When Lewis, aged 19, fell out of a first-storey window on a lad’s holiday in Mallorca and landed in a bush, his initial thought was not ‘I wonder how badly hurt I am’.
Nor was he wondering: ‘Will my travel insurance cover this?’
His mind was on other matters entirely – of a more unsavoury nature.
As he lay sprawled in the bush, his first concern was: ‘I hope no one does my coke if I have to go to hospital.’
Lewis had lured some women into his room at his Magaluf hotel with the promise of class A drugs. Then he had laid out the cocaine in lines on a mirror.
He had become distracted while embroiled in an animated conversation with his best friend, Adam, while perched on the balcony ledge. Shortly after, he toppled off.
Fortunately, he got away with a fractured arm and a few scrapes, but he never saw the drugs – or the women – again.
The online culture around influencers such as HSTikkyTokky is appealing to many young men
Lads’ holidays are hardly a new phenomenon. The boom in the ‘18-30s holiday’ during the 1990s saw places such as Ibiza became the young party people’s destination of choice.
But the past few years has seen the activity of ‘lads on tour’ increasingly influenced by the nefarious workings of the ‘Manosphere’: an online community of influencers and ‘activists’ promoting the ‘rights’ of men, and espousing appalling, deeply misogynistic views about women.
Notorious social media influencers such as Andrew Tate and Harrison Sullivan, the latter known to his 331,000 Instagram followers as ‘HSTikkyTokky’, have become ‘role models’ within the space, prompting debased copycat behaviour in their followers – most often younger, impressionable men.
Indeed, it was Sullivan who is the primary subject of Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary ‘Inside the Manosphere’, which condemned the worrying trend of outrageous treatment of women by young men.
Notorious party destinations such as Marbella and Miami feature heavily in the documentary, where Sullivan and his copycat followers roam around in squads, terrorising other holidaymakers and seeking out women to intimidate.
In such places, the party never stops, the clothes are skimpy and the ‘rules’ from home are obsolete.
Shockingly, the outrageous antics of ‘lads on tour’ are often geared to increase viewings on their own social media feeds, as though they wish to become versions of Tate and HSTikkyTokky.
It’s a market that Sullivan himself has demonstrated to be lucrative; he explains in Theroux’s documentary how he promotes OnlyFans users on his own channels for his own financial gain – despite condemning their content as ‘disgusting’.
The lads admit to kissing and groping girls on holiday without their consent
For Lewis, the balcony fall was one of several mishaps in Magaluf on that trip in August last year. Yet did that stop him and his companions, all from Chigwell in Essex, heading off on another trip ten months later? Not for a moment.
His fractured arm having healed quickly after his balcony plunge, Lewis was raring to go again. This time their destination was the famously raucous party resort of Ayia Napa in Cyprus.
They were all present and accounted for, save for Adam, who had sworn ‘never again’ after the carnage of Magaluf.
Adam, the quietest and most thoughtful of his group of six friends – and, tellingly, the only one with a steady girlfriend – had opted out. This had led to his friends dubbing him various unprintable names, along with an accusation he had been ‘whipped’ by his girlfriend into staying at home.
Magaluf, though, had simply been too ‘stressful’ – and it wasn’t because of the drugs.
Adam was disgusted by how his friends had behaved towards the women they encountered. ‘It was the girls stuff,’ he says – that got to him. ‘It was post A-Levels and exams, and it was like everyone lost their minds and did things that were so way past OK.’
One incident was particularly awful, and ought to have led to prosecution: a gang rape.
‘There were so many examples, but the worst, was this girl by the pool at this sort of club-bar and she was wasted, like wasted. Totally passed out,’ Adam recalls.
‘One of the owners of the club started this bet on how many guys it would take to f*** her before she woke up and he was livestreaming it and people were betting all over the world on his Telegram.’
The police should have been called – but they were not.
The hedonistic attitude of holidaymakers in destinations such as Magaluf allows the young men to think they can behave how they like
Adam describes what happened next. ‘All these guys were volunteering, including one of our friends,’ he says. This was when he intervened on behalf of his friend – though he did not attempt to stop the criminal activity of others.
‘I told him not to be stupid and stopped him. But there were people cheering and to me, that’s just not fun.’
He adds – although this was clearly too little too late: ‘I actually did try to find [the girl’s] friends, but I have absolutely no idea who the girl was or what happened to her.’
Adam, though, is atypical of those young men drawn into the toxic Manosphere.
Lewis – the balcony faller – has a less charitable view of the women in party destinations where groups of lads flock every year for sun, sand and sex. Disgracefully, this includes sex when consent is not given.
Adopting the sick, twisted logic typical of many Manosphere influencers, he says: ‘Let’s face it, the birds who go on these holidays are there for the same reason, aren’t they? Loads of the girls I know go harder than the boys and love all the banter that happens including the shagging and the games that go with it.
Referring to the gang rape of the woman in the pool, his reasoning simply does not stand up to scrutiny.
The lads’ behavious is often fuelled by cocaine and other class A drugs
‘That girl probably loved it and thought it was funny,’ he says, dismissively.
Then, his Manosphere ‘logic’ really kicking in, Lewis adds: ‘Don’t like it? Go on holiday to Italy and look at some churches with your mum and dad, or something.’
I talked to Christian, aged 22, who lives for his annual lads’ holiday – this year it will be Zante in Greece. He tells me about a shameless and vile ‘running game’ with his mates since his first lads’ break aged 16 in Benidorm.
His mates dub this game: ‘Consent is Bent’, a phrase that comes from a much-mocked talk they received at school called ‘Consent is Meant’.
The basic rules of the Manosphere-influenced ‘game’ are that they should try to ‘snog’, grope and generally accost as many young women as possible without getting a slap.
Players lose ‘points’ for being slapped and gain ‘points’ if an enthusiastic response is received – particularly if a woman is ‘fit’. The lads always film this game ‘for content’ to watch later.
The sickening belief of the players, according to Christian, is that the women they approach are so ‘shallow’, they only object if the lad is ‘ugly’ or ‘poor looking’.
This ‘theory’ is backed up, Christian says, by the fact his friend, Guy, is the reigning champion. Guy, aged 20, is a fitness influencer, model and apparently a big hit with the ladies back in their hometown of Cardiff, where he ‘mogs the rest of the group’.
The word ‘mogs’ is believed to derive from the expression ‘Alpha Male of the Group.’
Mediterranean resorts always attract groups of pleasure-seeking young men and women
Tellingly, Christian, Guy and their friends do not play the game at home in case some of their girlfriends or mothers might find out. They are too cowardly to be caught behaving so disgracefully in their ‘normal’ lives.
Tragically, millions of young guys follow these Manosphere influencers and covet their frat-boy lifestyle and luxurious villas operating as party pads.
Even if a villa is financially out of reach, the spirit of the Manosphere fuels lots of lads’ holidays, with ‘pulling’ as many attractive young women as possible being the absolute priority. The debauched, often borderline criminal, tactics shared by many influencers are regularly copied.
Christian offers yet more insight into this toxic, misogynistic world.
He says: ‘Girls are often pretty stupid and greedy – especially the good-looking ones – and they’re more up for it on holiday, so anything goes. Lie to them, neg [manipulate] them, offer them gear, get them wasted. It’s all in the game when you’re on holiday.’
Behind it all – the motivation for much extreme behaviour on holidays – is greed.
X-rated and shocking material makes ‘good’ film content, and such material often means more followers, which can lead to sponsorship deals and being in a position to promote brands.
This can be lucrative. The ultimate goal for some is to become a wealthy and famous influencer.
On mainstream platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, more shocking content will get you censored or banned.
Groups of men are using the holidays to generate controversial and explicit online content
All of this is certainly a huge motivation for lads to misbehave on holiday. In this culture, the degradation of women can quite literally pay.
But increasing numbers of young men in particular are flocking to online spaces such as Telegram where anything goes and the more shocking the film footage, the more people will follow you.
The ‘lads’ I have been interviewing show me some of the distasteful content from a variety of creators, both from those famous in the Manosphere and lesser-known influencers, posting about their misbehaviours in party holiday destinations.
The formula is simple. The more X-rated (and usually deeply unpleasant, shocking and misogynistic), the more clout it gets… and followers, too.
I ask Lewis if he has any rules for himself this year in Ayia Napa – and whether he has any words of ‘wisdom’ for other young men setting off on their first lads’ holiday.
His advice probably won’t be much comfort to parents who are worried about their sons and daughters heading off the to the party destinations.
‘The rules are go as hard as possible, have as much sex as possible, get as much good content as you can, don’t leave your drugs around girls, and don’t fall off a balcony,’ he says.
The sad truth is that the Manosphere’s influence has spread its tentacles into every aspect of young male culture – online, at home, and even abroad.
