1135631

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NMS0010.1177/14614448221135631new media & societyDiaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo

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new media & society

The bar of Forocoches as

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DOI: 10.1177/14614448221135631
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digital practices and trolling

Silvia Díaz-Fernández
Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain

Elisa García-Mingo
Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Abstract
Forocoches is an underexplored online forum, part of the Spanish manosphere, notorious
for its misogynistic and trolling content. In this work, we understand Forocoches, through
the metaphor of the bar, as a distinct (online) place where men go to talk and joke
around. The interaction of very specific affordances enables the creation of a particular
masculinist online culture. The data in this article are drawn from a combination of the
walkthrough method with a qualitative content analysis of the forum. Results show
that Forocoches’ affordances facilitate the reproduction of masculinist digital practices,
particularly trolling-based. The performance of trolling masculinities thus emerges,
afforded by the functionalities and diverse uses of the platform, configuring itself as
a socially acceptable archetype of digital (hegemonic) masculinity. As a result of this
afforded masculinist engagement, the online borders of Forocoches are delineated,
clearly distinguishing among insiders and others, which could lead to further reinforcing
of hegemonic masculinity.

Keywords
Forocoches, gendered affordances, manosphere, masculinity, Spain, trolling
masculinity, virtual geography

Corresponding author:
Silvia Díaz-Fernández, Carlos III University of Madrid, C. Madrid, 126, 28903 Getafe, Spain.
Email: sidiazf@hum.uc3m.es
2 new media & society 00(0)

Introduction
Manosphere studies is an emergent and productive field of research that looks at the
diversity of masculinist subcultures, some of them with a pertinent online presence,
which share as their common denominator their anti-feminism. Within this field of
research, studies on the Spanish local manospheric environments are incipient. In our
own research, we have produced a conceptual map of the Spanish manosphere (García-
Mingo and Díaz-Fernández, 2022), analysed the anti-feminist ideological work that
takes place in this part of the manosphere and explored the claims to victimhood that take
place in these online spaces (García-Mingo and Díaz-Fernández, forthcoming). Other
work on this topic has explored the anti-feminist backlash in the face of rising feminist
activism (Hanash, 2018; Pibernat-Vila, 2021). Despite this, we have identified a gap in
the overall literature concerning the networking site Forocoches, a male-dominated
online platform and the second largest Spanish-speaking forum in the world. Popularly
known in Spain for its trolling and misogynistic content, Forocoches emerges as a mas-
culinist space inherent to the Spanish manosphere that cannot be framed under the con-
ceptualizations of other manospheric communities developed in prior research.
Forocoches comprises its own digital masculinist culture that is yet to be explored from
a feminist perspective.
In this article, we approach Forocoches, understanding it as a masculine digital place
that, like a traditional Spanish bar invokes different digital masculine identities and
practices. Concerning this, we see Forocoches functioning as a network where different
elements of masculine digital culture interact, enabled through specific gendered
affordances. In this sense, Forocoches can be conceptualised as a mediator of masculin-
ist digital practices, such as trolling, which help configure a socially acceptable arche-
type of digital (hegemonic) masculinity within the platform. Consequently, this helps
delineate the platform’s borders via specific (and monitored) masculine digital engage-
ment, resulting in the emergence of Forocoches as a masculine online place.
Forocoches thus emerges in the midst of an inextricable relationship constituted by
and constitutive of masculinist digital practices such as trolling that, in its (re)production,
generate the spatial dimension of the platform. In this regard, the questions that guide our
research are the following: (1) what are the geographical dimensions of Forocoches as a
digital place?; (2) what gendered affordances create Forocoches as a masculine digital
place?; (3) what masculine digital culture is being mediated in Forocoches; and, (4) how
is digital masculinity performed within this specific digital space?
To answer these questions, we will be drawing on the fields of digital culture, new
media technologies and virtual geographies, which enable us to understand the multiple
interactions between gendered affordances and masculinist digital practices, and the way
they shape and are shaped by Forocoches. To articulate our thoughts, we are proposing
the term ‘trolling masculinity’ as a way to conceptualise the different ways these interac-
tions help configure a distinct digital masculine performance and a reassertion of hegem-
onic power, thus reproducing long-standing boundaries between acceptable/
non-acceptable masculinity. In this work, our focus is twofold, as we pay attention to
how the relationship between the platform’s affordances and its mediated architecture
enables specific practices of masculine engagement and performativity within
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 3

the situated online environment of Forocoches. Concerning this, we are employing a

non-media-centric approach that considers the gendered use cultures that comprise
offline and online everyday life (Costa, 2018; Van Doorn, 2011).
With this work, we are building on prior research that has explored the types of social
gendered engagement that social media and new technologies afford, promote and repro-
duce (Cirucci, 2017; Nagy and Neff, 2015; Schwartz and Neff, 2019; Semenzin and
Bainotti, 2020). We are advancing knowledge on the performance of masculinity in
online settings (Ging, 2019; Trott, 2020), paying attention to the ways in which digital
(trolling) masculinity are embedded in a complex and mutually forming relationship
with gendered affordances and online border politics (Graham, 2019; Hodge and
Hallgrimsdottir, 2020).

Theorising Forocoches: place, affordances and digital

masculinity
Men’s engagement in digital culture has largely explored toxic online practices and the
unfolding of a rampant networked misogyny (Banet-Weiser and Miltner, 2016). In this
article, we aim to understand how male affordances enable masculinist digital practices
that can create a sense of place where a distinct digital trolling masculinity is performed
within the limits of the platform. For this reason, we are paying special attention to the
social, technical and spatial dimensions that configure Forocoches.
Created in 2003 as a simple forum aimed at fans of the automotive world by a Spanish
IT engineer, Alejandro Marín (also known as ‘Electrik’), it has grown since then to be the
most important Spanish-speaking forum in the world with almost one million users,
where less than 10% are women, billing hundreds of thousands of euros a year in adver-
tising (Arce, 2017). Considering these demographics, Forocoches can be thought of a
manospheric environment, populated mainly by men with frequent misogyny and preda-
tory behaviour. For example, harassment campaigns against women involving doxxing
are commonly orchestrated in the forum. The most notorious one dates back to 2018
when some forococheros leaked the private information of a survivor of a heavily medi-
ated gang-rape case (Buchanan, 2018). A more recent example took place last year when
forococheros trolled feminist academics from a northern Spanish university who had just
launched her campaign against online misogyny. The comments in the thread ranked the
group of researchers based on their looks, questioned their digital abilities and attempted
to also dox them (Fuente, 2022).
Often described as the ‘Spanish reddit’, Forocoches has been an object of interest
for a great number of local journalists, and it has called the attention of the public
opinion due to the success of the massive trolling campaigns orchestrated by the users
of Forocoches, widely known as forococheros. For instance, in 2016, a large number
of forococheros mass ordered pizzas to the headquarters of PSOE (left-wing Spanish
political party) on the occasion of their defeat in the general elections (Sánchez-
Sánchez, 2016). The reproduction of misogyny in Forocoches has also been turned into
a mediated issue, with different Spanish media outlets reporting on the rampant
machismo that underpins the majority of the threads and discussion boards in the plat-
form (Castrillo, 2018).
4 new media & society 00(0)

In this work, we are approaching Forocoches taking into account previous research
that has focused on how online spaces have evolved into masculine spaces (Schaap,
2006). Considering this, we view the manosphere as a conglomerate of online mascu-
line spaces (Ging, 2019) among which we locate Forocoches. We draw on the work of
cultural and virtual geography to conceptualise Forocoches as a place inside the mano-
sphere. The understanding of the platform as a place also comes from both its users and
its founder, Electrik, who have described Forocoches as ‘the bar of the Internet’ (see
pp. 18–20). We develop our argument of Forocoches understood as a digital place of a
bar through our analysis and the conceptual framework that informs it.
The bar has been researched within the socio-cultural context of Spain as a place
where a specific masculine sociability takes place (Alvade Monreal, 2019; García-
Ollerán, 2013; Uría, 2003). García-Ollerán (2013) argues that, during the 20th
Century, the bar enabled the articulation and reaffirmation of a marked working-class
masculinity, appearing as sites of transgression against dominant classes and bour-
geois moralism. The bar was therefore a masculine-only space that both functioned as
a space that enabled political organisation and allowed for the emergence of a mascu-
line leisure that involved informal gatherings, card games, dancing and alcohol con-
sumption (Uría, 2003). It also enabled the (re)production of masculinity hierarchies
based on acceptable masculine behaviour such as binge drinking, sexual conquests
and displaying violent behaviours (Albelda, 2021) Although the bar landscape in
Spain has undergone considerable changes regarding the incorporation of women in
these spaces, the masculinity ritual in bars is still very much present in contemporary
Spain (Albelda, 2021).
The use of the online bar metaphor to explore online gendered interaction is not
new. Sociologist Lori Kendall (2002) utilised the metaphor of the ‘virtual pub’ to help
interpret account for the negotiation of masculinity and relations taking place in the
now-defunct forum BlueSky. Conceptualising Forocoches through the metaphor of
the bar is useful for two reasons. First, the metaphor allows us to account for the
transformation of male socialisation from offline to online settings. In this work, we
use the idea of the bar to explore how the online dynamics of participation in the
forum help create an environment that mediates masculinity practices that both
engage in traditional markers of masculinity (e.g. hierarchy building among foroc-
ocheros) and also construct a different and specific digital trolling masculinity, thus
evidencing a point of departure from conventional (and offline) masculinity perfor-
mances (Condis, 2018). Second, and in relation to the latter, the metaphor allows us
to explore how online spaces can be further masculinised than offline ones. While
actual bars can secure their privacy through physicality until closure (e.g. closing the
door, not allowing entrance), online bars never close, they remain open, which can
help exacerbate the creation of masculinised cultures toxic digital practises (Massanari,
2017; Salter and Blodgett, 2017). In this regard, we argue that Forocoches works not
merely by transferring the sociability of the physical bar to an imagined bar, but by
mediating new forms of digital masculinity through its affordances and men’s engage-
ment with it, giving it a sense of place.
In order to explore how a sense of place is created and negotiated through digital
practises, Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir (2020) followed the online alt-right movement
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 5

across several digital communities, among which they highlight ‘reddit’, ‘altright.com’
and ‘ProudBoy’ and ‘4chan’. In their analysis, the authors argue that while the sharing of
particular content that follows specific ideologies is relevant to the creation of virtual
communities, it is the mode of communication that structures and patterns the digital
engagement therein and helps delineate the community identity and its virtual borders.
Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir (2020) argue engagement with specific cultural objects
such as using a specific jargon or alternative spelling of words helps build the cultural
borders of the community, insofar as they are continuously circulated across platforms,
remaining intelligible only to its connoisseurs. Being fluent with memes, knowing the
shared lexicon and engaging in practices such as ‘shitposting1’ creates cultural objects
that signify adherence to alt-right ideas and communities. Regarding this, it is not so
much the actual content of the discussions, but the digital practices engaged with that
lead to the creation of their own digital cultural imaginaries which results in the constitu-
tion of an imagined online place, therefore evolving from a mere space. New virtual
geographies thus emerge and as they point out, the virtual territoriality that comes with
it needs management and maintenance through further engagement with their inner digi-
tal practices allowing them to continue to claim ownership over virtual space (Hodge and
Hallgrimsdottir, 2020).
Following a similar argumentation, Papacharissi (2009) explores the virtual geog-
raphies of social networks, focusing on the ways the logics of online platforms can
shape the interaction between users and generate a sense of place among them.
Papacharissi (2009) identifies four main factors that help create social networks as
digital places: the convergence of private/public information, the differences in self-
presentation within private/public spaces, the performativity of taste configuring a
socio-cultural identification and the formation of loose or tight settings in the platform.
With regards to the latter, Papacharissi (2009) argues the social settings of online com-
munities act as architectural foundations for identity-building, particularly within tight
networks such as LinkedIn, enforcing specific rules of conduct offering more static
interactions, whereas looser networks, such as Facebook, foster a more active social
engagement. These factors, Papacharissi (2009) asserts, create virtual boundaries that
‘reconstitutes for its members “a sense of place” by providing a private space and
enclosing within it an audience of members with whom any individual member may
feel comfortable’ (Papacharissi, 2009: 209).
The establishing of virtual boundaries and consequent digital places cannot be under-
stood, we argue, without paying attention to the socio-technical possibilities of social
networks, meaning, the technological affordances and mediated architecture that shapes
users’ engagement, thus reinforcing virtual boundaries and gendered scripts (Van Doorn,
2011). Considering this, it is pertinent to conceptualise the idea of gender affordances.
Drawing on the tradition of feminist technology studies and reflecting on the differ-
ences in users’ engagement with affordances and technological possibilities, Schwartz
and Neff (2019: 2407) propose the concept of ‘gender affordances’, which are defined as
the ‘social possibilities that allow different users to take different actions based on the
social and cultural repertoires of gender available to users and designers of technology’.
Following this, in their work, Semenzin and Bainotti (2020) identify and state the two
specific gendered affordances of Telegram: weak regulation of content shared in the app
6 new media & society 00(0)

and the anonymity granted by the platform, which they argue create large homosocial
bonds that can foster male users’ misogynistic behaviours and digital harassment prac-
tises. This seems to evidence Light’s (2011) claim that technologies can function as ‘gen-
dering’ identity by bringing technology into intimate relationships and equipping it to act
on our behalf.
It is important to bear in mind that social media affordances are never fixed but rather
are open to change as a result of the interaction between humans, both as users and as
designers, and technology (Papacharissi, 2009). Respecting this, Costa (2018) explains
the habits of usage can alter how affordances are realised, which makes them situated,
relational and constantly being negotiated. Costa (2018) explains this through her con-
cept of ‘affordances-in-practice’, which refers to how users in different social and cul-
tural contexts enact specific enactment of platform properties.
Bringing together the idea of gendered affordances and the understanding of online
communities as having a sense of place allows us to look at how the virtual and cultural
border of Forocoches can be drawn by specific masculinist digital practices, which enact
a particular performance of digital masculinity.
Research on digital masculinity has been a central point in the study of the mano-
sphere, as all sub-groups of these digital places are rooted in being ‘men’, what it means
to ‘be a man’ and the (re)presentational dynamics of masculine embodiment (Cousineau,
2021: 140). As Van Doorn (2011) argues, virtuality and digital spaces are deeply embed-
ded within material performances of gender and sexuality. In his work, Van Doorn (2021)
argues, if we conceive gender and sexuality as virtual norms that need to be constantly
actualised through material-discursive practises, it could be argued that network technolo-
gies, through technological affordances and user engagement, are shaped by material-
discursive and gendered practises that are also in constant virtual actualisation.
Following this, Van Doorn emphasises the role of technology in the performance of
identity in digital environments, stating that ‘[i]nstead of being transparent intermediar-
ies, new media technologies act as “mediators” that translate common cultural notions in
different and unforeseen ways’ (p. 538). This evidences the role gendered affordances
play in the creation and performance of digital identities, which we argue, is also under-
pinned by the bordering of online communities.
Considering the intrinsic relationship between digital culture and socio-cultural
practices, it is not surprising that the manosphere has been described as being struc-
tured and patterned by traditionalist conceptualisations of gender and hegemonic
notions of masculinity (Nagle, 2017) and as a space where men attempt to reconfigure
and restore masculine authority through toxic digital practises (García-Mingo, Díaz-
Fernández and Tomás-Forte, 2022; Massanari, 2017).
In this regard, Mantilla (2015) has coined the term ‘gendertrolling’ to explain an
ensemble of abusive practices, often coordinated by online collectives which aim to
humiliate and intimidate women in digital environments. Within the context of gaming
digital cultures, Condis (2018) states trolling, often directed against other men perceived
to be gay or women in general, is mobilised as a mechanism for the policing of the per-
formance of masculinities, which results in specific codes of conduct for men online.
Condis (2018) argues the game of trolling functions to stratify men into two groups:
those who take the bait, feed the troll, and are therefore rendered as overly emotional and
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 7

feminine (betas, cucks, manginas, etc), and those who know the trolling game logic and
keep their cool, and consequently evidence their superior rationality normally associated
with the appropriate performance of masculinity (e.g. some alphas, players, etc.).
Working through our theoretical framework, we can understand Forocoches as an
online community with particular gendered affordances and mediated architecture
that allows for specific forms of masculinist digital engagement and, consequently,
the performance of masculinity. In view of this, Forocoches emerges as a digital place
through the interaction between its affordances and the type of engagement it fosters.
We started developing our conceptualisation of the digital place of Forocoches
through our ethnographic research of the platform. Observing the communication
practices and the displays of online masculinity mediated by the affordances, we
started to think of how Forocoches functioned as a place where a certain Forocoches
culture masculinity was articulated. In this regard, our conceptual framework and our
methods seem to inform each other simultaneously, allowing us to see data through
theory and theory through data, following the idea of the ‘dialectic of surprise’ (Willis
and Trondman, 2002).

Data and method

This research on Forocoches is part of a larger research project that looks at the
Spanish manosphere involving an 18-month period of multi-platform digital ethnog-
raphy in 2021–2022, along with seven in-depth interviews with experts and five
focus groups with young men. In this work, we have centred Forocoches, working
with a methodological framework that combines the walkthrough method (Duguay
et al., 2018; Light et al., 2018) and content analysis of digital qualitative materials
scraped from the platform. The qualitative data that we collected from the platform
includes threads, contents, key terms, memes, emojis, images and other relevant
digital artefacts.
To have full access to Forocoches, we tried to obtain an account through the invitation
system without success. After considering our options, the opportunity arose to borrow
an account during the time of the research process. The ethical considerations of this
were established by its owner and accepted and respected by us: we would not imperson-
ate the user, so we were not allowed to post, cite, quote or mention in the platform. Our
usage of the account was hence exclusive to the activity of ‘lurking’ in the platform but
not to participate in it. It is also crucial to highlight that, for ethical reasons, we decided
to not include any of the data obtained in the restricted or hidden threads in the present
work. All data that we engage with in this article was publicly accessible, even without
an account in the forum. The use of this borrowed account was limited to the step-by-step
technical walkthrough of the forum.
As proposed in the walkthrough method theorised by Light and Duguay (2016) was
applied to Facebook (Cirucci, 2017), Tinder, Vine and Instagram (Duguay et al., 2018),
we followed two steps in our process of data collection. First, we established the ‘envi-
ronment of expected use’ (Light et al., 2018: 889–891) through examination of all
available public material on the functioning of Forocoches, including printed and
video interviews with the creator, owner and moderator – Electrik – public information
8 new media & society 00(0)

and press releases about Forocoches. Following this, we read and collected key discus-
sion threads in order to get acquainted with platform regulation and conflictive issues
following special threads posted by Electrik and other key users with high relevance in
the platform.
Second, we conducted a ‘technical walkthrough’ (Light et al., 2018: 891–895) based
on taking note of the parts of technologies’ architectures such as profile, interface for
users, dashboards, content navigation tools, features and buttons to account for the archi-
tecture and governance of the platform. In doing this, we were able to identify step-by-
step all the possibilities for digital social interaction, such as user profiling, posting,
commenting, quoting and mentioning.
In this second step, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of the material that we
had manually scraped from the web involving open and available data. Forocoches, like
Reddit, is a massive online community where the conversation continuously actualised
with torrents of information, making data collection very challenging as content keeps
piling up. To collect our data, we did a selective reading of key issues following the plat-
form affordance of the search bar to look for keywords related to discussions on the
topics of men, masculinity, women and gender relations. Finally, using the same strategy,
we navigated the forum to look for threads with meta-information about Forocoches,
such as posts with the history of Forocoches and threads explaining local rules about
poles, reporting and trolling.
Below, we present our analysis, which is structured as follows: first, we explain how
Forocoches emerges as a digital place; second, we overview the male affordances of the
platform and identify the ways in which they further help construct it as a masculine
place; third, we explore the performances of digital masculinity through trolling in the
forum; and fourth, we conclude the analysis by exploring the simile of the Forocoches
bar as it emerged in the data.

Results
Forocoches is a place inhabited by (mostly) men users where they joke about a multiplic-
ity of topics: from politics, to dating, professional advice and tips. Despite the inherent
misogyny in the forum, as Spanish media has reported, the walkthrough method (Light
et al., 2018) and the content analysis of some key topics made us realise that Forocoches
cannot be conceptualised as another community of the wider Spanish manosphere.
Instead, Forocoches appears to be rather a place mediated and mediating male cultural
signifiers that enable certain types of performances of masculinity, more related to troll-
ing and geek masculinities than to other rational-traditional masculinities that we usually
find the Twitter accounts of MRAs and Youtubers.2

Building a digital place: access, membership and normative tightness

To understand Forocoches, we have drawn on the work of cultural geography, as well
as previous research that has focused on how online spaces have evolved into mascu-
line places (Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir, 2020) and how digital places emerge.
Following Papacharissi (2009), we have identified four dimensions of Forocoches
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 9

that help provide ‘a sense of place’: (1) criteria for membership; (2) protocols for
access; (3) privacy control and (4) normative tightness. We understand the four
dimensions as layers that help construct and maintain the virtual boundaries of
Forocoches. The first two layers function to manage access to the forum’s content,
while the latter ones work to regulate and monitor users’ engagement inside the plat-
form. We explain them in further detail below.
The first dimension identified, criteria for membership, refers to the current registra-
tion politics of the platform. From 2007, an invitation-only system was established, thus
highly restricting access to Forocoches. The invites are distributed among accounts that
are at least 2 years old and have posted a minimum of 288 messages. In this sense,
Forocoches acts as an exclusive bar, with highly restrictive logics shaping the possibili-
ties for membership.
The second dimension, protocols for access, describes the hierarchical approach
implemented to access specific types of content in Forocoches. Content in the platform
can be heavily restricted. Although some threads are public to non-members, some dis-
cussion boards are hidden and only available to registered users. Despite this, not all
members have equal access to the content. Members with older accounts have greater
access to the platform’s threads, whereas more recent accounts cannot only see newer
discussion boards. In addition, specific content is further restricted following a particular
categorisation by either its author or Electrik himself. There are three categories that
restrict access in different levels: +18 flagged discussion boards have adult content and
thus limit entrance to adult members who have posted at least 1 message in the platform;
+hd flagged threads restrict access to members of any age who have posted 1 message
and +prv flagged boards are only visible to members who have a 90 days seniority and
have posted over 100 messages in the platform.
The third identified dimension, privacy control, outlines the rules that shape privacy
practices implemented in the platform. Forocoches prides itself in safeguarding the pri-
vacy of its members and enforces a policy that guarantees no members’ private data will
be disclosed to any third parties. However, this policy also contains an exclusion clause
that deprives privacy protection to members who participate in problematic behaviour.
The fourth and last dimension, normative tightness, refers to the monitoring of users’
engagement in the platform. There is a multiplicity of rules in Forocoches that members
are required to follow (see Figure 1). Non-compliance with them entails a complete and
permanent banning of the account. The rules regulate the content that is permitted (e.g.
no paedophilia or creation of a discussion board with adult content without appropriate
categorisation) but also the form of communication, meaning, the digital practices that
are accepted or not. For example, ‘flooding’, described as the practice of inundating the
platform with random messages as a way to accrue more posts in your account is penal-
ised with account banning. In addition, trolling practices are monitored and Electrik
himself has put together a guide for appropriate trolling behaviour. There is a section of
the forum called INFO/HELP where users can find threads with information about inter-
action rules, navigating and usage tips.
Considering the juxtaposition of the four dimensions of bordering (membership, lim-
ited access, privacy control and normative tightness), Forocoches appears to be a very
hierarchical and restrictive place with a, paradoxically, ironic, funny and lazy tone. The
 10

Figure 1.  A master thread in Forocoches depicting a list of dont’s, meaning unacceptable practices to engage in within the platform.
new media & society 00(0)
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 11

sense of place in Forocoches is maintained through the creation of its online borders,
which are multi-level, as they are enacted both externally – separating members and non-
members of the online site – and internally – dividing the members based on a series of
guides, for example, seniority or number of comments posted (Papacharissi, 2009). The
exclusivity and hierarchy upon which Forocoches is built allow for the development of
a distinct inner culture, therefore making it a ‘tight’ network where the members’ spon-
taneous engagement, despite being fostered, is heavily monitored and penalised. The
tightness of the network not only works to amplify and delineate the cultural borders of
the platform but to constantly maintain them as a way of (re)claiming ownership over
this virtual space. Consequently, virtual geography is created through the border mainte-
nance that maintains the virtual territoriality of Forocoches as Electrik and the users
make a collective effort to keep sovereignty over their digital territory. This is carried out
with the help of specific male affordances and digital practices that keep the place
male-oriented.

Male affordances
In our work, we use the concept of male affordances to analyse the interactions between
the triangle of Forocoches (the digital place and interface), forococheros (the members)
and Elektric (founder and designer) in order to understand how the platform fosters the
performativity of a specific male digital identity. We conceive of the affordances of
Forocoches as male affordances and affordances-in-practice, insofar as we consider the
technology enabling the platform as already gendered and the affordances it makes pos-
sible as a result of situated everyday actions and habits of usage (Costa, 2018). We argue
male affordances are different from gender affordances as they allow for the creation and
performance of very specific masculinity that is context-specific to the online place of
Forocoches.

Electrik, platform design and profiles.  While in other spaces of the manosphere the most
important features are users who become opinion leaders and content creation, in
Forocoches, the role of the designer is key to understanding the nature of the commu-
nity. Although Forocoches has become an online community of almost one million
users, Electrik has remained a member of the forum, always performing the role of the
leader of the community and setting the moderation rules. Although not very active
online, he posts summary messages at the end of every year citing the main behaviours
for which he has banned people from the community. In doing this, he performs an act
of command and reinforces his leading role within the forum. Electrik can lead Foro-
coches through his embodiment of the ideal of the manhood of the digital community:
he has a built-up body, earns a lot of money and drives an expensive exclusive sports
car. This has led to Electrik himself often becoming a topic of discussion in the plat-
form, with users frequently making jokes about his millionaire lifestyle or arguing over
the banning actions. He is also trolled in the forum: his name is often mocked and
changed to ‘Ilitri’ or ‘Litri’.
 12

Figure 2.  Forococheros discussing Electrik.a

a
new media & society 00(0)

The link to the original thread is the following: https://forocoches.com/foro/showthread.php?t=5861472.

Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 13

English translation:

The masculine values embodied by Electrik are also reflected in Forocoches itself
through its design, in terms of both aesthetics and engagement patterns. The platform has
kept the original design of 2003 and the engagement options have not evolved or incor-
porated new functions such as the ones of ‘likes’ that other social media networks have
integrated. The interface of Forocoches is very simple: it uses traditionally masculine
colours (blue, grey, white and black), it uses only Verdana as a font and has its own set
of icons to be used. In fact, in Forocoches, mainstream emojis are never used nor any
other kind of typography.
We consider these decisions to remain vintage as a deliberate move against the femi-
nization of social media (Nakamura, 2015) and, consequently, as producing key male
affordances that have enabled the creation of a distinct digital masculine community and
culture that, in staying traditional, has been able to remain relevant almost 19 years later.
In fact, the importance of the specific design of Forocoches has been made more perti-
nent recently. In 2022, Forocoches is expected to migrate to a new design, available for
mobile devices and with the dark mode option; however, many of the users have pro-
tested that they like the ‘classic design’, considering it an authentic marker of the plat-
form, as opposed to platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Besides the specific design and Electrik’s role in Forocoches, another central fea-
ture shaping the values of the community is the protection of users’ anonymity.
Account profiles only share information involving the user’s nickname, motto, pic-
ture, account age, number of messages, place of origin and car model that they own.
Information on account age and number of messages are relevant to understand users’
role in the platform, as senior members with older accounts are the most respected
within the community. In addition, details on the number of messages posted, both in
total and daily, also indicate users’ loyalty and active engagement. Consequently, not
only is seniority perceived as valuable in the platform, but also loyalty and active
engagement proved through the amount of time you spend with the digital ‘mates’.
The interaction between users and the male affordances designed by Electrik demar-
cates the contour of an inner masculine culture that is fostered within the realms of the
platform. This is further developed through the distinct engagement patterns that
users have elaborated in Forocoches.
14 new media & society 00(0)

Affordances-in-practice of Forocoches: reporting, poles and platforms reporting mechanisms. 

Within the context of Forocoches, we refer to affordances-in-practice to theorise the
affordances that users have creatively conceived and put into practice and that have
become central nodes of the digital community culture. Two of the main features of
Forocoches are the reporting and banning mechanisms. Due to the size of the real-time
discussion in the forum, it is impossible to review every message posted, so a system of
inter alia moderation has been established by Electrik. In this system, users are the ones
doing the reporting of other users through a tool offered by the platform. Once these
reports are sent, they are reviewed by moderators who decide whether to ban the account
temporarily or permanently.
Depending on the number of reports that a user receives, the antiquity of the account
and the reason for reporting, a banning decision is made. Being banned is the ultimate
punishment for a forocochero due to the high access restriction to the network. In fact,
it was the act of reporting which drove up the levels of access restrictions. The so-
called Night of the Long Reports is an event in Forocoches history of a mass joint
reporting activity that took place on 25 June 2009, and marked the establishment of
access rules. Another account of mass banning in Forocoches took place in 2018 when
some forococheros published the personal details of the victim of the gang-rape case
‘La Manada’, a heavily mediatised court case in Spain (Rico, 2018). As a result of
these two events, the reasons for reporting in Forocoches have grown and are varied:
spamming, trolling, flooding and posting xenophobic, homophobic, racist or defama-
tory comments. The act of reporting is a central element of interaction between foroc-
ocheros as engaging in reporting activities is seen as a marker (or not) of acceptable
digital masculine performance. For instance, users who easily report or those who
organise joint reporting actions are called Flanders, in reference to the character in The
Simpsons who was characterised for being easily offended, effeminate and weak-
minded. In contrast, the self-branded Anti-Flanders users actively try to stop the
reporting actions in an attempt to secure the freedom of speech of the platform. This
illuminates the masculine politics of the reporting affordances of the platform which
are framed by hierarchised masculinist sense-making.
Poles are another central element of the digital subcultural life of Forocoches. The
pole is how forococheros call the first message posted on an original thread. The term
comes from the Anglo-Saxon term ‘Pole Position’ which, in motorsport terms, defines
the best driver in a timed qualifying round. Hence, the pole defines the first to arrive at
the thread and it constitutes a sign of craftiness in the world of Forocoches. In fact,
threads about who the best polesmen are and the history of the best poles are often posted
in the forum which is paradoxical considering the act of doing poles is actually forbid-
den, leading to potential reporting and banning. Achieving a ‘pole’ is seen as a sign of
true engagement with the platform and as a marker of masculine savviness: always being
on the loop of what is being shared and being the first to know about it. Becoming a
polesman is also a marker of unruly masculinity, inasmuch as pole claiming disobeys the
norms of the platform which ban it, thus displaying traditional masculine attributes of
bravery and defiance. In this regard, being first to claim pole, grants the user a certain
masculine status among other participants.
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 15

Figure 3.  Excerpt of thread from Forocoches discussing Is FC the Bar of Internet?a, b
a
The link to the original thread in Forocoches is the following: https://forocoches.com/foro/showthread.
php?t=1034443. We would also like to explain that we have decided not to include original screenshots
from the thread due to the comments being scattered across different pages and due to the incessant
presence of advertisements across the board that would make it difficult to view the content.
b
‘Putas Obligadas a Limpiarmela Entera’ could be translated in English as ‘Sluts Forced to Suck Clean My
Cock’.

The affordances-in-practice explored in this section reflect an ongoing tension within

the platform between users, evidencing a constant battle for dominance of the virtual
place and user hegemony. Within the context of the reporting struggles, men rendered as
snowflakes who cannot seem to take a joke, Flanders, are persecuted and trolled, thus
positioned as subordinate to the Anti-Flanders, men who claim territoriality over
Forocoches and act as their guardians. A virtual masculinity hierarchy is constructed,
therefore demonstrating the embeddedness of digital spaces with material performances
of gender (Van Doorn, 2021).
Electrik sits at the top of this masculinity hierarchy, as both the founder of Forocoches
and its only moderator and designer. The centrality of the figure of Electrik in the plat-
form is also contradictory, with members both visibly expressing their envy and admira-
tion over his very masculine lifestyle (see Figure 2: ‘To a certain extent I find it enviable,
having the only concern to get up, going to the gym and spend .  .  . eat and spend .  .  . fuck
and spend’) and also actively challenging his masculine authority in the platform by
disobeying or circumventing his norms through their engagement with particular digital
practices and male affordances as a way to assert their own masculinity. Finally, the pro-
tection of anonymity and the displaying of particular status-building information on the
users’ profiles also further solidifies the masculinity hierarchy, or to put it better, hierar-
chies that are contested and engaged with the men in Forocoches. In this regard, the
affordances of Forocoches, either designed by Electrik or developed and engaged with
by the users through savvy usage, are male due to three reasons: (1) they are developed
by men for men; (2) they enable masculinist digital practices; and (3) they afford a spe-
cific performance of masculinity in the forum to which we turn to below.
16 new media & society 00(0)

Performances of digital masculinity: Spanish trolling masculinities

Forocoches is based on a troll commenting culture (Clinnin and Manthey, 2019), and on
a (con)trolled performance of masculinity carried out with disdainful attitudes and the use
of a playful and troll lexicon of the platform that includes all sorts of pejorative terms for
migrants, women, LGTBQ + communities and other minorities. In fact, using the trolling
vocabulary of Forocoches is an unspoken rule for forococheros, therefore making the act
of trolling a dominant practice in the performance of digital masculinity in Forocoches.
Much of the lexicon frequently used in the platform is underpinned by misogyny. For
example, one of the most widely used inner expressions is ‘TDS_PTS’ (Todas Putas, in
English All Sluts) to refer to women in general. The female name, ‘Charo’, is used in the
forum to insult middle-aged Spanish feminists who are considered ugly or in their terms
‘unfuckable’. The term ‘mangina’ (man with a vagina) is also widely in circulation to
describe feminist men or allies of feminism (García-Mingo, Díaz-Fernández and Tomás-
Forte, 2022). Misogynistic trolling in Forocoches also occurs spontaneously as a joke
between members. For example, in Figure 3, a user asks regarding the meaning of ‘pole’,
to which a member answers ‘Putas Obligadas a Limpiarmela Entera’ (Sluts Forced to
Clean/Suck my Cock in English), doing a word game as if the world pole was an acronym.
While the trolling activity was not oriented at women, but at another forocochero, it still
has a marked sexual misogynistic dimension.
Jokes in the platform between users often involve women needing to ‘clean more’
and ‘go to scrub’, and the comment ‘fuck her’ (in Spanish ‘fóllatela’) offered as an
advice to an array of discussions that may state problem involving woman in any way.
Concerning this, humiliation of women is at the centre of trolling in Forocoches, which
allows for the performance of a distinct and Forocoches-specific Spanish trolling mas-
culinities. But, what purpose does this type of masculinity performance serve? To
answer this question, we draw on Condis (2018), who understands trolling as a regula-
tory behavioural-based apparatus that functions as a benchmark for masculinity in
digital geeky spaces, where hegemonic masculinity is re-conceptualised valuing tech
wittiness and technological prowess over looks and physical strength. In acting as a
benchmark for masculinity, trolling emerges as a dominant practice that upholds digi-
tal masculine engagement, as it delineates how men should act in certain online envi-
ronments. Performing trolling masculinities is thus configured as a marker of being a
cultural insider, capable of engaging in trolling and also ‘immune to the emotional
damage that the trolls are trying to create’ (p. 36). Regarding this, trolling is thought of
as something to endure and perform. Furthering this, Condis (2018) argues, the per-
forming of trolling acts and masculinities can also be understood as intrinsic to the
culture and, consequently, its limits. Graham (2019) states trolling acts maintain the
boundaries of online self-identified communities while keeping outsiders away from
their spaces in order to preserve their inner culture and retain insiders to it. The border
maintenance enacted by forococheros is also heavily monitored. There is a specific
thread that lays out the rules to do ‘trolleo del bueno’ (good trolling) and also advises
members on how to avoid being banned due to bad trolling.
Considering this, in our research, we observe the functionality of the performance
of ‘trolling masculinities’ serves two particular roles: first, the (re)production of the
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 17

inner cultural codes of the forum and second, the demonstration of collective misog-
yny and virility as dominant features of digital masculinist practises and conse-
quently, a trademark for performing appropriate digital hegemonic masculinities in
Forocoches.

The bar of the Internet

In this work, we have argued that Forocoches created a sense of place through many
of its features and affordances and the performance of digital masculinity that it ena-
bles. However, it was only through the exploration of the spatial metaphors used by
users to refer to that we conceptualised as Forocoches as the bar of the Internet. The
simile of the bar to depict Forocoches has been also repeatedly used by the founder,
who referred to his job as the main and sole administrator of the whole website as
managing a free, self-parodical online bar (Amela, 2018). However, the idea that
Forocoches being the bar of the Internet also emerges from the data itself, meaning,
from forococheros who joke about inhabiting and participating in the Forocoches bar,
as evidenced in Figures 4 and 5:

Figure 4.  Excerpt of thread from Forocoches discussing Is FC the Bar of Internet?a
a
The link to the original thread in Forocoches is the following: https://forocoches.com/foro/showthread.
php?t=6798578.

English translation:

In the thread below, forococheros discuss addiction to bars, with the conversation
quickly turning to the framing of Forocoches as a bar with a similar addictive component.
 18

Figure 5.  Excerpt of thread from Forocoches discussing addiction to bars.a

a
The link to the original thread in Forocoches is the following: https://forocoches.com/foro/showthread.php?t=5044525.
new media & society 00(0)
Diaz-Fernandez and García-Mingo 19

English translation:

In these two threads, Forocoches is depicted as a bar which, even without the
‘tapas’, has a sense of place from which the members mark their belonging through
inhabiting the imaginary bar counter of the platform and socialising within its online
borders. Considering the definition of traditional Spanish bars as enabling a particu-
lar masculine leisure and bonding (Uría, 2003), Forocoches seems to also foster
similar masculine ease that a bar provides: that of male companionship, support and
laughter. The networks of support that are established in manospheric settings have
been identified in previous research (García-Mingo and Díaz-Fernández, 2022;
Regehr, 2022) and are helpful to move beyond an understanding of the manosphere
as pure e-bile and misogyny (Marwick and Caplan, 2018; Jane, 2014). Through our
analysis, we understand Forocoches as a place where men humour themselves, assert
their masculinity and create bonds with each other, all through their engagement and
development of the platforms’ male affordances.

Conclusion
In this work, we have approached Forocoches as a digital place through the simile of the
bar. We have argued Forocoches has a sense of place as a result of the interaction between
male affordances and masculinist digital practices where a distinct digital trolling mas-
culinity is performed by the forococheros. Prior research on the manosphere and online
trolling has redeemed it as intrinsic to digital male-dominated environments. In this arti-
cle, we argue trolling can be conceptualised as a masculinist digital practice that enables
men to configure and perform digital hegemonic masculinities within the context of
Forocoches. While we do not disagree that trolling seems to be inherent in Internet cul-
ture, with this work we are suggesting it emerges afforded.
In this article, we have identified how the affordances of the platform are male,
exploring the interrelationship between the interface, Forocoches, the members, foroc-
ocheros and the designer, Electrik, responsible for the graphics and main functionalities
of the site. In observing these three-way interactions, we explored how Forocoches acts
as a mediator for masculinity, affording the performance of a specific digital trolling
masculinity, which helps establish and continuously negotiate the online borders of the
platform. In this regard, we find it useful to understand Forocoches through the metaphor
of the bar as it emerged in the data: a male-dominated and male-oriented place where
20 new media & society 00(0)

men go to find like-minded individuals and let off steam through humour while continu-
ously policing appropriate performances of masculinity. The worry emerges where the
place, the bar, not only enables, but promotes certain toxic and discriminatory behav-
iours, such as misogynistic trolling, incorporating it as a normative aspect of the identity-
building process therein. This could potentially lead to a further strengthening of social
polarisation and reinforcing of hegemonic masculinity, particularly considering the wide
membership of Forocoches and its organised trolling capacities.
The latest trolling activity orchestrated in Forocoches targeted a University observa-
tory for online misogyny called ‘Stop Machitroles’ that resulted in the collapse of web
traffic (Fuente, 2022). Several posts boasting about the attack emerged on the forum,
with misogynistic jokes about the lack of sexual appeal of the women of the observatory
and femicide. The most revealing posts were those to point out that feminists ‘will need
a new ministry just to act against Forocoches’.
To conclude, we argue, understanding different corners of the manosphere as places
can be helpful to observe the way identities, performances of gender and inner digital
cultures are created and constantly redefined and negotiated, which will equip us with
crucial insight in order to develop effective and holistic strategies aimed at mitigating
digital abuse and trolling. However, considering the extremely fast pace of gender-based
trolling, online misogyny and digital abuse of women, forococheros might be right: we
might need an entire ministry to help us fight it.

Funding
The author(s) received financial support from Centro Reina Sofía sobre Adolescencia y Juventud,
as part of the VII Convocatoria de Ayudas a la Investigación funding program.

ORCID iD
Silvia Díaz-Fernández https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9118-8090

Notes
1. Shitposting refers to digital practices that involve posting off-topic or vulgar comments as a
means of shutting down entire comment sections or online discussions.
2. To read more about the types of masculinities performed by different groups within the mano-
sphere, please refer to Bratich and Banet-Weiser (2019).

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Author biographies
Silvia Díaz-Fernández is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Carlos III University of
Madrid. In her past work, she has developed different approaches to feminist methodologies in
order to explore the politics of misrecognition and the affective circuits of misogyny within the
context of lad culture. Her current research interests lie in the discriminations afforded by the
interactions between gender and new technologies. She is a member of the network Postdigital
Intimacies at Coventry University. She has published work in ‘Gender, Place and Culture’,
‘Qualitative Inquiry’ and ‘Gender and Education’.
Elisa García-Mingo is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology: Methods and Theory at
Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Her research focuses on rape culture, digital toxic
cultures and feminist cyberactivism. She is also interested in qualitative inquiry and digital
social research. She has published work in ‘Comparative Sociology’, ‘Feminist Media Studies’
and ‘Gender, Work and Organizations’. She leads a research project about online masculinities,
sexual violence and the local Spanish manosphere. She is a member of the network Postdigital
Intimacies at Coventry University.