November 18, 2025 • 58 mins
Andrew Tate is back in the news. ProPublica reports that the White House may have been secretly trying to help him evade sex trafficking charges. Tate is also back on Meta platforms, all while he’s suing Meta for $50 million.
Bridget revisits her conversation with Media Matters researcher Justin Horowitz to understand how Tate and the broader manosphere continue to exploit social media systems and harm us all.
Read Justin’s Media Matters research: https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/beyond-andrew-tate-meet-misogynistic-manosphere-influencers-proliferating
The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation: https://www.propublica.org/article/andrew-tate-investigation-dhs-paul-ingrassiaMeta Aims To Get Geographically Challenged Andrew Tate’s $50M Deplatforming Case Tossed, Moved Out Of L.A.: https://deadline.com/2025/10/meta-andrew-tate-lawsuit-latest-1236589558/
If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there to let us know what you think, or email us at hello@tangoti.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
People are being assured over and over again that women
are the problem.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
There are no girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and ungost creative, I'm bridge tad and this
is there are no girls on the Internet. Like a
bad penny you just can't get rid of. Enemy of
the Show, Andrew Tate is back. After being banned from
(00:29):
pretty much every major social media platform around, the self
described misogynistic influencer and alleged sex trafficker has re emerged,
this time on Threads, which he joined this week. Now,
if there's one thing that Andrew Tate excels at, it's
slipping through the cracks of platform bands. Because he didn't
join Threads as Andrew Tate, he joined as the supposed
(00:52):
representative of a new political party that he started called
BROV or the Britain Restoring Underlying Value Party. He's even
floated the idea of running for Prime minister on social media.
Here's why that matters. Meta has historically not really moderated
content from political candidates. Under what they call the newest
(01:13):
worthy exemption, posts from politicians may stay up even if
those posts violate community guidelines, just so long as Meta
decides those posts are in the public interest because that
person is running for public office and the irony doesn't
stop there. At the same time that Tate is joining Threads,
a platform owned by Meta, He's also suing Meta for
(01:34):
fifty million dollars over his twenty twenty two ban, But
according to Deadline, Andrew Tate's attorneys filed the suit in
the wrong city because Facebook is famously headquartered in Menlo Park, California,
and Tate's attorneys filed the suit in Los Angeles County
for some reason. We know birds of a feather flock together,
so it should come as no surprise that Andrew Tate
(01:57):
is a Trump ally. When Trump was reelected, Tate cheered,
saying that Trump's win meant that he would not have
to face accountability on his sex trafficking charges, tweeting the
Tates will be free. Trump is the president. The good
old days are back, and it kind of seems like
he was sort of right, because this week ProPublica uncovered
that the White House actually did try to intervene with
(02:19):
the Department of Homeland Security investigation once Tate was in custody.
A White House official who coincidentally once served as Andrew
Tate's attorney pressured the Department of Homeland Security to return
Andrew Tate's electronic devices back to him after those devices
were seized as part of the investigation into Tate, even
though those devices potentially contained evidence. DHS officials reportedly felt
(02:43):
that this was an attempt by the White House to
interfere with the federal investigation into Tate, and ProPublica argues
this is part of a pattern in the Trump white House,
you know, inserting itself into how the government deals with
investigations when criminal charges involved their allies. Andrew Tate has
been grifting a generation of young men and boys into
(03:04):
making him rich by stoking their anxieties, anger, and fears
his content is dangerous. But it's not just Tait. An
entire ecosystem of extremist content creators and 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.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So the manosphere is this umbrella term that a lot
of different misogynistic activists commentators kind of fall unders, whether
that be someone like a men's rights activists, a pickup artist,
a blogger, a podcaster, pretty much anyone whose main deal
is misogyny that falls under the manosphere.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Justin Horowitz has been researching viral extremist influencers with Media
Matters since twenty twenty. So a lot of this content
really seems to prey on the fear 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?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
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
(04:34):
that they can push further extremism and further misogyny down
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
(04:56):
lot of influencers that speak to these real f 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
that's who they'll spend their time listening to.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
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
get that we see amplified on social media is never
the person who's making a podcast digging into the doing
a thoughtful dig into about like the nuances of dating
(05:37):
in twenty twenty three 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 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?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I think that a lot of the manosphere content oftentimes
the first and like 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
(06:18):
sort of involved or get their eyes on it. So
these manosphere, 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 the Internet knew who he was.
You know, he was the most googled person last year.
(06:38):
They're just very good at being able to play the
Internet game, play the virality game.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
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 Kate's Real
World app, Tate promises that subscribers who pay fifty dollars
a month where they have can make millions by reposting
his clips on social media sites. That's why platforms like
(07:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Honestly, it's really impressive, and it's kind of scary as well.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
It is scary, especially with Andrew Tate. I mean, what
like something that I see a lot with when it
comes to these podcasts. I use that in quotes because
as a podcaster, I have some like issues with how
they're pod Well, well that's either here nor there. But
you know, it'll be these viral moments where they'll get
(07:42):
you know, like Fresh and Vit does this a lot. Well,
they'll where they'll 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
(08:05):
a borrent, you're still looking at them. They're still 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.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. They are able
to find that ten 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
give them a follow, and then you go to their
actual podcast and 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
(08:39):
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 our own
(09:00):
twist on it. But there 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.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
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. In Enjoy's Andrew take content,
and I was like, what is it that you like
about him? And he was like, well, I just see
(09:31):
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,
but 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,
(09:54):
who I think of as like a smart with it person,
was taken by these short to the point where they
would defend this person not having dived deeper into any
of their longer form content or and had tried to
but could not get through it. Like, is that by design?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I do think it's by design. I think that parasocial
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
(10:32):
a lot of these manoscript fear influencers are trying to
do is they want you to become who they are, right,
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.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Creators like Andrew Tate are notorious for being really good
at getting around bands 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 take gets around being
banned from pretty much every social media platform out there
except Twitter. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he let
(11:18):
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 twenty thousand dollars. 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 know,
(11:38):
I don't even think he's on Pinterest, like I met.
He was famously not just let back on when Elon
Musk took over at Twitter, but as of last week
being paid like twenty thousand dollars to stay on Twitter
and make content. Other influencers that you've that you've written about,
like sneak O. These are people who have technically been
banned from platforms, yet I see their content all the time.
(12:00):
What's going on there?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Honestly, it's a lot of banovation, I'll say that. So
a lot of these tech platforms they are not good
at knowing who is evading their bands, and you know,
people at Media Matters we write about these kind of banovations,
but it's also about some of these influencers are going
to these like all platforms we're talking about like Rumble
(12:23):
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 sneak O was brought back on Twitter, he
can tell all of his Twitter followers to go follow
him on Rumble, which is like a you know, knock
(12:44):
off YouTube pretty much for the alright. 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
it's really about a way to get like all of
(13:06):
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.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, They're like a pesky little bug that you just
cannot get rid of.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
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've talked a lot about Tate,
(13:50):
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 the of men's rights influencers who are
some of the major players that folks might not know.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So we talked about sneak O, 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've actually
noticed has gotten a lot of pick up recently was
h Pearl Davis. She goes by just pearly things online.
(14:26):
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 Aiden 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 Steak, which is
(14:48):
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 activists. Honestly,
there are so many Andrew Tait 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
(15:11):
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 count the next week
and they've just blown up. These people are just gaining
followers at like very rapid speeds.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
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 was
(15:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I think you've 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
gets 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,
(16:31):
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 dating advice. Advice on how to go viral
(16:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I mean, it's a grift. It's a scam. Like that's
that's the thing that really it troubles me. Like this
is when I was having this long, long ass debate
with my family member last week this past weekend about
Andrew Kate, I was surprised that he was not able
to see what a clear and obvious grift this person
is running. This person is telling is stoking on the
(17:34):
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 does it? How is
it so effective when it's like clearly he is trying
(17:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I think then it goes back to what I was
saying before, where they are really just so few influencers
that are speaking to these fears of young men that
it is like it is completely oh, like the the
idea that people are doing it for the money, it's
just overshadowed. I think people are people become extremely cut,
They become such committed followers to these influencers that you know,
(18:28):
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 a lot, they're making women's lives more dangerous because
they think that they're helping them in some way, they're
(18:51):
trying to like improve their lives and for people when
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.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
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 twenty twenty three, 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
(19:25):
they flood the space with such garbage. So people who
actually are making that content really can't get a foothold
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 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
(19:48):
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.
They're 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
(20:11):
obsessed with the particulars in this way, Like this is
not like I don't know anybody who has a relationship
like that, and 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.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I mean traditional gender roles. I mean that that just
kind of oftentimes will take out the whole part of
like important communication. You know, if 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,
(20:51):
like you said, it doesn't really make sense and it
doesn't work. I'd wish that I could like point to
more like influencers that are creating content bud 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 this space. But it's just sad
(21:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Let's take a quick break at our back. It's not
just men. There are women creating misogynistic content on social
media too. While Andrew Tate was in custody being investigated
(21:49):
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 fifty percent in the three months
since Tate was detained, and that our subscriber base jumped
from around eight hundred thousand to one point three million
(22:11):
while Tate was in custody. On her merch store, Pearl
sells shirts that say women shouldn't vote.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I think you would actually be surprised. I think that
there is a small sector within the menosphere where there
are women viewing 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
(22:39):
it more casually. Almost you know. I've 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.
(23:00):
I think that the media is picking up on her
because they like to see women attack each other.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I think that is.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
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
(23:28):
as something that Andrew Tate was saying. You know, it's
just coming out of someone else's mouth.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
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
(23:56):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
There another hallmark of this kind of content, the grind
set mentality. The grind set is kind of a catch
all for all of the traits and interests supposedly embodied
by the high value alpha male. So in creators like
Andrew Tate or Fresh and Fit all for their followers
paid coaching to become these high value men. It runs
(24:49):
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 Andrew Tata especially. Is
it so much of the topics are all over the place,
Like they talk a lot about crypto, which I always
(25:10):
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 like give them what they want,
or there's something else going on there.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You know. I think crypto trading is like part of
the grindset, 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
(25:44):
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's just kind of
like where it's fallen recently.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Oh my god, I love how you put that that
it's just doing something. It's the grindset 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,
(26:23):
sexual prowess, social like, social power. You can just gamify it,
and if you have that figured it out, you just
don't have the right cheat code. Like, I think that
it's all kind of wrapped up in that.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
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 the women are the
reason of so and so and so and so for
whatever you know, poor man's problems he has. I think
(26:57):
that that is also sort of a mental cheek 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.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
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
(27:35):
that there is this entire, well oiled digital machine that
will when they find a vulnerable young person who was
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 like, And you can build
an entire identity and ethos around the fact that women
(27:56):
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,
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
(28:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I bet, yeah, I really think that. Like if you're
you know, giving the example that you gave your heartbroken
and you're a man and you just went through a
devastating heartbreak and pops up on your TikTok feeds sneak
O or Fresh 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
(28:53):
whatever you're looking at. You know, that is really going
to draw people in. And I think that is constant stimulus,
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,
(29:14):
and it's just going to draw you further into it.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
And I just I mean, what responsibility do you think
that social media platforms have to keep that from happening,
especially to young people.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I think they need to have more terms of service
when it comes to extreme mistogyny. 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
(29:45):
that they really need to have to keep women safe
on the Internet.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Do you feel it's getting worse.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
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,
(30:17):
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 I think that's an unfortunate reality, is that,
you know, if you have someone that's bringing in a
lot of attention to a lot of clicks, they don't
want to ba them.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
And if you're Elon Musk, maybe you'll give them twenty
thousand dollars and thus incentivize the next misogynistic hate manger
to get big on the platform and say, hey, I
could do that. I can say misogynistic things into a
microphone money please exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
If it's getting clicks, then there you go.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So you talked about how some of these bad actors
are pretty good about like coding things so that they
stay on the right side of these terms of service.
I saw something in a social media It was Nick
Flint has on the Freshian Fit podcast and they were
talking about JQ. And I was like, what the fuck
is JAQ? Then I read your piece. I was like
(31:10):
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. Is what's going on here?
Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
This is straight up Nazi shit. And I am being
dead serious. When you bring Nick Flintis into it, you
know he is a neo Nazi. He's a white supremacist
and a Holocaust denier. They have been talking Nick quentas
and The Freshian Fit four 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
(31:48):
they can do this like hours an hour's 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,
(32:08):
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 codd 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
(32:30):
up if someone did like a hashtag Nick quentas 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.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I'm glad that you put it that way. Back when
Kanye West and Nick Quintes went to visit Trump. I
did an interview with Robert Evans, who makes the podcast
Behind the Masters, who's all about all of these shith heads,
And that was the point that he made too, which
is that Nick Fuentz is a Nazi. Like some of
these other characters, they kind of dance around it. They
(33:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I completely agree. I think that when you make the
decision to platform Nick quentis 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 of months ago,
she had him on her show.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Nick quent has 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.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I mean, the point was more about cancel culture and
people getting kicked off of social media if you finished
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.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
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 Nazianism into it,
(34:25):
I mean, it is just like two very scary, dangerous
world climbing.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
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?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
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 Elliott Rodgers, who
is an in cell mouth shooter. Obviously many attacks against women.
Gamer Gate twenty fifteen, when members when female members of
(35:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
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 tip Twitter page and it's
all Andrew Tait stuff. And I'm not saying that there's
(35:42):
nothing that like there's a deep like a deep 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 an influencer who is saying all of these
things about how women haven't deserve rights, how if a
woman is raped she bears some responsibility, like all this stuff,
I can't imagine how that is not creating a less
(36:03):
safe world for everybody, women especially, but also for the
men who absorb this content.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
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,
(36:30):
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 groipers that have followed followed Nick Fuentas,
(36:51):
there have been like multiple instances of these people being
charged for you know, dangerous and violent acts.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
More after a quick break, 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,
(37:22):
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
sneak O meeting a handful of his fans who are
boys maybe age eight, or nine. One of them gleefully
tell sneak o fuck all women, while another says all
gay should die. What is content like this doing to
(37:44):
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 causing, is leading to
disruptions where you know, young men will who like Andrew Tate,
(38:04):
will start bringing his content into the classroom and it
just creates a very unsafe, chaotic environment, especially for like
the young, like like young kids, elementary school kids.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
So Insider had a report, it was a couple of
months back now, and it said that there was an
eleven year old who was repeating Andrew tait 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 Tat or
even Nick Fuentas, I think you're going to see it
(38:36):
in schools, You'll see it with young young people. And
you know Nick Flintis, 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,
they and bad actors that they know who's listening, and
it's it's young kids, and it's very impressionable, susceptible young people.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
M and I have this theory and I would love
to know your thoughts that, even if you are not
somebody who likes the Andrew Tate whatever, subscribe to a
fresh and fit whatever, be watching Nick Fuentez. The way
that these clips have taken of these people speaking have
taken over social media, whether or not you follow them,
(39:22):
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
(39:43):
about that?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, I could see 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 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
(40:06):
just something that you feel in the air. Obviously, it's
not something that I can like point to exactly, but
it's sometimes you just 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, sometimes in the
last like couple of years, and it's it's kind of
(40:27):
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 man might think is funny, honestly,
(40:48):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
How did you get into caring about and researching and
following this kind of content.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
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 a Quintus 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
(41:24):
into it too. I was like, who are these people
and how do they 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
(41:45):
have like this serious, very strange romance, and that's honestly
what brought me over to kind of like the hate
speech world of it all as well.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
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. But I'm just trying to
watch TikTok's What has it been like for you personally
to have to like be mired in all this all
the time?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
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 Pride month stuff has really been the
(42:37):
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 manisphere 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
(42:59):
also just making sure that you know, I have 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.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
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?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Absolutely? I really think that, especially in this last year,
the manosphere like they dove head first into the anti
lgbt Q 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.
(43:55):
It was really disgusting and something that I think you
would really only find on El Mosk's Twitter. And another
horrible example Sninko, 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
(44:17):
at it him and a couple of his buddies. So
it is just it is just really extreme, the anti
LGBTQ rhetoric, and it is it is honestly from the manosphere.
Some of the some of the more scary stuff that
I've seen. It is it is really hard to see.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Shit is so fucked up. And you know, I don't
know how you feel about this. The way that I
have 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, Like
this is such a different thing. Taking the time out
of your day to write Pride month on a target
(44:56):
and then go film yourself shooting at it or film
yourself demol wishing a target Pride section. 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 if you have a problem with queer people or
trans people, this is an appropriate way to to deal
(45:19):
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 whatever bigotries that you have,
And that's what really scares me.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
I do think that people like Sneako, 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
are thinking like, oh, if this is funny and Sneako
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
(45:56):
them then and if your het is getting a bunch
of clicks, then like yeah, sure, why I can do
that as well. And also Pearl just pearly things as well,
has been she plays or semi professional volleyball. I think
over in England that 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
(46:19):
it has really only made her anti LGBT rhetoric like
so much worse. I think that people like her they
are just like so so angry. She has so much anger,
and people like Andrew Tay 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
(46:41):
actually towards the LGBT community, but that's where they're putting it,
and it's it's ridiculous and it's dangerous and scary. As
I've said a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Oh my god, that's 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 obsessed it in
this way. And also like some of the Andrew t
Hat and Fresh and Fit, Like there's two clips that
stick in my mind of them, like ranting, like Andrew
(47:10):
Tate ranting about how like he doesn't eat breakfast because
he starts his day with caffeine and and nicotine and
hate running through his veins, and like there's this clip
of I think it's I'm blaking the host's name, but
like screaming into the microphone about how when he was
playing too many, too many video games, women didn't give
him the time of day and how that was so horrible.
(47:31):
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
(47:51):
foaming into a microphone spewing hate and anger about all
the women who've done me wrong? Not really, That actually
doesn't seem appealing. And so it's 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 and facts quite the opposite.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
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 it's just it shocks me, It really.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
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,
(48:44):
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
(49:04):
having a different kind of experience. But this content and
this dynamic just keeps them trapped, probably miserable and ultimately
lacking an agency.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
And I just think poor, Yeah, it is draining their
bank accounts as well. They think that they're getting so
much out of it that they really just an't.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Oh my god, if, like I wrote a piece for
the Nation about fresh and fits like online school, if
you're sending these grifters six hundred dollars a month, please
do like that money would be so much better spent elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
I completely agree. I mean, when 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.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
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
in a room and they're just videotaping it and they're
calling it a podcast, it's a peeve of mine. What
is it about the podcast space that draws these charlatans in.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
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
(50:32):
like twelve microphones on the table, Like this really isn't
how a podcast is working. Like I assume most people
that 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 out of it
all really just like it's lending itself to, you know,
(50:53):
a format which lends itself to a specific specific type
of discourse.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Oh my god, I could talk all this is like
such a thing with me. Where the look of a podcast, yeah,
where there's like twelve microphones. First of all, that is
too many fucking people to be on a podcast. It's
so like already just to 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
(51:19):
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
(51:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Rights 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
if I have a big, fancy y any 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,
(52:16):
and maybe that would 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, is there are they uploading this anywhere? Or
they just like click start on photo booth and like
sit in front of their microphone and just kind of
(52:37):
like run with it. I actually don't know. I would
love to sometimes, I would love to see people set up.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
No.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
I have definitely one hundred percent seen TikTok clips where
it's like that I know that that mic is not on.
I know it's not on. That is just a prop
to make us, to make us feel some kind of
way about what you're saying. Absolutely, so just an let's
say that somebody listening has somebody in their life kind
of asking for selfish reasons, because I apparently do have
(53:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
I think that finding good content to replace the bad
content is a great place to start when it comes
like 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 grindset
of it all. I see him like smoking his cigars.
(53:34):
It's like, okay, but do you do you see him
talking about, you know, hitting women or talking bad about
the LGBTQ community. I think that what is important is
kind of talking to the values of the people that
are watching these influencers that maybe you can hit on
(53:56):
in a different way. So if your family member cares
about lgbt TQ rights, if your family member cares about
you know, violence against women, it's you know, 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
(54:17):
do a little bit of research.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
That's really good advice. And I think the point about
like replacing the content that they're currently consuming with something else,
it's 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
(54:40):
panels about about like 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 were 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.
(55:01):
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 seize these massive gaps where there is no content
filling that gap.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
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
(55:43):
and we're being you know, 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
(56:04):
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 in 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.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
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 are you at?
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Not hopeful? I think that these bad actors are getting
better and better at what they do, and I see
I see people like you and me who are you know,
doing the work to point out and talk about it.
(56:56):
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, you know, 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, then that makes me sad.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(57:45):
bridget Toad. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
All the wells, well and well listen
People are being assured over and over again that women
are the problem.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
There are no girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and ungost creative, I'm bridge tad and this
is there are no girls on the Internet. Like a
bad penny you just can't get rid of. Enemy of
the Show, Andrew Tate is back. After being banned from
(00:29):
pretty much every major social media platform around, the self
described misogynistic influencer and alleged sex trafficker has re emerged,
this time on Threads, which he joined this week. Now,
if there's one thing that Andrew Tate excels at, it's
slipping through the cracks of platform bands. Because he didn't
join Threads as Andrew Tate, he joined as the supposed
(00:52):
representative of a new political party that he started called
BROV or the Britain Restoring Underlying Value Party. He's even
floated the idea of running for Prime minister on social media.
Here's why that matters. Meta has historically not really moderated
content from political candidates. Under what they call the newest
(01:13):
worthy exemption, posts from politicians may stay up even if
those posts violate community guidelines, just so long as Meta
decides those posts are in the public interest because that
person is running for public office and the irony doesn't
stop there. At the same time that Tate is joining Threads,
a platform owned by Meta, He's also suing Meta for
(01:34):
fifty million dollars over his twenty twenty two ban, But
according to Deadline, Andrew Tate's attorneys filed the suit in
the wrong city because Facebook is famously headquartered in Menlo Park, California,
and Tate's attorneys filed the suit in Los Angeles County
for some reason. We know birds of a feather flock together,
so it should come as no surprise that Andrew Tate
(01:57):
is a Trump ally. When Trump was reelected, Tate cheered,
saying that Trump's win meant that he would not have
to face accountability on his sex trafficking charges, tweeting the
Tates will be free. Trump is the president. The good
old days are back, and it kind of seems like
he was sort of right, because this week ProPublica uncovered
that the White House actually did try to intervene with
(02:19):
the Department of Homeland Security investigation once Tate was in custody.
A White House official who coincidentally once served as Andrew
Tate's attorney pressured the Department of Homeland Security to return
Andrew Tate's electronic devices back to him after those devices
were seized as part of the investigation into Tate, even
though those devices potentially contained evidence. DHS officials reportedly felt
(02:43):
that this was an attempt by the White House to
interfere with the federal investigation into Tate, and ProPublica argues
this is part of a pattern in the Trump white House,
you know, inserting itself into how the government deals with
investigations when criminal charges involved their allies. Andrew Tate has
been grifting a generation of young men and boys into
(03:04):
making him rich by stoking their anxieties, anger, and fears
his content is dangerous. But it's not just Tait. An
entire ecosystem of extremist content creators and 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.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So the manosphere is this umbrella term that a lot
of different misogynistic activists commentators kind of fall unders, whether
that be someone like a men's rights activists, a pickup artist,
a blogger, a podcaster, pretty much anyone whose main deal
is misogyny that falls under the manosphere.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Justin Horowitz has been researching viral extremist influencers with Media
Matters since twenty twenty. So a lot of this content
really seems to prey on the fear 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?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
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
(04:34):
that they can push further extremism and further misogyny down
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
(04:56):
lot of influencers that speak to these real f 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
that's who they'll spend their time listening to.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
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
get that we see amplified on social media is never
the person who's making a podcast digging into the doing
a thoughtful dig into about like the nuances of dating
(05:37):
in twenty twenty three 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 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?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I think that a lot of the manosphere content oftentimes
the first and like 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
(06:18):
sort of involved or get their eyes on it. So
these manosphere, 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 the Internet knew who he was.
You know, he was the most googled person last year.
(06:38):
They're just very good at being able to play the
Internet game, play the virality game.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
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 Kate's Real
World app, Tate promises that subscribers who pay fifty dollars
a month where they have can make millions by reposting
his clips on social media sites. That's why platforms like
(07:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Honestly, it's really impressive, and it's kind of scary as well.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
It is scary, especially with Andrew Tate. I mean, what
like something that I see a lot with when it
comes to these podcasts. I use that in quotes because
as a podcaster, I have some like issues with how
they're pod Well, well that's either here nor there. But
you know, it'll be these viral moments where they'll get
(07:42):
you know, like Fresh and Vit does this a lot. Well,
they'll where they'll 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
(08:05):
a borrent, you're still looking at them. They're still 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.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. They are able
to find that ten 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
give them a follow, and then you go to their
actual podcast and 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
(08:39):
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 our own
(09:00):
twist on it. But there 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.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
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. In Enjoy's Andrew take content,
and I was like, what is it that you like
about him? And he was like, well, I just see
(09:31):
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,
but 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,
(09:54):
who I think of as like a smart with it person,
was taken by these short to the point where they
would defend this person not having dived deeper into any
of their longer form content or and had tried to
but could not get through it. Like, is that by design?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I do think it's by design. I think that parasocial
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
(10:32):
a lot of these manoscript fear influencers are trying to
do is they want you to become who they are, right,
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.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Creators like Andrew Tate are notorious for being really good
at getting around bands 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 take gets around being
banned from pretty much every social media platform out there
except Twitter. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he let
(11:18):
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 twenty thousand dollars. 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 know,
(11:38):
I don't even think he's on Pinterest, like I met.
He was famously not just let back on when Elon
Musk took over at Twitter, but as of last week
being paid like twenty thousand dollars to stay on Twitter
and make content. Other influencers that you've that you've written about,
like sneak O. These are people who have technically been
banned from platforms, yet I see their content all the time.
(12:00):
What's going on there?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Honestly, it's a lot of banovation, I'll say that. So
a lot of these tech platforms they are not good
at knowing who is evading their bands, and you know,
people at Media Matters we write about these kind of banovations,
but it's also about some of these influencers are going
to these like all platforms we're talking about like Rumble
(12:23):
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 sneak O was brought back on Twitter, he
can tell all of his Twitter followers to go follow
him on Rumble, which is like a you know, knock
(12:44):
off YouTube pretty much for the alright. 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
it's really about a way to get like all of
(13:06):
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.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, They're like a pesky little bug that you just
cannot get rid of.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
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've talked a lot about Tate,
(13:50):
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 the of men's rights influencers who are
some of the major players that folks might not know.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So we talked about sneak O, 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've actually
noticed has gotten a lot of pick up recently was
h Pearl Davis. She goes by just pearly things online.
(14:26):
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 Aiden 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 Steak, which is
(14:48):
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 activists. Honestly,
there are so many Andrew Tait 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
(15:11):
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 count the next week
and they've just blown up. These people are just gaining
followers at like very rapid speeds.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
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 was
(15:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I think you've 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
gets 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,
(16:31):
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 dating advice. Advice on how to go viral
(16:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I mean, it's a grift. It's a scam. Like that's
that's the thing that really it troubles me. Like this
is when I was having this long, long ass debate
with my family member last week this past weekend about
Andrew Kate, I was surprised that he was not able
to see what a clear and obvious grift this person
is running. This person is telling is stoking on the
(17:34):
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 does it? How is
it so effective when it's like clearly he is trying
(17:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I think then it goes back to what I was
saying before, where they are really just so few influencers
that are speaking to these fears of young men that
it is like it is completely oh, like the the
idea that people are doing it for the money, it's
just overshadowed. I think people are people become extremely cut,
They become such committed followers to these influencers that you know,
(18:28):
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 a lot, they're making women's lives more dangerous because
they think that they're helping them in some way, they're
(18:51):
trying to like improve their lives and for people when
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.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
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 twenty twenty three, 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
(19:25):
they flood the space with such garbage. So people who
actually are making that content really can't get a foothold
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 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
(19:48):
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.
They're 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
(20:11):
obsessed with the particulars in this way, Like this is
not like I don't know anybody who has a relationship
like that, and 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.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I mean traditional gender roles. I mean that that just
kind of oftentimes will take out the whole part of
like important communication. You know, if 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,
(20:51):
like you said, it doesn't really make sense and it
doesn't work. I'd wish that I could like point to
more like influencers that are creating content bud 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 this space. But it's just sad
(21:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Let's take a quick break at our back. It's not
just men. There are women creating misogynistic content on social
media too. While Andrew Tate was in custody being investigated
(21:49):
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 fifty percent in the three months
since Tate was detained, and that our subscriber base jumped
from around eight hundred thousand to one point three million
(22:11):
while Tate was in custody. On her merch store, Pearl
sells shirts that say women shouldn't vote.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I think you would actually be surprised. I think that
there is a small sector within the menosphere where there
are women viewing 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
(22:39):
it more casually. Almost you know. I've 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.
(23:00):
I think that the media is picking up on her
because they like to see women attack each other.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I think that is.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
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
(23:28):
as something that Andrew Tate was saying. You know, it's
just coming out of someone else's mouth.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
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
(23:56):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
There another hallmark of this kind of content, the grind
set mentality. The grind set is kind of a catch
all for all of the traits and interests supposedly embodied
by the high value alpha male. So in creators like
Andrew Tate or Fresh and Fit all for their followers
paid coaching to become these high value men. It runs
(24:49):
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 Andrew Tata especially. Is
it so much of the topics are all over the place,
Like they talk a lot about crypto, which I always
(25:10):
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 like give them what they want,
or there's something else going on there.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You know. I think crypto trading is like part of
the grindset, 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
(25:44):
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's just kind of
like where it's fallen recently.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Oh my god, I love how you put that that
it's just doing something. It's the grindset 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,
(26:23):
sexual prowess, social like, social power. You can just gamify it,
and if you have that figured it out, you just
don't have the right cheat code. Like, I think that
it's all kind of wrapped up in that.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
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 the women are the
reason of so and so and so and so for
whatever you know, poor man's problems he has. I think
(26:57):
that that is also sort of a mental cheek 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.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
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
(27:35):
that there is this entire, well oiled digital machine that
will when they find a vulnerable young person who was
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 like, And you can build
an entire identity and ethos around the fact that women
(27:56):
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,
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
(28:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I bet, yeah, I really think that. Like if you're
you know, giving the example that you gave your heartbroken
and you're a man and you just went through a
devastating heartbreak and pops up on your TikTok feeds sneak
O or Fresh 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
(28:53):
whatever you're looking at. You know, that is really going
to draw people in. And I think that is constant stimulus,
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,
(29:14):
and it's just going to draw you further into it.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
And I just I mean, what responsibility do you think
that social media platforms have to keep that from happening,
especially to young people.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I think they need to have more terms of service
when it comes to extreme mistogyny. 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
(29:45):
that they really need to have to keep women safe
on the Internet.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Do you feel it's getting worse.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
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,
(30:17):
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 I think that's an unfortunate reality, is that,
you know, if you have someone that's bringing in a
lot of attention to a lot of clicks, they don't
want to ba them.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
And if you're Elon Musk, maybe you'll give them twenty
thousand dollars and thus incentivize the next misogynistic hate manger
to get big on the platform and say, hey, I
could do that. I can say misogynistic things into a
microphone money please exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
If it's getting clicks, then there you go.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So you talked about how some of these bad actors
are pretty good about like coding things so that they
stay on the right side of these terms of service.
I saw something in a social media It was Nick
Flint has on the Freshian Fit podcast and they were
talking about JQ. And I was like, what the fuck
is JAQ? Then I read your piece. I was like
(31:10):
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. Is what's going on here?
Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
This is straight up Nazi shit. And I am being
dead serious. When you bring Nick Flintis into it, you
know he is a neo Nazi. He's a white supremacist
and a Holocaust denier. They have been talking Nick quentas
and The Freshian Fit four 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
(31:48):
they can do this like hours an hour's 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,
(32:08):
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 codd 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
(32:30):
up if someone did like a hashtag Nick quentas 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.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I'm glad that you put it that way. Back when
Kanye West and Nick Quintes went to visit Trump. I
did an interview with Robert Evans, who makes the podcast
Behind the Masters, who's all about all of these shith heads,
And that was the point that he made too, which
is that Nick Fuentz is a Nazi. Like some of
these other characters, they kind of dance around it. They
(33:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I completely agree. I think that when you make the
decision to platform Nick quentis 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 of months ago,
she had him on her show.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Nick quent has 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.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I mean, the point was more about cancel culture and
people getting kicked off of social media if you finished
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.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
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 Nazianism into it,
(34:25):
I mean, it is just like two very scary, dangerous
world climbing.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
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?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
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 Elliott Rodgers, who
is an in cell mouth shooter. Obviously many attacks against women.
Gamer Gate twenty fifteen, when members when female members of
(35:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
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 tip Twitter page and it's
all Andrew Tait stuff. And I'm not saying that there's
(35:42):
nothing that like there's a deep like a deep 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 an influencer who is saying all of these
things about how women haven't deserve rights, how if a
woman is raped she bears some responsibility, like all this stuff,
I can't imagine how that is not creating a less
(36:03):
safe world for everybody, women especially, but also for the
men who absorb this content.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
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,
(36:30):
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 groipers that have followed followed Nick Fuentas,
(36:51):
there have been like multiple instances of these people being
charged for you know, dangerous and violent acts.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
More after a quick break, 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,
(37:22):
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
sneak O meeting a handful of his fans who are
boys maybe age eight, or nine. One of them gleefully
tell sneak o fuck all women, while another says all
gay should die. What is content like this doing to
(37:44):
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 causing, is leading to
disruptions where you know, young men will who like Andrew Tate,
(38:04):
will start bringing his content into the classroom and it
just creates a very unsafe, chaotic environment, especially for like
the young, like like young kids, elementary school kids.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
So Insider had a report, it was a couple of
months back now, and it said that there was an
eleven year old who was repeating Andrew tait 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 Tat or
even Nick Fuentas, I think you're going to see it
(38:36):
in schools, You'll see it with young young people. And
you know Nick Flintis, 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,
they and bad actors that they know who's listening, and
it's it's young kids, and it's very impressionable, susceptible young people.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
M and I have this theory and I would love
to know your thoughts that, even if you are not
somebody who likes the Andrew Tate whatever, subscribe to a
fresh and fit whatever, be watching Nick Fuentez. The way
that these clips have taken of these people speaking have
taken over social media, whether or not you follow them,
(39:22):
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
(39:43):
about that?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, I could see 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 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
(40:06):
just something that you feel in the air. Obviously, it's
not something that I can like point to exactly, but
it's sometimes you just 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, sometimes in the
last like couple of years, and it's it's kind of
(40:27):
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 man might think is funny, honestly,
(40:48):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
How did you get into caring about and researching and
following this kind of content.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
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 a Quintus 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
(41:24):
into it too. I was like, who are these people
and how do they 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
(41:45):
have like this serious, very strange romance, and that's honestly
what brought me over to kind of like the hate
speech world of it all as well.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
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. But I'm just trying to
watch TikTok's What has it been like for you personally
to have to like be mired in all this all
the time?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
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 Pride month stuff has really been the
(42:37):
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 manisphere 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
(42:59):
also just making sure that you know, I have 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.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
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?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Absolutely? I really think that, especially in this last year,
the manosphere like they dove head first into the anti
lgbt Q 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.
(43:55):
It was really disgusting and something that I think you
would really only find on El Mosk's Twitter. And another
horrible example Sninko, 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
(44:17):
at it him and a couple of his buddies. So
it is just it is just really extreme, the anti
LGBTQ rhetoric, and it is it is honestly from the manosphere.
Some of the some of the more scary stuff that
I've seen. It is it is really hard to see.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Shit is so fucked up. And you know, I don't
know how you feel about this. The way that I
have 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, Like
this is such a different thing. Taking the time out
of your day to write Pride month on a target
(44:56):
and then go film yourself shooting at it or film
yourself demol wishing a target Pride section. 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 if you have a problem with queer people or
trans people, this is an appropriate way to to deal
(45:19):
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 whatever bigotries that you have,
And that's what really scares me.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
I do think that people like Sneako, 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
are thinking like, oh, if this is funny and Sneako
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
(45:56):
them then and if your het is getting a bunch
of clicks, then like yeah, sure, why I can do
that as well. And also Pearl just pearly things as well,
has been she plays or semi professional volleyball. I think
over in England that 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
(46:19):
it has really only made her anti LGBT rhetoric like
so much worse. I think that people like her they
are just like so so angry. She has so much anger,
and people like Andrew Tay 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
(46:41):
actually towards the LGBT community, but that's where they're putting it,
and it's it's ridiculous and it's dangerous and scary. As
I've said a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Oh my god, that's 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 obsessed it in
this way. And also like some of the Andrew t
Hat and Fresh and Fit, Like there's two clips that
stick in my mind of them, like ranting, like Andrew
(47:10):
Tate ranting about how like he doesn't eat breakfast because
he starts his day with caffeine and and nicotine and
hate running through his veins, and like there's this clip
of I think it's I'm blaking the host's name, but
like screaming into the microphone about how when he was
playing too many, too many video games, women didn't give
him the time of day and how that was so horrible.
(47:31):
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
(47:51):
foaming into a microphone spewing hate and anger about all
the women who've done me wrong? Not really, That actually
doesn't seem appealing. And so it's 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 and facts quite the opposite.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
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 it's just it shocks me, It really.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
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,
(48:44):
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
(49:04):
having a different kind of experience. But this content and
this dynamic just keeps them trapped, probably miserable and ultimately
lacking an agency.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
And I just think poor, Yeah, it is draining their
bank accounts as well. They think that they're getting so
much out of it that they really just an't.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Oh my god, if, like I wrote a piece for
the Nation about fresh and fits like online school, if
you're sending these grifters six hundred dollars a month, please
do like that money would be so much better spent elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
I completely agree. I mean, when 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.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
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
in a room and they're just videotaping it and they're
calling it a podcast, it's a peeve of mine. What
is it about the podcast space that draws these charlatans in.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
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
(50:32):
like twelve microphones on the table, Like this really isn't
how a podcast is working. Like I assume most people
that 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 out of it
all really just like it's lending itself to, you know,
(50:53):
a format which lends itself to a specific specific type
of discourse.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Oh my god, I could talk all this is like
such a thing with me. Where the look of a podcast, yeah,
where there's like twelve microphones. First of all, that is
too many fucking people to be on a podcast. It's
so like already just to 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
(51:19):
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
(51:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Rights 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
if I have a big, fancy y any 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,
(52:16):
and maybe that would 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, is there are they uploading this anywhere? Or
they just like click start on photo booth and like
sit in front of their microphone and just kind of
(52:37):
like run with it. I actually don't know. I would
love to sometimes, I would love to see people set up.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
No.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
I have definitely one hundred percent seen TikTok clips where
it's like that I know that that mic is not on.
I know it's not on. That is just a prop
to make us, to make us feel some kind of
way about what you're saying. Absolutely, so just an let's
say that somebody listening has somebody in their life kind
of asking for selfish reasons, because I apparently do have
(53:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
I think that finding good content to replace the bad
content is a great place to start when it comes
like 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 grindset
of it all. I see him like smoking his cigars.
(53:34):
It's like, okay, but do you do you see him
talking about, you know, hitting women or talking bad about
the LGBTQ community. I think that what is important is
kind of talking to the values of the people that
are watching these influencers that maybe you can hit on
(53:56):
in a different way. So if your family member cares
about lgbt TQ rights, if your family member cares about
you know, violence against women, it's you know, 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
(54:17):
do a little bit of research.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
That's really good advice. And I think the point about
like replacing the content that they're currently consuming with something else,
it's 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
(54:40):
panels about about like 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 were 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.
(55:01):
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 seize these massive gaps where there is no content
filling that gap.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
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
(55:43):
and we're being you know, 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
(56:04):
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 in 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.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
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 are you at?
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Not hopeful? I think that these bad actors are getting
better and better at what they do, and I see
I see people like you and me who are you know,
doing the work to point out and talk about it.
(56:56):
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, you know, 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, then that makes me sad.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(57:45):
bridget Toad. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
All the wells, well and well listen
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