(Red)Pills vs. Bread(Tube): examining YouTube as a vector for manosphere radicalization and de-radicalization

In recent years, the affordances of YouTube have been exploited by those creating extreme ideological content that can be collectively understood as ‘defined by [their] opposition to visions of social progress’ and social justice movements (Lewis, 2018, pp. 3–4). Individuals aiming to push back against alt-right and socially divisive movements have used the same platform, forming an informal network known as BreadTube. Although some BreadTube influencers explicitly state the aim of attracting alt-right viewers, no scholarship has examined BreadTube’s deradicalizing potential. This empirical study provides the first direct comparison of the communication style and topics of interest to each cohort, finding that BreadTube’s approach shares limited features with that of the content consumed by the alt-right audience they aim to attract. We also examine an ordinary, entertainment-oriented cohort, as a control. This mixed-methods approach enables the qualitative findings drawn from 42 manually coded transcripts to be explored and verified at a larger scale by the quantitative analysis using LIWC and a dataset of over 500 transcripts. From this, we evaluate the extent to which BreadTube content has the potential to engage manosphere content viewers and achieve BreadTube’s stated goal of deradicalizing members of alt-right communities, such as the manosphere.