I first encountered the self-declared misogynist Andrew Tate in 2022, when his post about not reading books popped onto my feed.
As an avid reader since childhood, I was surprised to see someone be so critical of reading, but I put it down to him saying something provocative for views.
Only a few months later, Tate was banned from YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram for promoting sexist, misogynistic and violent attitudes towards women (although he’s since been reinstated on X as the platform has embraced the ‘free speech absolutist’ views of new owner Elon Musk).
To top it all off, Tate was then arrested in Romania in December 2022 on charges of rape, human trafficking, exploiting women, and sexual coercion, while a civil claim in the UK was successfully brought against him and his brother for tax evasion.
Andrew Tate captured my attention with a video about books (albeit for the wrong reasons), but behind this video hid a far more dangerous account.
Many viewers would have clicked through to his page and engaged with more of his content, watching other videos where his attitudes to women and masculinity became clear.
It is this that worries me and helps explain why so many young men have turned to him and been lured in by his extreme views.
Sarah Beeny recently argued that ‘Eighty per cent of what [Tate] says is really brilliant. He says, “Put the shoulders back, get a six-pack and you won’t be depressed”, and you think, actually, that’s good advice’.
‘But then, slid in, is this moment of toxic, “And tell your bitch she should do as she’s told.”
Her comments highlight the fact that Tate’s ‘good’ advice can act like a Trojan horse, helping his more concerning views slip under the radar and subtly influence boys’ and men’s views about women, dating and consensual relationships – in the most extreme cases radicalising them in a dangerous form of male supremacist ideology.
This Is Not Right
On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.
With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.
You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.
Read more:
For young men who might be feeling insecure about their identities, some of his advice could indeed be considered well-meaning or even aspirational. This process of gradually gaining trust through ‘low stakes’ content can help with normalising more extreme content further down the line and research shows this is a typical pathway of radicalisation.
Tate also promotes the claim that men’s rights are being undermined by feminism. This ‘zero-sum’ thinking – that if women and girls are advancing, then this must be at the expense of men – is a common strategy in the manosphere, fuelling resentment and anger against women.
Who is Andrew Tate?
Andrew Tate is a former kickboxer and social media influencer, born in Washington DC. Tate rose to fame in 2016 as a contestant on series 17 of Big Brother.
The 36-year-old is notorious for his controversial behaviour and misogynistic views which have seen him banned from a number of social media websites.
He was arrested on December 29 in Romania as part of an ongoing human trafficking investigation.
Visit Metro.co.uk's dedicated Andrew Tate page for the latest updates.
As a professor in sociolinguistics, one of my focus areas includes language and masculinity, and the impact of Tate has been of interest to me as he’s fully entered mainstream discourse.
Drawn in by Tate’s videos and interviews on how to make money, motivational speeches, and stories of overcoming bullying at school, it’s understandable how young men might find an affinity with this ‘strong’ male figure.
His content also draws his fans into the manosphere, an online space for promoting sexism and misogyny where Tate’s content has found a home, and where he offers ‘life advice’ to a receptive audience of boys and young men about relationships, dating, parenting, self-discipline, and more.
Tate joins other manosphere influencers such as Nicolas Balinthazy (more popularly known as Sneako), Adin Ross, Joe Rogan, and Fresh & Fit hosts Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes.
In his recent presidential campaign, Donald Trump appeared on interviews and podcasts with Rogan and Ross, bolstering his image as powerful and hypermasculine, which seems to have resonated with Trump’s electoral gains among men.
Some men even go as far as to sign up for his Hustler’s University course (since rebranded to ‘The Real World’) or pay for exclusive access to his ‘War Room’, where they network with other men, apparently share success stories, and learn the secrets of wealth creation.
But alongside this, Tate simultaneously promotes a misogynistic attitude towards women.
In past interviews and podcasts, he has said that women are like babies, a man’s property, a liability, and lazy, while a number of investigations have uncovered ‘War Room’ chat logs where men talk about tactics to groom women for sex work and exploit possible victims, highlighting the rampant and violent misogyny that exists within these communities.
It’s important not to understate Tate’s popularity. A 2024 Ipsos survey suggested that 1 in 5 young men have a positive view of Tate. A 2023 YouGov poll found that 24% of 18–29 agreed with Tate’s views on how women should be treated, and 24% also agreed with Tate’s views on masculinity and what it means to be a man.
A few years ago, Tate went viral in videos where he came across as more unintentionally comical than dangerous, such as one where he talks through how he would foil a terrorist attack by ‘grabbing the AK’ or another in which he claimed anyone who has a heart attack is a ‘pussy’.
But his more extreme content is now an undeniable part of mainstream conversations, giving him a degree of legitimacy to some viewers.
Academics in Australia interviewed female teachers and found increased rates of sexual harassment and misogyny in schools, with teachers claiming that Tate had skewed boys’ understanding of the dynamics of social power.
Similar findings have emerged in research in the UK, with boys seeing Tate as a reasonable and authentic voice, especially in relation to feminism and gender politics.
It’s clearly a cause for concern – and many journalists, educators, and academics (like me) are concerned about the outsized influence he seems to be having on boys and young men across the globe.
Although the Romanian case remains ongoing as of early 2025, meaning Tate is unable to leave the Balkan country, this hasn’t stopped him from being interviewed by the BBC and Piers Morgan, or regularly posting on X about the UK summer riots and his plans to run for prime minister.
Tate, for his part, hints at a conspiracy, claiming that he’s the unjust victim of attacks by the mainstream media (MSM), that his comments have been edited or taken out of context, or that he’s playing a character and it’s all just a joke.
That kind of ‘us against the world’ thinking means that Tate has a devoted army of followers who not only share and support his content but also attack those who might disagree.
For instance, in his interview with Piers Morgan in August 2024, YouTube comments were almost universally positive about his performance, while BBC journalist Matt Shea received death threats following the release of his documentary about Tate.
In many ways, Tate embodies an old fashioned ‘cult of personality’, courting equal parts controversy and praise across the internet.
And being a masculinity influencer is big business – the judge in Tate and his brother’s tax case estimated that they had made at least £21million from their online endeavours.
This Is Not Right
On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.
With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.
You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.
Read more:
Over the past few years, academics, teachers, educators, politicians, and parents have wrestled with how best to deal with Tate’s influence, but there are multiple challenges in offering counter-narratives.
For one, social media can and does amplify the reach of misogynist posts, which is good news for people like Tate. Some research has suggested that TikTok’s and YouTube Shorts’ algorithms promote toxic content to boys and young men, making it more difficult for other content to rise to their front page.
For example, although there has been some attention on positive male influencers like fitness coach Joe Wicks and fundraising endurance athlete Russ ‘Hardest Geezer’ Cook, they tend not to get the same sustained reach compared to someone like Tate.
This is because controversy sells and regardless of how wholesome Joe Wick or Russ Cook’s content might be, unprovocative videos don’t get as many clicks.
We have to tackle this problem on social media, but we also have to step out of that bubble, and talk to boys and young men in the world about masculinity influencers like Tate.
But that’s easier said than done – how do we get them to reflect on where these views come from? And how do we offer up alternative models of masculinity that young men can look up to?
To help educators counter the corrosive effects of masculinity influencers, there have been efforts to develop materials for use in the classroom, alongside campaigns from organisations like Beyond Equality, Progressive Masculinity, and a Call to Men.
These resources are all about teaching young men to gain respect for women, but through non-judgmental communication.
Rather than shaming a teenager for supporting Andrew Tate, or shutting down conversations that veer into misogyny, parents, teachers, friends and family members are encouraged to ask teenage boys questions about why they might agree with the views of masculinity influencers.
These conversations should be about building a space for teenage boys to think more critically about the harms that masculinity influencers promote and think about how these behaviours can be detrimental to their relationships with other people in their lives.
Real-life friendships and having men within local communities who can display positive, healthy and inclusive forms of masculinity are also incredibly valuable in reducing the social isolation that can lead young men to seek out advice and guidance from masculinity influencers.
And given the role social media can play in exacerbating young people’s poor mental health and self-image, the introduction of the Online Safety Bill could be an important step.
Unfortunately, an earlier iteration of the bill, which looked to tackle misogynistic content specifically, was scrapped.
But the current version of the bill says that social media companies have to ‘specifically consider how algorithms could impact users’ exposure to… content that is harmful to children as part of their risk assessments.
‘Such as when an algorithm repeatedly pushes content to a child in large volumes over a short space of time.’
This could help reduce the harms caused by masculinity influencers, especially if the UK follows Australia’s lead in banning access to social media platforms for under-16s.
It is important to recognise, though, that Tate is a symptom of a wider system of online misogyny we have seen proliferate in recent years.
More Trending
Even if he fades away from public view, others will step in to fill the void.
So rather than playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with masculinity influencers, it’s important to think about how to help boys and young men get to a point where they don’t need to engage with this kind of content in the first place.
We’re seeing the early first steps taken by educators, charities, and governments but I think we still have a long way to go.
Because if we don’t tackle this now, the consequences could be as long-lasting as they are damaging.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
Share your views in the comments below.
MORE: There’s a famous guest at my friend’s wedding and I’m scared I’ll embarrass myself
MORE: ‘I called the police 169 times during my eight years of abuse hell’
MORE: I was wrong about this iconic horror with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes
