“Men in Crisis” seems to be an early contender for the zeitgeist of 2026, or at least a cool name for an indie band. But in all seriousness, something weird and worrying is afoot. Graduation rates, employment, and dating are down, loneliness is up, and stability and security seem to many like relics of the past. This cocktail of confusion has found fertile ground in the “manosphere,” a digital den of arrested development where the disillusioned, uninformed, and unjustifiably cocksure have eagerly planted their flag. Mark Twain could have been describing the manosphere’s chest-thumping ethos when he quipped, “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure.” If you’re unfamiliar, the manosphere promotes the bizarre practice of hitting your face with a hammer (“bonesmashing,” a subset of “looksmaxxing”) to achieve a more optimal bone structure, injecting highly questionable peptides for various beautification aims, and an emerging obsession with fertility that in one instance culminated in a well-attended “sperm race” on a microscopic racetrack in Los Angeles. DraftKings, anyone?
This preoccupation with fertility has led some men to take up that hallowed, time-honored quest for the perfect pair of underwear, while others spend vast sums on sleep monitoring gear (Call me old-fashioned, but what happened to going to bed when you feel sleepy?).
