A mum has opened up about how she spotted the signs her son was being “red pilled” in the hope it will help other parents be vigilant about the subtle radicalisation of young children online.
For the uninitiated, the term “red pill” – which was mentioned in Netflix’s TV hit, Adolescence – has been adopted by certain groups (especially men’s rights groups) to refer to “waking up to the truth”.
In this context, red-pilling means “embracing the idea that men’s unhappiness and lack of sexual success is the fault of women and feminists”, according to Britannica.
TikTok creator @rchlprkr said she was having a conversation with her then 11-year-old son when he responded: “Well, women are gold diggers anyway.”
When the single mum pushed her child on which women he meant, she said her son replied: “Just women in general.”
The conversation progressed and she asked her son to name a woman in their life who was a gold digger, which he couldn’t.
He then showed her a video he’d seen which had inspired him to make the remark – at which point, the mum calmly prompted him to think critically about what he saw in front of him and to question it.
Off the back of the video, other parents shared the red flags that had prompted deeper conversations around red pill content with their kids.
One said: “My kid said ‘woke’ as a insult in tone. We had a 3 hr conversation about red pill last night.”
Another revealed: “I saw the very initial signs with my youngest (14) when he started referring to women as ‘females’.”
The Netflix TV show Adolescence recently touched on terms such as “the red pill” and “manosphere”, which has sparked conversations around how young boys are finding this content online and being sucked in by it.
In the four-part series, we discover that 13-year-old Jamie – who was accused of killing his classmate Katie – was likely indoctrinated online by misogynistic groups.
We also learn that Katie had been sharing certain emojis on his Instagram alluding to him being an incel. The term stands for involuntary celibate and refers to men who describe being unable to attract a romantic or sexual partner, and tend to blame women as a result.
Teach kids critical thinking skills so they can question the content they see online
Research by the University of York found most primary and secondary school teachers are “extremely concerned” about the influence of the manosphere – a collection of websites and forums that promote masculinity, and increasingly, misogyny – on children and young people.
One-quarter of teachers referenced male pupils discussing misogynistic influencers or misogynistic movements from the internet, such as incels.
Teachers also referenced instances of young boys not understanding what ‘consent’ means, using discriminatory language towards female students in relation to what jobs they are suitable for and male students praising sexist ideas.
Educator Rebecca Leigh also recently told HuffPost UK she’s personally witnessed a rise in misogyny among students. “I’m seeing it in boys as young as 11 or 12,” she said.
While setting parental controls on children’s devices can and will help reduce the amount of misogynistic content they’re subjected to, TikTok creator @rchlprkr believes it’s also important for parents to teach kids to think critically.
In a separate video, she said she wanted to understand what it was about the content her son was consuming that engaged him.
Instead of shouting at him about it or accusing him, she simply had a chat with him, asking him why it appealed so much.
“After that though, I did start pulling on the relationships that he has with women in his real life,” said the mum, who added her son was primarily raised by women.
“I was kind of offended that he would buy into that sort of ideology about women. But he hadn’t applied it to us,” she added.
When she probed a bit deeper and asked her son to think critically of why some men create this content, or think of women in a derogatory way, she said he was then forced to think carefully about how other people think and feel.
“I do think that emotional intelligence and empathy massively come into play,” added the mum.
She concluded that teaching kids critical thinking skills is important to prevent them from being red pilled, adding that even if you threaten to take away their phones, they’ll still be able to access the content elsewhere – whether through friends, at school or somewhere else.