Disclaimer: The views shared by Andrew Tate and his community are not the opinions shared by The Quill or Mount St. Joseph High School.
After a brief stint with fame, self-proclaimed hustler Andrew Tate has been banned on most social media due to concern for his preaching towards young men. Tate is a 35-year-old British-American who rose to prevalence with his polarizing opinions on masculinity, especially in male teenagers. His ban sent waves throughout the internet as the former kickboxer completely dominated the online world this summer. Posting his final video to Vimeo, the only available video platform after his ban, Tate solemnly said that many of his quotes were wrongly taken out of context and that his eradication would leave a “black hole.”
Now that a few weeks have passed since his defeat and the dust has settled, we can question how Tate grew to such infamy and whether or not his ban was rational.
Anyone who was on the internet this summer knew that Tate was everywhere, rapidly building a fanbase of young fans that knew him as the “Top G.” Fan accounts were reposting his debatable opinions, such as that depression isn’t real or that men need to “man up.” Content creators voiced their disagreements with him, and commenters were split entirely. Others think his controversial speeches are stunts to gain more traction for his “Hustler’s University” program since many of Tate’s sermons contain harmless motivational advice. An example of this is in his quote, “Close your eyes. Focus on making yourself feel excited and powerful. Imagine yourself destroying goals with ease.”
The bigger problem is Tate does not only make controversial claims about the mindset and hard-workingness of young men but how disrespectfully they should treat women. He has said many times that women should be submissive to men; a more recent interview sees Tate admitting that he loves women but thinks they cannot fulfill the same roles that a man could, and vice versa. It is important to understand that Andrew Tate’s ideas when it comes to gender roles are sexist and harmful to listeners.
Tate began his empire shortly after his failure to reach success on the reality series Big Brother in 2016; he began to overflow his pockets with money from crypto and casinos, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to expand his brand. By 2022, Tate had set up online learning programs such as “The War Room” and “Hustler’s University,” teaching money-making strategies through the online platform Discord. Costing $49 per month, H.U. taught the strategies of crypto, e-commerce, copywriting, stocks, affiliate, and freelance. Although receiving negative reviews from professionals, the “college” still thrives with over 100,000 members.
The critical success of Hustler’s University comes from the affiliate program, which tasked students to find somebody else’s product and advertise it for their own financial gain. Many enrolled simply advertised Tate’s products by flooding TikTok with clips and edits of his finest quotes. A viral video in which Tate recounts his response “what color is your Bugatti” to a hater gained millions of views. These short but iconic videos not only made thousands for Tate but attracted a mass of impressionable young men to his brand. While the program is currently paused due to Tate’s ban, he is creating a 3.0 version which should only achieve a far higher level of success.
However, after his ban, one could argue that it is harder for him to network himself online. It seems as if the showrunners of social media want to keep Tate’s ideologies from young men. They, and many others on the internet, believe that his idea of “grow up” masculinity is harmful to our newer generations. A separate group defends him and his vision of a return to a more polar traditional masculinity. This minority argues that his ban was unfair, as anyone on the internet has a right to their own opinion. The season-spanning incident this summer may seem like a loss for Andrew Tate. Still, his message to the world about the unreliability and chaos of modern masculinity has left a massive mark on the internet.
