The Horrific Rise of Andrew Tate’s Misogynist Popularity

Misogynists on social media aren’t a new trend. They normally pop up, someone like Drew Afualo on TikTok will shame them out of existence, and we get to move on with our days. Then there is Andrew Tate. A grifter, the man behind “Hustlers University,” and a self-described “alpha male,” he’s the kind of person you’d see parodies of in film and television and think to yourself, “No man like that actually exists and no one listens to them if they do,” and yet, here we are.

I became aware of him on TikTok, where I would see him on countless podcasts, many of which had people questioning him and his views while others were praising his take on masculinity and how “men” should react to things. The more I looked into him, the more I realized that he was not only selling a false sense of security and masculinity to his audience but was also doing so under the umbrella of sexism.

What’s become even more horrifying recently, though, is that Andrew Tate’s audience has grown to the point where young men are reportedly parroting Tate’s views in schools and talking about him and what he says in classrooms, and now it’s a major issue.

Who is Andrew Tate?

In short, he’s a sexist pig, but explaining him is complicated given the fact that he now lives in Romania despite being born in the United States and growing up in England, and many speculate that the reason he fled is because of sexual harassment allegations against him. But what he does is use the fragility of men and their idea of what masculinity should be to his advantage.

He’s the kind of man who will get on Twitter and list what requirements women should have in order for them to be “wife material,” or he’ll share his thoughts on how women should be in the kitchen—so, you know, one of those guys. Not exactly new or revolutionary.

Why is he bad?

Well his home got raided in a human trafficking investigation if that’s any sort of clue. But his videos are now being parroted around the world, with young men praising Tate for his viewpoints and his “honesty” in a way that feels like we’re losing an uphill battle with women being respected in any sort of way. His rise to fame has been relatively quick from what I’ve seen, with his videos all of a sudden taking over my “For You” page on TikTok, and now it is apparently taking over the minds of teenage boys and becoming a problem in schools.

A horrifying trend

Normally, we wouldn’t give someone like this the time of day, but now his views are making their way through the school system, with teachers reporting that their male students are saying phrases he would on his show to their friends and posting videos about what they overheard in their classrooms.

And stories keep coming out about teachers dealing with this. A teacher shared a video where she says her 11-year-old student told a fellow student that she was “fat” and that women should be skinny, something that sounds exactly like what Andrew Tate says in his videos.

Other teachers have taken to social media to post about the things they hear from the young men in their schools, and one teacher has already had to talk with families about what their sons are saying because apparently these boys are refusing to read work written by women at all, and when the teachers point out that they are women, the response is that it is a woman’s job to teach.

It’s a horrific display of sexism and internet culture, and a stark reminder that parents need to be aware of what their kids are watching and the messages they’re taking to heart.

(featured image: NBC)