Mongolian Fishing Boots Tech Extremists Zara Employees

2022viral videoclassic

Published August 14, 2026

Mongolian Fishing Boots, Tech Extremists & Zara Employees is a set of parody hustle culture TikTok videos from October 2022 that treated those three absurd signifiers as ingredients of a successful future. Started by TikToker Luca Maxim (@santeluca), the trend mocked Andrew Tate style motivational content with black-and-white edits and fake wisdom about rare fish, Mongolia, and sigma grindset life.

Overview

Mongolian Fishing Boots, Tech Extremists & Zara Employees is a run of black-and-white parody TikTok videos that ironically treated those three signifiers as pillars of a successful future3. The clips mimicked the look of Andrew Tate style hustle edits, but pointed the motivational voiceover at absurd job categories and made-up demographics1. Most videos ran on top of the creator's own track "Do U Bleed At All," giving the trend a recognizable audio fingerprint1.

The joke sat inside sigma grindset TikTok, framing things like Mongolian fishing boots or Zara employees with the same reverence a real motivational guru might give to cold showers or crypto1. Adjacent bits about ISIS recruiters and Shrek's funeral got folded into the same universe, so any single video read as one entry in a larger fictional worldview about who the real winners are3.

Origin & Background

Platform
TikTok
Creator
Luca Maxim
Date
2022

The trend came from TikToker Luca Maxim, who posts as @santeluca1. His first parody hustle video went up on September 29th, 2022, a straight-faced monologue about becoming "a millionaire at 16"1. After that post, his account switched fully to black-and-white edits that mocked motivational TikTok in the register of Andrew Tate1.

Over the following weeks the bit locked in. On October 8th, 2022, Luca Maxim claimed to live in a small Mongolian town called Ulaangom1. Two days later, on October 10th, he posted the first video treating Mongolian fishing boots as required gear for catching rare fish and going "from an incel to having ten wives," which pulled about 100,500 plays and 16,700 likes over three weeks3.

How It Spread

On October 11th, 2022, @santeluca posted a made-up chart called "The most common jobs by height," which slipped tech extremists into the ranking1. That clip picked up roughly 316,300 plays and 47,000 likes over 20 days1. A day later, on October 12th, he added Zara employees, borrowing the Zara Boss image from the Average Fan vs. Average Enjoyer template, and the video climbed to about 537,200 plays and 77,100 likes in 19 days1.

Other creators started riffing on the same three signifiers within a week. On October 17th, 2022, @everyonelovesreid posted a styling video around Mongolian fishing boots that hit about 4,500 views in two weeks2. On October 30th, 2022, @isaacsguitar filmed "our mongolian uncles on their way to defeat tech extremists and take back our rare fish," which pulled around 53,400 plays and 11,000 likes in a single day4. Both spinoffs kept the visual signature of black-and-white edits and the rare fish motif from santeluca's original clips1.

How to Use This Meme

Videos in the format typically use a black-and-white filter, a slow motivational voiceover, and the santeluca track "Do U Bleed At All"1. The script often names an absurd category, Mongolian fishing boots, tech extremists, or Zara employees, and treats it as a secret ingredient to power, wealth, or masculine success1.

Frequently Asked Questions