But until just months before this conflict started, he didn’t appear to present himself as a citizen journalist, nor a Ukraine expert, nor a foreign policy buff, nor a war nerd. He was a
“medium-sized manosphere YouTuber,” according to Manoel Horta Ribeiro, a researcher at Switzerland's École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne who studies
that digital space—a loose constellation of blogs, forums, and social-media accounts inhabited by pick-up artists, men’s rights activists, and incels. [..]
Under the name Coach Red Pill, Lira made videos and hosted digital seminars in which he offered dating, life, and relationship advice. [..]
Some of Lira’s content offered reasonable, run-of-the-mill tips on things like financial literacy, according to George Michael, a professor of criminal justice at Westfield State University and an expert on far-right groups who’s been watching Coach Red Pill videos for years. But, Ribeiro added, most of his content was steeped in old and reductive views on gender and society, as well as outright vile misogyny, often defended using “questionable interpretations of evolutionary psychology.”
“Never date a woman in her 30s,” Lira, who’s in his 50s, said in one video created in 2020. He also argued that, “irrespective of what they claim they want,” all women only truly desire money, a house, and kids, as childrearing is the one thing that will biologically validate them. [..]
Lira’s rapid transformation from a self-styled relationship expert to a small but prominent peddler of pro-Putin hot takes and conspiracies may seem bizarre. But according to experts on both the manosphere and Russian misinformation, such a pivot makes sense. It speaks to long-simmering trends in both worlds, which kicked into high gear when the Ukraine conflict started.
Lira declined to respond to questions The Daily Beast sent him about his decision to shift away from his manosphere-centric content and towards dedicated Ukraine conflict commentary. Or about the information he chooses to share, where he finds it, and how he assesses and frames it. Or any of the other topics discussed in this article.
Instead, he posted The Daily Beast’s communications with him on his social-media channels. He claimed in one post that he did so to entertain his followers and that they should thank The Daily Beast “for the lulz.” He also created a 22-minute-long video preemptively warning his followers not to trust anything The Daily Beast writes, concocting a fantastical narrative in which every journalist secretly knows he and his ilk are right about the things they say but chooses to print lies because “everybody who works at the mainstream media is by definition a piece of shit.” He added that he is better than the mainstream media because he can “say the truth,” and suggested this article was developed at least in part because The Daily Beast writers envy and resent his freedom.
This attitude toward the press, and Lira’s affinity for pro-Putin views, is far from shocking, given the environment in which he’s operated for years now.
The manosphere is a
murky and chaotic space, riven by internal divisions about the exact nature of masculinity or the ideal approach to relationships (Lira has in the past indicated that he dislikes incels, even as he thrived in the larger subculture that they inhabit.) But most of its diverse factions are united in their distaste for Western values, and policies on gender equality connected to them, because they believe those norms ultimately hurt men, experts on this world told The Daily Beast. Members of the manosphere also tend to be skeptical of the mainstream media, often viewing it as a source of propaganda created to slander them and bolster supposedly harmful and incorrect ideas—like feminism.
Meanwhile, over the last decade, Putin’s regime has aggressively promoted “the importance of traditional gender roles to Russia,” explained Hrycak. It’s done so in part by elevating groups and commentators who decry the supposed horrors of Western feminism, and of gender and sexual freedoms and rights. Russia has also attempted to appeal to and build ties with “anti-woke” communities in the West, like the manosphere, as part of its
ongoing efforts to sow division and discord within its rivals’ borders, added Rhys Crilly, a scholar at the University of Glasgow who studies the nation’s communications strategies.
In recent years, the manosphere has
grown increasingly intertwined with far-right networks and influencers, soaking up this radical fringe’s resonant but distinct ideas about the evils of the West and
adoration for Putin and his strongman politics as well. This escalating entanglement, Ribeiro and
other researchers have shown, is turning the manosphere into an ever-more conspiratorial and radical environment—and a pipeline sending often young, disaffected men towards deeper rabbit–holes of extremism.
