The Manosphere Is Too Online for Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux’s job used to be a lot easier. The British-American documentarian made a career with offbeat TV series, specials, and features that embedded him deep inside various subcultures. On the BBC’s Weird Weekends, which ran from 1998 to 2000, he met porn stars, Las Vegas hypnotists and pickup artists, backwoods survivalists, UFOlogists, and born-again Christian televangelists, who had never heard of him. Affecting a kind of wide-eyed curiosity, bordering on faux-naïveté, he encouraged his strange subjects to open up to, or at least tolerate, him. His charming English manner—he’d always introduce himself cheerfully as “Louis! From the BBC!”—probably helped. It’s a shtick familiar to any journalist, who knows that they can often mine the best material from other people by playing a slightly goofier version of themselves.