The Loneliness Remedy: Community-Generated Commodification of Male Loneliness in the Manosphere
(2026) BUSN39 20261Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Keywords: manosphere, male loneliness, compensatory consumption, consumer responsibilization, netnography
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to expand the understanding of how digital communities construct consumption as a collective remedy to affective social problems, examined through the case of male loneliness within the manosphere.
Theoretical perspective: By synthesising three theoretical perspectives (commodity fetishism and disavowal, ritualized transformation, and neo-tribal status economies) this thesis introduces an integrated framework of the rites of self-commodification in order to gain new insights into how digital masculine communities mobilise consumption as a remedy for male isolation.
Method: This qualitative... (More) - Keywords: manosphere, male loneliness, compensatory consumption, consumer responsibilization, netnography
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to expand the understanding of how digital communities construct consumption as a collective remedy to affective social problems, examined through the case of male loneliness within the manosphere.
Theoretical perspective: By synthesising three theoretical perspectives (commodity fetishism and disavowal, ritualized transformation, and neo-tribal status economies) this thesis introduces an integrated framework of the rites of self-commodification in order to gain new insights into how digital masculine communities mobilise consumption as a remedy for male isolation.
Method: This qualitative netnographic study examined 48 TikTok videos and 45 Reddit threads alongside their associated comments. The research is grounded in a relativist ontology and social constructionist epistemology, and follows an abductive approach.
Empirical Results: Findings indicate that male loneliness is recast as a measurable bodily deficit and routed into a transformation journey driven by perpetual optimization and consumption. This is reinforced by a communal structure of conditional belonging which ensures that this optimization process continuously expands, ensuring that resolution is never achieved.
Conclusion: The study finds that consumption is constructed as a collective remedy to male isolation through a community-generated optimization spiral in which the community itself manufactures the deficit its prescribed products claim to repair, deferring resolution to sustain market and community engagement indefinitely. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9246353
- author
- Blöchlinger, Nadine Sabrina LU and Caixeta Arruda, Nicole LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BUSN39 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- manosphere, male loneliness, compensatory consumption, consumer responsibilization, netnography
- language
- English
- id
- 9246353
- date added to LUP
- 2026-07-03 13:33:40
- date last changed
- 2026-07-03 13:33:40
@misc{9246353,
abstract = {{Keywords: manosphere, male loneliness, compensatory consumption, consumer responsibilization, netnography
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to expand the understanding of how digital communities construct consumption as a collective remedy to affective social problems, examined through the case of male loneliness within the manosphere.
Theoretical perspective: By synthesising three theoretical perspectives (commodity fetishism and disavowal, ritualized transformation, and neo-tribal status economies) this thesis introduces an integrated framework of the rites of self-commodification in order to gain new insights into how digital masculine communities mobilise consumption as a remedy for male isolation.
Method: This qualitative netnographic study examined 48 TikTok videos and 45 Reddit threads alongside their associated comments. The research is grounded in a relativist ontology and social constructionist epistemology, and follows an abductive approach.
Empirical Results: Findings indicate that male loneliness is recast as a measurable bodily deficit and routed into a transformation journey driven by perpetual optimization and consumption. This is reinforced by a communal structure of conditional belonging which ensures that this optimization process continuously expands, ensuring that resolution is never achieved.
Conclusion: The study finds that consumption is constructed as a collective remedy to male isolation through a community-generated optimization spiral in which the community itself manufactures the deficit its prescribed products claim to repair, deferring resolution to sustain market and community engagement indefinitely.}},
author = {{Blöchlinger, Nadine Sabrina and Caixeta Arruda, Nicole}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Loneliness Remedy: Community-Generated Commodification of Male Loneliness in the Manosphere}},
year = {{2026}},
}