The British documentarian has embedded with everyone from Jimmy Saville to Scientologists, via swingers, the Westboro Baptist church, and various dangerous criminal gangs. But will he meet his match with these social media influencers who specialise in shilling products to teenage boys and going viral for espousing extreme (and extremely unpleasant) views?
Here’s our handy guide to the bizarre terminology and, ahem, colourful characters Theroux encounters, ahead of the Netflix premiere on March 11.
Harrison Sullivan, aka HS Tikky Tokky
Louis Theroux with Harrison Sullivan (HS Tikky Tokky)
Courtesy of Netflix
Harrison Sullivan, 24, is a British influencer who goes by the nickname HS Tikky Tokky. Raised in Essex by a single mother, Sullivan dropped out of Birmingham University to start a company called HED Fitness, which sold workout plans and protein shakes.
Sullivan often collaborates with OnlyFans models — although he describes them and their profession in derogatory terms — and was the director of a modelling agency called Exclucci Ltd. That company has since been dissolved. At the time of the documentary’s filming, he was livestreaming on Kick and offering financial advice to his Telegram subscribers. The Financial Conduct Authority issued a warning over this product, stating “you should avoid dealing with this firm and beware of scams.”
Amrou Fudl, aka Myron Gaines
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Louis Theroux with Amro Fudl (Myron Gaines)
Courtesy of Netflix
Amrou Fudl, 38, is a Sudanese American blogger who goes by the name Myron Gaines. He began his career as a fitness coach and was previously employed as an agent for the Department of Homeland Security. He resigned to focus on his podcast, Fit & Fresh, and wrote a book titled Why Women Deserve Less, which “highlights the ways in which women are benefiting unfairly at nearly every man’s expense”.
Based in Miami, Fit & Fresh regularly video streams its hosts interviewing other Manosphere creators, as well as local women who work in the modelling industry and on OnlyFans. It has been demonetised on YouTube, and criticised for broadcasting misogynistic, racist and antisemitic views.
Justin Waller and Louis Theroux
Courtesy of Netflix
Justin Waller, 40, is an American entrepreneur and Instagram influencer from Louisiana. He grew up in a trailer park and went on to play football at a college level. He made his money founding RedIron Construction, which specialises in steel construction, and has established himself as a life coach for men, instructing them on how to be “alpha males”.
Waller is an associate of Andrew Tate and claims he gave Barron Trump dating advice on a Zoom call between Tate, himself and the President’s son. He has been photographed with Tate and Donald Trump on multiple occasions. He is a proponent of “one-sided monogamy”, where he expects his wife to remain faithful to him, while he dates other women.
Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy aka Sneako
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Nico Balinthazy (Sneako) and Louis Theroux
Courtesy of Netflix
Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy, 27, is an American influencer of Haitian and Filipino descent who goes by the name Sneako.
His claim to fame is that he has been banned from most social media platforms — at some point. His video content began as street interviews with a focus on dating, before he moved on to trolling people by paying them to say racist slurs on camera. for what his critics call his violent, misogynistic, antisemitic, and racist views, which reportedly led to most of the aforementioned bans.
Sneako is a fan of Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. He appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored with Morgan and West last year, and hosted a livestream with previous Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, on the porch of Gracie Mansion. Previously New York-based, he moved to Miami and converted to Islam a few years ago.
Ed Matthews and Louis Theroux
Courtesy of Netflix
Ed Matthews, 23, is a British influencer who regularly collaborates with HS Tikky Tokky. He was the co-founder of their company HED Fitness, and built his brand on documenting his journey to acquire muscles while making misogynistic remarks.
In 2025, Matthews appeared before Basildon Magistrates’ Court after failing to turn up for a community service order, and reportedly paid a fine rather than wear an ankle monitor.
How do you define ‘the Manosphere’?
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Louis Theroux, Harrison Sullivan (HS Tikky Tokky), in Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere
Courtesy of Netflix
Theroux himself defines the Manosphere as “a group of almost exclusively male influencers who provide content about fitness, business and self-improvement.” Unsurprisingly, given Theroux’s penchant for putting the taboo under the spotlight, his documentary focuses on the “much more extreme” end of this community, where influencers also peddle in misogynist and racist rhetoric and peddle conspiracy theories.
The Manosphere grew out of the men’s rights movement and pick-up artistry craze of the Nineties and Noughties, when men in trilby hats attempted to ‘neg’ women into dating them. The advent of social media saw these concepts move out of fringe forums and blogs onto platforms such as YouTube, X (fka Twitter), TikTok, where they run successful grifts by sharing life advice for young men, alongside workout routines and questionable crypto schemes.
Their views are not homogeneous, but generally characterised by a high regard for traits and activities deemed masculine, an attitude of distrust verging on disgust towards women, and far-right political viewpoints.
What is ‘red pill’ philosophy?
Morpheus offers you the red pill or the blue pill
The Matrix, 1999
Manosphere influencers often refer to “taking the red pill”, a line from the 1999 film The Matrix, which is a metaphor for opting to see the upsetting truth about reality (versus the blue pill, which means remaining cheerfully ignorant of said reality). In Manosphere terms, this means accepting their view that women are scamming men for their time, attention and money with their feminine wiles, and men must learn to resist their cunning schemes.
Ironically, many film critics and gender theorists believe the red pill is actually a metaphor for the directors’ experience of coming out as transgender. Sister duo Lana and Lilly Wachowski have both transitioned, and during the Nineties, trans women were often prescribed oestrogen in the form of red-coloured pills. In contrast, antidepressant Prozac came in a blue-coloured pill. Presumably, the Manosphere guys do not subscribe to this interpretation.
Please stop projecting human nonsense onto wolves
christels/Pixabay
Being an ‘alpha male’ is another Manosphere obsession. It describes men assuming a dominant role in their social interactions, particularly with women. Again, it’s based on a fundamental misinterpretation of a concept, in this case relating to a widely debunked scientific theory.
In the mid-20th century, biologists studying wolves claimed they observed packs organising themselves into strict hierarchies, with males fighting for dominance and establishing themselves as the only breeding pair with an alpha female. However, these were captive wolf packs assembled from random, unrelated wolves in enclosures.
In the wild, wolves live in family groups of related animals and all share in the raising of pups, deferring to the authority of the breeding female. The most successful male wolves are caring and gentle towards younger pack members, and everyone prioritises the well-being of their most vulnerable kin.
What the hell is ‘clip farming’?
This term comes up a lot in Inside the Manosphere, but hasn’t yet reached the mainstream understanding of social media. Basically, it’s a cottage industry that’s grown up around streamers where they say something outrageous and their viewers make a short clip of that statement and help it go viral.
The goal is to plan to do something attention-grabbing to boost your profile – such as saying something rude about women – and gain ‘clout’ (attention, adulation, notoriety etc.). In turn, people can earn money by clipping content and promoting it on platforms such as TikTok. It’s a not-so-virtuous circle of profiting from outrage in the attention economy.
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere premieres on Netflix March 11