‘Most Toxic Man On The Internet’ Has Millions Of Followers
And Elon Musk’s Blessing
In his ultimate wisdom, Elon Musk has reinstated the Twitter account of a hateful, misogynist influencer and former kickboxer who was booted off a British reality show after pornographic content of him whipping a woman was leaked and who is in a Rumanian prison on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal group.
That is welcome news for the 4.2 million angry, lonely men and like-minded incels who follow self-described alpha male and denizen of the manosphere, Andrew Tate. Known as “the most toxic man on the internet” Tate has famously commented that “women can’t drive,” that 18-year-old women are “more attractive than 25-year-olds because they’ve been through less d***” and that women should “shut the f**k up, have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee.”
Tate also has said that women “bear some responsibility” for being raped and that they are happier “serving men” and should serve men as wives and mothers.
Tate is one example of the manosphere, which includes various forums that promote masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism. Manosphere communities include men’s rights activists, incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pick-up artists (PUA) and fathers’ rights groups. The manosphere overlaps with the far-right and alt-right communities and has been associated with online harassment and radicalizing men into misogynist beliefs and the glorification of violence against women.
So how popular is this unabashed sexist?
In mid-2022 Tate was searched on Google more times than both Donald Trump and COVID-19. Tate topped Google’s 2022 most-searched list in the “who is …” question category and was the eighth top trending person on Google.
Tate first brought his poison to Twitter in 2011, but he was banned in 2017 for violating the terms of service for tweeting about violence against women. At the time of his banishment, Tate had 4.2 million followers. In November, Musk, the new owner of Twitter, reinstated Tate, in the name of free speech and advertising revenues.
Tate’s popularity soared after videos of him began circulating on TikTok. His hashtag, #AndrewTate, has accumulated 12.7 billion views. Tate had a huge Instagram following of 4.6 million before being booted from the social network site. Tate remains banned from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Tate is a common guest on the far right program, InfoWars, hosted by disgraced conspiracist Alex Jones. He also is associated with far right conspiracist Mike Cernovic, a promoter of the bizarre QAnon conspiracy known as Pizzagate, which claims that Democrats run a pedophile sex ring. Cernovich began blogging in the 2000s, focusing on anti-feminist themes. He made a number of inflammatory comments about dating and sexual assault, including the claim that date rape “does not exist.”
Another associate of Tate is Jack Posobiec, a conspiracist and provocateur who has used white supremacist and antisemitic symbols and talking points. He also claims to believe in the Pizzagate conspiracy.
And last Tate is an associate of Paul Joseph Watson, a British far right radio personality who was banned from Facebook in 2019 for violation of hate speech policies. Last May, the Southern Poverty Law Center published an account of a recording apparently of Watson at a party saying, “I really think you should press the button to wipe Jews off the face of the Earth” and making other homophobic and racist comments, such as, “I care about white people and not sand nigger Paki Jew faggot coons.”
Tate is a strong supporter of former President trump and increased his right wing popularity when he with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in August 2017.
The 36-year-old kickboxer turned Internet provocateur gained headlines last week when he foolishly decided to take on Greta Thunberg, the 19-year-old, world famous, climate activist. In an effort to ridicule Thunberg’s crusade to stop climate change, Tate bragged about his collection of 33 supercars and requested her email address so he could send a “complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”
Thunberg answered back, “yes, please do enlighten me.” She then shared a fake email address at which to reach her: “smalldickenergy@getalife.com.” Tate responded with a video as he was holding a pizza box from Jerry’s Pizza, a chain popular in Romania. He was arrested within days in Romania and charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal group. It was not known if authorities discovered Tate from seeing the pizza box.
The climate activist had a sharp Twitter reply in a tweet that has been viewed more than 259 million times.
“This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes,” Thunberg tweeted.
But how fast the rich fall.
Tate was born in the U.S. and moved to the United Kingdom after his parents divorced. He moved to Romania in 2017. A Romanian court on Dec. 30, 2022 ordered Tate and his brother, Tristan, held for 30 days after they were charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal group.
The jail where the brothers are being held is not exactly up to the level of their lavish lifestyle on the outside. The facility has not been identified but a study by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment slammed jails in the country. Under Romanian laws, prisoners are allowed just one hour a day of “outdoor recreation” and most prisoners stay locked up for 23 hours a day.
“Material conditions in all the prisons visited were generally poor, with cells dilapidated, lacking equipment (storage space, tables and chairs), and mattresses and bedding worn out and infested with bed bugs and cockroaches,” the report said.
The report details “several allegations of physical ill-treatment including sexual abuse by staff and raises serious concerns over the lack of recording of injuries by the health-care service and failures to investigate allegations effectively.”
Romanian authorities seized 11 of the Tate brothers’ collection of 33 super cars from their Pipera mansion. Among the vehicles, authorities grabbed a Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Ferraris, Porches, a Mercedes B63 Brabus and a rare Bugatti Chiron, worth $4.3 million. The Tates’ 2,000 sqare meter mansion includes an indoor pool, movie theater and a giant chessboard in tribute to the brothers’ late father Emory Tate, an international chess master.
“The four suspects… appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites for a cost,” said a statement from the Romanian court.
The women were allegedly subjected to “physical violence and mental coercion through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and invoking alleged debts.” Women working at the sex cam business allegedly had Andrew Tate’s name tattooed on them.
Andrew Tate claimed the arrest was part of a fictional Matrix, a force trapping humanity in a dystopian future.
“My unmatched perspicacity coupled with sheer indefatigability makes me a feared opponent in any realm of human endeavor,” Tate tweeted. “For every domain the Matrix shuts down, we have dozens ready to replace it.”
Tate has claimed that he became a multi-millionaire through a “webcam studio” he created in Romania.
“My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together,” the website read.
In an interview with the British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, Tate and his brother also acknowledged that their adult webcam business employs lingerie-clad models who join in chat sessions with men. The models often claim to be downtrodden, convincing the callers to send money. Chats cost $4 per hour.
The callers, known as “punters,” have paid out thousands of dollars believing they are in relationships with the women.
“…if a model says she has a sick dog or a sick grandma it doesn’t have to be true. The next is that all cash given to models is ‘a voluntary sign of gratitude for their time broadcasting’,” Andrew Tate said.
In 2016, Andrew Tate was fired from the 17th season of the British reality show, “Big Brother,” after a video surfaced showing Tate hitting a woman with a belt. In a statement, Tate and the woman said the actions in the video were consensual.
In one of his videos Tate said he was not a rapist, “but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want.”
He said he moved to Romania because the believed it might be easier to evade rape charges. In another video, he described how he would react if a woman accused him of cheating, saying, “It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck.”
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has publicly defended the kickboxer’s comments.
“Lots of mean things are being written about Andrew Tate but we have learned over time to trust our own experience,” Carlson said in an August show. “Don’t believe what you hear, go straight to the source. They’re telling us he’s a criminal. Okay. Has he been charged? Who are the victims? What are their names?”
At the time, the Tates had not yet been arrested. Carlson focused on Andrew Tate’s ban from various social media platforms and called him the “most censored man in the world.”
“No one gets to tell you who you can watch. No one gets to tell you what you have to think. No one gets to tell you who you have to hate. You’re an American, and an adult; you can make those decisions yourself,” said Carlson.
Tate also founded Hustler’s University, an online “academy” where members pay a $49.99 monthly membership fee in exchange for advice on how to make a passive income from several online industries.
Women’s groups, like White Ribbon, a charity that works to end male violence against women, said that Tate’s tweets and videos have real negative effects, particularly on young boys and men.
“Men and boys regularly watching and listening to negative presentations of masculinity may begin to adopt these attitudes and behaviors, believing that they are acting as the ‘ideal man’,” the charity said. “This relates to being seen as tough, aggressive and suppressing emotion. 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.”