If you somehow miraculously don’t know who Andrew Tate is, he’s a kickboxer-turned-influencer famous for donning the “Alpha male” persona online. However, Tate isn’t just another in the line of many that have tried to teach boys how to be men. His popularity shows he is different and perhaps the truest to what he preaches.
The ‘Top G’ lifestyle
Tate is often seen posing with lavish models, expensive supercars, and mouthfuls of cigars, all while calling himself the “Top G“. While most people initially thought his opinions were simply exaggerated for the camera, over time it has become clear that Tate firmly believes in everything he says. Some of Tate’s less insane opinions include exclusively drinking sparkling water over normal water, preferring steak over sushi, and often countering criticisms by saying “what color is your Bugatti?“. However, these quickly drown in the background once you take in some of the more unorthodox things he’s said. On many occasions, Tate has depicted women as objects, going as far as to say men are simply better than women, no context. He’s also famous for stating a man can have multiple missuses at the same time while a woman should be remain loyal to one man and one man only. In a viral video clip from a podcast appearance, Mr. Tate admitted that he’s “absolutely a misogynist” citing how anyone who’s rooted in reality cannot be not sexist. In a different video, he compared women to dogs, saying, “you can’t be responsible for a dog if it doesn’t obey you“. Andrew Tate’s views on women are further exacerbated by the fact that him and his brother run a “modeling agency” for adult actresses. Apparently, the Tates guide young women wanting to pursue careers on sites like OnlyFans, helping them earn money and rise to fame quickly. The OnlyFans gig was preceded by running a more traditional camgirl agency, where his models would pretend to talk to clients. In actuality, the girls would simply sit in front of the camera while Andrew himself would be on the keyboard typing away. He says he later trained employees to do this in place of him.
Troubled intentions
All that being said, nothing mentioned above comes close to the human trafficking allegations placed on Andrew Tate. Just a few days ago, Tate’s $7-million mansion in Romania was raided on reports of him having kidnapped an American woman, who was allegedly being held hostage inside the house. It should be noted that ultimately nothing became of this and there is no solid ruling on whether the woman was really kidnapped or not, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Regardless, many online have discussed how—considering Tate’s view on and behavior with women—such a thing, shockingly, does not seem out of character for him. Moreover, Andrew Tate was actually part of 2016‘s Big Brother roster where he was kicked out for hitting a female contestant with a belt, and the activity was recorded on there-installed CCTV cameras. Not only that, Tate is also a well-known Trump supporter and MAGA advocate seen interacting with many pro-Trump activists around 2019 in Washington, right before the 2020 Presidential Elections. If even that weren’t enough, Andrew has expressed on many occasions that he has mob ties, possibly being a part of the mafia himself. He owns a few casinos in Romania which, according to him, is not an easy feat as it requires government approval. Tate has highlighted from time to time how corruption is necessary in some aspects of life, especially for a man of his stature. There are several videos online where he has hinted at engaging in getting what he wants through nefarious means. Case in point, Andrew Tate was able to track down a driver, who allegedly almost caused a fatal car accident, in mere hours by putting out a $5000 prize for whoever finds where he lives. The interesting bit here being that he did post about the prize online, rather the whole thing only came to surface when he himself publicly revealed it.
Social media ban
The decision to ban Andrew Tate comes after many banded together to point out Tate’s outlandish takes on social media and how they’re inherently ruining young boys’ mindsets—Andrew’s primary audience. Andrew Tate’s Meta ban wasn’t unforeseen. Millions have been vocal about their dislike for Tate and his perspective on women. While many constituents played their part in this decision, it can be argued that the biggest amount of pressure came from Matt Bernstein‘s (@mattxiv) Instagram post calling out Tate’s misogyny. The post garnered almost 1.5 million likes in just a week.
A post shared by matt bernstein (@mattxiv) Many big-name publications such as the Insider, NBC News, and The Guardian also did stories on Andrew Tate and the dangerous environment he’s created. Clearly, Mr. Tate’s reputation had preceded himself at this point as he was now a global sensation found in every corner of the internet, which made it that much easier to take action against him. Micro-blogging site Twitter had already banned Tate nearly 5 years ago for saying women should bare responsibility for getting raped, along with supporting unprovoked sexual advances on intoxicated women. TikTok also suspended Andrew Tate’s account today and pledged to investigate his presence on the site. This is most likely the first step in order to block all accounts reposting Tate clips, but TikTok first needs solid ground for that. Here’s what a spokesperson from the platform told NPR: YouTube, on the other hand, has provided no word on whether they’re taking action against Andrew Tate or not. Tate does not have an official YouTube channel so that’s already out of the equation, but, just like TikTok, his legion of fans have completely flooded the YouTube Shorts section and there seems to be nothing being done about it. Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company has identified that Tate was banned for violating the platform’s content policies. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out why his content did not fall in line with the company’s standards. However, a simple profile ban isn’t going to stop anything.
Baby steps
Andrew Tate runs a borderline pyramid scheme where students of his online “Hustlers University” are encouraged to repost his clips, videos, and shorts on YouTube and TikTok in order to earn some cash on the side. This way, hundreds upon hundreds of ghost accounts constantly repost Andrew’s messages online, enforcing his ideologies regardless. So, even though, Andrew Tate is essentially ubiquitously banned across all social media platforms, as long as his minions are still clogging up the algorithms with his videos, Tate’s prevalence will go only grow larger. Google, Meta, TikTok, along with other relevant parties would need to mass-ban any and all Tate content in order to truly escape the man’s looming shadow. All while this has been happening, it seems like the man himself, Andew Tate, has been exceptionally calm and collected. In a livestream with Twitch personality Adin Ross, Tate actually understood Instagram’s position and said that his lawyers are in talks to reason with the platform. You can check out his reaction to being banned overnight on social media in the clip below.
