Abstract
Men utilize mental health services at significantly lower rates than women, despite experiencing comparable psychological distress. This convergent mixed methods study examined men's therapeutic engagement through analysis of organic digital discourse, integrating computational and interpretive approaches to understand cultural negotiations around help-seeking. This study employed Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner sentiment analysis, latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling, National Research Council Emotion Lexicon analysis, and reflexive thematic analysis of 7,971 YouTube comments responding to content about masculine therapeutic barriers. Quantitative analysis revealed 50.87% positive sentiment with community endorsement of trust (15.40%) and anticipation (10.97%) emotions, while qualitative analysis identified five cultural themes: therapeutic communication mismatch, precarious manhood anxiety, functional masculine alternatives, cultural competence factors, and digital peer transformation. Grounded in precarious manhood theory and gender role strain theory, findings reveal that men avoid therapy when seeking help threatens their sense of masculine status. However, digital anonymity enabled men to support one another and collectively redefine masculine norms around vulnerability and help-seeking. Digital spaces functioned as cultural laboratories where men experimented with alternative masculine scripts incorporating vulnerability as strength, demonstrating how technological mediation can transform precarious manhood anxiety from a therapeutic barrier into a cultural resource. Results indicated that effective mental health interventions for men required systematic integration of cultural competence training, action-oriented therapeutic modalities, and digital peer support platforms that leverage rather than threaten masculine identity performance. Findings inform therapist training, service delivery models, and culturally responsive mental health frameworks for men.