Many Good Men

Civic Digits

The story of two men who come together to fight gender injustice.

In 2023 incel culture and the ‘manosphere’ have really spiked in the headlines and public consciousness, mainly due to the arrest of Andrew Tate. But ideologies based on a fundamental distrust and hatred towards women have been gaining space in the mainstream over the past decade through online channels, and primarily through social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. Parents, youth workers and teachers we work with have been reporting that young men and boys are increasingly at risk of being radicalised through their identities as men. They hear incel slang, fake stats and shared misogynistic memes everyday.

Since 2014 at least eight mass murders, resulting in 61 deaths have been committed by men who have either self-identified as incels or who had mentioned incel-related names or ideas in their private writings or internet postings, including 5 killings on August 12, 2021 in Plymouth by a gunman who was then celebrated by incels online.

Many Good Men is Civic Digits’ next major project, produced in association with Stories Untold and Stellar Quines Theatre Company at the Heart of Midlothian FC. It is supported by Creative Scotland, Hearts of Midlothian FC, Zero Tolerance, YouthLink Scotland, Design Informatics at University Edinburgh, with guidance from Women’s Support Project, White Ribbon, The Artist Wellbeing Company and The Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Unit: Scottish Government Justice Directorate

How will the project unfold?

Many Good Men is a participant led project, which explores the radicalisation of masculinity online. Participants will create a story about the radicalisation and weaponization of masculine stereotypes and tell it using a combination of digital tools, platforms and live performance.

The story begins: Two young football players are witness to an incel shooting incident in Edinburgh. In their quest to find out what led to this mass murder they start to investigate the incel movement. They both dive deep into the overwhelming online vortex of the ‘manosphere’ and one of them becomes radicalised. Using digital forum theatre the audience will be asked to find points on that journey where he could have been saved, and if not, why not.

Civic Digits will support two single sex groups of young people (ages 15-18) to each write and direct two professionally produced and resourced digital forum theatre performances. These groups will create the two main characters and dramatise their journey from innocently wanting to help, to managing and/or failing to save themselves.

Clare Duffy says: “When we started researching this project last year, I set up an email as a young man and asked youtube, ‘how do I get a girlfriend’, within 2 hours I was watching misogynistic content that promoted incel ideology, just by letting the algorithm run. Through Many Good Men we want to find out how young people experience this, how it affects their lives and how parents, youth workers, teachers and young people can communicate about the sense of overwhelming isolation the digital broadcasting of these ideologies can create.”

The performances will be free to the communities surrounding Hearts FC.

Safeguarding: We are taking the safeguarding of the young participants very seriously. All our stakeholders are supporting us to create a safeguarding policy so that our young participants will be properly supported in a trauma informed way which will be agreed upon with the parents/careers, the host school and/or youth group.

The project will also produce a piece of research for Zero Tolerance asking:

What are young people’s existing experiences and perceptions of online incel culture and misogynistic online radicalisation and grooming? Do these existing experiences differ by gender? In what ways do other intersecting characteristics (e.g. race, sexuality, poverty) have an impact?