Understanding the Spanish manosphere through youth: an ethnographic study of young men’s engagement with masculinized online spaces

This article proposes a youth-centred approach to understanding the Spanish manosphere grounded in young men’s perspectives and experiences. Drawing on an ethnographic study with teenagers (between 14 and 18 years old) from Barcelona and its metropolitan area, we develop an analytical proposal that identifies three interconnected types of spaces: Open Hard Spaces, where explicitly anti-feminist and anti-LGBTIQ+ discourses are more visible; Open Soft Spaces, where stereotypically masculine content subtly reinforces gender hierarchies; and Close Peripheral Spaces, consisting of private peer interactions that normalize misogynistic practices and foster male complicity across online and offline contexts. Rather than offering a typology of the manosphere itself, this mapping shows how young men move and experience these fluid environments and how manosphere-related narratives are circulated, reinterpreted and normalized within their everyday social worlds. The findings highlight the need to understand the manosphere as a dynamic, fluid and relational media ecosystem that becomes embedded in youth cultures through peer-based interactions and seemingly non-political content, contributing to the normalization of toxic masculinity practices, perspectives and discourses.