This study developed and applied the world's first framework to classify masculinity content on TikTok.
Researchers recruited 142 young men aged 16–25 across Australia, the UK and the US, who shared their real TikTok data with the research team. A sample of 2,414 videos were randomly selected from participants past month viewing histories. Researchers manually coded these videos using the developed Masculinity Content Classification Framework.
The framework identifies three tiers of content: Cultural Touchpoints (mainstream lifestyle and entertainment), Masculine Status (dominance, wealth, emotional suppression) and Degrading Health (misogyny, hopelessness, risky behaviour). Of the videos coded, 37.74% were Cultural Touchpoints, 4.89% Masculine Status and 0.87% Degrading Health—with content depicting extreme manosphere ideologies and health harms representing 5.76% of all videos analysed.
What’s striking is how these manosphere ideologies show up and spread—embedded within the culturally relevant topics and trends young men care about, such as gaming, fashion, sports and music. Movember researchers describe this as an “inverted iceberg”—highly visible lifestyle content at the surface, with intensifying layers of dominance, exclusionary attitudes and harmful health behaviours underneath, connected within the same ecosystem and amplified through algorithmic recommendation.
The study is the first to use real-world data donated directly by young men, rather than simulated ‘dummy accounts’ created by researchers. This is a significant step forward for the field—giving researchers, platforms and policymakers a rigorous, replicable tool to identify and measure harmful masculinity content at scale.