00:01:48.440An entire ecosystem of extremist content creators in what's commonly known as the Manosphere are gamifying the Internet to line their pockets and putting all of us at risk in the process.
00:01:59.840So the Manosphere is this umbrella term that a lot of different misogynistic activists, commentators kind of fall under.
00:02:10.160Whether that be someone like a men's rights activist, a pickup artist, a blogger, a podcaster, pretty much anyone whose main deal is misogyny, that falls under the manosphere.
00:02:24.740Justin Horowitz has been researching viral extremist influencers with Media Matters since 2020.
00:02:31.100So a lot of this content really seems to prey on the fears and vulnerabilities of young men.
00:02:37.100Like, you're not working out as hard as all the other men around you, or you're never going to get a date, or you spend a lot of time alone at home instead of being out.
00:02:47.660I think that that is a great gateway to get to talk about misogyny and hate and to push extremism.
00:02:56.200So something like fitness content or something like whether that be gambling or even gaming, some of these manosphere influencers are involved in.
00:03:04.800It is just a way to get people to log on, to subscribe to their content so that they can push further extremism and further misogyny down the road.
00:03:15.240And kind of going off of what you just said, a lot of these manosphere influencers do talk about sort of the real fears that men are experiencing.
00:03:24.880So things like financial instability or rejection, dating advice.
00:03:30.900There's not a lot of influencers that speak to these real fears of young men that are outside the manosphere.
00:03:38.380So I think that young men are particularly interested in these influencers because there's not that many to choose from.
00:03:45.900And when these are the ones that are available, that's who they'll spend their time listening to, unfortunately.
00:03:50.880That's such a bummer because there are men and women and all kinds of folks who make content about like for young people. Right. But the content that we get that we see amplified on social media is never the person who's making a podcast, digging into the doing a thoughtful dig in about like the nuances of dating in 2023 for young men or the realities of economic stability.
00:04:15.520Like that would be content that people would be looking for.
00:04:42.140So what they're seeing are these TikTok clips of someone saying something that is extremely misogynist, but maybe they'll have someone that is there to give a retort.
00:04:52.020But that's just one way to get people sort of involved or get their eyes on it.
00:04:56.440So these manosphere influencers, they just have a, they're honestly very, they're very good at the internet.
00:05:04.220And it's the same way that Andrew Tate was able to, you know, make sure that everybody on the internet knew who he was.
00:05:10.900He was the most Googled person last year.
00:05:14.060They're just very good at being able to play the internet game, play the virality game.
00:05:20.180These creators are gamifying our internet landscape by cranking out moments designed for social media virality and incentivizing their followers to share them online.
00:05:30.360As part of Andrew Tate's Real World app, Tate promises that subscribers who pay $50 a month for the app can make millions by reposting his clips on social media sites.
00:05:40.600That's why platforms like TikTok are flooded with his toxic, harmful messages.
00:05:45.540More and more of these creators, like the Fresh and Fit podcast and the Whatever podcast, are doing similar things.
00:05:54.240Honestly, it's really impressive, and it's kind of scary as well.
00:05:56.980It is scary, especially with Andrew Tate.
00:05:59.980I mean, what, like, something that I see a lot with when it comes to these podcasts, I use that in quotes because as a podcaster, I have some, like, issues with how they're pod, well, that's either here nor there.
00:06:13.620But, you know, it'll be these viral moments where they'll get, you know, like Fresh and Vit does this a lot, where they'll have a black woman on the show, seemingly just to degrade and humiliate her.
00:06:25.520and maybe this woman will shrink and sit silently while they do this.
00:06:29.960Maybe she will say something back.1.00
00:06:44.060Is that sort of what you mean by the way they're able to play social media algorithms
00:06:47.560to ensure that their content is always getting that high engagement
00:06:51.760and thus we're going to see more and more of it?
00:06:53.320Yes, that is exactly what I mean. They are able to find that 10 second clip of them degrading someone or making sure that they look a fool just so that they can get people's eyes on them. And then you give them a follow and then you go to their actual podcast and you see it's three hours long of horrible misogyny.0.94
00:07:10.520Like I said, it is really just like a gateway. Some of these viral clips are just a gateway to get people more involved in the manosphere community. And I saw it, like you said, with Fresh and Fit. There are other podcasts like the Whatever Dating podcast, huge on TikTok. My colleague Sophie and I recently did a piece on them as well.
00:07:31.340It's pretty much a fresh and fit knockoff.
00:07:33.520But, you know, it's just their own twist on it.
00:07:36.660But they really got our attention at Media Matters because of their viral moments that we were seeing on TikTok that was just popping up in our feeds.
00:07:45.580God, it's interesting that these are often like dating or lifestyle podcasts because I don't know how to put this, but I had so I was home over the weekend and I was spending time with a family member who I was really surprised to learn.
00:08:01.040enjoys Andrew Tate content. And I was like, what is it that you like about him? And he was like,
00:08:05.900well, I just see the clips on social media, like the clips on Instagram where he's driving a Bugatti
00:08:10.400and he's talking about how important it is to grind. And he was saying how like nobody's really
00:08:14.320giving that message today that it's important to grind. I was like, well, I don't know about that.
00:08:17.720And then I was like, oh, so do you listen to his podcast Tate speech? And he was like, no,
00:08:21.660I tried to. It's like three hours long of him rambling. And like, none of that appeals to me.
00:08:26.340And I found it so interesting that this person in my life, who I think of as like a smart with it person, was taken by these short clips to the point where they would defend this person not having dived deeper into any of their longer form content or had tried to but could not get through it.
00:09:23.320So what people are doing is they're looking up to these people.
00:09:26.060It becomes very, very easy to defend someone when you want to be them.
00:09:30.760Creators like Andrew Tate are notorious for being really good at getting around bans on social media platforms.
00:09:36.580Content that uses dog whistles or codes are not always detected.
00:09:40.480And even when individual creators are banned, their followers can still post their content.
00:09:45.360This is how Tate gets around being banned from pretty much every social media platform out there, except Twitter.
00:09:51.080When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he let Andrew Tate back on the platform,
00:09:55.120and the two sometimes publicly interact.
00:09:57.540And when Musk was touting payments for people who post on Twitter,
00:10:00.980Andrew Tate proudly bragged that he got $20,000.
00:10:05.240What's also interesting to me is the role that you say social media plays in this.
00:10:09.000Some of these influencers, like Andrew Tate, who was famously banned from, like, all platforms.
00:10:13.740Like, I don't even think he's on Pinterest.
00:10:15.360And then he was famously not just let back on when Elon Musk took over at Twitter, but as of last week, being paid like $20,000 to stay on Twitter and make content.
00:10:27.440Other influencers that you've written about, like Sneeko, these are people who have technically been banned from platforms, yet I see their content all the time.
00:10:41.320So a lot of these tech platforms, they are not good at knowing who is evading their bans.
00:10:47.100And, you know, people at Media Matters, we write about these kind of ban evasions.
00:10:51.200But it's also about some of these influencers are going to these, like, alt platforms.
00:10:57.140We're talking about, like, Rumble, of course, Parler, when that was a thing, Gab, all of the Twitter knockoffs, all Twitter, the plethora of those.
00:11:07.200But people are bringing their audiences from these mainstream platforms.
00:11:12.320Let's say Sneeko was brought back on Twitter.
00:11:14.820He can tell all of his Twitter followers to go follow him on Rumble, which is like a knockoff YouTube pretty much for the all right.
00:11:23.160And what they can do is they can build huge audiences on these platforms.
00:11:27.420And then they can find other influencers that are on Rumble.
00:11:30.260And then it just kind of becomes this rabbit hole that people go down.
00:11:33.940Once you're on Rumble, you can find all these other Rumble influencers.
00:11:37.980So it's really about a way to get, like, all of your followers into one place.
00:11:43.600And, like, these influencers are really good at that.
00:11:45.760They're really good at getting their followers to do what they want them to do.
00:11:49.300It's, I mean, I hate to give them any credit, but it is a very effective strategy because I see them all the time.
00:11:56.240And I'm always like, I thought they banned you.
00:12:42.080He's definitely he kind of started as like a man on the street interview type of TikToker, doing kind of YouTube videos when he was younger and then made his way into the manosphere.
00:12:52.340Another person that I've been writing about recently who I've actually noticed has gotten a lot of pickup recently was H. Pearl Davis.
00:12:59.280She goes by Just Pearly Things Online.
00:13:01.960She's a men's rights influencer, or I guess she would just call herself a manosphere influencer of some sort.
00:13:08.400And she's been getting a lot of attention recently as the female Andrew Tate.
00:13:13.140Who else have I written about? Let's see.
00:13:15.060Aiden Ross, who was one of the biggest Twitch streamers.
00:13:17.940He recently has moved over to Kik, which is kind of a Twitch knockoff that's owned by Stake, which is a crypto gambling organization.
00:13:27.600And then there's the Whatever podcast, as I talked about before, which is kind of like Fresh and Fit.
00:13:33.160Jonathan Hogwood, who's another men's rights activist.
00:13:35.980Honestly, there are so many Andrew Tate knockoffs that they are almost hard to map out at this point.
00:13:42.980I feel like every time I jump online, I'm finding someone else that is saying the same thing to their followers, and it is just full-blown misogyny.
00:13:52.020And, you know, I'll check one week, and they'll have a significant amount of followers, and then I'll check their follower count the next week, and they've just blown up.
00:14:00.760These people are just gaining followers at, like, very rapid speeds.
00:14:20.100How much of that do you think is just kind of playing to what works?
00:14:25.820Like, being like, oh, when I was just doing X, I wasn't really getting traction.
00:14:30.600When I started dipping into misogyny, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, women and Jewish people
00:14:36.700are the root of your problems, women don't deserve rights, I got a lot more traction.1.00
00:14:41.580I'm going to keep working what works. How much of it do you think is just like a marketing tactic?1.00
00:14:46.000I think you hit the nail on the head. I really think that misogyny gets clicks. I think that
00:14:51.860hating women gets clicks. I think being an anti-Semite, unfortunately, gets clicks as well.0.97
00:14:58.200I think that these are definitely strategies that people can turn to when they've run out of options.
00:15:04.300You know, doing a prank video, being a TikToker, depending on your content, will only get you so
00:15:09.720far. And this is definitely a road that people see. And not only that, but it's also profitable.
00:15:15.980So the manosphere in general, there's oftentimes a monetary aspect. So what are these people
00:15:22.380selling? They're always selling something, whether that's masculinity lessons or dating advice,
00:15:28.840advice on how to go viral, anything like that. The people that are in it, they are in it for
00:15:36.920themselves. They are not really trying to help these men become high value men or whatever they
00:15:42.040say that they're trying to help them become. They are trying to make money, get followers and market
00:15:46.340themselves. I mean, it's a grift. It's a scam. Like that's the thing that really, it troubles me.
00:15:53.900Like this is what I was having this long, long ass debate with my family member last week,
00:15:59.040this past weekend about Andrew Tate. I was surprised that he was not able to see what a
00:16:04.240clear and obvious grift this person is running. This person is telling, is stoking on the fears
00:16:10.260and vulnerabilities, which may be very real, of a community of young men who legitimately feel
00:16:17.480like forgotten, unseen. He is stoking those things to enrich himself personally. And I guess,
00:16:24.580like, how do people not see it for the grift that it is? Like, how does it, how is it so effective
00:16:28.960when it's like, clearly he is trying to take your money? He doesn't actually care about
00:16:32.880you being a high value man or actually like seeing you and the vulnerabilities that you have.
00:16:38.580He's interested in fattening his pockets. I think that it goes back to what I was saying before,
00:16:43.960where there are really just so few influencers that are speaking to these fears of young men
00:16:48.480that it is like it is completely like the idea that people are doing it for the money. It's
00:16:54.900just overshadowed. I think people are people become extremely cuddly. They become such committed
00:17:00.360followers to these influencers that you know they look past the bad they look past the money that
00:17:06.960they're giving they look past um the horrible misogyny and some people when they are fans
00:17:12.160they know that what these people are saying is wrong and dangerous and putting like the real
00:17:16.400lives of women in particular um like they're making a lot they're making women's lives more
00:17:22.400dangerous because they think that they're helping them in some way they're trying to like improve0.90
00:17:27.740their lives and for people when if they haven't had someone to talk to or they haven't had someone
00:17:33.100that felt like there was really like speaking to their soul like they're willing to look past those
00:17:38.420things and it really makes me sad because what they're selling them is so shitty like somebody
00:17:46.640who made good content about women and men and gender and sexuality and dating in 2023 someone
00:17:54.220who is actually meaningfully seeing these people and speaking to their concerns, I think would be
00:17:59.260great. I think what makes me upset is that they flood the space with such garbage. So people who0.98
00:18:04.440actually are making that content really can't get a foothold because who's going to listen to
00:18:08.280somebody who is making a nuanced point about gender and dating when you can watch this very
00:18:12.700exciting video of a black woman being degraded and then storming off of a podcast set, right?
00:18:18.460And, you know, I think it really creates this false world where in heterosexual relationships, men and women are constantly at odds that like people don't have relationships that are based on mutual respect, seeing each other, wanting to support each other.0.67
00:18:35.660The only kind of relationship that exists between a man and a woman is one that is built on, you know, breaking the woman, her being submissive, you being dominant, when in reality, people who have healthy relationships are not obsessed with the particulars in this way.
00:18:49.300Like, this is not – like, I don't know anybody who has a relationship like that, and that is certainly not a relationship to strive for, yet they are presenting to a whole generation of young people that this is the only kind of relationship that you can have, and it's just not true.
00:19:02.220I mean, traditional gender roles, I mean, that just kind of oftentimes will take out the whole part of like important communication. You know, if your job is to do this, my job is to do that. And like, that's how it's going to be. Oftentimes, it's just not going to work that way.
00:19:18.640And it'll just, it's so outdated, the gender roles that they're pushing, that it just, like you said, it doesn't really make sense and it doesn't work.
00:19:28.620I wish that I could, like, point to more, like, influencers that are creating content about dating and that are kind of creating content that would be kind of the opposite of manosphere content.
00:19:40.160But, like, off the top of my head, I can't think of any, obviously, because I work in this space.
00:19:44.180But it's just sad to see that it feels like when men are looking for a role model or someone to look up to, it just feels like there's just one type of role model online that they can find.
00:22:48.300I think that men in particular think that if a woman says it, they can repeat it.
00:22:55.460If a woman is talking bad about women and saying extreme misogyny, they can just say it more casually almost.
00:23:02.620You know, I've been following Pearl for quite a while.
00:23:04.960I feel like I've been following her since she was just a TikToker and she was just constantly getting banned on TikTok.0.53
00:23:10.260And now I'm seeing articles written about her within really the last week where people are saying she's the new female Andrew Tate.0.92
00:23:17.300And I think that part of it, this is just my opinion, I think that the media is picking up on her because they like to see women attack each other.
00:23:26.960I think that is, you know, when you have someone like Just Pearly things talking bad about women, they're like, oh, yeah, this is definitely something we should cover.
00:23:35.780But we're not talking about the actual reality of it. Like I said before, that, you know, her dangerous misogyny is still putting the lives of women in danger. You know, it's just as bad as something that Andrew Tate was saying. You know, it's just coming out of someone else's mouth.1.00
00:23:53.260Yeah, I've noticed that, too. Like another kind of like right wing influencer type, Candace Owen. People love it when she says something bad about black people because she's a black woman.0.99
00:24:04.400And so, like, I do think there's something that, like, is even outside of these right-wing media circles in more traditional or legacy media, I think that there is something just irresistible about that framing of, like, well, this woman doesn't think that women should have rights and she's a woman and she's saying it.
00:24:26.120Like, I think you're absolutely right that there's something they've identified that is clicky or buzzy about that and it'll always make headlines.
00:24:34.400It's the same thing about when you have like this group Gays Against Groomers attacking the LGBT community.0.80
00:24:40.360You know, it's like, well, they're getting all this media pickup just because they're queer people attacking other queer people.
00:24:47.140I feel like it kind of falls in kind of the same formula there.0.89
00:24:51.440Another hallmark of this kind of content, the grind set mentality.
00:24:55.920The grind set is kind of a catchall for all of the traits and interests supposedly embodied by the high value alpha male.
00:25:02.880So when creators like Andrew Tate or Fresh and Fit offer their followers paid coaching
00:25:07.440to become these high-value men, it runs the gamut from content about fitness or real estate,
00:25:21.120Something that I've noticed about the content of folks like Fresh and Fit and Andrew Tate
00:25:24.840especially is that so much of the topics are all over the place.
00:25:29.500Like, they talk a lot about crypto, which I always found so interesting.
00:25:33.900Is it just that crypto is sort of synonymous with young people who are very much online
00:25:39.500and they're just trying to, like, give them what they want?
00:25:41.600Or is there something else going on there?
00:25:44.140You know, I think crypto trading is, like, part of the grind set, right?
00:25:48.340So it's like, what are we doing to make money?
00:25:50.980How can we make money the fastest way possible?
00:25:53.340And how can we do it efficiently and be alpha males while doing it?
00:25:57.160So I just feel like cryptocurrency kind of falls into the world of the manosphere because it's all about doing something quickly and doing something big.
00:26:06.180I think those are just two aspects of the manosphere that are just like, you know, you can kind of apply that to like anything, making money, meeting girls, dating.
00:26:16.160And I think cryptocurrency, you know, I think it's just hot and trendy.
00:26:19.300And I think that's just kind of like where it's fallen recently.
00:27:56.460there is this entire well-oiled digital machine
00:28:00.840that will, when they find a vulnerable young person
00:28:04.420who is in that moment of like, oh, you're heartbroken,
00:28:07.460they will find that young person and be like,
00:28:09.680oh, the reason why you feel this way,0.99
00:28:11.180think about how bad you feel, it's because of women, right?0.97
00:28:13.560And you can build an entire identity and ethos around the fact that women are the source for your pain, for why you're not feeling good, why you're not succeeding, why you don't have money, whatever the thing is.0.92
00:28:24.660And, you know, I don't think this kind of content is new.
00:28:28.740But what I think is new is that young people all have a device in their hands that connect it to them so instantly.
00:28:36.940It's also amplified by social media platforms who are getting rich off of it.
00:28:40.540It's algorithmically, you know, surfaced for them.
00:28:43.180And it kind of makes me feel like they don't necessarily have a lot of tools when they're young to steer away from that content because it's such a pull, I bet.
00:28:54.480Yeah, I really think that like, if you're, you know, if you're putting giving the example that you gave, if you're heartbroken, and you're a man, and you just went through a devastating heartbreak, and it pops up on your TikTok feed, Sneeko or Fresh and Fit, talking about like, why women break men's hearts, and it's like the next five TikToks that are coming up, you're on the manosphere tag or whatever you're looking at, you know, that is really going to draw people in.0.73
00:29:18.620And I think that is constant stimulation and people are being assured over and over again that women are the problem, I think is what it is, especially if you're looking for that kind of content or like your algorithm has picked up that you're interested in that kind of content.
00:29:31.800You're just going to get the same talking points and the same misogyny over and over again, and it's just going to draw you further into it.
00:29:38.560And I just, I mean, what responsibility do you think that social media platforms have to keep that from happening, especially to young people?
00:29:45.620I think they need to have more terms of service when it comes to extreme misogyny. Honestly, I feel like a lot of times they are pretty lax. Places like TikTok or obviously Twitter or, you know, any sort of social media, they just don't have the kind of specificity that they really need to have to keep women safe on the Internet.
00:30:11.920on some platforms yeah i mean i feel like maybe well maybe it's not getting worse but the bad
00:30:21.620actors are getting better at it i'll say that i feel like sometimes they're able to really
00:30:26.320um talk around things i think that some of the bad actors are able to you know know what gets
00:30:32.860viral to sort of draw people in and i think that the social media platforms you know they still
00:30:40.260want to make money and they don't want to see some of their biggest actors taken off. I think
00:30:44.260that's an unfortunate reality is that, you know, if you have someone that's bringing in a lot of
00:30:50.220attention and a lot of clicks, they don't want to ban them. And if you're Elon Musk, maybe you'll
00:30:54.700give them $20,000 and thus incentivize the next misogynistic hate monger to get big on the
00:31:01.920platform and say, hey, I could do that. I can say misogynistic things into a microphone. Money,
00:31:06.220please exactly if it's getting clicks then there you go so you talked about how some of these bad
00:31:12.220actors are pretty good about like coding things so that they stay on the right side of these terms
00:31:17.980of service i saw a something in a social media feed it was um nick fuentes on the fresh and fit
00:31:23.920podcast and they were talking about jq and i was like what the fuck is jq then i read your piece0.67
00:31:30.580And I was like, the Jewish question? Then I saw the host of Fresh and Fit saying, he basically bragged, saying that, you know, we're the biggest platform that's talking about the JQ. No one else will do it. What's going on here? Like, what is that?0.95
00:31:45.860this is straight up nazi shit and i am being dead serious when you bring nick fuentes into it you1.00
00:31:54.380know he is a neo-nazi he's a white supremacist and a holocaust denier um they have been talking1.00
00:32:00.020nick fuentes and fresh and fit for months about getting together and doing this collaboration
00:32:03.820so this was kind of the precipice of them making of working together to make sure that they can do
00:32:09.560this like hours and hours long stream. There was even a video that was going around of Nick doing
00:32:16.140a Nazi Heil in the Fresh and Fit studio. And they're talking about the Jewish question. This0.51
00:32:22.260is, you know, the same thing that Adolf Hitler was talking about when he was like, what do we do
00:32:26.400about the Jews? And like you said, the hosts were saying we're the only podcast that's talking about
00:32:31.820the Jewish question. It's extremely, extremely scary stuff to see. And something that, you know,
00:32:39.560is extremely well-coded. You know, a clip like that, where they're just talking about the
00:32:44.580JQ, something like that could probably go onto TikTok because their algorithms might not pick
00:32:50.460it up. Maybe they would pick up if someone did like a hashtag Nick Fuentes or something like that.
00:32:55.360But it'll just direct people, they'll direct people back to Rumble, which is where you can
00:33:00.500see these hour-long streams. I'm glad that you put it that way. Back when Kanye West and Nick
00:33:06.920Fuentes went to visit Trump. I did an interview with Robert Evans, who makes the podcast Behind
00:33:11.780the Bastards, who's all about all of these shitheads. And that was the point that he made0.99
00:33:16.400too, which is that Nick Fuentes is a Nazi. Like some of these other characters, they kind of dance0.61
00:33:22.120around it. They, you know, you could sort of be like, oh, they're trolling, maybe, but he's not
00:33:27.520in that camp. And so that like, when you are platforming him, you're doing a very different
00:33:32.880thing, and you're sending a very different clear signal about what you're about.
00:33:37.360I completely agree. I think that when you make the decision to platform Nick Fuentes,
00:33:41.880you are drawing a line in the sand. You are saying, I am willing to put a Nazi onto my show,
00:33:47.280and I'm listening, and I will hear him out. So someone like Pearl, just pearly things as we0.99
00:33:52.140talked about, a couple months ago, she had him on her show. Nick Fuentes actually inspired Pearl
00:33:57.840so much that she made an entire anti-Semitic song about it. When Piers Morgan confronted
00:34:03.080Pearl about it on his television show, here's how she responded. I mean, the point was more
00:34:09.000about cancel culture and people getting kicked off of social media if you finish the song.
00:34:14.220It was more about like, you can't talk about this topic without being canceled by the left
00:34:19.680and the right. I don't really have a strong opinion either way. And she obviously got a
00:34:24.140lot of backlash. She took the videos down. She put the videos back up. She defended him. She went0.99
00:34:28.860back and forth. But the place she ended up, she ended up being like, I believe in free speech.
00:34:34.340So I would host him again, something like that. It's just ridiculous. And I think that it is so,0.96
00:34:39.740so dangerous, the manosphere in general, but then to bring Nazism and neo-Nazism into it.0.82
00:34:46.520I mean, it is just like two very scary, dangerous worlds colliding.0.69
00:34:50.700What are some of the real world impacts of this? Because I'm certainly sure somebody listening is like, it's just young people saying naughty words on the Internet. It doesn't really mean anything. What is the real world impact?
00:35:01.680Well, you know, the manosphere in general does not live in a vacuum. So major misogyny and extreme misogyny has led to real world violence. People like Elliot Rogers, who was an incel mass shooter, obviously many attacks against women, Gamergate in 2015, when female members of the video game community were attacked, sent death threats and rape threats.
00:35:29.420These are all just examples of ways that the manosphere has, you know, come into the real world and has become a serious danger to people and has affected real people's lives.
00:35:42.040Yeah, I mean, just this week, I was reading on Twitter about a man who had posted a picture of him and his wife and said, I think it was a tweet that was like, oh, I went to Columbia and I married, I came back with a wife.
00:35:54.740And that person is now being accused of murdering his wife.
00:35:58.660And you go to his Twitter page and it's all Andrew Tate stuff.
00:36:02.280And I'm not saying that there's a deep connection because we don't know.
00:36:07.340It's still something that they're investigating.
00:36:08.600But I have to imagine that somebody who is absorbing content from an influencer who is saying all of these things about how women don't deserve rights, how if a woman is raped, she bears some responsibility, like all of this stuff.
00:36:21.700I can't imagine how that is not creating a less safe world for everybody, women especially, but also for the men who absorb this content.
00:36:30.360Yeah, I do think that it is making men think that, you know, violence is sometimes an answer.
00:36:36.760When Nick was on Pearl's show, he downplayed domestic abuse, you know.
00:36:42.700So if you're someone who is easily influenced by, like, bad actors or figures or the kind of content you're taking in, you know, these are people who are quick to violence and quick to, like, you know, call up arms.
00:36:57.460You know, these are very scary people who are associated with people that have, you know, been convicted of violent acts.
00:37:08.000Pretty much people that are gropers that have followed Nick Fuentes.
00:37:12.400There have been like multiple instances of these people being charged for, you know, dangerous and violent acts.
00:38:48.820It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:38:56.700Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:39:05.880Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:54.480And I read about how Andrew Tate's content, I read a piece about how teachers in schools, like people who work with young people, his content specifically is leading to disruptions where, you know, young men who, like Andrew Tate, will start bringing his content into the classroom.
00:40:15.160And it just creates a very unsafe, chaotic environment, especially for like the young kids, elementary school kids.
00:40:22.880So Insider had a report, it was a couple of months back now, and it said that there was an 11-year-old who was repeating Andrew Tate content and who was pretty much saying that he like idolized him.
00:40:35.660I do think that, you know, when people are looking up to these like people like Andrew Tate or even Nick Fuentes, I think you're going to see it in schools.
00:40:43.900you'll see it with young young people and you know nick fuentes i've watched plenty of his streams
00:40:49.480sometimes he speaks directly to the high schoolers that are listening to his show so to kind of give
00:40:55.900you an idea of like how young this is going um these influencers they and and bad actors they
00:41:01.380know who's listening and it's it's young kids and it's very impressionable susceptible young people
00:41:07.800and i i have this i have this theory and i would love to know your thoughts that even if you are
00:41:16.040not somebody who likes andrew tate would ever subscribe to a fresh and fit would ever be
00:41:20.860watching nick fuentes the way that these clips have taken of these people speaking have taken
00:41:26.980over social media whether or not you follow them like i see them and i obviously don't like these
00:41:31.260people. I think that that is trickling down into wider society. So even people who don't think of
00:41:38.440themselves as like men's rights types, they might be absorbing, casually absorbing some of these
00:41:45.060attitudes without even really realizing it because they are so ubiquitous on our platforms. What do
00:41:49.540you think about that? Yeah, I can see. I can definitely see that. I think that if it's showing
00:41:55.060up in your TikTok feed enough, you know, it's just getting into your subconscious. I mean,
00:41:58.860maybe that sounds a little conspiracy theory of me, but, uh, I do feel like it's, it's coming
00:42:05.880into, you know, the, the Overton window for what we think is like misogyny feels to be shifting a
00:42:11.560little bit, you know, it's just something that you feel in the air. Obviously it's not something
00:42:15.260that I can like point to exactly. Um, but it's sometimes you just, you just feel it. And I think
00:42:20.320that's kind of what you were describing as well. Um, it's just something that, you know,
00:42:24.680you can just tell in the way that people talk yes in the last like couple years and it's it's
00:42:33.180it's kind of what got me interested in the manosphere too I mean it was just like
00:42:36.740it's something I felt in my own life and it's something that um I was seeing online and I think
00:42:42.720as a gay man I see it in my community a lot a lot of misogyny and it's like honestly within
00:42:49.720the last year or two, it's like, it's what some gay men might think is funny, honestly, honestly,
00:42:55.840just ends up being like, hurtful to women, or like, could end up just being dangerous. And I
00:43:00.700just think that's part of it as well. How did you get into caring about and researching and
00:43:05.460following this kind of content? So first, I was just doing extremism. So I was really mostly just
00:43:10.960following, obviously, normal right wing media, I was following Steve Bannon when I first started
00:43:16.860at Media Matters. And then I got particularly interested in Aquentis. And then I think that
00:43:22.920as my TikTok algorithm started to change and shift a little bit, I started to get manosphere content.
00:43:28.920And I think I just kind of fell into it, too. I was like, who are these people? And how do they
00:43:34.600why do they keep showing up on my feed? And why do they have so many likes and follows? And I feel
00:43:40.880like that's kind of what first like initially kind of threw me into it. And I also started to follow
00:43:46.800um Aiden Ross as I was talking about the streamer and him and Andrew Tate have like this serious
00:43:53.220very strange bromance um and that's honestly what brought me over to kind of like the
00:43:59.260Tate's tape speech world of it all as well okay so what is it like following this because
00:44:06.460I mean I have a separate TikTok account that I use for like following nonsense just so that
00:44:12.760my personal TikTok account will not be all nonsense when I'm just trying to watch TikToks.
00:44:17.280What has it been like for you personally to have to like be mired in all this all the time?
00:44:21.840You know, it can be really hard some days. I feel like for me, after working at Media Matters for
00:44:27.640nearly three years, I've like really found a good way to pace myself kind of taking in this content.
00:44:32.960I think that honestly, as a gay Jewish man, seeing a lot of the anti-Semitism and a lot of the
00:44:40.620homophobia and anti-pride month stuff has really been the hardest for me. I do think that it's
00:44:47.160really about pacing yourself when it comes to how I can kind of handle all of it. I also just think
00:44:53.400that the manosphere in particular, I feel like is very reactionary to the moment, which means it's
00:44:58.880just like very fast paced. There's always something new happening. The world of kind of extremism
00:45:04.300feels a little bit slower. So I feel like also just making sure that, you know, I have people
00:45:10.500on my team that if I can't handle something or things are just happening too quickly,
00:45:15.540there are other colleagues of mine that I feel like I can really hand it off to and I can really
00:45:20.820trust them with the content and the research as well. I'm glad you feel like you have that
00:45:25.400support. I'm interested, do you see all of this stuff as kind of connected, like the anti-pride
00:45:32.120stuff? Is that sort of connected to the manosphere stuff? Like, is this all linked in some way in
00:45:36.620your mind? Absolutely. I really think that, especially in this last year, the manosphere,
00:45:43.580like they dove head first into the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and the anti-trans rhetoric. There was
00:45:51.900a day in June where Andrew Tate thought it would be so hilarious to be like, I'm a trans woman,
00:45:57.460and then just started tweeting constantly all day about being trans. It was really disgusting and0.85
00:46:04.500something that I think you would really only find on Elon Musk's Twitter.
00:46:08.780And another horrible example, Sneeko, who we were talking about before,
00:46:13.740he wrote the words Pride Month on a shooting target and then went outside with automatic
00:46:21.960rifles and they were shooting at it, him and a couple of his buddies.
00:46:27.080So it is just really extreme, the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
00:46:32.600Like, it is honestly, from the manosphere, some of the more scary stuff that I've seen.
00:47:53.480oh, if this is funny and Sneeko can do it,
00:47:55.580then like, it's cool if I do it as well.0.62
00:47:57.900Or if someone wants to, you know, pretend to be a trans person online just to mock them, and if your Kate is getting a bunch of clicks, then like, yeah, sure, I can do that as well. And also Pearl, just pearly things as well, has been, she plays semi-professional volleyball, I think, over in England. I think that's her like full-time job outside of being a commentator.
00:48:21.620and she's been like fighting with them about her anti-trans rhetoric and it has really only made
00:48:27.200her anti-LGBT rhetoric like so much worse I think that people like her they are just like
00:48:35.740so so angry she has so much anger and people like Andrew Tate they are they have so much anger and
00:48:43.420like you just wonder where it comes from and like sometimes it's just so obvious that it's not0.92
00:48:47.820actually towards the LGBT community but that's where they're putting it and it's it's ridiculous1.00
00:48:52.780and it's dangerous and scary as I've said a couple times oh my god that's I've noticed the same thing1.00
00:48:57.740is like there are plenty of things that I don't like in society I don't dedicate my time to like
00:49:05.060obsessing over the it in this way and also like like some of the Andrew Tate and Fresh and Fit
00:49:11.540like there's two clips that stick in my mind of them like ranting like Andrew Tate ranting about
00:49:17.600how like he doesn't eat breakfast because he starts his day with caffeine and nicotine and
00:49:22.360hate running through his veins and like there's this clip of I think it's um I'm blanking the
00:49:27.620host's name but like screaming into the microphone about how when he was playing too many too many
00:49:35.020video games women didn't give him the time of day and how that was so horrible it's like
00:49:38.860they have such deep clear reservoirs of hate and anger and also they're telling people don't you
00:49:47.160want to be like me. Not really. Like, I want to wake up and have a nice breakfast. I don't want
00:49:52.300to start my day with hate and pain and caffeine and nicotine. I actually would love to have a
00:49:55.540nice breakfast. That actually sounds nice. Do I want to be foaming into a microphone,
00:50:00.980spewing hate and anger about all the women who've done me wrong? Not really. That actually doesn't
00:50:05.460seem appealing. And so it's very interesting how so much of their ethos, like you said,
00:50:09.740is based around be like me, but they don't actually seem very happy. In fact, quite the
00:50:14.300opposite I'm like aren't you guys exhausted like like watching you guys I'm exhausted like being
00:50:21.900that angry all the time and like I don't know I don't know what is what it's getting for you guys
00:50:26.800but like I just it shocks me it really does and I just think it it it's shocking and it presents
00:50:36.160like for for young men like they can have a different kind of life they can have different
00:50:41.180kinds of relationships. They can have meaningful, fulfilling relationships based on communication,
00:50:46.620trust, honesty, openness, respect, and all of that. Like, that is possible for everybody.
00:50:50.800And I just think it presents such an empty worldview that in the end traps them as well.0.97
00:50:56.400We talk a lot, rightly, about the ways that this kind of content is a danger for women,
00:51:00.200which it is, but it's also such a danger to these men who are being sold a lie that this
00:51:05.160is all they can have, when in reality they can have so much more. The world is so much
00:51:09.480more open and available to them having a different kind of experience. But this content and this
00:51:14.760dynamic just keeps them trapped, probably miserable, and ultimately lacking an agency.
00:51:45.320I mean, when the example that you're trying to follow is Andrew Tate, who was, like, literally running in MLM, you know, you'd think that people would know better.
00:51:56.260Why does so much of this content take off in the podcast space?
00:52:00.480Like, why do all these people have podcasts?
00:52:02.440Even if their podcast is like them with six people in a room and they're just videotaping it and they're calling it a podcast, it's a pet peeve of mine.
00:52:11.200What is it about the podcast space that draws these charlatans in?
00:52:15.980I think that if you can put a microphone in front of someone, that means that they are allowed to speak their mind any which way that they want.
00:52:23.260And I don't think that's actually reality, but I think that with that setup, it lends itself to that kind of rhetoric and that kind of critique and that kind of discussion and discourse.
00:52:36.740Something like Fresh and Fit, where there's like 12 microphones on the table, like this really isn't how a podcast is working.
00:52:44.860Like I assume most people that are watching it are watching it for like the video form.
00:52:49.700um so i just think that the podcast of it all i'll say the podcast format of it all really just
00:52:56.960it's lending itself to a to you know a format which lends itself to a specific type specific
00:53:04.300type of discourse oh my god i could talk all day this is like such a such a thing with with me
00:53:09.740where the the look of a podcast yeah where there's like 12 microphones first of all that is too many0.97
00:53:15.380fucking people to be on a podcast. It's so like already they should tell you something's going on.0.93
00:53:19.460But the thing on TikTok that really gets a lot of traction is, yeah, headphones and microphone
00:53:25.640that might not even be plugged in. Like the aesthetic of I'm having serious discourse or
00:53:32.620like I'm going to tell you how I really think in an intimate way. I think that a lot of these
00:53:37.000influencers are able to rely on the aesthetic of podcasts and what that brings to push their
00:53:45.800horrible messages out in a way that kind of shields them from criticism I believe because
00:53:51.020if it was just somebody in their car making this video you'd be like who is this nobody next but
00:53:55.800like oh he's got a microphone and headphones let's listen to what he's got to say right if he has a
00:54:01.480if he has a microphone in front of him then I should maybe be taking him seriously I think is
00:54:06.320the thought that these people have like if i if i have a big fancy yeti mic or whatever i have and
00:54:12.680i got my big expensive um over the head earphones on then like this person might mean something this
00:54:19.400person no has the ability to put a podcast out and maybe that also carries some weight to it
00:54:25.460um i feel like sometimes when i'm watching these smaller like right-wing media figures that are
00:54:31.920doing podcasts for my job, I'm like, are they uploading this anywhere? Or do they just click
00:54:39.640start on Photo Booth and sit in front of their microphone and just kind of run with it? I actually
00:54:45.920don't know. Sometimes I would love to see people set up. No, I have definitely 100% seen TikTok
00:54:52.820clips where it's like, I know that mic is not on. I know it's not on. That is just a prop to make us
00:54:59.260feel some kind of way about what you're saying. Absolutely. So Justin, let's say that somebody
00:55:05.500listening has somebody in their life, kind of asking for selfish reasons because I apparently
00:55:10.900do have somebody in my life who is watching this kind of content and you're worried about them.
00:55:15.540Do you have any tips for how we might approach that? I think that finding good content to replace
00:55:23.680the bad content is a great place to start when it comes to talking about masculinity.
00:55:28.080I also think that being able to show people the worst parts of these influencers is a really important aspect.
00:55:34.280So kind of like your family member where they're like, oh, well, I see the I see the grind set of it all.
00:55:39.820I see him like smoking his cigars. It's like, OK, but do you do you see him talking about, you know, hitting women or.
00:55:47.280talking bad about the LGBTQ community. I think that what is important is kind of talking to the
00:55:55.720values of the people that are watching these influencers that maybe you can hit on in a
00:56:03.600different way. So if your family member cares about LGBTQ rights, if your family member
00:56:08.460cares about violence against women, it's directing the attention towards different
00:56:16.360aspects of these influencers that maybe they don't see on TikTok or they don't see directly
00:56:20.900online, but are definitely there if you sit and listen and do a little bit of research.
00:56:25.200That's really good advice. And I think the point about like replacing the content that they're
00:56:29.700currently consuming with something else is such a good one. And I think it really speaks to
00:56:35.180like that bad actors and their ability to seize gaps in information and content because,
00:56:42.520you know, I'm probably like you, I'm part of like coalitions and panels about how we speak
00:56:49.480to different groups. And one that comes up time and time again is like this entire generation
00:56:55.600of disaffected young people, a lot of whom are men that we're just not speaking to, right? Like
00:57:02.320nobody is actually in a meaningful way, seeing them speaking to their issues, or at least they
00:57:07.260don't feel that way. And the people who are getting their ears and eyes are these charlatans0.91
00:57:12.860with a dangerous message. And so I do think part of it is being all of us who make content being
00:57:18.360a little bit better about making content that helps so that these bad actors are not able to
00:57:24.880just seize these massive gaps where there is no content filling that gap. I really like that idea.
00:57:30.280It really comes down to like the messaging, like who is the messaging for? And I feel like a lot
00:57:35.660of that when it comes to like political messaging is like we're really aiming towards this one
00:57:39.460demographic whether that be young people or like um older voters or someone like that um but i feel
00:57:45.560like when it comes down to it when we're creating content and we're being you know influencers
00:57:52.940these influencers i don't think that there are a lot of people out there that their initial thought
00:57:58.940is i want to do i want to do good things for young men i don't think that people really i don't think
00:58:04.040that's something that people really think of right off the bat. And maybe that just needs to be
00:58:08.780looked at from a different lens. I'm not totally sure how to get people there, I guess. I don't
00:58:16.520know how to get the message across and get the message out. It feels like an important fight
00:58:21.920and something we can talk about in circles and circles, but I'm not sure what the next step
00:58:26.360would always be to get people to create better content that can replace the bad content.
00:58:31.660When you think about the future of where we are with this kind of content and our discourse more generally online, are you hopeful? Are you, where are you at?
00:58:40.160um not hopeful um i think that these bad actors are getting better and better at what they do
00:58:48.480um and i see i i see i see people like you and me who are you know doing the work to point it out
00:59:02.140and talk about it um but i think that there needs to be more people like us especially men like me
01:01:24.700The guilt, the giggles, and the choices
01:01:27.520no other show is brave enough to admit.0.98
01:01:29.460Mom life is calling and I have my last motherfucking volleyball tournament of Irie's Club Team Volleyball.0.96
01:01:36.260And I can't wait for this to be over because I don't like participating and having to drive far distances.0.95
01:01:45.600Shout out to the moms and my mom who made it happen.
01:01:48.500Listen to Good Moms Bad Choices from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.