent shape and he says if you want to be in shape like me

00:24:14.900 it's going to be work there's no magic pill there's no nothing you're going to have to work

00:24:19.860 hard to make your body look like this that's not a message that is contentious on its face right

00:24:26.820 if the underlying message is so then you can do all of these horrible things and

00:24:31.140 you know like do sexual assault and stuff then that's that's a problem but the message of like

00:24:36.260 if you want to have a fit body this kind of body you're gonna have to work hard that's not a

00:24:41.860 a contentious message really um apologies to any of my uh disabilities or fat studies colleagues

00:24:49.340 who might be listening um but like socially is sort of a thing and so when all of the content

00:24:56.020 isn't violently misogynistic now we've got a real sort of um dance happening right because i might

00:25:03.720 as a young person come on to this content and be like oh i'm interested in getting a kickboxer's

00:25:09.080 body right because he's a former kickboxer and um i wind up on this thing he's like you're gonna

00:25:14.500 work hard here's some workout tips oh okay i can get with this guy and then and then i get other

00:25:19.580 content right and so i think part of it is that if all of his content was violently misogynistic

00:25:27.480 he would have got banned super fast it would have been gone but it's not yeah and so that allows for

00:25:35.620 kind of a loophole into the social media ecosystem and it creates you know what i've been calling

00:25:41.940 kind of soft entree points it's sort of the easy way in to this space for people um and that's you

00:25:48.740 know that's a really complicated thing to try and monitor to to police if necessary um because can

00:25:55.220 we say well you can't post your workout content because you did a misogyny over here now i'm

00:26:02.020 i'm grossly oversimplifying he didn't do a misogyny right no but i know what you mean it's

00:26:06.580 it's accurate it's like yeah it's um you know how do you navigate the stuff that doesn't violate

00:26:12.260 community guidelines and stuff um and and it's very true like that's something i've encountered

00:26:17.540 a ton over the years um particularly when i speak about someone like say jordan peterson or any of

00:26:23.860 these guys like people will say oh you're just like you're misunderstanding that's not what he

00:26:27.940 means listen to this stuff and then like you know they'll send you some stuff that seems pretty like

00:26:32.660 i mean even jordan peterson's initial book 12 rules for life or whatever like it wasn't that

00:26:38.180 i personally i haven't read it so full disclosure there um i don't really have an interest in

00:26:43.220 reading about lobsters and making my bed um because i already i don't eat lobsters and i

00:26:47.780 do make my bed so i'm kind of good in both respects but like you know i from what i understand

00:26:54.420 it wasn't a super controversial book it was actually quite helpful for a lot of people

00:26:59.380 and it you know those are as you mentioned these soft entry points and it also makes it really

00:27:03.860 difficult to navigate even interpersonally because when you try to have discussions about

00:27:07.940 why something's problematic there's so many examples this person can point to that aren't

00:27:11.940 problematic but the um absence of problematic behavior in a single clip doesn't equate to an

00:27:18.260 individual not engaging in problematic rhetoric in general so that's a it's a hard thing yeah

00:27:24.900 and i think i think it's it is it's uh situationally contingent as well and what i mean by

00:27:30.980 that is so we're talking about two peoples in tate and and peterson for example who's like big

00:27:38.260 bailiwicks are uh peterson sort of comes to prominence because he's like doing pronouns

00:27:44.580 is annoying people like yeah i'm annoyed by that too and um and tate well tate's doing violent

00:27:51.940 misogyny which should should be more problematic than it is and for people that are like well you

00:27:58.780 can't ignore these things that aren't see all these things that aren't that if they were doing

00:28:03.380 racial slurs like if if if 40 of their content was just like gratuitous racial racial slurs

00:28:12.420 they would be written off immediately and so we have this real problem with being like oh well

00:28:18.160 this is just violence against women that's fine right or like this is just violence against the

00:28:24.920 queer community that's fine right and so we have some real some real issues here around um how we 0.84

00:28:33.860 view particular types of violence even though there's like a really easy amalgam between like

00:28:40.260 if you just replace this violent misogyny with like violent racism like we have a big problem

00:28:46.340 with that generally right socially that would be immediately gone off of every platform but it takes

00:28:53.060 time and if you watch sort of tape on social media it actually takes a public outcry to get him banned

00:29:02.600 and so it's not it was right it's not the impetus of the social media platforms to proactively do

00:29:08.620 that they're like no no everybody's watching this we're making dollars right now and that's like

00:29:13.480 suit that's super problematic and when we talk about so the paper is really about teachers and

00:29:18.080 young boys and um what they're saying in the classroom and saying to teachers and when we

00:29:25.140 get into that now we're into this same thing right people are like oh you know it's just boys being

00:29:31.720 boys yeah but if those boys were doing racial slurs they would get suspended or expelled at

00:29:38.340 you know like they just would but because they're doing sort of passive violence against women

00:29:44.180 people are like that's just the thing boys do what no what is what unbelievable that's

00:29:51.680 unbelievable it should be shocking and horrifying to people and and well i mean i guess it is a

00:29:59.380 little bit because i put out this paper and lots of people have have shown interest in it which is

00:30:04.160 really great it means that we're paying attention to the to the issue but I mean it takes me sort

00:30:09.600 of getting out here and doing things like this to highlight the fact that this is happening and I

00:30:14.780 feel like I have to tell people also this is bad yeah yeah I think I a strange thing uh that you

00:30:25.060 know has has struck me um you know over the last few years and I it's gonna sound so silly but

00:30:31.760 you know, just living life as a woman, I think I oddly like gaslit myself at some points into

00:30:38.960 thinking like, oh, things aren't that bad. And, you know, because especially because of like how

00:30:44.340 racism permeates our society, how transphobia, especially like we're watching the backslide of

00:30:49.200 such like integral human rights. And it's easy for me to dismiss the things that the misogynistic

00:30:55.820 things in culture, I think in some ways, because it's it feels like when it's happening to me,

00:31:01.760 i i care less than when it's happening to other people in the sense that i care so much about

00:31:06.800 protecting other people that i forget sometimes oh yeah there's a little bit of marginalization

00:31:11.840 in my community too and um you know and then it and then it hits you like a ton of bricks

00:31:17.200 and and you kind of like i started to notice like all the people who really do listen less to women

00:31:23.840 who really do talk over women in meetings who take credit for women's work who you know devalue

00:31:29.200 women's work and it just um and that's all the stuff that creates the context where you then

00:31:34.640 have people dismissing outright violent misogyny as boys will be boys because when you live in a

00:31:39.040 culture that so systematically um you know doesn't listen to women and doesn't you know is in such

00:31:46.880 deep denial about the impact of the patriarchy in everything that we say and do um it leads to very

00:31:54.800 clear dismissals of the ways, the severe and dangerous ways, and even the minimal ways that

00:32:00.960 that impacts our day-to-day life. And, you know, that's why I found it really interesting, actually,

00:32:06.820 that your paper specifically looks at the impact on teachers, because on the one hand, and you can

00:32:13.700 tell me if I'm a little off with this premise, but one thing that struck me was I was like, oh,

00:32:17.840 they're sort of the one of the only female authority figures these boys will be forced

00:32:22.820 to interact with outside of their mothers,

00:32:25.360 but they're also in a profession that,

00:32:27.420 as you highlighted in the paper, that has been like devalued

00:32:31.060 and that's something that makes them vulnerable teachers.

00:32:35.860 But overall, it creates a condition

00:32:38.060 where they're sort of on the front lines of this issue, of this battle.

00:32:44.140 I was curious what struck you the most from the stories

00:32:48.020 that you read from the educators

00:32:51.140 um when you were looking through the reddit posts and uh did this research uh

00:32:58.160 no i think before before i talk about that i want to jump off something you said at the beginning

00:33:04.000 there and i know that you mentioned here in the in the intro but i really want to make sure that i

00:33:08.700 shout out amelia sandow who is the other the lead author on this paper um and who is a young woman

00:33:16.860 who is a teacher who is doing really excellent master's work at the University of Toronto right

00:33:22.920 now and actually when we started this project was an undergraduate summer research student

00:33:28.500 who has done really really excellent work and I really want to shout her out she's traveling right

00:33:34.840 now or she would have been able to join us but she I mean she did really really excellent work

00:33:41.680 here and i don't want to be uh misconstrued as sort of making myself the face of this work that

00:33:48.240 we really did together no we wanted amelia to be here folks but she's traveling unfortunately

00:33:53.920 so but yeah you did incredible work here yes i absolutely thank you that could not i couldn't

00:34:00.880 have articulated it better myself um and i mean an important thing to you know sort of give credit

00:34:07.600 where it's due and not to be the the shiny-headed white guy taking the credit for this work um

00:34:16.000 i think the thing honestly the thing as we went through this um and i mean we were sort of talking

00:34:22.960 before the recording about how there's a lot of things that i do and because of what you cover

00:34:27.760 that you do where we go uh-huh yeah that's a thing um or we go oh that's really interesting

00:34:33.040 but in a really sort of dark kind of a way so there wasn't anything that like really surprised

00:34:38.640 me um except that we had teachers talking about how their male students were making like deeply

00:34:48.160 sexualized comments to their faces right so you had young women teachers so teachers generally

00:34:56.960 when they were talking about this is sort of young women identified teachers in like sort

00:35:01.600 sort of their mid 20s teaching boys in the like 14 to 17, 18 range where those boys were saying 0.99

00:35:11.820 like some creepy shit to like deeply sexualized stuff. And there's, I mean, there's at least one 0.90

00:35:20.260 example in the paper, but this is an occasion where Amelia and I in discussion were like,

00:35:27.560 which one of these is a good example without being like over the top I mean it is an academic

00:35:35.800 paper after all right like do you really want to like throw the gnarliest stuff at people

00:35:41.360 um but that that I found probably most most disturbing in it because like I was young 0.86

00:35:50.900 once i can't imagine myself or anybody i knew saying this kind of shit to a teacher yeah right 0.80

00:36:00.260 it's really boggling to me and that i mean that says a lot of things about like the content 0.98

00:36:07.080 they're consuming and what they think that means and perhaps how that's reinforced in the home we

00:36:12.180 definitely saw that have seen that in some of our data because we we did this study and it was some

00:36:17.320 groundwork for some really interesting work that I got to do with some colleagues in New Zealand

00:36:20.980 and then we're just finishing up two studies with Canadian teachers all the teachers are saying the

00:36:26.540 same thing this is happening in class this is the kind of stuff that's happening to me um um there's

00:36:32.780 a uh there was just a story on CBC that I was quoted in um and then the text version they have

00:36:39.900 some great quotes from a teacher in Nova Scotia that the the wonderful reporter on that talked to

00:36:45.040 who has some, I mean, that story leads with two good examples of like real stuff that happened

00:36:49.420 to her. And so I think that that is really something. And you brought up something really,

00:36:54.600 really, really, really important about all of this, about the way that we see and understand

00:36:59.920 teachers culturally. And this is not just Canada, certainly in the United States, in a lot of other

00:37:06.500 places in the world, where we see teaching as care work. And teaching as when we see teaching

00:37:12.360 as care work and people go yeah that makes sense but when we see teaching as care work it does

00:37:15.800 something really really important to it socially uh and so something that that Amelia brought to

00:37:21.640 this as a teacher herself and and studying at OISE at U of T um that teaching is not

00:37:28.600 professionalized in the way that we think it is across the country so it is a sort of a certified

00:37:33.880 profession in Ontario but not in every province in Canada right and this and we're talking about

00:37:39.720 canada yeah and so so when we when we are unwilling to recognize teaching as a profession in the same

00:37:47.240 way that we might recognize other professions uh and we see it as care work it allows us to devalue

00:37:53.160 it in really important ways and and you highlighted there's a section in the paper where we talk about

00:37:57.720 sort of the history of teaching as care work and why it's this way and why historically more

00:38:02.600 administrators have remained men even though the the vast majority of teachers have been women

00:38:07.800 um and why in the teaching context we might say oh well they're qualified to do this but they're

00:38:14.200 probably not qualified to do this or um it's okay for me to send my kid there all day every day but

00:38:21.160 i also want to control what that teacher is communicating to them because i don't think that

00:38:25.320 they're in the right position to be able to do that even though they have at the bare minimum

00:38:30.680 now six years of education post-secondary education in order to do that um and so it lumps it into the

00:38:36.680 same ways that we uh might talk about nursing or um allied health professions for example so

00:38:44.840 uh in particular i'm thinking about psws uh dsw's developmental support workers um

00:38:52.760 even uh recreation therapists you know sort of these allied health professions that are mostly 0.97

00:38:58.600 done by women and paid for the skill set and the kinds of jobs they have to do in a way that 1.00

00:39:05.320 doesn't really compensate them right like these are people that are keeping other people alive 0.63

00:39:11.000 and it is a race to the bottom for how much we pay them um and so i mean teaching i think through

00:39:19.240 really powerful collective action in canada and in ontario is a great example and a lot of people

00:39:25.080 want to lament sort of the the what teachers make and the teachers union in ontario but it's a

00:39:31.480 really powerful example of how collective action can both professionalize and advance a profession

00:39:38.040 that's seen as care work and is done mostly by women and so teachers in ontario have a really

00:39:43.560 powerful lobby and a lot of people are afraid of that for a variety of reasons that this podcast

00:39:49.000 is not about um but it it but it is something it's something really important because i mean

00:39:56.280 yeah teachers are carers but they're also the people who for the vast majority of us uh bring

00:40:02.760 us up in really important ways as we grow up and so it's it's complicated and to see this kind of

00:40:09.240 stuff happen is like it's really disheartening and i think it's a little bit scary and the

00:40:15.000 teachers are saying it's scary yeah well it's sort of also i think that um school is the first um

00:40:22.680 you know community outside the home that you know young people really like significantly 0.99

00:40:29.480 engage in and build and so to see that that's how the female sort of authority figures are 0.87

00:40:36.760 being treated in that setting um carries lessons and warnings for broader society within it as

00:40:43.720 these boys continue to grow up and continue to internalize the messaging that they're currently

00:40:48.200 internalizing um you know and it struck me as i was reading the paper that the teachers don't

00:40:53.800 really seem to know and i can't blame them for this because i don't know but they they don't

00:40:59.080 really seem to know what to do about this there were a number of different approaches that were

00:41:03.720 explored um some better than others like the you know that the boys will be boys line that one's 0.93

00:41:09.480 stuffed ass but no uh no consensus about what definitively works emerged um there was a lot of 0.76

00:41:17.560 like very differing opinions about how to handle this um i i wanted to ask you like on the one hand 0.97

00:41:25.000 what you think we need to do to help educators navigate this environment but also how those

00:41:31.720 lessons can be applied to broader society and the sort of warnings and learnings that they carry for

00:41:38.360 all of us so big big questions uh and the very the very first thing i'll do which is

00:41:47.000 like the most academic thing which is to go like solutions are very complex and i don't have

00:41:54.440 i don't have the answer um we know there are some things that that don't work and we know there are

00:42:00.520 some things that maybe can help but i you know i don't have the the answer um the very first thing

00:42:07.720 that we need to do socially and like Canada-wide within individual schools, school boards globally

00:42:17.160 is acknowledge that this is a thing. This is a thing that's happening and evidence is mounting.

00:42:22.680 There's some out of Australia. There's some out of the UK. It's coming in the US. There's

00:42:27.960 like work happening here. We've got a couple of studies. We're hoping to have some reports

00:42:32.040 out by the end of the summer on um but like it's it's happening and we have to acknowledge the fact

00:42:39.560 that this is happening and also that it's bad yeah and i can't i cannot for the life of me having read

00:42:47.800 you know thousands of pages of content in this area think of a convincing argument that it's

00:42:56.520 that it's okay that any of this is happening right like it's it's it's happening and it's bad

00:43:02.180 and we can't do anything until we acknowledge that and i said early boys argument um that 0.98

00:43:07.840 solutions out we're not going to do the boys that is the biggest crock of shit it's i can't even 0.99

00:43:16.260 boys will be that is a thing that dudes that want to do sexual violence say right like that's 0.99

00:43:23.220 it's such a bullshit it's such a bullshit excuse right it's the same thing that people say when 0.99

00:43:31.140 they want to defend sexual predators it's like like oh well it's too hard for boys to learn about 1.00

00:43:38.100 consent no it's not no it's that's stupid stupid you can't tell us that while you're also telling 1.00

00:43:45.220 us that men are like better at everything than women and then tell us that they're not smart 1.00

00:43:49.140 enough to learn consent but they are smarter than us and deserve to be paid more and deserve to be 1.00

00:43:53.460 promoted more and you know they but they're very stupid when it comes to this one thing it's just 1.00

00:43:57.540 their it's their yeah well no they're just not they're just not wired that way it's their it's 1.00

00:44:02.180 their it's their primeval needs get out of here that's and that's so insulting to men frankly

00:44:08.580 like right it's so it is so um reductionist in the way that we understand like really if you

00:44:17.540 boil it down i mean you have this right it's so reductionist in the way that we even understand

00:44:21.140 the like cognitive capacity of men so don't tell me that men are better at everything but they

00:44:25.460 don't understand yes or no yeah like come on oh well like oh i don't i don't really understand

00:44:32.260 how consent works yeah you do yeah yeah you do because if somebody was doing those things to you

00:44:39.300 you would know pretty quick what consent means right and so like all of this boys will be boys 0.88

00:44:45.140 all of this is just like a bullshit excuse for we don't want to do the work 0.76

00:44:49.300 yeah or i'm fine with this so if as a teacher teachers if you're listening and you go to your 0.95

00:44:56.020 administrator because some of this is happening in your class and they're like oh i don't know

00:44:59.860 it's just boys will be boys that's an excuse it means one of two things one i don't want to help 0.92

00:45:04.420 you and i don't want to do the work because i'm lazy as shit or two i agree with them and i think 0.54

00:45:09.540 they should be able to do these weird creepy things to you both of those answers are wrong 0.71

00:45:14.100 and that person shouldn't have their job anymore that's it it's that simple so that part of it

00:45:18.820 is that simple that's not the question you asked me but you got me all fired up yeah no i got

00:45:23.460 fired up too but um because i can't look it doesn't work that's the solution that does that doesn't

00:45:30.580 work well it's not even a solution right like i think it gives it too much credit to be like this

00:45:34.740 is a solution no it's not yeah um so the first thing we have to do is to acknowledge that this

00:45:40.580 is a thing and that it's bad. And then we have to start doing something about it. And I want to be

00:45:46.340 really clear about what I say next. I am not pointing my finger at parents to say that,

00:45:51.460 parents, this is your fault. But parents have a really important role to play here.

00:45:57.300 And so parents, you have to be willing to understand what kind of content your children

00:46:03.700 are consuming, whether they are 11. If you're like, my 11-year-old's not getting this stuff,

00:46:07.860 we have evidence in this study that says yeah 11 year olds are getting this content and we're not

00:46:13.540 the only study that's saying that um so like you have to be willing to understand or know what your

00:46:20.580 kids are engaging with and you have to be willing to talk to them about it and you have to be willing

00:46:24.260 to tell them that it's bad when it's bad right so like work out to get a hard body or make your bed

00:46:30.500 clean your room okay yeah okay but also sexual violence not okay right like these are really

00:46:37.460 simple things that we need to do as parents and the reason i'm not being like it's parents fault

00:46:42.260 because it's not the internet is really complicated understanding our own understand the digital

00:46:48.340 digital literacy of what's happening in social media platforms etc it's really really really

00:46:52.980 complicated so parents you need to spend some time learning about that stuff so that you can

00:46:58.660 help your kids navigate it because i think that really is few and far between the people that are

00:47:05.380 like oh i'm actually fine with my kid says like sexualized and derogatory things to their teacher

00:47:12.260 right i don't think there's actually a lot of people out there that if you you like did a poll

00:47:16.180 on the street and we're like how do you feel about that they'd be like no that's fine right

00:47:20.180 and so like let's let's get to it a little bit here as parents that digital literacy piece though

00:47:25.540 that's a that's an educational policy piece that's a school and school board and government

00:47:31.540 thing that also needs to happen. Educational policy is abysmally slow. Just by all accounts,

00:47:39.300 takes a really long time to get educational policy happening. And then when we do make good

00:47:44.740 progressive decisions, we can roll them right back. The sex ed curriculum in Ontario is a great

00:47:51.620 example. And so if we're not willing to engage with it at the school and educational policy level,

00:47:58.100 then where else can we go? Are the tech companies gonna do work on this area? Clearly not.

00:48:06.020 And so the solution then becomes even more complicated because where do we go for support?

00:48:11.940 There are some great Canadian politicians who are sort of working in this direction,

00:48:16.660 there are great academics who are hoping to highlight these issues that hopefully change

00:48:23.060 is going to happen but i mean does it lie then as a kind of citizens initiative to say well this is

00:48:31.700 unacceptable in our school spaces um and so you know teachers my heart goes out to you it's really

00:48:39.060 hard super your job is hard no matter what um they got they have such a super hard job um but to be

00:48:47.300 able to create a space in your classroom where you can say actually no and then you know having

00:48:54.660 administrators that those teachers can rely on to support them in those things is really important

00:49:00.260 um and so i presumably some of your listeners will be like that was a very unsatisfying answer

00:49:06.180 because he didn't tell me what we can do because i can't there's a great example in the paper

00:49:11.620 of a teacher who is like i didn't know what to do so i just told the girls to tell the boys why

00:49:18.020 they were wrong and the girls did that and then i've never heard about andrew tate again since

00:49:23.220 and that's great for that teacher in that classroom with those students and for some

00:49:29.220 teachers that might work but there are other teachers other classrooms other spaces where

00:49:33.380 that's not going to work and so um one of the things that teachers are telling us is

00:49:38.580 there are no resources even for us to be able to work in this direction and it's not about

00:49:47.100 showing giving a resource that's like being a toxic man is bad because i'll tell you a young

00:49:52.380 man when you're like we're gonna have a workshop about how being a toxic man is bad they've already

00:49:56.620 stopped listening to me yeah so it's about creating a resource that can up our digital

00:50:02.780 literacy up our ability to understand our impact on others empathy etc it's really complicated but

00:50:09.020 there are some great folks working in this in this direction um right now uh and my my research team

00:50:16.460 at the canadian institute for far-right studies um as well as some other folks out of new zealand

00:50:20.860 in particular and the christchurch call continue to work on these things to try and get resources

00:50:26.300 into the hands of people that need them yeah you know it's one thing that's striking me as

00:50:32.860 we're having this whole conversation is just i feel like you and i are talking as we're standing

00:50:40.060 like to use a metaphor we're standing on a beach right now talking about the fact that the

00:50:45.900 shoreline is receding an abnormal amount which usually suggests there's a tsunami coming

00:50:52.940 and you know that is what's freaking me out about this is that you know not to diminish the very

00:50:59.180 real and present impact on educators teachers because that is a crisis in its own right that

00:51:05.660 deserves full response and full conversation but i'm terrified for when these kids grow up

00:51:12.360 you know like this this is a fairly recent phenomenon um and not in general like the the

00:51:17.980 themes, but the specific Andrew Tates and these guys are more of a product of the last like five

00:51:25.180 years. And it scares me to think about these boys becoming men and entering the world and what

00:51:32.020 that's going to mean. So it's it's kind of like all the solutions that we're discussing are things

00:51:38.080 that need to be eventually will have to be broadly applied, you know, having people resources for

00:51:45.540 women impacted by this having you know it's uh having authority figures um who are higher up

00:51:51.660 that would take these issues seriously they're all um issues that are playing out right now in

00:51:56.620 schools that at some point will play out in broader society and i'm sure already are in a lot of ways

00:52:02.780 but um it's very unnerving it feels like we're on the precipice but i want to tell you my thing oh

00:52:08.320 yeah did you have something you wanted to no it's just really dark but also really but also super

00:52:13.780 truth yeah yeah it's scary um yeah do you know what's one thing that i like to do i had um our

00:52:20.980 friend of the show kat abu who's uh currently running for congress in the states which is

00:52:26.340 incredibly cool um but uh she deals with a lot of trolls online and one thing that she and i 0.79

00:52:34.260 talked about a fair bit because we both kind of deal with the same jerks um was the uh efficacy 0.58

00:52:43.460 of taking away the power from the figureheads in the form of kind of cutting them down a peg you 0.97

00:52:51.620 know like it the thing is is i think that one thing that draws a lot of people to these men

00:52:56.420 is they view them as cool they view them as these like powerful badass cool dudes and i think that's

00:53:02.020 why that one example of the teacher who had the girls you know tell the boys why andrew tate sucked

00:53:07.780 worked well because Andrew Tate is telling these boys, girls love me. But then they had girls

00:53:13.380 directly say, no, he's a loser. Like we would never date anyone who listens to him. And so 0.99

00:53:19.820 I think that actually a hilariously effective tool is just making fun of their kings, these 0.99

00:53:28.440 losers, like the figureheads. And I'm not talking about the individual people who are being sucked 0.98

00:53:33.200 in. I'm talking about, because often those are people who have a lot of mental health issues,

00:53:37.300 who are struggling in a lot of ways and i don't think it's necessarily helpful to you know hurt

00:53:42.020 them more um but not to excuse the behavior but you know just to just try to have some some

00:53:49.940 understanding of the underlying causes but the men who are profiting and grifting and at the top

00:53:55.140 levels of these things i think it's good to to mock them a little and that's why i love things

00:54:00.500 like as we talked about before we started filming the golem ass picture of andrew tate the you know 0.98

00:54:06.260 all of these moments where you can just point out that the guy's the guy's a loser he really is 0.92

00:54:10.820 like to his core um so the last thing i wanted to ask you before we wrap things up is like

00:54:16.660 do you have a favorite insult regarding andrew tate um so like part of me is like even his

00:54:25.700 nicknames are just so cringe that i mean they're like a they're like a self-owned sometimes they

00:54:32.660 are um but like my favorite one is actually um references him but is about sort of content and

00:54:40.020 it going uh and so there's a in our data there's a teacher that talks about his followers as tater

00:54:47.780 tots yeah um and uh just deep in my soul uh that makes me laugh uh in a way that is so necessary

00:54:57.620 because a lot of the work that I do is just kind of filled with with a kind of darkness uh because

00:55:03.560 I spend a lot of time reading this content uh unfortunately uh but some somebody should uh

00:55:09.940 that isn't that isn't sort of part of the community and so um just thinking about them

00:55:15.420 as tater tots and for some reason that makes me think of him as just like a big tater tot with

00:55:20.120 arms I love that uh which which I mean and that's just a funny that's a funny picture in my head

00:55:26.760 uh and sometimes i mean that to like sometimes so oh that's good yeah but i really like that one

00:55:34.100 too because i think it also cuts down to the core of what is so exploitative about him right because

00:55:39.680 he's he is fundamentally an exploitative person he's exploiting women in his life and he's

00:55:45.020 exploiting the young men who listen to to him and you know um taking advantage of the fact that

00:55:50.380 they're vulnerable to fill their heads with stuff that is only going to make their lives worse

00:55:56.000 and so you know the taut analogy like it's like a little kid is like that's kind of it shows like

00:56:02.000 what a predator um he is in the sense that he's targeting people who are vulnerable so it's like

00:56:07.720 both cutting in the sense that he's a giant potato with arms um but also cutting in the sense that it

00:56:13.740 it belies the reality of what he's doing so i love that yeah and i mean the grift the grift is

00:56:20.800 like it's an mlm right it's the same sort of sort of thing as an mlm it's really um

00:56:27.940 nothing there's nothing new going on here he just has found the right angle at the right time yeah

00:56:35.380 i think that yeah yeah i like that one of my biggest through lines with the um extremism

00:56:43.200 coverage that i've done has been the fact that i really do think they're all like pyramid schemes

00:56:48.380 finding vulnerable people you know because that's what happens like who ends up selling the mary k

00:56:54.240 or the monate or you know whatever else is uh an mlm sorry these guys are really sensitive about

00:56:59.560 being called pyramid schemes um they really are they really are so to be clear um mlms um but you

00:57:06.140 know they they seek out like uh uh mothers who are working at home uh who are you know don't have a

00:57:14.220 huge social circle and are feeling really isolated and want to feel like they're contributing want to

00:57:17.860 like they have a community and one of the things that makes it so hard to leave is the fact that

00:57:21.140 they get that community but it is contingent on the toxicity or the you know in that case sales

00:57:27.780 but in this case that we're discussing in this episode it's misogyny so that makes it really

00:57:32.740 hard to kick it and i and i think that um you know it's really powerful to think of them as pyramid

00:57:38.580 schemes or as uh mlms because that's what is happening to these people so oh yeah yeah absolutely

00:57:46.340 And I think that the way that you describe those sort of two things as, you know, sort of same, same, but different is absolutely, absolutely right.

00:57:55.640 It's absolutely right.

00:57:56.860 Yeah.

00:57:57.560 Well, Luke, I could honestly talk to you about this all day long because I think it's so interesting in a horrifying way, like we were talking about earlier.

00:58:06.300 But I should probably cut myself off.

00:58:08.700 Before I let you go, though, is there anywhere that people can keep up with you?

00:58:13.720 you know i'm sure that after listening to you speak for the last 45 minutes they're like

00:58:17.560 this guy knows it's up i want to read more of his stuff i want to keep up with him

00:58:20.920 where can they do that um well i am not i'm not super active on social media and part of the

00:58:28.680 reason is that i did i did a dissertation on social media and was like nope i'm out of here

00:58:35.800 so i do i have a blue sky which i am on sometimes as people can find me there it's just my name

00:58:42.280 I was early, early in, so I got just my name, wsky.social. And then, yeah, I mean, if you Google

00:58:51.800 me, you'll get my stuff, a couple of pieces from a couple of years ago in the conversation. But all

00:58:57.640 of my academic work, if ever, this is true, not just of me, but of all academics, pretty much,

00:59:03.400 if ever you want to read something we wrote, and it's behind a paywall, just email us directly,

00:59:08.520 we will so happily send you that thing for no money we will just email you right to you um

00:59:15.800 because uh well academic publishing which is maybe all i'll say about that uh right now because this

00:59:22.120 is not um not about that but yeah i mean that's that's pretty much that's pretty much it uh and

00:59:28.440 you can certainly come on over to the canadian institute for far-right studies uh website and

00:59:34.440 check us out there. I have some content there, some blog stuff there that you can read. The website

00:59:40.200 is cifrs.org. And so you can come and check out the work that we are doing there, myself and

00:59:49.960 my great colleagues that are part of that network. Awesome. Well, Luke, thank you so much for your

00:59:56.920 time today. This was an awesome conversation. Thanks so much. I really had a good time. I

01:00:02.840 I appreciate being here.

01:00:03.660 Me too.

01:00:09.480 Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Bubble Pop.

01:00:12.800 I'm Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person's least favorite journalist.

01:00:16.320 If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing on YouTube, Patreon, Substack, or wherever you like to listen.

01:00:22.300 You can also find me on TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, and Blue Sky.

01:00:26.300 I'd like to give a special thank you to Hans-Vivien Wenzel for making the incredibly groovy music for Bubble Pop.

01:00:31.540 You can find more of his stuff on Spotify under the artist's name Hans.

01:00:35.480 That's a lowercase h with an exclamation mark.

01:00:38.580 Thank you again for spending this time with me.

01:00:40.620 This is my dream job.

01:00:42.200 I know I say that every week, but that's because it's true every week.

01:00:45.360 And I couldn't do it for one second without your support.

01:00:48.260 So thank you.

01:00:49.540 And I'll see you next time.

Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - July 25, 2025

How the 'manosphere' is turning classrooms into blaring alarms for the future (with Luc Cousineau)

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