Our Jordans, Rogans and Shapiros
Readers of this publication are more often than not unfamiliar with many aspects of Iceland’s politics and culture, and we try our best to give enough context in our coverage to compensate for that. However, in this issue’s main feature we cover an aspect of Iceland’s culture and politics that is perhaps harder than usual to access for non-native readers.
Therefore we find ourselves obliged to crudely contextualise some of the main characters in the cover feature, in order to help you — dear reader — to get a better handle of the subject in question. The individuals listed are all cultural players with varying amounts of media power. Some are hosts of popular podcasts, some are not. Like their American counterparts, such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von, or numerous others of that school of thought, most of these claim not to have political allegiances, but are bound together by themes, views and dispositions.
And what are those? There tends to be an emphasis on self-improvement and independence of thought, peppered with edgelord male speech, swimming against what they identify as mainstream discourse. Some even express — albeit indirectly — a longing for the patriarchal past with more “traditionally” defined gender roles, a positive outlook towards old-school nationalism, general fear of immigration and gender fluidity, and a deep-seated passion for the gym, cold plunges, protein drinks and supplements of all sorts.
At the end of the day, these similarities of thought and expression give the public an external sense of cohesion in the Icelandic podcast sphere. With the growing popularity of some of these media — especially among the younger generation — it’s important to note how few actors are fuelling a public shift in discourse.
All of these men — yes, they are all men — engage in frequent crossover episodes with each other, producing a synergistic barrage of their misanthropic agenda which creates the Icelandic Brosphere.
Aron Kristinn Jónsson
Born in 1995, Aron Kristinn started producing music and video during his time at the Verzlunarskóli Íslands secondary school. A childhood friend of Bergþór, Snorri, and musician Jóhann “Joey Christ” Kristófer, Aron met Brynjar Barkarson during their time in secondary school. In 2018, Aron and Brynjar founded the slightly silly, highly contagious ClubDub, releasing two LPs, two EPs, and a handful of singles. About a month after Brynjar Barkarson began a xenophobic tirade on social media, Aron announced his decision to leave the band. During Brynjar’s episodes, Aron made no effort to address his bandmate’s comments, save for posting a peace sign in his Instagram stories. Aron’s efforts surely made incremental progress towards world peace.
Bergsveinn Ólafsson
Born in 1992, Bergsveinn is better known as Beggi Ólafs. He has published two self-help books much in the vein of Jordan Peterson titled 10 steps towards a more meaningful life and 10 messages – To create security out of uncertainty. Along with this, Beggi was a frequent podcast guest and social media personality, emphasising self-help, physical exercise, cold plunges, six-packs and masculinity. Following his departure to the USA to do a PhD in (you guessed it) psychology in 2021, he somewhat dropped off the Icelandic Broshphere, but has since grown his hair out and done a Ted Talk.
Bergþór Másson
Born in 1995, Bergþór Másson has dabbled in a lot of things. Briefly managing pop group ClubDub, he is the current music manager of rapper Birnir, founder of the Takk Takk clothing brand, and Skoðanabræður co-founder. He has been vocal about self-improvement practises and in 2024, decided to torture his bowels by going on a strict carnivore diet. In a 2025 RÚV roundtable discussion broadcast, he declared his skepticism about trusting peer-reviewed, science-backed health information.
Brynjar Barkarson
Born in 1996, Brynjar Barkarson grew up in the sheltered Staðarhverfi neighbourhood of Grafarvogur. As a teenager, he was an active participant in his school’s youth centre, comfortably bridging the gap between the school’s jocks and nerds. Brynjar got his start in music during his time at Verzlunarskóli Íslands secondary school. Brynjar and Aron, along with 14 other boys, were expelled from the school for consuming alcohol on its property. The pair later founded the pop group ClubDub, which became immensely popular. In late 2023, he started dating Helga Þóra Bjarnadóttir — daughter of former prime minister Bjarni Benediktsson. After being called out for his Islamaphobic tirade on Instagram, he called a Grapevine journalist a, “loser” and a, “cold, soft sack of oestrogen”. Brynjar later became a keynote speaker during a demonstration during spring 2025, which protested immigrants in Iceland.
Frosti Logason
Born in 1978, Frosti Logason has been a feature of Iceland’s cultural landscape since his rock band Mínus won the Battle of the Bands in 1999 and as a radio host at alternative rock station X-977 since the early 2000s. Between 2008-2021, he co-hosted the proto-podcast, bro-radio show Harmageddon on that same station. He left radio early in 2022 following mental abuse allegations by his former girlfriend. In 2023 he founded his own podcast network called Brotkastið. On that platform, via his show Spjallið með Frosta Logasyni, he has been a proponent of anti-woke and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, anti-feminist views, making the now-classic claims that the state and the media are colluding to lie to the public — and so on and so forth. Having branded himself as a maverick contrarian for all of his media career, his dismissal from traditional media in 2022 or his “cancellation”, seems to have driven him even further down that road.
Guðmundur Emil Jóhannsson
If you’ve ever been passed on the street by a muscular young man on a scooter, wearing nothing but shorts in the middle of winter in Iceland, it was Guðmundur Emil. If you’ve ever passed a naked muscular young man — high out of his mind on mushrooms — while driving the Ring Road in Iceland, it was Guðmundur Emil. Not a podcaster himself, but an influencer in the vein of The Liver King, Guðmundur Emil, or Gemil, has a more than modest following on TikTok and Instagram, where he promotes physical health, healthy diets, being modestly clothed in nature, believing in oneself, championing Iceland’s heritage, and relying on will, strength and grit (and psychedelics?) to overcome hardships. Gemil is entertaining, but even though it is a fact, it is hard to comprehend that some people also laugh with him.
Snorri Másson
Born in 1997, Snorri Másson began his career in the public eye as a journalist for Morgunblaðið and Vísir. In 2019, he co-founded the podcast Skoðanabræður with his brother Bergþór Másson, going solo with his podcast Ritstjórinn in 2023. The Jacob Rees-Mogg impersonator frequently pops up with edgy soundbites which make for great headlines. Snorri carefully minds how he words his sentiments, never explicitly stating the full scope of his ideas. In a 2024 Skoðanabræður episode, he said, “I think every man would want to provide for his family […] The wife could open up a café.” The fact that it was his own grandmother, well-known academic Helga Kress, that brought feminist theories into mainstream academic use at the University of Iceland does sometimes spark the thought that Snorri Másson may have taken his teenage rebellion a bit further and a bit more public than most others.
Sölvi Tryggvason
Born in 1978, Sölvi Tryggvason entered the media landscape in 2004 as a reporter for Stöð 2 and spent the next decade doing various jobs within the framework of traditional media, while also doing documentaries on the side. In 2019, he published a book on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, where cold plunges, meditation, fasts and breath work are at the forefront. In 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic, he went into podcasting, publishing over a hundred well-received episodes until a former girlfriend reported him to the police for alleged abuse, prompting him to take his podcast streams offline, only to return a year later, going strong ever since.
Þórarinn Hjartarson
Born in 1991, Þórarinn Hjartarson has come to the fore of Icelandic podcasting in the last couple of years with his now popular podcast Ein pæling. A podcast that started on the fringes in 2019, but took off following the COVID pandemic and is now one of the most popular podcasts in Iceland. He frequently writes op-eds on Vísir and in 2021, freely stated that, “[Hate speech] is an attack on free speech.” Spending mornings and nights in the gym, Þórarinn averages two to three episodes a week, with guests who are of a wide political and cultural range. While his interview style is rather hands-off, his personal views are easily observed through his questions and follow-ups, along with his self-esteem, which seems to inflate with each new episode.
Read The Big Vibe Shift: Inside The Icelandic Brosphere here.
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