The Big Vibe Shift: Inside The Icelandic Brosphere

For reference, read this article for a deep-dive character analysis of the Brosphere’s main players.

It was very clear in the early hours of December 1, 2024, that there had been a vibe shift in Iceland. The shift hadn’t happened overnight — but that evening made it undeniable. As results came in on election night, it was already obvious: the left had lost its place in parliament.

But the shift wasn’t only about the left being wiped out of Alþingi. It had to do with a rising undercurrent — visible in the Centre Party’s swelling support; in the crowd chanting for a former podcaster headed to Alþingi; and in the quiet normalisation of nationalist aesthetics, anti-establishment sentiment and soft misogyny.

By the time the ballots were counted, the mood had already changed. That night simply confirmed it.

Bjarni lost the battle on the right

The coalition that had governed since 2017 — the Left-Greens (VG), the Progressives, and the Independence Party — collapsed. VG vanished from parliament. The Progressives barely survived. Voters had grown tired of a government that stretched across the spectrum. So had the parties themselves.

In October, Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson dissolved the government, citing irreconcilable differences with the Left-Greens over immigration and energy. Pressure had mounted from within his own Independence Party. The party knew they were losing the battle on the right and that the Centre Party was gaining ground for having a tough stance on issues like immigration. Bjarni tried to reclaim the right by triggering an election. But the move backfired.

The initial outcome did not appear disastrous; the Social Democrats came out on top. They formed a coalition with the Liberal Reform Party and the People’s Party. For the first time in history, three women led the coalition government, situated centre-right on the political axis.

Conservative Gen Z

“Snorri! Snorri! Snorri!” The crowd chanted at Valsheimilið stadium as Centre Party supporters celebrated election night. In the middle stood Snorri Másson — podcaster, first-time candidate. “Young people are loving this thing,” he told RÚV. “They’ve been waiting for this.”

“It was a moment that captured something more than electoral performance. This was the aesthetic logic of the Brosphere.”

Snorri wasn’t alone in sensing the shift. Sigríður Á. Andersen, former minister of justice and Independence Party MP, now a Centre Party candidate, put it plainly, “Young people are leaning right.” Her own move from the Independence Party to the Centre Party had made headlines — a sign that even established conservatives no longer saw Bjarni’s party as the natural home for the right.

As “Simmi Simmi Já” echoed through the speakers — a parody remix of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” — the room vibrated with ironic energy. It felt less like a political gathering than a meme come to life: self-aware, unserious, and still somehow triumphant.

The remix had originally been created to mock Centre Party leader and former prime minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson — a satirical jab at his public persona. But here, irony was repurposed as an anthem. He embraced it, smiling, while declaring his delight at how much young people had rallied to his campaign.

It was a moment that captured something more than electoral performance. This was the aesthetic logic of the Brosphere — a loosely connected culture of masculinity, humour, and anti-establishment and anti-feminist energy. Not quite ideological, not entirely unserious, but always in tune with the vibe.

And the numbers backed it up. A 2023 survey by the Icelandic Media Commission found that nearly a third of Icelandic boys aged 16-19 disliked feminists, trans people and vegans. Compared to girls, boys reported significantly higher rates of contempt across nearly all social categories. The resentment was measurable. And it was trending right.

One man in the Valsheimilið crowd wore a red MAGA hat. When a Heimildin journalist asked him why, he claimed he liked disruption. He wasn’t sure whether Sigmundur Davíð shared President Donald Trump’s politics — but he liked that something was being shaken up.

Ultimately, the Centre Party didn’t win the election — the Social Democrats did. But the mood at Valsheimilið defined a new political tone. The Brosphere wasn’t just online anymore. It had entered the building.

From fringe to centre

The vibe shift was also visible in the media landscape. Suddenly, nearly every major candidate was appearing on a podcast — something that, only a few years earlier, would have seemed absurd. Bjarni Benediktsson joining a livestream with his son-in-law and rapper Brynjar “Lil Binni” Barkarson might once have turned heads. This time, it barely registered. He was attempting to court the bros, but it felt like a misfire. By that time, however, most of the bros seemed to be going to the Centre Party.

Bjarni Benediktsson and Brynjar Barkarson, screenshot

In conversations with campaign managers from three major parties, a striking divergence emerged in how seriously they took podcasts during the 2024 parliamentary elections. For Janus Arn Guðmundsson of the Independence Party, podcasts were like “an inseparable part” of political strategy. After the Icelandic presidential election — which saw an explosion in candidate podcast participation — it would have been irresponsible to view the medium as a mere addition to traditional broadcast media.

Janus argues that these platforms allowed for more personal and persuasive communication, especially with politically curious young men, and cited both local effects and international research to support that claim. Shows such as Ein pæling, Þjóðmál, Komið gott, Ritstjórinn, and Chess After Dark are, in Janus’s opinion, among the most prominent.

Svanborg Sigmarsdóttir of Viðreisn was more skeptical. During the election campaign, her team prioritised mainstream media and digital ads but sent candidates to podcasts only when invited. She named Spursmál as the most influential during the campaign — though largely because its interviews were amplified by the host media company mbl.is. In her view, podcasts reached relatively few voters and held little sway unless their content was picked up by legacy outlets.

“Misogyny doesn’t always arrive as an ideology. It arrives as humour.”

Katrín Júlíusdóttir of the Social Democratic Alliance took a more moderate stance. She appreciated the depth and relaxed tone of podcast interviews but described them as “a bonus” rather than a central strategy. While traditional media and social platforms still did the heavy lifting, she acknowledged the growing relevance of podcasts, especially as more people discovered political clips from shows like Ein pæling and Spursmál via social media.

This strategic embrace, however, came with its own contradictions. As political candidates sought airtime on podcasts like Ein pæling, they also lent legitimacy to shows that had in many cases promoted ideologies far removed from their own.

Unlike Þjóðmál, whose podcast host Gísli Freyr Valdórsson openly aligns with the political right, Ein pæling maintains an ostensibly neutral tone — one that mirrors the “just asking questions” posture popularised by international hosts like Joe Rogan.

Host of Ein Pæling Þórarinn Hjartarson, screenshot

This posture, though noncommittal on the surface, often veers right in its guest choices (like Jordan Peterson), rhetoric, and underlying assumptions about masculinity, media, and national identity.

In both Iceland and the United States, these podcasts offer a format where candidates can appear more relaxed, more human — less politician, more bro. But they are also part of a media ecology shaped by a broader reactionary current, one which flows against feminism; against conventional journalism; against “wokeness”; and against the political left.

Cold plunges and spiritual enlightenment

Snorri Másson had sensed this shift in the media landscape. In 2023, he left his job at the news division of Stöð 2 Vísir to launch his own media platform, Ritstjórinn. “The media landscape is undergoing fundamental change,” he said at the time, “and this format suits the new era.” His goal was to fill what he described as a gap in Icelandic journalism: critical commentary from a journalist who openly rejects the ideal of neutrality.

Episodes of Ritstjórinn revolve around familiar themes: the alleged oppression of boys in schools, the creep of political correctness into business, and anti-woke emphases. But tone is as important as content. Snorri doesn’t shout. He smirks. The production is sleek, the commentary wry, and the visuals consistent — prominently featuring the red, white, and blue of the Icelandic flag. It’s not overt nationalism, exactly, but it suggests a kind of cultural rootedness, and a quiet defiance of elite values.

Bergþór and Snorri Másson, photo by Ásdís Ásgeirsdóttir

Snorri had already co-founded a podcast with his brother Bergþór Másson back in 2019 — Skoðanabræður, a self-consciously bro-y show built on friendship, inside jokes, and skepticism toward progressive ideas. In a 2024 radio interview, Skoðanabræður’s host Bergþór rejected the “meninist” label and bristled at comparisons to Andrew Tate. Instead, he framed the show’s message as one of personal responsibility: take ownership of your life, stop complaining, don’t blame others — everything is within you. According to Bergþór, the podcast’s politics are not rooted in structural critique, but in self-transformation. Cold plunges. Financial discipline. Spiritual alignment.

In episode #346, titled “Takk Takk”, the bros discuss their clothing brand of the same name. Bergþór recalls the winter of 2023, when, “there was a vibe shift across the country.” Post-COVID and post-cancel culture, he said, people had stopped being afraid. The mood had changed — for the better. His guests — Aron Kristinn Jóhannsson, Logi Pedro, and Benedikt Andrason  — agreed. The bros were tired of woke, tired of political correctness, and dismissive of the “libs”, particularly feminists.

These views were further manifest in the creation of the Takk Takk fashion brand whose marketing leaned heavily on youth and soft nationalism and benevolent sexism. Subtitled “Icelandic Heritage”, almost all of Takk Takk’s promotional images feature very young women — in some cases girls who appear barely out of their teens — wearing the tank top in bedrooms, bathrooms, and on low-resolution laptop cameras or as selfies. Further emphasising the brand’s nationalist undertones, one shoot was even staged inside the historic home of Jón Sigurðsson,  who spearheaded Iceland’s independence in the 19th century.

Promotional photo by Takk Takk

Pop band ClubDub, founded by aforementioned Aron Kristinn and Brynjar Barkarson and briefly managed by Bergþór, also used the national flag prominently as stage decor, visual motif, and general aesthetic. Their 2024 album cover includes a Terry Richardson-esque photo of two young women, centred on their chests with heads cut off, reminiscent of the cultural phenomena produced before the #metoo wave.

One of the band’s most popular tracks is titled “Bad Bitch in Reykjavík”. It plays in nightclubs, on TikTok, in teen bedrooms. The vibe had shifted — and it was selling.

ClubDub’s Risa Tilkynning album cover

In an episode of Spjallið með Frosta Logasyni, Frosti, a podcaster who resides in the gray area between the manosphere and the Brosphere, expresses gratitude to Bergþór Másson for no longer being woke. “You can’t imagine how happy it makes me to see and hear this — that guys from that crowd are starting to see the light,” he said.

Frosti goes on to commend the younger generation, telling Bergþór, “It’s so refreshing to see young men like you […] recently on a podcast you said that men and women are not the same.” He admits that, for a while, he feared everything was “going to hell,” but hearing voices like Bergþór’s had restored his hope in humanity. In the same episode, Bergþór adds that most of his friends have also moved past being woke: “That time has passed.”

The politics of not caring

At youth centres around Iceland, staff who work with teenagers describe a subtle cultural turn. Misogyny doesn’t always arrive as an ideology. It arrives as humour. Boys don’t necessarily believe what they’re repeating — but as long as it’s framed as a joke, it goes unchallenged. And if someone does push back, they’re scolded for being too serious. “Why does everything have to be political?” The defence is always the same: Relax. It’s just in fun.

Youth workers say few teens identify as feminists anymore. Asked directly, many retreat to a familiar formulation: they support equality, of course, but not extremism. A few years ago, feminist clubs existed even in middle schools. Now, youth workers say it’s almost impossible to get kids to join them. One said simply: “They don’t talk about feminism. They talk about woke.”

When names do come up, they’re familiar: Andrew Tate was popular a few years ago. More recently, teens mention Jóhann “Joey Christ” Kristófer, Bergþór Másson, Brynjar Barkarson — and increasingly, Snorri Másson.

The manosphere, in other words, isn’t confined to obscure corners of the internet. It’s bleeding into daily life — not necessarily as a set of beliefs, but as a tone. Humour, detachment, and the performance of not caring have become their own kind of worldview. And few challenge it directly. Not because they agree — but because they don’t want to kill the vibe.

The bro who killed the vibe

At the beginning of June 2025, roughly a month after Brynjar Barkarson started his racist tirade about Muslims on Instagram, his bandmate Aron Kristinn formally announced his departure from ClubDub. “These are leeches who have no respect for us, our customs, or our culture. They’re here to drain the system, rape, and mouth off,” Brynjar had written.

In the weeks leading up to Aron’s announcement, several schools had cancelled ClubDub gigs in response to Brynjar’s statements. He had also appeared on the podcast Ein pæling, doubling down on his xenophobic views and offering a worldview steeped in cultural conservatism and gender essentialism. In the episode, titled “I Would Die for the Girls Who Want to Cancel Me”, he stated: “We are in a culture war.”

“These are leeches who have no respect for us, our customs, or our culture. They’re here to drain the system, rape, and mouth off.”

Brynjar offered a crude psychological archetype: women are nurturing, emotional beings, tasked with care; men are rational protectors of the home. Happiness, according to Brynjar, comes from embracing these roles. Rejection of them, and of traditional values, leads to chaos. “Women now hold enormous destructive power in their phones,” he said, referencing cancel culture.

The real virus, he claimed, was emotional reasoning. “You can’t argue someone out of a belief they came to through emotion.” He described Iceland as a home, a shelter that needed defending. “Men,” he argued, “are not just responsible for offering love to everyone inside, but also for protecting the home. And our home is Iceland.”

The day after the podcast aired, Brynjar took the stage at a small anti-immigration protest in front of Alþingi and repeated many of these claims. In the crowd gathered at Austurvöllur, one young man stood with them — an active member of the Centre Party’s youth wing. Whether he was there in jest or in earnest wasn’t clear. But he was there. Just like the man in the MAGA hat at the Centre Party’s election night gathering in November: seemingly alone, yet somehow entirely at home.

“I’m not here out of hate, but out of love,” Brynjar said. “Love for my country. My culture. My people. And the future of our children.” He framed his views as protective, not exclusionary. “This isn’t about exclusion. It’s about protection.”

He also drifted into familiar conspiratorial territory — global elites, Big Pharma, and the idea that traditional Icelandic culture was under siege. The timing was not incidental. As Eiríkur Bergmann noted in Heimildin, conspiracy theories surged during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Podcasts, too, saw a boom. In a Lestin interview with Þjóðmál’s host Gísli Freyr remarked that listenership exploded during the lockdowns.

The collapse of Brynjar’s public persona, at least temporarily, marked a turning point. When he stepped too far — when irony curdled into ideology — the vibe broke.

“Humour, detachment, and the performance of not caring have become their own kind of worldview.”

And when that happened, the bros pulled away. Aron Kristinn distanced himself. Others stayed quiet. That’s the thing about the space where the Brosphere bleeds into the manosphere: when someone crosses the line, the bros disavow, as if the bridge had built itself. But if you’ve been projecting ideas rooted in misogyny and soft nationalism long enough, there’s always going to be a Lil Binni. And when that happens, the bros don’t get to act surprised. They built the vibe.

It is obvious that the bros and the men have not conquered the land like we see in the U.S. — where the White House is inhabited by a president straight out of the manosphere, flirting with the Brosphere for support. In Iceland, women hold all the key positions of power — government, police, university, and church. But if we completely ignore the bros — and if power is inherent to the vibe they construct — who knows where they will end up in the next elections, especially given their popularity and sway among the younger demographic? The bros have already entered the mainstream, bringing along the men in the manosphere. The New York Times goes as far to ask if there is even a “separate men’s sphere” any longer since “avatars have arrived at the focal point of the national gaze.”

Whether or not that applies to Iceland remains unknown. But it is clear we cannot ignore the big vibe shift.

After graduating from university, Alma Mjöll worked as a journalist for the weekly newspaper Heimildin until she took a job as the manager for the parliamentary party of the Left-Greens in August 2024, a position she held until the 2024 parliamentary election in November. Prior to this she had not been associated with any political party. Her political involvement and journalistic background have given her a unique insight into the swift and brief political campaign which happened that autumn and the media landscape’s ongoing transformation.