Russell Brand defends the Manosphere against Louis Theroux's documentary, dismissing factual reporting as fiction while praising billionaire-backed influencers on Rumble and X. Despite scarce evidence of direct ties to figures like Andrew Tate, Brand minimizes genuine harm as "theatrical macho camp," yet his editor mocks sending queer children to Dagestan, revealing severe empathy deficits. Ultimately, the exchange exposes how profit-driven culture wars dangerously polarize society regarding vaccines, transgender rights, and antisemitism. [Automatically generated summary]
You can just go, hold on, but they said that, they said that.
I became a Christian preempting that charges would appear from deep history.
I went to one white party.
What?
What are you talking about?
I'm a migrant right now in the United States.
In fact, I would call myself an exile, a political exile.
Lying, probably true.
Inevitably, I lie sometimes.
I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
I'm the main problem.
I'm the main problem.
Let's go full screen on Russell.
This is on Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one, Russell Brand.
I'm Al Worth, and every show I go through an episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand in order to dissect and debunk it.
This week, we are taking a look at Russell's.
Defense of the Manosphere in response to Louis Theroux's new documentary.
But before we get there, if anyone wants to support the show financially by becoming an awakening wonder, head to patreon.comslash onbrand and sign up, and you will have my eternal gratitude, as well as being able to access additional content and a completely ad free version of this show.
So I did have another episode queued up for you all, but I really wanted to slot this slightly bizarre experience in.
As mentioned, we'll be taking a look at Russell's response to the new Louis Theroux documentary, Inside the Manosphere.
For those who haven't seen it, it is a slightly chilling portrait of the type of misogynistic alpha male bullshit being directed primarily at young men these days.
Quite a bit of it is pretty troubling, and even if you know a lot about the Manosphere, I still think it's worth a watch, because parts of it are revealing, and as ever, Louis Theroux doesn't fuck around.
It centers mostly on three Manosphere creators in particular.
And well, imagine my surprise when Russell said this.
So, Louis Theroux makes kooky documentaries.
Interestingly, he's made a documentary about male social media influencers, including HHS Tiki Toki, a British content creator.
He spoke to some people that we know, particularly through Dave, Justin Wallet.
He's like a sort of an affiliate and friend of the.
Tate Brothers.
And what was Fass and Myron, whose show I've been on a couple of times from Fresh and Fit or Fit and Fresh, you know?
Yeah, Russell knows two out of three shithead Manosphere guys, and has even been on Fit and Fresh with Myron Gaines a couple of times, supposedly.
For the life of me, the best I could find was a mention on Myron's ex account that Russell would be on his show back in mid 2024 when Rumble was doing a lot of crossover content between its creators, which seemed contractually obligated.
But I can't find any actual content of Russell on Fit and Fresh.
Or anything else tying Myron to Russell.
It helps, of course, that Myron appears to have scrubbed his channel of an absolute shitload of content, probably in response to the amount of media attention he's been receiving.
Nonetheless, no Russell that I could find, even on the Wayback Machine.
So, hey, if anyone wants to do some sleuthing and can find that crossover content from hell, by all means, let me know.
Because, yeah, Myron is a pretty reprehensible jackass who just says awful things to and about women almost constantly.
And given the state of Russell's pending court cases, I would love to see how he handled that situation.
The other guy Russell knows is called Justin Waller, who arguably came off the best out of the three in the documentary, but he's good friends with the Tate brothers and preaches the same alpha male nonsense.
So all I'm actually saying is he seemed like the least bad, but is still fundamentally bad.
There is a discomforting moment in the documentary where Justin Waller is recognized in Miami and these.
Two young men come up to him.
You know, one of them was formerly homeless, and they thank Justin before they start discussing how amazing he is and how he's shown them a better path.
And it really does highlight for me, like, the predatory nature of the manosphere at large.
As for the one Russell doesn't know, H.S. Ticky Tocky, we'll get to him in just a moment.
And first, we need to hear what Russell considers to be the good things that Legacy Media has done.
Anyway, what was pretty interesting about this whole thing is that there was a moment where Louis Theroux, in his own way, represented a new voice in media, and now he is the voice of traditional media.
So, this show, Into the Manosphere, is in effect about new media, which is very sort of raw, and old media, which can have something.
I'm struggling to think of anything positive about it anymore, but must have something good about it.
I mean, like, it's done all of the great things it's done.
Godfather came out of it.
It's filmmaking, I suppose.
Let me think.
I'll think the same before the end of the show.
Famous journalistic event that was the Godfather.
Yeah, he does not think of anything before the end of the show.
I would think, you know, there are some obvious moments from history where we can give it up to journalists and legacy media.
You know, Watergate as a famous, for instance, there's a movie about it, for God's sake.
Or more recently, you know, like the Panama Papers.
Or more recently than that, stellar coverage coming out of Gaza against impossible odds.
I've been doing a lot of digging around journalism from the 50s and 60s lately.
For reasons that will become clear later.
And holy shit, there was some magical stuff going on back then, like coverage of the Suez War that forced a British Prime Minister to resign.
That kind of journalism?
Like, yeah, I think we can give people some credit somewhere.
The thing is, like, now I think it makes sense that Russell has nothing but disrespect for the entire field of journalism, because that is the only possible way he's able to occasionally describe himself as doing journalism.
Which he does.
And the only people he knows who describe themselves as journalists are the likes of Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger, who, very frankly, are not fucking journalists anymore.
They're people who play pretend and have a substack.
So if that is Russell's bar for what journalism is, then yeah, I suppose he does meet it.
Let this be a lesson to all of us to carefully define terms first when talking to anyone like this.
Oh, and to address his larger point, no, this documentary is not new media versus old media.
Louis Through is producing a documentary while these three influences he's covering are peddling crypto scams and pornography while telling their audience how terrible literally all women are.
There is barely any comparison to be made between the two other than both of them have humans in them.
You know, that's about it.
We're going to dive in here to a clip that Russell is.
Playing from Myron Gaines, who has posted a few videos showing unedited versions of footage that went into the documentary.
Basically, trying to claim he's being misrepresented, right?
That's the whole game now.
Actually, it's not as bad.
They made me look worse than actually it was.
All I actually see when I look at the full thing is edits for brevity, because yeah, the full context does not help this man, as always.
It does not.
Nonetheless, we'll see a brief bit of that before Russell's response, where even he has to defend the art of editing.
And then he goes somewhere decidedly more troubling.
Also, I need a.
If you could clean up the room too, I need some help with that.
Was that okay?
By the way, I was still weird.
No, no, no.
You know, it's awkward, though.
No, no, no.
What did you feel?
A little awkward.
That's been Louis Ferrou's stick, though, for as long as there's been Louis Ferrou, giving people enough rope to hang themselves with.
And I suppose documentaries are fictitious models of filmmaking.
Not talking about in relation to anything in my own life, of course.
But documentaries are not factual programming because what music do you use?
What do you include?
What do you not include?
All these things are editorial choices.
These editorial choices are there to create a particular impression or outcome.
Most people, even in 2026, don't watch media in that way.
I'm not just talking about ordinary members of the public.
I mean, even professional people.
You watch a documentary and you kind of treat it like a document.
But usually, in order to make a documentary, you're dealing with, you know, Massey's an editor.
Hours and hours and hours of footage, you need cutaways and what's called b roll.
Like, you when you're filming something, you film the person's hands so that if they talk too much, I mean, I would never have that problem, but you can then get cut away of their hands so you can cut whole passages of the things that they're discussing.
So, even looking at any content as if it's real is a problem.
And I guess, in a way, that's one of the defining problems or issues of our time.
When, like, a generation ago, war conk right or whatever, people go.
Okay, this is the news.
And if I was like, all right, so we got a war in Vietnam and okay, the Viet Cong and that's bad.
But like now, gosh, 80 years later, people know that the news is an entertainment show, that documentaries are constructed.
People have a different impression now of the way that information is compiled and presented.
And this is interesting that this has gone on in the way that it has because it represented a clash of media, a clash of media cultures.
Don't burp into the microphone.
The news is an entertainment show and documentaries are constructed.
Documentaries are fictitious, is what he began with.
Okay, so now seems as good a time as any to say that I am working on a book.
I'm usually loathe to bring up stuff that I'm working on unless I'm kind of finished, but in this case, it's very relevant.
The working title I have is Russell and the Erosion of Reality.
Fundamentally, I will be examining through the lens of Russell Brand over the last few years what I consider to be probably the greatest issue we face right now, which is that huge swaths of the population in many countries can no longer agree on consensus reality.
We have been funneled into entirely separate, disparate media spaces, and this is a problem that is only getting worse with no one doing virtually anything about it.
As for why this is a bad thing, well, in case it bears repeating, only one specific media sphere, the Regulated legacy one has any kind of obligation or tendency towards objective truth or fact.
Not that it's perfect by any means, but the rest of the media spheres, in particular the far right one that Russell exists in, benefits massively from cultivating a distrust in anything regulated media companies say or do, all while making spurious conspiratorial claims and hawking supplements they swear will cure all of your ills.
Case in point, the news is an entertainment show and documentaries are constructed.
Of course, this is particularly grim coming from Russell because there is a harrowing documentary about him covering many of the terrible things he's alleged to have done to women and a 16 year old girl.
But all that said, it would be irresponsible of me not to acknowledge that, you know, there are good documentaries and bad ones.
You need only look at the various quote unquote documentaries that have been made about. COVID 19 and vaccines over the last six years to get a feel for what I mean.
There are responsible documentaries that take things like truth and the burden of proof very seriously, and then there are shitheads with a camera and a conclusion they'd like to arrive at regardless of the data.
And there is plenty of messy middle ground between those two things.
It's one of the reasons that regulated legacy media is so vital now, but even then, often corporate and financial interests can interfere, ensuring either a positive or negative spin on various topics.
There is an example of this in the very documentary we're discussing, right?
Inside the Manosphere, where H.S. Ticky Tocky, again that name, asks for Louis Theroux's answer on whether a genocide is happening in Gaza, knowing full well that Louis can't or won't answer on camera because if he says, yes, a genocide is happening, not only is that putting his career on uncertain footing, thanks to institutions like the BBC, but it would also undermine any perceived neutrality Louis may have had in his coverage of the West. Bank, as well as jeopardizing any future coverage.
All of a sudden, a very straightforward question kind of can't be answered, essentially because of business.
Plus, you know, a concentrated campaign to conflate Zionism with anti Semitism and a conflation of being pro Palestine with being supportive of terrorism.
But you get my point, right?
Even the best in the business with seemingly the best intentions isn't immune to this kind of chicanery.
As for Russell's coverage here, well, he's been tasked with defending the manosphere, basically, defending his fellow Rumble creators.
And in this instance, the best he could come up with is having to zoom out so far that literally all documentaries are made up fictitious and therefore untrustworthy.
Does also help his own personal narrative, that I will say.
But that's the best he could manage.
The equivalent would be like me desperately trying to critique the new album from the scratch and being like, well, I can't think of anything bad to say about it, so I guess I'll just say, deep down, all music is bad.
And yeah, if you haven't listened to the Scratch's latest album, Pull Like a Dog, check it out.
It's a fucking delight.
Oh, and on the subject of the book I'm writing, if anyone happens to work in publishing, feel free to holler at your girl.
Piers Morgan's Crazy Days00:11:42
Get in touch at theonbrandpod at gmail.com.
I'll have a chat with you.
Next up, we have a clip from some other creator defending the Manosphere that Russell's going to show.
And he's defending it in probably the most idiotic way possible.
Okay, let's have a look at what's next.
Much of the Manosphere is made up of relatively uncontroversial comedians and podcasters who broadcast about women, fitness, and wealth to a mainly male audience.
Relatively uncontroversial.
That's the concession.
That's him admitting that most of this space is just.
There it is.
He admits it out loud on camera.
He's not here to understand the manosphere.
He's here to explore the edges, the extremes, the controversial content creators.
And then he named the documentary Inside the manosphere.
The foolishness.
Imagine if someone made a documentary called Inside America and spent the whole time in a maximum security prison.
Would that be Inside America or would it be Inside America's Prisons?
Taru didn't make a documentary about the manosphere.
He made a documentary.
That's fair enough.
But in a way, that's any editorial endeavor has to make selections about what the content is it's going to explore.
Even Russell has to be like, yeah, I guess you do have to narrow it down a bit.
You know, you can't just cover the whole thing.
That would be pretty tedious.
Also, if someone did create a documentary called Inside America and it was exclusively set in the prison system of the US, I would give that title probably a lot more credit than it deserves.
Like, you've got the pun aspect, obviously, you know, inside, right?
Being in prison, you're inside, right?
And then you've got like the potential viewpoint that the US.
Prison system is an extreme representation of the US as a whole.
And then zooming out further, you've got like the pseudo philosophical notion that, hey, all Americans are in a prison, man.
I kind of enjoy all three of those at least a little bit.
But hey, this is the best we're mustering so far.
Only from here, well, it was only a matter of time before Russell said something he really shouldn't.
And for me, the age I am, the type of media I've worked in, watching that documentary was fascinating because I've had a Foot in both worlds.
There were people in that documentary that I've met and know, and I don't think of Justin as particularly extreme.
He's one of those guys that talks about finance and cars and women and is plainly troubled by the restrictions that those kind of ideas place upon a person.
It seemed to me he can talk for himself, has his own very successful channels, which he can do that, as well as people like the HHS Ticky Tocky lad, who was like, Man, that shit blew my mind.
And it made me realize that if I had been 20 or 25, my God.
I mean, like I said, what they do is they go out and they chow up women, and then if you pay for their telegram services, you can watch them.
Screwing women in the bathroom, man.
It's like the way I lived my life.
I would have maybe made even more money, but probably would have had more court cases.
Complicated business, but I also would have had the footage, man.
What I wouldn't have done for that?
Crazy days, crazy days, crazy days.
That at the end there was a man realizing he probably shouldn't have said those things, what with at least two criminal cases against him alleging the sexual abuse and rape of several women.
And of course, there's also the civil case against him.
Crazy days, crazy days, crazy days indeed.
And yeah, his little cabal of buddies are on screen as well.
For real though, having poured through Russell's bookie whook, the younger him would have been an absolute Prime target for today's manosphere.
It overwhelmingly attracts young, usually fatherless men who feel outcast in society and says to them, Hey, if you follow all of my shit and give me your cash, I'll teach you how you can have all the sex and all the money and basically not have to work.
And holy hell, Russell would have fallen for that hook, line, and sinker.
And as Russell puts it, there's every probability he would have become one of those creators himself, creating his own little downline of young male victims.
While touting the same awful views of women that he was taught when his semi estranged dad took him on a sex tour of Southeast Asia at the age of 17.
It's pretty grim to think about.
Okay, so Russell's been floundering a bit so far.
He's not really mounted a strong defense, not really as strong as I think he was hoping.
But in this next clip, he seems to think he's found a thesis that can work.
And for context, in the documentary, H.S. Ticky Tocky openly refers to his girlfriend as the dishwasher, which is just that's always an indication of someone you really want to have in your life and take advice from.
But so it's really interesting because I don't agree with glib sexism or anything that's not reverential and loving to, you know, God's creation, i.e., like, you know, when the lad says, as he does rather blithely, I'm talking about this lad Harrison, there's the dishwasher.
But I think that.
People are playing a kind of part, don't you think?
Like in hip hop, when people are like, you know, I've got my Glock and I'm spraying up this and that and I'll wet you up.
Like these things are not, it's a kind of a theater, it's a kind of camp, it's a kind of macho camp, is what I would call it.
And to sort of take it seriously and then straw man it is a degree of editorialization that goes too far.
Aha!
It's theatrical macho camp.
It's wrestling.
He's essentially comparing this cabal of terrible misogynists for hire to professional wrestling, which is where the actual theatrical macho camp lives.
Also, holy shit, if you have to pick a summer camp, theatrical macho camp would be a hell of a choice.
I realize everyone has a different vision of theatrical macho camp, but for me, everyone in the camp is singing show tunes dressed as Macho Man Randy Savage.
And I am loving every second.
Anyway, apparently, if you take anything the Manosphere says or does seriously, you're taking things too far and straw manning something.
And fair enough, Russell.
But if you could relay that message to the millions and millions of young men who are taking it seriously, that would be pretty helpful.
It's only breaking their brains potentially for their entire lifetime, ensuring that they will probably never have a successful, healthy relationship.
And then landing the weight of that rank misogyny they're being taught squarely on the shoulders of literally all women everywhere.
Again.
So if you don't want Louis Theroux to be looking at your buddies under a microscope, maybe do something about the problems they're causing first.
Just a thought.
Now, as if the people we're covering here couldn't get any worse, the failed rectal exam that is Piers Morgan decided to have H.S. Ticky Tocky on his show.
With some pretty disastrous results.
Piers Morgan had our man HS Ticky Tocky.
I'm giving him too many H's in his name.
And this is how new media is.
It's a little more on the front foot.
Check out this.
Perhaps you've seen it already, but I found it pretty interesting.
Here's what I think about you.
I watched the documentary.
I think you're a fucking idiot.
I think you're a sexist, misogynist, homophobic twerp who got exposed in a global way by Netflix, by Louis Theroux.
But what you are, you're a little half wit and you'll make your little followers.
Don't get round.
There's no point me wasting my time talking to you.
Is there?
What's the point?
Exactly.
No, no.
Do you know what?
Let's chill it down then.
Because what I just said, there's 50 more things that we can have.
50 more things that we can have a stupid back and forth and try and wipe each other.
I don't care.
I don't care about your silly insults.
Talk to me normally.
I don't care about your silly insults.
What do you mean you don't care?
What do you mean you don't care?
What I said is facts.
I have a picture of it.
I can flip it around and show you right now.
I couldn't care less about your silly little insults.
It's like a two year old.
Why would I care?
A two year old.
A two year old.
Listen, sir, I don't know why you come on and you talk like you're holier than now.
As soon as you're away, who is this?
Applications are open.
All right, let's do this.
That's your ting, bro.
That's your girl.
Let's end this, please.
Cooked.
You know what?
I'm not doing this.
Sorry, guys.
It's pointless.
It's going to be difficult to contain that kind of energy and that kind of mischief.
That's what it's like now.
That's what it's like now.
They're online, they're armed, these young men, and they're sort of playing a different type of game.
Yeah, Russell's approving grin here is pretty much all you need to know.
And yeah, for context, HS Tiki Toki held up a picture of Piers Morgan's wife from her social media when she's sunbathing.
And there's a sign in front of her or next to her saying, wanted pool boy, no experience needed.
She'd put the caption underneath as applications open, right?
To anyone who has progressed beyond the emotional intelligence of an eight year old, it's just a vaguely amusing and suggestive post.
You know, for social media, that's all it is.
It's not even interesting.
But HS Tiki Toki clearly thought that it was some kind of gotcha that he could level at Piers Morgan.
And worst of all, Piers Morgan chose that moment to walk off set.
Like, he'd clearly already decided he was done.
But walking offset right then gave the impression that he had been rattled and had therefore lost in the eyes of the manosphere at large.
When you really zoom out a little on this, like every single thing about it is just immensely pathetic.
Like HS Ticky Talky is a sad little shit, and Piers Morgan's entire shtick is just outrage farming under the illusion of debate.
So we truly do see the worst of both worlds here, with Russell's reaction as like a bleak cherry on top.
Never fear, though, there are more cherries to come because Russell wants to hear what his yes men, I mean, stuff, I mean, uh, Paid friends have to say about it.
It's pretty interesting.
I see you look right up.
You liked that, did you?
I mean, he was great.
Yeah.
I thought, I thought, with, I thought when, I mean, for Pierce to get up and leave like that, and in a sense, it's like, ah, almost like he won, you know, in that exchange.
He was coming at him, he came at him too hard.
And in a way, I mean, you just saw his reaction to it.
He was laughing at it.
He thought, Hey, this is great.
Blue Collar Mindset Clash00:04:10
I'm getting a rouse out of you.
Yeah.
Like, and then has to get up and leave through it.
His own show.
His own show.
He had to leave.
So he went from dressing down this kid, speaking to him like a child, like he's a teacher telling him off, basically.
And they didn't realize, oh, shit, I'm in a completely new media environment.
This guy has bought receipts and I don't want on my own show.
So I'm going to leave my own show.
So it's a completely different world that he's living in now.
And although I don't agree with everything that he just sticky-talky did, I think it's funny to show a guy like that.
He's dressing you down like a kid.
There's your wife.
What do you think?
No, I'm leaving my own show.
Flustered.
Flustered.
The quote that sprang to mind for me here was the old one arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon.
You know, no matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.
And all I can see here are a bunch of pigeons who have just watched their pigeon friend shit itself live on television, and they're all going, God, that was good, wasn't it?
Oh, fantastic stuff.
Next up, one of the pigeons, Dave, flaps to the defense of his friend, Justin Waller.
And there was one part of that documentary where he talked about the Matrix, Louis Farouk did, and he was sort of derisory about that.
But actually, that's where the old media has failed.
It's not failed because, indeed, part of its function is to stop people waking up and confronting the restrictions that prevent them being free.
But what I think is amazing is because.
Nowadays, people have this language about being red pilled and waking up and not trusting the narrative and breaking free from the system.
But if you're breaking free from the system only to operate within another slightly more luxurious prison, then that's not enough of a name.
But he's a very young man.
And why would he know that?
I certainly didn't know it when I was his age.
I was doing my own version of what he's doing.
I was trying to make money and trying to have sex with loads of women.
That's how I lived when I was in my 20s.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's unfair, too.
They're basing it off the.
What he knows about that kid's off the documentary.
Like, yeah, you don't know him.
Like, I know Justin, you know, Justin a little bit.
And Justin's primary thing is going and helping men that are struggling, like blue collar guys that are struggling.
That's his passion.
And so they just focused on sex stuff and women and cars and all that stuff.
But they didn't, like, his big mission is really helping blue collar guys.
And that's who he really speaks to a lot.
And I, I think that they didn't focus on that a lot.
I don't know about the other guys if they have a bigger thing or they're just trying to sleep with girls all the time or what.
Why would they focus on that?
Yeah.
Why would they?
They're making a show.
If anyone could see a slightly bemused face, I only just noticed that the bookshelf behind Dave, one of the books, is called Live, Love, Lead.
Presumably a bookshelf.
A book from a gun guy is going to be my guess.
And I'm sure if I read it, I would disagree with basically everything.
But I enjoy that title.
That is good.
Live, Love, Lead.
Okay, so the guy at the end there, the British guy, Massey, who we heard earlier, his role at Stay Free with Russell Brand is that of editor, or at least that's how Russell has described him.
And to hear an editor of a show who appears to have pretty significant input.
Say essentially, oh, they're making a show.
Why would they show any amount of fairness?
That's pretty damning to me.
Like, it does speak to a very particular mindset amongst Team Stay Free.
And, yeah, like, I've been covering this show longer than Massey's been working on it.
Andrew Tate Alpha Male Myth00:04:15
And I understand why he fits in.
I'll say that.
But to address Dave's complaints about the documentary painting his buddy in a bad light, well, Dave clearly thinks that Justin Waller's big project is to just do oh so much to uplift the working class men out there who are struggling.
Another view is that those same working class men who were struggling are Justin Waller's target audience.
They are his mucks.
One way or another, they are the ones lining his pockets.
They are the reason he has the big house and the fancy cars and the net worth of tens of millions of dollars.
It isn't just some big magnanimous project, it's Al Capone setting up soup kitchens.
It's also just such a funny complaint to hear on a show that regularly whines about Bill Gates' charity work.
Like, either you can see the problem or you can't.
You know, you can't have both.
You don't get to pick and choose.
Yeah.
And I realize comparing Justin Waller to Al Capone might be giving him too much credit, but you get the point.
Now, inevitably, in this discussion, we get to the subject of Andrew Tate.
And yet again, Russell has a poor comparison to make.
And as well, like, I suppose if the alpha figure in this space is still Tate, huh?
Like, Tate is the kind of Genghis.
Khan at the epicenter of it all.
And he is like extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily brave, successful.
And I think Andrew Tate.
Like any sort of.
It's interesting because it's not really art anymore, is it?
Like there's this kind of new media is creating sort of new forms.
Like in hip hop, you would have like sort of a great or punk or whatever, some sort of outlier art form.
You'd get brilliant pioneers and then you'd get people emulating them.
And some of those people would be brilliant and other people wouldn't.
So, I guess in hip hop vernacular, Andrew Tate is Rakim, and the asshats that we're looking at are like, what, Wu Tang or something?
Because I tell you what, I don't look at these motherfuckers and see Wu Tang, nor do I look at Andrew Tate and see Rakim.
All I see is a bunch of whiny little bitches who have nothing better to do than complain loudly about women into a microphone before bragging about their latest crypto trades.
Honestly, it's one of the more confounding aspects of the manosphere for me on a personal level.
Like, nowhere in any of these individuals do I see a person worthy of respect.
And because while I am non binary, I was raised male, and I was taught that the fundamental underpinning of masculinity itself was respect.
Usually with an implied threat of violence should anyone show disrespect.
But respect nonetheless is what it's based on.
It's not a good system, and I'm not advocating for it, to be clear.
I'm more just wanting to point out that, at least in my estimation, these Tetchy little man children don't even meet the most basic requirement for being a quote unquote alpha male.
And look, if your main job is talking into a microphone, you cannot be the picture of masculinity.
You just can't.
I don't give a shit how many elk Joe Rogan currently has in his freezer.
The man talks and gets high for a living.
And most of these manosphere idiots do exactly the same thing, just with more scams and pornography thrown in.
Andrew Tate is Genghis Khan, indeed.
Christ alive.
Like, Do you think Tate would hold up well in a Mongol army?
Because I do not.
I don't think he would do well.
Though he probably would drink yak's milk and then sell it to his followers at five times the price.
Anyway, only raw yak's milk, though, of course, not pasteurized.
Anyway, finally, the moment has arrived for Russell to heap praise upon the Manosphere men.
But certainly, anyone who's succeeding, they've understood.
Means of Production Conflict00:06:44
Economics, they've understood marketing, they've understood how to reach their audience, they've understood how the technology works, they've understood a lot of things in order to get in that position.
They've been innovative, they're probably very, very hardworking, dedicated, devoted.
The only sort of question that I have is not a question that Louis Theroux can genuinely ask because they're similarly nihilistic, actually.
Like the mainstream media is similarly nihilistic.
All they want you to do is kowtow to a different god, they want you to kowtow to that sort of guardian liberalism, this sort of flat.
Grey gruel sort of squeezed out the teats of Netflix and the BBC.
And these kids are like, fuck off, we're going direct to market, we're doing our own thing, we can handle it.
And they're showing that they can handle it because in the confrontations, when they're in charge of the edit or there isn't an edit, they come off better.
They come off better.
I don't think they do.
But like, I guess us, because we're sort of wearied, worn, old, bedraggled warriors on the edge of the path, I know what's on the other side of that womanizing lifestyle, for one thing, that I do know.
And it might be different for them because they're in charge of the means of production.
They're in charge of the means of production.
When I was doing this stuff, I was being brokered by Warner Brothers or the BBC or Sony or Fox or whoever, all those different people that I worked with and for over all those years.
I weren't dealing directly with an audience like these young men are.
So it's, yeah, it's a different world.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The brokers these Manosphere influencers are dealing with are not Netflix or Fox or the BBC, that is true.
They couldn't if they tried.
Instead, they have Peter Thiel, who owns Rumble.
They have Elon Musk, who owns X.
They have the masters of right wing social media to contend with, and in the case of being on Rumble, many of them have a direct deal with Rumble, just like Russell does.
Because also, let's face it, if Peter Thiel and Elon Musk Both decided they didn't like these guys and banned them tomorrow, they'd be totally and completely fucked.
Like, sure, they've understood the market and trends and know how to make things go viral and get people to their streams and whatever, but it's a career that fundamentally exists on a knife's edge because their content is so extreme.
They're operating at the whims of billionaires.
And of course, specifically because both Rumble and X host some truly reprehensible content, were a government to ban certain terrible websites from operating in a country, Those two would be at the top of the list.
Well, along with 4chan.
Like, hell, the future of X was being debated in Parliament not that long ago in the UK because people kept taking pictures of children and getting Grok to make pornography out of them.
Let that sink in for a moment.
So, if those platforms suddenly become inaccessible to people, or at least would require the use of a VPN for it to work, that's too much of a barrier.
Yet again, like, These people's career would be down the pan because they're banned from everywhere else.
Like, they're not allowed on YouTube or places like that.
So, like, they may be in charge of the means of production, the little commies, but that only works so long as they've got somewhere to put that content for it to be seen.
Inexplicably, in the next clip, Russell does actually hit a nail pretty squarely on the head.
But what I reckon this shows us is.
Both sides say, the culture war in your country is understood, that um, Msnbc are happy with Trump because Trump means better viewing figures for them.
Right, and now what we're seeing is even in secondary media spaces, both sides are content to sort of vie with one another.
This whole documentary has been good for Louis The Rue, it's been good for Netflix, it's been good for HS TIKI Tokki.
It's been.
The conflict is good and that's probably not a good ecosystem for all of us in the end, because really what we all want is peace.
We all want peace and people are reveling in dispute and conflict about increasingly ridiculous things.
I mean, not everyone wants peace, right?
But sure, on the whole.
Returning again to the subject of consensus reality, that thing I'm writing about, we not only live in a time where people profit from conflict and clickbait, as Russell accurately points out, we live in a time where two sides can get into conflict and both can walk away believing they've won, and their respective audiences will follow suit.
Like, if you ever watch any of those debate videos, you know, like one doctor against 20 anti vaxxers, or the one Jordan Peterson did against 28.
Take a moment to look at the comments section and then the social media spheres of the opposing sides.
Every single time, both sides are taking clips from it and presenting it as a victory for their cause, and every single time their audience believes it.
I personally believe Jordan Peterson was torn a new one when he went in there.
Ben Shapiro was also utterly bodied, yet their respective fan bases would argue differently.
So, it's not just an ecosystem of conflict we're addressing.
That's existed for a long, long while back, since at least the time of Jerry Springer.
Hell, if you really want to trace it back, you can probably go all the way to, you know, Roman gladiatorial bouts or earlier than that.
But what we're actually confronted with is the modern day equivalent of a battle where one side, one guy gets an arm cut off and then presents it as a victory because that was his weaker arm and he didn't even want it anyway.
And the audience fucking laps it up.
And when you expand that out to include beliefs about vaccines and conspiracy theories and trans people and the Jews, hard J, it's always a hard J, it all starts to become incredibly fucking dangerous.
And if anyone needs evidence of why it's dangerous, take a little look at polio rates over the last few years, especially in the US.
Like, we virtually eradicated that disease and now it is making a stellar comeback for Polio 2 Electric Boogaloo, baby.
Produced by RFK Jr. and Del Big Tree, of course.
Russell wants in on the rights, but everyone agrees he is far too irritating to work with.
Anyway, from here, we're going to move to a piece of content I hadn't expected to cover.
Polio Rates and Lack of Empathy00:03:31
See, I still have access to Russell's locals channel, although he doesn't really do much in the way of additional content on there anymore since the advent of Rumble Premium.
Occasionally, he'll do like an extra half an hour of whatever.
In this case, he was getting his team to pick random shit they wanted to talk about, and Massey, the aforementioned British editor who we've seen, he made a very particular choice.
Usually, when it comes to the terrible content covered on this show, I like it to be a surprise for the audience for the most part, but this one got to me, so I'm going to explain it a little bit beforehand.
What we're about to see is a sort of meme clip that Massey, the editor, thought was hilarious, where it is just actively mocking queer children, and I mean small children, and advocating for the erasure of their existence.
Most of the kids are just being queer or camp and living what appears to be Their best lives.
But at least one will be crying their eyes out while begging for recognition and empathy and then getting laughed at by these people.
So please bear with me because this is what passes for comedy amongst Russell Brand and his crew.
Massey, what the hell's Dagestan?
This is just a video I saw.
I sometimes bring something serious, sometimes bring something funny.
The video I saw of Islam Makachev, who's a UFC fighter.
And he said this one quote once about his opponent or something being weak.
And he said, just send him two or three years in Dagestan and forget, meaning like in Dagestan, we'll sort him out.
And people have gone to taking that and applying it to people's children on the internet.
Just watch the clip and see what I mean.
It's quite funny.
Alexa!
Oh, Alexa, play Timmy Smith.
Send him two, three years, Dagestan, forget.
This isn't it for young Sheldon.
Sheldon.
Send him two, three years, Dagestan, forget.
Get ready.
Send him two, three years, Dagestan, forget.
Jinsu, get it, girl.
Look at Rose.
Do you see her outfit?
Girl.
Send him two, three years, Dagi Sai and forget.
I'm sorry, what is your name as a group?
The Cleck.
Send him two, three years, Dagi Sai and forget.
Send him two, three years, Dagi Sine, forget.
Bon appetit.
Mmm.
Deliciosa.
Send him two, three years, Dagi Sine, forget.
My principal says that we're not normal.
Me and my friends, other human beings.
Send him two, three years, Dagi Sine, forget.
It's pretty enjoyable.
It's pretty enjoyable.
Is it?
Is it?
Like, there's honestly not much to say here other than just how demonstrably fucking horrendous that clip is and how repugnant these people are for laughing at it.
My god, they're grinning fucking ear to ear.
I feel gross for having it anywhere near my show, but I recognize I would be doing everyone a disservice if I didn't illustrate the resolute, inhumanity.
Humanity and lack of empathy demonstrated by Russell and his crew.
Queer Suffering in War Zones00:03:01
It's fucking painful.
And it kills me because I look at those kids and I'm like, man, you all look fucking great.
You kids are awesome.
Well done.
And there was one adult thrown in there as well, but I guess well done to you too.
But like, fuck, man.
Like, the.
Oh, yeah.
Sometimes I just.
I really, really don't appreciate these people, you know?
Like.
I don't know.
I know what I'm getting into most weeks, and then occasionally they'll surprise me with something just particularly fucking awful.
And to cap it off, here's how that bit ends.
I mean, some of those people are the most fun people when they grow up and entertainers and stuff, but it does show the contrast between cultures.
Like, you wouldn't have much of that in a war torn country like Dagestan.
You're not getting that in Dagestan.
They're not going to tolerate that.
Khabib is from Dagestan.
Exactly, yeah.
Yeah, they look pretty serious.
I always feel like when in NA meetings, people talk about tough childhoods and that.
And sometimes there'll be people, someone in from one of them countries, and you sort of hear, hmm, there's something different about this level of suffering.
It's not even like my parents used to beat me up or I was abused.
It's like, we were in trouble, we killed in mourning.
Like, it's all just so sort of awful, a level of hardness that's not.
It's not from the culture, it's coming out of the ground.
It's almost like all suffering is relative, and your worst day could just be a goddamn Tuesday for someone else, and vice versa, right?
It's something I'm confronted with often as a parent, because sometimes a matter like not being able to find that book she likes could lead to my child's worst day since she's been alive.
To me, it's a little trivial.
To her, it's the worst thing she's ever experienced.
And what you need to respond with in that moment is basic human empathy.
Not, oh, well, I've had it harder than you, suck it up.
Like, fuck off with that nonsense.
And what's fascinating about that clip is the kind of machismo reverence that Russell's crew are giving to the idea that, oh, in a war torn country where people are properly tough, well, they wouldn't even have queer people.
I'm like, man, those exact same people are there, it's just now on top of their own internal struggle, they also have to kill people.
As well as the fact that, you know, in good chunks of the Middle East, same sex relations come with a price tag of impunity.
Imprisonment or death.
And to me, that's tougher than anything these idiots think of as macho.
Having to bury who you are as a person and then, like, risking your life just to be your authentic self?
These guys wouldn't be able to imagine that level of suffering.
Authenticity vs Machismo00:01:56
These five fucking straight white men.
Hell, I don't think they can even understand the level of suffering most queer people go through in the US or the UK.
Like, just the average person.
It's just a sheer, ice cold lack of empathy running through this.
And finally, Massey, if you're watching this, you don't get to enjoy the entertainment value provided by the queer community.
If you're making fun of queer kids for existing, fuck you.
You don't get to reap the benefits of what we contribute later as adults.
And that's gonna suck real hard, because guess what?
Virtually the entire entertainment industry is queer.
Through and through.
No more musical theatre for you, or theatre full fucking stop.
A lot of books just fucking gone.
Like, entire industries you no longer have access to.
You're gonna be left with Ted Nugent and Kid Rock and Kevin Sorbo.
Have fun with that all star lineup, you total shit.
Ah, dear oh dear.
Yeah, this one turned out to be rougher than I expected it to be, in ways I did not expect.
But we got there in quicker time than usual.
So that's, you know, that's a flip side, I guess.
Anyway, if you want to support the show, please head to patreon.comslash onbrand.
I'd love to have you.
It's full of queer made content.
And by God, I might just try and make it much gayer at this point.
Sequins on literally everything as just an extra fuck you to this group of people.
Onbrand will be back real soon.
But in the meantime, take care of yourselves and each other.
Thank you very much.
I love you.
Bye.
All right.
I'm going to finish now because I'm hungry and I want to eat something.