Front Burner - The arrest of misogynist influencer Andrew Tate

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Andrew Tate, the controversial influencer and self-declared misogynist, was arrested on Thursday in Romania on charges of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organized crime group. Depending on your social circles — and your algorithms — you may not have heard of Andrew Tate before. But he has quickly risen from relative obscurity to become one of the most-discussed people on social media. His controversial video clips, including some where he describes hitting and choking women, have been viewed billions of times. Today, we dive into the story of Andrew Tate: who he is, his arrest, and what it means that a man known as the “king of toxic masculinity” could gain so much fame and influence.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Before we begin, just a note to say that this episode contains coarse language and descriptions of misogynistic violence. So last Wednesday, Andrew Tate, the controversial social media star and self-described misogynist, had an online exchange with Greta Thunberg, the 19-year-old climate activist. Tate tweeted her a photo of himself. He was pumping gas into his Bugatti sports car. He boasted to Thunberg about owning 33 vehicles.

Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and the respective enormous emissions, he wrote. car collection, and the respective enormous emissions, he wrote. Yes, please do enlighten me, Thunberg responded. Email me at smalldickenergy at getalife.com. It was a juvenile joke, but Tate responded anyway. I'm not actually mad at Greta. Please bring me pizza and make sure that these boxes are not recycled. Thank you.

So I'm not actually mad at Greta, right? Because she doesn't realize she's been programmed. She doesn't realize she's a slave of the Matrix. She thinks she's doing good. The very next day, Tate was arrested in Romania on human trafficking charges. There's been plenty of speculation that the Romanian pizza boxes in his video were what tipped off police to his whereabouts, although there's no evidence to support that. But while his Twitter exchange

with Thunberg may be funny, the allegations he's facing are extremely serious. Andrew Tate was among four suspects arrested last night in Romania. He and his brother were detained in connection with a human trafficking and rape investigation. Prosecutors say the four suspects and two other Romanian nationals also arrested appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, they say, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites. A venture that prosecutors are alleging that would have made them important sums of money, in their words.

Depending on your social circles and your algorithms, you may have never heard of Andrew Tate before this. But in a span of months last year, he went from relative obscurity to become one of the most talked-about figures on social media. His videos, including some where he talks about hitting and choking women, have been viewed billions of times. You cheated, you cheated. It's bang out the machete, boom in her face, and then grip her up by the neck.

Shut up, bitch! The majority of men have no money, no power, no sex from their wife. So most men, their life sucks. If my chick said, I want to do OnlyFans, I'm like, all right, then cool, go do it. How much you made? Ten grand? All right, give me eight. All right, cool. What woman is going to give you eight grand? You're my woman. You're doing OnlyFans. You're selling my product. What the fuck? Your product.

Yes, correct. Next question. So today, I want to talk about the story of Andrew Tate. Who he is, his recent arrest, how he fits into the manosphere. And what it means that a man known as the king of toxic masculinity could gain so much fame and influence. My guest today is Shanti Das. She's a reporter for The Observer, part of the Guardian Media Group in the UK. Hi, Shanti. Thanks so much for coming on to FrontBurner. Hi, Jamie.

So even though Andrew Tate is wildly popular among some segments of the population, many people have probably never heard of him before this. So just give me a brief overview here. Who is Andrew Tate? Yeah, so Andrew Tate is a British American former kickboxer. He was born in the US to a catering assistant mother and a chess master father. And he was raised on an estate in Luton in the UK, quite near to London. He did some reality TV and he appeared on Big Brother a few years ago and won titles through his kickboxing career. It was around the summer of last year that he really started to show up on people's social media feeds. So he went from basically being somebody that nobody talked about to appearing every other

video on some people's TikTok for you pages in particular. And since then, he's become a very well-known internet personality. Give me some examples of some of the really controversial things he said. So the stuff that he's become most well known for is videos where he is expressing misogynistic views sometimes quite mild things or some things that sound like maybe they're jokes to some people saying things like uh women belong in the home um can't drive or a man's property women are absolutely happy serving a man they respect they're far more happy with that than they are working some fucking career. Yeah.

And some garbage. Oh, I have thoughts and opinions and a job. Yeah, shut the fuck up. So, booze, shut the fuck up. Have kids. Sit at home. Be quiet. Make coffee.

Yeah. Which is like the lower level stuff. He's also become quite well known for more extreme content describing violence against women. He made comments saying he thinks rape victims should bear some responsibility for their attacks. So what you're saying, when you're telling girls, do whatever you want, men are the problem. You're convincing women to put themselves in situations where bad things might happen to them. Whereas I'm saying, listen, women and men, look after yourselves. And that he dates younger women because he can make an imprint on them. You want

to blow up the internet, I'll blow up the internet right fucking now. The reason 18 and 19 year olds are more attractive than 25 year olds is because they've been through Les Dick. In other clips, he sort of talks about hitting and choking women, trashing their belongings and stopping them from going out. There's one particular video that had millions of views over the summer, and his chicks go to the club with her friends loudly. No, you stay in the house. There's one particular video that had millions of views over the summer where he was talking about a hypothetical attack on a woman if she accused him of cheating, where he said, it's bang out the machete,

boom in her face and grip her by the neck. So there's this really, you know, sometimes quite extreme content that he's become known for. Yeah. Is it fair for me to say he also projects this really lavish jet-setter lifestyle? We talked about in the intro, this like Bugatti that he has. Yeah, totally. So he paints a picture of himself as being a very wealthy, glamorous lifestyle. Videos of him smoking cigars are quite typical.

glamorous lifestyle. Videos of him smoking cigars are quite typical. He talks about his mansion, posts pictures of him posing with guns. You like the colour? Yeah, I had mixed reviews on the colour. Some people said they like it, some people said they don't like it. And I said, well, what colour is your baguette? And he presents it as quite an aspirational thing to his audience which is mostly young men and boys yeah and and just how popular is he among these mostly men and young boys what are we talking about here so when we started looking into Andrew Tate in the summer of 2022 his videos were everywhere and TikTok's internal data showed that videos tagged with his name and other sort of terms linked to Andrew Tate

had almost 12 billion views you know he has about 4 million followers on Twitter he has thousands of subscribers to an online academy called Hustlers University. And beyond that, his content has been viewed by billions of people. You mentioned Hustlers University. Tell me more about what that is. Hustlers University is Andrew Tate's online academy. So it's gone through various iterations and it now has a slightly different name and it's marketed in a slightly different way but essentially what it is is an online community for fans or followers of andrew tate welcome to the smartest decision you've ever made this is the smartest thing you've ever done if you're sitting there wondering you should already know but if you're sitting there wondering hmm is this going to be worth it or not buckle the fuck up this is the smart and when we first

started looking into it it was being pitched as a way to get rich quick this promise that you could if you work really hard you could be rich like tate things like investing and also members could make money by referring other people to sign up you are fucking below 17 and you know nothing about money, you know nothing about entrepreneurship. Hustlers University might be worth it for you. He basically just gives you hella information about literally any subject you want to learn about. There's dropshipping, there's fucking stocks, there's crypto. So that was one of the key things that we looked at that we found was really a very key part in the reason why his content was spreading so far, because videos being posted on TikTok by fans of Tate often had links to Huss's university

affiliate referral links in their captions or in the profile biography directing other people to sign up. I want to get into this. This is really interesting. I want to get into that a little bit more with you in a few minutes. But before we get too deep into the backstory and how he became so popular, I wonder if we could just go through these charges that he's facing first. On Thursday, Tate, as well as his brother Tristan, and two other suspects were arrested in Romania, right? And what charges are they facing?

What are they accused of doing here? So that's right. On December 29th, Tate and his brother Tristan and two Romanian nationals were arresteduring them to Romania with promises of a relationship which is what prosecutors there have described as the lover boy method so the statement said that women were allegedly subjected to physical violence and mental coercion through intimidation constant surveillance control and invoking alleged debts and forced to make pornographic videos. So we know that the Tate brothers have been involved in the porn business for a long time and sort of the webcam industry.

I said, listen, young ladies, I'm starting a webcam business. I've got millions of dollars of backing. This is going to be huge. This is going to change your life. You're going to be a multimillionaire from this. It's going to take a couple of years of work. And we're all going to stay here in this apartment. We're going to live together. We're going to be a family. And you're going to do as I say. And you're going to be rich.-millionaire from this it's gonna take a couple years of work and we're gonna all gonna stay here in this apartment we're gonna live together we're gonna be a family and you're gonna

do as i say and you're gonna be rich three got crazy said i'm leaving i'm a man i'm gonna go then two stayed so i had two girls and me sleep in one bed little happy family and that was the beginning of my webcam empire and yeah the claim really is that they have been exploiting some of the women who've been involved in that business. Prosecutors say they've identified six potential victims so far. And, you know, the exact details of the specific allegations against Andrew Tate haven't been made public yet. But last week it was confirmed that he would be held in detention for 30 days. So later this month, we should have a clearer idea of what

is going to happen. For now, the investigation continues. Okay. And this isn't the first time he's faced allegations of trafficking, right? We know that earlier this year, the brothers were also spoken to by police in Romania in relation to this issue. So an American woman had gone to the US embassy and she presented as somebody who had been held against her will. So it was reported at the time that the Brothers Mansion had been raided by police following a tip off from the US embassy about that. They were taken in for questioning and they denied wrongdoing, but that investigation has continued and that's where we're at now.

Okay. I mentioned in the intro that a lot of people online suspected that these Romanian pizza boxes in his video response to Greta Thunberg were what tipped off police to his whereabouts. This was all over my Twitter feed for some reason the last little while. And that's actually not thought to be the case. But broadly, there's been a ton of speculation and misinformation swirling around his arrest and detention. Right? As you mentioned, he's still in detention. And can you walk me through some of that?

Yeah, that's exactly right. So there are also lots of claims from fans of Tate saying that he'd been released, saying that he'd been freed, that the charges or allegations had been dismissed, which wasn't true. He's still in custody. There were also lots of posts related to conspiracy theories, particularly claims that his arrest had been orchestrated by the Matrix. They've already given me quite a few warnings and I'm now at the point where I actually truly believe they're going to try and kill me.

I understand that you get three strikes in this game. Strike one is they try and shut you up and discredit you, which I've just been through. Strike two is they try and put you in jail for no reason and strike three is a case. And one of my strikes is now gone. And a tweet from Tate's account shortly after his arrest said the Matrix sent their agents. So it's alluding to this idea that he's been set up. And other tweets specifically and posts on TikTok as well specifically referenced the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which has been debunked but suggested that Democrats were behind sex trafficking rings globally.

Democrats were behind sex trafficking rings globally. And there was a flood of tweets after news of Andrew Tate's arrest broke using the hashtag Pizza Tate and other sort of related terms that suggested he was a fool guy for these real pedophile rings and that he was being used as a scapegoat. So we know there's just tons of incorrect information that's circulating. And this idea of the matrix that you mentioned is it's a really core part of his messaging, I understand, right? Like, he's referencing the movie, obviously, but basically, it's his term for kind of shadowy cabal controlling the world. Is that kind of fair? Yeah, definitely. I mean, since the film came out, it's been used as a general reference

by a lot of kind of fringe groups and as a part of a lot of conspiracy theories, talking about the fact that there's this, you know, it could be like a metaphor for government control. And it's also used by fringe online groups who use this idea of being in a simulation and as happens in The Matrix where you know characters given the choice of whether to take a red pill and wake up

and the term red pill has come to be used by a lot of fringe online groups to mean men waking up to the reality that feminism subjugates them. The matrix is strong. The system which is designed to keep you as a slave is strong. Something has to happen which the matrix has not prepared itself for. So there's an opportunity for the masses, for people at the bottom, for the shit munchers to break through and become ultra high net worth individuals, as I have. So we talked a little bit about this before, but tell me more about how this guy became so popular so fast so before the summer of last year most people hadn't seen Andrew Tate or heard about him or if they had um they they weren't the majority but then in around uh June July his video started to come up a lot on social media and the types of clips that were getting the most views were the really

controversial ones or the ones where he was sort of leaning into a men's mental health message so there's sort of two sides to Andrew Tate there's this extreme misogynist he's called himself a misogynist where he's talking about his views on women the fact that women should have a traditional role in the home that they belong in the home they can't drive etc and then there's this other side where it's this men's mental health self-help content so there was a message that he sent out to followers on Christmas day where he said um you know he called them losers and talked about the fact that they were miserable and that if he had their lives um he would be depressed and then he went on to kind of sell the um you know encourage them to sign up to his scheme but it's all sort of part of this idea that his life is great there's a not great and he can offer

them this solution or a route to happiness you can no longer sit there and go i'm just going to follow the rules and it's going to be okay no it isn't and if you're a man and if you're a man it's your job to find a way to not be sticking to those rules enough to escape the matrix and become free. Because what's actually most crazy about this period of history is that it's actually the easiest time in human history to become rich. So there's these two types of content that just suddenly were everywhere. And particularly those extreme misogynistic videos that are very engaging were all over

the place. And so we started looking into what was actually driving this and there's obviously an element of people are genuinely interested in what he has to say often the clips open with a very snappy line and you either are interested in the message or you're just intrigued because it's a sort of a shocking thing sometimes to open with so then you watch to the end and TikTok's algorithm in particular really rewards that type of engagement so if a lot of people are watching to the end of the video the content's boosted to more people so as part of an investigation we found that his

clips were being shown um you know to more and more people we set up an account for an anonymous teenager and within minutes he you know this young man was shown lots of content relating to Andrew Tate and the more that he watched those videos the more the clips were promoted to him so when we started looking into it we found that the fact that so many accounts were posting his clips was part of a deliberate effort to spread his content so yeah when we started looking into Husserl's university we found that there were instruction guides given to followers of Andrew Tate which encouraged them to edit videos of him from podcast interviews or from other videos that in which he'd appeared and the way that followers were told to do this the thing they were told that would be most successful in making those videos go viral was to make them as controversial

as possible so one instruction manual for tiktok said to followers that they wanted a mixture of about 60 fans and 40 haters and it said you want, you want arguments, you want war. So they were deliberately, you know, we know that followers were deliberately trying to stoke controversy to spread his content as far as possible. And it seems that that combined with genuine interest from the audience and, you know, this men's mental health self-help message has combined to really propel him into the mainstream really. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%.

That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. In August, I remember he was banned from TikTok, right, as well as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, I think. And has that done anything to dampen his influence at all? so yeah i mean after our investigation in august several platforms in the weeks that followed said that they were going to ban him so they were banning his official accounts um i mean obviously that had an initial impact and also tiktok when we flagged a lot of content with it said that it was reviewing it and it removed a lot of videos that were being posted by like copycat accounts and also videos that had always breached its terms

and shouldn't have been allowed to remain on the platform in the first place which went against the guidelines on hateful ideologies and misogyny and for a while you know it sort of seemed as though his stuff wasn't appearing so much but he's clearly retained a very large audience. So a big part of that was through sort of organic subscriptions or that he'd obtained, you know, email subscriptions via his website. And also he, you know, he was allowed back onto Twitter a few months ago where he now has 4 million followers. And he continued to appear on podcasts on other youtube you know youtubers channels and accounts were continuing to post his material as well because although impersonation is

banned on tiktok for example if an account makes clear that it's not an official one and it's posting content that doesn't go against tiktok's that isn't banned. So he definitely didn't disappear. And he's also been given a platform by some broadcasters. So he appeared on Piers Morgan's show. He did interviews with him, which gained a lot of traction. So he has really retained a lot of that audience. And the fact that he was, as he described it, cancelled by The Matrix has really fed into his messaging as well and allowed him to claim that the so-called Matrix is trying to shut him down.

Right. Yeah, this crusader against cancel culture. I wonder if you could put this into context for me in the broader men's rights ecosystem that he's a part of. Where does he fit there? Yeah, so we've known for a long time that there's you know incel culture involuntary celibate um sort of movement which is a reference to forums where uh men blame women for their lack of sexual activity and that movement has been linked to sort of violent extremism um and violent attacks in the in the real world offline. There's also, you know, there's a much bigger ecosystem online, which experts refer to as the manosphere. So this includes people like pickup artists, and others who project sort of an alpha male, very masculine

approach to life. And you know, the idea that showing feelings is weak, but what many of them have in common is this idea that women might be to blame in some way for their unhappiness or their failings or the fact that they feel that they're not getting on well in life and Andrew Tate's kind of come in and will appeal to many of the people who already were interested in those movements but has also attracted a far greater audience because of the fact that he isn't relegated to an obscure forum or to the fringes of the internet but has had such a huge platform through social media and particularly through TikTok and his audience now is far far greater so particularly young men and boys we've heard from teachers who say that boys

in their classrooms mimic the way that he speaks or the way that he sits with his hands sort of clasped. And yeah, it's really difficult to kind of understate the influence that he has and just the fact that he is everywhere. Obviously, we're going to have to watch what happens next with these criminal charges and whether it hurts or helps his popularity. But it seems obvious to say this, I guess. But, you know, for decades, feminists have been working to change the ways that men and boys think about women and their place in the world. And what do you think it says that someone pushing such explicitly misogynistic content could get such a big following? And like you said, a big following that isn't on the fringes today i think what it

shows is how effective andrew tate and other people like him have been in exploiting um young men in particular who are unhappy for various reasons they might have been struggling they might be feeling lonely they might be struggling with money um and it you know often the message that's portrayed is not one of women are evil but one of your life is bad and my life is better and i can help you to sort of change yours and it's like a motivational aspirational message that is intertwined with the more extreme content and um i think for sort of women's charities in particular, domestic abuse support organisations and children's charities, they're really concerned about the influence that this sort of rhetoric can have. it's not difficult to see how that sort of drip drip drip of anti-women content or other kinds of extreme content can tip into real world violence i mean we've seen it with various shootings in the u.s and in the uk um linked to the incel ideology so there's a real concern there

i think yeah here in canada too it also strikes me listening to you today that this is probably a really good example of the power that social media companies have to put this content in front of people who might not otherwise have seen it. there are really serious questions for platforms and I keep coming back to TikTok particularly because that's where his material really seemed to gain traction it was being boosted a lot to people and you know there's real questions about how it was allowed to spread so far and to gain such a huge audience without anybody at TikTok noticing or without moderators picking it up or you know seemingly without proactive proactive action to sort of stem its flow before it exploded. Yeah. Shanti, thank you so much for this. Thanks. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.