What MAFS’s Tyson Gordon & Kyle Sandilands’ Radio Reign Tell Us About The Manosphere According To Tarang Chawla
Married At First Sight (MAFS) isn’t just serving chaos this year, it’s also showing us how the manosphere quietly slips into our culture.
When PEDESTRIAN.TV spoke to men’s violence prevention advocate; Tarang Chawla, he said a lot of boys and men end up in the manosphere because they’re searching for “a sense of identity, purpose, and belonging”, especially when they’re lost on things like dating, work or their future.
“A lot of it is a pipeline dressed up as self‑help,” he said, adding that “a lot of it starts with confidence but ends with entitlement”, where women are framed as owing men “attention, sex, obedience, or softness”.
He stressed that this isn’t just a fringe online issue, pointing to “recent depictions of certain men on TV shows like Married at First Sight, where we’re seeing this idea that men are a certain way, women are a certain way”.
That context makes Tyson Gordon’s storyline on the reality TV show feel less like a one‑off villain edit and more like an exposé of that pipeline.
The intruder groom has already been criticised for comments about gay men needing to keep their relationships “behind closed doors”, which fellow groom Chris Robinson told PEDESTRIAN.TV he took offence to.
“For me, that’s like telling a straight person to keep it out of my face or keep it behind closed doors. So yeah, I’m sorry but that’s a bit offensive,” Chris shared.
Tyson also showed his true colours on the MAFS aftershow After The Dinner Party, where co-host Laura Byrne told the contestant, “if you want someone who is obedient, yes, it’s controlling, and you want a dog”.
Tyson replied, “Maybe that’s what I want.”
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek later posted about the moment, viewing it as “the exact kind of cultural messaging we’re trying to change”. In her video, Plibersek called it “the exact sort of controlling behaviour that we’re trying to combat when we’re talking about coercive control” and warned about “messaging which encourages control and dehumanises women, which is supercharged by algorithms peddling misogyny for profit”.
For Tarang, the through‑line is how often this stuff is treated as entertainment first and a warning sign second. He told us the manosphere “feeds on loneliness and then turns that into blame”, handing boys “very simple villains” like women, feminism or gender equality instead of encouraging accountability and traits like empathy, kindness and respect. He also pushed back on the idea this is all happening in dark corners of the internet, saying “this isn’t just some creeps lurking in basements” but reflects conversations many men are already having in private and clearly on TV.
That’s why he keeps stressing “influence is responsibility” — whether we’re talking about reality TV grooms or broadcasters whose jobs depend on being provocative.
That’s why he keeps stressing “influence is responsibility” — whether we’re talking about reality TV grooms or broadcasters whose jobs depend on being provocative. In our chat, he brought up the long‑running controversies around The Kyle & Jackie O Show as a really clear example of this. He says the reaction to the show being cancelled after Jackie O Henderson resigned is “exposing all of the kinds of comments that are either homophobic, racist, misogynistic, transphobic and”. He said that “when it comes to Kyle Sandilands there’ve been allegations that he’s ticked off all the ‘isms’ over the last 20, 30 years of his broadcasting career,” which is exactly why he thinks moments like this matter: they show there’s “an appetite to shift the culture.”
Tarang’s focus, though, is on what men do next. He’s supporting In Her Shoes, a Tomorrow Man and Tomorrow Woman workshop that helps them understand women’s lived experiences and then gives them practical tools to prevent adding to a toxic culture.
We spoke to Tarang ahead of the upcoming In Her Shoes event next week. You can find more info and future sessions via Tomorrow Man’s website, or at itscooltocry.com.
Lead image: MAFS / KIIS FM
