A simple parenting hack to keep kids entertained with Minecraft and Pokémon videos on the living room TV can take a dark turn in just twenty minutes. Left to its own devices, the YouTube autoplay algorithm can seamlessly pivot from innocent gaming streams to Joe Rogan lecturing on weak men, plunging young viewers into the depths of the manosphere without a single click.

Marc Fennell joins Rob and Marcus to unpack his new ABC documentary series, State of Man, which explores the inescapable and increasingly toxic online ecosystem targeting young men. Marc shares the terrifying results of a burner phone experiment that tracked how quickly social media algorithms serve up racist AI slop and misogynistic content to teenage boys looking for harmless fitness and dating advice.

The dads also swap stories from the trenches of modern parenting. Rob recounts the traumatic dismemberment of his daughter's beloved stuffed rabbit, while Marc reveals his son's impressive but infuriating ability to crack the family's device lockbox and hack into Roblox. The conversation turns to the impossible task of policing screen time when parents are equally hooked, and how fathers can model healthy masculinity in a world obsessed with unattainable perfectionism.

Chapters

00:00 Hacking Roblox and stealing money
00:51 Introducing Marc Fennell
03:54 The tragic dismemberment of Baba the rabbit
08:16 Safe crackers and iPad lockbox loopholes
12:06 Parenting with screens and boundaries
17:13 State of Man and defining the manosphere
18:54 From Minecraft to Joe Rogan in 20 minutes
20:23 The burner phone algorithm experiment
24:22 Navigating the internet with your kids
30:58 What fathers can do to guide their kids
33:28 High schoolers and the obsession with weights
36:03 What women actually want in a man
41:47 Body image and unattainable perfectionism
44:39 Emotional regulation and talking it out
51:14 What makes a good man
53:15 Impasta noodles and terrible dad jokes

Our guest

Marc Fennell is a television and radio presenter who explores the online ecosystem of male influencers in his documentary series.

What to listen to next

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Support: If anything in this episode brought something up for you, help is available. Lifeline 13 11 14. Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636. MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78. PANDA, for expecting and new parents, 1300 726 306. In an emergency call 000.

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Credits
Hosts: Rob Stott and Marcus Hurley
Producer: Amelia Navascues
Videographer: Jordan Yankov
A Man of Many production. New episodes every Thursday.