Taking The Red Pill: A Look Into Andrew Tate
His self-help empire, and influence.
For once, I’m glad that Elon Musk is running Twitter. Thanks to him, the ‘king of misogyny," Andrew Tate, was reinstated, fought with a 19-year-old environmental activist on the platform, and got arrested for human trafficking. A crime for which he is still in prison for at the time of writing this.
Whether it was due to a pizza box from a Romanian pizza chain in a picture, or another tip-off, it doesn’t matter that much to me. In the end, the police found many women who were there under false pretenses and forced to perform sexual acts while there.
Even though he has celebrity status, not many people know about him. The first time I heard of him was over the summer of last year, when Jessica Wildfire mentioned him off-handedly in one of her articles.
around the time when he was banned for saying women were responsible for getting themselves sexually assaulted.
Really charming individual that guy. Kinda reminds me of a particular Doctor who can’t stop crying over Cain and Abel while obsessing over hierarchies.
But while I didn’t look much into Andrew Tate then and what he represented, I’ve decided to dig deeper into who this individual is now. Similar to what I experienced for the first time, many people are probably learning about Andrew Tate. And chances are they’re learning it with way more clarity now since his name is right next to “human trafficking”, “arrested”, and “toxic masculinity,” amongst other words.
To begin, I can only presume Tate is a big fan of the film The Matrix. He had an “alt Twitter account” by the name of Morpheus; his last tweet before getting arrested was “the Matrix sent their agents.”, and he was a particular fan of saying to take the red pill, which symbolically meant to question the status quo.
The red pill, though, is something I think we should all take at this point with regard to Andrew Tate. To question who he is, how he came to be so famous, and what can be done going forward.
The Self-Help Movement Made Him Thrive
I said that Tate reminds me of Jordan Peterson, and there are a lot of similarities between the two men. To begin, both rose to fame under dubious circumstances and soon delved into self-help.
Peterson gained popularity as a psychology professor in Toronto being horrified over a Canadian bill that simply included transgender in the legal literature — as explained by this “brief” overview of him.
In the case of Tate, it was by appearing in Big Brother UK before being removed after footage of him hitting his girlfriend with a belt emerged.
Since then, both of them have gone off on tangents in different directions.
Peterson believes in structural hierarchies as natural laws and will take bits and pieces of various theories and ideas and mash them together. Despite the fact that, as the brief overview explains, scientific evidence suggests otherwise.
He’s used that to argue against climate change, wage equality, and other topics in serious settings, even though he has only a psychology background.
In the case of Tate, it’s painting a view that all women are inferior to men and indulge in casual misogyny.
What makes the lines blurry comes down to presentation and some actions.
For Peterson, if you see particular clips of him here and there, it’s easy to peg him as a vulnerable individual. He’s incredibly insightful in some of the tidbits those videos drop, but in the broader scope of things, he’s totally off base.
Elon Musk buying Twitter was a good decision in his opinion because people who make billions of dollars are the smartest people on the planet, according to his hierarchies.
For Tate, it boils down to some of the self-improvement products that he’s presented. He has multiple businesses that are giving him passive income — such as casinos and his former women trafficking ring — but those are swept under the rug when you consider his self-help products to his broader audience:
- The Real World;
- Hustle University;
- And The War Room.
These morally good things conceal Tate's flaws. Advocates will happily defend him or talk about how well he was composed during certain conversations.
All of this stems from the image that he’s created through these products. Checking Hustle University will give you access to a lot of testimonials, and from what’s being taught, it seems pretty sound.
It follows a simple structure:
- Start generating income
- Begin to multiply it
- And stabilize financially through overall mindset and personal finance.
My only criticism is the dubiousness of the teachers. That and the fact Hustle University is done all through Discord which isn’t well suited for courses.
The teachers themselves are claiming to have made millions from their respective fields and are “masters” in those fields. They cover copywriting, freelancing, NFTs, crypto, stocks, personal finance, Amazon FBA, and e-commerce.
That’s well and good, but how they’re marketed is not that appealing. Not to mention there’s a theme going on with Tate’s “teaching mastermind group.”
Nevertheless, this seems to be a running theme. People are able to brush aside the unappealing parts and focus more on the acts that he’s doing. Whether he’s truly helping people or not is up for debate, but like any self-help grifter he is pulling out the stops to give the impression that he is helping.
He’s Just Another Toxic Masculinity Man
His name getting recognition was a calculated strategy. It’s not that he’s a master copywriter, but rather he was able to get a small group of people to post videos of him constantly across multiple platforms. That group being the members of his hustle university as well as the teachers — who are posing as Tate. TikTok was the most prominent, with him now enjoying hundreds of thousands of followers and his videos getting millions of views.
Looking at the content initially, it’s not so bad. There is some light-hearted humour, and his straightforward outlook is appealing. Furthermore, he banks on what so many other prominent self-help gurus have: expensive houses, sports cars, exotic locations, beautiful women, etc.
It’s the same tactic that hustle bros leverage all the time to get you to sign up for their expensive course on leveraging AI or some other grift.
But Tate takes it a step further in various ways:
- First, his audience is on the younger side. He’s managed to get boys as young as 13 to sign up at his Hustle University and pose as him on TikTok to make commissions.
- Secondly, he charges a monthly subscription which is different from the typical model of hustle bros. For hustle bros, they have to push out course after course to stay relevant. Tate can repeatedly offer the same product and reap the benefits.
- Thirdly, the monthly subscription brings you to a community that all think in a similar manner, perpetuating the idea that certain views are appropriate.
Because of these avenues — and the algorithm itself propping up his content — people find themselves in the situation where they get hooked to the content and stick around for the community. This creates the situation that you see around his content. Looking at his Youtube videos, you find people praising him and finding his takes on various things to be good and inspiring. Any kind of criticism of him can’t be found at all.
But when you look deeper into his messaging, you start to see a lot of flaws and hatred. Like any self-help grifter out there, you start to see inconsistencies.
He has “nothing against” women, but as soon as they try to step out from traditional gender stereotypes they’re somehow dumb or deserve to get choked, raped, and objectified. He likes to travel because it makes him feel free and yet he expects women to stay at home all day.
The list goes on.
What he proposes is nothing short of toxic masculinity. The only reason it’s so compelling is that Tate is charismatic and is in that position of living a lifestyle that others respect. Even though there are some glaring issues, the vast majority of his lifestyle — the cars, exotic locale, the girls, the big fancy house — is convincing for people.
And above all, men.
He is emblematic of writers who write a “how to get rich” article right after one of their articles went viral. He’s not much of a master copywriter as he is skilled at repeating the same messaging over and over again.
And with enough repetition and algorithm exploitation, he skyrocketed to mass appeal.
How Should Self Help Move Forward?
While it’s good that he is locked up for the time being, there’s still a lot of damage that’s being done. There are still more people posing as Tate, posting content of him and sending hateful messaging. Not only that, but you have other people taking up his mantle and not seeing anything wrong with it.
There are some changes that can be made — like better social media oversight — but the vast majority of change would come from ideology.
It’s difficult to change as Tate and other individuals are influencing the minds of younger generations into a toxic way of thinking. The problem with this toxic thinking is that it’s an ideology that reinforces itself.
People like Jordan Peterson, Pearl Davis, Ben Shapiro, and now Andrew Tate twist the problem solving process to the point that the onus is those around the individual rather than the individual themselves.
It creates these weird contradictions.
Obviously you’ll be an incel if you listen to Jordan Peterson. After all, his hot takes when it comes to gender equality is that it’s a huge scam. After all, man was born to be the dominant species and provider.
The fact women have to go to work now or want to work is a stain to the natural order of things.
I’m sure talking about that to another woman is going to make them fall head over heels for you.
But what makes Tate stand out above the rest is that he’s done something no one else has. Similar to hustle bros posing as rich individuals in their rented Lamborghinis, he surrounds himself with women. He calls himself a play boy, when in reality he’s a lonely, sad, and abusive individual who can’t get a girlfriend to save his life.
It’s so sad that he needs to work women like slaves in order to keep up appearances.
Beyond that, Tate still paints himself as a victim the entire time. He manipulates women into saying nothing was wrong. Him smacking an ex-girlfriend with a belt and beating her? Totally consensual.
Him getting arrested for human trafficking and being part of a organized crime gang? He’s talked about his time in prison “eating stone cold food and squishing insects”. This is on top of him referencing the Matrix when he got arrested and presenting himself as a “revolutionist” who’s getting punished for “thinking differently.”
This kind of thinking takes time to unravel and it’s not just a matter of trying to win the argument or to prove a point. It’s more of turning their logic against them and seeing the real harm that’s being caused as a result of what’s being said.
Incels can move away from hateful groups and misogyny when they are given proper support and encouraged to self-reflect.
In the case of Pearl Davis, her critics say she’ll begin to understand the dangers of misogyny if she ever gains weight, gets pregnant, abused, or raped, or starts dating. I wouldn’t wish bad things on any human being, but sometimes the best way to change your actions is by suffering real consequences from them.
The big thing ultimately comes down to messaging and getting people to rally around better figures. To be looking inward and to be thinking critically of oneself. To not just settle with the first solution that resonates with what you already believe in.
To grow is to be uncomfortable and try something different. By passing that along, maybe people in more negative and hateful mindsets will begin to change their minds and look at how their lives have evolved.
I find it fascinating that Tate is so interested in The Matrix. He encourages us to look at the world differently and to question what we see before our eyes.
It’s a good sentiment, but it’s a double-edged sword. I’m personally of the mind that a self-help guru should be changing and growing. They need to look at different views and question existing beliefs. And yet the vast majority of these self-help gurus are stuck in their ways.
Tate is so far up his own ass that he still thinks the Matrix is all about cracking the system and questioning the status quo. That still seems to be the case since he’s still playing the victim in a “bug-infested cell” that clearly still has functioning internet and electricity.
Maybe it’s about time he takes his own advice and begins questioning the stories he’s telling and his own victimhood.
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