In recent years, male-oriented financial advice podcasts have gained significant popularity in the wider manosphere ecosystem, an online community promoting male supremacist and anti-feminist views. Along with other influencer-led advice on fitness and mental health, this content purports to guarantee men ‘high status’, while endorsing harmful masculinist norms. This study applies critical narrative analysis to a total of nine podcast videos (3 per channel) from three popular, male-oriented ‘finfluencer’ podcast channels on YouTube: CeoCast, the Ahmed Mahmood Show, and First Things THRST. We ask how these podcasts, which are hosted by and regularly feature manosphere-friendly digital entrepreneurs, contribute to the narrative construction of new (hyper) masculinities defined by wealth. In addition to mapping significant changes within the neo-manosphere, this paper concludes that finfluencers - alongside tech oligarchs and strongman politicians - are engaging in a struggle for hegemony by positioning ostensibly anti-establishment, reactionary masculinities as an alternative to the more ‘respectable’ masculinities of transnational corporate capitalism.
Çelikoğlu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.