Funny, dark and disarming: Jon Ronson enters the manosphere

The Sydney Morning Herald · Ken Haley · 2026-11-06 00:11 UTC

The investigative journalist explores the dark underbelly of modern masculinity, toxic web culture and the roots of male despair.

Article gifting is here

Let’s begin with a reality hit. Joel Ronson, a 25-year-old English-born flautist who specialises in electronica and styles himself The Admiral, is billed by Boston online music guide Allston Pudding as “a genre-bending producer”.

Having read the latest release by his father, Jon, with its Kafkaesque title and derivative themes, I find it easy to see where Joel has inherited the genre-bending from – and Jon has gone one step further. The Castle is not a genre-bender – I really had to check whether it’s listed as fiction or non-fiction (it’s the latter) – so much as a genre-blender. At one level, it is a work of investigative journalism; at another, a sociological study for our times.

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