Journalist and documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux recently appeared on an episode of the Modern Wisdom podcast with host Chris Williamson, where the two discussed Theroux’s recent work exploring the online “manosphere.”
Opening the discussion, Theroux compared many manosphere content creators to the kinds of subjects he has previously covered in his documentaries, from cult members to professional wrestlers.
Reflecting on the environment he had recently filmed for Netflix, he remarked that many of these personalities appeared highly stylized and theatrical.
“They look a bit like wrestlers. They speak a little bit like rappers and the content is clearly highly dubious at best,” Theroux said.  So I was like, well, this is this is made to measure for whatever my skill set is in terms of making documentaries.”
For Theroux, the comparison went beyond appearances. He pointed to the concept of “kayfabe,” the long-standing professional wrestling tradition where performers and audiences collectively treat staged narratives as real. According to him, a similar dynamic exists in parts of the modern online media ecosystem.
Williamson quickly agreed with the analogy, noting how the blurred line between performance and sincerity has become a defining feature of internet culture.
“I think the wrestling analogy is apt,” Williamson said. “Because a lot of the stuff that we see online, even from Trump sometimes, is this weird kayfabe where I don’t know, is this a joke or is this real? And nobody wants to be accused of having pointed the finger at someone for telling a joke, saying that it was real. There’s always the sort of comedian get-out-of-jail-free card of, well, I’m not being serious with that. But at some point the seriousness actually comes into touch reality.”
Theroux expanded on the idea, arguing that the rise of social media has encouraged people to adopt exaggerated online personas that blur authenticity and performance.
“The wrestling metaphor is, as you say, very apropos,” he said. “We’re in a culture now where everyone has access to the media… Part of that is employing personas, and as you say, kayfabe. It’s another realm in which you’re performing yourself and you can employ irony. You can employ hyperbole. You can employ a sort of performative self-parody. All of them obfuscating who you really are, but sneaking in the whole time.”
The conversation then turned to the way humor is often used as a shield for controversial ideas. Theroux argued that jokes frequently contain underlying beliefs, even when they are framed as irony or satire.
“I sometimes say puckishly, there’s no such thing as a joke,” Theroux said. “I mean, obviously there is such a thing as a joke, but there’s a sense in which all jokes contain a masked truth. You can be racist as a joke up to a point I guess, but there comes a time when actually you’re just being racist.”
Williamson responded with a related observation about how movements that begin as ironic communities can eventually evolve into something more serious.
“What’s that line about any organization that starts out pretending to be a cult, or making a joke about being a cult, eventually becomes a cult?” Williamson asked.
“Very true,” Theroux replied.
As the discussion continued, Williamson suggested that modern live content formats further complicate the distinction between entertainment and reality.
“Because the line between entertainment and real life has now been blurred so much, it’s live and it’s also entertainment,” Williamson said. “So, is this life or is it more kayfabe?”
Near the end of the conversation, Theroux returned to the wrestling metaphor while reflecting on what he observed while filming inside the manosphere. According to him, the incentive structures of online media often push creators toward conflict-driven content.
“There’s this natural tendency towards everything becoming combat, whether it’s this zero-sum approach, which is entertaining, and goes back to what you said at the beginning about this sort of metaphor of wrestling,” Theroux said. “But it ends up being, I think, rather exhausting and it’s obviously a very limited way of observing life.”
