Grotesque Prosperity: Liver King’s Hypermasculine Influencer Grift

Abstract

Liver King is a hypermasculine wellness influencer who credits his primal lifestyle and raw meat diet for helping him achieve extraordinary physical strength and prosperity. This essay reads Liver King’s promotional spectacle through and against critical literature on social media influencers. We find similarities and differences between his performances and those by which influencers typically pursue visibility and authenticity. In particular, we discuss Liver King’s embodied personification of neoliberal entrepreneurialism, his grotesque aesthetics, and his relation to professional wrestling’s styles of character development. The essay highlights Liver King’s affinities with the online manosphere, reality television, and alternative health marketers, and it considers how a close look at his over-exaggerated style of personal branding and optimization can yield insights for the broader study of influencers and neoliberalism.