Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
It’s been more than 30 years since Louis Theroux first had the opportunity to do so Documentaries As a correspondent on Michael Moore‘s TV nation.
Since then, Theroux has become a prominent documenter of the strange, extreme and dangerous, photographing everyone from the group. Westboro Baptist Church For extremist Zionists in the West Bank.
But in inside the manosphere, His first film with Netflixout March 11, Theroux tackles 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, and creating… pornography Content, clearly racist. All of these taboo areas of life that I spent my TV career documenting in various forms come together in Manosphere“.
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.
Atmosphere is a broad description for a class of online personalities that includes everyone from an über-podcaster Joe Rogan to Health and fitness content creators and bros cipher. 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.”
I’ve touched it in the past Manosphere World, pictured with convicted January 6 rebel Anthem Jeunet (also known as 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 Sneko (real name Nicholas Kane de Palenthazzi), who attended President Donald Trump’s recent party. opening. 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 atmospheric character Theroux couldn’t convince to participate: Andrew Tatea former kickboxer who was Charged With rape in multiple 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 replied: “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.