I keep seeing posts mentioning this phenomenon more and more often.
For instance:
‘Andrew Tate phenomena’ surges in schools - with boys refusing to talk to female teacher
Like, why? Why now? Why even? I really wish I had a time machine where I could go to the future and ask them what the general reasons were for this social development. But I feel like I’m looking for the specific thorn on a cactus that popped my balloon.
I think the answer is obvious: Tate tells them “you’re awesome”. No one else is doing that. People seek validation.
This is the short of it. Tate explains in no uncertain terms that society is to blame for the insecurities they feel, and provides an easy answer on how to fix it that kind of works, because it emulates self-confidence.
I mean it’s right wing politics in a nutshell
Dupe fools with simple, comforting lies over complicated, uncomfortable truth. If people don’t understand reality they can’t change it.
That was a conversation I just had with someone today. They did not appreciate my saying so.
I think it’s another message. Tate says “The world is fucked up” and then proceeds to say “I have the secret, if you want to make it in this fucked up world you have to be tough, uncompromising, domineering, cheat, and act like me” and “you’re a sucker and a cuck if you don’t do what I say”. First message sets up the world, 2nd sets up a “”“”“solution”“”“” to success that only a “few” people know, and the final thing is him attempting to make anyone who believes otherwise look weak which gives any of his followers the ability to a) feel a sense of superiority and b) make fun of others for being “weak” or “cucks” or “betas” or whatever.
To me his message is closer to “you’re a useless piece of shit, but i will help you become the strong man that women love. If you listen to me and work hard you will have a family and be happy. Fuck the world and society they lie about what you need to do to keep you docile and weak.”
He also has a lot of stuff about embracing all the masculine traits that society hates like aggression and psychopathy. Then just general unhinged statements that contradict his core message and no one notices because cult
Part of it is that women have achieved an educational level as a group that allows them to make better choices. They no longer have to choose which is the nicer wife beater in their town.
The incels seem to have a problem with this. The idea of having to compete based upon personality, likability and in general the ability to treat another person as a human being bothers them.
And if we let this follow the path it’s on, they’ll try to put us in burqas rather than working to become better people.
Referring to men in general as “wife beaters” is exactly the kind of rhetoric that fuels Tate’s popularity.
It’s also pretty dishonest to lump his followers in with incels. Tate openly despises incels - he sees them as quitters. His whole message is about power, self-discipline, and taking control of your life. Incels, on the other hand, are rooted in despair and nihilism. They believe the game is rigged, that the problem is in their genes, and that there’s nothing they can do to change it. It’s a fundamentally different mindset.
The incels
Weaponizing shaming like this is part of the issue. Young boys and men are bullied and called incels because they don’t conform to whatever BTS image girls and women fantasize about these days. They’re not given a chance to come out of their shells, and being shamed, won’t ever try to.
It’s a shame that body shaming boys is in vogue and perpetrated by those who support big models and HAES.
I think you have incel confused with something completely different.
It’s musk’s used melon, what do you expect?
I’ve heard young women call men “incels” as an insult, what are you talking about?
An incel is someone wbo claims ro be involuntarily incelibate, as in no one wants to fuck them. The incels claim it is based on looks, but it is because they have shitty, hate filled personalities where they blame women for their problems.
It doesn’t have anything to do with looks. It might have something to do with dressing like an Tate fanboy though.
Yes that is the definition.
However, it’s now being used as an insult as well. I’ve been called this even though I’ve been married 20 years with children, by a 40 year old spinster.
I feel like there’s always been a culture of boys and young men who didn’t respect women, there’s just never been podcasters actively promoting it.
The internet allows idiots to broadcast their message worldwide and social media promotes the most controversial stuff in order to drive engagement and, more recently, to promote a culture war that keeps the populus divided.
there’s just never been podcasters actively promoting it.
Before podcasts, we had a bunch of AM radio, grindhouse movies, pulp fiction, skin mags, and incel blogs. Joe Rogan is an archtype that echoes through the ages.
I remember when every friend group had a stoned uncle who lived in Grandma’s basement and would spout alien hotep lost city of z under water bullshit.
Some asshole at Spotify gave one a podcast and here we are.
A lot of young men frustrated with the lack of community, the fleeting chance of making good money, buying a home, etc. are looking for something/someone to blame. Misogyny and xenophobia are easy escape hatches for difficult times.
This is pretty much the most accurate response here. People like Andrew Tate are a symptom of a problem we have in society as a whole. The cure isn’t to block the symptom, because the disease is still there. The solution involves hard work & holding our own politicians accountable.
Social atomization is another huge aspect of this.
A lot of young people.
It used to be that women couldn’t open their own bank accounts. Depending on how far back you go, they couldn’t even own property. In this context, women really needed to get married if they wanted to do anything. For this and many other reasons, the bar was lower, men could get married with less effort. Nowadays women can do anything and the only reason for them to want a man is if they want to, so you actually have to put in effort now.
Also, gender roles are changing and there’s no clarity as to what being a man is supposed to mean in 2025. If it’s not protecting and providing, if it’s not dying in war, then the purpose of men is undefined as of now, and there’s a tendency to want to return to the older gender roles.
And late capitalism is stressful, and men aren’t going to college as much these days. There’s lots of reasons but this is what i can remember in five minutes
It’s not just women having the choice to marry. Women are flooded with choice through dating apps. It puts men in competition, costs money, and is overall a humbling experience. The amount of effort (and money) an average looking average height man has to expend pushes men to stop trying and focus on bettering oneself. This is where the Rogans and the Tates come in. The left isn’t speaking to these boys so the right wins by default.
So are men. Flooded with choices on dating apps and otherwise. It also puts women in competition. And others. It’s not a gendered problem. It’s an attitude problem.
The amount of effort is very likely way more equal to that of those “others” have to expend than most would concede, it’s just that some of the young boys aren’t taught to have a spine and as such expect everything to be easy, then get majorly disappointed when that isn’t the case. World is tough, life is hard, you have to actually fight along the way and struggle to get to places. Just about everyone else already knows this by heart, but some men are barely starting catching up.
Patriarchy isn’t as alive as it was, though very much alive still, so their expectations just no longer match the reality. And that’s a bummer. Boo hoo. Makes them commit mass murder, school shootings, but more widely, outside of those extremes, just fall in love with toxic men with a platform that actually do speak of things that better match their expectations.
It’s simply that some young men are pampered little babies that aren’t adapting to a less powerful patriarchy and have zero idea how to actually live in this world as a normal person without an excess of privileges.
And that’s often just an upbringing thing. And a complex one at that, with not just the parents at fault. Society was, and still is, patriarchal and unequal in so many ways, but slowly gets better at least in west. It’s not the fault of the young men that get sucked into this, they never were taught better. That’s the problem more than anything.
And before anyone comes in pointing fingers, I was assigned man at birth and am still an enby in part presenting as masculine. I know the privilege, and I do also know how hard it is to accept the fact that everything’s easier for us, when your heart feels like everything is hard. That’s just a bummer, but everyone has got it hard. More hard than me. A tough thing to see and recognize, because suddenly my struggle isn’t special. But really, it isn’t though. But that’s not the expectation young men have for some reason… Not always anyway.
The toxic young men still are the minority, it’s worth recognizing that too. But they are very loud and very hurt little babies :-( we have to suffer through their incapability to adapt to reality by possibly even just dying in one of their mass shootings.
It’s fucked up, and I’m not sure if there’s anything or anyone we can easily blame. And no easy answers either. I hate this part of reality.
So much more social, educational and financial support for girls’ development and nothing for boys except for sports. If you’re not into sports, you’re out of luck.
Band, theater club, math club, chess club, computer club, to just name a few. Outside of school there’s Kiwanis, boyscouts, YMCA, big brother program, there is no shortage of programs directed at boys. They’re all underfunded in the inner city and rural ag counties. But the Tate heads mostly live in the safe suburbs. They’re usually white and those programs tend to be better funded in those places.
The US government is defunding all research and programmes that include the word “female” and “women”. No more research into uterine cancer. No more including women in studies (and they were badly represented already).
When youre used to privilege, equality feels like discrimination.
Young men are struggling badly, and almost no one seems to take it seriously. A lot of them want to man up - but the message they get from much of the media is to man down. I saw a Reddit thread asking who young boys could look up to as a role model, and the top answer was Aragorn. You literally have to turn to fictional characters to find someone broadly seen as decent.
They gravitate toward people like Andrew Tate (and Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Jocko Willink, David Goggins, etc.) because those are some of the only public voices telling them it’s okay to be a man - and to embrace masculine traits - without apology.
Nick Offerman is right there!
Just as many women are struggling badly. There is no male loneliness epidemic, there is human loneliness epidemic.
Those so-called “male traits” seem to be being a violent thug and being shit to women.
To add to that, men were also turned to anime male figures like Kenshiro from the Fist of North Star as a key example that it is okay for men to cry. When for a long ass time, it was frowned upon for men to cry or show emotion.
There are enough voices and role models, there are books on how bad men have it, there are podcasts (Diary of the CEO) and philosophers talking about it. I stumble upon the topic at least every week. For example there is a great video of Mathew Hussey on the dating crisis and how troublesome it is for men. He is a dating coach for women and still making good content for men. It doesn’t seem to reach those who need it most, though. Could be trough algorithms, could be because they choose the hateful content with the “easy” solution (women are bad and need to be treated so) over the complex truth… That men had a privileged life for the last few hundred years, and now that women earn their own money they probably need to offer more than finance. By the way it is crazy how the world developed. Every household basically needs to double earn to survive so… yes. Financing is not the thing most women are looking for anymore and men are not even being able to give it. There are political and social problems we all have to fight (together we could even do it but it is easier if we fight each other for those in power). Men suffer from patriarchy the same as women do. The difference is that now the privilege is gone and the gameplay changed, while some wealthy and reckless men pretend that it’s about “them not trying hard enough”. It’s like people in America still believing they could become a millionaire if they try hard enough and trump is a “financial genius” for being rich… Instead of just being a lucky son of a rich man. It seems to be a tradition to step down on others instead of facing the truth… Some wealthy idiots are ruining our world for all of us. Instead of feeling helpless about this fact it’s “the immigrants”, “the feminists”, or what else…
Part of it is that propaganda works. A lot of people are trying to make fascism happen and this type of content fits right in.
But also, there’s a growing issue of men not knowing how to act around women, and there isn’t much non-misogynist competition for Tate. It seems like for a lot of people (both men and women) it’s harder to make personal connections these days than it used to be, and apps like Tinder exarcerbate the issue.
A lot of young men are lacking role models and community these days.
More kids are growing up without fathers around now (single parenthood is up from 9% in the 1960s to about 25% today).
Most people’s source of community used to be church, but since the advent of the internet, people are rapidly moving away from organized religion. I think this has disproportionately impacted men, who tend to be less social on average.
And I think in general, a lot of young men feel like nobody cares about their personal struggles.
So, even some toxic dude like Andrew Tate can show up and say “Hey, you’re great. Here are the reasons why things are bad for you and what you should do, and here’s a community of like-minded people to interact with.” and these guys are going to dive in head first.
The world around them is collapsing. Tate promises to have the solution. For whatever reason, his solution makes sense to them. So they follow him.
I think the decline of misogyny is the reason. As it’s not as normalized as it once was, yet still a very powerful lingering thread in our culture, men are seeking validation for it where they would have otherwise found validation for misogyny, unasked for and unconditionally, in their everyday social circles in previous eras.
Tate is the very personification of misogyny. Are you saying misogyny is the default state of CIS/HET men?
I’m saying misogyny is, culturally, hundreds of generations deep.
Yes and the patriarchy harms all genders including males.
But you’re not answering my question directly.
Uh, then ‘no’.
Cool thanks for the clarification. So it sounds like you’re saying Tate is a symptom of the last gasps of misogyny. Is that a close enough approximation? Not trying to strawman your argument just looking for clarity.
“Last gasps” is a strong word, but symptomatic of a weakening of misogyny in general society, yes. Time will tell if this weakening is another step towards crushing that particular bigotry, or if it’ll experience a second wind in these sickened circumstances.
Thanks for the clarification again.
I feel like there is also a pathologization of being single. I was a teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s, so before most of social media. I’m also from a village where most people knew each other.
There were a couple of nerdy, shy guys who never had a girlfriend by the time of graduation. I only had one boyfriend at 16 for 2 month before his friend told me he was only dating me as a dare. I was “ugly” and “not a real girl” because I didn’t wear makeup and mostly wore jeans and Tshirts. Stupid village kids.
Anyway, similar things happened to the nerdy guys. But no one started crying about all men/women being awful and no one became an incel. Several girls and boys in my class never dated by the time we graduated and that just wasn’t a big deal. Nowadays everybody’s being told there’s something wrong with them if they’ve never had a partner by age 17.
Lol…
Looks away
We live in online world that normalises abusing women gamers on Twitch, DM-ing women in order to hit on them and/or attack them on Insta or whatever, that considers sites like 4chan legitimate humour and where a web search for something like a gym membership can bombard you with scum like Tate.
Add to that the hit that people’s socialisation skills took during lockdown, governments around the Westernised world normalising hate and violence as legitimate ways to get what you want and then dangle in front of them the fictional lives influencers flaunt on Instagram, TikTok etc and tell them they too could have that life if they do this that and the other oh and by the way, its totally fine to abuse women to prove your masculinity because you, as a man, are owed sex by women.
All these reasons like ‘men are lonely’, ‘gender roles are different’ - yeah they play a part but lets not pretend this shit hasn’t been coming for a long time and men being sad they have less role models is no excuse for the rationalisation of violent hate that’s on display.
You’re not wrong BUT this is only one side of the issue. Patriarchal norms undercut men’s ability to form meaningful relationships and capitalism is making us wage slaves. The behaviors you’re pointing to are symptoms of a larger problem.
And you’re not wrong either - they’re still shit excuses for treating people like sexual commodities and thinking its OK to beat/rape/kill them if they don’t give you sex. At some level personal responsibility kicks in.
I’m going to disagree with a few things here.
I don’t really see why people continue to blame the lockdown for why it has impacted socializing. There has been socially inept people before a pandemic took over so I really can’t see how this in anyway has had a strict and exclusive cause. Men in general, for years and years, have always had an awkward approach when it comes to females and it has only worsened.
I wouldn’t just put the magnifying glass on 4chan when Reddit and Kiwi Farms are just as bad if not worse.
The one key thing also to add is that, there had been fictional and even non-fictional mediums where women were seen as superior over and than that of men. It didn’t really help matters and only just fueled the opposition to behave, think and act the way men do today.
“I don’t really see why people continue to blame the lockdown for why it has impacted socializing”
I’m not blaming just the lockdown but it certainly played a part. For a lot of people who are now legal adults it happened at a formative stage of their social development.
“I wouldn’t just put the magnifying glass on 4chan when Reddit and Kiwi Farms are just as bad if not worse.”
True.
Social media algos are creating this. This is why a lot of 20-38 year old young boys are turning to conservatism. This is how the rich wealthy elites are overthrowing the last few remaining democries. UK is currently their main target. They were successful with Germany and they are now expading. In 3-6 years, the world will have completely shifted to the right.
This is why a lot of 20-38 year old young boys are turning to conservatism.
As far as I know, there’s only been a slight shift toward conservatism among young men. For the most part, their political views haven’t changed all that much - it’s actually women who have shifted much more noticeably to the left and thus widening the gap between them.
It differs by Western country at least as well. Australian Gen Z men for instance are shifting left, just not as quickly as women.
To be honest, the whole narrative about Gen Z is overly focused on men, and the seismic shift of Gen Z women to the left should not be ignored. But belittling and undermining the views of young women is certainly not a new thing.
Same reason people flocked to Trump to vote for him, this false idealization that he was this bold, bright and strong leader.
Same reason people worshiped Musk, thinking he was and is the future with all of the money to do it.
It’s like any or all qualities of themselves that they lack or devoid of educating themselves or learning. They replace it with blind devotion.
Why? Simple. Young men now have to compete for the attention of women in a way that they never did. In times past, if there was competition for a woman’s attention or time, it was with another man - someone they saw as an equal, a better, or someone to be defeated. Now the competition is with the woman herself. It’s not just a matter of putting on the act of shaving, buying a suit, going to church, spending time with her instead of sporting events, and so forth - for the purpose of courtship only. Most of that could be shut off immediately after the marriage license was signed and the rest after the birth of the first child.
Generally speaking, society is applauding women for competing with men like that, and telling men that they have to ‘be better’ - while not giving clear objectives on what “better” is. Add to that ongoing social friction (especially now after the lockdowns), and the situation for many young men is looking rather bleak.
Along comes Andrew Tate (and a slew of other MR activists), who tell these disappointed, depressed guys that what they’re experiencing is not their fault (which is what they already believe, but are afraid to say). They provide clear, simple answers - do this, achieve that. And it works, especially the basic things. Why wouldn’t they listen to people who tell them that they’re not the problem? Or who tells them what they can do to solve the problem? Of course young men listen to it and heed it. But because they’re so caught up in a cult of personality, they don’t know how to speak a new, less toxic voice into existence.
