The Liver King and Media’s Effects on Male Vanity

My writing efforts are usually limited to politics and matters of the military and war, with the occasional history subject thrown in for good measure. This time I’m going to talk about something on which I’ve never touched: Male vanity and the effects social media has on same. Much ink has been spilled discussing the deleterious effects social media — from Instagram to TikTok to Facebook feeds — has on female self-esteem. Less so has been used describing those effects on men, for various reasons beyond the scope of this missive. Though I am no expert, these are my thoughts as inspired by recent events in the world of fitness influencing.

I first became aware of the individual who calls himself “The Liver King” (even in third person), Brian Johnson, about a year or so ago. All of a sudden, Johnson exploded from obscurity to ubiquity, and his gimmick seemed to be eating raw liver (and pretty much every other organ) which, he claimed, was part of his healthy lifestyle. When I say ubiquity, I mean it. Johnson appeared on every podcast and web show that would have him, and his social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube exploded with followers. Many of these appearances, and much of his own content, feature him eating various amounts of raw animal organs, primarily liver. Hence, The Liver King.

The other part of Johnson’s healthy lifestyle is what he calls the Nine Ancestral Tenants: Sleep, Eat, Move, Shield, Connect, Cold, Sun, Fight, Bond. Sometimes, he adds a tenth: “Have some fucking fun.” The tenants aren’t worth examining in great detail, but in general, one is supposed to avoid processed foods, get plenty of sleep, and exercise, all of which are pretty commonly preached by health and fitness experts. The others can be a bit more esoteric, such as exposing one’s body to cold temperatures for short periods, though they aren’t entirely “out there” in terms of other extreme lifestyle philosophies. Johnson’s mission, he has stated, is to help all the people out there struggling through depression, feelings of low self-worth, inflammation, and lack of motivation, often citing the number of suicides and suicide attempts in the US. If a person simply follows these tenants, and ostensibly consumes a bit of raw liver from time to time, they can achieve what Johnson calls their “highest, most dominant form.” They can be like Johnson. They can have a life like Johnson. They can look like Johnson.

I could smell the fraud pouring off him through my computer screen.

To be clear, Johnson is absolutely yoked, as they say. The 5’7” Johnson is always shirtless so as to show off abs that would make a comic book superhero jealous, sporting a massive and manly beard and long, disheveled hair, Johnson is often working out in his content. He’s a massive specimen and he puts in the work, that much is for sure. His exercises look grueling and intense and, along with the Ancestral Tenants, are responsible for his incredible physique. His content is very slickly produced, and Johnson is a very charismatic and engaging presenter. He’s loud and brash and gregarious, calling his fans “Primals” and others “Sub-Primals,” which sounds like it has something to do with mortgages but just means those who aren’t following this sort of lifestyle and are, ostensibly, fat, lazy, and depressed. It also applies to any critics.

He certainly appears to rigorously practice what he preaches, both physically and in terms of his lifestyle choices. And the Ancestral Tenants are, after all, a lifestyle. And that’s all there is to the story. Except, that’s not true. Like every other “influencer” in the health and fitness space, Johnson is…you guessed it…selling things. Those things are supplements. You know, for those of us who don’t actually want to eat the still-warm liver from a freshly killed elk.

Jonson purports to own several companies. This isn’t a deep dive into the man’s finances and business interests, though he recently claimed that his companies have pulled in 100 million USD in the last year, which is a lot of money. I almost believe that. The Ancestral Supplements website is sleek and attractive, with warm earth tones and nice fonts and pictures of ungulates and the outdoors. It’s modern and functional. The items it offers are many and range from “whole body health” to “bone and joint support” to “hormone balance.” One item, “The Ancestral Starter Pack,” containing Beef Liver, Beef Organs, and Bone and Marrow in pill form, sells for the low-low price of $124.00, currently marked down from $138.00. If you want some Grass Fed Beef Thyroid, that’ll cost you $52.40. The Beef Brain is $63.00, and the Wild Caught Fish Eggs are $61.20. You can buy prostate, gallbladder, placenta. If you subscribe to monthly delivery, you can save 10%, and you’ll get free shipping on orders over $120. I don’t know what any of these things do, but I’m sure they are claimed to do much.

The Liver King isn’t just Brian Johnson, it’s a brand. It was created, very methodically, I might add, to spread Johnson’s message. As I mentioned, Johnson appeared everywhere he could. If you so much as glanced at a thumbnail of a fitness video on YouTube, you’d be seeing Johnson’s videos recommended in very short order. In every appearance I’ve seen, he was promoting his Ancestral Tenants in a passionate, convincing way. But when you look like him, especially when you’re in your mid-40s, you inevitably invite questions about how, exactly, such an appearance was achieved. Johnson was routinely and repeatedly asked if he was natural or if he used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). He vowed, routinely and repeatedly, that he “never touched the stuff, doesn’t touch the stuff, never will touch the stuff.” His physical appearance is entirely due to his lifestyle. He sleeps great and has never felt better. The implication, of course, is that you — the depressed man who is physically inactive — can look like your new role model: wide chest, rippling muscles under prominent veins; absolutely jacked. Just follow these nine easy tenants (don’t forget to have some fucking fun!) and, maybe, if you want, buy some supplements.

As Maury Povich might say: That was a lie. From the very beginning, other fitness influencers and those even tangentially involved in fitness were very skeptical of The Liver King’s claims. Joe Rogan called him out early on, saying something to the effect that his physique isn’t the result of eating liver, it’s the result of an “ass full of steroids.” The guest laughed, because Rogan is also a comedian and that was the punchline. But there was a lot of criticism. To be fair, these fitness influencers are always trying to out what they call “fake natties,” or people who claim to be natural but use PEDs. They’re relentless, too. They are, after all, competing for the same eyeballs and dollars from the legion of people looking to get fit as easily as possible. The Liver King was the upstart. The guy who burst on the scene and rapidly had millions of followers on social media. He was taking eyeballs and taking dollars. And he was brushing aside their accusations, never quite suggesting that his detractors were jealous, but sort of. And they probably were, at least a little bit. They have a financial incentive to knock upstarts, especially those they consider to be fake, down a peg. It turns out they were right. Brian Johnson, The Liver King of Ancestral Tenants, was indeed taking performance enhancing drugs. The Liver King was a fraud.

A popular fitness-oriented channel called More Plates More Dates, hosted by some guy named Derek, produced an hour long show last week during which the presenter showed numerous emails from Johnson to a fitness coach thought to be in Thailand. These emails, allegedly leaked by said fitness coach, were quite revealing. In them, dated a few months before The Liver King made his social media debut, Johnson revealed that he wanted to amass a social media following of at least one million within a year. They also discussed various subjects associated with the use of PEDs and Johnson’s experimentation with dosages. Johnson needed help, because what he was taking wasn’t giving him the results he needed, despite spending $12,000 a month on these substances. His sleep was terrible because his hormones were messed up. He didn’t feel how he wanted to feel. He included, too, his blood work results. Toward the end of the video, Derek reveals that, unbeknownst to him at the time, Johnson had also sent him similar emails requesting advice regarding PED use.

Within two days, The Liver King released a six-minute video admitting that he lied. He confessed. This was his apology. His mea culpa. He says that he had convinced himself of various things and, after all, he was just trying to help the millions of people who struggle with depression and fatigue and all that, and that he, too struggled with self-esteem issues. That’s why he punished himself with twice-daily workouts. Besides, though he did use a lot of different substances over the last few years, he was now under the guidance of a trained hormone clinician, but that he now feels much better. He convinced himself that using steroids “had nothing to do with the ancestral message…that this [his steroid use] would be the wrong message to send to the fifteen-year-old boys.” No kidding? Advocating for a certain lifestyle to help those same fifteen-year-old boys overcome depression and ennui and can transform them into their “most dominant form,” in other words, to look like The Liver King, while also using PEDs might send the wrong message? That’s why he repeatedly denied using PEDs; he was just trying to help, and so his was a Noble Lie. But he’s vowed to do better, whatever that means. And despite all this, he claims that The Liver King persona had no impact on the performance of his companies. He said, “Because before social media, I was rich but anonymous, and after social media, I’m still RICH, but no longer anonymous, and I never expected this kind of exposure.” Though he did expect that kind of exposure since it was literally his goal. In other words, his businesses were booming, so his lies weren’t financially driven and incentivized. Then why lie? If you believe that a robust social media presence does not result in increased sales, then I have some bad news for you. Their own physical appearance is of the utmost importance to this because they’re selling that appearance, and it’s a crowded market. They have to stand out somehow. Steroids work, and they work very well and very fast. And that, unfortunately, is likely the message those fifteen-year-old boys will hear in the end.

To be clear, there are undoubtedly good things contained within Johnson’s Ancestral Tenants. On the surface, his goals were noble. But the man is a fraud, and he may well have done more damage to those people about whom he claims to so deeply care. His credibility is utterly destroyed, so there’s really little point in believing anything he now claims, including that there was never a financial incentive in his creation of The Liver King. What a ludicrous notion. After all, he can’t sell steroids on his website, which is what has worked for him. And if people knew he used steroids, they’d have less desire to spend hundreds of dollars on Ancestral Supplements. Johnson may as well have said, though he didn’t,

“I convinced myself that making gobs of money was more important than being honest and transparent about my health issues, because that would undermine the narrative. I convinced myself that the lies I told so often about how I achieved and maintain my physique wasn’t going to hurt the very same people I claimed to want to save.”

Men and boys, like women and girls, are assailed daily with images of fit, successful, and happy people. They riddle one’s social media feed, constantly churned up by algorithms. Superhero movies dominate the entertainment landscape, full of rippling muscles on actors who, in their previous films, had none at all and yet transformed themselves in a few months. You see these miraculous transformations and each time, men’s fitness magazines publish the diet and exercise routines used to achieve those transformations. But most importantly, you can look like that, too. You just have to eat a lot of chicken breast and broccoli and work out under the supervision of trained dieticians and fitness coaches. Because those things, like Johnson’s hundred dollar supplements, are certainly within the reach of those fifteen-year-old boys. These actors are always “natty.” They never state they had chemical help, even if they did, and many of them probably did, especially if they’re in their forties and fifties. Men are bombarded with images of physiques that they can almost never achieve, no matter how hard they work, because those physiques aren’t real. You take a depressed young man with body issues, you show him what “peak appearance” and “most dominant form” looks like, and you tell him how to get it. But then…he doesn’t. Because it isn’t achievable without a lot of help, some of which is chemical. Will he be less depressed?

To be sure, working out and being physically active can combat some depression and body image issues. It’s good for you. People, including me, should be more active. But men, like women, are subconsciously told that they should look a certain way, but that look simply isn’t achievable for most men. It just isn’t. Many of these fitness influencers know this, and they profit from it by selling heaps of supplements. This is what irks me. The predation of it. They are preying on the insecurities of these men, selling them a physique and a lifestyle that can supposedly be achieved only if you work hard and buy their supplements. These people are growing wealthy, feeding off despair. They are financial and emotional vampires. They’re playing to the insecurities of millions of men and women who could NEVER, no matter how hard they work or how strictly they adhere to the Nine Ancestral Tenant, look the way Johnson looks, all the while rifling through their wallets. And then these millions of men and women discover, shockingly, that it truly is impossible, because their heroes had assistance not available to them, and it was injected one CC at a time.