For those blissfully unacquainted with the app, TikTok is a video hosting service that provides users with an endless and addictive stream of short videos: pranks, tricks, jokes, dance routines, challenges; you name it.
But even though I refrain from using this platform, knowing that I would easily become hooked on adorable videos of cats getting up to mischief, I have not escaped the latest viral TikTok sensation: Andrew "Cobra" Tate. Swaggering, confident, with biceps the size of cantaloupes and a cigar invariably hanging out of his smirking mouth, Tate is the new poster boy for toxic masculinity.
Styling himself as an "alpha influencer", Tate’s whole schtick is a nauseating mix of money-making "tips", misogyny, pseudo-intellectualism, nihilistic greed and ceaseless arrogance. And it seems to be working for him; over the past months, he has been propelled from veritable obscurity to dizzying heights of fame the likes seen only by similarly vacuous celebrities such as Donald Trump and the Kardashians.
So who is this joker? Emory Andrew Tate III is a former kickboxing world champion turned self-help-guru-cum-playboy who resides in Bucharest, Romania, where he lords over a MLM empire called Hustlers University 2.0 and a rapidly growing social media following in the millions. Tate’s "Hustler’s University" scheme is partly to blame for his increased popularity. More than 127,000 members pay £39 ($NZ75) a month to join Hustler’s University community, and are encouraged to flood social media with videos of him, earning an affiliate commission if they convince other people to sign up.
There’s nothing particularly new about Tate’s "rags-to-riches" schtick; the internet is awash with like-minded hustlers peddling get-rich-quick schemes and dubious cryptocurrencies.
A lot of Tate’s content is so ridiculous it’s laughable. Did you know, for example, that sushi, cheerios and cats are decidedly unmasculine? Or that sparkling water is the only water that should pass a "real man’s" lips? But his other opinions are no joke. Tate is deeply homophobic, he does not believe depression (or Covid-19, for that matter) exists and his views on women are outright appalling.
Tate has openly described hitting and choking women, describing in one clip how he would attack a woman if she accused him of cheating. He has told rape victims to "bear responsibility" and insists that he only dates women aged 18 or 19 because he is more capable of "making an imprint" upon them. Other nauseating opinions espoused by Tate include his belief that women belong at home, shouldn’t drive and are a man’s property.
Tate has also been promoted and platformed by many other social media influencers and podcasters, including YMH, Fresh&Fit, The Fellas and many others. What’s more, he’s become buddies with certain members of the far-Right, most notably conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Nigel Farage, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Donald Trump jun.
It is reprehensible that TikTok is allowing Tate’s misogynistic and abusive messages to spread unfiltered across its platform. TikTok has a responsibility to ensure the safety, health and wellbeing of its users, many of whom are vulnerable and deeply impressionable. But TikTok’s algorithm aggressively promotes Tate’s eye-catching and incendiary videos, despite the app’s own rules explicitly banning misogyny and copycat accounts. TikTok is complicit, and in its inaction against Tate, the app is amplifying and profiting from the radicalisation of young male users.
Sexual violence does not exist in a vacuum; it is shaped and inflated by misogynistic and sexist attitudes such as those espoused by Tate. The proliferation of Tate’s videos across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms furthers the normalisation of sexual abuse, as well as emotional abuse, manipulation and control of women and girls.
Tate’s attitudes are not just harmful towards women and girls, however. According to White Ribbon United Kingdom, "Men and boys regularly watching and listening to negative presentations of masculinity may begin to adopt these attitudes and behaviours, believing that they are acting as the "ideal man".
This copycat behaviour creates a lot of pressure on men and boys, detrimentally affecting their mental health and self-image as they desperately try to appear "tough, aggressive and suppressing emotion" .
Ultimately, "these traits feed into gender norms, what ‘being a man’ and ‘being a woman’ is. Gender inequality is a direct result of traditional and negative stereotypes which confine women’s and men’s roles in society."
Parents and teachers of young people, especially teenage boys, need to be aware of Tate’s noxious influence. There is a wealth of resources available to combat the toxic nonsense spewed by Tate, such as those offered by White Ribbon New Zealand, Health Navigator New Zealand and Ally Skills New Zealand.
There are other, better role models in the MMA and martial arts scenes for young boys and men to look up to. Take Paddy "The Baddy" Pimblett, for example. After Paddy’s win over Jordan Leavitt by submission at UFC London on July 23, he gave an impassioned speech in which he revealed that one of his friends had died by suicide the day earlier.
"There’s a stigma in this world that men can’t talk," he said.
"Listen, if you’re a man and you’ve got a weight on your shoulders and you think the only way you can solve it is by killing yourself — please speak to someone. Speak to anyone. I know I’d rather my mate cry on my shoulder than go to his funeral next week. So please, let’s get rid of this stigma and men start talking."
I have five younger brothers: John, Andrew, Will, Peter and Jack. I have already lost one brother, my dear John, to suicide. I know he felt the crushing weight of toxic masculinity on his young shoulders; I know he felt ill-equipped to reach out and ask for help with his depression and paranoia. I know how vulnerable and unheard he felt, and I know countless other young men the nation over likely feel the same way.
Andrew Tate cannot and should not be a role model for our boys and men. They deserve far better.
Jean Balchin, a former English student at the University of Otago, is studying at Oxford University after being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.
