Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Apr 1, 2023 22 tweets 10 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an opportunist, grifter and YouTuber Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968). He's best-known for appearing as an expert and making money from controversial topics, such as the "Red Pill" movement, economics and of course the war in Ukraine.

1/21
Gonzalo has tried all sorts of careers to make an easy buck. In the 90's, he wrote corny spy-action books with characters such as "Duncan Idaho, the Langley roadrunner who skirts the line between brilliantly daring and foolishly reckless" in his hardly-a-bestseller, Acrobat.
2/21
He's also co-written,produced & directed a campy action film Secuestro in 2005.After his failure as both an author & as a filmmaker,Lira disappeared from the public sphere,only to re-appear in 2010 as an "economic expert", forecasting hyperinflation threatening the US dollar.3/21
His predictions were published on a prestigious "He Wall Street" website. He was also contributing to Business Insider, a website known for publishing fake news and for allowing the use of anonymous sources "at any time for any reason".

4/21
He's also written articles for the far-right, libertarian blog ZeroHedge. Steve Keen, an Australian economist, described Gonzalo as an "over-promiser" and as an "under-deliverer". He also described him as a "sleaze" who refashions himself as an expert on any chosen topic.

5/21
Then around 2017, during the peak of the so called "Red Pill Movement" on Reddit, Lira found a new opportunity in "guiding" young men in life and became known as the "CoachRedPill". At this point he was almost 50-year-old geezer spreading ideas such as "women over...

6/21
...30 are ruined", "all women only truly desire money", and "the degenerate Western culture pushes them to chase only the hottest 15 % guys for meaningless sex".

At the same time he's selling digital seminars with topics ranging from dating to relationship advice.

7/21
He was relatively popular in the "manosphere", and his Patreon still has almost 800 patrons, making him anything between 4000 and 8000 USD a month. His other Patreon makes him another 5500 USD a month.

8/21
The idea of the "decadent West" of course comes from Russian-spread propaganda, and at some point had made its way into the Red Pill community. Due to its contrarian views, the "manosphere" was also great breeding ground for conspiratorial and pro-Russian sentiment.

9/21
Lira was spreading COVID-19 conspiracy theories, while calling himself a "PureBlood" - someone who hasn't taken the COVID-19 jabs. He's also suggested that trying to start a family with anyone who's had the vaccine is pointless since they are already infertile.

10/21
Around 2021 Reddit and other social media sites started censoring all "manosphere" related content, which naturally made Lira to move on to other things. He became a doomsayer, preaching about a "great war against China", telling people to move to "poor and ...

11/21
... under-developed countries" since they "can't afford to impose any totalitarian policies". He'd allegedly been living in Kharkiv, Ukraine for some years before the war started. Lira's wife is allegedly Ukrainian/Russian.

12/21
Around mid-February 2022, he was still confident that Russia wasn't going to invade Ukraine and that it's all just Western propaganda. He later insisted that he saw the invasion coming way before it happened.

13/21
When the full-scale invasion in Feb 2022 started, Gonzalo immediately became a professional analyst on the matter. During the first days, he said that "the commentary and analysis I post is without picking sides," right after he'd picked the side of a genocidal maniac.

14/21
On 27 Feb 2022, he published a video defending Russia's actions and plans for a regime change, and blaming the US for any destruction in Ukraine. His motivations for praising Russia are unknown, but it could be due to his need to feed his big ego and due to his need ...

15/21
..to be in the spotlight. Since the full-scale invasion, he's basically just parroted the Russian propaganda on the war, for example saying that the Russians are "careful in not hitting civilian targets", "Zelenskyy is a cokehead" and that the Bucha massacre was actually...
16/21
..conducted by the Ukrainian State Secret Service, SBU. He's also blamed Victoria Nuland for having "orchestrated the Euromaidan". Lira was eventually detained by the SBU after he was taking pictures around Kharkiv. He allegedly gave up five other pro-Russian collaborators..17/21
...in exchange for house arrest or deportation. He eventually chose deportation, was escorted to Poland,and allegedly moved to the Netherlands.There were also some rumors that he was decapitated by the SBU, which made his fellow propagandist, iEarlGrey, very upset.

18/21
Gonzalo is also a big fan of the worst combat analyst, Douglas Macgregor, whose out-of-this-world predictions he shares on almost daily basis. He's also been interviewed by another pro-Kremlin propagandist, George Galloway.

19/21
To conclude: Lira is a grifter and an opportunist who's always looking for a new ways to earn more money. He has an enormous and fragile ego, he's extremely thin-skinned and gets upset when his shitty takes on Ukraine (or on anything) are challenged.

20/21
Like Jackson "Z" Hinkle, Lira's a "Merchant of Rage", making money from outrage and from contrarian views, which is why people should just ignore him.

Block, and move on.

21/21

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jan 8
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Venezuelan bus driver, politician & dictator, Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro). He’s best-known for ruining Venezuela, turning it into a dictatorship, and for collaborating with other authoritarian regimes like Russia, Iran & Belarus.

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His exact birthplace has been questioned, but most sources agree that Mr. Maduro was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Maduro was raised in a Catholic family, but at some point became a follower of Indian Hindu guru Sathya Sai Baba and even visited the guru in India back in 2005.

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Nicolás’ introduction to leftist politics happened during the 80s, when he acted as an unofficial trade unionist and as bodyguard for José Vicente Rangel, who later worked as a foreign minister under Hugo Chávez. He also visited Havana, Cuba, where he “studied communism”,…

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Jan 3
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an Estonian politician and propagandist, Aivo Peterson. He’s best-known for travelling to Donbas and Mariupol to produce pro-Kremlin propaganda, and for trying to create a pro-Russia separatist movement in Estonia.

1/16 Image
Peterson is what I call a “decoy vatnik” - someone who’s so overtly pro-Kremlin that their activities draw a lot of attention (think Johan Bäckman in Finland), and the Putin bootlickers who work through business and politics can operate in peace.

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Aivo hails from Ida-Viru, a region populated mostly by Russians. His father was Russian — his birthname was Krylov, but he later took his mother’s surname Peterson. Before becoming a full-time Kremlin propagandist, he worked as a border guard, masseur & real estate agent.

3/16 Image
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Read 17 tweets
Dec 30, 2024
More proof that

@AdrianDittmann = @elonmusk

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Both capitalize "Dad"

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Both tell the same shitty jokes.

What else we got?

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Read 4 tweets
Dec 27, 2024
"Grab your popcorn - Loomer and Elon are going at it!

This might be the first time I agree with her actually. Image
Elon calling Americans "retarded", this should end well. Image
And now Elon removed Loomer's blue tick, reducing her reach on X dramatically. Image
Read 6 tweets
Dec 20, 2024
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.

1/23 Image
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).

2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
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Dec 4, 2024
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20 Image
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.

It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.

So here’s the latest:

2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets

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