So You Watched the Documentary...
After his cancellation in late 2022, Liver King went from public apology to pledging a complete steroid cleanse (Liver King 2.0), to posting sporadically, and eventually fading from the public’s radar.
Until… this week.
Netflix just dropped Untold: The Liver King.
Just when the internet stopped talking about Liver King, the exposé hit. No one saw it coming… except, of course, our very own CEO and co-founder, John Hyland, who sat down and shared his expert take on the social media phenomenon.
After all, who better to shed light on the making (and eventual unraveling) of one of the internet's most controversial figures… than the lead brand architect and cultural strategist himself? He’s one of an entire team here at 1DS, who helped create the strategy that took the Ancestral message mainstream. Yes, we’re that agency.
How It All Played Out.
Let’s start from the beginning when Brian Johnson (Liver King’s predecessor) first approached 1DS.
He possessed a clear mission: to put back in, what the modern world left out. Period.
His goal? One million followers. Not for vanity, it appeared, but because he believed that this level of reach signified real traction for a message he deemed as inherently positive.
Meat enthusiast or not, certain fundamental truths were hard to deny. That we weren’t moving enough? Absolutely. That we were eating more highly-processed crap than decades before? Fair game. That we should probably prioritize the foods that our biology has evolved with? Makes sense.
Lacking the airtight brand framework, the strategic understanding of social media, and the kind of cultural leverage needed to grow at scale and speed, he called on 1DS to express these messages in the most digestible, captivating way possible.
And so the timeline ensued…
Early 2021 – Liver King is a name recognized only by close friends and family, coined to reflect his sheer primal commitment, but equally, his inclination to intro liver (the ultimate ancestral superfood) to every open-minded individual. And hey, even their close-minded neighbors.
Late 2021 – Liver King approaches 1DS after being encouraged to get on social media, but he wants to do it the right way. He’s an all-in type of guy.
October 2021 – After working expeditiously on a rather commanding go-to-launch strategy, the content machine launches, and quickly dominates TikTok, Instagram, YT Shorts, Snap, Twitter, and YouTube. No stone goes unturned… to reference our barbaric forefathers.
LK and his message are unavoidable. Duets, stitches, hot takes, and memes drive him into the algorithmic stratosphere. Average joes are caught shouting “LIVER… IS… KING!” outside their local butchers, and, well, everywhere else.
July 2022 – Steroid murmers start to drive real conversations. “Is Liver King Natty?” becomes a world-wide debate, and soon, an SEO goldmine feeding algorithmic frenzy.
December 2022 – The steroid scandal breaks… courtesy of email receipt beholder and YouTube’s most forensic fitness sleuth, More Plates More Dates.
2023 — 2025 – After a public apology, Liver King embarks on something resembling a redemption arc (no one really knows for sure). He pledges to go clean and to document the journey to Liver King 2.0: an honest, all-natural, more vulnerable version of the former beast. But without the ability to tell the truth and the whole truth, as guided by 1DS, he fails to win the internet back.
But it’s not the fall from grace that loses the 1DS co-sign.
It’s the breach of our own value system. Relationships are built on mutual trust, after all.
Audience relationships, but also client-agency relationships. These two are the cornerstone of everything we do. The promises shared between parties, then, are more than strategic…
They’re sacred.
“We signed up for one thing… and it’s wildly apparent that it’s morphed into… evolved into this crazy other thing. It’s not how we do business.”
Jump to April 2025 – Netflix tells the story. You press play. Good and bad, you begin to tune into the many lessons this story beholds. About character, about consequence, and deception aside, about good social strategy.
One Thing Still Holds True in 2025… It’s The Strategy.
📌 Functional truths to be gleaned from the Liver King Brand:
(hint: first, separate the person)
✔️ Know that volume is your moat. Forget perfection — speed and saturation win. One good video won’t cement you. A constant stream of content that compounds to entertain, educate, and form an actionable set of takeaways? Now you’re building real brand equity.
Liver King didn’t sell liver, he sold a worldview. Whether the worldview grew diluted or not, the point still stands: it’s about creating an identity that people want to share in.
👉 Remember when we broke down Ashton Hall’s morning routine a few newsletters back? Here’s Sam Parham’s breakdown if you missed it.
Another great example of how defined rituals and consistent, human storytelling builds credibility, aspiration, and audience connection.
✔️ Cross-platform presence builds cultural saturation. If they can’t scroll past you, they’ll remember you. Best yet, they’ll cross-pollinate to neighboring channels in the hopes for more.
✔️ Extreme clarity = extreme engagement. Whether you loved or hated LK, and the fact he was sinking 50 raw eggs to make an early morning point, you got it. Clarity drives engagement. Polarising clarity - you guessed it - drives cult status.
✔️ Controversy fuels community, especially when paired with consistency. You can’t have no one on your side, but you needn’t have everyone on your side. In fact, sometimes, the perfect place to be is somewhere in the middle. That’s where loyal fandoms are born. So don’t be afraid to take a stance (just make sure you’ve got the evidence to back it).
What’s your biggest takeaway from the Liver King lore? We’d love to hear your opinion. Hit reply and let us know!
There’s so much more to unpack here, but don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know when it drops.
Until next time.
. . .
Head of Communications, 1DS Collective
