Louis Theroux on the Manosphere: ‘It’s Highly Profitable to Be a Dick on the Internet’

It’s been implicit 30 years since Louis Theroux was archetypal fixed an accidental to marque documentaries arsenic a newsman connected Michael Moore’s TV Nation.

Since past Theroux has go the preeminent documenter of the weird, the extreme, and the dangerous, filming everyone from members of the Westboro Baptist Church to ultra-Zionists successful the West Bank.

But successful Inside the Manosphere, his archetypal movie with Netflix, retired March 11, Theroux is tackling what helium lone somewhat jokingly describes to WIRED arsenic “the last brag conflict successful the gamified vocation of Louis Theroux.”

“I've been circling this subject” for years, Theroux tells WIRED from the Squid Game gathering country successful Netflix’s London headquarters. “It combines cultlike groupings, misogyny, big content, instauration of pornographic content, and evidently racism. All these taboo areas of beingness that I've spent my TV enactment documenting successful antithetic forms travel unneurotic successful the manosphere.”

Theroux says helium was drawn to the taxable not conscionable due to the fact that of however pervasive and influential it is, but besides the situation of filming subjects who are successful crook filming you and turning your beingness into contented that boosts their channels.

The manosphere is simply a wide statement for a class of online figures that incorporates everyone from über-podcaster Joe Rogan to wellness and fittingness contented creators and crypto bros. For his documentary, Theroux focused connected the utmost edges of the manosphere that propulsion racist and misogynistic contented to lure successful young viewers.

“The purpose isn't conscionable to propulsion toxic content,” says Theroux. “That, successful a sense, is the entryway, that's the beforehand doorway done which they get people's attention. But the purpose is to prosecute young boys, especially, and get them to bargain their products, their somewhat crappy FX trading products oregon their alleged online universities. It's a alternatively cynical grift.”

He has successful the past touched the manosphere world, filming with convicted January 6 insurrectionist Anthime Gionet (aka Baked Alaska) and achromatic supremacist Nick Fuentes.

“We went into this arsenic an accidental to research a satellite that's progressively influential” says Theroux. “This has standard and scope beyond thing I've looked astatine of comparable extremeness … There are tens of millions of radical who are watching this content. It's an important subject.”

To marque his point, Theroux spent clip with HSTikkyTokky, a British influencer whose existent sanction is Harrison Sullivan, and American manosphere superstar Sneako (real sanction Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy), who attended President Donald Trump’s astir caller inauguration. He besides spends clip with Myron Gaines (real sanction Amrou Fudl), a salient big of the Fresh and Fit podcast, and Justin Waller, a Miami-based influencer.

But determination was 1 manosphere quality Theroux was incapable to person to instrumentality part: Andrew Tate, a erstwhile kickboxer who has been charged with rape successful aggregate countries. (He has besides been charged with quality trafficking successful the UK; helium has denied each allegations.)

Tate, on with his member Tristan, has go among the astir recognizable faces of the manosphere movement, earning immense sums of wealth from tens of millions of followers.

When Theroux messaged Tate astir the anticipation of spending immoderate clip with him, helium says Tate responded: “I'm the astir applicable antheral connected the planet. And who are you? You were applicable years ago?”

Tate past followed up with a screenshot of Google Trends that showed a bluish enactment astatine the apical of the graph indicating hunt involvement successful Tate implicit clip and a reddish enactment on the bottommost of the graph showing involvement successful Theroux implicit the aforesaid period, according to Theroux.