What is it about the internet that emboldens a mediocre man to believe he is important enough to sit behind a microphone and spew sexist, racist and homophobic rhetoric to an audience of little boys?
The Andrew Tates of the world, small-minded men who take advantage of boys who have yet to reach frontal lobe development, have chosen the internet as their weapon of choice in spreading outrageous and hateful speech.
This issue is not new to social media. Ushered by the rise of Facebook in the early 2000s, this “alpha male” persona arose which typically includes an inexplicable tendency of participating in the sexualization and discrimination of women.
The blame could be pointed at Hunter Moore for conceiving this character in 2010 with his revenge porn site, “Is Anyone Up?”, but the responsibility cannot fall solely on him.
Men have historically believed themselves to be superior to women. Those who feel emboldened by this old-fashioned belief now have the perfect platforms to incite danger against women and minorities.
These men hide behind the First Amendment, bouncing their patriarchal beliefs around the echo chambers they have created. They play the devil’s advocate to anyone who will listen, all while lining their pockets with the money of anyone stupid enough to pay.
They may believe they are not harming anyone with this lunge for fame and money, but impressionable children with access to social media see this commentary and adopt the views as their own. Despite the fact that many of these harmful messages have been removed, they echo through algorithms far after their removal.
Andrew Tate, who was recently banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, embodies this persona completely.
Tate, 35, has made countless comments regarding women and the LGBTQ community, including a tweet where he said that women must bare some responsibility for putting themselves in the position to be raped. At the time of his banning, Tate had 4.6 million Instagram followers. That’s 4.6 million people within Tate’s reach and influence.
Tate also claimed that he preferred to live in Romania because it was easier to get off on rape charges. “I’m not a rapist,” Tate said. “But, I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free.”
Little boys will mimic this behavior, spreading his harmful ideas despite lacking a full understanding of what they mean.
In August, a TikTok went viral of a sixth-grade teacher warning parents to monitor what their children were watching on social media. She said the 11-year-old boys in her class were calling girls “fat” because of a video they saw of Andrew Tate.
His influence on developing minds has already started, but even worse is the authority he has over men and boys who have the means to harm women.
Andrew Tate reeks of the kind of insecurity that could only be sustained by men who have never received positive attention from women. They call themselves “alpha males,” when in reality the only way they can make money is by exploiting women for their gain.
This issue cannot be handled by individuals. It is up to social media platforms to work on a quicker removal of hate speech on their sites, as well as the removal of the videos from other accounts to prevent further spread.
These misogynists need to be monitored by platforms. If not, a generation of little boys will grow up believing they are superior to women because an idiot like Andrew Tate told them they were.