t/w: mentions of rape and sexual assault
It’s been a blissful few weeks since the name Andrew Tate has graced our screens. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid the avalanche of misogyny and right-wing extremism this social media influencer has spewed out to his legions of fans, then let me catch you up to speed. Tate first started out as a kickboxer, winning several championships before going on to appear in reality TV shows such as Big Brother. From there, his online presence only grew, as he began building a program entitled “Hustler’s University”, which relied heavily on affiliate marketing and has been likened to a pyramid scheme, with its target audience largely comprised of young, impressionable boys.
On December 29th 2022, after a Twitter feud involving Greta Thunberg (a true hero for her role in this, among other things) and a Romanian pizza box, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested by authorities and have been in a detention period ever since, with their earliest possible release date looking to be March 29th. The charges against the brothers are serious, with accusations of both human trafficking and rape.
With the arrest occurring two months ago, it might seem like the dust is beginning to settle. Quite the contrary. Tate has whipped up a media storm, with new information arriving every day as the world continues to wonder: how, and why, was he able to amass such a huge social media following, whilst holding such abhorrent views? To answer this, let’s take a look back at the rise of Andrew Tate, and why this wave of misogyny sadly seems only to be part of a larger and never-ending cycle.
…how, and why, was he able to amass such a huge social media following, whilst holding such abhorrent views?
The internet proves to be the perfect climate for platforming controversial figures such as Tate, bringing together millions of children looking for content creators to look up to. Since the beginning of YouTube in 2005, creators have constantly taken advantage of young viewers, pulling (and monetising) risky stunts or outright dangerous pranks that leave children awed, but ultimately vulnerable. The “choking challenge”, which involves intentionally trying to cut off one’s oxygen and end up unconscious, might make for good clickbait, but when kids IRL started hopping on the “trend” and losing their lives, the world quickly began to realise the perilous power social media could truly have. These “edgy” channels have been around for years, from PewDiePie in his earlier days to Jake and Logan Paul, the latter of whom received global attention for filming in a Japanese “suicide forest” back in 2017.
It’s not difficult to see why these figures have become so influential for young boys in particular. Under the disguise of giving men confidence and helping them aspire to lives of luxury with fast cars and private pools, subliminal messages promoting toxic masculinity and violence against women begin to slip through, unnoticed. These ideas are not new, nor are they isolated solely within Tate’s fanbase, or just the YouTube space. Such values have been peddled on online forums since their creation, and other forms of media such as video games have faced criticism from time to time for their depictions of bigotry and sexism. The ever-looming Bechdel test serves to show that our favourite films are not as progressive as we might hope. Misogyny and the silencing of women’s voices and lives are nowhere near gone, even in the year 2023.
The internet proves to be the perfect climate for platforming controversial figures such as Tate, bringing together millions of children looking for content creators to look up to.
The effect of these messages on audiences is concerning, to say the least. A recent BBC documentary on Tate deeming him “the most viral man in the world” has explored his rise to fame and the danger of his platform, asserting that his views “represent a new era in modern misogyny”. In the film, reporter Matt Shea spoke to two women, choosing to remain anonymous for safety reasons, who had reported Tate to UK police all the way back in 2015, accusing him of sexual assault, which led to his abrupt ousting from Big Brother. This is a clear example of how misogynistic views can quickly spiral from Reddit trolling to real-life abuse with catastrophic impacts that many of Tate’s fans are disturbingly too young to even begin to comprehend.
A podcast episode from The Guardian has discussed some of the effects of online misogyny on children, stating that the “worrying combination” of children watching violent pornography and finding interest in the values of influencers such as Andrew Tate is particularly dangerous for them at such an important stage in their developmental process. Teachers around the world have come forward citing experiences of harassment from young boys challenging their authority or jeering at them to “make me a sandwich”. Didcot’s Ridgeway Education Trust in Oxfordshire has begun implementing lessons on misogyny, in the hopes of halting Tate’s influence and tackling harmful language.
This is a clear example of how misogynistic views can quickly spiral from Reddit trolling to real-life abuse with catastrophic impacts…
Whilst de-platforming Tate is definitely a step in the right direction, it unfortunately will not eliminate the vicious roots of the problem. We can be certain another influencer will step in to fill his shoes any day now, and continue to wield “free speech” as a way of attacking others. Tate is merely a mouthpiece for misogyny’s cause. There is an ever-present hum of hatred that bubbles under the surface of society, and manifests itself in every possible way. In a world where British tabloids are more concerned with tormenting and objectifying women like Britney Spears and Meghan Markle, and where the gender pay gap is still so large that women are working two months of the year for free according to Yahoo, it can feel as if we are moving backwards, rather than forwards. And if we aren’t able to quell the continuous spread of misogynistic ideals efficiently, and prevent the next generation from landing in the alluring traps set by Tate and his replicas that are all too easy to fall into and precariously difficult to climb out of, the road to gender equality itself hangs in the balance.
Image credit: Famartin on commons.wikimedia.org
Image description: Pizza box from Buon Appetito’s NY Pizza in Dulles, Loudoun County, Virginia
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Andrew Tate: The Mouthpiece of Misogyny
t/w: mentions of rape and sexual assault
It’s been a blissful few weeks since the name Andrew Tate has graced our screens. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid the avalanche of misogyny and right-wing extremism this social media influencer has spewed out to his legions of fans, then let me catch you up to speed. Tate first started out as a kickboxer, winning several championships before going on to appear in reality TV shows such as Big Brother. From there, his online presence only grew, as he began building a program entitled “Hustler’s University”, which relied heavily on affiliate marketing and has been likened to a pyramid scheme, with its target audience largely comprised of young, impressionable boys.
On December 29th 2022, after a Twitter feud involving Greta Thunberg (a true hero for her role in this, among other things) and a Romanian pizza box, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested by authorities and have been in a detention period ever since, with their earliest possible release date looking to be March 29th. The charges against the brothers are serious, with accusations of both human trafficking and rape.
With the arrest occurring two months ago, it might seem like the dust is beginning to settle. Quite the contrary. Tate has whipped up a media storm, with new information arriving every day as the world continues to wonder: how, and why, was he able to amass such a huge social media following, whilst holding such abhorrent views? To answer this, let’s take a look back at the rise of Andrew Tate, and why this wave of misogyny sadly seems only to be part of a larger and never-ending cycle.
The internet proves to be the perfect climate for platforming controversial figures such as Tate, bringing together millions of children looking for content creators to look up to. Since the beginning of YouTube in 2005, creators have constantly taken advantage of young viewers, pulling (and monetising) risky stunts or outright dangerous pranks that leave children awed, but ultimately vulnerable. The “choking challenge”, which involves intentionally trying to cut off one’s oxygen and end up unconscious, might make for good clickbait, but when kids IRL started hopping on the “trend” and losing their lives, the world quickly began to realise the perilous power social media could truly have. These “edgy” channels have been around for years, from PewDiePie in his earlier days to Jake and Logan Paul, the latter of whom received global attention for filming in a Japanese “suicide forest” back in 2017.
It’s not difficult to see why these figures have become so influential for young boys in particular. Under the disguise of giving men confidence and helping them aspire to lives of luxury with fast cars and private pools, subliminal messages promoting toxic masculinity and violence against women begin to slip through, unnoticed. These ideas are not new, nor are they isolated solely within Tate’s fanbase, or just the YouTube space. Such values have been peddled on online forums since their creation, and other forms of media such as video games have faced criticism from time to time for their depictions of bigotry and sexism. The ever-looming Bechdel test serves to show that our favourite films are not as progressive as we might hope. Misogyny and the silencing of women’s voices and lives are nowhere near gone, even in the year 2023.
The effect of these messages on audiences is concerning, to say the least. A recent BBC documentary on Tate deeming him “the most viral man in the world” has explored his rise to fame and the danger of his platform, asserting that his views “represent a new era in modern misogyny”. In the film, reporter Matt Shea spoke to two women, choosing to remain anonymous for safety reasons, who had reported Tate to UK police all the way back in 2015, accusing him of sexual assault, which led to his abrupt ousting from Big Brother. This is a clear example of how misogynistic views can quickly spiral from Reddit trolling to real-life abuse with catastrophic impacts that many of Tate’s fans are disturbingly too young to even begin to comprehend.
A podcast episode from The Guardian has discussed some of the effects of online misogyny on children, stating that the “worrying combination” of children watching violent pornography and finding interest in the values of influencers such as Andrew Tate is particularly dangerous for them at such an important stage in their developmental process. Teachers around the world have come forward citing experiences of harassment from young boys challenging their authority or jeering at them to “make me a sandwich”. Didcot’s Ridgeway Education Trust in Oxfordshire has begun implementing lessons on misogyny, in the hopes of halting Tate’s influence and tackling harmful language.
Whilst de-platforming Tate is definitely a step in the right direction, it unfortunately will not eliminate the vicious roots of the problem. We can be certain another influencer will step in to fill his shoes any day now, and continue to wield “free speech” as a way of attacking others. Tate is merely a mouthpiece for misogyny’s cause. There is an ever-present hum of hatred that bubbles under the surface of society, and manifests itself in every possible way. In a world where British tabloids are more concerned with tormenting and objectifying women like Britney Spears and Meghan Markle, and where the gender pay gap is still so large that women are working two months of the year for free according to Yahoo, it can feel as if we are moving backwards, rather than forwards. And if we aren’t able to quell the continuous spread of misogynistic ideals efficiently, and prevent the next generation from landing in the alluring traps set by Tate and his replicas that are all too easy to fall into and precariously difficult to climb out of, the road to gender equality itself hangs in the balance.
Image credit: Famartin on commons.wikimedia.org
Image description: Pizza box from Buon Appetito’s NY Pizza in Dulles, Loudoun County, Virginia
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