Content warning: this article contains mention of abuse, violence and sexual assault against women.
With the constant rise of social media influencers, it is no surprise that many achieve fame due to their ideologies. However, this fame does not guarantee that these internet celebrities will be favoured by the masses.
When it comes to influencers who tend to bring out a particular hatred in the crowd, few can compare to Andrew Tate. Tate is an influencer who has gained fame through his abhorrent rhetoric about women.
His less-than-appealing characterization of females can be witnessed on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, all of which are accessible to older and younger generations. Though now, Tate is banned from all of these platforms, as those running them have realized how damaging his ideologies are. Many of his followers still attempt to provide Tate with a platform by continuing to spread his messages of hate.
The main concern regarding Andrew Tate and his fast-growing uprising is how powerful of an influence he has on the younger males of our generation. Now, more than ever, our youth must be raised with the proper morals and values to help our society succeed; they are the future of this society, after all.
What is required is an environment in which all races and sexes feel safe and heard. The garbage that Tate spews creates the exact opposite. He actively contributes to a hostile environment that advocates sexism, misogyny, and violence against women.
The controversy that kickstarted Tate’s rise to fame on social media occurred in 2016 when he was kicked off of the UK TV show Big Brother. He was kicked off the show after a video surfaced of him beating a woman with a belt while calling her a ‘whore’ and telling her to ‘count her bruises’. This incident generated a public outcry and Tate was kicked off the show, though he denies the situation and stated that it was consensual on the female’s part.
Not only this, but Tate is known for publicly siding with Harvey Weinstein during the #MeToo movement, a social movement that allows sexual assault/abuse survivors to speak out about their experiences safely.
Tate openly stated that women need to take responsibility for putting themselves in positions to be raped. He also does not consider cat-calling to be any type of harassment. This promotes the idea that victims of sexual assault and abuse are to blame for their traumas and that it is a woman’s job to stay out of situations that could lead to the unwanted advances and actions of men.
As if the above examples weren’t enough, in a now-deleted YouTube video, Tate explained that 40 per cent of the reason he moved to Romania is that the rape charges are much easier to get out of compared to countries like Canada, the USA, and the UK. His justification for this statement is that he isn’t a rapist but wants to be able to “do what he wants” and “be free.”
Tate often espouses his belief that women are objects of possession, meant to be owned, tamed, and controlled. On multiple occasions, Tate has stated that he believes his sister is her husband’s property and that he owns her.
He also advocates for the belief that women are not as strong or capable as men and will never be as smart. He also maintains that seeking out women as young as 18 will help ensure she hasn’t been “run through” by other men.
Though the aforementioned particulars are enough to show why Andrew Tate is the definition of an insecure and egregious man, the surface has barely even been scratched. There remains an unreasonable amount of drama and controversy surrounding Tate, some soon to be investigated by the police.
Tate wants to enforce the stereotype of what he believes is an “alpha male” and uses his various platforms to speak about women as objects of possession. This mindset he is instilling in our youth is already causing problems, and the results will only continue to be more detrimental in the long term.