He was the most googled man in the world last year. He’s been trending all week following the release of the viral two-and-a-half-hour interview with Tucker Carlson. He has won some cheerleading champions among the right, while attracting unrelenting vitriol from many on the left.
Of course, I’m talking about the King of so-called ‘toxic masculinity’; the cultural phenomenon and self-described misogynist that is Andrew Tate.
Tucker was accused of “promoting” the 36-year-old British-American social media personality in the interview which has racked up over 90 million impressions on Twitter since being released last week. Most of the positive commentary and reaction to the interview I have seen has come from men, while criticism has been widely voiced by women.
Introducing Tate prior to the sit-down interview, Tucker blasted what he called the social experiment of “mass conversion therapy” induced by feminism and woke politics, and forced on young men, asking viewers to consider: “What would it be like to become a subject of that experiment as a boy trying to become a man in the Biden years?”
“Well,” Tucker continued, pointing to the U.S’s rising suicide rate for young males, “You might kill yourself. Many have.”
America’s suicide rate increased by four per cent in 2021, and the largest spike seen among males aged 15-24.
That disconcerting trend is not unique to the U.S; The latest statistics from our Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that suicide is the biggest killer of young men aged under 25 in Ireland, while the number of suicides in Dublin have surged by an unnerving 46 per cent over a period of five years.
The CSO stated in September 2022: “Among young males, aged under 25 years, suicide was the number one cause of death in 2019. For females in the same age bracket, suicide was the third highest cause of death for the same period.”
The same alarming mental health crisis is confronting the UK, too; The suicide rate for males aged 15 to 19 in Britain has more than doubled over the past decade, now sitting at a thirty-year high, prompting calls for urgent mental health reform.
For many of us, it’s not very hard to see why boys and men are in crisis. We live in a society which tends to casually and routinely denigrate manhood, commitment, marriage, and fatherhood.
Self-determination and sexual promiscuity reign. The birth rate is down, marriages are falling, and divorce is up. Being masculine in the right sense of the word is shunned. To compound the masculinity crisis we are facing, a great proportion of people are no longer able – or willing – to differentiate between male and female for fear of being seen as politically incorrect. This is well evidenced in the acceptance of and ideological takeover of transgenderism, especially among the young, many of whom accept the lie that there is no such thing as biological sex, hook, line and sinker.
The concept of traditional gender roles is frowned upon. We have, by some accounts, created a society full to the brim of weak and unmanly men who are afraid to be strong, who are afraid of their own masculinity, who are afraid to simply be good men. Some suggest that the over-policing of boys and men, brought on in part by feminism, has created many anxious, angry, insecure young men.
Feminist ideology – specifically our society’s obsession with female victimisation – is one branch of the problem. But fatherlessness and a lack of good father figures, in my opinion, is the more pervasive cause of the lack of direction, the shortage of confidence, and perhaps the effeminacy of some boys and men today. It goes without saying that there is a crisis of femininity, too – yet I would argue it’s harder for women to see the value of examining societal roles when men are pointing to a man who places no value on fidelity, modesty, or self-respect as an example to follow.
Given the state of things, it is not hard to see why Tate, for all of his many faults, has amassed the following he has among young men. He may be toxic – I would agree that he is – but he says some things which go against the prevailing ‘victimhood’ mentality and that seems to catch the attention of young men. For example, he has told men that they deserve respect and they should go to the gym to get strong. But while he claims to promote “traditional” masculinity, the masculinity he advocates for seems to be selfish and toxic, in my opinion.
He mostly talks about success; promising young men he will teach them how to become as wealthy as he is, and to sleep with as many women as he claims he sleeps with. While he demands that women must be faithful, he obnoxiously insists it is permissible for men to cheat, while offering advice to women on how they should behave. To quote, he says they should “have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee.” He has said in the past that he will ask a woman to bring him two coffees, and only drink one, because,“it’s doing something that is basically pointless to show that you have respect for me.”
Such nonsense, maybe said to get attention or headline, but its the kind of remark that shows a dismal lack of respect for women, and there’s something true in the adage that a man who fails to respect women reveals his own lack of self-worth and character.
To get back to the Tucker interview, the former Fox News commentator went on to argue that Tate’s side of the story was deserving of a hearing. “The video is long, but if you can, take the time to watch it,” he said, urging viewers: “Make up your own mind about Andrew Tate.”
The interview is broadly softball – with little challenging questioning from Tucker. Some say it was proof of his ‘championing’ of Tate. Tucker has previously described the influencer as “really smart,” and has welcomed his “core message” which he says boils down to “respect yourself, act like you’re worth something, achieve something.”
Since the video has been posted, it has been swarmed with supportive, sometimes fawning, comments from men. Some Christian men have made Tate an object of their admiration – arguing the porn businessman is “innocent until proven guilty”. Frankly, I find it incredible and beyond depressing that Tate has been able to successfully gaslight many of his followers into believing he is some sort of victim himself; that everybody else is in the wrong.
He has been allowed to position himself as a leader and a mentor for being an ‘authentic man’ – while promoting pornography, exploitation, promiscuity, and cheating. I cannot for the life of me understand how, given the demeanour in his videos of a man who is dark and aggressive and sometimes deranged. He has zero respect for women, treating and speaking about them as wholly sub-human.
Any man who is fan of Andrew Tate is, in my view, nothing but a walking red flag. I’ll explain by stating that Tate has admitted to deliberately tricking women into participating in pornography, by seducing them and convincing them he is entering a kind of business partnership with him.There can be no room for doubt that Tate – who boasts about his ‘ultra-masculine, ultra-luxurious lifestyle’ – first made his money by pimping girls on pornography cameras. No decent person should view him as a figure of moral authority.
His infamous ‘PHD’ (‘pimp and hoes’ degree) is one of his ‘teachings’ which has made him so famous. Explaining this, he stated in one interview: “That teaches basically how I got girls, how I met girls, how I got girls to fall in love with me, to work on webcam for me.”
Tate was on Big Brother in 2016, but was thrown out after a disturbing video appeared in the Daily Star. In it, Tate slaps a blonde woman in the face – it is an audible slap – and proceeds to beat her with a belt.
In another clip – widely shared by his fans – Tate is quoted as saying: “Bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up, bitch,” he says in another dreadful video. In another, he declares, “Slap, slap, grab, choke, shut up bitch, sex.” The content, as you can see in this clip posted by Liz Wheeler, is truly harrowing – whether legal or illegal:
MUST WATCH video exposes Andrew Tate’s lies to @TuckerCarlson.
Warning: this is really horrendous stuff.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) July 16, 2023
Romanian authorities have charged him with rape, human trafficking and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women. His brother Tristan and two associates also face charges. All individuals involved deny the charges.
The first page of his indictment states that he transported one of his victims from the UK to Romania, after he had “deceived the victim” by “falsely inducing her about the intention to establish a family/marriage relationship and the existence of false feelings.”
He, along with another individual, subjected the victim to “physical violence and psychological coercion resulting from actions of intimidation, surveillance and control, with the aim of sexually exploiting her,” the charge sheet states.
The indictment continues: “They forced her to engage in pornographic activities for the production and distribution of pornographic materials” using a webcamming website.
Here is tates first page of the indictment, next is law for human trafficking. He recruited women from IG through deception (I.e. stated he wanted to marry them) however it was for sexual exploitation. The minute the girls left their home country under false circumstances it’s… pic.twitter.com/xgNauPJ80O
— Sharon 🏝️🐬🐚☀️ (@usamabroad) July 12, 2023
In response to outcry over his behaviour, Tate has claimed his supposed victims will not come out against him, while pathetically insisting it is wrong to “kink shame” people for their sexual preferences.
It is truly an astonishing state of affairs when a man with such disturbing views is espoused by many men as the hero we have been waiting for to save masculinity. He has made a living from selling men supposed self-improvement, which is actually built on the promotion of exploitation, pornography, and infidelity. Men deserve better role models.
He is a symptom of, and offers a diagnosis of, the problems men are facing – but he is no means part of the solution. Decent men should look elsewhere for guidance. If you’re a fan of Tate, I can assure you he is not your friend; presumably, he cares about you just as much as he cares about the “bitches” he coerced into pornography.
Andrew Tate is not a role model. When a man as dark and unhinged as Tate is your blueprint for authentic masculinity, I think you need a new hero.
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