What Andrew Tate teaches us
Andrew Tate has, arguably, disappeared from social media feeds, following his arrest three months ago. I imagine his somewhat dubious spirit is alive and well on dedicated fan pages and the like, but I don’t dwell there, and neither does most of the Internet. Yet, for a good few months, Tate’s ideas permeated the general and sometimes niched parts of social media that each of us individually lives in. You couldn’t pop your feed open without running into a clever quote, a reel, or some bit of saucy scandal.
And while it’s tempting to say his alleged crimes led to his stigmatization, it’s far more likely to be a testament to social media’s increasingly short and neurotic mental span. In this, the old adage “out of sight is out of mind” stands true, except for the occasional mainstream legal update. Suddenly, the people quoting or revering him as some sort of bizarre Internet deity seem to have vanished.
Which is why I thought I’d dig him up before his shadow is completely gone, and rendered useless.
Andrew Tate shouldn’t be useless.
No, this is not an essay in defense of Tate. Nor is it denunciation. It’s an analysis of what his rise means for our society, and to an extent, how we can prevent others in his image from dominating our virtual space in the future.
Personally, I think Tate had some good points, but also some terrible ones. Obviously, there are those who lean quite heavily toward either side. According to CNET, Andrew Tate’s official @cobratate Instagram account boasted 4.5 million followers, with more than 600,000 on YouTube (before being taken down). Those are big numbers.
So the question we should be asking is, why did 4.5 million people (and countless more non-followers) relate so heavily with Tate’s “teachings”?
A sizable chunk of his following can be surely attributed to money-hungry youth. In a sense, Tate rose to be an “idol” for many young men because he represented what they wanted to have. Tate’s ethos seemed to be “look at all this luxury”, and that’s not new. It’s been the driving principle of tabloids and celebrity press for generations. We’re enthralled by the bling, and automatically assume it lends one authority.
However, it wasn’t Tate’s luxurious fast-cars-pretty-women lifestyle that sparked controversy. It was his concept of masculinity.
Tate rang the alarm for the masculine man.
It’s not me saying it. It’s almost five million people. It’s the countless fan pages abounding on the Internet. While still in good standing, Tate was a big proponent for more clearly defined gender roles. He embodied the persona of a manly man. Muscular and authoritative. Strong and confident in his masculinity.
And I believe that’s what his followers responded to most keenly. After all, if all he’d been was an entrepreneur/success guru, I don’t think Tate would’ve had such roaring success. There are simply too many of those, already.
But he drew an audience by reminding us of previous generations, and people seemingly liked what he had to say.
What the Tate critics get wrong
This is the part where every Tate-hating keyboard warrior goes “oh, but he only attracted the toxic, abusive, sexist men”. That’s a simple-minded take, though, and we should be aiming toward a more nuanced discourse.
I’m sure some of Tate’s followers were sexist assholes. It’s highly likely. Except not all of them could have been. And even beyond those 4.5M, many more non-followers only agreed with some of Tate’s reasoning. In other words, some resonated with his understanding of the “manly man”, without thinking women were in some way inferior.
And that’s what we need to take into account. In a society starved of traditional gender roles, particularly one in which old-school masculine men are vilified and ostracized, we risk breeding monsters.
If masculinity had been the evil, destructive force that modern voices claim it is, then people like Tate wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Obviously. In modern rhetoric, one can hardly speak the word masculinity without the rider ‘toxic’. It has become an evil, cruel thing that everyone will be better off without. Including the men.
Not to mention the women.
Yet it seems both men and women resonated with Tate’s idea of the more traditional, masculine man, for some reason. Were they brainwashed? Blind to the toxicity of manliness? Or were they driven toward an extreme figure like Andrew Tate by an equally extreme and polarizing society?
Andrew Tate is why we need to reintroduce and decriminalize masculinity in our world. Clearly, there’s a need for it. Like a petulant, recalcitrant adolescent, the modern Western world tends to cast off any and every thing the past has to teach us. Very rarely does it stop to consider that maybe our species developed in a certain way for evolutionary purposes, and not just for the love of patriarchy.
Right now, the argument pro-masculinity has been deceptively reduced to “oh, you support wife beaters, and rapists, do you?”. But it’s naive, not to mention offensive, to assume that’s all masculine men are. For a very long time, women have taken great offense at being reduced to dishwashers, and homemakers. For good reason. We have so much more to give, our personalities infinitely more nuanced than those two reductive, discriminating terms.
Why, then, knowing this struggle and this hurt, are we so keen on subjecting the men to the same? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. It’s an old phrase, so of course, we’ve thrown that out the window as well.
Except I’d alter it.
An eye for an eye makes the world turn to extremist, unhelpful social figures, like Tate. It might not have the same ring, but it’s true. Our youth doesn’t need people like Tate. What it does need is good masculine role models who strive to benefit the community.
And feminine models. And models that say it’s okay to be a manlier girl or a more effeminate man. That’s what the 21st century was supposed to be about, showing people it’s okay to be a bunch of things. It seems so far, we’ve only traded one oppressed group for another. It doesn’t take a historian to see that didn’t turn out so great the last time. For anyone.
The reason Andrew Tate was so wildly successful was that he was not a nice man. But guess what, we alienated and derided all the nice manly men. We shamed them and bullied them until only the nastier ones like Tate could brave the vitriol. We still have time to turn the 21st century around. Though not as much as we might like to think.
Even now, somewhere out there, a new Andrew Tate is amassing followers. Think about it.
Note: This is, as stated, an opinion piece. I believe you are free to like/dislike Andrew Tate, and anyone else, really. For that reason, comments vilifying or alternatively, preaching for Tate will go ignored. Seems to me the point of Medium is elegant, nuanced, intellectual discourse. Let’s try.
