She ‘de-pilled’ her son: Mom goes viral for calmly dismantling her son’s red pill logic, one question at a time

The hit Netflix series Adolescence has struck a nerve with viewers for its portrayal of a family coming apart after a teenager is accused of murdering a classmate, and how cyberbullying and the Red Pill movement played into it. But offscreen, parents are facing similar reckonings. A viral TikTok video reposted by X user @The_Only_Barbie on Mar. 23., 2025, shows one mother’s experience of “de-pilling” her teen son after realizing he’d been influenced by Red Pill ideology—a loosely connected online movement that promotes dangerous views about women and masculinity.

“She ‘de-pilled’ her red-pill son,” wrote @The_Only_Barbie. “A lot of women need to start doing this.”

The post has over 6.1M views, 94K likes, 33K saves, 8.5K reshares, and 424 comments. In it, she shares a video from TikTok user @rchlprkr, who has dedicated her channel to raising awareness around these topics.

Mom explains the moment she knew her son was ‘red-pilled’

In the video, @rchlprkr posted a question bubble from one of their followers, who asked, “How did you first spot that he was red-pilled?” She then breaks down the conversation that led to her discovery. The viral video was posted on Mar. 19., 2025, has over 2.2M views, 280.3K likes, 20.8K saves, and 2,756 comments. 

“We were just having a normal conversation and he said to me, ‘Well, women are gold diggers anyway.’ And I said, ‘What women?’ And he said, ‘just women in general.’ And I said, ‘Well, name one woman in our life that is a gold digger.”

Her son replied that he didn’t know any but repeated it was just “women in general” to which  @rchlprkr said, “Well, it’s not just women in general cause you don’t know any of them…that’s shouldn’t be something that you’ve bought into when you’ve seen actually no proof of it. You’ve literally never experienced this in your entire life.”

Her son admitted he’d heard it on a video, so they watched it together, and @rchlprkr asked if the men looked like they had “gold to dig.”

When he replied that it “wasn’t the point,” @rchlprkr came back and said, “A lot of men who have got money don’t mind spending money on their partner, the woman that they love, because it makes her look and feel good” and that the only people who say things like that are men who “don’t have money but still want that woman.”

“They want her to drop their standards for him, even though he can’t provide the lifestyle she wants and expects,” she continued, “And then he gets mad at her for it, for expecting money.”

“You know full well that women aren’t doing that on mass,” she emphasized, “‘Cause otherwise nobody would be in a relationship.”

@rchlprkr explained that she lives in what she considered to be a “low income area” and that a lot of men in their town are in relationships despite not making a lot of money.”

@rchlprkr Replying to @littlepoolo #parenting #depilling ♬ original sound – ✨IAmRchlPrkr✨

What is the Red Pill movement?

The Red Pill movement can be traced back to 2012 when a subreddit channel was created to discuss the “sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.” Public figures like Andrew Tate and Van Lathan have been linked to the movement, especially regarding their social media posts and podcast material.

The ideologies run deep, but in another video posted on Mar. 23., @rchlprkr provided more context about the movement, and why it was relevant, especially today.

“The Red Pill movement is a loosely connected set of online communities and ideologies that claim to wake men up to the harsh truths and realities about gender dynamics, feminism, and relationships,” she explains. “The name comes from The Matrix, where you take the red pill and wake up to reality, or you take the blue pill and live in ignorance.”

“Red pill ideology is actually rooted in manosphere communities,” she continues. “Things like men’s right activists and the pickup artist, but also things like men going their own way and the incel communities, which are a little bit more extreme.”

@rchlprkr further explains that this community believes women only marry someone of a “higher status” and that they believe “feminism has ruined society…given women too much power over men. They believe that traditional masculinity is under attack, that men have to reclaim dominance, that the dating game is rigged and that men must use manipulation to succeed.”

She admits that some Red Pill content is focused on self-improvement (working out, learning new skills, etc.) but that “much of the movement actually promotes deeply misogynistic world views and encourages manipulation and the creation of toxic, abusive relationships.

“I don’t see any of them recommending therapy,” she notes. “It reduces women to manipulative 

How to discuss the red-pill pipeline with your sons

Shows like Adolescence portray the harsh reality that some parents deal with when they discover their child may have been red-pilled. It can feel overwhelming trying to seek answers, but @rchlprkr offered advice on how to discuss these things in effective ways.

• Approach the topics with kindness and compassion. @rchlprkr encourages parents to engage in ways that their child won’t feel threatened or shamed for their thoughts and actions. Ask questions to try and better understand where they are coming from, 
• Highlight positive female relationships. Remind your child that there are wonderful women who already exist in their life. @rchlprkr also watched films with her son and asked him questions like, “How would you feel if I was sad in that scene” to help him develop empathy.
• Be active and interested in their lives. “We assume that because our boys are in the house and they’re upstairs and they’re quiet and they’re behaving, that means that they’re doing good,” @rchlprkr explains, but that “anything that has your child’s attention is something that you need to be aware of.” Building up a positive rapport will help conversations feel more natural and encourage questions in the future.

Can kids really be ‘de-pilled’? Social media weighs in

Most of the discourse online is positive and encouraging, as many feel a strong need to address the Red Pill movement and its negative influences.

“Liiiiiiterally this part, sit down and talk to your children PLEASE,” posted X user @chorizotaco1 in the comments of @The_Only_Barbie’s post. “Parents will just assume their kids are chill meanwhile they have no idea what theyre watching, searching, commenting.”

“Amazing watch there was a video of her above yours as I was scrolling and wow it’s kinda making me think of my own upbringing and what I was consuming,” added X user @imygemini.

“Not just women,” wrote X user @kary_cee in the comments. “Men have to step up as fathers too and educate their sons to respect women.”

X user @PanderShirts reshared the X post and added their own commentary: “I have a hot take to say, and basically it’s that this kind of thing is expected of you as a parent. If your kid is starting to say misogynistic shit you need to question them about it immediately and do what this mom did.”

X user @_ladizaloca_ also reshared the post, but also acknowledged how the process isn’t always so easy. 

“The problem is that many parents do not have the kind of relationship with their children where they have full-blown, in-depth conversations to understand the direction their developing minds are taking,” they explained. “Many of these things can be caught simply by speaking with your child.”

Some were quick to call out that the real issue, in their opinion, was that @rchlprkr’s son didn’t have any male role models in his life. 

X user @CMayRayZay wrote, “Something I thought she was going to touch on she missed and kept getting close to is no matter how ‘well balanced’ women can think they are raising a boy if there is no strong/healthy male influence in his life or not enough examples he’s going to seek that elsewhere. That’s part of the problem.”

“She’s a single mom with no man to raise her kid. Good luck with that,” added X user @g_dubble13. “There are no positive adult male role models in his life. “Me, my mum, my step-mom,”etc..….no men. Of course, he’s going to gravitate to male-centric viewpoints.”

Some even felt like the advice she gave would backfire. “That boy understands very early on that a vast majority of women see men as an atm rather than a partner,” wrote X user @ParlayChrisJ. “And she stopped that to teach him what…That if he makes enough, he won’t mind splurging on these women. Smh we are doomed.”

The Daily Dot reached out to @rchlprkr via comment on TikTok, and @PanderShirts via X DM, for comment.

The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.