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Are men okay? The answer is a resounding “No.” Case in point: a new sport is taking over Silicon Valley: Sperm Racing. The sport, if you want to call it that, works pretty much how you’d imagine: it’s like marble racing except with, well, the output of someone’s marbles. And the teenager who created it just raised $10 million in a (sigh) seed round to take the event mainstream, according to the San Francisco Standard.
So, Sperm Racing. How it works, according to the company, is that young men offer up their sperm, which are then “cleaned” and diluted until there are about 200 lively sperm cells ready to race. The microscopic racers are then placed on what has to be the world’s smallest racetrack, a mold made through a similar process to fabricating silicon computer chips. The sperm are then tracked via computer vision and given enhanced visuals, like when NHL broadcasts make the puck glow so you can track it.
The reality is that the race is just part of a broader spectacle. There are pre-fight staredowns that have become a staple of fighting sports. Racers and their supporters sport racing jackets and go wild as their little racers work their way through the tiny artificial tubes. The whole event is live-streamed, and whatever you’re imagining, turn the Idiocracy dial up another two notches and you’ll pretty much be there.
Could you conceivably ask, “Is this bullshit?” You could, and you’d be right to ask. The Free Press, of all places, discovered that the races weren’t actually performed live but were pre-determined and not actually real video but a computer-generated simulation. But Eric Zhu, the teenage creator of the sport, claims that the races are real now, since they’ve brought on a team that could actually execute on the concept. Maintaining skepticism of that would probably not be unwarranted.
Speaking of Zhu, he’s got quite a background. He’s either 17 years old, according to local Los Angeles affiliate ABC7; or 18 years old, according to the San Francisco Standard; or 15 years old, according to Nas Daily. It’s entirely possible he was 17 at the time ABC talked to him and turned 18 since, but he identifies himself as 15 in the Nas Daily video posted in November 2024. TechCrunch pegged him as being 13 years old in 2020 when they covered his story pre-Sperm Racing in July 2024. It’s probably safest to assume Nas Daily is just wrong or the footage is old, but any oddity starts to stand out after learning the first races were staged. Gizmodo reached out ot Zhu to confirm
Anyway, his origin story includes reportedly spamming CEOs on social media and taking meetings with executives in the bathroom of his high school. He created a company called Aviato, a nod to the HBO show Silicon Valley, and Bachmanity Capital, also a nod to the HBO show Silicon Valley.
Zhu’s idea for sperm racing, per the company’s website, which hosts a “manifesto”, came from concerns about a male fertility crisis, an assertion that has been disputed, but there is at least some evidence of things like forever chemicals and obesity affecting sperm counts. “Sperm racing isn’t just about racing sperm (although, let’s be honest, that’s hilarious). It’s about turning health into a competition. It’s about making male fertility something people actually want to talk about, track, and improve,” the manifesto reads, pulling influence from the “pronatalism” movement that has people like Elon Musk pushing for people to make more babies to prevent the collapse of civilization.
There’s no real explanation for how making sperm race solves any of that, other than being a very elaborate awareness campaign—and Zhu certainly has succeeded in getting attention. The first live event Sperm Racing hosted earlier this year reportedly got more than 450 million views, according to the Standard (let’s assume that includes all social engagement, because the full YouTube stream of the event has under 170,000 views at the time of publication).
It’s definitely getting lots of views now. Streamer iShowSpeed pulled up to the group’s last event and brought his massive streaming audience. Zhu recently went to YouTuber David Dobrik’s house to host private races for the internet celebrity and his friends, with a cash prize for the winner.
A thing you may notice by peering at the audience is that it is mostly young men. That probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. Spiritually, this isn’t all that different than the guys at the gym who get so jacked that it almost exclusively appeals to other men. Tying the speed of your sperm to masculinity is some red pill, manosphere shit, and the staredowns don’t really separate it from some of that. It’s probably fair to spare Zhu accusations of intentionally creating something toxic. Slate called him “sweet, and smart, and thoughtful,” and he certainly comes off as well intentioned. But now his baby is out in the world, so he’s got to raise it right.
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Source: Gizmodo