Louis Theroux on the Manosphere: “It’s Very Profitable to Be a Dick on the Internet”

It’s been more than 30 years since Louis Theroux first had the opportunity to produce documentaries as a correspondent for Michael Moore’s Channel. TV nation.

Since then, Theroux has become the preeminent documentarian of the strange, the extreme, and the dangerous, photographing everyone from members of the Westboro Baptist Church to extremist Zionists in the West Bank.

But in inside the manosphere, His first film with Netflix, out March 11, Theroux takes on what he somewhat jokingly described to WIRED magazine as “the final boss battle of Louis Theroux’s career.”

“I’ve been kicking around this topic” for years, Theroux told WIRED from the Squid Game conference room at Netflix’s London headquarters. “It combines religious congregations, misogyny, adult content, pornographic content creation, and downright racism. All these taboo areas of life that I spent my television career documenting in various forms come together in the atmosphere.”

Theroux says he was drawn to the topic not only because of its reach and influence, but also because of the challenge of photographing people who in turn photograph you and turn your presence into content that boosts their channels.

The Manosphere is a broad description of a class of online personalities that includes everyone from podcaster Joe Rogan to health and fitness content creators and crypto bros. In his documentary, Theroux focuses on the extremes of atmosphere that push racist and misogynistic content to appeal to younger viewers.

“The goal is not just to promote toxic content,” Theroux says. “This, in a sense, is the entrance, this is the front door through which they get people’s attention. But the goal is to engage young boys, in particular, and get them to buy their products, or their slightly inferior forex trading products, or so-called online universities. It’s a bit of a cynical scam.”

He has touched on the world of the manosphere in the past, photographing with convicted January 6 rebel Anthem Jeunet (aka Baked Alaska) and white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

“We went at this as an opportunity to explore an increasingly influential world,” Theroux says. “This has a scope and scope that goes beyond anything I’ve looked at in terms of similar extremism… There are tens of millions of people watching this content. It’s an important topic.”

To illustrate his point, Theroux spent time with HSTikkyTokky, a British influencer whose real name is Harrison Sullivan, and American Manosphere star Snico (whose real name is Nicholas Kane de Palenthazzi), who attended President Donald Trump’s recent inauguration. He also spends time with Myron Gaines (real name Amr Fadl), a prominent host on the show Fresh and valid Podcast, and Justin Waller, a Miami-based influencer.

But there was one character Theroux couldn’t convince to participate: Andrew Tate, the former kickboxer who has been accused of rape in several countries. (He has also been accused of human trafficking in the UK, all of which he has denied.)

Tate and his brother Tristan have become among the most recognizable faces of the manosphere movement, earning huge sums of money from their tens of millions of followers.

When Theroux messaged Tate about the possibility of spending time with him, he said Tate responded: “I’m the most relevant man on the planet. And who are you? You’ve been relevant for years?”

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.