In a political context, the idea of
redpilling means "waking up" to the supposed reality of the world, and is typically used as shorthand for radicalization into
far-right politics. The metaphor of the red pill was appropriated by the far right from a loose association of anti-feminist blogs, websites, and forums known as the
manosphere. Because of its common usage as a self-identifier among the
alt-right and others who subscribe to
right-wing beliefs, the term "redpilled" is sometimes used by others to refer to the right. In her 2006 essay "The Red Pill",
University of Colorado sociology professor Kathleen J. Tierney argued that those who felt that the U.S. government had a poor response to
Hurricane Katrina should "take the red pill" and realize that "post-
September 11 policies and plans have actually made the nation more vulnerable, both to natural disasters and to future terrorist attacks." The metaphor was popularized in the context of right-wing politics by neo-reactionary blogger and software engineer
Curtis Yarvin, writing under the pseudonym "Mencius Moldbug". In a 2007 essay titled "The Case Against Democracy: Ten Red Pills", Yarvin presented a set of "heretical theses" meant to provoke the reader to question aspects of
liberal democracy.
In the manosphere: the "red pill" The concept of the "red pill" is a central tenet of the
manosphere, a varied collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny and
antifeminism. It concerns awakening men to the supposed reality that men are the oppressed gender in a society dominated by feminism. Manospherians believe that feminists and
political correctness obscure this reality, and that men are victims who must fight to protect themselves. Accepting the manosphere's ideology is equated with "taking the red pill" (sometimes abbreviated
TRP), and those who do not are seen as "blue pilled" or as having "taken the blue pill". Such terminology originated on the antifeminist subreddit
/r/TheRedPill started by
Robert Fisher in 2012 and was later taken up by other groups within the manosphere, including
pickup artists and
men's rights activists. r/TheRedPill was quarantined by Reddit in September 2018 for being "dedicated to shocking or highly offensive content". At the time of the quarantine it had around 290,000 subscribers, and by June 2019 its subscriber count was reported as just over 400,000. It was concluded that quarantining reduced its visibility but did not eliminate misogynistic content or related communities on and off the platform. White supremacy and right-wing nationalist ideals are present in the manosphere. These themes are secondary but remain relevant in online manosphere groups linked to extremist violence like the Oregon shooting in 2015 by Chris Harper and the Isla Vista killings in 2014 by Elliot Rodger. In multiple surveys done within the community, the results show the members to be predominantly white, heterosexual, conservative men from the ages 18–35. Participants in red pill communities work to exclude women from taking part in online manosphere communities which advertise themselves as male only spaces. They explain that having female participants would pose a threat to male dominance. In order to keep women out of space catered to men, members of the manosphere create an environment where any potential female participants are met with harassment, doxing, and threats. Red pill ideology centers around the belief that men are systemically oppressed in a "
gynocentric" world that dismisses men's needs and prioritizes women's voices. The community believes that male privilege is a myth that stems from the "apex fallacy" which is the idea that determining men's status based on a few successful individuals disregards male struggles on a larger scale. The sidebar presents its worldview as grounded in empirical observation and popular evolutionary psychology. Since then, Andrew Tate has made an online presence for himself based on openly Red-pill, misogynistic, and far-right, and even Nazi-like beliefs and actions. He started multiple online private communities such as "The Real World", an app based on the red-pill metaphor's origins in
The Matrix, focused on being an alternative to the feminist, progressive, and non-traditionalist society that Tate's male teenage audience so despises, and quickly acting like an "online grooming" and "cult-like". The app was banned in 2023 by Google due to being exposed as a pyramid scheme. Andrew Tate also has a long history of criminal charges ranging from sexual assault and rape dating back to 2015, to being detained in Romania for human trafficking charges. As of February 2026, Tate has 11 million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter), along with 185,000 YouTube subscribers and 4.4 million views, of course not counting the millions of times his content has been clipped and shared on short-form content platforms like TikTok. Red-pill communities often spread their beliefs through clipped segments reposted onto short form content platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc. Andrew Tate is, to most people, the face you think of when discussing Red-pill and far-right movements. Although, plenty of other self-proclaimed misogynist podcasters and online content creators have gained traction in the last 5-7 years and have affected teenage boys and young men alike. One of these is
Fresh and Fit Podcaster Myron Gaines, also known as Amrou Fudl. Every Wednesday, the podcast has "Red-pill Wednesdays", where Gaines and his brother discuss dating advice and spread misogynistic view points. Myron frequently hosted
Nick Fuentes, another far-right commentator who promotes white nationalism, holocaust denial, misogyny, and plenty of other red-pill ideologies. Other prominent figures in the red-pill community include
Joe Rogan,
Adin Ross,
Sneako, and
Hamza Ahmed.
Beliefs about women and feminism Participants in red pill communities work to exclude women from taking part in online manosphere communities which advertise themselves as male only spaces. They explain that having female participants would pose a threat to male dominance. In order to keep women out of space catered to men, members of the manosphere create an environment where any potential female participants are met with harassment, doxing, and threats. This point of view has led to the red pill belief that women use men, without assisting men in return. If women do not engage sexually with men, that is seen as a manipulation tactic. The red pill community believes equality was achieved by
second-wave feminism to women’s benefit, and shares a hatred of the
feminist movement. Rather than securing equality, red pill believes that
third-wave feminism’s true goal is to place women in a position of power over their male counterparts. The red pill community holds that the societal power that women have over men has led more men into becoming “betas,” men who are not sufficiently masculine, physically or psychologically, and who are undesirable to women. Just like the men in the Red-pill communities, the women preach themes of the "
alpha" man being genetically superior, and "beta" men being infinitely inferior and pathetic, and in every scenario the woman needing to be silent and subservient to the man, equally echoing sentiments of white supremacist and right-wing ideologies that outwardly reject modern ideals, especially feminism. In Red-Pill feminine communities, women idealize a past that is centered around white ideologies and the American, white, heteronormative 50's family dynamic. In this fantasy, the women in these communities embrace the ideals that so oppress them and submit to the male ideal in whatever way that may mean, even if it means being stripped of basic rights and being abused in numerous ways. The exclusion of women from Red pill communities has led to the creation of another subreddit formulated solely for women called r/RedPillWomen (abbreviated to RPW). Men are not allowed to contribute to the subreddit r/RedPillWomen unless they are verifiably a Red pill Man. Since Red pill views are centered on heterosexual interactions between men and women, LGBTQ+ identities do not fit into the "natural" view of these communities. Queer people are instead ignored or used as evidence of what they believe is "declining masculinity," and LGBTQ Identities are depicted as being manufactured by society.
The "black pill" The concept of the "black pill" developed on
incel ("involuntary
celibate") forums as a more
nihilistic critique of the broader manosphere's red pill. Both worldviews portray women as superficial, manipulative, and hypergamous. Incels use the term
hypergamy to argue that women seek high-status men in order to increase the social, economic and genetic potential of their offspring. Expanding upon the red pill belief that men are an oppressed group, black pill ideology uses
pseudoscientific claims to argue that
heterosexual mating, and society in general, has been set up to benefit women and "
alpha males" on the basis of physical attractiveness. Adherents of the "black pill" believe it is impossible for unattractive men to escape this social hierarchy. On
Reddit, notable figures within the incel community are described as having taken the black pill, such as mass murderer
Elliot Rodger. == Other uses ==