New, extreme, and often bizarre social movements and communities are popping up around the world. As each one arises, journalists and academics are pumping out books that do “deep dives” into these communities.

In liberal sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land, published in 2016, she looks at the Tea Party voters who who would become Donald Trump’s MAGA base. And in her 2021 book, QAnon and On, Australian journalist Van Badham investigated the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Such books can give us real insight into why these communities grow and develop – in turn, helping us address both extremism, and its impact on the broader community. Yet, such deep dives can be risky. At times, they turn into journalistic sideshows that simply give these communities more (unneeded) attention.

In his third book, Lost Boys, Guardian journalist James Bloodworth adds to this catalogue. As I did in my own, research-based recent book, he conducts a “deep dive” into the manosphere: a loose network of blogs, forums and social media channels dedicated to “men’s rights”, anti-feminism and extreme misogyny.