Lori Harvey & the Dark Underbelly of the Manosphere That Hates Women Like Her

Even during the pandemic and political unrest, pop culture hasn't taken a backseat and there is no shortage of celebrities or influencers above acting out on social media to trend and stay relevant despite the world's preoccupation with pressing issues.

It-girl, Lori Harvey (stepdaughter of rich, but perpetually loud, strong, and wrong comedian and entrepreneur, Steve Harvey) hasn't let the world's problems throw a wrench in her jet-setting life as an attractive, young socialite and social media influencer as she continues to post pictures to her Instagram page showcasing luxury goods, brand endorsements, and her dating life.
And it's her love life that keeps her in the headlines and her name in most people's mouths...and by "most people," I mean intractable men who offer unsolicited, presumptuous opinions about women's sex lives because they can't fathom a spirited, young, child-free woman in her twenties doing exactly what most young adult women should do: living their best lives and carving out memorable experiences.

Lori is a young woman of social privilege and access who has purportedly dated an array of affluent men, including Dutch soccer player Memphis Depay, music mogul Sean Combs, and controversial rapper Future. Lori has now moved on and gone Instagram-official with Michael B. Jordan, one of the most A-list Black actors in Hollywood, and emotionally bankrupt men are in a state of extreme agitation about it.

After taking time out of a jam-packed schedule of berating Russell Wilson for continuing to declare his love and admiration for his wife, Ciara, the manosphere did a collective gasp and flipped over their respective soiled futons and wobbly tables as a call to action after Lori and Michael B. offered a peek inside their first Valentine's Day together. The couple’s romantic evening consisted of Lori being showered with stocks in Hermès, a diamond bracelet, a romantic dinner in an underwater tunnel in a rented out an entire aquarium, and culminated in a lovingly adorned hotel room.

The amorous display was more than the manosphere could take, so they grabbed their torches and ran to their social media platforms to quickly brand Michael B. Jordan a "simp"; the insult of choice for any man who openly shows empathy, love, like, or any kind gestures toward women (especially Black women).

Most egregious was when culture-vulture and opportunist, DJ Vlad of VladTV (who effortlessly baits imbecilic rappers into running their mouths willy-nilly to their detriment) decided to talk under Lori Harvey's skirt for some odd reason that doesn't concern him and ask 38-year-old rapper Boosie Badazz, of all people, what he thought about Lori's active dating life and love connection with Michael B.

Boosie, an ostensibly troubled womanizer who has eight children with six different women and shuns marriage, staunchly advocates that women should stay in emotionally abusive relationships with unfaithful men, and who proudly indoctrinates his teen sons and nephews with harmful ideologies about manhood, echoed the manosphere's "simp" refrain and fixed his mouth to say,

"I think we need to stop giving the woman the power with situations like this. Girls keep saying it’s ‘goals.' ...We gotta start giving the bachelors, the men, who running through women like this, the credit.”

The backlash was swift, much to DJ Vlad's delight, I'm sure, considering the clicks and views it brought him.

Undaunted, Boosie Badazz decided to double down and post a video to his IG suggesting that women who remain in dysfunctional relationships are more admirable than those like Lori Harvey, who freely explore their dating options, and called the world "fucked up" for encouraging women to have personal autonomy over their love lives.

Do you want to know what's fucked up? Reckless, indiscriminate, and emotionally bankrupt men who are ineffectual at cultivating healthy and consensual relationships with women, so have normalized their pathological behaviors, having so much to say about adult women's sex lives.

Lori is a young, single, and carefree Black woman doing exactly what she's supposed to at her age. And the gag is, her self-governing social life upends some of the male-centered and shallow dating tips her stepfather once marketed to women.

Instead of shaming other Black men for wanting meaningful romantic connections and trying to police whom Black women choose to give their time and vaginas to, I suggest Boosie and other men of his ilk unpack why seeing their brethren advocating for women's happiness trigger them so much.

Having such a visceral response to seeing men doting on Black women isn't normal. It's the sort of hatred and misogynoir that incites men to assault women randomly and violently in front of liquor stores because they can't handle polite rejection to their advances, need to put a Black woman "in her place," and have a terrifying sense of entitlement to women's personal affairs, bodies, and time.