About
This collection reflects mainstream memes associated with the Manosphere. Collecting began in early 2025 and continues to be periodically updated every year to reveal emerging trends in manosphere discourse online. The original collection began with a concern that extremism including misogynist, sexist, femmephobic, racist and anti-2SLGBTQ+ beliefs are being mainstreamed on social media through memes. While this has been the case for over two decades, earlier memes built on these forms of hate were relegated to more niche communities on 4Chan, Reddit, and other sites. Currently online gendered hate is rampant and directly informs our public conversations in concerning ways. This collection acts as a companion piece to the ManoWhisper database. Together these fulfill our vision of creating publicly accessible research databases that are easy to interact with and that offer a wide range of community members insights into the Manosphere’s limiting and at times violent belief systems.
Collecting is done from research accounts created with a male presenting profile on Instagram. The content thus reflects very specific algorithmic realities of those accounts. The majority of artifacts in the collection are part of what social media platforms suggest for young men interested in health, wellness, and influencer driven content with targeted lifestyle advice.
The collectors of these accounts are intergenerational and from diverse social positions working within the umbrella of the SIGNAL network. We hope that the collection allows for a snapshot into a moment where conservative gender values are being mainstreamed as “common sense” and work in tandem with the concerning rise of authoritarianism, facism, and hate fueled radicalization. For questions about the account please contact SIGNAL at signal@uwaterloo.ca.
This project is part of the Digital Feminist Network and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Additional financial and in-kind support comes from York University, York University Libraries, and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo.