UPDATE: He’s back, and obviously not dead, though he says he was picked up by the Ukrainian SBU (security service) and held for a week.
My original post follows:
It sounds a bit like one of those espionage novels he used to write: A former pickup guru known as Coach Red Pill, who had recently reinvented himself as a Ukraine war “reporter,” has apparently gone missing — and has either been arrested as a pro-Russian propagandist or just straight up executed, at least according to various rumors swirling on social media.
All we know so far is that he’s been quiet for three days. The former Coach Red Pill — real name Gonzalo Lira — had been pumping out pro-Russian propaganda online since the start of the Ukraine invasion, and his “broadcasts” were often cited by Russian government media. Some even suspect that he was actually a Russian spy. If so, he was not exactly doing a bang up job keeping himself out of the limelight, as spies (I thought) were supposed to do.
Reactions to his disappearance and possible death have been — how can I put it? — mixed. His fans see whatever has happened to him as an international scandal.
Some of his detractors, meanwhile, are having trouble containing their glee.
Others see it as a sort of karmic retribution for his sins against humanity.
Others aren’t convinced the rumors are true, suggesting that it would be completely in character for Lira to fake his own death.
Assuming the whole thing isn’t a hoax, what might have led to Lira’s current, well, situation? Some, instead of looking at Lira’s history of pro-Russian, er, reporting, have put the blame on a critical piece about him that ran on the Daily Beast last month. Indeed, Lira himself put out a video before his disappearance suggesting that if anything bad were to happen to him that the Beast would be to blame.
So what exactly did the Beast article say? The lengthy piece, by Mark Hay, attempts to explain, per the article’s title, “How a Sleazy American Dating Coach Became a Pro-Putin Shill in Ukraine.” It tracks Lira’s strange career and life trajectories from his years as a writer of (reportedly very bad) spy novels through his career as a “Red Pilled” dating coach and up to his stint as a pro-Russian video blogger living inside a country being attacked by the Russians.
I never paid much if any attention to Lira in his Coach Red Pill days. But from Hay’s description of his videos nothing about his “teachings” would come as a surprise to anyone who has been reading this blog for any length of time. His material, according to one expert Hay spoke with,
was steeped in old and reductive views on gender and society, as well as outright vile misogyny, often defended using “questionable interpretations of evolutionary psychology.”
In one video, Hay notes, the fiftysomething Lira told his followers to
“Never date a woman in her thirties” … He … argued that, “irrespective of what they claim they want,” all women only truly desire money, a house, and kids, as child-rearing is the one thing that will biologically validate them. That women who are still single and childless in their thirties have supposedly ignored that imperative in order to live the ‘hedonistic’ lifestyle that a “degenerate” Western culture pushes them towards, chasing the hottest 15 percent of guys for meaningless sex. And that when they hit their thirties, they all get “baby rabies,” but realize their looks are fading. (“It’s biology,” he said. “Women age badly. Men age like wine.”) So, they will all supposedly lie and connive to trick a man into marriage and a pregnancy, after which they’ll reveal their true faces.
Sound familiar?
Hay notes that for those unfamiliar with the manosphere,
Lira’s rapid transformation from a self-styled relationship expert to a small but prominent peddler of pro-Putin hot takes and conspiracies may seem bizarre.
In fact manospherans like Lira have long embraced far-right ideologies, with a particular fondness for Putin and other Russian opponents of contemporary values, frequently contrasting Russian traditionalism with the ideologies of the allegedly “degenerate” West.
But his relatively recent shift to pro-Russian propaganda may have been motivated less by ideology than by a search for fresh fans and fresh cash. As Hay puts it,
several observers The Daily Beast spoke to suggested that he might have adopted his new persona as an ostensibly neutral but in fact evidently pro-Russian commentator on the conflict because he saw a market for the Putin-praising viewpoint in the spaces he inhabited, and may have wanted a new hustle.
It’s not as if being a Russian propagandist is particularly difficult. One right-wing Youtuber told Hay, “I think he watches Russian news shows and then just copies what he sees there.”
But if there is or was little danger that Lira might strain his brain putting out pro-Russian “reporting,” there is or was the danger that he would piss off the Ukrainian government. Indeed, Lira himself claimed, as Hay notes,
that the Zelensky administration sent men to his home in Kharkiv to disappear him, but that he miraculously avoided them and was at least recently hiding out in an undisclosed location in the city.
If this is true, it’s an indication that the government was already well aware of Lira — and that blaming the Daily Beast for whatever has happened to him (assuming anything has happened to him) is absurd.
The one thing I would blame the Daily Beast for is bringing up Lira’s career as a novelist without giving us any details on the novels themselves — which one Amazon reviewer has compared to the movies of Ed Wood. I may have to research this angle on my own.
In any case, I will continue to follow this incredibly weird story as it develops.
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I’d never heard of this chap before today. I’ve done a bit of searching on social media. The fact he’s a friend of George Galloway told me most of what I needed to know. He seems very popular with the tankies and the Putin shills.
I can’t help but think that with his spy novel and general background he might just have gone into hiding, whether through fear or just to create a bit of exploitable drama. Although the flip side is some Ukraine troops making jokes on social media that imply they know where he is.
Ah well, when the histories of this conflict are written I guess we might find out what happened to him in a footnote.
@Alan: Tankies love an overt misogynist and conservative? Say it ain’t so!
“Bond, James Bond.”
As long as he doesn’t come back, I can’t find it in me to care very much what happened to him
I find it strange why one would consider printing pro russian news in Ukraine the place that is getting invading.
I smell a Netflix documentary…
Max Blumenthal is a real piece of shit, isn’t he?
I never heard of this guy. His attitude to women is not uncommon.
Fun fact: I used to haunt online dating websites (yeah, that was a poor choice) and a good many of the men on those websites are Red Pill types. Even Facebook Dating has a number of Red Pill misogynists. They pop up in some odd places.
`l “Never date a woman in her thirties” … He … argued that, “irrespective of what they claim they want,” all women only truly desire money, a house, and kids, as child-rearing is the one thing that will biologically validate them. That women who are still single and childless in their thirties have supposedly ignored that imperative in order to live the ‘hedonistic’ lifestyle that a “degenerate” Western culture pushes them towards, chasing the hottest 15 percent of guys for meaningless sex. And that when they hit their thirties, they all get “baby rabies,” but realize their looks are fading. (“It’s biology,” he said. “Women age badly. Men age like wine.”) So, they will all supposedly lie and connive to trick a man into marriage and a pregnancy, after which they’ll reveal their true faces.
I can’t help – being sleepless – but comment on the ugliness and mendacity of this comment. I am not sure what is meant by the “hedonistic” and “degenerate” lifestyle this fellow is talking about, but I know that I spent a good portion of my 20s and 30s caring for family, which definitely ended some relationships. I really never met any of these imaginary hot guys for meaningless sex. I think that the person writing the comment is the one who wants hot and meaningless sex. Lie and trick a man into marriage and pregnancy ? I thought Red Pill types are all about continuing the (white) race. Lol.
@.45: You know, I have many reasons to dislike the James Bond franchise (I watched most of them in a ‘there’s nothing else on the tv, I guess), but the reveal in Skyfall (Casino Royal tricked me into thinking the Craig films might suck less) that that is the characters true name was the final nail in the coffin for me.
Anyway, as for the op, this weird thing seems like the most interesting thing about the guy. And the bar isn’t very high.
It’s also completely plausible that he got caught in a bombing.
@Dave
I was thinking something along those lines – it may not matter that he was a spreader of pro-Putin propaganda. A lot of people have died in Ukraine, and it’s not like they had to fill out a survey first to see whether or not they “deserved” to die.
But as we’ve seen, the Red Pill crowd doesn’t really subscribe to “it’s chaos – be kind.”
If “men age like wine”, what’s this guy’s excuse? Bad cork?
Despite his views, no matter how controversial, a civilian being “disappeared” speaks for itself.
Well, there’s wine and there’s wine. In this case, he was pruno.
I have not heard of this man
50-something. Chilean. Anyone want to lay odds he was a big supporter of Pinochet back in the day?
Yeah, I can imagine that the dating-coach business doesn’t do too well during pandemics …
Is it possible someone killed him just for being completely annoying and useless, not for his politics? Or that he was too stupid to stay out of the way of things like bullets and bombs? (likely, since he seems to have gone into THE MIDDLE OF A WAR just for the clickbait) Collateral damage and friendly fire are things. Bombs/tanks don’t care, ricochet bullets don’t care, and hungry Russian kids aren’t going to know he’s on their side, they’re going to see a foreigner, shoot first and not ask questions later.
But, yes, he’ll probably show up with some cockamamie story of “heroism” to milk the rubes out of some more cash. Gosh, it’s almost like he “only wants money”…
Regarding the Ed Wood comparison, at least Ed was sincere in his love for moviemaking.
Today is the day that I learned Coach Red Pill used to write spy fiction.
He actually was. As I recall, Kevin Logan mentioned that in his “Descent of Man-osphere” episode on CRP.
I’ve been listening to Gonzalo for years. He’s got his quirks like everyone, but he’s a good guy. I hope he wasn’t black bagged and murdered by neo-nazis. Sad news, but not unexpected with how he’s been hiding out over there.
Regardless of how you feel about his work and views it doesn’t justify murdering the guy. Anyone making light of him being murdered by Ukraine is evil, plain and simple. And if Ukraine did kill him, well they just confirmed his critiques of their government to be true.
Hey look, assholes found the post
@Renzor
So your sitting here trying to claim that a nation led by a literal Jewish man: is somehow a Nazi run nation filled with Nazi’s?
Volodymyr Zelensky ain’t even remotely Ben Shapiro, dingus. Why are you here peddling Russian Lies while Russia pulls a WarSaw on Ukraine. I also suspect if Lira did disappear: I suspect it’s because the Russian soldiers bombing and shooting wherever he was.
@Bob
What makes you think that it was Ukrainians that hypothetically killed him?
Why couldn’t it be the more likely case that he was probably bombed by the Russian he was propagandizing for; because he was close to an active warzone and the Russians didn’t know, or care, that he was where they were shooting and bombing?
Given Russia’s other atrocities against Ukrainians; it wouldn’t be out of sorts.
Besides, Lira was a garbage person devoid of logic and ethics; I view him much the same as Magomed Tushayev, the bigoted dirt-bag responsible for overseeing the purge of LGBT people in Chechnya.