It’s hardly a secret that “influencers” and “streamers” are addicted to attention and can’t say no to a camera. But, if they had any sense of self-preservation at all, the “manosphere” stars featured in a new Netflix documentary would’ve refused to speak to documentarian Louis Theroux — because they’ve now been utterly exposed as frauds.
The documentary, Inside the Manosphere, is a journey into the toxic world of “alpha male” influencers who ostensibly teach young men how to be masculine, thrive in the dating market, and succeed in life.
The stars of this seedy world, on the back of their courses and shady investment schemes they push onto their fans, are often seen live-streaming from high-rise Miami condos surrounded by beautiful women and driving expensive cars. Their appeal to the millions of young men who follow (and financially sustain) them rests on the idea that they, too, could reach this lifestyle and that these macho influencers are the real, authentic deal.
But what if it was all a lie?
The inescapable takeaway from Theroux’s documentary is that many of these stars don’t actually believe or live by the things they espouse, and they’re not particularly shy about admitting it.
For example, the streamer HStikkytokky, real name Harrison Sullivan, decries the evils of pornography and the online platform OnlyFans publicly. But he tells Theroux he also purchased an agency that manages OnlyFans girls and that he promotes their pages to his followers in exchange for a cut of their revenue.
“Do I agree with it? No. Would I profit off of it? Yeah.”
That’s a direct quote Sullivan offers Theroux, under astonishingly minor levels of pressure. It’s almost as if he truly believes his audience won’t notice or care about his inconsistency.
Sullivan offers a similar explanation for why he publicly collaborated with the infamous porn star Bonnie Blue, who claims to have had sex with 1,000 men in a day. First, he tells Theroux he thinks she’s “absolutely repulsive.”
But when Theroux asks Sullivan why he got her on his stream, Sullivan literally says, “for clout.”
“If I’d just done good things, I’d never have really blown up on social media in the first place,” he says.
Harrison isn’t shy about admitting that he doesn’t truly believe or live by many of the things he tells his fans publicly. In another revealing moment, he says, “Have I said f— the Jews in a clip? Yes. Does that mean I’m antisemitic? No, I’m ‘clip farming.’”
Harrison is, by far, the most candid of any “manosphere” star profiled in the documentary. But he’s not the only one who is exposed as a fraud.
For example, the “alpha male” star Justin Waller is weirdly cagey about answering basic questions about his family, but he eventually admits that he has “one-way monogamy” with his wife, in which she is monogamous but he can have sex with other women. He says he lives this way even though he doesn’t “promote it or believe every man should [do it].” He also later admits that he and his “wife” aren’t actually legally married.
Meanwhile, the virulently antisemitic and extreme Myron Gaines, real name Amrou Fudl, talks a big game to Theroux about how his girlfriend, Angie, knows her place and that he plans on having “multiple wives.” But when Angie comes out and joins them on camera, she seems surprised by this suggestion and suggests that Fudl behaves differently off camera.
Fudl’s public front may have caught up to him: In the months since the documentary was filmed, Angie has left him, gone to therapy, and spoken out about her experience.
The theme across all the personalities featured in the documentary is that the persona they present to the public isn’t consistent with who they are behind the scenes — or how they make their money.
Almost all the stars, it turns out, sell scammy courses or promote shady investments to their gullible followers based on promises that are rarely, if ever, fulfilled. They sustain their high-flying lifestyle by selling their followers a false idea that they could also get rich by following their advice, but this ignores that they’re only this rich because they’re selling people the idea that they could also be this rich!
It’s the pyramid scheme of the influencer age.
But while the documentary does an adequate job of exposing the underbelly of the manosphere in an entertaining way, it leaves some more fundamental questions unexplored. Why were millions of young men so culturally and socially disillusioned that they fell prey to these charlatans? (At one point in the documentary, “manosphere” followers are interviewed and openly admit they believe “men are born without value” and say that they look to these role models because they hope to one day be worth something.) And how do we help them see that they’ve fallen prey to these snake oil salesmen?
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Yet answering these questions? That’s a lot more difficult than giving a few grifters a microphone and letting them expose themselves.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
