Andrew Tate, a former kickboxing world champion turned OnlyFans pimp and internet personality who showcases his lavish lifestyle of expensive cars and multiple wives/girlfriends on social media, along with his controversial views on women who many deem misogynistic, has been blowing up on social media. What does everyone think of this guy, and masculinity in general?
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First let's discuss the positives. Even if you hate the guy and find his views deplorable, you have to admit that there are some things to be admired - namely his incredible work ethic, mental fortitude / discipline, radical self-responsibility, great storytelling skills, principled nature, and courage to speak his mind. You don't become a world champion kickboxer without strong work ethic, and most people would benefit from more of these things.
With all that being said, one must be careful not to be seduced by his well-articulated confidence to assume that he's right about everything. One of the downsides of this kind of hyper-masculine personality is an overconfidence/arrogance and narrow-mindedness.
First let's recap his background - although he was a champion kickboxer, he actually made his fortune afterwards as an OnlyFan's pimp - hiring girls to live with him and prostitute themselves out on the internet, while he'd give them a small cut of their earnings. Now he has some online course called "Hustlers University" where he presumably teaches men how to make money and get better with girls. He posts content on social media with expensive cars, women, and smoking cigars - trying to paint this image of some teenage boy fantasy to market his courses. There's footage of him on a reality show as a confident 21 year where he plainly states that his goal is to manipulate everyone into voting for him so he can win. He's also had his house in Romania raided after being accused of human trafficking.
His views on women and gender dynamics are, to put it as favorably as possible, very traditional (the "multiple wives" version of traditional). He subscribes to the view that a man's job is to be the boss, breadwinner, and chivalrous (eg. paying all the bills, opening car doors, etc.), and in return the woman is expected to serve and always obey her man, and take care of traditional housewife duties like cooking/cleaning and childbearing. He sees his women as being under his authority, and analogous to his "property", though of course they are free to walk away and leave the relationship at any time. He's stated that he respects women less than men, sees women as inferior, doesn't care his girls' opinions, etc.
Personally I'm not interested in those kinds of relationships because they sound boring to me. I find it more enjoyable to be with someone who I enjoy conversing with because they're fun, intelligent, have some ambition, etc. and I respect their opinion. I could not be in a relationship with a woman who I deem unintelligent and who's opinion I don't respect because that would be incredibly boring to me and feel more like a liability.
That being said, even if I personally don't subscribe to Tate's views on relationships, I can't say there's anything inherently wrong with him pursuing those types of relationships so long as he's transparent about it, the woman knows exactly what she's signing up for, and it's entirely consensual. Some women, as evidenced by his multiple wives, want that kind of arrangement - to not have to worry about money or working beyond traditional housewife duties, and to submit to a dominant leader.
But these type of relationships are definitely not for everyone, and definitely aren't for me. I hope that young impressionable men jaded by woke culture, cancel culture, etc. don't see Andrew Tate as some savior and think that how he lives is how they must aspire to live.
Remember that he got rich being an OnlyFans pimp, so naturally he was surrounded with - to make a huge generalization - the most opportunistic, transactional, jaded, and least intelligent golddigging girls out there. He's also outspokenly wealthy boasting a lavish lifestyle to 2.5 million followers on Instagram, so naturally attracts golddiggers. Being surrounded by these type of gold digging "hot" girls devoid of personality will naturally jade one's perception of women. But step outside of that bubble, and there are plenty of intelligent, interesting women who are more than just coffee serving slampieces.
So let's take the positives - namely his work ethic, mental fortitude, radical self-responsibility, honesty, and confidence - while also acknowledging his flaws and the downsides of hyper-masculinity. The types of relationships he pursues are just one style - probably highly influenced by his experience as an OnlyFans pimp - and are just one style and definitely not for everyone or the end-all-be-all. Not subscribing to his worldview on matters doesn't make you a "beta" - in fact the "beta" thing to do would be to accept everything he says uncritically as gospel and submit to him like his women that he views as inferior.
Some other of my takes on his views:
Money - He seems to promote money worship, which I think is stupid. But at the same time he is a motivator - so his words can be very inspiring to those who want motivation to work harder and have ambitious financial goals. But using money as a mark of one's worth as a human is completely idiotic. Personally I'm a believer that with great power comes great responsibility, and that it is the moral duty of someone with great wealth to better society - not just for their own vapid material hedonistic benefit. Although Tate seems to have done at least one charitable thing (from one video I found), it's obviously a pittance compared to his potential and he's certainly not advertising such selfless noble behavior.
COVID-19 - He hits the nail on the head with this one in his Pomp interview. Obviously he speaks without nuance, but I agree with his general take on this one.
Depression - I agree with most of his views on depression and radical self-responsibility - a view that is generally met with intense criticism in today's overly medicated victim-mindset society where people want to be told that mental health problems are as impossible to fix with your mindset as it would be to cure a physical disease like cancer through mindset alone. But that is just the view I subscribe to and belief benefits me the best, and clearly neither me nor Andrew Tate are mental health experts (to be honest, who really is though?).
Overall his views are a breath of fresh air against the anti-male radical feminism that has been prevalent over the last decade, though again I don't agree with all of his views and he generally lacks nuance. But masculinity has taken such a beating that it's no surprise that a man like this is getting popular. But hopefully it doesn't turn into a Trump like situation where just because he's massively right about some things and against the establishment doesn't mean he's idolized as being right about everything.
Andrew Tate has now been banned on most social media platforms - Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, etc.
Personally I do not believe that blanket banning (canceling) should be allowed on platforms that are so large that they are effectively monopolies of which people's livelihoods are dependent on, unless in extreme situations where these peoples' views cause or promote direct violence or crime (eg. terrorists). I do not believe that Andrew Tate's content falls under the category of promoting violence or crime (and even if it did, it should result in just that video taken down with a warning rather than blanket bans).
As soon as a platform becomes so big that it is essentially a public monopoly, it should be regulated as a public monopoly such as to preserve freedom of speech (again with the caveat that said speech doesn't promote violence). Cancel culture is a massive moral slippery slope and should not be tolerated in a free society.
Social media platforms also need to do better at making sure their algorithms don't radicalize people. Andrew Tate literally won the algorithms of these social media platforms, making it so that if a viewer watched and liked one Andrew Tate video, they'd end up getting bombarded with his content. This is the fault of the social media platforms, and this problem of social media algorithms radicalizing people by only serving them one-sided content is nothing new (eg. Trump, flat earthers).