Tech Talk: How influencers and algorithms are shaping perspectives on masculinity with Dr. Catherine Baker

Welcome back for another episode of the sporting change podcast. So back in October of last year we were invited to attend the very first Undoing Masculine Summit, which was held in Calgary. The Summit was an international gathering dedicated to reimagining what it aims to be a man in today's world. It brought together scholars, activists, and practitioners from across the globe to address critical conversations around masculine, focusing on how it can evolve to support gender equity, mental health, and violence prevention. We are so excited to release a two episode mini-series called Undoing Masculine that will welcome two amazing researchers from the Summit and will touch on two very important topics that truly affect today's society. In today's part one, we will explore the influence of misogynist influencers who shape modern masculinity items. These influencers, who often disguise themselves as motivational figures, present a polished or a fake version of masculinity, showcasing wealth, womanizing power, sculpted bodies as the pinnacle of menhood, with millions of followers, which kind of gives them this false sense of credibility, especially to the eyes of young people, and also with the algorithms that amplify their content. They have unfortunately become key players in shaping how both young men and young women do masculine. We're excited to be joined by Dr. Catherine Baker, a post-doctoral researcher with the Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities at Dublin City Universe. She brings a wealth of knowledge on the ways digital spaces shape and reinforce harmful masculine ideals and the impact it has on young audiences. Today, she'll share her insight on how these online spaces can be navigated safely, and what steps we can take to come back the rays of toxic masculinity in the digital reach. We hope you enjoy the show. Bullying harassment and harmful sport cultures are the leading concern facing sport organizations today. In Canada, 7 out of 10 youth quit organized sport by the age of 13. 90% of bullying takes place in front of peers, and only 4% of bullying is ever reported. Team up with Dare to Care to create sport cultures that are rooted in respect, inclusion, and courage. The Dare to Care workshop categories include age-appropriate athlete and team workshops, coach and sport leadership workshops that are NCCP accredited, parenting guardian workshops, and workshops for referees and officials. If you are ready to tackle bullying at your organization and create a positive sports environment for all members, contact Dare to Care today. Thanks to our partnership with BRP's Ride Out Intimidation Program, your organization might be eligible for up to 6 free workshops. That's right, 6 free Dare to Care workshops. Dare to Care today for more information and take your safe sport commitment off the paper and into action. Hello listeners and welcome to our first episode of our Undoing Masculinity series. We are so excited to be joined by Dr. Katherine Baker today. Dr. Baker, to get us started, if you had two minutes to introduce yourself to our listeners, how would you introduce yourself, your background and a little bit about your research? I'm a Dr. Katherine Baker. I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher in Institute for Research on Ganges and Sexualities in Dublin City University. Postdoctoral researcher just meaning that I was doing a PhD, I know I'm doing research post PhD. My background, I did my undergrad in psychology, and then I moved into media communications. My research focus has mostly been on online misogyny, social media platforms, the manosphere and in the last year or so I have started looking at algorithms and kind of more of the structural issues behind the platforming kind of amplification of online misogyny. And previously in my PhD, I looked at online subcultures that focused around misogyny and anti-feminism, and now kind of looking at how these ideas are becoming more mainstreamed on social media platforms, through influencers, yeah, that's a very small summary of what I do. No, and we cannot wait to kind of dive into more of this social media side of masculinity and yeah, just the impact that that has on youth cultures and on youth today. But before we do, we met you at the Undoing Masculinity Summit in Calgary a few weeks back. And just quickly, what did that opportunity kind of offer for all these masculinity studies researchers from all over the world? I know Dr. Keeler said that there hasn't really been a conference like that before. So how was that really impactful for you? Yeah, it was really, really interesting and such a good opportunity to get to talk to such amazing scholars globally. I think someone made the point that someone that was kind of like seeing your bibliography come to life. All these names that you see written down in books, making really important points, and then they're there in front of you. You can ask people questions and kind of dig into having really interesting conversations. And I think that that point about it being cross-cultural and international was really important. So, you know, I'm based in Ireland, whereas a lot of scholars were in Australia, the US, Canada, and it's really, really interesting to see the kind of the differences, but also the similarities in the conversations that I learned in different countries and get kind of nuances in perspective, so I think it's really helpful. And it's just a really nice conversation in person and kind of get a dialogue going. Yeah, and it was so cool for us as outsiders to kind of sit in and it was kind of like watching the all-star game or like the Super Bowl of researchers all coming together. It was like, the talking was like constant and it was great to watch that. So, without waiting any longer, we'll just dive right into the topic of today's episode. And the first thing I'll ask is, in the last couple of years of research that you've done, what have you seen the role of social media being, or like the role of influencers on the youth perspective today? This is something that I've been thinking and working on a lot in the last year. It's kind of a new focus of interest, but I'm specifically interested in algorithms, recommender algorithms and how those are becoming more instrumental in how young people are consuming social media content. So looking at platforms like TikTok and YouTube, so that are using an algorithm to kind of choose what content to recommend to people next. So, people are very familiar if they go on Netflix. It's like, okay, you liked this movie, maybe you'll like this movie, but recommender algorithms are coming more sophisticated, so now on TikTok, when you're on your FYP, every video being recommended is based on this kind of complex algorithmic mathematical calculation of the kind of content it thinks you're interested in based on your demographic, what you've been interested in previously, the kind of things you've commented on, and liked. And this is becoming so much more part of social media than it ever was before. It's kind of almost every social media platform is moving towards this kind of algorithmic, automatic, personalized content filtering. So and that's the kind of content and platforms that are particularly popular with young people. So TikTok is like the most popular social media platform with young people. I think half of users are under the age of 24, majority of them are under the age of like 18. So it's very, very popular and myself and Professor Ging from Dublin City University, we did a piece of exploratory research last year, kind of looking at the type of content that is algorithmically recommended to young boys on social media. We did kind of a very small scale experiment, we actually bought iPhones and set them up with different type of male user accounts and tried to emulate different kinds of user behavior, young men who were kind of interested in seeking out anti-feminist content, but also young men who were seeking out gym content, mental health content, video games, that kind of thing. And we found that like anti-feminist and misogynist content was being recommended to all these accounts based on kind of profiling them as young men. And this was something that we were hearing from teachers, parents, even young people themselves, that particularly young boys were being kind of promoted this content. Young boys who probably wouldn't have sought out in a way that traditionally was the way this content came onto your social media platform, is that you went to seek it out, but now it's being kind of mainstreamed and recommended to young people who may not even seek it out. So it's a really concerning issue and there's more and more research coming out to kind of talk about this. So I think that's something I'm really thinking about and something that I think is a really big issue that I think a lot of parents and teachers and young people are concerned about. Yeah, for sure. And I think maybe this is a bit of a naive question, but how does the type of content that we're absorbing through our social media accounts? And I don't think there's anyone in the recording right now, or who will be listening, who won't undervalue how impactful social media content is in our lives. We're all on our phones. We're all scrolling. But how does that content shape someone's worldview? Maybe specifically if we're talking about youth, who are still very impressionable in trying to figure themselves out the world around them out, how does this kind of content, how is it perhaps harmful to their worldviews that are still being shaped? There is an issue when people get trapped in echo chambers where they're kind of having the same views amplified over and over again. And we know this happens a lot on social media now where you can get caught in kind of a recommender system where you're getting a lot of misogynistic content, a lot of maybe negative mental health content. And one of the things we talk about a lot with our experiment of a young people being fed misogynistic content is that not every person that listens to this content will agree with this. You know, young people are critical thinkers and they're able to interact and kind of make their own opinion. But also young people are seeking out information on topics that they're curious about. So a lot of looking into conversations around like sexuality, sexual health, relationship, standing advice. And there's a lot of like influencers and people profiting of amplifying quite harmful advice in those places. And because we kind of live in a society where our sexuality and health education is often lacking or introduced too late, young people actually only get a lot of information through social media, which can be misinformation, it can be, you know, it could be sexist, it could be reductive, it could be, you know, anti LGBT, etc. So it can't have quite a bad effect over time. I think similarly there's been some research on negative mental health content, you know, some of these social media platforms. And when young people go looking for mental health content, maybe the content that they're being recommended can be quite negative and reinforce a lot of kind of kind of negative thoughts or talking about like suicide or self-harm. And we know that that's a really dangerous thing to expose young people to. So my next question might be twofold. I might be asking two questions in one, I guess. So for me as an adult and I work in safe sport, I work in bullying prevention. So I'm exposed on a day-to-day basis to different studies, have these conversations with people to be able to identify what is appropriate and what is not. Are those young kids able to identify what the red flags look like? And I guess the next question that I have is maybe here we could talk about what are some of the myths or the talking points that those negative misogynist comments or pose that are made online that young men might not be able to identify as? Yeah, I think the first point is really important and why there's such a big push at the moment for critical digital literacy skills to be something that we're teaching people in schools. You know, it's really important that we live in a social media saturated world and we need to equip young people with the skills to, you know, this is something that adults struggle with, I struggle with, you know, my parents struggle with it, like social media is constantly evolving, algorithms are confusing, and the way in which our biases can be amplified by social media, the how political misinformation, these are huge conversations, I think it's something that needs to be really emphasized with young people and, you know, in a way that makes them feel like empowered and able to negotiate the social media world around them and needs to be integrated in education spaces as well. And then in terms of the second question of the influencers, I think a lot of the stuff that I think is harder to kind of parse out freedom people or people in general is, you know, a lot of it, if it's like on the nose misogyny, like saying sex of things or misogyny, it's easier to see, but a lot of these influencers, their marketing strategy at the moment is this kind of self-improvement and self-help and mindset, so they kind of run themselves as gurus, self-improvement as mental health, but also when you actually dig into the advice dig, I think it can be actually really harmful, so it's kind of focused on all of body image, a lot of how to be a man, so go to the gym, get up early, a lot of like rigid self-discipline, which on the surface might not seem too problematic, but we think of the, you know, young people and they're very vulnerable to, you know, body image, mental health issues, and this extreme focus on body control, and that is the way of being a real man can be very harmful. I know their discourse, they talk about a lot is like emotional stoicism, so to be a man means to repress your emotions, it means to be the strong one, to kind of support everyone around you, but also to keep your emotions in, which we know is a very long-standing kind of trope of masculinity that is connected to a lot of harmful mental health outcomes for a man, and there's a lot of this focus on this was what it means to be a man around body image, around emotions, around your relationships with women, that you need to have all these relationships with women, that you need to kind of use them as a badge of honor in your masculinity, so these are all very old tropes of masculinity that I've been around for decades, they're just kind of repackaged by these new influencers for young men, and I think sometimes the fact that they're kind of branding themselves as motivational influencers can kind of disguise a lot of the harmful content, but it's quite misogynistic, and also it's reinforcing these muscle ideals that actually are very hard for young men to uphold, and then also harmful for young men who don't uphold those characteristics. And for young teenagers to see them actually be famous, have millions of followers to have this like quote-unquote perfect body, and the woman around like to see that on social media is like, oh well, what they say must be true, because they are attaining what they're saying is like masculinity, right? It's actually a really interesting point, because there's been some research on a specifically famous influencer who I won't name on, you know, they were talking to young men about like, why do they, you know, what is appealing about his ideas? And a lot of it was like he talked about what his fear of man, he gives good advice, but also like, why is what he's saying real, and a lot of it they pointed to when he's got a huge audience, he's got lots of money, and if that was that, if he wasn't telling the truth, then those things wouldn't exist, and that when it comes when like the critical literacy of like, well, why is that, you know, could that be untrue? And a lot of their content focus around like flashing their lifestyle, they like put up all their lifestyle, their buggades, their big phones, all the women they're getting with as a way to try and like appeal to young men and kind of sell the dream. And a lot of it is, you know, it's monetary for these people, they're selling courses, they're trying to monetize their content, I mean, that's also an important thing to, for young people to realize is that they're selling a product, these people are making a lot of money off, and promoting the idea that this is an accessible lifestyle to anyone if you just sign up for their course or just follow their tent tips, but obviously things are a lot more nuanced and difficult. Yeah, I think another really important layer here is I also think the content that young females absorb around masculinity is also a factor to consider. Young girls may be consuming content that are also painting this idea of masculinity and the type of partner they want and the expectations they're putting on their partner as well. So maybe Catherine, I'll just kind of throw that back to you. Yes, we're talking about how this type of content will shape the perspectives of young men, but also young women and masculinity is a conversation not only for men, but also for females, non-binary, anybody, masculinity perspectives impact all of us. So how is that content also perhaps coming up for female audiences as well? Yeah, it's very interesting because I think there's some discussion around how in terms of narratives of gender, young girls are becoming increasingly progressive and boys are becoming a little bit more conservative in those ideas, and that obviously raises questions about how that impacts their relationships with one another. Young girls online have a lot more information to access around feminism and all these ideas. Two young men who don't feel like they have got these privileges and rights that can feel very attacking, they can kind of feel like, well, maybe feminism has gone too far and I don't feel like a privileged person can kind of make them feel kind of attacked. And I think that's why these are important conversations to have, but young men is that like online, these influences are going to say, well, girls are doing this and feminists are doing this and feminism's gone too far and it's taking all these things from you. Bush, that's not true and that's not representative of these ideas, but also I think it's important to, yeah, keep in mind, but also your girls like online misogynist content within the day is really, really harmful to young women, to see it online, to consume it online, to be in classrooms where kind of misogynistic and anti-feminist rhetoric is becoming amplified or more accepted, and it is really, really damaging and hard for young women. I think there's also a lot of stuff online that's clickbait and we've all probably found ourselves like you see, like a snippet of a conversation and you click it and you're like, well, wait, I want to hear more about that and even if they're these kind of extremist comments, it's you click it, then you're giving that view, then that content is being recommended to others because you clicked it and now you're getting more of that content, so it's such an easy kind of rabbit hill to go down, and caffeine you made a comment a second ago about like the education and making sure we're having these conversations, so kind of recognizing that there is perhaps very harmful content available online, our phones are set up to send that content our way, specifically to young men, it sounds like the algorithm really brings that content more likely to their accounts, what can the adults in their life be doing to try to equip youth with the skills to identify that content to critically think about that content, open those conversations, maybe I'll start from a parent perspective, what can our parents and guardians be doing? Yeah, I think it's really important to try and create an open space for dialogue around these issues, I mean, really tempting to just kind of shut down these ideas, but that's wrong, that's bad, these are problematic ideas, but young people are seeking out these ideas or maybe interested in them because they have genuine questions around gender, sexuality, they might have genuine frustrations or have genuine concerns, and I think creating an open space for dialogue where there's a non-judgmental kind of open dialogue where there can kind of be this back and forth, this ongoing conversation, these aren't conversations that can be like one and done and fixed overnight, but creating a space where young people feel they can be open and heard, I think goes a long way in facilitating that, for parents it can be quite scary, but there's a lot of resources out there, where you can kind of educate yourself on these issues, so you feel kind of prepared and ready to go into these conversations as well, but I think having open non-judgmental discussions, where young people feel that they can kind of have these discussions in a space, there can also be issues in which parents maybe want to validate some of the ideas just to kind of get the conversation going, but it's also important to make sure that you're going into this conversation feeling equipped and able to empathize with the concerns of young people, but also kind of bringing those critical conversations and skills, so yeah, I hear that you might feel that you hear that like all feminist hate men online, yeah, that might feel really okay, you've seen all this content, okay, but let's challenge that, you know, what about this, kind of having an open dialogue where it's safe and non-judgmental, but also challenging some of these core ideas, or even just having conversations of, you know, you go on social media and you're seeing this content over and over again, how is that making you feel? Do you feel like it's upsetting you? Do you feel like it's making you feel differently bad things? Or okay, what kind of content do you think the algorithm's feeding you? Is that kind of content do you want to see? If you didn't want to see that content, do you feel like you'd know how to, you know, tell the social media platform to not show you that? And having that in kind of an open dialogue I think is really important. And everything you're just named here could also apply to educators, right? They could do the same thing in schools at the club, like at the sport, the coaches could do the same thing. Is there like policies that maybe clubs or schools or like the organizations that the whole could implement to help navigate those spaces? This is something that again, it's, it's so contextual, it's international. So I'm based in Ireland, so I'm thinking of organizations here that are helpful in that way. And I'm going to do a small bit of self-promote. And I've got some colleagues in Dublin City University have just created a resource for parents, teachers and guardians to talk about masculinity influencers. And it talks about, you know, some of the discourses, what this stuff contains, but it also talks about tips about how to talk to young people will be launching that next month. So I will send that to you guys and if you could. Yeah, absolutely. It goes into those conversations of how to facilitate conversations, you know, creating a safe space where people feel like they are heard, but also that there's, you know, rules around what kind of language is, isn't allowed, and kind of peer-to-peer learning supports and different ways of studying these conversations and making sure you and people feel heard, but also being critical of those conversations. So there are some good resource that exists so I can also make, like a link to if you guys want to, you know, put in the show notes or whatever you guys do. Yes, please. Amazing. Catherine, I know one of the things that's coming into Canada recently and I also believe it's coming to the UK, but I know Instagram, for example, is going to start having youth accounts. And so I'm not sure if that's something similar kind of in your sphere as well, but how would a youth account be helpful? Is that actually going to change anything? I believe, like the youth accounts in Matt also knows about this so he can maybe jump in. They're going to have kind of time limits on how often you're on the app. It will restrict certain content. It will kind of shut the app down during sleep hours and I'm air quoting here for anyone listening. But also, I don't think there's any strict verification that would prevent a youth just from lying about their age, but there are these in there is some intent from apps and social media organizations to try and create more safe spaces for youth online just with a lot of studies coming out around the impact of mental health and anxiety and all of that that comes with social media and the comparison to others and to your friends and to social influencers and such. So a very long-winded question, but how will these youth accounts hopefully be helpful? Yeah, I'm going to start off by jumping on something you said at the end of that conversation. I do think this is something that I always try to emphasize these conversations. It's important to be critical about social media and online platforms without being scaremongering about them. There's a lot of conversations now about like phone bonds and getting rid of phones and just having a social media account in a phone is detrimental to young people's mental health and it's become this thing where you take phones off kids, which I think is an incredibly harmful approach because young people will then get phones the age of 12 or 14 or 16 and then they're landed into the same social media platform or environment before and there's harmful aspects of social media and we have to interrogate those harms, but those those pressure isn't to be up to the social media platforms. You know, putting pressure on those systems to change and become more safe and instead of the individual responses to parents to just like take the phone off the kids, you know. I think it's really important to be like social media and big tech companies are, you know, they're not ethical companies in many ways, but there's also been this kind of reactionary backlash to phone bonds and that's the way to solve it and often that can be a bit of a scaremongering tactic and a bit of a, you know, a lot of the research on whether social media in general is bad for young people or is it like certain types of social media content that's bad for young people. So if you're using your WhatsApp to talk to your friends, that's probably not bad for your mental health, but if you're consuming self-harm content, if you're, you know, a young queer person going on and learning about other queer people, that's not bad for your mental health, but if you're consuming misogynist influences, that's bad for your mental health. That's just a little proviso because I know the conversation, especially over here right now, is the school phone bonds thing is a really big issue and I think sometimes I can take the debate away from, well, how do we make social media platforms responsible to make these spaces safer, rather than just take the phones off the kids, which lets the social media companies off the hook a little bit. So that's my little, my little rant on that. In terms of the youth accounts, that's something that I've heard a huge amount with over here. There's a big conversation here about how do you do age verification and how rigorous is it because that's something the social media platforms will say, like, oh, we have age verification, but as you said, what is to stop? You know, young people lying about their age, and you know, that is an issue. And then also with those, you've been on the app for X-Manta time, I think they're like very useful from what research says, it's the kind of the same with those inoculation attacks, you know, when COVID happened, and there was like, read, you know, this content deals with COVID, read this thing. Apparently that works really well for the first two times you see it, and then you just start ignoring it. So I think it is really important that we push so social media companies to take seriously the ways in which their platforms amplify the risks aimed at all people, including young people, algorithmically the kind of people are platforming, all these kind of things. And I think that needs to be on things like age verification and young people accounts, but again, it's an on, it's an on issue. So I don't have a quick answer, I'm sorry. No, and I love what you said about like, there are some positive aspects of those online spaces, and we can't just make it seem like it's this big, bad place for everyone no matter what you do. So I do really appreciate you saying that. And the other thing that I heard is like, or the feeling that I have with interacting with a lot of different parents and adults and myself being a parent is that sometimes we just assume that maybe those apps are out there and by having their accounts being private or by trusting the policies and procedures of those different apps, that's good enough to protect my kid. But I think I need to do a little bit more researching and digging in to make sure that they are having the right kind of interactions online because there are some positive ones. Yeah, I think it's important that like young people's voices are centered in these conversations, you know, a lot of the time it's adults talking for young people, this is harmful for you, this is how you feel about this, this is the way, you know, young people are autonomous people who can have critical, you know, like anyone they can consume, a lot of people we talk to, we're like, oh yeah, I get fed that influencer bush. I think that's, he's an idiot, you know, and I think it's talking to young people and okay, how do you feel about this? Like having critical conversations with young people is really important and centering young people's voices in that conversation. And yeah, like you said, it goes beyond just the policies of those social media platforms, it's about how we educate young people, you know, I always say that like if a young person sees a video that has loads of misinformation around gender, if their young person is able to have open progressive conversations around sex and gender from young age, there's so much more likely to see it go, but that's, that's, that's not true versus, you know, a child who's never been exposed to a conversation about that, that's actually, you know, really helpful. Yeah, for sure. And I think that I, I, yeah, again, we talked about social media is not bad, we're not like hoping that anyone listens to this and is trying to take phones away from youth. Again, there's so many really positive things that social media and cell phones offer. One last kind of question before we wrap up, sex torsion is a topic that is really kind of becoming more and more discussed in Canada. And that's when online predators are seeking out youth kind of trying to get personal photos, black male, pressuring youth into doing things online that they don't feel comfortable with. How can we be trying to support youth and protect them from those online predators that are kind of seeking them out and safely online? Yeah, I think it's another place in which, you know, critical conversations around social media use and also sex and consent are really important. I mean, there's also, you know, a lot of the pressure for things like news and sexual images comes from peers as well. You know, this has been a thing that predates the internet, but now is amplified by the internet of, you know, young people might feel pressured to share sexualized imagery not only with someone who might explore it from online, but maybe within a peer group within a school system within a relationship. And I think that's something that having conversation around consent and how you feel comfortable and an expectation around sex and sexuality and what is more and more and how you can say no to situations in which you don't feel comfortable is really important because there's increased pressure, I think, with social media and phones for young people to feel these things are expected of them. And critical conversation around sexuality, sexual health, consent, and healthy and respectful relationships is really important to help people navigate those because it's an increasing pressure, especially for young girls online. Yeah, amazing. And as we wrap up, thank you so much, Dr. Baker, for joining us today. Are there any closing thoughts you want to share as a open-ended question rate at the end of our episode? I'm probably going to think of like 10 more now when I yeah, the floor is yours. Yeah, I think it's it's the balance of in one hand not being scary and mongering around social media, but also understanding that, you know, social media platforms are profit-led entities. I'm not to get all on my moral high horse, but there are a lot of, you know, harms that are, you know, based on the social media platforms because they are at the end of day trying to keep people on the screens for as long as possible. So we're not trying to scare mongering individualized those problems, but also to kind of have open conversations with young people about the harmful content they might see online, especially around algorithms, I think, and around influencers and the kind of content that's kind of aspirational to young people. Thank you so much, Dr. Baker, for joining us. This was a super interesting conversation, and I hope I know for me, but I also hope for our listeners that it's just going to have us kind of be a little bit more critical of the content we see on our social media platforms, hopefully spark some conversations with the youth in our lives just around the type of content, how to identify when maybe there is false content or false messaging being promoted at us, but also recognizing, and I think you really emphasize this. Let's not think of social media as this bad scary. You kept using the term fear mongoling, but social media is powerful. It has a lot of positive potential, and it's just making sure that we're using it responsibly and having some conversations. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the Sporting Change Podcast. My name is Matt Circle Santiago. My pronouns are he/him, and for today's episode, I connected from Treaty 7 Territory in Southern Alberta. And I'm Rain Paul. My pronouns are she and her, and I joined from the Treaty 6 Territory of Northern Alberta. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Be a part of the movement to Sport Change by sharing this episode with your family and friends. Check out our podcast notes for additional information, resources, and to stay connected with our guests. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and connect with us on social media to stay up to date with this Sporting Change Podcast. If you or someone you know would be interested in joining us as a guest on the podcast, please reach out to us on social media.