Examining the Values of the Black Manosphere: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This study examines how masculinity is constructed, performed, and circulated within the Black manosphere, a digitally mediated formation of Black content creators who address Black male audiences about interpersonal gender relations within Black communities. Existing scholarship on the manosphere has focused predominantly on white men and their pathways to radicalization, leaving the racialized dimensions of masculine grievance largely understudied. Drawing on Fairclough's three-dimensional critical discourse analysis, this study analyzes ten YouTube videos produced by Black manosphere influencer Mediocre Tutorials and Reviews (MTR). Findings reveal that MTR's discourse is organized around four interlocking values: emotional restraint, epistemic authority over women, hierarchical gender relations and sexual discernment. These values are sustained through epistemic and deontic modality, evaluative language, strategic pronoun use, and asymmetrical accountability narratives. Platform affordances, particularly YouTube's reaction format, amplify and normalize these discursive patterns at scale. This study offers a preliminary definition of the Black manosphere and situates its discursive logics within broader scholarship on digital masculinities and race.