Meat as manliness. We explore the origins of “soy boy” and the rise of internet sensation Liver King (aka Brian Johnson) who looks like a cartoon caveman on steroids and calls himself a lifestyle coach, CEO, and “primal” — all while owning a mansion, a fleet of vehicles, an array of guns and even a private jet. Behind his carefully crafted social media shenanigans, of course, Liver King owns a dozen companies selling a vast array of supplements to his followers.
Manclan is a new podcast series by Annie Kelly and Julian Feeld exploring the digital world of masculinity influencers, esoteric manliness rituals, and alpha men. Covering everything from pick up artists to weightlifters, from New Age health perverts to neo-fascists, it’ll also be touching on the pre-internet history of masculinity and men’s movements.
Our first episode is free to all! For further episodes: http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous
When you subscribe for $5 a month you'll get access to the full Manclan mini-series as it comes out (+ all episodes of Trickle Down with Travis View + an extra episode of QAA every week + access to our entire archive of premium QAA episodes)
Cover art by Jess Johnson (http://instagram.com/flesh_dozer)
Theme music by Nick Sena (http://nicksenamusic.com)
Editing by Corey Clotz. Additional music by Pontus Berghe.
Man, the breadwinner, playboy, carnivore, retainer of semen, and lifter of weights.
He is wild, hairy, dominant, breathing into his balls and bonding with his bros.
And more than anything, he charges you monthly for his content.
Welcome to Man Clan.
We are your alpha hosts and paragons of masculinity.
Annie Kelly and Julian Field.
This week our Sigma Male guest is none other than Jake Rokitansky.
Has extremely strong thumbs due to extensive controller gaming.
So how are your testosterone levels doing Jake?
Seething.
He's doing this in a Final Fantasy t-shirt.
Yeah, I got so much testosterone, my hair is falling out.
Isn't that like one of the theories about it or whatever?
Yeah, no, that is what it is.
Oh, well, we need to get you on estrogen then.
Hell yeah.
Wait, what's the theory?
That testosterone leads to hair loss in men.
Huh, interesting.
Yeah, I don't ever have to worry about having low T. I think he's stuck in the voice, folks.
We're fucked.
Somebody help me.
What is this Final Fantasy shirt I'm wearing?
It's for pussies!
Man Clan is a podcast series in which Julian and I will be taking a dive into the digital world of masculinity influencers, esoteric manliness rituals, and alpha men.
Julian and I's long-standing rivalry is well known to our listeners, but we're going to put those differences aside to explore masculinism in the age of Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
From pick-up artists to weightlifters, from new age health perverts to neo-fascists, We'll explore every option available for young fellows looking to define themselves in these uncertain times.
We'll also take a look at the pre-internet history of masculinity and men's movements, to try and understand how it all ended up this way.
Perhaps along the way, we can learn what the hell is going on with that particular gender, and how we can all become tougher, stronger, more manly men ourselves.
As some of you might know, I wrote my PhD thesis on what was then called the Manosphere and its interaction with and evolution into the alt-right from 2012 to 2016.
You don't hear the phrase so much anymore, but the Manosphere was essentially a loose coalition of blogs and forums devoted to anti-feminist politics, male identity and, naturally, extremely dehumanising dating advice.
As fun a place as it was to study, by the end of that harrowing ordeal I just wanted to take a nice relaxing break.
And so I threw myself straight into the world of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and QAnon instead.
Now, Julian has encouraged me to return to the online masculinity arena to see how it's evolved since I stopped keeping an eye on it.
And listeners, I can only apologise for what we will reveal.
It seems that, in an ever-saturated market for influencers who tell you how to become the dominant alpha male you were always destined to be, the space has only got weirder, uglier, and more generally demented than ever before.
In today's episode, we'll be digging into the increasingly common notion that the thing that's holding so many men back these days is their diet, and more specifically a lack of meat in their diet, preferably red meat, and sometimes raw red meat.
Organs, if possible, of course.
That's an important one, is that muscle meat, the less manly version.
Eating the organs, which I have to say I've always had a distaste for.
I do not really like liver.
Is that right?
I'm actually the opposite.
I really like.
Oh, there we go.
I really like liver, tongue, heart.
I do as well.
Tongue, I've never had.
I guess I'm just more manly than you.
That explains your misogyny, yes.
I will say I like foie gras, which I guess is an ugly French side of me.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's so cruel what they do, but it is so delicious.
The cruelty, you mean?
No, no.
Yes.
I'm coming out as pro-animal cruelty.
The connection between masculinity and meat is one that has a long history, although not necessarily as ancient and primordial as some of our carnist masculinity influences might want you to think.
In fact, it's probably about as old as some clever 19th century advertising.
According to a fascinating piece in The Conversation by the food historian Professor Paul Friedman, for most of the 1800s it was rare for cookbooks and household manuals to delineate between male and female tastes in food, given it was expected that the family would simply eat together.
This changed in the 1870s as more women began to enter the workplace, giving them opportunities to eat without any men present, and businesses sensed an opportunity.
According to Friedman, Chain restaurants geared towards women proliferated.
They created alcohol-free safe spaces for women to lunch without experiencing the rowdiness of working men's cafes or free lunch bars, where patrons could get a free midday meal as long as they bought a beer.
Or two.
Or three.
It was during this period that the notion that some foods were more appropriate for women started to emerge.
Magazines and newspaper advice columns identified fish and white meat with minimal sauce, as well as new products like packaged cottage cheese, as female foods.
And, of course, there were desserts and sweets, which women supposedly could not resist.
Actually, another female food I don't really like.
I don't really like sweet stuff, like chocolates and things like that.
Uh oh, so I think what we're seeing so far with this podcast is that Annie is more masculine than me, which... I think I'm the highest T individual here.
What do you do for dessert?
Like, if you do want a dessert of some sort, like a bread pudding maybe?
No, I really like crisps.
Okay.
Yeah, like, kind of, I like really salty things.
I think that's my, like, that's my treat food, crisps.
Okay.
And actually some of the really sour sweets.
Do you guys have Haribo there?
We do.
Yes, those are great.
The tangfastic ones, the really sour ones, I like those.
Tangfastic?
Yeah.
This success of gendered advertising soon evolved into a common sense nutritional belief that men and women didn't just desire different foods, they needed them.
And the supposed biological requirement in men for meat just made sense in a way.
Because they were meant to be the strong and dominant gender, it was only logical that they needed the nutritional essence of domination, eating another animal.
Even if the form the animal came to the consumer in was a far cry from having hunted it himself.
During the rationing of World War One, where meat was scarce, prime supply chain routes in Europe were diverted from mostly female civilians to male soldiers.
In a 2019 study, social scientists Nakagawa and Hart found that when male participants experienced a subtle threat to their masculinity, they would express a greater attachment to meat than male participants who hadn't experienced such a threat.
The way they actually did the, like, threat to the male participants masculinity was really funny.
They would, like, ask them to say, like, three things about their personality that they thought were feminine, and then, like, ten things about their personality that they thought were masculine.
So it's, like, quite easy to think of three examples, but, like, they were kind of assuming that ten is actually quite a hard number to reach.
Right.
So most of them wouldn't come up with ten, and then they would be, like, how do you feel about me?
It's quite devilish.
Devilish design.
Once you're done with, like, left ball, right ball, penis, I'm pretty sure that's about it.
Back hair.
You have back hair.
I don't.
I don't.
But some guys do.
That's true.
And it is delectable to shave it.
I make small puppets and stuff them with it.
In my opinion, there is something else going on here in the modern age, which is the increasing popularity of vegetarianism as a lifestyle choice, and how that, like every other thing we do, has become part of the culture war.
This maybe isn't that surprising.
Put crudely, in most Western societies, there is a not insignificant right-wing propaganda machine that associates all vaguely liberal left causes with femininity and therefore weakness.
Vegetarianism and veganism, with all their various motives regarding caring for animals and the future of the planet, would seem to fall squarely under that girly umbrella.
This is why it's so common for right-wing pundits to defiantly declare their love of red meat any time the subject comes up.
It's asserting their own masculinity, but also specifically defining themselves against a conception of the vegetarian critics as weak and effeminate.
Memorably, Fox News' Jesse Watters debated a social scientist who'd published a paper on red meat and toxic masculinity, while tucking into a steak.
Keep it simple.
How does eating meat make the genders unequal?
Eating meat holds a lot of symbolism.
And it really is too much to explain in four minutes.
But it has to do with the fact that our individual level decisions, the things we decide to do as individuals, what we consume, what we put on our bodies, the things we buy and put in our households, are fundamentally political acts.
Okay.
Right?
The personal is political.
Okay.
So, I'm having a steak right now because I'm starving.
Perfect.
I hear you.
I wish I could have half of that, but this doesn't look vegan and I'm trying to be vegan.
You're a vegan?
It's really hard because, I don't know if I told you, I'm from Wisconsin.
Okay.
And cheese was like one of my favorite things.
See, that looks pretty good.
It's a little rare, medium rare.
Yeah.
You've got some nice dead animal, dead cow hanging on your fork.
Is this Bad that I'm eating meat?
If you go hunting, that's a totally different story, right?
The blood's on your hands.
Right now, you're kind of just enjoying the benefit, and the blood's on someone else's hands, and that's not very fair.
What if they want to hunt meat, or what if they want to raise cattle?
Oh, totally, but the idea of killing and taking a life...
That we should really deeply consider what that means for us as human beings.
You know, people have said you should judge a society by how it treats their animals.
And we, you know, it'd be great if we had universal health care for our animals.
Universal health care for animals?
That could be expensive.
We can afford it!
Look!
Really?
Because we're twenty trillion dollars in debt.
I got some money.
Do you care more about people or animals?
I care about Our world, and I think in order for us to achieve a more sustainable future, particularly regarding what's happening with climate change, we need to figure out how the 7.6 billion of us on this planet can be good neighbors.
And we're really bad at being good neighbors right now.
Okay, so why should I be a good neighbor to a squirrel?
Well, you don't have to worry, if you don't want to worry too much about the squirrel right now, This girl's part of nature, right?
If you keep killing nature, what's going to happen to us, right?
If we as people keep killing nature?
Me too, right?
Like, I still eat cheese a lot.
It's not like something that's going to be perfect.
We're never going to be perfect at it.
But what if you're just hungry and the animals are there for us to enjoy?
For dinner, for lunch, for breakfast.
Did God tell you that?
Well, I mean, why would they taste so good if we weren't supposed to eat them?
Oh, my God!
He is insufferable in this clip.
Oh, God, he's like a family guy bit.
Like, oh.
Yeah.
Yeah, steak brought to you?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Triggering the lips, right?
Yeah, exactly, of course.
And there's, you know, a billion people in there, lazy boys watching this going, whoa!
Oh, he's taking another bite!
He's taking another bite!
He's winking at her!
Stupid lib!
Stupid dumb professor with all her knowledge and her good neighbors!
Give me the steak!
God, we will be doing that same stupid face and that awful little grimace that he's doing as we ride a bomb directly down into the earth.
I mean, it's just like, hey, listen, I eat meat, I like meat.
Being a twat like this is what meat eaters accuse vegans of doing.
And he looks like such a schmuck, let's be honest.
He's a real piece of shit.
They have it set up like he's at a fancy restaurant.
This is just dripping with classism also, in the fucking suit and the seasoned steak.
And they brought him a set of silverware rolled up in a napkin.
Like, what are you, why are you doing this?
No, this is, first of all, it's not a show, it's a world.
It's Water's World.
And I would like to take him, Jesse, to Water World.
See how he, yeah, well, you know what?
Let's meet out there!
I'll bet Jesse's one of those Neo-Sapiens who's got gills on his neck.
I mean it is very funny the way he's incapable of formulating a decent point because he's so satisfied with the bit that everything that he's saying during it is dumb.
But what if we like that?
But should I like squirrels?
There are decent points for why people eat meat and he's making none of them of course.
I think it's because she's also not really playing ball.
He kind of wanted her to freak out that he was eating a steak in front of her, right?
Yeah, she starts to kind of.
She's like, it's dead animal on your fork or whatever.
But then, I don't know.
He just, he was going to be this satisfied anyways.
I have a feeling he could do this in front of a mirror and look the same and probably does.
I would have loved if they brought the steak and she was like, this is such a stupid bit.
I'm out.
And like, you know, just took off her microphone.
And I'll bet he would have sat there just eating his steak silently, smirking at the camera.
Or if she was like, could I have a bit?
And takes his fork and knife, starts to cut the steak, and then jams the knife up into his skull.
So, we have two strands of thought here about masculinity and meat.
One which says men biologically need meat to remain strong alpha hunters, and another which says that veganism, as a lifestyle trait associated with liberals, is essentially for girls.
More recently, the online right have fused these two narratives in their own charming and unique way.
It began with a theory posted on, where else, the fitness board of 4chan that claimed soybeans, which are the basis for tofu and frequently found in vegetarian meat substitutes, contained phytoestrogens and were thus literally force-femming hapless liberal men concerned about their carbon footprint.
This led to Soy Boy becoming a trendy insult among the far right for men they perceived as overly liberal, weak, or feminine.
Wait, so you're telling me the Soy Boy thing came directly from 4chan?
Yes.
Oh my god.
Oh no.
I thought we could get away from this QAnon bullshit.
That's the same pattern?
Paul Joseph Watson, then an editor at InfoWars, quickly jumped on the trend and made a video for his channel on YouTube, popularizing the concept for the less social media savvy.
Soybeans contain high amounts of phytoestrogens, organic compounds that mimic the female hormone estrogen in the human body.
This reduces testosterone and lowers male sperm count.
Men who eat half a serving of soy a day have 34 million fewer sperm per millimetre than those who don't.
Men with low testosterone have impaired sexual functioning.
They lose their libido.
Men with high estrogen take on feminine traits.
They find it harder to handle stress.
They become less assertive.
They become low energy.
Their voices get higher.
Their genitals shrink.
They lose muscle tone and they lose hair.
Just incredible.
And he even says millimeter instead of milliliter, showing what's really going on here.
But yeah, it's true.
If men eat enough soy, they sound British.
As an amusing twist of fate would have it, it turns out the brain force energy pills that Watson's own Info Wars was peddling also happened to contain soy.
But all of this is of little importance because essentially the hack science behind the supposed feminising effects of soybeans was incorrect.
Phytoestrogens are not the same as the estrogen that humans produce, and while experiments done at a cellular level do show the phytoestrogens mimicking the effect of human estrogen, it doesn't necessarily follow that this would affect the whole body the same as taking hormone replacement therapy.
In a meta-review on the effects of diet on sex hormone levels in men, the authors N.E.
Allen and T.J.
Kaye concluded that, quote, in comparison with factors such as age and BMI, nutrients do not appear to be strong determinants of sex hormone levels, and that, quote, the data on the effects of dietary phytoestrogens on sex hormone levels in men are too limited for conclusions to be drawn.
But as Adam Hamblin, writing for The Atlantic noted, we actually do have a gigantic reference point to refute the allegations that soybeans are nature's hormone replacement therapy.
After all, there are many countries in the world where eating food made from soybeans isn't a recent phenomenon.
This contemporary soy panic in the West either fails to mention the fact that soy products seem to have been working just fine for Asia without eradicating the male race, or perhaps on a more sinister level, draws on racist stereotypes about Asian men as evidence.
At a purely practical level, experts presented with the breast question have cited the basic facts that men in many Asian countries have long consumed soy-rich diets.
They do not have gynecomastia, developing of breast tissue, at especially high rates.
If anything, diabetes, heart disease, and many cancers tend to be low compared to those in the U.S.
Yet Asian men have long been depicted as effeminate in Western culture, along with the soy they consume.
It is this toxic online atmosphere in which our episode's protagonist emerged, fully formed, looking like a caveman who discovered steroids millennia too early.
He calls himself a lifestyle coach, a CEO, and above all, a primal, who goes by the name Liver King.
The Liver King, real name Brian Johnson, offers an alternative lifestyle to his followers that he claims makes you happier, stronger and healthier.
And to be fair to him, it is a bit more complicated than simply "eat more meat",
although that's obviously a big part of it.
"Privals need to know how hard Liver King Chef Lionel works on Saturday!"
"I'm Liver King Chef Lionel, and here's what I made for dinner tonight.
Of course we have our bone marrow."
We got our liver because liver is king.
We have our testicles because who needs vegetables when you got testicles?
Aside from that, we have a whole roasted skin-on stuffed lamb.
This is going to be stuffed with rice, potatoes, some oregano, and some Mediterranean seasoning as well.
Aside from that, we're gonna have an organ ratatouille.
It's like a regular ratatouille, but of course, with plenty of organs in there, including liver, heart, and testicles.
We have our yogurt sauce to accompany everything I just mentioned.
And aside from that, we have our guacamole, we have our carbs on top of carbs, and then we have our burgers with cheese on top.
That's what we're having for dinner tonight.
Liver King Chef Lionel, out!
If you, like, bite into one of those burgers or, like, reach into, like, the neck of that lamb, there's a little note in there and scribbled on it is, please help me.
I'm being held against my will.
I'm being held against my will by this caveman.
He's forcing me to cook hearts and testicles and to appear on video.
I'm not getting any residuals.
Yeah, it's very funny how much they've trained him to kind of deliver the lines like Liver King, you know?
Just be like, come on!
Again, Lionel!
Again!
Lionel, you're a character in the show.
You gotta understand that, okay?
People aren't gonna want to eat testicles and hearts if they don't really feel like you're excited about it.
Yeah.
Liver King, as you can see, takes the eating meat principle to its extreme.
To him, all meat is not made equal.
Organs, known in the culinary world as offal, are the best, most nutritious parts.
From what I could find, there is actually some truth to that.
Offal does tend to be more nutrient-dense than muscle meats.
The science on eating it raw, as is Liver King's preference, is a little bit sketchier.
Liver King here.
I'm hungry.
Send something up.
What?
Vegetables?
Why would I eat vegetables when I can have testicles?
Send me up all the primal food and all that other shit that you have.
30 minutes?
Liver King doesn't have 30 minutes!
That was fast.
Good afternoon, Liver King.
Your beef liver.
MORE!
Your bison liver.
Yeah.
[CRUNCHING]
[SMACK]
More!
Your testicle.
[slurping]
[smacking lips]
[slurping]
More!
You're bone marrow.
More!
(groans)
Those sounds are like the sounds from an early access survival game on computer of feeding your character.
Is he eating all that shit raw?
I'm glad you picked up on that, Jake, because I specifically picked that video because I thought the audio would translate really well for our podcast listeners.
What I think is very funny is that he's hired the person working for the hotel.
Probably not hired, just asked her to be in the video.
I doubt he pays these people.
Poor Chef Lionel.
At least he's getting like a regular wage.
But this woman is like holding these this kind of tray with this little bell and with the last piece that he slaps back down on it it just falls and shatters all for the bit.
Weird and he's eating all of it raw?
Yeah chewing it raw.
Don't you get really sick from that?
It is an issue.
Specialists have mentioned that raw meat contains a lot of bacteria and in the long term that can be pretty dangerous.
Yeah it can.
This guy, Liver King, must have diarrhea like five times a day.
He actually claims in interviews that he shits so perfectly he doesn't have to wipe.
That it's nice and hard and yeah.
Now that's a claim I can get behind.
Awful, awful stuff.
This is horrible, this is horrible.
I hate, I hate this.
Oh, good, good.
We've just begun.
I hate watching this big bearded, like, you know, he looks like the, um, I'm not trying to body shame, this is somewhat of a compliment, he looks like, you know, back in the day, you would get that tube of wrestler men, they were just all pink, and they were like these rubber, like, wrestler guys, and they would come in a big plastic plastic tube you get like 25 of them or whatever. He looks
like that and he's like digging, he's like eating these like floppy like
bright pink like raw pieces of meat you know like he's a caveman. We don't have to do
that anymore. Our ancestors struggled so we could thrive and eat stuff like
McDonald's. Yeah but you're not gonna get millions of followers just eating
McDonald's alone in Some people do.
Some people do.
There's a lot of, like, McDonald's review YouTube channels.
Joey's food tour and that kind of stuff.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, you're right.
You could be.
But that market is already taken.
Yeah.
He had to do something fresh.
Well, let's hope it's fresh or it will eventually kill him.
One thing that you have to get used to watching Liver King's content is how he uses primitive It's typically a derogatory term, and it feels especially uneasy when he, a white guy, uses it freely about indigenous tribes he's visited in Africa.
But in Leverking's worldview, the term is actually a compliment.
That's because his entire philosophy is that modernity itself is toxic to humans, and the more primitive, primal and ancestral we become in our lifestyle and habits, the happier we are.
Liver King's website discusses what he calls the Nine Ancestral Tenets, which are all issued as directives.
Sleep, Eat, Move, Shield, Connect, Cold, Sun, Fight and Bond.
Now, some of these are pretty sensible.
Sleep, for example, recommends not eating directly before bed, and avoiding artificial blue lights to get better sleep.
I know that these are both probably the right thing to do, because personally I ignore both of them and sleep terribly.
Actually, what he says is to get a pair of blue light-blocking glasses, which I'm pretty sure are not primitive items, but we'll get into the Liver King's contradictory approach to technology a little later.
Some of Liver King's tenets are a little more woolly.
Let's look, for example, at Shield.
The fourth ancestral tenet is SHIELD because we need to avoid dangers just like our early ancestors did.
But instead of running from lions, nowadays we run from seed oils, excessive Wi-Fi, EMFs, and man-made poisons.
Dangers like these end up compounding, and with an additive effect, they disrupt our hormones, metabolism, and ability to get deep sleep.
Start by turning off your Wi-Fi at night and stop wearing perfume.
The name of the game is progress, not perfection.
Now, I'm not implying anything here.
Well, no, I am.
But it's interesting, in this day and age, to discuss shielding from dangers, and to include Wi-Fi on that list, but not the well-known, very recent global pandemic in which shielding was very much a common discussion point.
And before I knew his stance on vaccines, his strong and explicit dislike of chemicals, his stated distrust of doctors and any health solutions which are not all natural, made me suspect he's probably not a fan.
He even thinks that beds have too many chemicals in them, which he expressed one time in his own charming bombastic way by blowing one up with a tank on Instagram.
Leverking here.
Modern day fluffy beds that look good, like this one, are laden with polyesters, plastics, and petrochemicals that wreck havoc on your hormone health.
That's why this has to be destroyed.
Three, two, one, liver!
Seems like a perfectly good bed he just exploded.
Yeah.
I love that it's like not enough to like just like plant some dynamite near it or whatever.
He had to like hire a tank to shoot a fucking artillery shell into the bed.
He owns that tank.
It's part of his fleet of vehicles.
To be fair to Liverking, it isn't just BED's chemical content that makes them such a problem.
He argues that they make humans too comfortable, preventing us from thriving like our less-cosseted ancestors.
But also, crucially, they block our access to the Earth.
This is a big one for Liverking, as he notes in his ancestral tenet, Connect.
The fifth ancestral tenet is Connect.
Our early ancestors were in constant contact with the Earth 24-7, 365.
The Earth has a slightly negative charge, which provides a grounding force for our electrophysiology.
With the advent of rubber shoes, cars, houses, and elevated beds, we no longer come into contact with this grounding force.
Think about it.
When was the last time you had your bare feet planted on the earth for any real duration?
The benefits of connecting in the earth include better sleep, improved blood pressure and anti-inflammatory and protection against EMFs.
All you have to do is take your shoes off and put your bare feet directly on the earth or hug a tree.
Start with 10 minutes and pay attention to how you feel.
This one is particularly funny to me because grounding is a new age concept that I've come across before.
It's usually espoused by older hippie-ish ladies who talk a lot about Mother Earth and Gaia and the like.
So Liver King, like a lot of the masculinity influencers we'll cover on this series, has taken a concept from a kind of feminine space and turned it into a sort of manly dominance ritual thing.
But there is one thing that I will say for Liverking.
He's actually kind of likeable.
For all the ways in which he's a cartoonishly excessive figure of masculinity, and his message of living ancestrally is an essentially reactionary one, he never does the thing that actually gets my goat about influences in this area, which is denigrate women.
Partly, I think this is because of how maximal the lifestyle he promotes is.
The masculinity guru sphere is something of a saturated market.
Many influencers, in order to even gain a foothold in the attention economy, need to become quite extreme to distinguish themselves.
And one of the easiest ways to do this is by saying hateful things to attract as much outrage as possible.
Liver King, with his platefuls of raw testicles and fondness for blowing up innocuous furniture items, is already extreme.
It's not that he's particularly progressive on gender issues, he just doesn't seem to have increasing resentment towards women as part of his business plan.
Perhaps that'll change in the future as more masculine lifestylists start to muscle in on his shtick, but for now I'm awarding him the prestigious title of least toxic influencer we'll cover on ManPlan.
Annie, despite our two clans being at war, with much blood spilled, and inbreeding, and PIMS, I couldn't be more glad to be hosting our first Man Clan Summit together.
And you know what?
I agree with you.
Liver King may be the least toxic guy we're going to be covering on this show.
He's an exhausting showman.
And basically the human incarnation of man as product.
But his brand as a whole doesn't seem to be hiding a profound hatred for women, nor does he seem like a particularly nasty person.
The first Liver King content I was exposed to was his Bread and Butter.
Short form, cartoonish skits posted to Instagram and TikTok, where he has 1.7 million and 3.1 million followers respectively.
And you know what?
Some of them are pretty good.
Take this one, for example, in which he challenges my worst enemies, the British, while dual-wielding axes.
Lyric King here to take over London!
Yeah!
Lyric King, out!
Why is he holding, like, two hatchets?
Like, he looks like he's about to star in an Ubisoft Assassin's Creed game.
Yeah, unclear.
But, uh...
I'm surprised you can get that close to Buckingham Palace.
Yeah, with like hatchets?
Wielding axes.
Yeah.
Very strange.
Especially since like knife stuff has been a big issue in Britain, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What are police playing at?
They're like, I don't know.
He's cool.
He seems cool.
Yeah.
They're all too scared of him.
While he was in the UK, Liver King also took a moment to desecrate the passing of Queen Elizabeth II by lifting weights in front of Buckingham Palace, exclaiming, I'm here!
The Liver King!
Which I think is very funny.
Yeah, that was cool.
Also, while in the UK, Liver King went on a podcast called The Diary of a CEO, which has about a half million subscribers on YouTube.
The hosts seemed to like him quite a bit, and I think Liver King appreciated the softball questions, which allowed him to deepen his brand building and personal mystique.
In his interview, he explored what he paints as a pretty tough childhood.
When he was a baby, his father died while serving in the Navy.
His mother and even grandparents used corporal punishment on him.
And he was bullied a lot in middle school.
I remember keeping a list of people.
That like a hit list I would write down the names if I could get revenge on these people These are the five or six guys.
You know that every fucking day.
They would they would they would bully me They would I mean I would be blindsided out of nowhere.
You know sometimes somebody would punch me and and I would wake up Just with my book bag the bell had already rang You know, going to middle school was just a living hell.
I had to figure out a way out of that hellhole.
I had started lifting weights just prior to 10, for no really good reason.
One of my mom's boyfriend, Michael Gleidens, he was a pharmacist, he said, hey, I got this old bench in my garage, you want this bench?
And I was like, sure, I'll take it.
And I was just drawn to it.
You know, I was just drawn to it.
And then something happened where I realized, like, this is the only place I could really control the outcomes in my life.
And so I was drawn to it more and more and more and eventually I got strong and I looked strong and I figured out a way out of this hellhole.
I figured out how to kind of blend in.
I figured out how to get some respect.
I'm about 14 at this point and at this point I got both my ears pierced twice.
I got my hair slicked back.
I'm wearing the baggy jeans.
I got the bomber jacket on.
I'm like, I'm kind of fitted in a little bit.
I kind of figured that out.
And my mom moved me.
She moved us because the high school that the middle school fed to was more of the same.
Actually, even worse.
Even worse.
And so she moved me to a predominantly Caucasian place that was more like me.
Oh, man.
I was with you, dude.
I was with you up until that last little part.
Pretty funny little note there.
You know, there was a kid that I went to middle school with who was like, Kind of tall, lanky, really geeky, he had big glasses, and middle school in the early 90s was, I mean, I don't know what it's like now, probably just as tough in other ways, but it was pretty tough, especially for boys who were not athletic.
And this guy joined the wrestling team in freshman year of high school, and by senior year, maybe even junior year, he was amazing!
massive hulking guy. I mean just just totally totally ripped and so I can
understand where liver King is coming from in terms of being bullied and being
kind of a nerd and and wanting to get strong so at the very least he was
physically intimidating but his did the last thing he says you know I would where
I thought that was going to go was that he said you know I did all of this work
you know I finally was fitting in you know I was I had the cool clothes I had
you know I was I was muscular and then my mom moved me and I just start all
Or my mom moved me and I was able to come into a new environment Reinvented and, you know, the bullying stopped or whatever.
But to give it that racial sort of like flavor, just, oh man, it doesn't feel good.
It feels like he wants to say something else.
Well, the interesting thing is he does mention that, that basically his pierced ears and baggy clothes and stuff didn't fit in at the new white high school that he went to.
And the second note that I would make there is that, as opposed to your friend, Liver King is 5'7", so he's a pretty short guy.
Oh, he's a short guy.
Yeah.
Hey, I was 5'7", basically all through... I mean, I'm like 5'9 now, and I went into high school like 5'1", and over the course of... And I'm not an athletic guy.
I tried out for the baseball team, I didn't make it.
I tried out for the basketball team, I didn't make it.
I tried out for the fencing team and quit halfway through.
tryouts because the physical requirements were too steep.
And then I tried out for a play.
And that's where I stayed.
But I had a little bit of that sort of short guy syndrome as well.
Me too, honestly.
I did not grow up to be, I'm about 6'1 now, but I was a very short guy until I went through puberty, which was quite late.
Same, yeah.
Two years into high school.
Yeah, same.
So, yeah.
I get it.
I didn't get my braces off until, like, beginning of senior year.
Yeah.
And then I also, like, developed, like, a little bit of an eating disorder because I was kind of a chubby kid, like, unathletic.
So there are pictures of me from, like, senior year where I, like, had my braces off and I was, like, really skinny.
Like, I had this long sort of giraffe neck because, like, my body just, like, wasn't meant to be that skinny.
I mean, it sucks.
Kids, other kids suck.
Especially, like, during that period where nobody was aware, really, of anybody's feelings.
And the message from the grown-ups was, you know, sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
You know, that was what you were told.
You were basically told, well, like, hey, yeah, people are going to call you these horrible things.
That's what they're going to do.
And all you have to do is just not let it bother you.
It's just, like, easier said than done.
I mean, even when I grew up, you know, and kind of went through a growth spurt, I was still like a really skinny and kind of gangly and lanky guy.
And instead of heading to the weight bench, I started doing drugs.
And that made me cool.
Yeah, that made you cool because, people, you were unpredictable.
Yeah.
Unpredictable.
Unpredictable.
I wasn't on like PCP, you know?
Yeah, they didn't know what drugs, you know, if you were open to drugs, you know, you could be on any of them.
No, it was like, hey, those cool kids are going to raves every weekend.
Like, you know, they're going to, walking to McDonald's on their break and smoking pot in like a small jungle space where used condoms were often found on the ground.
See, the funny thing was, the kids in my high school who were also the smokers, like the cigarette smokers, they all essentially, for lack of a better description, looked like Columbine kids.
They had the long black trench coats, they hung out on the corner, you know, they were very goth.
So, yeah, and I didn't really know about J.P.
I found out later that, like, half of the swim team was, like, on cocaine most of the time.
I never saw cocaine during high school.
I barely saw marijuana.
I mean, it was hard to come by in the Midwest suburbs.
You also barely saw any pussy.
True!
I was a virgin out of high school.
I mean, out of high school.
I was a kid who did not have sex in high school.
I lost my virginity, I believe, the night of our prom.
Because I was a 17-year-old at the time.
I really thought you were going to be like, the night of our wedding.
No, I'll leave that to you Catholics.
Oh my God, the night of my prom, I think it was senior year, I took this girl who I really liked, and we were having that awkward moment where you're dropping her off at the end of the night, and I was like, okay, this is the moment, I'm gonna go in for the kiss maybe.
And she put her hand over her mouth and was like, oh, I don't feel so well, and got out of the car.
Like she had to vomit.
(laughter)
Oh god, okay. Well...
She was like, I think I ate a bad cookie or something.
It was like from a cookie.
She claimed it was from a cookie.
Yeah.
Oh, I gotta poo my pants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh no, I've tripped and fallen.
Yeah, and this was like right near, so the neighborhood, I didn't live in this neighborhood, but the neighborhood where a lot of my friends lived and she lived was the North Shore of Chicago and we were right, it was Harold Ramis's neighborhood.
Who famously played Egon in Ghostbusters.
So I don't know why I included that.
I guess I just wanted to brag that I come from the Ghostbusters neighborhood.
Bill Murray is from my neighborhood.
Egon Spangler from my neighborhood.
OK, well, I'm taking out my man clan hammer and I'm bashing your skull in.
So for reference, when he was 14, this is what Brian Johnson looked like.
I wouldn't believe that was a teenager.
It's like a really built teenager.
I don't think anybody at my school looked like that.
Yeah, no.
Yeah.
Or maybe they did and I'm just, I'm just not shallow.
Right.
Uh, let's, let's not pretend.
Let's just admit that you never got a guy to take his clothes off.
So the funny thing is, yeah, he does mention that the moment he realized that the workout was paying off was when somebody compared his body to Mark Wahlberg's.
Oh, yeah.
Who's also notoriously short.
Yeah, I suppose so, huh?
Yeah.
One of the interesting aspects of the interview is how open Liver King is about bodybuilding as a form of coping mechanism for him.
I became obsessive about this, about controlling outcomes in my life.
You know, I stopped really leaning on other people.
You know, things have changed.
You know, now I would say that I really have a truly interdependent and synergistic culture.
You know, I'm sure that you know that culture and chemistry is where it's at.
You can do anything.
People say this all the time, the cliche, but it's true.
You know, you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go as a team.
You know, and it took a while to put that stuff together.
I think that a big part of the dark side is I'm so obsessive.
About controlling certain outcomes in my life.
That's why I spend three or four hours in the gym every day.
Every day, you know, and a lot of people are like, hey man, you just, don't you have other things that you, and I'm like, you know what?
No, this is what I have to do.
I have to do this.
Why do you have to do it?
Because I do.
Why?
You know, it's, I start with the hardest thing I'm going to do all day.
So I put myself through that.
I'm like, if I can do this now, everything's going to be a little bit easier.
And I've tried taking some time off, you know, a lot of, usually I'm so over-trained that the brain isn't even thinking right.
And so when I take a little bit of time off, I do a five day fast once a quarter.
So I don't work out when I do a five day fast.
And my brain is like on another level.
Is there not an element of the fact that the gym is what saved you from the bullies?
I'm sure it is.
So it's a survival mechanism, that place?
I'm sure it is.
And so much of my message today is that strength is an alpha virtue across time and space.
So that's a pretty quick jump there from like, yeah, it's a coping mechanism to, yeah, no, I'm, uh, you know, living, living on a different level in the Alpha Virtue across time and space.
Yeah.
Time maybe, but I guess by space he just means in other countries.
Yeah, I think he just means, like, anywhere in the world.
But it makes it seem like, yeah, he's like this cosmic being, you know?
Yeah!
Like fucking Dr. Manhattan sitting on the moon, just being like... He's seen every possible dimension.
I'm so ripped.
I wouldn't be surprised if, like, the next video you guys called up, he's, like, glowing blue in it.
Like, I wouldn't be surprised.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
He just has this really, like, unreal quality to him.
Looks like a kind of cartoon in so many aspects.
It does get, like, a bit, like, jarring when you, like, view a lot of his content.
So, after high school, Brian Johnson went on to study at Texas Tech University, graduating in 2001 with a degree in biochemistry.
He claims to have written a thesis on supplemental nutrition.
He then immediately went to work for Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company.
A quick glance at their Wikipedia shows they've been embroiled in multiple scandals, including illegally marketing drugs, workplace discrimination, jacking up the price of insulin, and buying the right to manufacture a controversial bovine growth hormone used to increase milk production in cows.
The previous manufacturer of that drug was all-around good guys, Monsanto Pharmaceutical.
Mmm.
He literally worked for Big Pharma.
Yeah, not... Honestly, pretty subprimal, as he would put it.
I was gonna say, that is not ancestral.
No.
That is the least ancestral job I can think of.
So true.
After four years of that, Johnson left the company and his resume begins to look a little more complex.
A few different companies pop up under him and simultaneously worked as a rep for Livanova, which manufactures cardiac surgery and neuromodulation devices.
He also founded and named himself chief visionary officer of a company called Synergy Playgrounds LLC.
It dubbed itself a full service innovation agency.
And basically did management consulting and marketing, mostly for businesses related to dentistry and plastic surgery.
Another decidedly subprimal thing.
So, Jake, could you just read what he put on his old LinkedIn under Chief Visionary Officer?
Welcome to Synergy Playgrounds, powered by a culture of synergy that makes it rain in vertically aligned markets.
We unleash creative synergy that drives small business performance for big business ambition.
Welcome to Radically Different.
It's a radically different way of thinking, doing, and delivering victory for the wildly important goals of the game.
I've never read so much nonsense.
(laughter)
Jake is having a full on fucking meltdown.
His eyes are revulsing.
He's coughing.
He's melting.
That fucks him up way worse than any of this other stuff.
Maybe because son of English teacher, but nothing pains me more than reading so much that says so little.
That says nothing.
Oh God, it's like the curse of the brand energy.
A culture of synergy that makes it rain in vertically aligned markets.
I'm not CEO brained enough, I think.
You want the rain to come down vertically.
When it comes down sideways, the umbrellas stop working.
No, because I think he's trying to tap into the business slang of, like, multiple verticals.
No, I know, I know.
You know, all of these people, we all do, let's be honest.
If you're working and doing anything, you're in any industry, you've got a bunch of words that make whatever you're doing sound like you're not still a fucking kid just trying to figure everything out.
Also, it kind of validates the fact that you're probably doing a job that could not exist and would just make the world a better place if that was so.
Well, you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess, folks.
To pay the rent.
At the time he also had a company called Brian Box Holdings that he later renamed Brain Box Holdings and basically like it was interesting I think looking into this era because it's hard to find information and also there's always like a list of companies with weird-ass fucking names like Synergy Playgrounds or Brain Box.
Anyways, 2004 was a big year for Johnson because he also met his wife Barbara while snowboarding.
Hell yeah.
Awesome.
That's a great way to meet somebody.
What a fun shared interest.
Yeah.
I got no problem with that.
Yeah.
No, it's good.
It's a very Caucasian space.
It's a promise of no bullying.
Moving too fast down the mountain for anybody to, you know, sucker punch you.
The only person who's sucker punching you is a child who's lost control of their skis.
Or a tree that you collide with.
So Annie, I wanted to show you a picture of these two at some point before Brian Johnson became the full-on liver king.
And before she became liver queen as well.
Absolutely.
I think we've mentioned that he always refers to her as liver queen.
Yeah.
No, that's a nice picture.
He's becoming more like the liver king that we know and love, but he still kind of looks feasibly like a real person here.
Yeah, they look like a happy, cute couple.
He looks like he obviously shaves his chest and does bodybuilding, you know, but there's nothing yet that's like insanely cartoonish about his physique.
He just looks like a guy who's extremely into working out and, you know, having a nice body or whatever.
And yeah, they seem happy together.
Here's from a GQ magazine profile of Liver King by Madeline Aguilar.
Barbara was a dentist and they opened a successful dental practice together before moving on to selling nutritional supplements that support the ancestral lifestyle to which they had become devoted.
His company, Ancestral Supplements, offers tubs full of gnarlier stuff than you find at the local G&C.
Grass-fed desiccated beef liver capsules, of course.
And grass-fed beef brain, beef tallow, bone and marrow, thyroid and colostrum.
He claims that while his businesses bring in more than $100 million a year, social media is a money-losing proposition, at least so far.
At some point, the dental business grew to encompass several locations, and the two also started some real estate-related operations.
The whole thing is a bit muddy, but what's clear is that Liver King and his wife became very wealthy, even before they started a dozen companies that Johnson considered ancestral.
Most of which sell supplements and seem to be multi-level marketing operations.
Recruiting what Brian called true believers with some pretty questionable marketing material.
Annie, would you care to describe this website splash page for Ancestral Supplements recruitment efforts?
Yeah, so it seems to show a vintage photograph of Native American tribespeople on horses.
They've got some teepees behind them and it says, Join our tribe in big orange letters.
Now hiring true believers.
$70,000 to $100,000.
Yeah.
In the page text, Johnson used his two children as a form of testimonial to the power of the product.
I believe that every man, woman, and child has the right to be strong, healthy, and happy.
Autoimmune-free, eczema-free, allergy-free, fatigue-free, and so on.
To live life with robust energy and biological resilience.
To go from a mere existence in life to discovering that which makes life worth living.
Well, my boys were tiny.
They didn't thrive.
They were allergic to everything.
Modern-day doctors couldn't help, so I set out on a journey and discovered ancestral living.
Things like nose-to-tail foods that our DNA evolved with.
The things that our DNA still expects today to heal and be healthy.
My boys haven't been back to a doctor's office the greater part of a decade, and they're the strongest, healthiest, and happiest boys you'll ever set your eyes on.
I believe that ancestral living is the path to health and healing.
I just so happen to sell nose-to-tail supplements like bone marrow, liver, and other organ meats in simple, convenient gelatin capsules.
Wanna buy one?
That is how I would take these supplements if I were forced to.
Yeah, I mean he like makes eating them look so disgusting that I guess if I was like sold on the health benefits but not on eating them.
Yeah, not on eating a raw piece of flesh.
Yeah.
Like literally cut out of an animal, you know, hours, hours before.
Yeah, I'd take the capsule.
Yeah.
The material we just examined was taken from the old Ancestral Supplements site, which was changed at some point this year.
So, Annie, can you tell us how the new splash page differs from the old one?
So it's now some very cute looking cows.
I mean, I think, I don't know what kind of cows they are.
They look like the ones we have in Scotland here, actually.
The big shaggy ones with horns.
And it says, join our tribe, now hiring true believers.
And no mention of what the salary cap might be.
No more salary claims.
Some people believe that people should make $15 an hour.
I think $12 is a more reasonable wage.
It's ancestral.
You need to respect the ancestors, like the chimney sweeps in Victorian eras.
He's like one of those guys, like Elon Musk, who like, you know, has people doing like, you know, incredibly tough labor, but he's like, it's the prestige, you know, it's the prestige for working for the company.
You know, a lot of your pay is, you know, tied into the fact that you're working for such an incredible company.
Yeah, it's like passion for the tribe.
Yeah, it is like, it is very ancestral if your ancestor owned a coal mine.
Yeah.
200 years ago, where you just made everyone buy from the company store and such.
Yeah, here's some ancestral script.
Actually, we're gonna get to that.
So, this brings us to the birth of Liver King, a character claiming repeatedly that he, quote, ate Brian Johnson.
So, he basically claims that Brian Johnson is gone, and he no longer goes by that name because Liver King devoured him.
That's weird.
Yeah.
Sounds like something out of an episode of, like, True Detective, you know?
I think it's quite a poetic concept of devouring your old self.
Yeah, very cool, very cool.
His first post on any social media platform was made in August of 2021.
So how has Liver King established such a huge following in just over a year online?
The answer is, the whole thing was planned out by the 1DS Collective, an influencer marketing and manager agency.
In fact, Johnson had contacted them even before he started his accounts, and by that point, he already had the sponsors for his future influencer persona—his many ancestral brands of supplements.
All of this was uncovered by Steffi Chow, who wrote this for BuzzFeed News.
This is not exactly a new phenomenon, as brands become increasingly dependent on social media platforms and influencers to find viral success.
Particularly in the wellness space, non-regulated products like detox teas that advertise a flat tummy have played the algorithm in order to cut through the saturation of marketing.
And inversely, many influencers have used their growing following to sell questionably researched wellness products.
But rather than the traditional influencer to SponCon pipeline, Johnson joined social media as a ready-made brand promoting an ancestral lifestyle, and the products that can help you attain that lifestyle.
Johnson said, "I'm an evolutionary hunter, so I have a few businesses.
All of them are exactly the same. The same story brand, the same mission."
I love "I'm an evolutionary hunter, so I have a few businesses."
Yeah, yeah.
Not ancestral.
Christ.
I'm a hunter.
Usually a hunter has, you know, a prey in mind.
That's the consumer.
Stalks that one.
Yeah, the consumer is the prey.
Stalks that one, you know, that one prey, that one prize kill.
Yeah, he's more of a fisher in that way, where he's trying to get a bunch of fish into a big-ass net.
Look, I'm an evolutionary fisherman, so naturally, I have a couple of businesses.
There's a specific set of vocabulary associated with the brand as well.
Liver King addresses his wife as the Liver Queen, and his sons as the Savage Liver Boys.
Liver King's fans are addressed as primals.
Cardio workouts are translated to simulated hunts, while strength workouts are training barbarian.
Now, when a corporation's using memes and voicy language is considered unbearably cringey, the Liver King persona slips past the trappings of a faceless company and user-created jokes to formulate his own ecosystem.
Yeah, so, you know, we mentioned Company Script earlier, but essentially now his system is that he'll have influencers post about the product and they are recompensed in store credit for ancestral supplements.
So that really is company style.
It really is company script.
Wow.
Liver dollars.
But in all the articles I read about Liver King, quoted specialists agreed, his diet is neither healthy nor recommended.
Including vegetables is actually a good thing.
Eating only organ meat, especially raw, can be dangerous due to bacteria and deleterious to your health in the long term.
Other claims made by Liver King are also hokum.
There is no scientific proof that electromagnetic radiation harms humans.
Vaccines are not inherently dangerous.
And the idea that eating an animal's testicles reinforces one's own testicles just doesn't check out.
Now, I know it goes without saying, but it's also true that food is not a replacement for wearing sunscreen, nor do all mattresses poison the sleeper with hormone-disrupting chemicals and flame retardants.
All of these falsities and inaccuracies were detailed in an article for McGill University's Office of Science and Society by Jonathan Jarry, who seemed genuinely frustrated by social media figures like Liver King.
I won't lie, it is draining to watch our pop-cultural kitchen churn out health influences by following the same recipe over and over again.
The steps are simple and lucrative.
Separate food groups into angels and demons.
Pit the inherent goodness of Mother Nature against the toxicity of man-made materials.
Exalt the merits of an ancient tradition, sadly forgotten but now rediscovered.
Look the part.
Make sure your phone's camera is always pointed at you.
Repeat your catchphrase.
Importantly, sell your own line of supplements.
Then there's the steroids controversy.
Across the board, fitness influencers, bodybuilders, and bystanders take one look at this red vascular cloud of a man and express doubt that Liver King is natty, a term used to describe people who don't take steroids or hormones to enhance their workout performance or gains.
Joe Rogan even stated on his podcast that Liver King had, quote, an ass filled with steroids.
This led to a public denial by Brian Johnson, ...who nonetheless praised Rogan and tried to score an invite onto his podcast.
Instead, Rogan doubled down.
The liver king thing drives me nuts, because that guy's on steroids.
Just shut the fuck up.
I know he's eating really healthy.
It's clear he's eating all these animal foods and, you know, he's eating organ meat, which is very rich in nutrients.
Well, that's true, but he's dodging the main bullet.
Well, it's too late for him now because he said no.
So if he is even on TRT, he should come out and just say it.
Well, look at him.
Do you know how rare it is to have a physique like that and not be on steroids?
You would have to be in the 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.1% of the human population.
Just the rare genetic freaks.
I mean, I don't care how much you lift weights.
That is a freak physique.
Liver King's marketing team seemed to have a problem on their hands.
But thankfully, they knew exactly what to do.
Make the entire situation into content.
So here's a skit featuring Liver King as a doctor delivering blood results to himself.
What up primals?
It is time to put the rumors to rest.
I just got my blood work done and the doc is on his way to give me the results.
Okay Liver King, I got your blood results.
Show them, don't tell them doc.
Okay, we did find something unusual about your blood.
Aha!
I knew it!
PRIMAL! PRIMAL! PRIMAL!
[laughter]
Liver King's denial of the relatively obvious, that he uses some decidedly subprimal substances to build his body,
is pretty funny considering one of his core messages is about taking responsibility.
I believe everybody has the same primal potential to become anything.
And when you can become anything, you realize that you're a true king, you're a self-made king.
And that's all about what I believe I model, teach, and preach, is taking extreme ownership, leadership, responsibility over the life that you shape and create, right?
This is the opposite Have we lost ourselves a little bit there?
Have we gone a bit soft?
making excuses for his life, right?
You have to have that insight.
You have to be held accountable either by someone else and/or to hold yourself accountable
to one day move along the continuum from being dependent to finally independent
to interdependent, right?
Somewhere along that maturity continuum.
I believe it's unacceptable for us to allow people to continue to do that.
Have we lost ourselves a little bit there?
Have we gone a bit soft?
Have we gone a little bit too far in the direction of lack of accountability,
blame and lack of personal responsibility.
I believe so.
I believe 100% we have.
You know, some things happen where People really watch what they have to say today.
You know, we're nice to each other.
You know, I say there's something that's happened where men have become pussies today.
Yeah, man, you really pulled it up from your bootstraps, guy who got transferred to all Caucasian school, who then, you know, was kissed into the dentistry business and then, you know, worked for Big Pharma.
Like, nothing pisses me off more than, like, a super rich, super rich guy being like, yeah, it's your fault that you're broke, you know?
It's your fault that you're sad or depressed or, yeah, that's on you.
It's because you don't, you know, you're not touching the ground enough, my man.
Yeah, you make a good point.
I have such bad news for you, Jake, about how all of the influences that me and Julian are going to cover talk.
Yeah, it's like this.
It's like this.
This is the world.
It's all fucking Ayn Randian bullshit.
Yeah, just yeah, not that the unawareness that you started on, you know, second base or third base.
Yeah, and I guess it's also, you know, they have a product to sell and part of selling that product is, like, the promise it will make your life better.
Right.
So they can't say, you know, there are circumstances out of your control.
Yeah, of course, of course.
But I would like them a little bit more if they did.
Yeah, me too.
I think it's very telling that when asked for examples, Liver King described situations where his employees and people serving him food needed to take more accountability.
Of course.
Oh man, and you treat your staff bad?
Oh, second number one pet peeve.
I believe in accountability.
You know, I could give you some examples.
On the way to the airport, our driver was supposed to be here 15 minutes early.
He's supposed to have my car picked up.
I got an F-450 dually truck.
It's supposed to be in the shade, 15 minutes early.
And it's not.
He showed up really just on time.
He showed up just on time.
And we get in the car.
It's hot as shit.
We're all sweating, you know.
And again, I'm good with all that stuff.
I'm good with it.
But you know what?
I sweat for four or five hours a day.
You know, I'm like, I'm ready to get in the car.
I'm ready to be, right now I'm ready to be comfortable.
And I said, Hey Adam, um, what happened?
And he said, well, I just got back from Mexico.
I was driving somebody, you know, in an RV, yada, yada, yada.
I got it.
And I said, Adam, all those are excuses.
What I want to hear you just say is I showed up late.
This is my fault.
This won't happen again.
And so he starts going into all it.
And I said, Oh man, don't make me do this.
Not in front of my kids.
Right?
Because I can't allow you to do this.
I can't allow this to be any—so I let him have it.
I say, man, I just want you to own it.
I want you to say that you messed up.
Here's how you're going to get better.
Here's how you're going to fix it.
And he proceeds to still defend—he felt like he needed to defend himself a little bit more.
And so he did apologize.
You know, what I ended up saying is, you know, primitive culture tribes don't really have a word for I'm sorry.
The guy fucked up by being on time and not having the car so cold that this hulking muscle of a man didn't have to sweat extra, I guess?
get better and that's all I want to hear.
I didn't want to have to do this in front of my kids, lesser human.
Like, fuck.
You.
Yeah.
No, for real.
Fuck you.
I was like, you are blessed enough.
You are blessed enough to not have to get on the fucking like the LAX like ride sharing tram or call a taxi or figure out your own transport.
Wait in the line.
Wait in the taxi line.
You know, like you have a driver, you know, in this big fucking car that's going to come pick you up, make your life super easy.
Fuck you.
Yeah.
That's the lowest.
That is the lowest of the low.
His other example is a guy serving him food and he'll be honest if he doesn't like it.
He's like, this is a bad food experience.
I'll just be honest, man.
They got to take accountability.
Yeah, that's not an example of you taking accountability.
You say, I believe in taking accountability and then just kind of say like, I believe in berating service staff.
You know what I do if I'm at a restaurant and a server brings me the wrong meal, like not what I ordered?
I just nod and I take it and I eat it!
It's not that big a deal.
It is way worse.
I don't know, maybe it's because I worked in food service, but I would rather not make somebody panic that they fucked up over something so minimal.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's why, like, you know, I think it is because you worked in the food service.
It's such a, like, difference, I think, working in places where, like, all your customers also have service jobs, compared to, like, working in a really fancy place where nobody has ever had a service job.
Like, the difference in, like, how nice customers are to you is just, like, so stark, right?
Totally.
But have you considered taking shitty expensive supplements and somehow not being a server after that because you become primal?
I'm not taking the accountability supplements.
Of course, one of the most glaring contradictions in Liver King's messaging is his use of technology and accumulation of wealth.
He claims we should live like our ancestors, but owns a dozen vehicles, including a tank, films himself shooting guns constantly, flies in a private jet, and owns a mansion.
For some of his followers and detractors, Liver King's claim that he sleeps on hardwood with a thin blanket isn't enough to neutralize the rest of these obviously modern habits.
And so, naturally, Liver King filmed the video explaining all of this away, which I have to say comes off a little bit as making excuses.
I was living in a mansion.
I was flying a private jet.
I was having a wakeboarding boat.
I was having all this stuff.
I was ancestral, right?
And I love telling the story because The evolutionary hunters, our earliest ancestors, left the comfort of the cave for a better life.
To build a better life full of excitement and full of adventure.
And when our evolutionary hunter ancestors found a rock and figured out how to bash it over a skull and access the brain, you had a subprimal right next to him who said, that's not very ancestral.
Because this is technology, right?
And that same evolutionary hunter figured out how to shape that rock into a blade, and how to use it as a weapon, and how to use it to butcher an animal.
And that same subprimal sitting on the couch, he says, hey, that's not very ancestral, right?
So he continues to do his thing and live a subprimal life.
And that evolutionary hunter figures out how to create fire at will.
Again, a progression of technology.
And that Same subprimal sitting on the couch says,
"This is not very ancestral."
Right, so he's sitting idly by, letting life happen to him.
Where the evolutionary hunter is creating the story of technology across time.
This is the epitome, the definition of what is ancestral.
There's a technology story across time.
So you can be a subprimal and sit on the couch and let life happen to you,
or you can be the evolutionary hunter that leaves the comfort of the cave
and creates and shapes a better life and moves from that tiny cave
to a big, better, badass, more luxurious cave.
And then, and then the guy that creates the wheel, and the guy that, the evolutionary hunter that evolves that into the engine, into the vehicle, into the plane, and then flying private, creating a better life, shaping a better life.
This is the epitome of what an evolutionary hunter does.
So I would say these very things that I do define what an evolutionary hunter is.
You can take that shit to the bank.
So a couple notes there.
I'm pretty sure that when the hunters first took a rock and bashed the skull of an animal open to eat the brain, nobody was like, that's not very ancestral because nobody was selling diet pills, fucking supplement pills.
Claiming to be ancestral!
Because they were just themselves!
There was no concept of that!
And then he says, oh, they sharpened weapons and fashioned, you know, like, knives and swords and stuff like that.
And then someone sitting on their couch said, that's not very ancestral.
No!
They did not have couches when they sharpened weapons for the first time.
It just, the entire fucking thing is just insane.
But it's like, it's an argument, it's an argument for progress.
Do you know?
And that's what I don't understand.
He's saying, you know, progress is, it's good progress.
You know, humans have always innovated and have always created technology.
And that's, that's what makes us human.
And I agree, but I'm just like, so why doesn't that count for vaccines?
Or beds.
Or beds.
Do you know, like, you know, he's completely right that like, there probably were at every stage of human kind of innovation and technology, there probably were people who were like, I like the old ways better.
You know, I know the old ways better.
This is what we've always done.
I prefer it.
Probably when we moved from like the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, there were people going like, I prefer bronze.
It's just what we've always had, you know.
But like, what I don't understand is why he's now in 2022 standing and saying, no, we have to go back to these ancestral ways, but not the ancestral ways, which mean I don't have a tank and several different cars and a private jet and a mansion.
Who can forget when the evolutionary hunter contacted a social media marketing company to put together a brand around sharpening knives for the first time?
Absolute garbage.
Oh my goodness, I'm so chuffed!
Alright, well here comes what I can only describe as investigative journalism.
Here's a tidbit you won't be finding anywhere else in any other articles that I discovered through
repeatedly Googling stuff and names and combinations of names and stuff like that
to figure out what the fuck is happening behind the scenes and what Brian was up to, I guess,
between 2004 and approximately 2021 when he first launched his social media.
I have a feeling he's had some of this stuff scrubbed by a company or he just really wasn't that online.
But yeah, I think.
With Liver King, we have to ask ourselves a question that often comes up with these types of figures.
Do they believe their own bullshit?
Or is it all just a put-on to make a buck?
When I first started looking into him, I was really on the fence about it.
But then I found a page from his Ancestral Supplements website that is no longer linked to from the main site.
It's titled, Brian M. Johnson and Barbara B. Johnson, Dying Wishes.
And it seems like my man is properly pilled to the gills on his own messaging.
Here's a part of it.
Advanced Directive.
Living Will.
If either myself and or wife are in a position where we can no longer make informed medical decisions for ourselves, we'd like another chance.
That means that we'd like to explore a super physiological ketone diet that's also rich in omega-3s, including lots of krill oil and non-rancid fish oils.
No sugar, no carbs, no shit.
Find a way to get me slash us a carnivore-based diet that's high in good fats, moderate protein, and virtually zero carbs.
Further, we'd like exogenous ketones administered.
Let's see what happens.
Also, I slash we would like to continue to follow the letter of our ancestral law.
This means following everything on our About Us page as it relates to lifestyle, sleep, sunrise exposure, earthing, no ambient artificial light, diet including magnesium, marrow, tallow, ketosis, etc.
Avoid dangers, see About Us page.
Hot and cold therapy.
Lots and lots of real sunshine.
Music and warmth of human touch.
As of March 4th, 2019, I slash we would like for Michael to be the one in charge of seeing this through.
When is enough enough?
If I, we are not showing improvement within six months, that's enough.
Pull the plug and celebrate my life with a big party, amazing food, live music, dancing, and fire.
Okay, okay.
So this guy, basically, if he is like brain dead, essentially in a coma, they're like, look brother, put me outside in a coffin, put me outside in a glass coffin, I want you to pump me full of liquid meats.
Pump me full of liquid meats for half a year.
That is insane.
See if you can bring me back to life.
Incredible.
Bring me back to fucking life.
If it doesn't work, hey, fire at the funeral I guess.
Make it a party.
Yeah, but you are right, Julian, that it's like a really revealing, revealing page.
Because it shows that he does, he does truly believe this.
Yes, yeah, no, he, even when all is lost, like, he's like, pump me full of more meat.
I want to look red and bloated and bizarre.
And please shoot some HGH into my toes.
I just imagine, you know, him next to his wife, you know, like the end of Snow White, you know, in these big glass cases on like a sunshiny meadow.
Yeah.
Put me in a med bed.
Put me in a med bed, essentially.
I would like JFK Jr.
to come and administer meat slurries into my lips.
So yeah, I was pretty flabbergasted by the page, which was definitely written by Brian himself.
I know this because the only other thing on it was a short, unfinished note addressing the care of his two sons, Stryker and Rad, and I think it really goes to show how he sees, you know, the male-female roles.
So... Instruction for raising Stryker and Rad.
Those are his kids' names?
Hmm.
Striker with a Y. Oh, don't make fun of the children.
It's not their fault.
It's not the children's fault.
I know, I tried to keep them out of this.
It's not the children's fault.
I tried to keep them out of this, but, like, he fucking... Oh, they sound like Street Fighter characters.
He puts them in all his, like, videos, and he has their hair combed in, like, the same weird way, like, towards the center, and it's just like, you know, he's using them as products, basically, which, you know, kind of sucks, and... That sucks.
Whatever.
That sucks.
Don't like it.
Anyways... Not happy to read this.
Here we go.
Barb's writing this.
Oh, that's it?
Yeah, it just never got finished.
Barb was gonna write the entire part about raising Stryker and Rad.
Okay, phew, phew, phew.
She's gonna do the whole kids thing.
I know I want the meat slurry!
I mean, maybe he's gone really ancestral and they'll just all be buried together in the same tomb, like the pharaohs.
Yeah, Barb's writing this because I would just write, uh, slay them and bury them with me.
Yeah, you know, one of those little, uh, tiny sarcophagi you can get, uh, you know, you see in the museum, uh, you know, when the baby pharaohs die.
In fact, uh, yeah, put the kids in a blender and inject them into me.
Uh, just to see what happens.
Maybe, maybe that'll fix me.
Yeah, feed me my, feed me my, feed me the slurry I've made out of my children for six months.
Let's, let's see if I reanimate.
Oh my god, what is wrong with this world?
Look at what the system has done.
It has created a true monster.
I mean, this guy wants to Frankenstein himself with, like, liquid testicle.
I can't even comprehend.
I can't even comprehend.
How you walk around day to day with these kind of thoughts in your head.
He's probably very happy He's probably happier than all of us are I don't know I think it's like that control freak thing where it's like You know as soon as you lose momentum you realize like oh my brain is doing weird stuff because as long as you can kind of Essentially assert like a kind of addict style control over everything around you like I'm naming my kids my wife has changed her name like I'm this new guy I'm working out every day you know that's like you can kind of be like I'm happy I'm productive I'm good I'm good I'm good but age and time and the nature of human existence really catches up to you the moment you drop the weights drop the control stop yelling at everybody who serves you and just go wait a second
Yeah.
What does it all mean?
The true ancestral power is being able to sit by yourself in a quiet room and not want to kill yourself.
Yeah.
Also, I'm pretty sure he's right-wing.
I think he's kind of cleansed that off his timeline, but a lot of his beliefs obviously align with some of that.
And also, recently in a video, he had a black rifle coffee shirt, which is...
Pretty strong symbol that he's like, you know, kind of one of these right-wing guys.
He's marketing savvy enough to know that he's going to lose potentially half of the market if he goes full, if he reveals his true sort of political ideology.
But I think it's safe to say we know where he is.
Yeah, I mean the minute you're kind of like saying that modernity is like what's making us sick and unhappy, that is like the reactionary mind just like boiled down to a sentence, do you know?
Yeah, men are pussies is a pretty direct statement.
I don't think he's voting for Brandon, I'll tell you that.
No.
Softie Brandon, who keeps falling over with his bike?
Subprimal.
But how can he reconcile that the, you know, that God Emperor Trump survives basically solely on processed foods?
I bet he's not a fan of Trump.
Like, he'd rather Trump be Arnold Schwarzenegger or something.
Yeah, totally.
With essentially the same approach, but just looking better.
It seems that social media figures like Liver King are here to stay.
They ride the line between ridiculous and inspirational in a way that has come to define a lot of online celebrities.
And this only makes them more present in our timelines as people alternate between being like, this guy rocks, he's a fucking gigachad, and going, oh my god, look at this freak.
His ideas are basically just a rehash of masculinist cliches and self-improvement pablum.
And with the power of a social media team behind him, and an already massive following, I'm sure we'll be hearing about Liver King's stunts for years to come, until he inevitably becomes a successful right-wing politician and rules over us all.
So, no more sitting on the couch when that comes around, Jake, sorry.
Yeah, he's going to bring back the divine right of kings.
Well, yeah, when he raises himself from the dead by injecting meats into his comatose body and lives for another 45 years, hell yeah, he's going to be hailed as the great reanimator.
I hear you were recently married, Jake.
I've been injecting meat slurry all day and I'll be doing prima nocta on your wife
You can go sit on the couch I'm sure Plenty of video games over there.
I'm sure you're comfortable sitting around doing jack shit.
I guess today, Jake, you're being turned into a liver cuck for a video I'm making.
Thanks for listening to the first episode of Man Clan, a 10-part series brought to you by the QAA Podcast.
All ten episodes will be going up on our premium podcast feed, which you can get access to for just five bucks a month by going to patreon.com slash QAnonAnonymous.
You'll also get access to all of Travis View's first season of Trickle Down, as well as an extra episode of QAA for every regular one we put out, and access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
Listeners, remember, what happens in MadClan stays in MadClan.
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.
Now, prepare for tonight's ritual.
[MUSIC]
Liver King here setting world records today.
Nobody in the history of capsule swallowing has ever had 30 capsules of King down the hatch.
And I'm challenging you, Joey Chestnut, to do the same.
See if you can take 30 capsules of King all in one setting.
And if you can do 31, you're more manly than Liver King.
