He set out from the beach around midnight, packing his camera, a coconut and a can of Diet Coke. Mykhailo Polyakov – then 24 and a native of Scottsdale, Arizona – pointed his inflatable dinghy out towards the open water, keeping his speed slow in the hope of avoiding detection.
After hours of motoring across the Bay of Bengal, his destination came into view: a low-lying island, narrowly separating sea and sky. With the sun now high above him, Polyakov cut the engine and set his GoPro to record. “So, the goal,” he said, squinting towards the blinding-white beach. “Introduce this Palaeolithic tribe to modernity … Let’s land on this bitch.”
Polyakov was nearing North Sentinel Island, part of the Andaman archipelago governed by India. Venturing within 5km (3 miles) is strictly prohibited, let alone setting foot on shore, and authorities routinely patrol the surrounding waters. But Polyakov saw himself as on a mission: to see – and, more importantly, film – the Indigenous people who live there.
The Sentinelese are perhaps the most isolated people in the world. They are hunter-gatherers, and believed to number about 100. Beyond that, little is known about them, not even what language they speak. That is how they want it. The tribe opt to live in isolation from the outside world and have fiercely resisted attempts at contact. In 2018, an American missionary was fatally struck by arrows on his third attempt to land on the beach. Earlier, in 2006, two Indian fishers were killed after their boat accidentally washed up on shore.
Polyakov, who turns 26 this year and studied finance, believed the risks to be overstated – or at least secondary to his desire to take the first shots in crystalline 4K resolution. “I wouldn’t condone illegal activities but, in my case, the draw to go there was very powerful,” he says, a year after his illicit trip. “You see videos of the Sentinelese and it’s all grainy footage from the 90s … It was a big drive for me to get them on camera.”
He took a mirror and a whistle, “to coax them out”, and some goodwill tokens, in the event that he succeeded: the Diet Coke as a “symbol of modernity” and a coconut “because we know they like coconuts”. It wasn’t just clickbait, Polyakov adds, smirking: “It would be bad form not to bring gifts to people you’re visiting.”
The human rights organisation Survival International estimates there are 196 Indigenous communities living like the Sentinelese, in voluntary isolation. Most are in South America, in the Amazon rainforest and the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay and Bolivia, with a few more across Indonesia, West Papua and elsewhere in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Though fundamentally diverse, these communities have all chosen to reject outsiders and the industrialised world, and live self-sufficiently. They are known to policymakers and advocates as “uncontacted peoples”.
Increasingly, however, outsiders are trying to contact them – and make content from them. Survival and other organisations working to protect isolated peoples report they are increasingly being targeted by influencers chasing exclusive footage of “first contact” – and with it internet fame. For now, their numbers are believed to be few, with Polyakov a rare confirmed case, but advocates believe the threat to be real, growing and warranting action. Influencers were discussed at an international summit held in Jakarta in January, and again at a United Nations meeting in Brazil in June.
GTI PIACI, an alliance of 21 organisations working to protect uncontacted Indigenous peoples in the Amazon and Gran Chaco, has put the word out across their network, says secretary Daniel Aristizábal from Bogotá, Colombia. “It’s becoming a trend, and we have to adapt. These people have money.”
The UK-based Survival goes further, monitoring social media for influencers who might be motivated to make contact. “It’s all so unnecessary,” says Sophie Grig, head of advocacy and research, over Zoom from her home in Cambridge. She has been with Survival for 30 years, until recently focused on the Asia-Pacific, and is impatient with this “emerging threat” of influencers. The charity tracks a dozen or so accounts across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram with posts about uncontacted peoples. Many of those behind these accounts – overwhelmingly white men – are in the vicinity in South America or Asia and making content about “contacted” Indigenous communities. Their posts may also showcase weapons, snakes and “plant medicine” such as ayahuasca. “It’s very ‘look at me, I’m so macho’,” Grig says with disdain.
Though the likelihood of them ever reaching uncontacted peoples may be slim, the potential danger is great: isolated populations have historically been decimated by the introduction of unfamiliar diseases such as measles, to which they have not developed immunity. “Contact with these peoples can lead to their extinction in days,” says Beto Marubo, an Indigenous leader from the Javari valley in the Brazilian Amazon.
In 1987, Brazil’s government ended its policy of “forced contact missions” to uncontacted Amazonian tribes due to the devastating epidemics that persisted despite safeguards. For an influencer to argue against the risk and speak on behalf of uncontacted peoples is “an irresponsible, even criminal attitude”, Marubo says.
Such western “adventurer types” have long been drawn to places like the Amazon, Grig says, but influencers pose an additional risk with their global reach: those on Survival’s watchlist have a combined audience of more than 40 million followers. Even if they are not actively trying to find uncontacted peoples, by posting about them, Grig says they often affirm damaging stereotypes, spread dangerous misinformation and potentially influence others to try.
In interviews, Polyakov has dismissed Survival’s criticism that he endangered the Sentinelese, arguing that he was vaccinated and the risk of transmission low. He also claims trespassers there are more common than reported, and has even questioned whether any truly “uncontacted” people exist. This, Grig says, is self-serving semantics: while “voluntary isolation” may better reflect their position, there is no question they want to be left alone. Often, this is in response to past violence or traumatic experiences. “If you are uncontacted in 2026, that’s because you have made an active decision,” Grig says. “People like the Sentinelese have made it clear: we do not want people in our territory.”
To respect their autonomy, Survival, GTI PIACI and other advocates keep up with uncontacted groups at a careful remove, often via former members who have left the jungle or neighbouring Indigenous communities. Some uncontacted people may intermittently interact with outsiders, Grig says, often when forced to by hard times – but, crucially, it’s on their terms. “They’re not reaching out, and we must respect that.”
International human rights law supports Indigenous people’s right to choose self-isolation, and requires “free, prior and informed consent” for activity on their land, but national protections do not consistently meet that standard and enforcement is often haphazard. In Peru, for example, unauthorised entry can incur six-figure fines, but with little government presence on the ground, the chance of being caught is low.
Content creators, spurred on by platforms’ incentives for exciting and exclusive footage, may deem the risks worth it. “It feels like this is in a long line of colonialism,” Grig says exasperatedly. “People have been after land, gold, rubber, timber, souls – and now it’s clicks.”
On YouTube, Polyakov’s primary platform, he goes by @Neo-Orientalist – “because I’m bringing it back” – and a Tintin-style avatar. But he rejects being labelled a content creator, disdaining social media as a means to an end. In setting his sights on the Sentinelese, he sought to progress his goal of making “gamechanging” documentaries. “I wanted to do something that no one’s ever done before,” he says over video call, his face looming large in his phone’s camera. Behind him, the brightly painted concrete wall and harsh light suggest a youth hostel. When we speak in May, Polyakov says he is somewhere in south-east Asia, working on projects. He demurs from giving more detail, lest he embolden his online “haters”: “If you want to know where I’m going, you should subscribe.”
Polyakov claims his primary objective was to capture footage of the Sentinelese, not to interact with them, thereby reducing the risks to both sides. “You can always film them from outside of arrow range,” he shrugs. But when he finally made it to North Sentinel, on his third attempt, in March 2025, “ultimately I failed to coax anyone out”, he says. After beaching his dinghy, he walked around for five to 10 minutes, blowing his whistle to no apparent response. He then pushed back out to sea and filmed himself tossing the Coke can towards the shore. “It was anticlimactic … I was a little let down.”
He says he was more worried about encountering authorities than the Sentinelese. But in the footage he eventually posted on YouTube, Polyakov seems scared, then a little defensive. “Look, I can’t force the natives to come out,” he tells his audience, once safely back on the water. He made it back to his hotel without being caught, but was later arrested. Authorities had been alerted to a dinghy in the open water, and Polaykov had forgotten to remove his camera’s memory card. “They had me saying, ‘What’s up, guys? I’m at North Sentinel,’” he says ruefully. “From there it’s kind of tough.”
Polyakov was charged under two laws, but says he felt confident that, as a foreigner, “I wouldn’t be stuck in India for years.” He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 days’ imprisonment and a fine of about £120.
His first “dispatch” from North Sentinel was posted on YouTube this April. The commentary has been mostly negative, as Polyakov concedes. (“Bro’s got main character syndrome,” reads a top-ranked comment.) He blames the “slanted” reporting, and takes every opportunity to speak to the media, partly for publicity, but also to defend himself against criticism from groups such as Survival, who called him “idiotic and reckless”.
Polyakov in turn calls Survival an activist organisation pursuing a “misguided” agenda “to keep certain groups stuck in the past”, and says he is acting in the public interest, “bringing information into the world”. He denies he was endangering the Sentinelese, pointing to the plastic refuse he found washed up on their beach. “They are very much aware of the outside world … It’s not like I’ve accelerated globalisation by going there. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else.”
In explicitly targeting the world’s most isolated people, breaking multiple laws and getting caught, Polyakov is a clearcut case. More typically, content creators posting about uncontacted peoples are harder to pin down, not least because of the potential gulf between what they say online and what they may actually be doing. One individual monitored by Survival (who they requested not be named, believing him to be a serious risk) publicised detailed plans to visit North Sentinel to his six-figure following, but no evidence of an earnest attempt in the two years since. Other influencers boast of travelling through “uncontacted territory”, when they are in fact on widely used routes or even touristic tribal experiences. Some, Survival fear, might be doing the opposite, posing as legitimate while making covert efforts to find and film uncontacted people. With the geographical, legal and ethical lines ill-defined, content creators often operate in a grey area.
To his 276,000 followers on Instagram, where he goes by @yankiguayo, 30-year-old Nathan Seastrand bills himself as a film-maker, producing documentaries about Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region and its Indigenous Ayoréo people. From Utah, but based in Paraguay since 2016, Seastrand publicly presents as a champion of the Chaco and its people, telling local media he is motivated by “curiosity and wonder”. But this reputation has recently been publicly challenged, with Seastrand accused of exploitation, a claim he denies.
In early August, an influencer who has asked not to be named posted on YouTube about his experiences collaborating with Seastrand on a documentary last year. He said Seastrand seemed “obsessed” with finding and filming uncontacted Ayoréo, making multiple visits to their territory, setting trail cameras and trying to acquire a thermal-imaging drone to search from the air.
There are estimated to be 150 uncontacted Ayoréo, living in small nomadic groups in the dwindling areas of the Chaco not yet cleared by deforestation. Local advocates monitor them through traces such as the prints from their tapir-leather sandals, but they have not been photographed in decades. The Paraguayan government signed a protocol in 2018, requiring it to prevent unwanted contact, but it does not specifically outlaw it, while access to Indigenous lands is granted at the discretion of individual community leaders.
Having accompanied Seastrand on two journeys into the Chaco, the influencer said he grew increasingly concerned by his “morally questionable” approach. He claimed Seastrand gave money and alcohol to Ayoréo leaders to secure access to their reserve and permission to film, later leading to conflict with neighbours who wanted in on the deal. The influencer said he cut ties with Seastrand not long after, accusing him of “exploiting the poorest and most marginalised segment of Paraguayan society in order to become rich and famous”.
In an email to the Guardian, Seastrand rejects the influencer’s account, saying all his activities on Ayoréo land were legal and authorised by community leaders. He calls the claim he had gained access with alcohol “absurd”, saying that he developed friendships over multiple visits. “They were not tricked or coerced … It is normal to invite your friends to a cold pack of beer.”
Seastrand confirms he paid money, not unusual for film-making, but dismisses the conflict described by the influencer as “no more than a jealous neighbouring tribe”.
As for the camera traps, Seastrand says they were set in a developed area and his goal was to film jaguars. “The likelihood of an isolated tribe living in this zone is extremely small and … there is no hard evidence of their existence. I would have better luck trying to get footage of the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot.” He says his on-camera references to “wild Ayoréo territory” were an effort to engage viewers. “There is no such thing … No one really knows where they are.”
Others have spoken out against Seastrand’s activities in the Chaco. An Ayoréo lawyer accused him of sharing a photograph of his late grandfather without consent, and refusing to remove it when asked (Seastrand says he had consent from the grandfather and has since taken the photo down).
