Many Good Men

Coming to Dunfermline this Autumn/Spring!

A participant led project, creating a story about the radicalisation and weaponisation of masculine stereotypes and telling it using a combination of digital tools, platforms and live performance. 

MGM is a participant led digital forum theatre project, set and performed in football clubs. Young people create and perform a drama about the radicalisation of a young football player. The audience are immersed in the performance using digital tools and then take part in the drama themselves, with the aim of changing the outcome for the main character through live facilitated interventions. This creates a safe and brave space to talk about what it means to be a healthy and happy man, what could make some men vulnerable to radicalisation and to start to work as a community towards addressing those issues.

Civic Digits want to create Many Good Men with groups of young people making performances for their own communities across Scotland, empowering young people to be the authors of their own solutions to this complex and urgent issue. This will also create space for parents, careers, teachers and youth workers to listen to and support young people in the challenges young people face navigating a digital world that exploits and harms them for financial gain.

Read the Many Good Men Report by Zero Tolerance

The Many Good Men project explored the ways online misogyny affects and influences young people, in order to open a discussion about how to tackle the spread of these dangerous ideologies as well as to prevent the spread of violence against women.

The project helped contribute valuable research to our partners at Zero Tolerance Scotland, in answering the questions: What are young people’s existing experiences and perceptions of online incel culture and misogynistic online radicalisation and grooming? Do these existing experiences differ by gender? In what ways do other intersecting characteristics (e.g. race, sexuality, poverty) have an impact?

We’re proud to have worked alongside youth-workers Gael Cochrane and Zaki El-Salahi, investigating the harm these online communities can have on boys’ mental health and their personal relationships. We hope to continue unearthing the many forms such misogyny can take, and working to discover the best ways to prevent the further spread of such toxic influences.

You can find both a full and summarised version of the report below:

Many Good Men

The story of two men who come together to fight gender injustice.

Two years ago, in 2023, incel culture and the ‘manosphere’ really spiked in the headlines and public consciousness, mainly due to the arrest of Andrew Tate. But ideologies based on a fundamental distrust and hatred towards women have been gaining space in the mainstream over the past decade through online channels, and primarily through social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. Parents, youth workers and teachers we work with have been reporting that young men and boys are increasingly at risk of being radicalised through their identities as men. They hear incel slang, fake stats and shared misogynistic memes everyday.

Since 2014 at least eight mass murders, resulting in 61 deaths have been committed by men who have either self-identified as incels or who had mentioned incel-related names or ideas in their private writings or internet postings, including 5 killings on August 12, 2021 in Plymouth by a gunman who was then celebrated by incels online. 

Many Good Men was Civic Digits’ first major project for 2024, produced in association with Stories Untold and Stellar Quines Theatre Company at the Heart of Midlothian FC. It is supported by Creative Scotland, Hearts of Midlothian FC, Zero Tolerance, YouthLink Scotland, Design Informatics at University Edinburgh, with guidance from Women’s Support Project, White Ribbon, The Artist Wellbeing Company and The Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Unit: Scottish Government Justice Directorate.

MGM Romania

Many Good Men travelled to Romania, to workshop, develop and produce a new performance of Many Good Men. It was in-person for local youth workers and students, who were hoping to tackle radicalised masculinity, and broadcast online.

11 – 15 November 2024, Bucharest. Funded by Creative Scotland  and the National Lottery Open Fund.