{"id":648377,"date":"2026-03-11T16:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/648377\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:36:18","slug":"louis-theroux-on-the-manosphere-its-highly-profitable-to-be-a-dick-on-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/648377\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Theroux on the Manosphere: \u2018It\u2019s Highly Profitable to Be a Dick on the Internet\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been over 30 years since Louis Theroux was first given an opportunity to make documentaries<\/a> as a reporter on Michael Moore<\/a>\u2019s TV Nation.<\/p>\n

Since then Theroux has become the preeminent documenter of the weird, the extreme, and the dangerous, filming everyone from members of the Westboro Baptist Church<\/a> to ultra-Zionists in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

But in Inside the Manosphere, his first film with Netflix<\/a>, out March 11, Theroux is tackling what he only somewhat jokingly describes to WIRED as \u201cthe final boss battle in the gamified career of Louis Theroux.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve been circling this subject\u201d for years, Theroux tells WIRED from the Squid Game meeting room in Netflix\u2019s London headquarters. \u201cIt combines cultlike groupings, misogyny, adult content, creation of pornographic<\/a> content, and obviously racism. All these taboo areas of life that I’ve spent my TV work documenting in different forms come together in the manosphere<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theroux says he was drawn to the subject not just because of how pervasive and influential it is, but also the challenge of filming subjects who are in turn filming you and turning your presence into content that boosts their channels.<\/p>\n

The manosphere is a broad description for a category of online figures that incorporates everyone from \u00fcber-podcaster Joe Rogan<\/a> to health and fitness content creators<\/a> and crypto bros<\/a>. For his documentary, Theroux focused on the extreme edges of the manosphere that push racist and misogynistic content to lure in young viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim isn’t just to push toxic content,\u201d says Theroux. \u201cThat, in a sense, is the entryway, that’s the front door through which they get people’s attention. But the aim is to engage young boys, especially, and get them to buy their products, their slightly crappy FX trading products or their so-called online universities. It’s a rather cynical grift.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has in the past touched the manosphere<\/a> world, filming with convicted January 6 insurrectionist Anthime Gionet (aka Baked Alaska) and white supremacist Nick Fuentes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went into this as an opportunity to explore a world that’s increasingly influential\u201d says Theroux. \u201cThis has scale and reach beyond anything I’ve looked at of comparable extremeness \u2026 There are tens of millions of people who are watching this content. It’s an important subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make his point, Theroux spent time with HSTikkyTokky, a British influencer whose real name is Harrison Sullivan, and American manosphere superstar Sneako (real name Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy), who attended President Donald Trump\u2019s most recent inauguration<\/a>. He also spends time with Myron Gaines (real name Amrou Fudl), a prominent host of the Fresh and Fit podcast, and Justin Waller, a Miami-based influencer.<\/p>\n

But there was one manosphere character Theroux was unable to convince to take part: Andrew Tate<\/a>, a former kickboxer who has been charged<\/a> with rape in multiple countries. (He has also been charged with human trafficking in the UK; he has denied all allegations.)<\/p>\n

Tate, along with his brother Tristan, has become among the most recognizable faces of the manosphere movement, earning huge sums of money from tens of millions of followers.<\/p>\n

When Theroux messaged Tate about the possibility of spending some time with him, he says Tate responded: \u201cI’m the most relevant man on the planet. And who are you? You were relevant years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate then followed up with a screenshot of Google Trends that showed a blue line at the top of the graph indicating search interest in Tate over time and a red line along the bottom of the graph showing interest in Theroux over the same period, according to Theroux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been over 30 years since Louis Theroux was first given an opportunity to make documentaries as a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":648378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[69,171,53,4659,5158,80,33916,67,132,68,3894],"class_list":["post-648377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-netflix","tag-podcasts","tag-politics","tag-porn","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-youtube"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116211521110481294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}