In a recent conversation on the Good One podcast, comedian Stavros Halkias offered a refreshingly vulnerable perspective on the male loneliness crisis, and why he refuses to let it become another weapon in the culture wars.
Speaking candidly with host Jesse David Fox, Halkias positioned his current podcast “Stavvy’s World” as what he calls an “anti-incel” project. With his podcast, he deliberately counters the toxic masculinity narratives that have ensnared countless young men online.
“I just think there’s like a weird mean-spiritedness amongst young male losers that is harming them,” Halkias explained, immediately adding crucial context: “And I only say that because I was a young male loser, right?”
He continued, “I was a guy who couldn’t get who had no girls attention. You know, it took me till like pretty late in life, like in with well into college to even have a little confidence and start dating.”
What troubles Halkias most is imagining his younger self exposed to today’s online radicalization pipelines. “I think about what would have happened to me at 17 if there was somebody being like, ‘If you’re mean to girls and you do and you’re racist, they’ll have to f*ck me,'” he said. “I would have been like, ‘Nice. All right, I guess I’m racist now.’ That seems so much easier like believing in myself, becoming a good person.”
This recognition drives his podcast’s mission: offering practical, empathetic advice to young men without the hateful ideology. “I just want to say like here’s the actual path to like getting girls to like you,” Halkias explained. “And you know, yes, I’m f**king rich and I’m famous now. But I also wasn’t. And you know, I was in my mid-20s broke as f**k and it was working for me.”
His message is simple but radical in today’s climate: “Just don’t go down the dark side brother and you’ll be fine. Literally get a hobby, start working on yourself, you know, dress a little better.”
The comedian also critiqued what he sees as a cultural failure on the left to acknowledge basic human desires without shame. “What happened to like—I mean you know where cat calling started? Union construction workers,” he noted, making a nuanced point about sanitizing working-class masculinity. “I’m not saying we got to go all the way back there, but I’m just saying I don’t like how there’s a sanitization.”
For Halkias, this isn’t about excusing bad behavior but about meeting people where they are. “You can be a piece of s**t and still want healthcare… Because I want people to f**k because I want maternity leave in America,” he argued. “It’s like you can be a piece of shit and still want this thing.”
His perspective gained additional weight from his time hosting “Come Town,” a controversial podcast that walked the edge of offensive comedy during the mid-2010s. That experience taught him about internet subcultures and gave him insight into how young men get radicalized—or don’t.
Now, with “Stavy’s World,” he’s channeling those lessons into something constructive, proving that you can acknowledge male struggles without blaming women, immigrants, or trans people.
As he put it, the bar for straight men “is actually really f**king low” right now. You just have to be, as he says, “a good hang.”