Help me find this beautiful Turkish nut man
The man. The myth. The Murat.
Murat Erdem, Nut Man of the People
There’s a city in southcentral Turkey, the heartland of dondurma, called Kahramanmaraş. In this city, there is a humble little storefront named Fenomen Baharatçı that offers an impressive array of nuts, spices, and dried fruits. This unassuming nut shop presumably has regular customers just looking for a good deal on a bulk sack of nuts. But increasingly, I suspect many patrons are hoping to run into the store’s dashing and charismatic owner.
His name is Murat Erdem. And he is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
Little is written about Murat in English — in fact, I could find only a single English-language story published on a Greek news website in late 2023. The article provides basic biographical details: He’s a 40-something nutmonger obsessed with 1970s aesthetics who started posting videos to his TikTok account in 2022. Murat’s otherworldly visage and unnerving suavity caught the attention of the socialmediasphere in a matter of months, with initial interest evidently piqued in Turkey and the nearby Balkans. Gradually, his unconventional appeal ballooned into a global cult following.
In nearly every video, Murat appears in his nut store styled as a desiccated disco dandy, gazing serenely into the camera. He wobbles his head and sways across the room like a princely ghost, occasionally leaning in to shoot us a stealthy half-wink with penetrating sensuality. He then performs a series of gestures with his left hand that are as confounding as they are culturally transcendent: He gives a thumbs up, points directly at the viewer, plucks an imaginary heart-morsel from his chest, then casts it forward like a magical pinch of love spices. Murat’s ethereal placidity obscures the rigid precision of his choreography, making every motion feel effortless and random.
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Today, Murat has over half a million followers on TikTok and nearly 300,000 more on Instagram. His international fanbase encompasses an American contingency (present company included) who have shown off their Murat-inspired Halloween costumes and established a devoted community on Reddit.
Murat’s celebrity reached a new apex this week, when a popular Turkish sketch comedy show elevated his persona from internet oddity to legacy media icon.
What’s remarkable about Murat’s rise to fame is how he doesn’t really do anything remarkable. He offers no incisive observations, conveys no urgent viewpoints, imparts no specialized knowledge, showcases no discernible skills or talents. He merely disseminates his off-kilter personage as some sort of idiosyncratic performance art, allowing fans to derive their own meaning in absence of a stated intent.
And yet, Murat’s videos don’t come off as entirely performative. He simultaneously projects an ironclad self-assuredness alongside an absolute lack of self-awareness. One gets the sense Murat doesn’t invest much effort in examining his own popularity or obsessing over how to capitalize on it. He hasn’t, from what I can glean, built a brand or expanded his media empire with podcast appearances and synergetic collabs. He doesn’t even appear to have a website — his Instagram profile just links to his nut store’s location on Google Maps.
Murat seems unwaveringly satisfied to be himself, whoever that is. To ask “Who is Murat?” is to shout into the wind and await a reply. He is simply Murat, “a man of the people,” as some of his fans have taken to calling him. We are invited to enjoy him, just as he so authentically enjoys himself: without much thought. And that, in my view, makes him a beautiful man.
Ryan Email Club members, heed this proclamation: It is my stated intent to interview Murat Erdem. If you know anyone who might know him, please pass along my best wishes and sincere admiration. I want more people to know about Murat, and this highly influential email newsletter is an ideal platform to boost his beneficence.
Help me find Murat, so that we all appreciate this man on a more personal level.
Click Roulette
The below links match one of the two descriptions provided for each. Click at your own peril!
CLICK HERE FOR LINK ONE. This is either:
An invitation to a Zoom call with a tamarin.
A compilation of seals sneezing and it sounds like a fart.
CLICK HERE FOR LINK TWO. This is either:
An abandoned draft of a James Thurber play that really sticks it to the state of Nebraska for some reason.
An uplifting metaphor for the perseverance of American ideals through tempestuous times.
CLICK HERE FOR LINK THREE. This is either:
A new AI tool that tells you which old T-shirts you should get rid of.
A man changing his mind after listening to other people talk.
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Tortoise pic of the week
Wordle hint (SPOILER)
The Wordle word from Aug. 11, 2023, has a double letter.
Wish I could help. The closest I've been to this man is I have a friend who shows me his fingers.