Earlier this month,

Internet celebrity and “success coach” Andrew Tate was banned from social media, with Meta, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube all pulling the plug on his content for violating policies on their respective platforms. On TikTok, videos featuring his name as a hashtag have been viewed 13 billion times which only goes to show just how dangerously engaged he is with a younger audience of men. You might not know who he is or only recently heard who he is, but his being cancelled has only propelled him into the international public eye and conversation. While discussion rages back and forth over censorship and CIS boys and men fervently identifying with and defending their focal point, we think it’s prudent to break down what’s going on, who the hell this person is and why we should care about what is happening.

So Who Is He?

Born in Washington D.C, in December 1986, Andrew Tate soon moved to and grew up in Luton, England with his parents. His father was an international chess master while his mother worked as a catering assistant. The two would later split which would frame Tates background of a single-mother household who grew up “broke as a joke.” From a young age, Tate learned to play chess from his father and as a child entered an adult chess tournament although his father withdrew him as soon as he lost games and grew increasingly frustrated. According to Tate, this was him coming from “absolutely nothing” as he is entirely self-made. Later on, Tate would proceed to enter the world of karate and martial arts to become a two-time world champion and ultimate Alpha Male, and then eventually retire from the world of sport in 2013.

Now, Tate is a self-help guru, with his website Cobratate touting the secrets to success that Tate can teach you. With a homepage anchor-video of fast cars, planes, men in suits and jetskis, more fast cars, guns, more guns, and a logo of a Knight chess piece (Bcuz he smort) you immediately can tell what Andrew thinks is appealing to all things “traditional men” apparently like. Except for Women. But we’ll get to that. With the site comes “The War Room”, the network of like-minded men where every member – I wish I could say this was my writing but this is real and actually on their website – has “either achieved or is working towards the ultimate goal of all intelligent men, freedom in a world of slavery.” This overly militaristic language and theme impresses a sense of purpose, fraternity and focus that a lot of men lack today, it however also impresses a sense of “us” and “them”. A dangerous notion in a world that has seen thousands of years of it. Yet the mobilisation he has towards seemingly disenfranchised men has bordered on the radical.

In addition to cobratate.com, he runs the illustrious and prestigious Hustlers University, a website where members pay a monthly fee to receive instructions on crypto trading and dropshipping while adopting what was effectively a pyramid scheme, to recruit more people. But if that wasn’t the cherry on top of the prize that is Andrew Tates business career, then his constant use of cam girls and aggressive sexual manipulation to dupe the same lonely and lost men he garners under his ideologies must be it. Earlier this year Andrew and his brother Tristan admitted their camgirl company was a complete scam, with the camgirls selling fake stories of hardship to elicit higher tips and donations.

Andrews’ relationship with womxn is at the forefront of issues he raises. With his problematic behaviour having been called out several times over the past few years, he has only become increasingly worse. He believes that a women’s place is in the home, not being allowed to drive and to exist as the property of men. When the #metoo movement was gathering attention in 2017, Tate said rape victims “bear responsibility”. He asserts his misogynistic beliefs as simply just being “true” as if anything else is ridiculous; “if you go into the eye of the hurricane in a plane, you’re obviously going to want a male pilot because they are calmer under pressure”… Or, that if you are a woman and you have an Only Fans and also a Boyfriend, your boyfriend must take a cut of what she makes, because she IS HIS. That woman is GIVEN to a man, who then owns her. All the while saying he is a feminist. It goes far further and far more batshit the deeper you go into his iron-clad issues with extreme suggestions of physical abuse as if it is somehow biblical and therefore okay. When caught out at being wrong, he jellyfishes into saying he could be wrong, whilst falling back to basic genetic science and biological differences between men and women as if this somehow extends to the psychological and emotional realm and become defining characteristics for how we should all be treated.

The swamp of “traditionally masculine” values, is littered with a growing sense of persecution: to be a Man in the 21st century according to many of the alt-right is to be threatened by anyone who doesn’t identify with those shared values. And don’t get this wrong, this is the Alt-Right. Tate may say he is not political but this is just part of the ploy. A hallmark of the Alt-Right is this sense of preserving tradition. Through appearances on InfoWars and connections to far-right figures such as Paul Joseph Watson, Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich (the new age of Alt-Right representatives) Tate has become a “cult-like figure” to lost and angry men that share his anti-feminist views. Tate cleverly plays the fence, seemingly trying to be more relatable than the fire and brimstone conservatives of older generations whilst still embodying mindsets that are ignorant and problematic at best, dangerous and inflammatory at worst. What he expresses is a combination of insipid, belligerent misogyny peppered with the most general motivational advice neither of which is revolutionary or special. It’s just vivid in contrast to the rise in cancel culture. With many men feeling “silenced”, one man speaking loudly, is heard a lot further, his words claiming the space of young minds who know no better.

Now that saying anything you want to without much social impact has become a thing of the past, it’s amazing how many CIS men find the need to talk about how they have been silenced, that their views and opinions are somehow less all the whole doing it on a platform that suggests they are anything but. To me, as a man with views and opinions, it’s quite simple, society hasn’t said we aren’t allowed to have opinions, but rather if those opinions are racist, misogynistic or prejudicial, no one wants to hear them. You ARE entitled to your views, but if those views are intrinsically shitty and misleading to a younger generation don’t be aggrieved when no one wants to hear them. The fact Tucker Carlson and FOX news are white-knighting him and providing a space for him to speak out doesn’t exactly serve to impress him from being anything other than another dangerous influence in a world full of them. Doing nothing but reinforce how dumb this whole thing is. Yet, sadly, all of this is just different parts of the problem. Silencing this man will only make him a martyr. More rabid, more radical. It will inflame his supporters and validate their persecution. The “us” and “them” will become more ingrained. Instead of engaging in discourse and debate to try and bridge the gaps in our differences, we only make the gaps more pronounced because he says what we don’t like. We won’t sway opinions by ridiculing that which we don’t agree with. Yes, Andrew Tate is dangerous to the minds of young men, but not as dangerous as the societal issues that exist within the propensity to disregard that which we disagree with and invalidate things that should be addressed. Education doesn’t come from a fight and that’s what this feels increasingly geared towards.

To be human is to err. It is to make mistakes and to grow. Admittedly it is hard to countenance violence and hatred with the knowledge that it comes from fear and insecurity, that especially in our young we must stop these thoughts and feelings from taking hold. But the fight for our souls is not won by violence, it is won by empathy and understanding. It is not lost by making mistakes but by not trying to find a better way. Connection, communication and community, are the cornerstones of the human experience. Tate will not be the only angry man to garner the attention of other angry men, he will not be the last either.

Don’t let men like him become icons by censoring them. Let them do their own thing and after a while, people will realize just how stupid and redundant they are. By censoring them we inadvertently highlight them and give power to those who do not need it. Don’t ratify small-minded people with validation, challenge them on their thoughts and stand firm. Don’t put them in a box away from our immediate attention and think that the problem has been solved.

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