<
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jan/22/manosphere-influencers-testosterone-tests-young-men>
"“If you’re not waking up in the morning with a boner, there’s a large
possibility that you have low testosterone levels,” an influencer on TikTok
with more than 100,000 followers warns his viewers.
Despite screening for low testosterone being medically unwarranted in most
young men, this group is being aggressively targeted online by influencers and
wellness companies promoting hormone tests and treatments as essential to being
a “real man”, a study published in the journal
Social Science and Medicine
has found.
Researchers analysed 46 high-impact posts about low testosterone and testing
made by TikTok and Instagram accounts with a combined following of more than
6.8 million, to examine how masculinity and men’s health are being depicted and
monetised online.
The lead author of the study, Emma Grundtvig Gram, a public health researcher
at the University of Copenhagen, said influencers promoting routine
testosterone screening often framed normal variations in energy, mood, libido
or ageing “as signs of pathology”.
This meant “men may come to perceive themselves as inherently deficient or in
need of medical intervention”, she said.
“This creates a sense of urgency for solutions, which in turn fuels lucrative
markets for pharmaceuticals, supplements and medical devices, even in the
absence of clear clinical benefit. More broadly, this contributes to the
medicalisation of masculinity itself. It reinforces a narrow, idealised model
of masculinity, while marginalising non-traditional or diverse expressions of
gender.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
