Who is Essex's HsTikkyTokky in Netflix Louis Theroux doc?

Who is Essex-born HsTikkyTokky in Louis Theroux 'Into the Manosphere' doc? <i>(Image: Surrey Police)</i>
Who is Essex-born HsTikkyTokky in Louis Theroux 'Into the Manosphere' doc? (Image: Surrey Police)
This article is brought to you by our exclusive subscriber partnership with our sister title USA Today, and has been written by our American colleagues. It does not necessarily reflect the view of The Herald.

ESSEX TikTok star ‘HsTikkyTokky’, Harrison Sullivan, is one of the online personalities to feature prominently in Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary, ‘Into the Manosphere’.

The 24-year-old TikToker, of Hutton in Brentwood, was sentenced in November for crashing a McLaren supercar and spending nearly a year on the run from police.

It was during that year renowned documentarian Louis Theroux visited him in Marbella, Spain, to ask him about his fame and the messages he sends to young boys.

“This is my dishwasher over here,” Sullivan says, introducing a young woman in the room.

Sullivan became famous in early 2023 for his online content, which he says teaches boys “how to be {...} boys, how to make money, how to be outside the system”.

His platform grew after he started making content at university with friend Ed Matthews – another influencer who also features in the documentary – and began to make £1,000 a day selling fitness programmes and plans.

In ‘Into the Manosphere’, Sullivan and Matthews are seen flirting with women in the streets of Marbella, greeting young fans who recognise them, and arranging a set-up which they say was intended to catch a child predator, but turned violent.

Sullivan promotes apps which offer financial services and bought an agency which manages young women producing sexual content on Only Fans – but says he would disown his hypothetical daughter if she was involved in producing sexual content herself, as it disgusts him.

“Do I agree with it? No,” he says to Theroux. “Would I profit off it? Yeah.”

He says he views himself as a businessman and a salesman.

Later, he shows Theroux a video of himself receiving oral sex from a woman in a nightclub toilet.

Sullivan says “we live in an attention economy”, highlighting that with more views comes more fame and opportunities to make money. It could explain some of the more outrageous content he’s produced, but it also hits the nail on the head for how the documentary reveals online content often snowballs into something bigger, more dangerous, and more controversial.

When Theroux asks him, “Why not try and be a good person?”, Sullivan says he feels he wouldn’t have become so famous at all if he had just done good things.

Sullivan later begins to use Theroux himself to increase views, laughing at him, encouraging him to punch an arcade punching bag, doing what viewers on his livestream ask and questioning him about Jimmy Savile.

His attitude towards Theroux and the documentary shifts to hostility when he secretly livestreams their third encounter, where he again panders to viewers by asking about Saville and Palestine.

Despite three meetings with Sullivan, it seems Theroux is unable to peer behind the lifestyle he presents and into the money-making systems he promotes to young boys. All we do know is Theroux invested £500 into Sullivan’s enterprise, and by the end of the documentary he revealed it was mostly gone.

Theroux also meets with several other male influencers who he refers to as Sullivan’s “ideological forefathers”.  Justin Waller, a businessman, success coach, and close friend of Andrew and Tristan Tate, talks about the "one-sided monogamous" relationship he has with the mother of his children.

He talked about traditional gender roles and masculine energy, claiming men invent, build and maintain society.

“Look around. Can you name anything that a woman has invented and built in our plain sight?” Waller says, forgetting his mother made him.

The Tate brothers. Justin Waller. Myron Gaines. Creators who have millions of young followers who are being told and believing that men are born without value.

“As men, we’re meant to suffer,” one young man says, a fan of Waller’s. “We’re not meant to be happy.” It’s a heart-breaking view.

Young fans approach all the influencers who appear in the documentary, which chooses not to explore how the "manosphere" ideologies seep from online into their interactions with the world.

We see headlines of schoolboys refusing to speak to female teachers and barking at women. Theroux narrates that “much has been said about the effect of streamers on their young fans” and moves on to note that many of the streamers grew up without fathers.

Sullivan’s mother Elaine appears to defend her son in Theroux’s third visit, when he is questioned on his choice to evade UK law.

The documentary reveals she worked six-day weeks late into the evening to put him through private schooling growing up. She hates racism, homophobia and sexism, Sullivan says.

When he says he would ideally rather marry a virgin, Sullivan’s mum says she finds it “extraordinary” how young women are stereotyped compared to young men, but that “it’s been like that since the beginning of time”.

“We should push back on that though, shouldn’t we?” Theroux asks.

“Well, yes, but…” Elaine says, as her son shakes his head behind her. He goes on to say most women in the world are thick and that his mum is different, which she challenges.


Read more:


Sullivan was arrested on October 10 last year when he returned to the UK over failing to appear at Guildford Magistrates’ Court in November 2024 in relation to several driving offences.

At the end of October, Sullivan pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and driving without insurance.

Staines Magistrates’ Court heard Sullivan was driving a purple McLaren at more than 71mph on a single carriageway 40mph road when it crashed with another vehicle.

Sullivan was extradited from Spain to the UK after being arrested on unrelated matters, the court was told.

He was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, disqualified from driving for two years and order to undertake 300 hours of unpaid work.

Get involved
with the news

Send your news & photos