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- [00:00]
A
PJ welcome to Search Engine. I'm PJ Vogt. Each week on the show we answer a question we have about the world. No question too big, no question too small. This week we are trying to understand the sudden surge in Americans self experimenting with peptides. Gray market Chinese peptides, injectable compounds that promise to change your body in all sorts of possibly desirable ways. That story plus some help deciding how to feel about it after these ads this episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Bombas. You're probably trying to figure out your 2026 goals. Here's a suggestion. Why don't you try prioritizing comfort? Comfort in how you move, what you wear and how you show up every day. Bombas makes that goal incredibly easy. Their new Bombas sports socks are engineered for specific activities, running, hiking, snowboarding, even all sportwear. And for the non sporty moments, Bombas has that covered too. I am a longtime wearer of Bombas socks. I find them very cozy and comfortable, particularly in the winter. Add in Bombas underwear and T shirts which are buttery, smooth and breathable and suddenly your whole outfit feels better. And every item you buy helps someone else too. One purchased, one donated with over 150 million donations and counting, head over to bombas.com engine and use code ENGINE for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com engine code engine at checkout. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Mubi, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover. With Mubi, each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema. If you're looking for something extraordinary, don't miss My Father's Shadow coming to US theaters on February 13th. Directed by Akanola Davies Jr. It's the first Nigerian film ever in official competition at Cannes. This poetic and tender story follows a father and his two young sons navigating their relationship against the vibrant, politically charged city of Lagos in 1993. Written by real life brothers Akanola Davies Jr and Wale Davies and starring Chape Derishu, it's a film that quietly uncovers the unspoken bonds of family. Whether you're already a lover of great cinema or just discovering it, Mubi brings the world's best films straight to your screen. To stream the best of cinema, you can try MUBI free for 30 days@mubi.com searchengine that's m u b I.com search engine for a whole month of great cinema for free. This week, we are covering Peptides, not as a medical story. This is not about whether you, dear listeners, should take peptides. Who do you think I am, Andrew Huberman? We're covering it as anthropology, meaning we want to know how so many disparate groups of Americans in such a short time went from not having heard of these drugs to buying them online from Chinese factories and injecting them into their bodies. This is a story about the Internet and how it connected some unlikely communities. And I heard it from two different reporters. The first one you'll meet, she writes a substack. I've been reading more and more these days as I continuously try to make sense of our evolving Internet. First things first. Can you just introduce yourself?
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B
Yeah. My name is Jasmine Sun. I am an independent writer covering AI and Silicon Valley culture from San Francisco.
- [04:00]
A
AI and Silicon Valley culture? That's how you describe your beat?
- [04:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, I also describe it with other words. I say anthropology of disruption I like, because I'm very interested in sort of the very personal texture of, like, what frontier tech and change feels like. I'm really interested in, like, San Francisco as a cultural phenomenon. Both, like, yes, the tech industry and the technologies and the companies, but also, like, the weird trends in ideologies and subcultures running through this place as a result of tech and its influence.
- [04:31]
A
I really enjoy your writing as somebody who's on the east coast and feels like strange ideas are moving through San Francisco very quickly. Sometimes they make it here, sometimes they don't. But it feels like a laboratory for weird shit, like, not just technology, but just ways to live. Why are you drawn to that? Why do you like being there for that?
- [04:51]
B
I mean, I think you kind of said it as a writer, as an observer. I want to be where the weird people are. And I've wondered, is there something geographic to it? Because obviously there's all the tech stuff, like biohacking and AI and whatever. But even before that, like, lots of political ideas were born in the Bay Area, right? Like the Black Panthers came out of Oakland or the Sierra Club. And so I feel like there's something about California and this sort of frontier ethic of people going west and getting as far away from the institutions and the emperor's view as they can. There's a Chinese proverb about basically, like, going to where the mountains are high and the emperor is far to be able to actually experiment with new ways of living. And in China, they use that to refer to Yunnan, which is the southwestern province, which is their kind of hippie capital. But in the US it's probably San Francisco is where people go to experiment with new political, cultural, technological beliefs. And they're so extreme about it. There's no sense of moderation in San Francisco, there's a lot of cults. People also now have so much money, which means that they can really realize every one of their crazy dreams to its fullest extent. Like, I am going to construct a brand new city from scratch in California. I am going to go to space. I am going to hire a bunch of blood boys to like transfer their young blood to mine and see if that makes me live forever. Right? Like, it's not just people with crazy ideas now, but also with the resources to realize them. And I just feel like as a writer, that's like the most interesting thing in the world.
- [06:19]
A
So you're running around here talking to all these people far from the emperor's view. One of the stories that has, I feel like it's been percolating for the past couple years. I had an awareness of it, but anything that involves science or medicine, I'm always like, how long can I wait before I have to actually understand this? You've been covering it really well. It's peptides. What is just at the generic sort of 6th grade science class level. What is a peptide?
- [06:46]
B
Yeah, a peptide is a short chain of amino acids. So you can think of it like a mini protein. So they have very simple structures. A lot of peptides are naturally occurring in the body. So insulin, oxytocin, et cetera. Some peptides are modified by pharmaceutical manufacturers to behave a little bit differently. There are also synthetic peptides. So it's actually a very broad class of drug and class of compound. But when we start talking about like peptides as a biohacking or health trend, people are usually referring to particular experimental peptides that are not tested or run through a clinical trial process that people are purchasing from peptide pharmacies, sometimes drug manufacturers in other countries like China, and testing on themselves. And so they can do anything from oxytocin is the love hormone. There is also growth hormone adjacent peptides. There are copper peptides that supposedly help with skin, peptides that supposedly help with sleep, like epitalon peptides like melanotan that promise to make your skin better. And like, I think the term Chinese peptides is a memetic superweapon. Like you mention it at a party and everyone instantly is like coming over, like, what is that what's your stack? Can I try it? Even when I brought it up, as this is the project I'm working on, this is what I'm reporting about. Like, instantly everyone comes over and is like, oh, you found a way to, like, get hotter, get healthier. Like, tell me, like, don't gatekeep. What's your stack?
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A
Wait, and so when you say it's a memetic superweapon, you mean that it's like there are certain topics that depending on what community you're in, but if you raise them at a party, it's just like everyone just sort of summons to the conversation, whether they have opinions, whether they have questions. And it sounds like it's like the combination of everyone's always looking for a fountain of youth. There's something risky and naughty about, like, Chinese gray market chemicals. But like, in a world where you have a culture of people who like risk taking optimization, this is just like catnip in a way that maybe it wouldn't even be in New York.
- [08:51]
B
Yeah, I think so, basically. I think also, frankly, like, the fact that they are Chinese at this cultural moment is very interesting to people. People are very aware of Chinese maxing. Like, China is maybe winning the tech race, maybe not. And so I think there's like an extra power imbued in the peptides from the perception that they are Chinese.
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A
Wait, sorry, I have like three questions about that one. What is Chinese maxing?
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B
Have you seen the memes that are like, I'm at a very Chinese time in my life.
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A
Yes, but I don't understand them.
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C
Send this video to a friend that.
- [09:23]
A
You met during a very Chinese time in your life.
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B
Like many of you, I recently found out that I'm Chinese. Everyone's in a Chinese time in their life. There's like a big social media trend in mostly Gen Z in general, around embracing Chineseness.
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A
I'm an American currently traveling in Shanghai, China, and let me tell you, more Americans need to come to China. This place is crazy.
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B
If you go on TikTok, there's a lot of China inspiration, travel content. Like, look at this cyberpunk city. Look at this flying car. Look at these robots.
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A
It's the idea that there is a country where things work that is far away from here.
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B
Yes, I think so. I think that it's sort of hand in hand with nihilism about the US and being really bummed that America's falling apart and like, our government isn't working. And, you know, I think to a lot of people it looks. I wouldn't say that this is accurate, but it's kind of like a paradise of everything's functional and people are happy and it's so high tech.
- [10:17]
D
China has to be at least 100 years ahead of everybody else. And every city is beautifully designed with thousands of skyscrapers, incredible architecture.
- [10:28]
B
But anyway, I think, like, as folks have warmed up to the idea of China as being potentially more technologically advanced, the fact that the peptides are Chinese probably gives them some extra power.
- [10:39]
A
And just from a manufacturing point of view, like, at what point does China enter the fray? Like, how does China just become the US's sort of peptide supplier?
- [10:48]
B
So I was looking into this. I think it's actually quite a similar story to how China dominated manufacturing in so many other industries. The Chinese government gave subsidies in like the 80s and 90s to a lot of local governments that were willing to invest in the drug supply chain. And they start at the most basic elements of the supply chain. So, like very simple compounds and drugs and have slowly been climbing up to like pharmaceutical manufacturing. And then now they're doing a lot of biotech innovation. But a lot of it is low labor costs, a high concentration of like, chemists and science and medical talent concentrated in the same place. These industry towns where, like, everybody in this one town is some part of a drug supply chain. So China is actually the world's peptide manufacturing hub. And even if you are getting peptides from a lot of American companies, they are getting their raw materials from Chinese factories and then, you know, testing and processing and like putting them into the, say, the insulin pens or the syringes or things like that. But people realize basically that if they wanted to cut out the middlemen and do their own injection and do their own mixing of the peptides, they could go straight to the Chinese factories and buy them.
- [11:56]
C
Let me give you the advice that I wish I had when I first started. And that's not to buy from the US sites. They're up charging you like crazy. All they do is buy their peptides from China, slap a label on them, and charge you 10 times the amount.
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A
And you know, like, there's like this funny strain of US China relations in this, both that Chinese laboratories are the supplier in many cases, and also that the idea that this is like China branded is enticing to people in like China's tech scene. Are people taking peptides as far as, you know?
- [12:27]
B
I don't think so. I, I mean, to be clear, like, I didn't like go to China for the reporting, but I asked some family Friends who are in China. I have some other friends in China who have been poking around and they seem to think the Americans are freaking crazy. You guys are insane. I don't know why you're doing this, but you know, China manufactures a lot of fentanyl and they're not doing that.
- [12:52]
A
So Chinese peptides are not mostly being taken by Chinese people, they're being taken by Americans. And what I wanted Jasmine to map for me was the path of cultural contagion that peptides followed the bodybuilders to the Silicon Valley execs, how the MAHA movement picked peptides up, how teenage look smackers had gotten in on this. I wanted to understand what had motivated these different tribes to experiment with peptides. So it turns out you can find posts about people seeking peptides on the Internet as far back as 2005. That's when the denizens of the message board anabolicminds.com, users with names like Morpheus and Beowulf were trading tips on how to source peptides.
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B
So if we really go back to the early, early adopters, the earliest adopters are actually like the bodybuilding and fitness community.
- [13:39]
D
Oh yeah. It's a good day today, gentlemen, because today we are discussing my top three peptides for muscle growth. You want to gain some muscle, but this is the video for you.
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B
And so this is like pretty separate from tech world. It's like guys doing steroids in bodybuilding gyms together.
- [13:57]
D
I'm going to show you what I'm doing for my peptide stock right now to grow. I'm using three peptides and using them all post workout. First one is TB 505 milligrams.
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B
So when I was like in the very earliest stages of my research and I was looking up peptide guides, I would just end up on these like crazy bodybuilding forums and like weird subreddits and discords. And you know, one of the guys I talked to, Jayden Clark, who has popularized sort of the peptides in San Francisco, he also is a bodybuilder and kind of a self described gym bro. And so he said that like back in Australia where he's from, all of the gym guys are constantly recommending each other peptides because it's sort of a spin off of the interest in steroids and in growth hormone and things like that.
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A
Yeah, I have like only ducked into bodybuilder forums when people there are getting dunked on. It's not a part of the Internet that I have so much time on, but that's my understanding There was an earlier version of reality in which this idea of medical self experimentation was kind of cordoned off. And it was cordoned off among people where they were self researching and doing a lot of work, whether they were getting to the right answers or not, to figure out they were sharing information about molecules, they understood the risks they were taking. Sometimes it was working, sometimes it wasn't, but it existed in this kind of like confined space. How does it start to break containment out of the bodybuilding community?
- [15:19]
B
So bodybuilding has this big overlap with the biohacker community broadly, where there is a common practice of experimenting on yourself like a lab rat and importing research chemicals. Non FDA approved drugs are under the banner of research chemicals. To then self inject and just frankly see what happens. Share with your buddies at the gym, tell them what works. And so biohacking is sort of the way that that crosses into the tech mainstream. Since a lot of tech folks are also very interested in body hacking. Can new forms of science like improve my fitness, my productivity, whatever. And I think because Ozempic was such a craze and has worked really well to help a lot of people lose a lot of weight, people think, oh, if there's this magic shot I can take for weight loss, maybe there's a magic shot for everything else. And so I think the Ozempic boom and the GLP boom is what has precipitated all of this interest in other experimental peptides.
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A
So you feel like Ozempic kind of like opened the door because it introduced more people to the idea of peptides. Like the idea that at home you would just put a needle into your skin is just like up until very recently for most people, something they won't do. Still something a lot of people won't do. But GLP1s broke that seal for a lot of people.
- [16:26]
B
Yeah, I mean that's basically what a lot of the doctors I spoke to said. Because I was speaking to doctors in San Francisco and Southern California and other places, New York, and I was asking, when did you start hearing about peptides from your patients? When did people start coming in and asking about them? And the turning point was Ozempic. It was people starting to think you don't have to be a druggie to be injecting yourself. GLP1 injection sites ranked by someone who's tried them all. Let's go this year's Epitaph Thursday. I haven't done a step by step in a while, so we are going to go ahead and do that for you guys today. If you're new to your GLP1 journey, whether you just started or you're about to start, start, this is the exact jab day routine you need to follow to mitigate side effects even among the gray market peptides. Like the most popular peptides are in the GLP category. So it's either GLP1s or it's GLP2 tirzepatide or increasingly, most common in the communities I spoke with was retatrutide, which is a GLP3. It's a sort of next generation weight loss drug that's even more effective and is still in phase three human clinical trials, but that people expect will get FDA approval. And, and yeah, basically like I remember I saw this tweet that was like, oh it's so funny how Chinese peptides hit San Francisco and then everyone develops self control at the same time. Or another woman was telling me she's on one of the GLPs and she is a startup founder and she said, I noticed all of a sudden that in all of these launch videos I'm watching none of the founders are overweight anymore. And I started to feel self conscious about my own weight. And so she ended up getting on retatrutide as well through gray market sources.
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A
So in Silicon Valley, it seems a bunch of research minded nerds have spread these drugs largely through word of mouth, after having been inspired by Peptide's earlier adopters, the online bodybuilding community. The next places Peptides go though, are both a bit seedier and a bit more concerning. After a short break, we follow Peptides into two Internet neighborhoods that I did not realize were at all adjoined. Maha and the luxmaxers. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Bilt. It's 2026 and if you're still paying rent without Bilt, it might be time for a change. BILT is a loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense rent. With Bilt, every rent payment earns you points you can redeem towards flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases and more. Bilt members can earn points on mortgage payments for the first time. That means you'll be rewarded wherever you live now and in the future. BILT also connects you to exclusive benefits for more than 45,000 neighborhood partners, from restaurants and fitness studios to pharmacies and everyday spots you already visit. You can even use Bilt points for gift cards at over 120 brands. Paying rent is better with Bilt, and now owning a home will be better with Bilt too. Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com search that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com search make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you this episode is brought to you in part by Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other, One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you're drowning in software instead of growing your business. That's where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, hr and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really running your business. Thousands of business have already made the switch. Why not you try Odoo for free at odoo.com, that's O-O-O.com. Welcome back to the show. So this is what we charted before the break. Peptides first appear online in the early 2000s on bodybuilding forums. One more obscure chemical that the bench pressers are trying they stay there more than a decade. But in the late 2010s, biohackers, Bay Area tech geeks who wanted to experiment on their bodies. They'd started getting into this too. At this point, peptides have left message boards. They're now being discussed also on self optimization podcasts, podcasts. Famously a gateway drug. But peptides remained essentially niche until just a few years ago. 2023 is when Ozempic changes everything. After Ozempic, lots of people go online looking for off brand gray market Ozempic from compound pharmacies and Chinese labs. Some of these places, in addition to selling generic GLP1s, also sell other peptides. And these other peptides are now being advertised by a rising class of influencers who will spread them to new communities. I talked to a second writer about this phase of the peptide spread, reporter Ezra Marcus. Ezra spends a lot of time on the Internet's margins. What he Helped me see was how an unregulated algorithmic marketing machine was spun up for these peptides made up of a patchwork of influencers on TikTok and Reels.
- [22:28]
D
I think only in the last two or three years did the kind of social media, e commerce meets algorithmic hype cycle start to take place.
- [22:39]
A
So help me see, like what does that Internet look like? Like, as a person whose algorithm is not tuned towards persuading me that I could be thinner, handsome or younger, whatever. Like, what are people who are seeing.
- [22:53]
D
That, seeing you're seeing a lot of really prominent influencers, you'd call them kind of in the MAHA space, alternative wellness people that are in RFK's orbit. Like, there's a guy named Gary Breca who's a really prominent anti aging life extension influencer who sells peptides on his website.
- [23:13]
E
Peptides might sound like the future of health, but they are already here. Here's how they work to heal your body. Peptides are sequen of amino acids. And why is that important? Because your body recognizes these, it can break them down. They're called metabolites and it can get rid of the waste when we put chemicals.
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D
He's just like a jacked, 50 something guy who sells supplements and peptides and all this stuff on his website. He's quite prominent. You know, it's like millions of followers and it's just like a big deal in that world.
- [23:41]
E
Talk to your doctor about peptides and how a peptide might help you improve your gut health, improve the tone texture of your skin skin, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, possibly restore your hair, raise your natural growth hormone levels, balance your hormones and even reduce anxiety. Peptides are the safest wave of the future when done.
- [23:59]
D
So I think there was also this sort of like larger phenomenon over the last few years of people rejecting the traditional medical establishment in a perhaps politically coded way where it was about, you know, independence from the regime and the establishment and this, that and the other peptides were a way of taking your health into your own hands with this sort of MAHA valence to it.
- [24:20]
E
Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brea, where we go down the road of everything anti aging, biohacking, longevity and everything in between.
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D
He had RFK on his podcast a.
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E
Year ago and I'm joined by a very prominent figure in the space, the leader and the head of the MAHA movement, none other than Mr. Bobby Kennedy Jr.
- [24:44]
D
Himself.
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E
Thank you for coming on the podcast.
- [24:46]
D
I'm happy to be here with you.
- [24:47]
E
Finally, I'm happy to have you.
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D
And RFK was talking about, you know, we're going to end the war on peptides of the fda.
- [24:54]
E
And you know, I thank you for what you're doing. And we're going to end the war at FDA against alternative medicine. You know, we're on stem cells or my chelating drugs. The war on peptides, the war on anything that, you know, is not going to make music to my ears. The war on vitamins.
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A
It's funny, I look at RFK and I think, I don't want whatever he's taking.
- [25:17]
D
Yeah, I mean, he has that like Sean Penn in one bottle after another, kind of leathery.
- [25:23]
A
It's like it was microwaved in a youth machine. Yeah, but other people see it differently.
- [25:27]
D
I mean, clearly, if you look at the news of the last few years.
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A
Obviously we've all been living on the same Internet. So I don't have to explain to you that Covid caused many people to have a permanent loss of faith in the medical establishment or that one of those people somehow now leads Health and Human Services. But the anti medical establishment Internet has continued to grow bigger and stranger since 2021. Reporter Jasmine sun has also been paying attention to the evolution of that world.
- [25:56]
B
So the podcasts, the substacks, the blogs, the forums, a lot of these exploded in popularity during a time when people were really scared about their health, where they felt like they were getting inconsistent information or what they perceive to be misinformation from official sources. And so it led to this, like, flourishing of an all medicine ecosystem. So, like, some of the same people who are ivermectin guys are now becoming peptide guys.
- [26:21]
A
All right, I'm been looking forward to this conversation for a while. This is a conversation with a guy.
- [26:27]
D
Who I first heard of when he.
- [26:29]
A
Was rumored to be in the running for head of the FDA under Trump in his first term.
- [26:34]
B
I was listening to my very first episode of the Truth podcast by Vivek Ramaswamy where he was podcasting with Balaji Srinivasan, who is the Coinbase CTO and a very influential investor and executive in Silicon Valley, who at one point was being considered for FDA commissioner.
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A
Balaji Srinivasan. Welcome to the podcast. Good to be here, Vic. So I think this will be Balaji.
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B
And Vivek were, you know, talking about their frustrations with the FDA with the way that Covid was handled. Because even if people believed in vaccines, I think there's a lot of controversy in Silicon Valley around slow approvals or school shutdowns and things like that. And there's this great line that apology said that was like, just like the SEC is trying to keep you from getting wealthy.
- [27:18]
A
That's right. And so we can see what the SEC is protecting you from getting wealthy. We will now soon see. The FDA is protecting you from getting healthy.
- [27:25]
B
The FDA is trying to keep you from getting healthy. I thought that was like, hilarious because there is this mindset that sort of developed that our regulatory institutions are actually trying to keep the little guys down. And that's why you need these like crypto guys on podcasts to tell you what to buy to get rich. You need these like podcasters to teach you what peptides to take to get healthy. So I think Covid is a weird time for online information.
- [27:52]
A
What do you make of that quote though? Because, like, do you think that there's just a wide swath of people who really have become paranoid enough about institutions that they think, like, for instance, that peptides are being gatekept from them because, like, the pharmaceutical companies are greedy and they don't.
- [28:09]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [28:10]
A
That's how they view it.
- [28:11]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think so. You know, like a lot of it comes from this sort of idea that people should do their own research. And rather than having the paternalistic institutions decide what the boundaries of your action are as an individual, you should be empowered to research your own shitcoins and to research your own peptides, and they shouldn't be making these risk trade offs for you, you know? And so, yeah, the big pharma stuff was a big complaint that I heard from a lot of peptide users was like, especially with the people who started off with the GLPs, the way they'd put it is like, I'm spending over a thousand dollars a month to be on prescription GLPs. And then I find out that you can get literally the same substance for 100 to $200 a month from a gray market Chinese source. And then they start to go, wait, like that doesn't make any sense. Like, why is Eli Lilly making me pay 10 times what I could be paying for the exact same thing? And so first of all, I think like a lot of anger with just like healthcare costs makes people go like, there's something bad going on. Or even when you ask like, why haven't most peptides been approved? Why haven't they had any clinical trials done? Right? Like, why are there no clinical trials for BPC157? It's basically because it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to Run clinical trials and get something FDA approved. And unless a drug is targeting a disease and it's easily patentable and you're going to have a moat as a pharma company, most pharma companies are not going to invest in extremely, extremely expensive clinical trials. And that is like a reality of the incentive. So when people hear that, they sort of feel like it is rigged and the FDA by requiring this hundred million dollar process is not going to allow me to take the things that I want. So I think that's probably my best like steel man of the place that people are coming from.
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A
So that's what peptides have meant for Maha. Not just exciting drugs making exciting promises, but a way to boycott big Ph, to spend your dollars in an anti establishment, do your own research kind of marketplace. If the government says it might not be safe, order two before they ban it. 2024 is when peptides online became unavoidable. Unavoidable because their newest, most fervent converts had begun making testimonials about these drugs. Testimonials that were everywhere on social media. In 2024, members of one of the scariest online communities get on board, people who are hot and young. Here's Ezra Marcus.
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D
You're seeing a lot of videos of young ripped athleisure wearing gym influencers telling you that like, you know, a better living through chemistry is possible and all you need to do is take the shot and they're happy to give you the information if you, you know, go to the link in their bio and buy a course or buy from the vendor affiliate link in their bio. It's just like straightforward ecom marketing, only in this case it's an injectable of maybe dubious provenance. Then there's a kind of other layer of it that's really gone more viral more recently of the kind of looksmaxing type of people. And that's its own sort of discreet niche of let's say black pilled, kind of right wing adjacent, incel adjacent culture of mostly young men talking about how the only you know, way you can achieve success in life is to rise to the top of the heap physically because otherwise nobody will ever respect you. And so these are people who are willing to try out pretty extreme interventions whether it's leg lengthening surgery, jaw surgery, steroids, you name it. These people kind of adopted peptides and I think became some of the most visible figures driving engagement on it. And it stopped just being like 20 and 30 something gym influencers and became just like 18 year old high schoolers being like, here's my peptide stacked so that I can mog at school. Which I think is a pretty new and shocking development.
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A
So wait, I want to watch. Can we watch? Like, I kind of just want to see the Internet that like a 15 year old boy could land on. Like, I just want to watch one of those videos because I feel like they feel pretty different.
- [32:19]
D
Yeah, let's do it.
- [32:20]
A
Today's guest has redefined the meaning of self improvement.
- [32:23]
C
I maximize all metrics of my life. I've just come to the conclusion based on anecdotes based on numbers that looks are the most important metric and it would be insane to not prioritize them. I use.
- [32:34]
A
Okay, what are we watching?
- [32:36]
D
This is a guy named Clavicular. And I mean, Clavicular looks like an AI cartoon of a handsome person.
- [32:44]
A
Yeah, yeah. Like, he's got like rosy cheeks and curly hair and like high cheekbones. They began injecting Testosterone at just 14 years old, claiming that natural puberty wasn't optimized for the modern world.
- [32:55]
C
I started with 300 milligrams of testosterone and I did that for a while up until I was 16. I'm 100% confident that I made the right decision in my life and I'm so glad that I look a little bit more mature today.
- [33:07]
A
At 19, he's garnered a massive audience online where he says that everything in life is determined by one thing.
- [33:12]
C
So it's $35,000 for a double jostle surgery with full facial implants. I know the amount of money that I'm investing.
- [33:19]
D
And Clavicular is I think, the first explicitly like, looks maxing aligned figure to go kind of properly viral into the mainstream where, like, kids across the country know who this is like.
- [33:32]
A
So it's like before that. Looks maxing is like a more fragmented movement of like teenage boys giving themselves horrible body dysmorphia. He's like the first person who becomes, I would say at this point, mainstream famous as a looks maxing influencer.
- [33:48]
D
Yeah, I think that's about right.
- [33:49]
C
This principle follows Wolf's law that a bone is going to grow back stronger, you know, after you do these localized micro traumas. So you're going to lay in your bed to brace your head for CTE and you're going to bone smash.
- [34:04]
E
You're going to lay in your bed.
- [34:05]
A
And brace your head for cte. Is. Isn't that like brain damage? Well, no.
- [34:08]
C
So that's why you lay in your bed.
- [34:10]
A
Okay.
- [34:10]
C
And that's going to grow your facial.
- [34:12]
A
Bones, you, you smash like you punch yourself in the face.
- [34:15]
D
Yeah. Clavicular is a big advocate for. For bone smashing.
- [34:19]
A
Clavicular is a big advocate for. Bone smashing is a sentence I could have happily died without ever knowing.
- [34:25]
D
I mean, that's how I feel about a lot of this. Like, I. I've just seen. I've seen so much clavicular content and I'm just. Every time I see another video, I'm like, what crucial fact of world history did I just lose? There goes the capital of Poland or something. But yeah, I mean, I think it's all just part of this kind of like Patrick Bateman Persona he has adopted for himself, where he just is doing sort of like shock jock kind of stuff in this very flat, affectless way. He's always saying the N word. He hangs out with Nick Fuentes. He says all this sort of completely over the top misogynistic stuff. You know, he's using sort of looks max or jargon.
- [35:10]
C
What are we talking about by hot? Like, good looking. Like, some people think that, like, Sydney Sweeney is extremely attractive.
- [35:18]
E
I would say.
- [35:19]
A
I don't want to scandalize anybody married man. I would say Sydney Sweeney is very attractive.
- [35:25]
C
I would say that she's pretty malformed. Her upper maxilla is extremely, extremely recessed. Right. She's got the eyes of doom with no infraorbital support. She's really not that much of a looker in her face.
- [35:37]
D
Talking about how this disgusting woman has recessed canthal tilt and her maxilla are suboptimal.
- [35:45]
A
And that's like weird phrenology speak to describe some woman as not being hot enough.
- [35:49]
D
Yeah. But it comes out of this sort of 4chan, chalk, chalk, racist incel mode. But then clavicular has sort of taken that as the sort of baseline posture, but then added this entire other layer of like, to be fair, really deeply researched, like, look smacking ideas on top of it where he knows, like, he can talk about what peptides do. What, he can talk about steroids, he can talk about what surgeries can make your jaw more appealing.
- [36:18]
C
How do you look like that with peptides and steroids.
- [36:23]
A
Wait, so what peptides do you take?
- [36:25]
C
I take red of shoe tan, GH, something called melanotin 2, which helps me get a little bit more tan without having to go in the sun. Too crazy. And that's.
- [36:34]
A
I might need that. Yeah, that's.
- [36:36]
C
That's a really good one. And also makes you get crazy boners. Like, it's fun as fuck.
- [36:43]
A
But. So, like we're in this phase of Internet where most of the Internet seems to be run by provocateurs, it's hard to actually suss out their attentions. Like do they actually believe all the edgelord things they're saying? Are they playing up their edge lordiness for attention? Do they actually know the difference? Whatever. But if you just look at it as a business model, it's basically like you have this guy, he behaves in provocative ways to get attention, which works. Yeah, you're a teenage boy, you're scrolling TikTok, you're scrolling reels, you see this guy like saying the N word, you're like, oh my God, what an asshole. And then the second thought you have is his face looks better than mine. And so it's like he's bringing you to the car crash of his behavior. But then the thing you get curious about is his advice about how to be a gigachad.
- [37:30]
D
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And this guy is just like extremely good at playing the Internet in a way to get attention by being provocative and being around other provocative online people. And you know, for this new generation of streamers, it's just purely about, it's a numbers game. And then you go in Clavicular's bio and he's selling a course for Clavicular's guide to looksmaxing. Or you can pay for one on one coaching with him.
- [37:59]
A
They're like convincing a person who's 18 to have the anxieties of a person who's middle aged.
- [38:04]
D
Absolutely.
- [38:04]
A
It's so tough.
- [38:06]
D
Try, try 15.
- [38:07]
A
Oh God.
- [38:08]
D
You know, I had a source at a New York City elite private school telling me that students at these schools are taking peptides and GLP1s and they're getting mini fridges and you know, buying peptides from TikTok influencers and hiding them from their parents in their mini fridge in their room and they're 15, 16 years old.
- [38:30]
A
That's insane. It's so confusing for me because like I'm both more disconnected from this Internet than the last one. But also the main way that I experience teenage boys is like I have step kids and they have friends. I'm constantly like driving them places or they're like doing sleepovers or whatever. And it's weird, I look at this stuff and I'm like, oh my God, that seems horrible for like an average 15 year old kid's like ideas about themselves, ideas about race, ideas about women. But then I see the teenage boys in my life and like they seem self conscious, they don't seem hateful.
- [39:09]
D
Yeah, I mean, I think that with something like clavicular and even Andrew Tate, there's the adult way of assuming that kids are taking all this stuff at face value and being like, oh my God, our young men are being radicalized. And obviously just to some extent that's happening with some kids. But I think for the most part, like the kids are seeing this stuff as ridiculous. They might like on some level be sort of more sympathetic to edgelord ideas than adults are, as all teenagers are, but I think that for many of them, clavicular is like just another kind of meme, basically. And the same. Same as Andrew Tate, same as a lot of this stuff. Like, they get that it's inherently ridiculous. Even if maybe they might to a certain extent buy into the like, looks maxing stuff, they're also just like watching this stuff because for them it's entertainment. But I, you know, my sense is that there's a sort of adult way of freaking out about it that like, doesn't give teenage boys enough credit for their ability to laugh at stuff that is inherently ridiculous.
- [40:10]
A
I think that's right. The other thing I'm curious about is just do you feel like with peptide marketing, do you feel that it is aimed just in your experience of the Internet, are you seeing it more aimed at men? Are you just seeing that it is equal opportunity in a way that cosmetics wouldn't have been in the past?
- [40:25]
D
I think it's more equal opportunity. I think that a certain sector of like looks maxing gym focused peptides marketing is more for men. But I do think there are all sorts of people selling this to women as well.
- [40:38]
A
It's weird to draw a line from somebody figuring out finally how to make video for social media work to teenagers have mini fridges with injectables in their bedrooms.
- [40:50]
D
Totally.
- [40:56]
A
After the break, we leave the kingdom of clavicular and head back to Silicon Valley, where our story will resolve on I promise a less doomy note. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Vanguard. As we step into a new year, it's the perfect time for all the advisors listening to think about how to set your clients up for success. One way to do that is to level up your fixed income strategy. But bonds are tricky. The market is huge, rates shift and risks hide in plain sight. That's why having a partner with scale and expertise matters. Vanguard brings both. Vanguard's bond offerings are built to an institutional standard. Their lineup includes more than 80 bond funds actively managed by a global team of about 200 specialists who focus on research, training and risk management across markets. Rather than relying on a single star portfolio manager, Vanguard takes a team based approach. Insight and decision making are shared across the group. So every client benefits from collective expertise. In a bond market this complex, that matters. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for yourself@vanguard.com audio that's vanguard.com audio all investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by NerdWallet. You know running a small business is no joke. I've talked to so many friends who own businesses and when it comes time to get a loan, they just hit a wall. Big banks say no. And if you start searching online, it's easy to get lost in sketchy offers with sky high rates and pages of fine print that make your head spin. Which is where Fundera powered by NerdWallet comes in. It's a free, super easy platform where you can compare real financing options from trusted lenders. What's great is that you don't need perfect credit to start and there's no spam, no bait and switch nonsense, just real personalized options that actually make sense for your business. And here's the best part. For a limited time, when you visit nerdwallet.com search and fill out the no obligation form, you'll get VIP treatment and talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of the of small business lending. Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com search to find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. NMLS ID Number 1240038 this episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Quints. I love clothes that can do more with less pieces that mix, match and still look good season after season. And that's the whole idea behind Quints. It's why their stuff fits so easily into my wardrobe. They've got everyday essentials like organic cotton sweaters, versatile polos, and lightweight jackets that are perfect for layering. As the weather shifts, everything feels simple and timeless and well made. Quince keeps things affordable by working directly with top factories and cutting out the middlemen so you're not paying for logos or hype. And they only partner with factories that meet high standards for ethical and responsible production. The wool coat I recently painted picked up from Quint has honestly outperformed coats I paid way more for. It looks great. It keeps me warm and still feels brand new. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quint.comsearch engine for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com search engine free shipping 365 day returns. Quint.com search engine. Welcome back to the show. I have to say, as a person trying to come to my own internal verdict on peptides, I notice my view of them changes based on where I encounter them. A tech CEO trying some compound I've never heard of. Fine. Some Adonis young man with a syringe convincing teenagers online to buy his stack? Obviously not fine. It's the issue so often with any drug that it's not just the inherent riskiness or safety of the substance, it's the context around it. As a general rule when it comes to drug reporting, I try not to ask reporters whether or not they've taken the drugs. The late, brilliant Mark Kleiman, who wrote a lot about drug policy, once said, quote, if you do drug policy and you're asked whether you use drugs, you've got two choices. You can say, yes, I'm a lawbreaker, please come arrest me and ignore everything I say because I'm a bad person, or no, actually, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. End quote. So I try not to ask reporters about their drug use on air. But in this case, I broke my rule. And I'm glad I did because it led to some answers that helped me settle my thinking on these drugs, at least for the moment. I asked Jasmine sun whether she tried peptides.
- [46:22]
B
I've been tempted, but I haven't done it. So that's the short answer is I haven't tried any gray market peptides. Though I am interested because I think that most people, when they're telling you a story about how taking BPC157 or retatrutide or apitalin changed their life, they're not actually trying to sell you something. Most of the time they're telling what is a real experience that they believe that they had and it did something for them. You know, now the doctor part of my brain says, I mean, I'm not a doctor, but the doctors I've talked to says n of 1 is not a good experiment just because it worked for somebody else in a particular context. Maybe it's a placebo, maybe it only worked for them. Maybe if you have different health conditions, you're going to experience something very different and so as this stuff goes mainstream, that's something that does concern me. Just because there's a lot of young girls with eating disorders, young men trying to look better. And I don't know that everyone has the ability or will do their research. And so there is this sort of like the thing about do your own research is it offloads responsibility from the person chilling to the person doing the drug. And I think a lot of people are gonna make mistakes. But I think one of the things that this, this reporting experience did was it did make me more sympathetic to actually the existence of a gray market or it made me think about why gray markets exist, I. E. Things that are not illegal, but things that are not being endorsed. Right. I am a little sympathetic to the idea that people, adults who are aware of the risks, can run experiments on themselves, not telling everyone else to do it, just like doing what they do and writing up a blog post about how that went or even just in some cases, solving a health problem that they had struggled with for many years. And if that's what solves your health problem, like power to you. So I think overall I understood why you might want spaces of freedom or spaces of experimentation that shouldn't hit the mainstream. I frankly don't want to hit the mainstream. Should not be legitimized, should not be advertised or marketed, but that allow people to start poking around the edges. And you know, with Silicon Valley in particular, one thing I think is if this stuff really works, then someone is going to invest a lot of money and then taking it through the rest of the process and figuring out the legal barriers and figuring out the clinical testing. And if like one guy in his basement with some syringes is like the thing that, you know, makes someone realize maybe there's a there there and we're going to actually run the test now, then I am happy for that to happen.
- [48:52]
A
It's funny, it's like your view is basically like the nice thing about a gray market is because it's like it exists somewhere in between legal and illegal, you don't have like a massive marketing push behind it. You have something that for the people who are willing to tolerate a little bit more risk, it's kind of like putting something on a high shelf, ideally. And that while you yourself don't want to be in like a single person research study with the only body that you'll ever have in life, what is good about it happening in the culture that you're documenting is that some of those people might find something useful and then they might put it through the normal testing and regulatory hurdles where everybody else can benefit from it.
- [49:32]
B
I think that's right. Yeah. I think we need some people who are more risk tolerant than the rest of us who are on the frontier. I mean, this kind of goes back to your earlier question about why cover San Francisco? Like, I like living in San Francisco. Sometimes people are like, I can't believe you have to deal with these people and talk to these, like, crazy tech people all the time. And I'm like, I love it. Because I am not as risk tolerant as a lot of these people are. I am not injecting the peptides, I am not pouring all my money into crypto, et cetera. But I think that sometimes when you have people willing to take crazy risks, including failing a lot of the time and screwing stuff up, the rest of us can learn from that. And again, maybe we'll get something good out of it. Maybe we won't, but maybe we will.
- [50:24]
A
Jasmine sun, you can find her work at her substack. We'll have a link to that substack and to her Peptides piece in the show notes. And you can usually find Ezra Marcus at New York Magazine. We'll have a link to his Peptides reporting in the show notes as well. This week, for the credits, something a little different. One of our listeners, Ned Wilson, wrote in and asked if he could read them for us. Ned works in film and television. He's a longtime listener to this show. He's also a finder, one of our listeners who financially supports our show at the highest possible level. When someone who is paying for your work asks if they can do your work for you, what answer could you give? But yes, take it away, Ned.
- [51:28]
F
Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by P.J. vogt and Sharifi Pinamaneni. Garrett Graham is our senior producer. Emily Maltaire is our associate producer. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armin Bazarian. Our production intern is Piper Dumont. This episode was fact checked by Mary Mathis. Our executive producer is Leah Rhys Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey, Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Moira Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuppf. If you'd like to support the show, get ad free episodes, zero reruns and bonus episodes. Please consider signing up for incognito mode at Search Engine Show. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.
- [52:31]
G
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