Enter the Manosphere

Mixed Languages, Misogyny and Gendered Discourse in Kenya’s Online Spaces

Abstract

On November 10, 2024, Qatari news channel Al Jazeera released a YouTube feature called “Kenya’s Exploding ‘Manosphere’” decrying the rise of online spaces in Kenya, populated by loudmouths, shock artists, and unapologetic chauvinists.” The report drew reactions of anger, frustration, and derision from a portion of Kenyan commenters, who viewed it as an unfair attack on popular masculinity influencer Eric Amunga, also known as Amerix, and a blind imposition of Western gender realities onto Kenyan masculinity discourse. This paper situates those reactions within a broader literary and linguistic inquiry. Through a thematic analysis of the online comments, it identifies recurring articulations of masculinity in popular Kenyan discourse that Al Jazeera’s framing overlooks. It completes a qualitative reading grounded in critical discourse analysis and social constructionist theory of 20 tweets made by Amerix in 2024, 2 episodes of the Man Talk KE podcast, and 2 episodes of Iko Nini to reveal how Kenyan men use language today to perform and negotiate masculinities in digital spaces and how foreign framing obscures this. Finally, it recommends that scholars undertake a more nuanced inquiry into the languages of African masculinities.