James Bloodworth

London

Writer, Author and Columnist at Freelance

Journalist and author. Lost Boys out with @AtlanticBooks on 5 June 2025. Substack: https://t.co/7eixsF4roJ

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Articles

Lost Boys: A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere

1 week ago | literaryreview.co.uk | James Bloodworth

‘Dad,’ my son said in early 2022. ‘You can’t write a book about boys and men without mentioning Andrew Tate.’ I responded with the question millions of parents have probably asked: ‘Who is Andrew Tate?’ Then I looked him up. He struck me as a brash masculinist with a medium-sized following. I decided he didn’t merit a mention in the book. But my son was right.
My job at a £7,500 dating boot camp

1 week ago | thetimes.com | James Bloodworth
Nick wanted to drop bodyfat and build his own micro-harem of women: how my friend fell for the red-pill hucksters of the manosphere

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | James Bloodworth

When I first met Nick in 2019, at a dating and self-improvement summit in Miami, it wasn’t immediately obvious why he was paying so much money to pseudo-authority figures from the manosphere. He had looks, cash and some of the easy swagger of London done good. Nick was over 6ft tall and had nice white teeth, labrador eyes and a healthy quotient of melanin courtesy of the sunbeds at the health club he went to twice a week.
I looked for dating advice online - and got sucked into the toxic manosphere

Feb 1, 2025 | inews.co.uk | James Bloodworth

I was 22 and hadn’t had a girlfriend for more than four years. I didn’t feel entitled to one; but I really wanted one. And yet I was floundering. Some men seemed to have it – whatever it was, the secret to getting a girl – whereas others didn’t. I was clearly one who didn’t. You might say that my plight was self-inflicted. I didn’t go out a lot; I was smoking too much cannabis; and I was spending more time on the internet. My social skills had atrophied.
My grandma was 91 when she died and I can't get over my grief

Jan 21, 2025 | thetimes.com | James Bloodworth

As a child I spent weekends and school holidays with Grandma. Her home, in the sleepy village of Berrow in Somerset, was like an ocean of tranquillity for me, a place to get away from the arguments that seemed always to be ringing out in the home of my mum and stepfather. My real father had already moved on before I was born; a few years later my mum - Grandma's daughter - had started a new family and had three further children.
There is such a thing as society: faith schools and the vacuum left by the state

Jan 6, 2025 | freethinker.co.uk | James Bloodworth

The thraldom of government to the minimal state must at some point come to an end. We have, as the well-known quote by Gramsci goes, reached a point where the old is dying and the new cannot be born. The decomposition is in evidence all around us. Wages are stagnant, economic growth is non-existent, and public services feel as if they are permanently on the brink of collapse. Populism is just one morbid symptom of this death rattle of neo-liberalism.
The Bro Podcast Strategy

Dec 15, 2024 | thedispatch.com | James Bloodworth

Why young men felt heard by the Trumpian manosphere. Published December 16, 2024 During his successful presidential campaign this past year, Donald Trump consciously tried to raise the testosterone quotient of the Republican ticket. Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock were wheeled out at the Republican National Convention, as was UFC chief executive Dana White. Trump even attended a UFC match in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Saving the west, one polemic at a time

Dec 3, 2024 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | James Bloodworth

Most foreign journalists are barred by Israel from entering Gaza. Most, but not all. In October 2024, the right-wing polemicist Douglas Murray was given exclusive access to the Tel al-Sultan district of the southern Gazan city of Rafah, the scene of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s assassination by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). In sunglasses and a flak jacket, his hands gripping a protective helmet, Murray posed for the camera in the armchair in which Sinwar had perched shortly before his death.
'I didn't change, the left did'

Nov 29, 2024 | open.substack.com | James Bloodworth

What got me thinking about this topic was a graph created by the Very Online (and very airbrushed) evolutionary biologist Colin Wright. Elon Musk has shared it (tellingly, Wright was thrilled about this) as have other pundits whose self-image is bound up with implausible claims of being renegades from the left, including the co-host of the Triggernometry podcast Konstantin Kisin, who says it “best describes” his political journey. I think the dates on the graph are particularly illustrative.
'I didn't change, the left did'

Nov 29, 2024 | forthedeskdrawer.com | James Bloodworth

What got me thinking about this topic was a graph created by the Very Online (and very airbrushed) evolutionary biologist Colin Wright. Elon Musk has shared it (tellingly, Wright was thrilled about this) as have other pundits whose self-image is bound up with implausible claims of being renegades from the left, including the co-host of the Triggernometry podcast Konstantin Kisin, who says it “best describes” his political journey. I think the dates on the graph are particularly illustrative.