A mom has gone viral on TikTok for sharing how she found out her son had been “red-pilled“, and what she did about it. In case you’re not familiar with the term, “red-pilling,” it refers to men embracing the idea that their unhappiness and failure to “score” is the fault of women and feminists. In short: misogyny.

The parent, who goes by @rchlprkr, spoke about how her son confidently blurted out that “women are gold diggers”. She then explained in detail how she responded to him. And how, in her words, she “successfully ‘de-pilled’ her ‘red-pilled’ son.” The video has been liked more than 279,000 times since it was posted. It’s well worth a watch, even if you aren’t a mom. Or don’t have a son.

There are many dangers of lurking on the internet and one of them comes in the form of “red-pilling”

Image credits: rchlprkr

When one mom realized her son was beginning to pick up misogynistic beliefs from online videos, she dealt with it immediately

Image credits: rchlprkr

Image credits: rchlprkr

You can watch the mom’s whole video here:

Swallow the “red pill” and digest a false narrative that women are to blame for your failures…

Image credits: valeriygoncharukphoto (not the actual photo)

You might remember the idea of the “red pill and blue pill” from the 1999 science fiction blockbuster The Matrix. According to Britannica, “the pills represented a choice between remaining in a state of blissful ignorance (blue) or accepting a painful reality (red).”

But since then, the red pill has taken on a life of its own. It’s often associated with alt-right circles and the so-called “manosphere.” If you aren’t familiar with that term, it refers to an international network of social media influencers and online communities that promote male supremacy and antifeminist ideologies. It’s filled with misogyny, toxic masculinity and hateful ideas about women.

Think Andrew Tate, the infamous social media influencer who was arrested on serious charges of crimes against women, and is still on trial, alongside his brother Tristan. “Women should clean up,” Andrew Tate once told his young male followers. “Not only should women clean up, women should clean up unprompted.”

According to a U.S. Congress report, it was statements like these that saw hoards of young men putting Tate on a pedestal. “It didn’t matter if his advice was crude, sexual, or hateful; Tate made a fortune making himself synonymous with the manosphere – a far-right community that recruits susceptible young men with toxic masculinity and misogyny,” reads the report.

It’s guys like Tate who hand out red pills to anyone who will listen, feeding guys the false narrative that their own failures are not their fault but rather the work of women and feminists. CNN reports that Tate’s TikTok account racked up around 11.6 billion views before it was taken down, and he was banned from the platform.

The government report warns that manosphere influencers use their “isolated and indoctrinated community members” to profit, “often selling self-help and guru-style assistance for a price and to keep a steady revenue stream.” It notes a clear connection between the manosphere community and cryptocurrency traders, saying the group has a profit-driven mindset dubbed “the grindset.”

“Men usually flock to the manosphere because they are unhappy in some way and searching for a sense of belonging, and younger audiences are drawn in by a similar need,” Brette Steele, senior director for Preventing Targeted Violence at the McCain Institute, told CNN.

Steele added that youth are searching for that “sense of belonging, that kind of grounding to explain what’s happening to them.” The expert warned that as more young men turn to the manosphere, “we’ve seen a degradation of in-person social skills, and in middle school, that’s when those social skills are first coming into play.”

Many commented on how hard it must be to raise boys nowadays

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