There Are No Girls on the Internet - Andrew Tate is a scammer

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00:00:37.800 844-844-iheart i survived nine months in captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people

00:00:46.160 survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files

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00:00:58.480 nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The

00:01:04.500 Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

00:01:10.380 get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality,

00:01:15.860 welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone

00:01:21.660 who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week,

00:01:26.180 we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture

00:01:29.220 with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:01:34.000 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:01:35.760 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:45.760 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:49.540 i'm bridget todd and this is there are no girls on the internet

00:01:56.680 social media platforms like tiktok and facebook have finally banned violent misogynistic scam

00:02:05.300 influencer andrew tate and honestly it should have happened sooner now if you don't know who

00:02:10.660 andrew tate is don't worry he went from being relatively obscure to seemingly being everywhere

00:02:16.180 on social media within a few months. Videos featuring his name as a hashtag have been viewed

00:02:20.820 over 13 billion times. And before it was shut down, his TikTok account had over 11 billion views.

00:02:27.580 He had 4 million Twitter followers, 4.7 million Instagram followers, almost 800,000 YouTube

00:02:33.160 subscribers, and millions and millions of clicks and shares across Facebook. So who is Andrew Tate?

00:02:40.080 Well, Andrew Tate is kind of like Joe Rogan on steroids.

00:02:44.400 Just like Rogan, at one time, Andrew Tate was a professional martial artist.

00:02:48.680 And also like Rogan, Andrew Tate did a stint in reality television.

00:02:53.020 Tate was on Big Brother in 2016, where he was known for being really respectful and thoughtful of others.

00:02:59.480 Oh, wait, sorry, just kidding.

00:03:01.600 It says here he was actually known for homophobia and violence against women.

00:03:05.820 After a video surfaced where he was beating a woman with a belt while screaming at her, 1.00

00:03:10.760 quote, if you ever message another guy, whether we're together or not, you're fucking dead. 0.99

00:03:16.160 Tate was kicked off Big Brother after only being on the show for six days. 0.99

00:03:20.740 Andrew Tate's podcast is called Tate Speech.

00:03:24.660 And it's basically exactly what you think it is.

00:03:28.400 He's part of what we call the Manosphere,

00:03:30.120 a loosely connected ecosystem of online websites and influencers

00:03:34.240 that traffic in misogyny and racism

00:03:36.980 on places like 4chan and Reddit.

00:03:39.280 If you listened to our episode with Laura Bates,

00:03:42.000 a researcher and writer who went undercover in the manosphere

00:03:44.880 to research her book, Men Who Hate Women,

00:03:47.360 then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

00:03:49.800 So Andrew Tate's whole thing is these clips of him speaking on his podcast,

00:03:54.580 wearing sunglasses indoors, you know, like you do,

00:03:57.480 and smoking a cigar while he basically says 0.94

00:03:59.580 the most violent sexist nonsense that makes him sound like an alpha male. 0.94

00:04:04.240 Like, here is his take on why he is anti-breakfast. 0.97

00:04:08.260 This is an actual quote from him.

00:04:34.240 times of my life, the pain and the heartache. Some mornings, if I try, I can almost cry.

00:04:39.960 I take all that anguish and pain and then add a little nicotine and caffeine to set my blood on

00:04:44.220 fire, and I enter the world ready to win life or die while I'm trying. Angry men siege nations.

00:04:50.560 I don't have time for Cheerios. The universe will pay me what she owes me. All the money and power

00:04:55.660 I deserve. So yeah, sounds pretty healthy. Definitely sounds like someone who has got a

00:05:03.020 healthy start to the day and encouraging others to do the same. Andrew Tate's brand of hyper-violence,

00:05:08.980 toxic hyper-masculinity, and misogyny basically says that women are property of men. This is

00:05:14.160 something that he's actually said. And he advocates for men using violence in relationships.

00:05:19.240 He outright said that if a woman ever asked him about cheating, he would physically attack her.

00:05:23.940 In a really good piece for Grid, reporter Christian Thorsberg spoke to Josh Rose,

00:05:28.580 a political sociologist and senior research fellow at Deakin University in Melbourne.

00:05:33.020 who says that Tate represents a dramatic shift taking place in online misogyny,

00:05:37.600 moving beyond the sexualization and dismissal of women,

00:05:40.580 which much of Tate's material promotes,

00:05:42.500 to also encouraging gendered hate and violence.

00:05:45.840 So basically, it's not just men are better than women,

00:05:49.200 it's men are better than women,

00:05:50.720 and therefore men should be able to use violence

00:05:53.480 in service of establishing and maintaining that hierarchy.

00:05:57.340 And this is even more troubling when you consider that

00:05:59.760 the majority of Tate's audience are young men and boys. Teachers have been writing about how

00:06:06.360 Andrew Tate's popularity with boys has been creating problems and disturbances in their

00:06:11.000 classrooms. So Tate is popular with boys, but he's also really popular with young men who are just 0.55

00:06:16.600 starting to navigate their way into young adulthood. Going back to Roos from that grid piece,

00:06:22.700 Roos also said, if you want to know where Andrew Tate is gaining traction, it's more likely to be

00:06:27.580 the white-collar sector among educated younger men who work out at gyms on the weekend or after

00:06:32.920 work. Younger men are more likely to hold anti-women attitudes in terms of women's rights,

00:06:38.200 that women's rights has gone too far. So on top of all this, Andrew Tate is also a scammer. Let's

00:06:44.900 get that straight right away. He used to operate a porn webcam business with his brother that his

00:06:50.520 brother outright described as, quote, a big scam. But that scam is actually the least scammy scam

00:06:57.440 that Andrew Tate is involved in. Because his whole thing, his whole ethos, his whole identity

00:07:03.060 is a scam. So I've actually written about the ways that misogynistic podcasters and content

00:07:08.960 creators and influencers who make up the manosphere are all basically just scamming.

00:07:13.960 They prey on men and boys with low media literacy who may feel lonely. They get into their heads

00:07:20.080 and convince them to send over money.

00:07:23.140 Podcasts like Fit and Fresh,

00:07:25.040 The Late Kevin Samuels,

00:07:26.600 they all basically convince young men and boys

00:07:28.740 to send them lots and lots of money

00:07:30.840 or give them lots and lots of engagement

00:07:33.180 in service of learning how to become high value men.

00:07:36.960 I actually wrote a piece on this for The Nation,

00:07:40.440 talking about the Fresh and Fit podcast,

00:07:42.160 which you can read in the show notes.

00:07:45.240 Let's take a quick break.

00:07:50.080 The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers, now at McDonald's.

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00:08:06.480 This product may not be right for you.

00:08:07.840 High in caffeine.

00:08:08.480 Details at mcdonalds.ca and participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec.

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00:08:42.200 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:08:48.120 This is Prose Society.

00:08:50.080 The weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:09:00.600 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

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00:09:40.240 See you between the pages.

00:09:41.420 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:09:48.220 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:09:54.580 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:09:58.280 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:10:03.700 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:10:06.360 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:10:10.880 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:10:15.340 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:10:22.960 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:10:26.860 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:10:30.320 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:10:33.440 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:10:46.980 And we're back.

00:10:48.920 So let's talk about Andrew Tate's scam specifically.

00:10:51.980 It is called Hustlers University, where for the low, low cost of $50 a month, men and boys can learn about cryptocurrency from three guys named Michael, Adam and Daniel, no last name given, and learn about just the general concept of, quote, freelancing from Dylan and Colston, no last name given.

00:11:14.320 Also, given that Andrew Tate's audience mostly includes young men and boys, don't worry.

00:11:20.320 According to Hustlers University's Frequently Asked Questions, it is not a problem if you

00:11:24.860 are not a legal adult, because they have plenty of young guys inside of Hustlers University

00:11:29.560 who are below 18 and are pulling in several thousand dollars a month.

00:11:33.560 Do you have access to the internet?

00:11:35.140 That's all you need.

00:11:36.580 By the way, this is a little bit nitpicky, but I just have to say it.

00:11:39.660 On the Hustlers University website, Frequently Asked Questions, it says that you do not need

00:11:44.400 any money to start because most of the Hustlers University students are doing freelance work,

00:11:50.180 and that freelance work does not require any money to do. Take it from an actual honest-to-God

00:11:55.480 freelancer, this is just incorrect financial advice. You absolutely need money to freelance,

00:12:01.920 and when their tax bill comes, I hope the people who were told that they need zero dollars to

00:12:06.900 freelance are not surprised when the government expects him to pay self-employment taxes. So again,

00:12:13.140 you can see how he's kind of preying on people who might not have a lot of financial literacy

00:12:18.000 or media literacy, and it's awful. And it gets worse because guess what? The entire thing is

00:12:24.160 basically a pyramid scheme. Like most pyramid schemes, the courses aren't really the thing.

00:12:30.660 The thing is getting others to sign up for the courses.

00:12:34.600 Students of the program got a commission for convincing other dupes to join via affiliate marketing.

00:12:40.900 So just like LuLaRoe and every other MLM scam that somebody from your high school messaged you about on Facebook,

00:12:47.300 who was all like, hey, hon, have you ever thought about starting your own business?

00:12:51.540 I think you would really slay at it.

00:12:53.560 It's a scam.

00:12:54.980 And honestly, probably a lucrative one.

00:12:57.900 According to the Daily Beast, the program had some 109,000 members before its closure.

00:13:04.220 And this is actually why you might know who Tate is.

00:13:07.520 Because Tate specifically told his students to flood social media with videos of his content to promote his scam university.

00:13:14.580 According to Hope Not Hate, a UK-based advocacy group that uses research to challenge mistrust and racism,

00:13:21.120 Tate tells his supporters they can earn significant sums by sharing his videos.

00:13:25.100 In one podcast, he claimed that a 16-year-old Hustler University student was making £45,000 a month from publishing his clips on the TikTok, which is basically how he gamified the program.

00:13:38.080 Even though he's banned from TikTok, his content is still really prevalent there because his students just flood the space with his content.

00:13:45.740 And I think he definitely is someone who needs social media.

00:13:49.460 He's just gaming the algorithms because he knows that algorithms specifically boost inflammatory content.

00:13:56.140 They will always give content that is inflammatory or divisive more engagement.

00:14:01.040 Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter back in 2017 over a thread commenting on Harvey Weinstein,

00:14:06.360 where he said, quote, if you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility. 0.97

00:14:11.860 I'm not saying it's OK you got raped. 0.60

00:14:14.220 And TikTok took down Andrew Tate's account for breaking its policies regarding, quote, 0.92

00:14:18.900 content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against or otherwise dehumanizes an individual or group,

00:14:24.200 based on attributes including sex.

00:14:26.260 This is what a TikTok spokesperson told the Washington Post.

00:14:28.560 He was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram for violating the rules around dangerous organizations and individuals.

00:14:35.200 But, as always, let's not give the platforms too much credit.

00:14:39.880 Pretty much whenever they decide to remove somebody who is dangerous from their platform or make any kind of policy change like this,

00:14:46.820 it's typically because of the work of organizers who have been pushing them behind the scenes.

00:14:50.660 And this time it's no different.

00:14:52.740 Hope Not Hate filed a petition for platforms to drop Andrew Tate and has been monitoring him for years.

00:14:57.720 So great job to all the organizers who did the work behind the scenes to make this happen.

00:15:03.180 But also what we learned from how Alex Jones uses Facebook,

00:15:06.900 You might remember that Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened so that even after Alex Jones was banned from Facebook, he carved out a loophole so that other people could still post his content on the platform.

00:15:18.020 Even though Tate has been banned from these platforms, it might not actually even really matter if his whole thing is having other people, his students, post his content on his behalf.

00:15:29.260 And I also should just probably note that in April, the Daily Beast reported that Andrew Tate's house in Romania was raided as part of an investigation into crimes of human trafficking and rape.

00:15:40.120 Tate lives in Romania, and in a now-deleted YouTube video, he said that 40% of the reason why he moved there is because Romanian police were less likely to pursue sexual assault allegations.

00:15:50.800 So yeah, you tell me.

00:15:53.400 And to me, Andrew Tate represents the mainstreaming

00:15:56.500 of really violent, dangerous ideas and rhetoric.

00:15:59.560 And those things, you know, not just being fringe,

00:16:02.640 but flooding popular social media apps like TikTok.

00:16:06.640 Tate is also treated like a thought leader.

00:16:08.780 He's given a huge platform by popular podcasts like Barstool,

00:16:13.100 which gives him a huge audience of young men and boys

00:16:15.800 and hosts who really don't push back

00:16:18.200 on any of the dangerous things that he's saying. 0.91

00:16:20.920 And overall, like I've said time and time again, these people are all scam artists.

00:16:25.760 They do not care about their audience.

00:16:27.280 They do not care about the men and boys that they're talking to.

00:16:29.620 They do not care about the students of their so-called universities.

00:16:33.100 To them, these men and boys and their pain and loneliness and anger is just a tool that can be exploited and weaponized to make more cash. 1.00

00:16:42.380 It is the most cynical, exploitative shit in the world. 0.99

00:16:45.580 And it works. 0.99

00:16:47.160 Listen, to be clear, I am not against people asking tough questions and having the thorny, meaty conversations about relationships, sex, and gender.

00:16:56.420 In fact, I believe that we need more people spearheading those conversations in meaningful and thoughtful ways.

00:17:02.480 But Andrew Tate is not actually interested in men and boys having healthy relationships, because people who are in healthy relationships do not send over $50 a month to a charlatan to teach them how to be high-value, successful men.

00:17:17.900 People like Tate need to keep their audience of men and boys angry.

00:17:21.580 They need to stoke their feelings of loneliness and inadequacy and anger and tell them to keep pointing those feelings at women so they keep shelling over more money.

00:17:31.140 So this is my call to everyone listening.

00:17:33.640 If you have a young man or boy in your life,

00:17:36.100 talk to them about what kind of content they're consuming.

00:17:38.880 Talk to them about what they think about women and girls.

00:17:41.120 And you honestly might be surprised.

00:17:44.500 And it really, really matters.

00:17:46.760 The implications are huge.

00:17:48.640 Here's how Laura Bates, author of Men Who Hate Women,

00:17:51.540 put it during our interview.

00:17:53.340 We've never really seen it

00:17:54.720 because we're at kind of hovering on the edge

00:17:57.080 of the first real generation coming of age

00:18:00.320 who have lived their whole lives on social media we have this kind of unique political moment that

00:18:06.180 never really gets picked up on this I find it wild that we're living at this moment in history

00:18:10.300 it's never happened before and will never happen again and yet it's never really discussed where

00:18:14.940 a generation of non-digital natives is parenting and educating a generation of digital natives

00:18:20.060 and there is this chasm there this huge gap in culture and understanding of what their world is

00:18:25.220 like what the day-to-day landscape of their online world is like amongst parents who grew up in a

00:18:30.320 pre-internet age. And that generation will be coming of age. And what will that look like when

00:18:35.260 our political representatives are being drawn from a generation who have literally grown up with the

00:18:41.040 sheer daily bombardment of racism and misogyny and transphobia that comes with living your life

00:18:47.120 on the internet in the way that young people do today. And I don't think we'll know what that 0.59

00:18:51.100 looks like until we get there. And I think when we do, it will be a shock. But for now, Andrew Tate,

00:18:57.040 good riddance. And if this means I have to see one last video of a guy wearing sunglasses inside

00:19:03.260 and smoking a cigar on my For You page, I'll take it. If you're looking for ways to support

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00:19:17.780 thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoti.com. You can also

00:19:22.640 find transcripts for today's episode at tangoti.com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created 1.00

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00:19:49.500 i survived nine months in captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what

00:20:03.020 should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files every week i'm

00:20:09.480 with survivors who live through the unthinkable abducted stalked controlled and nearly silenced

00:20:15.800 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:20:19.820 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app,

00:20:24.420 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:20:27.740 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality,

00:20:31.940 welcome home.

00:20:33.500 Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club,

00:20:36.660 part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island

00:20:39.700 deserve the same level of discourse.

00:20:41.740 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture.

00:20:45.300 with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:20:50.060 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:20:51.840 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:20:58.060 I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.

00:21:02.380 You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy.

00:21:07.560 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out.

00:21:14.380 You're not hired just to fill time and space.

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00:21:20.380 Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:28.220 I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 3 podcast.

00:21:32.700 This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families.

00:21:37.740 It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.

00:21:43.460 Cindy said, I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth.

00:21:49.280 Listen to Season 3 of Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:57.880 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - August 27, 2022

Andrew Tate is a scammer

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