Bronze Age Pervert

Bronze Age Pervert, also known as BAP, is a pseudonymous far-right Internet personality, associated with the manosphere. The media has identified Costin Vlad Alamariu (born May 21, 1980), a Romanian-American, as the person behind the pseudonym.

In his writings on X, his podcast Caribbean Rhythms with Bronze Age Pervert and in his self-published 2018 book Bronze Age Mindset, BAP advances reactionary ideas influenced by Nietzschean philosophy, promoting what he considers the heroic ideals of classical antiquity and denouncing modern society as decadent. He has a dedicated cult following in Western right-wing political circles.

Identity

In 2023, Politico identified the writer Costin Alamariu as the person behind the pseudonym, making reference to other articles and podcasts that had previously identified him. According to Politico, neither Alamariu nor BAP responded to requests for comment, and Alamariu did not deny being BAP when the association was previously made. Graeme Wood of The Atlantic has also identified him, claiming he has known Alamariu for many years.

Alamariu was born in Romania in 1980 and immigrated to the U.S. with his family at the age of 10. He attended Newton South High School near Boston and wrote for the school's newspaper. Alamariu was a classmate and friend of B. J. Novak, who also wrote for the newspaper. In 1997 the two of them, along with Novak's brother Jesse and Peter Owen Nelson pranked visitors at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts by replacing the guided tour with a fake performed by Alamariu, which slowly but steadily became more surreal and profanity laden.

After graduating from high school, Alamariu majored in mathematics at MIT, and studied philosophy as a graduate student at Columbia University. He graduated with a Ph.D. in political science from Yale, with a 2015 dissertation titled The Problem of Tyranny and Philosophy in the Thought of Plato and Nietzsche. At the universities he attended, he was active in criticizing the perceived left-wing bias of academia.

Alamariu was born to a Romanian mother and father. His father was Jewish. He was baptized as an infant in the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Work

X (formerly Twitter)

BAP is an active X user but has posted under multiple handles, and on multiple sites. The earliest identified posts by the "Bronze Age Pervert" persona appeared on now-defunct web forums in 2010. The Twitter account @bronzeageperv then joined Twitter in November 2013 and developed links to Curtis Yarvin before the account was banned in February 2017. BAP joined Twitter again in March 2017 under the handle @bronzeagemantis. On August 4, 2021, Twitter suspended BAP again. As a result, BAP switched to using Telegram until he was later reinstated on Twitter. After the reinstatement of his account by Elon Musk, BAP's Twitter following continued to grow and "restored structure to a movement that commonly refers to itself as the 'authentic' right-wing Twitter." A separate account with the handle @costin_eats is used by Costin Alamariu when not writing under the 'BAP' pseudonym.

BAP's original Twitter biography stated: "Steppe barbarian. Nationalist, Fascist, Nudist Bodybuilder! Purification of world. Revolt of the damned. Destruction of the cities!" It later described him as a "Free speech and anti-xenoestrogen activist." The banner above BAP's Twitter profile was a close up photo of Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa, and his posts are a mix of post-ironic far-right memes with images of bodybuilders. The images are often considered homoerotic in nature but Josh Vandiver suggested that "[BAP] and his followers regularly celebrate images of handsome and muscular young white men. (...) The images depict men in typical ways for Western masculinities: active, in motion, subjects shaping the world, not sexual objects. BAP posts images of virile young men on beaches or surfboards in tropical locales—including the Caribbean and Baja California—with captions stating they are 'conquering' or 'cleansing' such territories. These are geopolitical visions, a form of popular geopolitics calling for expansion and conquest of the global South."

The account is part of Frogtwitter, a group of pseudonymous online writers with a highly negative view of contemporary American society. This group mythologizes an aristocratic past while engaging in racism and antisemitism, often through memes laden with heavy irony. BAP frequently condemns alt-right leadership figures, such as Richard Spencer. BAP and his acolytes are at odds with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and his groypers, and Fuentes has claimed that Curtis Yarvin and BAP are "at the forefront of a rising Thiel-funded faction of the Right."

A number of right-wing politicians have been criticized for following or interacting with BAP on Twitter, including former White House speechwriter Darren Beattie, Minnesota state senator Roger Chamberlain, vice president of the United States JD Vance, and US Senate candidate Lauren Witzke. Technology investor Peter Thiel has on more than one occasion referenced BAP in speeches to conservative audiences. In February 2017, Curtis Yarvin sarcastically claimed to The Atlantic that Bronze Age Pervert was his White House "cutout / cell leader". In addition to right wing politicians, the broad group of political influencers, bloggers, and podcasters known as "anti-woke leftists" or "dirtbag leftists" have received criticism in the press for discussing and engaging with BAP and the broader far right on Twitter, most notably Anna Khachiyan of the Red Scare podcast.