It all began one night, I lay in my bed after a long day scrolling on my phone (as we all do), when 1 video about motivation popped up, then all of a sudden, the algorithm had rewritten my feed, fit for an insecure young boy, their still developing brain allowing manipulation. My page flooded with Andrew Tate videos, one scroll to the next. These videos claim to retain your \u2018masculinity\u2019 in a world that had supposedly turned against men, taking the easily influence minds of young boys and twisting their perception. Or maybe it offered a net for those insecure boys to think they had community. Either way it was unsettling to realise how simple your for you page can become an introduction to one of the worlds most controversial spaces \u2018the manosphere\u2019. In an age where algorithms often know what will get our attention before we do, it raises an uncomfortable question: \u201care we choosing the content we consume or is it choosing us?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The manosphere has become some what of a digital hub, claiming to boost men, but its true intentions remain highly debated. The more I reflected on that experience the I realized the manosphere is far more complex than it first appears. For many young men, it offers discipline, motivation, confidence and sense of belonging in an increasingly uncertain world, yet as I continued scrolling, the message gradually shifted. Advice that I thought was positive became intertwined with blame, while relationships were reduced to possession and women were increasingly portrayed as the cause of these issues. The centuries it took to achieve equality were regressed through this influential oppression. The change crept up to me so subtly that it was almost impossible to notice until I looked back to the beginning. Perhaps that is what makes online influence so powerful, it rarely arrives all at once but quietly shapes the ideas we are repeatedly exposed to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking back, I still think about how ordinary it all seemed. There was no deliberate search for controversy, just an algorithm, that quietly led me and millions of others somewhere unexpected. Rather than asking whether the manosphere is entirely good or bad, perhaps the more important question is this: \u201cif algorithms are increasingly shaping what we consume, how can we ensure they don\u2019t begin shaping what we believe?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Clementine C, Year 10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It all began one night, I lay in my bed after a long day scrolling on my phone (as we all do), when 1 video about motivation popped up, then all of a sudden, the algorithm had rewritten my feed, fit for an insecure young boy, their still developing brain allowing manipulation. My page flooded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","article_category":[19],"article_tag":[],"class_list":["post-9340","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/9340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_category?post=9340"},{"taxonomy":"article_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/oxley-college\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_tag?post=9340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}