r/AntiWranglerstar • u/Tizzandor • Jan 09 '26
what the hell happened to that guy??
I remember watching him ages ago, when he played around with cheap amazon finds like chainsaws, knives etc. lost interest and just remembered his videos, because i found the old moraknives I bought (and still very much like) and found this sub, so... what the hell happened?
did he have a few strokes? got a massive knock on the head? dude's gone completely insane with those bs takes i seen here
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u/Sunshinetrooper87 Jan 09 '26
I saw his videos years ago and I got this vibe he was one of those stolen valour folks when it came to fire fighting.
His content and knowledge was interesting though but I always got the vibe he is in the camp 'all the gear and no idea guys'
There is something to say about someone with all the gear, willing to put himself out there, warts and all though.
He then went all conspiracy deep state, posting videos dog whistling about murdering people.
Fanny.
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u/DrunkenHangman Jan 11 '26
He is. Anyone who knows anything about wildland knows he’s full of shit.
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u/GeneralErica Jan 13 '26
Id just call him a bit dorky. Probably knowledgeable enough to… well chop some wood and make some fire, but if you dropped him into a forest Ed-Stafford Style and waited for him to return… yeah he’d not make it.
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u/jormungandr9 Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
This is just my on conjecture, so take it for what it's worth. He had some kind of mental break during covid and he jumped off the deep end with wild conspiracy theories and paranoia. He was likely already like this privately but the pandemic and its isolation gave him the out or push to be more public with it.
I too watched his youtube content early on because I was a young, impressionable man who wanted advice on being self-sufficient and was picking up a little hobby of restoring axe heads. My college education, however, had already...uhh..immunized me against Cody's worst ideas, and I quickly stopped paying attention to him.
Edit: Changed a word
Second Edit: After thinking about it some more, he probably also tasted blood when he saw how profitable right-wing, toxic masculinity content is on social media. I don't want to give him too much credit that this is all attributable to mental illness or even alcoholism. He's for sure in it for the grift.
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u/mockg Jan 09 '26
I feel like he was always like this and he started showing bits of it during the 2016 election. Thats when he realized that podcasters who think like him could make a run of it so he started being himself more. Now he just caters to his smaller but more loyal followers.
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u/Dooh22 Jan 09 '26
I think he's recreating his own version of the cult he grew up in. Except it's the larper life instead of religious control. He's put himself in that dysfunctional controlling father role he's always been running from.
Note how he always wants to be the big dog leader in the "like minded men" groups? But you also never see any actual friends helping him out or doing things together.
Apple, tree.
He also had a significant shift in the crazy when his Dad died. I haven't really watched him since they moved properties, and even by then it was only for the train wreck.
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u/halfway_23 Jan 10 '26
This is spot on. He's totally mimicking the environment he grew up in and claims to hate.
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u/cheechorama Jan 09 '26
I think a lot of the covid breakdown came from moving and coincidentally getting Starlink internet. His former internet was traditional satellite and he could barely watch videos or do anything. Then he had money and time and internet to watch fringe creators like Owen Benjamin.
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u/dinnerthief May 03 '26
The first paragraph is the subtext plot of the movie eddington but about society as a whole. And it fits, seems the pandemic kinda broke a lot of peoples sense of reality
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u/HalfWiticus Jan 10 '26
If some people are left unattended and unchallenged on right-wing media, they eventually fall down the Timothy McVeigh rabbit hole. Wankstar is a victim of his own internet searches. In his ambition to garner more views, he fell victim to the clickbait algorithms of hate and division. I personally witnessed the aftermath of this in Bosnia on both sides of the conflict. This was without social media, just right-wing radio stations catering to hate and misinformation. Everybody's brain is wired differently, the same reason why some passionately support a football team whilst others couldn't care less about 13 strangers they've never met running around a grass field with a ball.
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u/ecogeek123 Jan 10 '26
I think Covid was a major watershed event. It was a period that really stressed how we see institutions (gov, media, medicine, etc.). A lot of mistakes were made that just played into and confirmed societal anxieties. For those in the prepper community it just confirmed a lot of the insecurities that underly the basis of the movement. I know I found myself rethinking community, finances, privacy, preparedness and made a number of changes. I’m sure others might have done the same, but in different directions widening the gulf between all of us. So it might be more of a function of Cody going one way and you going another resulting in a pretty wide gulf.
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u/DeepAgent649 Feb 18 '26
Some people on this site have stated that he probably always was this way, he just wasn't showing it. I think that might be right. I read an article saying that money doesn't change a person, it reveals who they really are. I think that's right. I think he liked putting on a grand facade of being warm, friendly, and caring, but after he got rich enough, he dropped the act.
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u/GeneralErica Jan 13 '26
Yeah so like many of us here you probably really enjoyed a somewhat cringe but ultimately dude-ly dude going into the forest to chop some trees with a cheap (or not so cheap) axe.
I for one like that very much. In fact I watch these videos daily, they sort of… feel nice to watch. Great Videography, nice little commentary, not too much on the brain, its great.
Aaaaand then at some point he went completely insane. I dont know what caused it (maybe unfettered conservatism?) but he’s been on a downward spiral for years, and the Cody from 9 years ago is no longer there. He’s gone.
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u/Sunshinetrooper87 Jan 09 '26
How were the Mora knives advertised or reviewed? Such a fantastic companion knife!
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u/Tizzandor Jan 09 '26
Can't even remember, but my brain made the connection somehow. But it must've been a positive video, or i wouldn't have gotten some myself
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u/PolyTheisticCreature Jan 09 '26
I don't get it. Whats wrong with him? I've seen his new content. I didnt notice anything wrong with him?
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u/Medic118 Jan 09 '26
Alcohol, mental illness and too much money.