Why do men love being haters on the internet?

Social media is filled with trolls, and among them is the kind of person, more often than not, a man who simply cannot scroll past without having an opinion. He sees a celebrity he dislikes, an influencer building a business, a woman talking about her money, or a stranger celebrating a win, and suddenly he has an opinion that no one asked for. Channing Tatum recently found himself at the centre of this phenomenon when an anonymous Instagram account, @bidness_nonya, was spotted leaving unwelcome comments under celebrity-gossip posts. The account’s only follower appeared to be Tatum’s verified Instagram account, sending the internet into detective mode.

The alleged burner seemed particularly interested in Tatum’s ex-fiancée Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles, with one comment under a post reading, “Just here for the hate.” There were other comments too, which appeared to take digs at Kravitz and other celebrities, while also being suspiciously complimentary about Tatum. Tatum has since denied that the account is his. But whether or not it was him, the alleged behaviour taps into a very real internet archetype: the man who is somehow far too invested in things he insists he doesn't care about.

Hate is no longer a spectator sport

The internet has turned disliking someone into a participatory activity. You can't just dislike an influencer, founder, or celebrity anymore; apparently you need to tell them you don't. A woman can post about closing a business deal, hitting a financial milestone, or simply doing her job, and there will always be a man underneath it explaining why she isn't as impressive as she thinks she is. Nobody asked. Yet he simply arrived with a verdict.

That is what makes the alleged Tatum burner so odd. If it really was his, this wasn't passive dislike. The account was apparently hanging around gossip pages, leaving commentary and returning for more. It reportedly had opinions on everyone from Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles to Taylor Swift and even his ex-wife Jenna Dewan. Whether or not Tatum was behind it, the account captured the modern hater perfectly: someone who doesn't just dislike something, but feels compelled to announce that dislike.

A successful woman is an especially tempting target

Look at the comments under posts by female finance creators, founders, and entrepreneurs, and the criticism often arrives completely unsolicited. She's not really self-made. Her parents helped. Her husband paid for it. She's charging too much. She's arrogant. She's not even that impressive. The achievement itself becomes secondary to the man's need to find a reason to diminish it.

And that's what makes the behaviour more interesting than ordinary internet criticism. It isn't disagreement when nobody asked for your assessment in the first place. It's the assumption that a woman's success, appearance, or choices are somehow available for public evaluation, and that a stranger's opinion deserves to sit underneath her achievement. The comment section becomes less “here's what I think” and more “here's what you need to hear.”

The manosphere made the hater a lifestyle

The manosphere gives that instinct a much bigger vocabulary. Red-pill spaces have spent years framing women's independence, ambition, and dating choices as evidence of something being wrong with modern women. A successful woman isn't simply successful; she's “arrogant”. A woman making more money isn't simply making more money; she's “emasculating” men. A woman who doesn't want a relationship isn't simply single; she needs to be told why she'll regret it.

And you don't have to be deep in a red-pill forum to encounter this language. It leaks into TikTok comments, podcasts, Instagram reels, and everyday internet banter, where ideas about female “hypergamy,” male entitlement, and women supposedly needing to be “put in their place” get repackaged as jokes or unsolicited advice. The result is a familiar type of commenter: not someone who was invited into the conversation, but someone who believes he has a right to correct it.

That, ultimately, is what makes the Channing Tatum saga so revealing. Whether the account actually belonged to him or not, Tatum has denied it, the character was instantly recognisable: a man lurking in the comments, keeping tabs on people he doesn't know or used to know, and apparently showing up “for the hate.”

Because maybe the real question isn't why men hate. It's why some men feel so entitled to make their hatred everyone else's problem. The internet has made it almost frictionless: see something you dislike, stop scrolling, type your unsolicited opinion, and hit send. You don't have to know the person, be affected by what she's doing, or have anything useful to add. You just have to believe your opinion belongs there. And apparently, for some men, that's reason enough.

Lead image: IMDb

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