Connor Murphy: death of an eccentric looksmaxer

 

Connor Murphy, a controversial Youtuber and fitness guru influencer, died recently, under unfavorable circumstances.  Any circumstances are unfavorable, if the end result is someone no longer being around, but he experienced some sort of manic episode, was pursued by the police, swam into a deep pond beside his own home, and drowned.

He had been at different stages of mania and instability in videos for a number of years; this won't focus much on that.  I've recently watched a video that cites a lot of Tony Huge, his friend, discussing Conor's instability and later mental experiences, only some of which are covered here.

The part that is most interesting to me is his philosophy of conventional perspective.  Some of what he was saying actually works.  That can be overstated or over-interpreted; he was questioning a lot of aspects of ordinary self-perception and placement in society, so of course his starting points of doing the questioning worked.  Then the conclusions and final positions not so much.  Often his points didn't extend that far, to any developed conclusion.

Before getting into that I'll cover a bit on the more controversial aspects of his final communications, including that he might have killed Leo of Leo and Longevity.  I mention that because he kept mentioning it; many videos include reference to him possibly killing Leo.  I'm guessing that he was involved.  Even though he was mentally unstable it's not the kind of thing one would develop and then keep returning to related to drumming up online views, to position yourself as a likely murderer as part of an online character persona.

Another part relates to why he was unstable, the causes, and the forms it took.  I won't fully develop that as a history, or go into most aspects of it, but it's a big part of who he had came to be.  He did a lot of different drugs.

This source I'll work with is a long form, relatively unedited video (or it seemingly is a lot of what he communicated in several video interview sessions, but of course there is no way to evaluate what was edited out).  Before getting into the "did he kill Leo" part another topic works well to place where he was.

Injecting gold

In a recent video Tony Huge, separate from the other already mentioned, his friend that also hosted Leo, where Leo had been killed, claimed that Connor had been injecting himself with a lot of colloidal gold, or gold dust, and that his may well have played a role in his mental issues over the past month or so.  Both Tony and Connor claim that he experienced noteworthy, clearly linked benefits from injecting himself with gold (or in this video he only claims to have consumed it, but that part isn't clear), but there's no way to evaluate that.

Let's start with what he claimed himself in this interview, posted by Your Mate Tom, under the title Connor Murphy’s Final In Depth Interview | In His Own Words:

Well, in the past, I made colloidal gold. You have you ever heard of colloidal gold? Colloidal gold? No, no, no.  Right. So, man, there's just this really intriguing study where they give patients like colloidal gold and their IQ increased by like 30%. Or something's precedent like that. It just hasn't really been studied enough, but I want to do an experiment. I'm a biohacker. I used to ingest I used to make my own colloidal gold and then ingest it and I felt some benefits, but I didn't feel as as much benefits as I thought. And trough the process, I do it through electrolysis. 

I can show you the setup because I almost have the the setup ready again. We're getting the last part of the setup here, but uh it's like a copper, okay, a copper wire and then some sort of gold and send an electrical charge and it it makes this red colloidal gold uh in the water. And I was also afraid of like the potential of copper toxicity if the copper was leeching into the water. Turns out you don't even really need the copper in the water. I don't think you can actually leave the copper out the water... 

The idea in the Tony Huge video was that Conor was converting jewelry directly into gold to be injected, or perhaps consumed, so who knows what alloys were present in that gold.  It didn't sound like Conor was having it tested, from that, so it could include lead, or any number of other metals, or contaminants.  He may not have been tracking an intake dosage closely, which is all the more problematic, if you don't know what you are consuming.  

Here is Google's AI input on that:

Eating gold is a long-standing culinary tradition used primarily to garnish high-end desserts, cocktails, and sushi. While it is non-toxic, there are a few important details to know about consuming it:

Purity is Key: You should only ever ingest high-carat gold (23-24k). Less pure forms of gold are mixed with other metals, like copper or nickel, which can be toxic or cause adverse reactions.

Biological Inertness: Because pure gold does not oxidize, corrode, or react with stomach acids, it poses zero health risks in moderation.

Potential Hazards: You should never attempt to eat raw jewelry or loose gold flakes not specifically designated for consumption, as they can contain impurities or cause gastrointestinal issues.

But he was talking about colloidal gold, probably even related to injecting it.  Their take on that:

While colloidal gold is sometimes promoted for alleged wellness, cognitive, and anti-inflammatory benefits, there is limited scientific evidence to support these claims. The safety of these nanomaterials largely depends on the particle size and surface chemistry.

When ingested, colloidal gold is slowly absorbed by the intestines and tends to accumulate in the kidneys and other organs. Research indicates that, depending on the dosage, gold nanoparticles can induce long-term changes in cellular gene expression and morphology. Furthermore, they have not undergone standardized safety evaluations for daily dietary intake by major regulatory authorities...

So who knows.  Let's jump ahead to his involvement with Leo's death, and get back to the main theme, philosophical perspective.

Death of Leo (of Leo and Longevity)

8:258 minutes, 25 seconds  ...that's not fair because he [Leo] was a a much deeper character. [than just covering the penis enlargement topic].  

[interviewer] Did you kill him?

[Connor] Uh potentially. I guess that's what people will will try and decide when the when the movie gets dropped. I mean, yeah, you'll see. I I I don't know.

Maybe I was jealous of Leo. Maybe he had a bigger [ __ ] than me. Like, maybe I wanted to be the the foremost expert in penis enlargement. Maybe I was jealous of his relationship with with Tony.  Maybe I wanted to be Tony's best friend.  Maybe I wanted Leo's room. Maybe I wanted to live in the house. I mean, yeah, you could potentially I have some some motives for doing so, but there's no hard evidence. You'll never find my like DNA on the spot or anything like that...

In a somewhat recent video, that is very interesting, Connor makes up a crazy and extreme looksmaxing character, A Day in the Looksmaxxing Life of Mandibleus Zygomidus.  In that he claims that the only time that he "fatally mogged" someone, or killed them, he nearly had his nose broken.  In another recent video, when asked about Leo, he said that for whatever he did to him, which he can't described, he used a gold club, implying that this was the weapon used to kill him.  In several other videos he or his girlfriend indirectly referenced Connor killing Leo.  

It's all so strange.  Only a very unbalanced individual would kill someone and then keep mentioning it, or for that matter not kill someone and then keep implying it.

Let's move on to a more primary context, looksmaxing, before getting into the interesting perspective insights.

What is Looksmaxxing?

[13:50 minutes, 50 seconds]   Well, it's really simple. I mean, it's just well, it's the name is self-explanatory. It's maxing out your looks. Although, see, it should be called looks optimizing. What does maxing out your looks mean? I mean, that kind of has the connotation like people are trying to have an extreme look, which maybe is the case. Maybe sometimes people overdo it, but you're essentially trying to optimize your looks simply because they recognize that looks provide you an advantage in life. And it's something that people have known throughout all of time. I mean, people have been trying to improve their looks like since the beginning of humanity, right? 

But all of a sudden, yeah, it just I guess people are being explicit about it. And it's funny because it's really pissing people off because of course, like if people aren't trying to optimize their looks, then it makes sense for them to criticize people who are because if other people improve their looks, then they're at a disadvantage by comparison... 

It's an interesting point, that everyone who is critical of looksmaxing is really trying to stop others from optimizing their looks, because it makes them look worse by comparison.  So people could, or should, be critical of others getting plastic surgery, and so on.  

He claims that he has had several cosmetic surgery procedures--which is surely accurate--including a hair transplant, transplantation to his eyebrows, and work around his eyes.  It would seem a real stretch for me to feel threatened by some Youtuber looking more attractive than nature had dictated, but then he probably is describing extreme perspectives, including by others involved with commentary, and not just a conventional take.

This is social media based commentary, right?  I might address more conventional changes like chewing gum to expand jaw muscles, whether I see that as positive, or absurd, or whatever else.

He probably used filler injections to cause that appearance, although it could also just be a video filter effect.  From the way his jaw appears in that capture it's probably a filter, or edit; the bone structure of his frontal jaw doesn't look natural, or possible.

In framing that video, and many of his ideas, as an absurd satire of what others propose it all kind of works.  He claims that there is a homosexually oriented aspect to looksmaxing, that it's not always positioned as mainly relating to increasing attractiveness to the opposite sex, for example.  

But all of that isn't a main concern here, it's just interesting that he took it all in those directions.  It doesn't intuitively work, to critique looksmaxing as generally misguided, in relation to setting unclear or conflicting goals, or being absurd in relation to steps taken, or goals that are pursued, and then to also actually take those steps yourself.  

If the end goal is content promotion, and not the actual effects, that makes more sense, but then doing something as risky and unconventional as consuming homemade colloidal gold, derived from jewelry, or injecting that, again conflicts with that goal.  Critiquing a popular theme for views works, but extending it into your own less safe, practical, and reasonable range doesn't.

Extending this to self-image:  Looksmaxxing or Body Dysmorphia

His own interview content introduces this from one perspective:

And what's the line between looks maxing, right? Improving your your aesthetic and body dysmorphia.  Oh, yeah. Well, that's the thing.  There's not a a fine line. It's not black and white, right? It's it's a spectrum. I think there's I mean, there's a healthy level of discontentment in with life in general, right? If you're just complacent, you're never going to improve. A lot of people think that self-improvement and self-love are mutually exclusive. This is how you get like the fat acceptance movement. They think, "Oh, in order to love yourself, you have to be completely content with precisely who you are." But I think this is like a fundamental misconception of what the self even is.

They think the self is like a noun, but in reality, it's more like a verb. We're an everchanging entity, and we're constantly evolving. We're constantly changing. And so you might as well evolve and change in a positive way and fall in love with the process. And so just because you're improving yourself doesn't mean you don't love yourself. In fact, a lot of people, it's it's ironic because if you're overly attached with who you are and your identity, you're less likely to transform. 

So a lot of these people who won't transform, who won't improve their looks, it's actually because they're more attached to their looks. They think like their look is a fundamental part of themselves. And if they change it, somehow they're becoming a new person that is unfamiliar to them and they don't recognize. And so, no, I think there's a very healthy level of of discontentment, but it's it's not mutually exclusive to loving yourself.  You can do both.

This is actually pretty insightful, and grounded.  It's a shame that all of the parts of what he is saying, and his own internal life experience, weren't all as balanced and positive.

Another point highlights how on a superficial and simplified level what he is claiming works, but it doesn't represent a deep, healthy, or developed worldview:

[interviewer]:  How would you rank in terms of importantness to pick up girls or to attract women? Is it money, uh, confidence, aesthetics? 

[Connor]:  It It's really tough to say because it depends on the girls values as well.

Like some girls value money more, some value status more, some value looks more. It depends on what relationship they're looking for. Generally, a short-term relationship, looks are going to matter more. But a longer term relationship, it's going to be more like money and and status. And it's actually not money. It's actually your ability to generate money. like money is just kind of a proxy for your ability to generate money, right?

You know, like you think it's like your your skills itself is more important than it's a signal for your skills because think about it, man. You could be in a scenario where all of a sudden your money disappears like someone like robs you or like there's like the apocalypse, you're stranded on a deserted island or something happens and you lose your wealth. Like a girl wants to feel safe and she wants to think that even if you lose your wealth, you have the ability to generate wealth. So way less people are going to be some people still will but way fewer women are going to be attracted to some rich kid who just inherited a fortune rather than someone who is like a self-made millionaire.

Lots of those online influencer / guru types tend to present information like this, in a superficial and immature way.  Of course charisma and confidence are important in a relationship, and are attractive.  But this essentially reduces all women down to pursuing either physical attractiveness or financial gain.  He would mention there's more to it in other comments, but it comes across that his take really is that those two factors dominate what women seek, and how relationships work out.  

In all of this interview he never really touches on the theme of an actual romantic relationship, of a short or long term duration, and never uses the term "girlfriend."

Am I wrong to critique that (both parts, that he oversimplifies interactions between people who are dating, and that he leaves out that people are seeking relationships at all)?  Per my experience in more sustained relationships men and women seek out commonality of experience and perspective in temporary or more permanent relationship partners.  Social level ends up mattering, and lots of personal interests, and life direction.  To some extent maybe relationship partners do tend to match on an attractiveness range, or maybe status and wealth trade in to replace that, on the guy's side, but to simplify relationships down to those two factors is a bit absurd.

In knowing of--to a very limited extent--Conor's personal history this makes sense.  He himself claims to have slept with a lot of women outside of any relationship connection related to his physical appearance, in particular his developed muscular fitness.  Maybe he has experienced one or more serious relationships, or maybe he hasn't.  Tony Huge mentioned Connor experiencing a problematic breakup in one video; maybe a main experience with that theme was negative.

Him living in Thailand and dating a Thai seem to support this theme, that he hasn't experienced mature relationships in the past, and isn't really even pursuing that.  There's no mention of his girlfriend, at the time of his death, in that interview.  It's my guess that she was the same woman he was accused of assaulting some time ago, in other online video content and news, but I'm not following his story close enough to be confident in that.

I live in Thailand just now, and over most of the last 19 years, but of course I'm not going to characterize typical relationships between Thai women and foreigners.  People often do online, but it becomes nonsensical, painting such broad themes with the same brush in that way.  I've interacted with essentially no women who were or had been working as prostitutes; that kind of thing ends up getting overstated, by a lot.  I don't go to go-go bars, and people living ordinary lives in Thailand have nothing to do with all of that, in general.

Conclusions

There's a lot more covered in that video interview, and again the main interesting aspect to me is how parts of it are grounded, or at times even insightful.  For example, Conor talks about the balance between being self-confident, which is positive and useful, and lacking any self-doubt, which is potentially a problematic sign of mania, or at least of an unbalanced self-image.  He says that self-doubt can help you examine your own actions and perspective, that it's useful, taken in the right ways, and in the right amounts.

Then he keeps saying things that make sense, that are worth reflecting on, and it couples with or digresses into nonsense, over and over.  He had some issues.  Here's another example from that interview:

Chapter 19: False compassion vs REAL empathy

[45:1345 minutes, 13 seconds] You have compassion for other people's suffering, right? You understand and you relate to and you want to mitigate other people's suffering and it's not selective. So when people have false compassion, it's a signal that they're not actually compassionate.

They're just doing it to score uh social points, right? They're trying to place themselves on some sort of moral pedestal. They're just virtue signaling, right? So anytime you see someone compassionate towards one group but hate on another group, they're not authentically compassionate. They're just doing it to score moral social points.

[interviewer]:  Yeah. Yeah. Like whatever whatever's trending in the mainstream right now.

Exactly. And that's just what Kanye was trying to show. It's like, dude, yeah. What the [ __ ] I love everyone. I love Hitler, right? Like I But no, see, you won't say that. You won't say you love everyone because you have false compassion. Like dude, I mean, man, I have Hitler probably suffered a [ __ ] lie. Who who how do you become someone so violent and so evil? Like you have to have a lot of [ __ ] emotional baggage and like psychological turmoil. Like no, I have compassion for him. Like we should have help. Someone should have helped him before he came so evil, right? 

I mean there are so many things in reality that are outside of our control. We were just born into reality this blank slate and then programmed by our environment. a lot of things. I mean, you can't really say that anything is entirely someone's fault because there are so many different aspects of the universe that are impacting them, right? 

Compassion for Hitler; nothing is anyone's fault; this definitely drifted off a bit.  But the early part seems to work, that someone expressing support and concern for a limited group is positive, but when that couples with hate for another group something negative is being included there, some sort of inconsistency.

I'm not sure how much we can directly learn from what Conor had been expressing.  It's all interesting to consider, if also experiencing some raving nonsense isn't a problem.  He probably would have did well to question a lot of things, a lot of conventional perspective, without so much drug use, and without injecting himself with or consuming a lot of gold and other mixed metals.  

Which makes it a strange cautionary tale.  Some people are doing massive amounts of drugs, to help them gain self-awareness, as discussed in this Reddit "Psychonaut" group, but in general that's a fairly extreme approach, that doesn't map back to what most ordinary people experience.

An entire tangent I've not mentioned here is about Connor supposedly experiencing super-powers (again mentioned in this video about Tony Huge:  Connor Murphy's Friend Exposes Experiment That Killed Him).  That claims that the gold experiments essentially caused his mental problems (the worsening of those), in effect killing him.  Maybe.  Tony talks about potential psychic "superpowers" in there but doesn't get around to mentioning any examples that make any sense, about heightened awareness and such.  

In an odd interview section with Connor, and Tony, he is describing how AI became omniscient, and how a benign cabal of wealthy people controlling everything planned to use Connor to transmit total self-awareness to everyone, turning this reality into a heaven realm, which has been partly enacted related to cellular alterations caused by vaccines.  It's all pretty crazy.  One wild part is that Tony was on board with a lot of that, but couldn't buy into the wealthy group of people who control everything being benign, and looking out for everyone's general interests.  But a lot of the rest could work?

I'm not sure that a lot of this tale of madness is up to the pragmatic level of "cautionary tale."  But to me it's still interesting.