Ask A Genius 1441: What the Manosphere Gets Wrong: Rick Rosner on Masculinity, Gym Culture, and Absurdity
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/07/03
Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen dissect the contradictions in the manosphere, mocking its clichés—from hypergamy rants to jaw exercises and alpha-male posturing. Rosner shares personal anecdotes, critiques toxic tropes, and offers a grounded take on masculinity, aging, and self-image in an internet-saturated culture obsessed with status and performance.
Rick Rosner: So, the title of your article is “What Does the Manosphere Reveal About Modern Masculinity and Its Contradictions?”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Yes.
Rosner: The subtitle: “Helping the many young men who lack sufficient healthy guidance.” Then you list close to two dozen things that, I guess, today’s so-called “manly man” does.
Like ranting about hypergamy at 2 a.m., I do not do that.
Being obsessed with meat and shirtless men.
I have been increasing my protein intake lately. Lance Richlin told me I need to. Lance is 64. He looks good for 64, although I have not seen him without his shirt on. However, he did tire me out when I was posing shirtless for reference photos for him over the course of about eight weeks, so I impressed him a bit.
Anyway, I bought liquid protein to drink during my colon cleanse, which I had before my colonoscopy.
So yes, I am trying.
Moreover, yes, I do get annoyed that I might look better without a shirt than many people. I have OCD, and I have been going to the gym seven times a week lately.
Moreover, what does it get me? Nothing.
Except—I do not know—maybe it helps stave off diabetes.
Jacobsen: Rating everyone’s sexual market value.
Rosner: Yes. Freaking hell, my market value is zero. I am married. I am 65. That said, it does not mean I do not sometimes resent not being 25 with abs.
Jacobsen: Proclaiming yourself an alpha male on Reddit.
Rosner: I do not go on Reddit—except occasionally to look something up.
On Twitter, I refer to myself as an alpha minus or a beta plus, which is close enough to alpha for most purposes.
Jacobsen: Spending Friday night memorizing pickup lines.
Rosner: That is not how pickup artistry works. You memorize strategies. I never tried pickup lines.
I have read some pickup artist books, but they were posthumously published. My days of picking up people are decades behind me. Still, I find it interesting.
Moreover, I will encourage people who are in a position to go out and socialize to do so, including you.
Jacobsen: Announcing you are going your own way, then publishing a manifesto.
Rosner: I make fun of those guys. I mute and block a lot of them on Twitter.
The MAGA types who say they “do their research,” who “think for themselves,” who call themselves “free thinkers”—yes, they are all jackasses.
Same with people who say “America is a constitutional republic” or who call themselves “classical liberals.” That is just a fancier way of saying you are a MAGA-type trying to sound smarter than you are.
Jacobsen: Calling women shallow.
Rosner: I call everybody shallow.
We are evolution’s bitch. We are nature’s bitch.
We are—as I have said a million times—the product of billions of generations of organisms that reproduced. We are programmed to be fooled into having sex.
Jacobsen: Punching homosexuals.
Rosner: No.
Jacobsen: Launching a red-pill podcast for no one.
Rosner: Kinda. Lance and I have been competing against each other for almost nine years. I do not know how many people watch each episode. 300, if we are lucky. You and I have been doing this for… ten, twelve years?
Over time, we have garnered some views, but not enough to turn them into anything substantial.
Jacobsen: Warning women about “the Wall” while ignoring a receding hairline.
Rosner: What is the Wall?
Jacobsen: The claim is that women’s fertility and attractiveness peak around 30, and then it is game over.
Rosner: Oh. That is the claim?
Jacobsen: Yes.
Rosner: I do not do that. However, I have taken care of my hairline with 13 sets of plugs.
A long time ago. I have not had a Nutra hair transplant in twenty years, and it is holding up, more or less. Additionally, once you go gray, they become less noticeable.
Jacobsen: Tweeting all of Andrew Tate’s tenets before breakfast.
Rosner: No. That guy is a rapey jackass.
Jacobsen: Boasting about your NoFap superpowers during a blackout.
Rosner: No. However, when I was working on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Jimmy Kimmel bet me a thousand dollars that I could not go 30 days without having sex or jerking off. I took the bet.
So I did go NoFap.
Jacobsen: Calling strangers soyboys while sipping a soy milk latte.
Rosner: No. That is a MAGA thing—to call people soyboys.
I do call people various kinds of “boys”—spelled b-o-i—which is the modern way.
I looked this up: the LA Times did a story that, so far this month, ICE has rounded up 722 people in Los Angeles. Seven percent had a record of violent crime. Sixty-nine percent had committed no crime.
So, for every crime boy ICE picks up, 10 innocent randos get swept up.
Jacobsen: Dropping your bench press PR into every thread.
Rosner: No. I do not talk about it, but I do keep track.
My bench has gotten bad. It’s still challenging with free weights. I am trying to rebuild it on the machines.
One of my rotator cuffs is damaged, which likely accounts for a 10% drop. Plus, I have lost about 30 pounds of muscle over the last ten years—that is the main reason. However, I do care about my bench press.
Jacobsen: Ranking unwatched Manosphere podcasts.
Rosner: I do not watch any podcasts. I do not do that.
Jacobsen: Negging dates because a pickup blog said so.
Rosner: No. I do not go on dates—except with my wife.
Moreover, I have learned to be careful about nagging her, because it doesn’t get you anywhere. You do not nag in a relationship—it is pointless.
It is a pickup tactic. It is well known.
Negging is when you say something that attacks a woman’s self-esteem—just enough to shake her up—so she becomes more open to your attention.
The classic example is: “Your nose looks funny when you laugh.”
And this vain woman—this abstract woman you are supposed to be picking up—she is thinking, “I do not look cute every single minute of every single day.”
While she is confused, you are supposed to swoop in and practice more of your pickup artistry on her.
So, no—I do not do that.
Jacobsen: Paying $3,000 to learn a game?
Rosner: I assume that means paying a pickup artist to attend a seminar on how to improve your pickup skills.
No, I do not do that. However, if I were 25, I probably would have… I would have spent $3,000, but I spent a considerable amount of time online searching for tips on how to meet women.
I was doing this before the Internet existed—back when there was no way to learn anything. You just had to figure it out.
Jacobsen: Chewing a jaw exerciser to looksmax?
Rosner: That is where you build up your jaw muscles to get that chiselled look.
Yes—I did that.
Back in the ’80s, I’d buy a whole pack of Bubblicious—five huge pieces—and chew all of them at once. It barely fit in my mouth.
The idea was to build muscle along the sides of my jaw. Also, if I chewed it at work, I thought it would make me look dumber, which, as a bouncer, was something I wanted. I wanted to look big and dumb.
Plus, I figured if someone punched me in the mouth, the gum might absorb some of the impact and protect my teeth. Though no one ever punched me in the mouth.
Jacobsen: What did happen?
Rosner: Drunk people would punch me in the eye. But it never really did damage.
One time I nearly got knocked out—I saw spiderwebs, stumbled a little, then stood up. He punched me again. I got rocked back, but never went entirely unconscious.
Most of the time, it didn’t do much. I have big eyebrows, drunk people have bad aim, and I guess I have prominent cheekbones.
No one ever managed to land a clean punch directly to the eye. My orbital bones are like armour.
Jacobsen: Tweeting your monk mode focus journey.
Rosner: I don’t know what that means—but I don’t do it.
Jacobsen: Launching a crypto hustle for the bros?
Rosner: Nope. I hate crypto.
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