“What color is your Bugatti?” This quote is one of many selling points of controversial internet personality, Andrew Tate.
A relatively unknown former kickboxer gained popularity overnight on TikTok for marketing himself as the Top G, a self-made “trillionaire” and men’s self-help guide. Tate claims he teaches men how to make it out of the “Matrix.” Tate also has misogynistic views on modern day gender relations, which helped him garner popularity. Although he has a small and steady fan following of misguided boys due to his alpha male ideologies, Tate has many more people that dislike him for his extreme and controversial views on mental health and toxic masculinity.
When Tate first appeared on TikTok, people thought he was just another influencer trying to help men achieve a better life. TikToks of him claiming that vaping is for losers were some of the first ones to surface on the internet and receive positive feedback for being down to earth.
Next were some harmless TikToks on how he only drinks sparkling water because it’s for rich people. Along with that, more and more short motivational and disciplinary clips of him found their way into the phones of innocent boys.
Week by week, the TikToks got more aggressive in nature with adolescents and older men following Tate and emulating his personality. In one TikTok, Tate said depression is not real because he doesn’t “believe it’s real.”
Eventually, the TikToks became outright misogyny. “It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up b***h,” he says in one video, talking about what he would do if a woman tried to confront him about cheating. Tate also says that “it’s ok for men to be with multiple women at a time but women should only be loyal to one man their whole life.” Young audiences that have already become used to Tate’s way of presentation will believe this is normal and agree that this is what real men do.
Junior Ariana Assadi felt angry whenever she saw those TikToks. “What he said spoke against all women, making women seem like objects. The more people, especially men, who believed that and thought like him just showed how some men view women at such a low level,” Assadi shared.
Tate markets himself by posing with his unique Bugatti and bragging about his 30+ race car collection. He falsely claimed he’s the “world’s first trillionaire” on a Twitch stream with streamer Adin Ross. As more and more men see a glimpse of Tate’s lifestyle, they want in on his secrets to gaining wealth. Tate has an answer to those people: Hustler’s University 2.0.
Hustler’s University is a course created by Tate and his associates to help their students “escape the Matrix” and get rich like Tate. He charges $50 a month to teach the students about copywriting, e-commerce, crypto and other topics that can easily be learned online.
Tate tells his students to crop controversial clips of him from podcasts and other media to post on TikTok. As the TikTok creates waves online, the students make money off the TikToks while Tate simultaneously expands his audience. As Tate’s reach broadens, more people will join the university and this cycle will continue, effectively creating a pyramid scheme with Tate at the top.
When I first came across Andrew Tate while scrolling on TikTok, I thought he was a good guy. I saw myself agreeing with some of the TikToks on discipline and working hard. However, my perception of Tate changed when a friend showed me a video of Tate beating a woman with a belt, later claiming it as “mild roleplay.” I was suddenly ashamed to look up to Tate. All of the motivational and helpful content he made did not override the fact that he was not a good person deep down, and I needed help seeing that. Looking back at my Andrew Tate phase, I am deeply guilt-ridden for ever supporting him.
I am not the only man to have this experience with Tate. Junior Adam Bullock underwent a similar experience. “First, I thought he was an alpha male figure because the content with him was very motivational and it did help me improve as a person and got me in a better mindset. Then, I saw the misogynistic videos and clips of him abusing women. It completely ruined all the previous lessons I learned from him,” Bullock shared.
Men like Tate are a danger to society. Not only do they possess harmful ideas, but have the power to diffuse them to mass amounts of people. Most people watching Tate’s TikToks are between the ages of 13-24, making them highly susceptible to Tate’s ideologies of toxic masculinity and dangerous misinformation. They will roam society with those behaviors normalized in their head and follow them blindly. In this age, it may seem like topics like misogyny are heading in the right direction, but personalities like Tate are jeopardizing decades-old progress made towards gender equality.
“I think people who think like Tate are so dangerous because what he’s saying makes violence and discrimination against women normalized. If that becomes socially acceptable, what is to stop hate and crimes against women from increasing?” Assadi added.
Tate recently got banned on multiple social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter. The sites claimed he was spreading dangerous and false information. Being banned will finally curb his influence over his misled audience.
While Tate may be helping people with his self-help tips, the extreme misogyny deeply outweighs the “good material” he puts out on the internet.
