Andrew Tate has been trending on Twitter on and off for a while, but it has come to a head with his recent detention in Romania for alleged rape and human trafficking. I’ve been following it closely, as in the past few months I’ve been asked to speak at a number of different schools to address Tate’s influence.

Who is Andrew Tate? Before making a fortune as a pimp and pornographer, 36-year-old, American-born, UK-raised Tate was a World Kickboxing Champion and reality TV star. In 2021 he created ‘The Hustler’s University 2.0’ where his target demo of young men aged 13-25 signed up for business and life advice on how to be a real man for $49/month. Perhaps his most impressive talent, however, is his viral marketing prowess. According to an article in The Economist in December 2022, he’s been the most popular influencer among American Gen-Z’ers on Tik-Tok even though he’s been de-platformed from all major social media networks.

Online, Tate is a stereotypical tough guy. He posts videos of fast cars, guns, and he’s also back in the dark ages when it comes to his beliefs about women. There are recordings circulating on YouTube where he talks about slapping and choking women, forced sex, and general commentary that draws from a misconstrued mix of Islam and Old Testament Christianity. He’s openly homophobic, says women shouldn’t drive and that sexually provocative or confident women are haram, an Arabic word meaning forbidden or ungodly. He promotes an outdated idea of manhood, deriding stepfathers for raising other men’s children, and claiming that “depression isn’t real.” In an online world where to cancel culture has the ability to ruin people’s lives for far, far lesser evils, his rise to fame seems to have only been amplified since his ‘cancellation.' I think this highlights that cancel culture doesn’t impact people who don’t care about it’s consequences. Tate’s audiences like him because he’s anti-woke, not in spite of it.

Over the past year, all major social media platforms kicked him off their accounts. Twitter, where he has 4.1 million followers, has since reinstated him with its new amnesty on previously banned accounts. Here he shares his “41 Tennents”, talks about “leaving the Matrix” and preaches that most people are sheep, asleep, who need to take the red pill - a subscription to his program. Tate claims that there are 168,000 enrolled students. Assuming they are paying $49 each, that’s over $8 million a month. Mix in some anti-vax messaging,(“pure bloods only” he says) and he’s become a hero in the culture war for many right-wing and conservative culture warriors. His arrest triggered a deluge of support and claims of a smear campaign from his league of fans.

I’ve been speaking about masculinities, preventing family violence and promoting healthy relationships in schools for years now, and last year I started getting asked to include a segment on Tate specifically. School faculties and parents were seeing the influence Tate was having and they wanted to help students develop more critical filters. It was also an opportunity for me to get curious with the boys and try and understand why he’s so popular and try and understand what makes this man so appealing to these young men. Whilst there is a bountiful stream of critique, he’s hit a nerve at this moment in time where there seems to be a void of confusion for our young men, and I haven’t seen many ask why that is.

I asked Instagram about why people liked him gave me some further some insight.Typical of the replies: “He helps me not care what other people think about me”;“He’s motivated me to go [to the] gym almost every day.” Another teenager said, “I like his views on working hard, being successful, and being a strong, powerful man. He’s also very inspiring and motivational”.Across the responses, there was a general sense that his self-confidence, discipline, focus on hard work, material success and straight talking were the most appealing parts.

Reading what his fans say online, it’s clear to me that boys and men are looking for life advice and guidance. They’re looking for role models. Our ideas around masculinity, the social and traditional expectations on men, are changing, some might say softening and that is a good thing.

However, many of those having conversations about masculinity are entirely unrelatable to young men, and often antagonistic toward them. In a cultural moment where discussions on masculinity are rife, in the culture wars, hashtags like #menaretrash and haughty discussions by activists on male privilege aren’t helping anyone.

Teenage boys aren’t idiots. They spend huge amounts of time online, and they know that young men are dying by suicide, failing in schools and education, and succumbing to diseases of despair and alienation at much higher rates than women. You can call it male fragility or tone policing, but if we want to really bring boys and men into conversations about ending sexism, and creating a healthier, more expansive idea about masculinity (and I really do), we need to talk with them, not at them. Shame is an entirely ineffective vehicle of change for us humans.

Tate’s messaging isn’t just being an ultra-rich, work hard, have no feelings tough guy but also weaves misogyny and homophobia into these themes. Boys and men seem to be willing to either turn a blind eye to this or explain it away, in favor of focusing only on what they think are the beneficial aspects of his messages.

If we want to make positive changes when it comes to masculinity, we can start by role-modeling healthy beliefs and behaviors in our own lives, whether that is as parents, coaches, employers or in other roles. The New Zealand Relationship and Sexuality Education guidelines provide support for schools to have these discussions in their classrooms.

People who want to make positive changes when it comes to masculinity could also highlight the myriad of powerful yet relatable male role models out there, who aren’t blatantly disrespecting women. Point your sons, your friends, or your students toward men who are confident, successful, kind, AND have healthy things to say about relationships. There are loads of great athletes preaching about the need to work hard and overcome adversity, who are active fathers and loving partners. Social media has plenty of men who’ve overcome tough starts in life to be successful and who have great stories to tell that are inspirational. Men like Aotearoa New Zealand’s Junior Fa, Kai Kara France, or America’s Mr. Jason Wilson role model positive ways of showing up in the world as men. Podcasts like “Bro Chats” or Instagram accounts like @forallthebrothers also do a great job showing a broader, healthier idea of masculinity. There are loads of other great voices and role models, the work lies in sharing them.

We have real issues that fall out of a stereotypical, old-fashioned idea of manhood, from suicide to gendered violence and sexual harassment. All these needs addressing, but it’s how we do it that has to change, lest this counter-swing Tate is leading undoes all the hard work of the last few decades.

We must be mindful to call young, impressionable men into the conversation when we do this, not just point out what is wrong. If we truly want change, we need to adjust our approaches accordingly and showcase the strengths and benefits of stepping outside of the Tate Universe, and into a broader, healthier, and happier idea of manhood.