There Are No Girls on the Internet - Andrew Tate is a scammer

Episode Date: August 27, 2022

Social media platforms like Tik Tok and Facebook have finally banned misogynistic, violent scam influencer Andrew Tate. And honestly, it should have happened sooner.  My piece at the Nation- It’s Not Just Joe Rogan. The Entire Digital Space Is Rotten.https://www.thenation.com/article/society/toxic-podcasting/ The Grid: Andrew Tate isn’t just another misogynist with an online following. Here’s why you need to pay attention. https://www.grid.news/story/technology/2022/08/23/andrew-tate-isnt-just-another-misogynist-with-an-online-following-heres-why-you-need-to-pay-attention/ Laura Bates on TANGOTI- full episode- https://www.tangoti.com/episode-214See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Bridget Todd, and this is there are no girls on the internet. Social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook have finally banned violent, misogynistic scam influencer Andrew Tate. And honestly, it should have happened sooner. Now, if you don't know who Andrew Tate is, don't worry. He went from being relatively obscure to seemingly being everywhere on social media within a few months. Videos featuring his name as a hashtag have been viewed over 13 billion times. And before it was shut down, his TikTok account had been.

had over 11 billion views. He had 4 million Twitter followers, 4.7 million Instagram followers, almost 800,000 YouTube subscribers, and millions and millions of clicks and shares across Facebook. So who is Andrew Tate? Well, Andrew Tate is kind of like Joe Rogan on steroids. Just like Rogan, at one time, Andrew Tate was a professional martial artist.

And also like Rogan, Andrew Tate did a stint in reality television. Tate was on Big Brother in 2016, where he was known for being really respectful and thoughtful of others. Oh, wait, sorry, just kidding. It says here he was actually known for homophobia and violence against women. After a video surfaced where he was beating a woman with a belt while screaming at her, quote, if you ever message another guy, whether we're together or not, you're fucking dead.

Tate was kicked off Big Brother after only being on the show for six days. Andrew Tate's podcast is called Tate Speech. And it's basically exactly what you think it is. He's part of what we call the Manosphere, a loosely connected ecosystem of online websites and influencers that traffic in misogyny and racism on places like 4chan and Reddit. If you listen to our episode with Laura Bates,

a researcher and writer who went undercover in the Manosphere to research her book, Men Who Hate Women, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. So Andrew Tate's whole thing is these clips of him speaking on his post, podcast, wearing sunglasses indoors, you know, like you do, and smoking a cigar while he basically says the most violent, sexist nonsense that makes him sound like an alpha male. Like, here is his take on why he is anti-breakfast. This is an actual quote from him.

I don't have food in the mornings. I don't like the idea of breakfast. Waking up from sleep instantly with available food that you didn't have to hunt and kill. Breakfast breathes arrogance and laziness. I will not eat until work has been done. Instead, I start my day with hunger and memories. My path to the top wasn't a straight line. There's been bumps in the road, tears, blood.

I sit and remember the worst times of my life, the pain and the heartache. Some mornings, if I try, I can almost cry. I take all that anguish and pain and then add a little nicotine and caffeine to set my blood on fire, and I enter the world ready to win life or die while I'm trying. Angry men siege nations. I don't have time for Cheerios. The universe will pay me what she owes me. me, all the money and power I deserve. So yeah, sounds pretty healthy. Definitely sounds like

someone who has got a healthy start to the day and encouraging others to do the same. Andrew Tate's brand of hyperviolence, toxic hypermasculinity, and misogyny basically says that women are property of men. This is something that he's actually said. And he advocates for men using violence and relationships. He outright said that if a woman ever asked him about cheating, he would physically attack her. In a really good piece for Grid, reporter Christian Thorsberg spoke to Josh Rose, a political sociologist and senior research fellow

at Deakin University in Melbourne, who says that Tate represents a dramatic shift taking place in online misogyny, moving beyond the sexualization and dismissal of women, which much of Tate's material promotes, to also encouraging gendered hate and violence. So basically, it's not just man or better than women, it's manner better than women,

and therefore men, or men should be able to use violence in service of establishing and maintaining that hierarchy. And this is even more troubling when you consider that the majority of Tate's audience are young men and boys. Teachers have been writing about how Andrew Tate's popularity with boys has been creating problems and disturbances in their classrooms. So Tate is popular with boys, but he's also really popular with young men who are just starting to navigate their way into young adulthood. Going back to Ruse from that grid piece, Rousse also said, if you want to know where Andrew Tate is gaining traction,

it's more likely to be the white-collar sector among educated younger men who work out at gyms on the weekend or after work. Younger men are more likely to hold anti-women attitudes in terms of women's rights, that women's rights has gone too far. So on top of all this, Andrew Tate is also a scammer.

Let's get that straight right away. He used to operate a porn webcam, with his brother that his brother outright described as, quote, a big scam. But that scam is actually the least scammy scam that Andrew Tate is involved in. Because his whole thing, his whole ethos, his whole identity is a scam. So I've actually written about the ways that misogynistic podcasters and content creators and influencers who make up the manosphere are all basically just scamming. They prey on men and boys with low media literacy who may feel lonely.

They get into their heads and convince them to send over money. Podcasts like Fit and Fresh, the late Kevin Samuels. They all basically convince young men and boys to send them lots and lots of money or give them lots and lots of engagement in service of learning how to become high value men. I actually wrote a piece on this for the nation talking about the Fresh and Fit podcast, which you can read in the show notes. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide,

Quite unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

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Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter, and dive into it unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats.

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And we're back. So let's talk about Andrew Tate's scam specifically. It is called Hustlers University, where, for the low, low cost of $50 a month, men and boys can learn about cryptocurrency from three guys say Michael, Adam, and Daniel, no last name given, and learn about just the general concept of, quote, freelancing from Dylan and Colston, no last name given. Also, given that Andrew Tate's audience mostly includes young men and boys, don't worry, according to Hustler's University's frequently asked questions, it is not a problem if you are not a legal adult, because they have plenty of young guys inside of Hustler's University who are below 18 and are pulling in several thousand dollars a month. Do you have access to the internet? That's all you need. By the way, this is a

little bit nitpicky, but I just have to say it. On the Hustlers University website frequently asked questions, it says that you do not need any money to start because most of the Hustlers University students are doing freelance work, and that freelance work does not require any money to do. Take it from an actual honest-to-god freelancer. This is just incorrect financial advice. You absolutely need money to freelance. And when their tax bill comes, I hope the people who were told that they need $0 to freelance, are not surprised when the government expects him to pay self-employment taxes. So again, you can see how he's kind of praying on people who might not have a lot of financial literacy or media literacy, and it's awful. And it gets worse because guess what?

The entire thing is basically a pyramid scheme. Like most pyramid schemes, the courses aren't really the thing. The thing is getting others to sign up for the courses. Students of the program got a commission for convincing other dupes to join via affiliate marketing. So just like Lou LaRoe and every other MLM scam that somebody from your high school message drew about on Facebook who was all like, hey, hon, have you ever thought about starting your own business? I think you would really slay at it. It's a scam. And honestly, probably a lucrative one. According to The Daily Beast, the program had some 109,000 members before its closure.

And this is actually why you might know who Tate is, because Tate specifically told his students to flood social media with videos of his content to promote his scam university. According to Hope Not Hate, a UK-based advocacy group that uses research to challenge mistrust and racism, Tate tells his supporters

they can earn significant sums by sharing his videos. In one podcast, he claimed that a 16-year-old Hustler University student was making 45,000 pounds a month, from publishing his clips on the TikTok, which is basically how he gamified the program. Even though he's banned from TikTok, his content is still really prevalent there because his students just flood the space with his content.

And I think he definitely is someone who needs social media. He's just gaming the algorithms because he knows that algorithms specifically boost inflammatory content. They will always give content that is inflammatory or divisive, more engagement. Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter, back in 2017 over a thread commenting on Harvey Weinstein, where he said, quote, if you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility. I'm not saying it's okay, you got raped.

And TikTok took down Andrew Tate's account for breaking its policies regarding, quote, content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against or otherwise dehumanizes an individual or group based on attributes including sex. This is what a TikTok spokesperson told the Washington Post. He was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram for violating the rules around dangerous organizations and individuals. But, as always, let's not give the platforms too much credit. Pretty much whenever they decide to remove somebody who is dangerous from their platform or make any kind of policy change like this, it's typically because of the work of organizers who have been pushing them behind the scenes,

and this time it's no different. Hope not hate filed a petition for platforms to drop Andrew Tate and has been monitoring him for years. So great job to all the organizers who did the work behind the scenes to make this happen. But also, what we learned from how Alex Jones uses Facebook, you might remember that Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened so that even after Alex Jones was banned from Facebook, he carved out a loophole so that other people could still post his content on the platform. Even though Tate has been banned from these platforms, it might not actually even really matter if his whole thing is having other people, his students, post his content. on his behalf. And I also should just probably note that in April, the Daily Beast reported that Andrew Tate's house in Romania

was raided as part of an investigation into crimes of human trafficking in rape. Tate lives in Romania, and in a now-deleted YouTube video, he said that 40% of the reason why he moved there is because Romanian police were less likely to pursue sexual assault allegations. So, yeah, you tell me.

And to me, Andrew Tate represents the mainstreaming of really violent dangerous ideas and rhetoric, and those things, you know, not just being fringe, but flooding popular social media apps like TikTok. Tate is also treated like a thought leader. He's given a huge platform by popular podcasts like Barstool, which gives him a huge audience of a young man and boys, and hosts who really don't push back on any of the dangerous things that he's saying. And overall, like I've said time and time again, these people are all scam artists. They do not care about their audience, they do not care about the men and boys that they're talking to, they do not care about

the students of their so-called universities. To them, these men and boys and their pain and loneliness and anger is just a tool that can be exploited and weaponized to make more cash. It is the most cynical, exploitative shit in the world, and it works. Listen, to be clear, I am not against people asking tough questions and having the thorny, meaty conversations about relationships, sex, and gender. In fact, I believe that we need more people spearheading those conversations in meaningful and thoughtful ways. But Andrew Tate is not actually interested in men and boys having healthy relationships because people who are in healthy relationships do not send over $50 a month to a charlatan to teach them how to be high-value successful men. People like Tate need to keep their audience

of men and boys angry. They need to stoke their feelings of loneliness and inadequacy and anger and tell them to keep pointing those feelings at women, so they keep shelling over more money. So this is my call to everyone listening. If you have a young man or boy in your life, talk to them about what kind of content they're consuming. Talk to them about what they think about women and girls. And you honestly might be surprised.

And it really, really matters. The implications are huge. Here's how Laura Bates, author of Men Who Hate Women, put it during our interview. We've never really seen it because we're at kind of hovering on the edge of the first real generation coming of age who have lived their whole lives on social media. We have this kind of unique political moment that never really gets picked up on. I find it wild that we're living at this moment in history. It's never happened before and will never happen again.

And yet it's never really discussed where a generation of non-digital natives is parenting and educating a generation of digital natives. And there is this chasm there, this huge gap in culture and understanding of what their world is like, what the day-to-day landscape of their online world is like, amongst parents who grew up in a pre-internet age. And that generation will be coming of age. And what will that look like when our political representatives are being drawn from a generation who have literally grown up with the sheer daily bombardment of racism and misogyny and transphobia that comes with living your life on the internet in the way that young people do today? And I don't think we'll know what that looks like until we get there. And I think when we do it will be a shock. But for now, Andrew Tate, good riddance. And if this means I have to see one last video

of a guy wearing sunglasses inside and smoking a cigar on my 4U page, I'll take it. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoati.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoadie.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity.com.

There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Edited by Joey Pat. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs.

We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was hungry. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game 7, Marquis keep coming to you. He's like, you know I love you, dog.

You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the I Heart Radio. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I actually drop better when I'm high. It heightens my senses, calms me down. If anything, I'm more careful.

Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself. And now he's in prison. You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different. So if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. This week on Crimless, Rory and I welcome a very special guest.

When I did a podcast, I wear my sleep masks. I like where this is going. So if you guys will indulge me. That's right, the incredibly talented and hilarious Will Ferrell on an episode dedicated to crimes committed by people named Will Ferrell. You're good for 300 crimes? Yeah. We've got two.

I'm ready to go right up to press. and day. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.