Why Everyone is Shilajit-Maxxing Now

“For thousands of years, warriors and kings searched everywhere for what they called the ‘destroyer of weakness,’” an influencer named Dravon Thatcher says in an Instagram reel, holding a massive black, stretchy substance that looks like play-doh. “I personally spent years running nutrition stores…and there hasn’t been a single thing as effective as this,” he claims, pulling the black goo apart with his hands. 

Scroll through your social media feeds and you’ll see countless shirtless, square-jawed wellness influencers flexing as they promise to sell you an “ancient remedy” that can give you a “natural” testosterone boost and more energy, restore mineral deficiencies, and even lead you to have better sex (some call it “nature’s Viagra”). Take Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, who recently shared in an interview, “You don’t know what shilajit is? I am totally hitting everybody up with all of the secrets right now.” 

Unless you’ve been under a rock (coincidentally, where the black resin originates), shilajit — which indeed literally means “destroyer of weakness” in Sanskrit — is everywhere. The question is not just whether shilajit works, but what exactly we’re being sold today. Is this biomaxxing shortcut all that it seems? The Juggernaut investigated, speaking with scientists, researchers, skeptics — and even the people risking their lives in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley to extract the precious resin from the mountains thousands of miles in the air.