There Are No Girls on the Internet - Just Pearly Things, Andrew Tate and beyond: Inside the Manosphere

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Apple joined the Google Play store in dropping Andrew Tate’s pyramid scheme app. And while Tate was in custody, Just Pearly Things rose up in his place.  Justin Horowitz, researcher at Media Matters, explains the hold these misogynistic manosphere influencers have on the internet and what it means for all of us.  Read Justin’s Media Matters research: https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/beyond-andrew-tate-meet-misogynistic-manosphere-influencers-proliferating Apple removes app created by Andrew Tate: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/sep/22/apple-criticised-for-hosting-app-created-by-andrew-tateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Last week, Apple and Google Play both took down Andrew Tate's app, The Real World, formerly Hustlers University. Andrew Tate has been grifting a generation of young men and boys into making him rich by stoking their anxieties, anger, and fears. His content is dangerous. But it's not just Tate, an entire ecosystem of extremist content creators in what's commonly known as the Manosphere are gamifying the internet to line their pockets and putting all of us at risk in the process.

So the Manosphere is this umbrella term that a lot of different misogynistic activists, commentators, kind of fall under. So whether that be someone like a men's rights activist, a pickup artist, a blogger, a podcaster, pretty much anyone whose main deal is misogyny that falls under the manosphere. Justin Horowitz has been researching viral extremist influencers with Media Matters since 2020. So a lot of this content really seems to prey on the fears in vulnerabilities of young men. Like, you're not working out as hard as all the other men around you, or you're never going to get a date, or you spend a lot of time alone at home.

instead of being out. Why is that? I think that that is a great gateway to get to talk about misogyny and hate and to push extremism. So something like fitness content or something like whether that be gambling or even gaming, some of these Manosphere influencers are involved in. It is just a way to get people to log on, to subscribe to their content, so that they can push further extremism and further misogyny down. on the road. And kind of going off what you just said, a lot of these manosphere influencers do talk about sort of the real fears that men are experiencing. So things like financial instability

or rejection, dating advice, there's not a lot of influencers that speak to these real fears of young men that are outside the manosphere. So I think that young men are particularly interested in these influencers because there's not that many to choose from. And when these are the ones that are available, that's who they'll spend their time listening to, unfortunately. That's such a bummer because there are men and women and all kinds of folks who make content about, like for young people, right? But the content that we see amplified on social media is never the person who's making a podcast, digging into the, like doing a thoughtful dig into about like the nuances of of dating in 2023 for young men or the realities of economic stability.

Like that would be content that people would be looking for. I think there's like a thirst for it. And there are people making thoughtful content about that, but they certainly do not enjoy the exposure or the reach or the or the platforms like people making Manosphere content. Why is that? I think that a lot of the Manosphere content oftentimes the first thing people are seeing are these very viral moments.

So what they're seeing are these TikTok clips of someone saying something that is extremely misogynist, but maybe they'll have someone that is there to give a retort. But that's just one way to get people sort of involved or get their eyes on it. So these Manosphere influencers, they just have a, they're honestly very,

they're very good at the internet. And it's the same way that Andrew Tate was able to, you know, make sure that everybody on, on the internet knew who he was. You know, he was the most Googled person last year. They're just very good at being able to play the internet game, play the virality game.

These creators are gamifying our internet landscape by cranking out moments designed for social media virality and incentivizing their followers to share them online. As part of Andrew Tate's real world app, Tate promises that subscribers who pay $50 a month for the app can make millions by reposting his clips on social media. sites. That's why platforms like TikTok are flooded with his toxic, harmful messages. More and more of these creators, like the Fresh and Fit podcast and the Whatever podcast, are doing similar things.

It's like an ecosystem of toxicity. Honestly, it's really impressive and it's kind of scary as well. It is scary, especially with Andrew Tate. I mean, something that I see a lot with when it comes to these podcasts. I use that in quotes because as a podcaster, I have. have some like issues with how their pot, well, that's either here nor there. But, you know, it'll be these viral moments where they'll get, you know, like Fresh and VIT does this a lot, where they'll have a black woman on the show seemingly just to degrade and humiliate her. And maybe this woman will shrink and sit silently while they do this. Maybe she will say something back. Maybe she will storm out. But that clip on social media will get such big engagement. And

even if you are someone who finds these views abhorrent, you're still looking at them. They're so getting your eyeballs. Is that sort of what you mean by the way they're able to play social media algorithms to ensure that their content is always getting that high engagement and thus we're going to see more and more of it? Yes, that is exactly what I mean. They are able to find that 10-second clip of them degrading someone or making sure that they look a fool just so that they can get people's eyes on them and then you give them a follow

and then you go to their actual podcast, then you see it's three hours long of horrible misogyny. Like I said, it is really just like a gateway. Some of these viral clips are just a gateway to get people more involved in the Manosphere community. And I saw it, like you said, with Fresh and Fit, there are other podcasts like the Whatever Dating Podcast. Huge on TikTok.

My colleague Sophie and I recently did a piece on them as well. It's pretty much a fresh and fit knockoff. But, you know, it's just their own. twist on it. But they really got our attention at Media Matters because of their viral moments that we were seeing on TikTok that was just popping up in our feeds. God, it's interesting that these are often like dating or lifestyle podcasts because I don't know how to put this, but I had, so I was home over the weekend and I was spending time with a family member who I was really surprised to learn enjoys Andrew Tate content. And I was like, what is it that you like about him? And he was like,

well, I just see the clips on social media, like the clips on Instagram where he's driving a Bugatti and he's talking about how important it is to grind. And he was saying how like nobody's really giving that message today that it's important to grind. I was like, well, I don't know about that. And then I was like, oh, so do you listen to his podcast, take speech? And he was like, no, I tried to. It's like three hours long of him rambling. And like none of that appeals to me. And I found it so interesting that this person in my life, who I was think of as like a smart with it person was taken by these short clips to the point where they would defend this person

not having dived deeper into any of their longer form content or had tried to but could not get through it. Like, is that by design? I do think it's by design. I think that parisocial relationships with these Manosphere influencers are created very easily. I don't think that it takes a lot of content

for you to feel a connection with some of these influencers. And I don't think that is specific to the Manosphere. I think that can happen with any sort of TikToker or someone you're following online. But I think that what a lot of these Manosophir influencers are trying to do is they want you to become who they are. So they say, I'm an alpha male. You want to be a high value man. And what you want to do is you want to become an high value man. You should be an alpha male.

So what people are doing is they're looking up to these people. It becomes very, very easy to defend someone when you want to be them. Creators like Andrew Tate are notorious for being really good at getting around bans on social media platforms. Content that uses dog whistles or codes are not always detected. And even when individual creators are banned, their followers can still post their content. This is how Tate gets around being banned from pretty much every social media platform out there, except Twitter. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he let Andrew Tate back on the platform,

and the two sometimes publicly interact. And when Musk was touting payments for people who post on Twitter, Andrew Tate proudly bragged that he got $20,000. What's also interesting to me is the role that you say social media plays in this. Some of these influencers like Andrew Tate, who was famously banned from like all platforms, like I don't even think he's on Pinterest. And then he was famously not just let back on when Elon Musk took over at Twitter, but as of last week, being paid like $20,000 to stay on Twitter and make content.

Other influencers that you've written about, like Sneco, These are people who have technically been banned from platforms, yet I see their content all the time. What's going on there? Honestly, it's a lot of ban evasion. I'll say that. So a lot of these tech platforms, they are not good at knowing who is evading their bans. And, you know, people at Media Matters, we write about these kind of ban evasions. But it's also about some of these influencers are going to these, like, alt platforms.

We're talking about like Rumble, of course, Parlor, when that was a thing. Gab, all of the Twitter knockoffs, all Twitter, the plethora of those. But people are bringing their audiences from these mainstream platforms. Let's say Sneako was brought back on Twitter. He can tell all of his Twitter followers to go follow him on Rumble, which is like a knockoff YouTube pretty much for the Allright. And what they can do is they can build huge audiences on these platforms. And then they can find other influencers that are on Rumble.

And then it just kind of becomes this rabbit hole that people go down. Once you're on Rumble, you can find all these other Rumble influencers. So it's really about a way to get, like, all of your followers into one place. And like these influencers are really good at that. They're really good at getting their followers to do what they want them to do. It's, it's, I mean, I hate to give them any credit, but it is a very effective strategy because I see them all the time. And I'm always like, I thought they banned you. I thought they got rid of you.

Yeah. They're like a pesky little bug that you just cannot get rid of. It's not just Andrew Tate. More and more content creators are making similar content in Andrew Tate's image. Some of them, like Sneako, who got to start making call of duty content on YouTube before jumping to the platform Rumble, you might not have heard of. But even if you haven't heard of them, it's likely that your little brother or little cousin probably has.

We talk a lot about Tate, and rightly so he's like the most Googled person. but you've done a really great job of mapping out the entire ecosystem of men's rights influencers. Who were some of the major players that folks might not know? So we talked about Sneko. He's definitely, he kind of started as like a man on the street interview type of TikToker, doing kind of YouTube videos when he was younger and then made his way into the manosphere. Another person that I've been writing about recently, who I've actually noticed has gotten a lot of pickup recently, was H. Pearl, David.

She goes by Just Pearlie Things Online. She's a men's rights influencer, or I guess she would just call herself a Manosphere influencer of some sort. And she's been getting a lot of attention recently as the female Andrew Tate. Who else have I written about? Let's see, Aidan Ross, who was one of the biggest Twitch streamers. He recently has moved over to Kick, which is kind of a Twitch knockoff that's owned by State, which is a crypto gambling organization. And then there's the whatever podcast, as I talked about before, which is kind of like fresh and fit.

Jonathan Hogwood, who's another men's rights activist. Honestly, there are so many Andrew Tate knockoffs that they are almost hard to map out at this point. I feel like every time I jump online, I'm finding someone else that is saying the same thing to their followers, and it is just full-blown misogyny. And, you know, I'll check one week and they'll have a significant amount of followers. And then I'll check their follower account the next week. And they've just blown up. These people are just gaining followers at like very rapid speeds.

Let me ask you this. So I've noticed the same thing that a lot of these influencers, they'll start by doing funny pranks or man on the street or video game live streaming and then kind of dovetail into misogyny. And then some of them will like explode. How much of that do you think is just kind of playing to what works? Like being like, oh, when I'm. I was just doing X. I wasn't really getting traction. When I started dipping into misogyny,

anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, women and Jewish people are the root of your problems, women don't deserve rights, I got a lot more traction. I'm going to keep working what works. How much of it do you think is just like a marketing tactic? I think you hit the nail on the head. I really think that misogyny gets clicks. I think that hating women gets clicks. I think being an anti-Semite, unfortunately, That's clicks as well. I think that these are definitely strategies that people can turn to when they've run out of options. You know, doing a prank video, being a TikToker, depending on your content, will only get you so far.

And this is definitely a road that people see. And not only that, but it's also profitable. So the Manosphere in general, there's oftentimes a monetary aspect. So what are these people selling? They're always selling something, whether that's masculinity lessons or, you know, or dating advice, advice on how to go viral, anything like that. You know, the people that are in it, they are in it for themselves. They are not really trying to help these men become high value men or whatever they say

that they're trying to help them become. They are trying to make money, get followers, and market themselves. I mean, it's a grift. It's a scam. That's the thing that really, it troubles me. Like this is what I was having this long, long-ass debate with my family member last week, this past weekend about Andrew Tate. I was surprised that he was not able to see what a clear and obvious grift this person is running. This person is stoking on the fears and vulnerabilities, which may be very real of a community of young men who legitimately feel like forgotten, unseen.

He is stoking those things to enrich himself personally. And I guess, like, how do people not see it for the grift that it is? Like, how does it, how is it so effective when it's like, clearly he is trying to take your money? He doesn't actually care about you being a high value man or actually, like, seeing you and the vulnerabilities that you have. He's interested in fattening his pockets. I think that it goes back to what I was saying before, where there are really just so few influencers that are speaking to these fears of young men that it is like, it is completely, like,

The idea that people are doing it for the money, it's just overshadowed. I think people are, people become extremely, they become such committed followers to these influencers that, you know, they look past the bad, they look past the money that they're giving. They look past the horrible misogyny. And some people, when they are fans, they know that what these people are saying is wrong and dangerous and putting like the real lives of women in particular. Like they're making, they're making women's lives more dangerous. because they think that they're helping them in some way.

They're trying to, like, improve their lives. And for people, if they haven't had someone to talk to or they haven't had someone that felt like they was really, like, speaking to their soul, like, they're willing to look past those things. And it really makes me sad because what they're selling them is so shitty. Like, somebody who made good content about women and men and gender and sexuality and dating in 2023, someone who was actually meaningfully seeing these people and speaking to their concerns, I think would be great.

I think what makes me upset is that they flood the space with such garbage. So people who actually are making that content really can't get a foothole because who's going to listen to somebody who is making a nuanced point about gender and dating when you can watch this very exciting video of a black woman's being degraded and then storming off of a podcast set, right? And, you know, I think it really creates this. false world where in heterosexual relationships, men and women are constantly at odds that, like, people don't have relationships that are based on mutual respect, seeing each other, wanting to

support each other. The only kind of relationship that exists between a man and a woman is one that is built on, you know, breaking the woman, her being submissive, you being dominant, when in reality, people who have healthy relationships are not obsessed with the particulars in this way. Like, this is not, like, I don't know anybody who has a relationship like that, that is certainly not a relationship to strive for, yet they are presenting to a whole generation of young people that this is the only kind of relationship that you can have. And it's just not true. I mean, traditional gender roles, I mean, that just kind of oftentimes will take out the whole part of like important communication. You know, if your job is to do this, my job is to do

that. And like, that's how it's going to be. Oftentimes it's just not going to work that way. It'll just, it's so outdated the gender roles that they're pushing that it just, like you said, it doesn't really make sense and it doesn't work. I wish that I could like point to more like influencers that are creating content about dating and that are kind of creating content that would be kind of the opposite of Manosphere content. But like off the top of my head, I can't think of any obviously because I work in the space. but it's it's it's it's it's just sad to see that it feels like when men are looking for a role model or someone to look up to it just feels like there's just one type of role model online that they can find let's take a quick break another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide not quite on humor me with robert smigel and friends me and hilarious guests from jim gaffigan to 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 Acapella band with their between

songs banter. The worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name.

The Harvard Yard. But they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One or Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

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Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a paramedapausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be with the Adamania Riva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be.

Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How high can it be getting naked at 50? with the new guy. That one's kind of hard. 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. At our back. It's not just math. There are women creating misogynistic content on social media too. While Andrew Tate was in custody being investigated for running a trafficking ring in Romania, H. Pearl Davis, or Just Pearly Things, filled the gap and spiked in popularity.

Sometimes called the female Andrew Tate, business insider reported that Pearl's YouTube audience grew 50% in the three months since Tate was detained and that our subscriber base jumped from around 800,000 to 1.3 million while Tate was. was in custody. On her merch store, Pearl sells shirts that say women shouldn't vote. I think you would actually be surprised. I think that there is a small sector within the manosphere where there are women spewing extreme misogyny against other women. I think that men in particular think that if a woman says it, they can repeat it. If a woman is talking bad about women and saying extreme misogyny, they can just say it more casually almost. You know,

been following Pearl for quite a while. I feel like I've been following her since she was just a TikToker and she was just constantly getting banned on TikTok. And now I'm seeing articles written about her within really the last week where people are saying she's the new female Andrew Tate. And I think that part of it, this is just my opinion, I think that the media is picking up on her because they like to see women attack each other. I think that is, you know, when you have someone like just pearly things talking bad about women, they're like, oh yeah, this is definitely something we should cover. But we're not talking about the actual reality of it, like I said before,

that, you know, her dangerous misogyny is still putting the lives of women in danger. You know, it's just as bad as something that Andrew Tate was saying. You know, it's just coming out of someone else's mouth. Yeah, I've noticed that too. Like another kind of like right-wing influencer type, Candice Owen, people love it when she says something bad about black people because she's a black woman. And so, like, I do think there's something that, like, is even outside of these right-wing media circles in more traditional or legacy media, I think that there is something just irresistible about that framing of, like, well, this woman doesn't think that women should have rights and she's a woman and she's saying it. Like, I think you're absolutely right that there's something they've identified that is clicky or buzzy about that, and it'll always make headlines.

It's the same thing about when you have, like, this group gaze against groomers attacking the LGBT community. You know, it's like, well, they're getting all this media pickup just because they're queer people attacking other queer people. I feel like it kind of falls in kind of the same formula there. Another hallmark of this kind of content, the grind set mentality. The grindset is kind of a catch-all for all of the traits and interests supposedly embodied by the high-value alpha male. So when creators like Andrew Tate or Fresh and Fit offer their followers paid coaching to become these high-value men, it runs the gamut from content about fitness or real estate, stocks, and cryptocurrency. It might seem kind of all over the place to an outsider, but they're selling the shortcut to an entire lifestyle.

Something that I've noticed about the content of folks like Fresh and Fit and Andrew Tate especially, is that so much of the topics are all over the place. Like, they talk a lot about crypto, which I always found so interesting. Is it just that crypto is sort of synonymous with young people who are very much online and they're just trying to give them what they want? Or there's something else going on there? You know, I think crypto trading is like part of the grind set, right? So it's like, what are we doing to make money?

How can we make money the fastest way possible? and how can we do it efficiently and be alpha males while doing it? So I just feel like cryptocurrency kind of falls into the world of the Manosphere because it's all about doing something quickly and doing something big. I think those are just two aspects of the Manosphere that are just like, you know, you can kind of apply that to like anything, making money, meeting girls, dating. And I think cryptocurrency, you know, I think it's just hot and trendy. And I think that that's just kind of like where it's fallen recently.

Oh my God. I love how you put that, that it's just doing something, it's the grinds out of doing something quick and big. I think that that's something that all of this content kind of has in common. This idea that there is a cheat code to life. That there's a cheat code that's going to get you rich. There's a cheat code that's going to get you fit. There's a cheat code that's going to get you beloved by women, sexual prowess, social power. You can just gamify it. And if you have not figured out, you just don't have the right cheat code. I think that it's all kind of wrapped up in that. I really like that term cheat code. That's not something I've used in this, but I think that, you know, the whole idea of the red pill, so being like women are the root of all evil, you know, understanding that women are the reason I'm not financially stable, women are the reason I'm not dating, women are the reason of so and so and so and so for whatever, you know, poor man's problems he has. I think that that is also sort of a mental cheat code to be like these are the reasons I'm not happy.

You know, it's because of women. And I think that that's just kind of another way to sort of understand the framing when it comes to just like the mentality of it. Yeah. And, you know, I think back to when I was a young person going through my first breakup, I just like all most young people do, I had like one bad breakup that sort of defined part of my life. And what I turned to was like the cure records and,

really bad poetry. What makes me sad now is that there is this entire well-oiled digital machine that will, when they find a vulnerable young person who is in that moment of like, oh, you're heartbroken, they will find that young person and be like, oh, the reason why you feel this way, think about how bad you feel, it's because of women, right? And you can build an entire identity and ethos around the fact that women are the source for your pain, for why you're not feeling good while you're not succeeding while you don't have money, whatever the thing is. And, you know, I don't think, I don't think this kind of content is new. But what I think is new is that young people all have a device in their hands that connect it to them so instantly.

And that content is not just there. It's also amplified by social media platforms who are getting rich off of it. It's algorithmically, you know, surfaced for them. And it kind of makes me feel like they don't necessarily have a lot of tools when they're young. to steer away from that content because it's such a pull, I bet. Yeah, I really think that, like, if you're, you know, if you're giving the example that you gave, if you're heartbroken and you're a man and you just went through a devastating heartbreak and it pops up on your TikTok feeds, sneako, refresh and fit,

talking about, like, why women break men's hearts. And it's like the next five TikToks that are coming up. You're on the Manosphere tag or whatever you're looking at, you know, that is really going to draw people in. And I think that is constant stimulation and people are being assured over and over again that women are the problem, I think is what it is, especially if you're looking for that kind of content or like your algorithm has picked up that you're interested in that kind of content. You're just going to get the same talking points and the same misogyny over and over again. And it's just going to draw you further into it. And I just, I mean, what responsibility do you think that social media platforms have to keep that from happening, especially to young people?

I think they need to have more terms of service when it comes to extreme misogyny. Honestly, I feel like a lot of times they are pretty lax. Places like TikTok or obviously Twitter or, you know, any sort of social media. They just don't have the kind of specificity that they really need to have to keep women safe on the internet. Do you feel it's getting worse? On some platforms, yeah. I mean, I feel like maybe, well, maybe it's not getting worse, but the bad actors are getting better at it.

I'll say that. I feel like sometimes they're able to really talk around things. I think that some of the bad actors are able to, you know, know what gets viral to sort of draw people in. And I think that the social media platforms, you know, they still want to make money and they don't want to see some of their biggest actors taken off. I think that's an unfortunate reality is that, you know, if you have someone that's bringing

a lot of attention and a lot of clicks, they don't want to ban them. And if you're Elon Musk, maybe you'll give them $20,000 and thus incentivize the next misogynistic hate monger to get big on the platform and say, hey, I could do that. I can say misogynistic things into a microphone. Money, please. Exactly. If it's getting clicks, then there you go. So you talked about how some of these bad actors are pretty good about

coding things so that they stay on the right side of these terms of service. I saw something in a social media feed. It was Nick Fuentes on the Fresh and Fit podcast, and they were talking about JQ. And I was like, what the fuck is JQ? Then I read your piece. I was like, the Jewish question? Then I saw the host of Fresh and Fit saying,

he basically bragged, saying that, you know, we're the biggest platform that's talking about the JQ. No one else will do it. What's going on here? Like, what is that? This is straight up Nazi shit. And I am being dead serious. When you bring Nick Fuentes into it, you know, he is a neo-Nazi.

He's a white supremacist and a Holocaust denier. They have been talking, Nick Fuentes and Fresh and Fit, for months about getting together and doing this collaboration. So this was kind of the precipice of them making, of working together to make sure that they can do this, like, hours and hours long stream. There was even a video that was going around of Nick doing a Nazi pile in the fresh and fit studio. And they're talking about the Jewish question. This is, you know, the same thing that Adolf Hitler was talking about when he was like, what do we do about the Jews? And like you said, the hosts were saying, we're the only podcast that's talking about the Jewish question. It's extremely, extremely scary stuff to see.

And something that, you know, is extremely well-coded. You know, a clip like that where they're just talking about the JQ, something like that could probably go on to TikTok because their algorithms might not pick it up. Maybe they would pick up if someone did like a hashtag Nick Fuentes or something like that. But it'll just direct people. They'll direct people back to Rumble, which is where you can see these hour-long streams. I'm glad that you put it that way. Back when Kanye West and Nick Fuentes went to visit Trump, I did an interview with Robert Evans who makes the podcast be behind the bastards who's all about all of these shitheads.

And that was the point that he made too, which is that Nick Fuentes is a Nazi. Like some of these other characters, they kind of dance around it. They, you know, you could sort of be like, oh, they're trolling. Maybe. But he's not in that camp.

And so that, like, when you are platforming him, you're doing a very different thing and you're sending a very different clear signal about what you're about. I completely agree. I think that when you make the decision to platform Nick Fuentes, you are drawing a line in the sand. You are saying, I am willing to put a Nazi onto my show, and I'm listening, and I will hear him out. So someone like Pearl, just pearly things as we talked

about, a couple months ago, she had him on her show. Nick Fuentes actually inspired Pearl so much that she made an entire anti-Semitic song about it. When Pierce Morgan confronted Pearl about it on his television show, here's how she responded. I mean, the point was more about cancel culture and people getting kicked off of social media if you finish the song it was more about like you can't talk about this topic without being canceled by the left and the right I don't really have a strong opinion either way

and she obviously got a lot of backlash she took the videos down she put the videos back up she defended him she went back and forth but she ended the place she ended up she ended up being like I believe in free speech so I would host him again something like that it's just ridiculous and I think that it is so so dangerous, the manosphere in general, but then to bring Nazism and neo-Nazism into it,

I mean, it is just like two very scary, dangerous worlds colliding. What are some of the real world impacts of this? Because I'm certainly sure somebody listening is like, it's just young people saying naughty words on the internet. It doesn't really mean anything. What is the real world impact? Well, you know, the manosphere in general does not live in a vacuum. So major misogyny and extreme misogyny has led to real world violence.

People like Elliot Rogers, who was an in-cell mass shooter, obviously many attacks against women, Gamergate in 2015 when members of, when female members of the video game community were attacked, sent death threats and rape threats. These are all just examples of ways that the manosphere has, you know, come into the real world and has become a serious danger to people and has affected real people's lives. Yeah, I mean, just this week, I was reading on Twitter about a man who had posted a picture of him and his wife and said, I think it was a tweet that was like, oh, I went to Columbia and I married, I came back with a wife. And that person is now being accused of murdering his wife. And you go to his Twitter page and it's all Andrew Tate stuff.

And I'm not saying that there's a deep, like, there's a deep, like a deep, like a deep kind of. connection because we don't know. It's still something that they're investigating. But I have to imagine that somebody who is absorbing content from a influencer who is saying all of these things about how women don't deserve rights, how if a woman is raped, she bears some responsibility, like all of this stuff. I can't imagine how that is not creating a less safe world for everybody, women especially, but also for the men who absorb this content. Yeah, I do think that it is making men think that, you know, violence is sometimes an answer. When Nick was on Pearl's show, he downplayed domestic abuse. You know, so if you're someone who is easily influenced by, like,

bad actors or figures or the kind of content you're taking in, you know, these are people who are quick to violence and quick to like, you know, call up arms. You know, these are very scary people who are associated with people that have, you know, been convicted of violent acts. Pretty much people that are goypers that have followed Nick Fuentes. There have been like multiple instances of these people being charged for, you know, dangerous and violent acts. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan,

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. There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah.

Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change.

Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

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Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the time. the hips since high school. Absolutely.

Now a redacted amount of years later. We're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips, wider. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drink. Sidebar. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer?

Oh, they had a bogo. Well, then you got it. Do you want a white collar or something here? Just hit it. Oh, what are y'all doing? Microphones? Are you making a rap album? Oh, I would.

Come on. Could you imagine? I would buy it. Cuts through the. It's like a hot knife through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky I'm not a drug addict. You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic.

You're lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Tate and people like him make content specifically and explicitly targeting kids. Before it was deleted from the app stores, Tate's app, the real world, said it was appropriate for ages four and up. He even boasts about having a six-year-old subscriber.

Similarly, in a viral video of Sneko meeting a handful of his fans, who are boys maybe age eight or nine, one of them gleefully tells Sneco, fuck all women, while another says all gays should die. what is content like this doing to a generation of young men? It's really scary, and I read about how Andrew Tate's content, I read a piece about how teachers and schools, like people who work with young people, his content specifically is leading to disruptions where, you know, young men who, like Andrew Tate, will start bringing his content into the classroom, and it just creates a very unsafe, chaotic environment,

especially for like the young, like young kids, elementary school kids. So Insider had a report. It was a couple months back now, and it said that there was an 11-year-old who was repeating Andrew Tate content and who was pretty much saying that he like idolized him. I do think that, you know, when people are looking up to these, these like people like Andrew Tate or even Nick Fuentes, I think you're going to see it in schools. You'll see it with young, young people. And, you know, Nick Fuentes, I've watched plenty of his streams.

Sometimes he speaks directly to the high schoolers that are listening to his show. So to kind of give you an idea of like how young this is going, these influencers and bad actors, they know who's listening. And it's young kids and it's very impressionable, susceptible, young people. And I have this theory, and I would love to know your thoughts, that even if you are not somebody who likes Andrew Tate, would ever subscribe to a fresh and fit, would ever be watching Nick Fuentes. The way that these clips have taken, of these people speaking, have taken over social media, whether or not you follow them. Like, I see them, and I obviously don't like these people. I think that that is trickling down into wider society. So even people who don't think of themselves

as like men's rights types, they might be absorbing, casually absorbing some of these attitudes without even really realizing it because they are so ubiquitous on our platforms. What do you think about that? Yeah, I can see that. I can definitely see that. I think that if it's showing up in your TikTok feed enough, you know, it's just getting into your subconscious. I mean, maybe that sounds a little conspiracy theory of me, but I do feel like it's coming into, you know, the Overton window for what we think is like misogyny feels to be shifting a little bit. You know, it's just something that you feel in the air. Obviously, it's not something

that I can point to exactly. But sometimes you just feel it. And I think that's kind of what you were describing as well. It's just something that, you know, you can just tell in the way that people talk. Yes. In the last, like, couple of years. And it's kind of what got me interested in the manosphere, too.

I mean, it was just like it's something I felt in my own life. And it's something that I was seeing online. And I think as a gay man, I see it in my community. a lot, a lot of misogyny. And it's like, honestly, within the last year or two, it's like, it's what some gay men might think is funny. Honestly, honestly, just ends up being, like, hurtful to women or, like, could end up just being dangerous.

And I just think that's part of it as well. How did you get into caring about and researching and following this kind of content? So first, I was just doing extremism. So I was really mostly just following, obviously normal right-wing media. I was following Steve Bannon when I first started at Media Matters. And then I got particularly interested in McQuintas. And then I think that as my TikTok algorithm started to change and shift a little bit, I started to get Manosphere content.

And I think I just kind of fell into it too. I was like, who are these people? And why do they keep showing up on my feed? And why do they have so many likes and follows? And I feel like that's kind of what first, like initially kind of threw me into it. And I also started to follow Aiden Ross, as I was talking about the streamer, and him and Andrew Tate have like this serious, very strange bromance. And that's honestly what brought me over to kind of like the Tate's tape speech world of it all as well. Okay. So what is it like

following this? Because I mean, I have a separate TikTok account that I use for like following nonsense just so that my personal TikTok account will not be all nonsense when I'm just trying to watch TikToks. What has it been like for you personally to have to be mired in all this all the time? You know, it can be really hard some days. I feel like for me, after working at Media Matters for nearly three years, I've like really found a good way to pace myself kind of taking in this content. I think that honestly, as a gay Jewish man, seeing a lot of the anti-Semitism and a lot of the homophobia and anti-pridemon stuff has really been the hardest for me. I do think that it's really about pacing yourself when it comes to how I can kind of handle all of it.

I also just think that the Manosphere in particular, I feel like, is very reactionary to the moment, which means it's just like very fast-paced. There's always something new happening. The world of kind of extremism feels a little bit slower. So I feel like also just making sure that, you know, I have to, people on my team that if I can't handle something or things are just happening too quickly, there are other, like, colleagues of mine that I feel like I can really hand it off to and I can really trust them with the content and the research as well.

I'm glad you feel like you have that support. I'm interested. Do you see all of this stuff that's kind of connected, like the anti-pride stuff? Is that sort of connected to the manosphere stuff? Like, is this all linked in some way in your mind? Absolutely. I really think that, especially in this last year, the manosphere, like, they dove head first into the anti-LGB rhetoric and the anti-trans rhetoric.

There was a day in June where Andrew Tate thought it would be so hilarious to be like, I'm a trans woman, and then just started tweeting constantly all day about being trans. It was really disgusting and something that I think you would really only find on Elon Musk's Twitter. And another horrible example, Sneco, who we were talking about before, he wrote the words Pride Month on a shooting target and then went outside with automatic rifles and they were shooting at it, him and a couple of his buddies. So it is just really extreme, the anti-LGB rhetoric.

It is honestly from the Manosphere, some of the more scary stuff that I've seen. It is really hard to see you. Shit is so fucked up. And, you know, I don't know how you feel about this. What I've been sort of saying is that even for people who have a problem with trans people or queer people, most people aren't doing this. Like, this is such a different thing. Taking the time out of your day to write Pride Month on a target and then go film yourself shooting at it or film yourself demolishing a target price.

that is not normal. And I think that the thing that worries me is that it's signaling to people that, oh, this is normal behavior. Like this is, if you have a problem with queer people or trans people, this is an appropriate way to deal with that. And I think that there are plenty of people who probably do have problems with trans people and queer people. But this is such a different thing. Like I feel like they're telling these people that this is an appropriate way to express. breast, whatever bigotries that you have. And that's what really scares me. I do think that people like Sneco, when they do like a stunt like that, it is to get clicks,

but I also think it's normalizing it as well. I think it's exactly what you described. I think that they're thinking like, oh, if this is funny and Sneco can do it, then like, it's cool if I do it as well. Or if someone wants to, you know, pretend to be a trans person online just to mock them. I hate that. And if your page is getting a bunch of clicks, then like, yeah, sure. I can do that as well. And also, Pearl, just pearly things as well, has been, she plays a semi-professional volleyball, I think, over in England. I think that's her, like, full-time job outside of being a commentator. And she's been, like, fighting with them about her anti-trans rhetoric. And it has really only made her anti-LGB rhetoric, like, so much worse.

I think that people like her, they are just, like, so, so. So angry. She has so much anger. And people like Andrew Tate, they are, they have so much anger. And like, you just wonder where it comes from. And like, sometimes it's just so obvious that it's not actually towards the LGBT community, but that's where they're putting it. And it's ridiculous. And it's dangerous and scary, as I've said a couple of times. Oh, my God. I've noticed the same thing is like, there are plenty of things that I don't like in society. I don't dedicate my time to, like, obsessing over the it in this way. And also like, like, some of the Andrew Tate and fresh and fit, like, there's two clips that stick in my mind of them, like, ranting, like, Andrew Tate ranting about how, like, he doesn't eat breakfast because he starts his day with caffeine and nicotine and hate running through his veins. And, like, there's this clip of, I think it's, I'm blanking the host's name, but, like, screaming into the microphone about how when he was playing too many video games, women didn't give him the time of day and how that was so horrible. It's like, they have such deep, clear reservoirs of hate and anger. And also, they're telling people, don't you want to be like me? Not really.

Like, I want to wake up and have a nice breakfast. I don't want to start my day with hate and pain and caffeine and nicotine. I actually would love to have a nice breakfast. That actually sounds nice. Do I want to be foaming into a microphone, spewing hate and anger about all the women who've done me wrong? Not really. It actually doesn't seem appealing. And so it's very interesting how so much of their ethos, like you said, is based around

be like me, but they don't actually seem very happy, in fact, quite the opposite. I'm like, aren't you guys exhausted? Like watching you guys, I'm exhausted. like being that angry all the time. And like, I don't know. I don't know what it's getting for you guys. But like, I just, it shocks me. It really does.

And I just think it, it's shocking. And it presents, like, for young men, like, they can have a different kind of life. They can have different kinds of relationships. They can have meaningful, fulfilling relationships based on communication, trust, honesty, openness, respect, and all of that. Like, that is possible for everybody. And I just think it presents such an empty worldview that in the end traps them as well. We talk a lot rightly about the ways that this kind of content is a danger for women, which it is. But it's also such a danger to these men who are being sold a lie that this is all they can have.

When in reality, they can have so much more. The world is so much more open and available to them having a different kind of experience. But this content and this dynamic just keeps them trapped, probably miserable and ultimately lacking an agency. And I just... And poor. Yeah. It is draining their bank accounts as well. They think that they're getting so much out of it, but they really just aren't.

Oh my God. If, like, I wrote a piece for the nation about fresh and fits, like, online school. If you're sending these Gryfter $600 a month, please, like, that money would be so much better spent elsewhere. I completely agree. I mean, when the example that you're trying to follow is Andrew Tate, who was like literally running in MLM, you know, you'd think that people would know better, but, you know, they don't. Why does so much of this content take off in the podcast space? Like, why do all these people have podcasts? Even if their podcast is like them with six people at a room and they're just

videotaping it and they're calling on a podcast, it's a pet peeve of mine, what is it about the podcast space that draws these charlatans in? I think that if you can put a microphone in front of someone, that means that they are allowed to speak their mind any which way that they want. And I don't think that's actually reality, but I think that with that setup, it lends itself to that kind of rhetoric and that kind of critique and that kind of discussion and discourse. Something like Fresh and Fit, where there's like 12 microphones on the table, like, this really isn't how a podcast is working. I, like, I assume most people that are watching it are watching it, are watching it

for like the video form. So I just think that the podcast of it all, I'll say, the podcast format of it all really just, it's lending itself to a, you know, a format which lends itself to a specific type of discourse. Oh my God. I could talk all day. This is like such a thing with me where the look of a podcast, yeah, where there's like 12 microphones.

First of all, that is too many fucking people to be on a podcast. It's so like already that should tell you something's going on. But the thing on TikTok that really gets a lot of traction is, yeah, headphones and microphone that might not even be plugged in. Like the aesthetic of I'm having serious discourse or like I'm going to tell you how I really think in an intimate way. I think that a lot of these influencers are able to rely on the aesthetic of podcasts and what that brings to push their horrible messages out. in a way that kind of shields them from criticism, I believe, because if it was just somebody in their car making this video,

you'd be like, who is this nobody next? But, like, oh, he's got a microphone and headphones? Let's listen to what he's got to say. Right. If he has a microphone in front of him, then I should maybe be taking him seriously, I think, is the thought that these people have. Like, if I have a big fancy Yeti mic or whatever I have

and I got my big expensive over-the-head earphones on, then like this person might mean something. This person has the ability to put a podcast out. And maybe that also carries some weight to it. I feel like sometimes when I'm watching these smaller, like, right-wing media figures that are doing podcasts for my job, I'm like, are they uploading this anywhere? Or do they just like click start on photo booth and like sit in front of their microphone and just kind of like run with it? I actually don't know.

I would love to, sometimes I would love to see people set up. No, I have definitely 100% seen TikTok clips where it's like, I know that mic is not on. I know it's not on. That is just a prop to make us feel some kind of way about what you're saying. Absolutely. So Justin, let's say that somebody listening has somebody in their life, kind of asking for selfish reasons because I apparently do have somebody in my life who is watching this kind of content. and you're worried about them. Do you have any tips for how we might approach that?

I think that finding good content to replace the bad content is a great place to start when it comes to talking about masculinity. I also think that being able to show people the worst parts of these influencers is a really important aspect. So kind of like your family member where they're like, oh, well, I see the grind set of it all. I see him smoking his cigars. It's like, okay, but do you see him talking about, you know, hitting him. women or talking bad about the LGBTQ community. I think that what it is important is kind of talking to the values of the people that are watching these influencers that maybe you can hit on in a different way. So if your family member cares about LGBTQ rights, if your family member

cares about violence against women, it's directing the attention towards different aspects of these influencers that maybe they don't see on TikTok or they don't see directly online, but are definitely there if you sit and listen and do a little bit of research. That's really good advice. And I think the point about like replacing the content that they're currently consuming with something else is such a good one. And I think it really speaks to how like that bad actors and their ability to seize gaps in information and content because, you know, I'm probably like you. I'm part of like coalitions and panels about how we speak to different groups. And one that comes up time and time again is like this entire generation of disaffected

young people, a lot of whom are men, that we're just not speaking to, right? Like nobody is actually in a meaningful way seeing them speaking to their issues. At least they don't feel that way. And the people who are getting their ears and eyes are these charlatans with a dangerous message. And so I do think part of it is being all of us who make content, being a little bit better about making content that helps so that these bad actors are not able to just seize these massive gaps where there is no content filling that gap. I really like that idea. It really comes down to like the messaging. Like who is the messaging for?

And I feel like a lot of that when it comes to like political messaging is like we're really aiming towards this one demographic. Whether that be young people or like older voters or someone. like that. But I feel like when it comes down to it, when we're creating content and we're being influencers, these influencers, I don't think that there are a lot of people out there that their initial thought is I want to do, I want to do good things for young men. I don't think that people really, I don't think that's something that people really think of right off the bat. And maybe that just needs to be, you know, looked at from a different lens. I don't, I'm not totally sure how to get people to, how to get people there, I guess. I don't know how to get the message across and get the message out. It feels, it feels like an important fight and something we can talk about in circles and circles, but I'm not sure what the next step would always be to get people to create better content that can replace the bad content.

When you think about the future of where we are with this kind of content and our discourse more generally online, are you hopeful? Are you where you at? Not hopeful. I think that these bad actors are getting better and better at what they do. And I see people like you and me who are doing the work to point it out and talk about it. But I think that there needs to be more people like us, especially men like me who are willing to call it out. I think that I think it would be great if there were more people in the queer community, people that are men, that are willing to, you know, speak up. I feel like I'm not seeing it if I'm being honest, and that makes me sad. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?

You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unboss Created. 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, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHartRadio, check out the IHart 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

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