December 22, 2022 - 4:01pm
Andrew Tate is an unlikely beneficiary of cancel culture. His fame has grown immensely after media reports of him being banned from various platforms, and when his Twitter account was reinstated a month ago he gained a million followers in 24 hours. In an uncanny twist, he’s now becoming a fixture on Right-leaning talk shows, pontificating on topics far beyond his usual ‘manosphere’ remit.
His recent appearances on GB News and Piers Morgan Uncensored see him cover topics ranging from Harry and Meghan to the UK nurses’ strike. Much of what he has said in his recent interviews is considered common sense by a significant portion of the public, such as the idea that “England is one of the least racist nations on the planet” and that society values men based on “how useful” they are. He has also touched on London being poorly run, as well as the issue of online death threats being taken less seriously by the police than a transgender person who is addressed with the wrong pronouns.
So far, so normal. These are the kinds of soundbites that TV talking heads wheel out all the time, and Tate is no less articulate or persuasive than your average on-screen rent-a-gob. If anything, he might be more relatable. At a time when the mainstream media has lost touch with the concerns and perspectives of everyday people, Tate’s has become a compelling voice.
The former professional kickboxer first became notorious for his blatantly misogynistic and otherwise outrageous statements, while simultaneously establishing himself as an online influencer running the so-called ‘Hustler’s University’. This alleged scam of a course targets young men seeking answers and motivation in a world that often appears hostile to them. However, the subscription-based programme, like his latest venture ‘The Real World’, is unlikely to help anyone accumulate wealth, apart from Tate himself.
In his first interview with Piers Morgan the online personality was mostly on the defensive, trying to justify his past controversial statements. The latest conversation with Morgan, however, allowed Tate to showcase himself as a more moderate talking head. He referred to himself as a “bastion of free speech”, a “bastion of masculinity” and a “force for truth”. This is the kind of language that resonates with followers of outspoken conservatives in the US, such as Matt Walsh or Candace Owens.
Is Tate aiming to establish himself as a formally uneducated yet streetwise version of Jordan Peterson, driven by a genuine desire to help young men? Or could this recent rebrand be nothing more than a clever marketing move to try and attract more subscribers for the products he’s selling? Despite Tate’s insistence that he wants to be a force for good, the latter option is more likely.
Yet if he continues to successfully navigate the convergence of the online world and the mainstream media, not everyone will see through him. Just as Peterson has gone from an authoritative voice on his specialism, clinical psychology, to an increasingly dogmatic figure happy to weigh in on subjects as varied as the Ukraine war and the supposed authoritarianism of modern beauty standards, Tate may well follow suit. Whether this development is beneficial for western culture is another question altogether.
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SubscribeExtremely tedious
I could only listen to this reptile for under 10 minutes, so perhaps the host challenged his ludicrous speech later in the episode. Steve Jobs was not a monarch and was fired from Apple in the first half of his career. When he died, Tim Cook took over the company… not Jobs’ first born male. Apple didn’t invent the smartphone, it made a more popular one because Jobs was a critical consumer who only wanted to make products he would use. Bernie Madoff was a monarch, Harvey Weinstein was a monarch, Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers was a monarch. Where are their companies today? China is not an example of monarchy. All of its development was fueled by foreign investment that sought to exploit cheap labor. Wall Street bottom line thinking was the key to China’s economy; and executives at Apple, Meta, Google etc. all bow at the feet of powerful venture capitalists and stockholders.
If Unherd thinks that this sort of thing is intellectually edgy, they have got another think coming. I don’t know what one would call Yarvin’s scattered, random referencing, but it is not thinking.
Lost me at minute one with “Democracy and politics mean the same thing”. Plainly they do not.
Flo !!
Bit of a rambler Curtis! Reminds me of trying to keep track of Jordan Peterson. Am 30 mins into this so far, need to walk the dog…Well done the interviewer – whose name I cannot remember or find anywhere ?! – for challenging him in some of his more patronising moments, although the last question she asked I actually have lost track of whether he answered it or not and I think he lost track too haha