There’s the question I’d ask.
“Andrew Who?” That’s most of what the over-30 crowd said in response to the news that Andrew Tate had been banned from TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook after a spate of negative coverage and increasing concerns from parents and teachers about the TikTok star’s power over his followers. For adults who don’t have teenage sons, the 35-year-old kickboxer-turned-TikTok star was largely unknown, but as anyone in the high school and college age set could tell you, online he was an overnight sensation.
Admittedly, I’d heard of him second hand as a terrible trollish asshole, but I’d never seen any of his videos, so I’m glad Amanda Marcotte explained it. The big question, though, is how does a loudmouthed ignorant jerk become an overnight sensation? Amanda answers that, too.
His popularity is directly attributable to the profit motives of social media companies. As the Guardian demonstrated, if a TikTok user was identified as a teenage male, the service shoveled Tate videos at him at a rapid pace. Until the grown-ups got involved and shut it all down, Tate was a cash cow for TikTok, garnering over 12 billion views for his videos peddling misogyny so vitriolic that one almost has to wonder if he’s joking.
Oh.
I’m sure the executives behind those kinds of decisions are all cowering behind the smokescreen of the mysterious “algorithm”, but they wrote the code for that crap and fed it the data, and you’re telling me that they never noticed that their software was running amok and spewing bad recommendations all over the place? Nah, I don’t believe it. More likely there was the Chinese equivalent of Silicon Valley dudebros enthusiastically priming the system with the kind of videos they like to watch — a mob of James Damore wanna-bes — and it took off in a way that the grown-ups had to notice. They noticed the cash flowing into their pockets, anyway.
Parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the wellbeing of young people should be worried. It’s not just that Tate was spreading hateful ideas and encouraging violence against women, though that on its own is terrifying enough. It’s that Tate is just the latest example of the way that far-right figures lure in young men by preying on their insecurities. Once the influencers suck in these young men, they start redirecting audience energies towards fascist organizing. Tate is just a piece of a larger puzzle that explains, for instance, how so many otherwise normal young men get wrapped up in groups like the Proud Boys and actions like storming the Capitol on January 6.
The strategy is simple. Far-right online influencers position themselves as “self-help” gurus, ready to offer advice on making money, working out, or, crucially, attracting female attention. But it’s a bait-and-switch. Rather than getting good advice on money or health, audiences often are hit with pitches for cryptocurrency scams or useless-but-expensive supplements. And, even worse, rather than being offered genuine guidance on how to be more appealing to women, they’re encouraged to blame women — and especially feminism — for their dating woes.
There has to be more to it than just a pied piper leading adolescent boys to their doom, though. I was an adolescent boy, once, and I would have been repelled by my fellow boys “saying shit like women are inferior to men
, women belong in the kitchen
, and refusing to read an article by a female author because women should only be housewives.
” I’m not saying I wasn’t impressionable and stupid at a young age, but that there are some kinds of messages I would have rejected instantly. There’s got to be some other ingredient in the recipe to make a right-wing tool.
By the way, Andrew Tate himself might be banned, but TikTok and YouTube are stuffed to the gills with Andrew Tate videos — his acolytes have been busy duplicating and uploading copies of his videos everywhere…and none of the services profiting off them will do a thing about it. Kent Hovind could be sent to prison for ten years, and still his lies continued to proliferate. Expect Tate to thrive in the same virtual way. He’ll be back. Or some vicious little copy of him will be.
As a programmer for going on 50 years, I’d LOVE to see these so-called “algorithms”. Probably a bunch of amoral capitalistic asses having meetings about policy and content.
Being a teenage boy has always been a confusing mess of horomones. Add to that the dissonance of being expected to uphold egalitarian values the various feminist movements fought for while still being held to older toxic patriarchal standards, and small wonder that many are looking for an easier answer.
What so many people overlook when trying to figure out the appeal of the far right is its simplicity. Even the most basic left-wing appeal (“the rich ruin everything”) quickly breaks down into lots of complex ideas about systems of oppression. Meanwhile, the fascist offers a straightforward answer that is simple, easy, and wrong. People like the easy solution, and that’s exactly what Tate offers. Add a dash of sunk cost to keep them in the cult once they’ve started, and you’ve got a Proud Boy in the making.
I didn’t know Tate was a god-botherer, I had only heard he was a grifting victim of testosterone poisoning. None of his critics I’ve seen have ever brought up religion. (I wonder why?)
Aside from the potential horrific content, isn’t TikTok as a platform a bit of a security concern?
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2022/07/tiktok-is-unacceptable-security-risk-and-should-be-removed-from-app-stores-says-fcc
I always wondered if any of these guys will someday be old and retired and have to admit to their friends that they were professional assholes in their 20s and 30s. They have a lot to live down.
This is exactly how Jordan Peterson got famous.
By spreading a huge amount of vicious misogyny over the internet.
Before that, he was just an obscure kook at the U. of Toronto.
Naw.
Ask Jordan Peterson how that works out.
I’m sure a few of these guys will wake up someday and say, “I did that?” It happens.
But it is rare.
Out of all the elected GOP officials, how many have condemned Trump and the January 6 insurrection? Very few. Liz Cheney and a few others out of hundreds of US Representatives and Senators.
Remember this guy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosh_V#2019–present
Yeah, I checked out a few excerpts from Tate’s schtick before posting this: it’s all god this, god that, god-based morality, etc.
Roosh found god, too
Ask Jordan Peterson how that works out.
He seems to me to be suffering a miserable life, but I suppose we have different values. I can’t imagine how miserable it must be having to track who you told what particular nugget of bullshit to.
Speaking from experience (I made a trip a week for about 14 years, mostly conferences and other speaking engagements) I can’t imagine how much it must suck to be smart enough to know your life is a mass of bullshit, and you’re just painting yourself into a corner. Meanwhile it’s a blur of hotels and taxis and waiting for flights and worrying about connections. Add to that the drugs, and his reality must be a nightmare. Why does he do it? Actually doing something worthwhile is not that much harder.
Andrew Tate is a nobody.
I’d never heard of him until TikTok banned him.
That is like getting thrown out of the worst bar in the bad part of town. It’s an achievement but not one to be proud of and doesn’t take any talent whatsoever.
I put a few questions into Google.
Anyone who takes this guy seriously is going to end up alone. It they are lucky.
If they aren’t, they are going to end up in prison for violent assaults.
Tate is a
@ 7
Ah! Since I have no intention of listening to or watching this schmuck, I’ll take your word for it.
@Marcus Ranum
A lot of them just pivot to a different but related grift. As a prime example, the infamous pickup artist Roosh V reinvented himself as an ultra-Orthodox Christian bemoaning his wasted years of excess and fornication. The misogyny hasn’t changed at all, of course, he’s just trying to be a ‘church patriarch’ rather than a stud tracking the notches on his bedpost. Granted, his main problem these days is that he’s a little too middle-Eastern for the racists he’s trying to court.
PZ @ 7
Yes, but which god? If it is Ukko or Baal-Shamaroth (a k a “the sender of eight ‘ ) he might have a point. Even if it is the point of the sacrifical dagger rapidly moving towards your chest.
@Marcus Ranum:
More likely they’ll just move on to a different grift. I submit as an example the case of one Roosh V, infamous pickup artist, who more recently has reinvented himself as an ultra-Orthodox Christian patriarch type, publicly bemoaning his wasted youth and fornication. The misogyny is still all over him, though, just now more explicitly ‘biblical roles’ rather than ‘bedpost notches’.
Of course, the problem with his current gig is that he’s a little too obviously Middle Eastern for a lot of the racists he’s trying to reach.
@Marcus Ranum:
More likely they’ll just move on to a different grift. I submit as an example the case of one infamous pickup artist, who more recently has reinvented himself as an ultra-Orthodox Christian patriarch type, publicly bemoaning his wasted youth. The misogyny is still all over him, though, just now more explicitly ‘biblical roles’ rather than ‘bedpost notches’.
Of course, the problem with his current gig is that he’s a little too obviously Middle Eastern for a lot of the racists he’s trying to reach.
(Tried to submit this twice and it got silently dropped, wonder which word was tripping the spam filter?)
One thing we know about social media platforms is their revenue lives and dies by their algorithms, so they test them to death. The idea that their IT teams wouldn’t know about Tate-likes being pushed onto a vulnerable audience is risible.
The secret ingredient is alienation. I would guess that when you were at an impressionable age, you were enveloped in a social fabric which gave you a sense of self, and a sense of place.
When people are adrift and disconnected, they will often grab onto the first lifeline thrown at them. This is how all cults recruit.
“There’s got to be some other ingredient in the recipe to make a right-wing tool.”
Yeah, a lack of proper parental supervision when they’re on the internet. A lack of parenting in general. Too much “Boys will be boys! [giggle]” Not enough accountability.