If you didn’t hear about the group of right-wing social media influencers who got together in Miami last week and threw Nazi salutes while singing “Heil Hitler” then, well, congratulations for not spending too much time on social media. But I’m willing to bet that you’ve heard of Andrew Tate. The martial artist cum online pornographer cum hyper-macho lifestyle guru was among those influencers.
The event was not surprising. (Above all, it was pathetic.) What was surprising was Andrew Tate’s reaction. The man who built a career on presenting himself as the most fearless and audacious man in the world, and on denigrating women in some of the most flagrantly insulting terms possible, decided that it was … a bad look.
Yes, the “Top G” had to do some damage control. He went on a podcast to announce that he hadn’t been singing “Heil Hitler” and hadn’t thrown up Nazi salutes. In fairness, he hadn’t. (Though he had, in the latter case, just last year.) But there was something odd about seeing the alpha-est of alpha males (by his own reckoning) declaring that the song was not “appropriate” and that young influencers were relying on “shock” to get attention. If there’s one thing Andrew Tate can’t stand, it’s people being shocking to get attention. He hates that!
It was very strange. What sort of reputation did he think he was trying to protect? Are there big sponsorship deals hanging in the balance? This isn’t Hugh Grant getting caught with a prostitute. It’s an attention-seeking provocateur getting mixed up in attention-seeking provocations.
My best guess is that Tate is trying to go more “mainstream”. Despite his fearsome reputation among parents and politicians, he is far less relevant on social media than he used to be. This was inevitable. How many times can even the world’s most stupid and resentful man hear a bloke call women “hoes” before it gets dull?
So, Tate tried to get attention with a boxing match and got walloped by a former reality TV star. There is no shame in losing a boxing match. But Tate had presented himself as an elite fighter. More than this, he had presented himself as someone who thinks that victory is all-important. You can’t do that and then say, “Well, at least I tried.” Plus, his litany of excuses — which were all presented in a disingenuous manner as he said something along the lines of “I could make these excuses, but I won’t” — made him look childish. Is he really such an inspiring exemplar of masculinity?
Of course he isn’t. Never mind all the accusations of human trafficking and rape, which are very serious but which have yet to be tested in court. His whole act is a pantomime of masculinity. I’m not going to call mouthing off online and having 10,000 photos taken of you a day “feminine”, because most women would consider it pathetic as well, but it’s nothing that would ever have been called “manly”.
Tate does have a perverse genius for marketing. Somehow, by ostentatiously converting to Islam while also winking at the white nationalist crowd, he managed to build a global audience of male discontents. (In Britain, young people from ethnic minorities have been a lot more likely to view him positively than young white men.)
Yet it is almost impossible to maintain a huge audience online without becoming “cringe”. The more bombastic one’s persona, the more true this is. What is comical is that Tate, after years of being as insulting and arrogant as he could be, thinks that he has the chance to say “but seriously, guys …” and enter the mainstream.
Still, I don’t want to just focus on Mr Tate here. I want to focus on his fans. A popular right-wing approach to his fame has been to say, well, yes, we disapprove of Tate’s words and deeds, but we still have to understand why he appeals to men. Sure — but if you ever found him appealing, you should still engage in some self-reflection here.
After all, Mr Tate might have lost his “aura” — to borrow a term beloved of fans of hyper-macho social media influencers — but that does not mean that his admirers have seen sense. They might just move onto some other obnoxious influencer — someone whose pretensions have yet to be so vividly and farcically exposed.
Mr Tate’s fans are wrong to turn on him, for all his sins. They should turn on themselves
The problem is not just Andrew Tate. The problem is idolising anyone online. Anybody who is trying to present themselves and their lifestyle as an object of something close to worship is selling you a product that you’re a chump for consuming. Once you’re that gullible, of course you can be convinced that 50 per cent of humanity is so weak and credulous that you should feel above them — and, equally, of course you’re just engaging in projection.
Mr Tate’s fans are wrong to turn on him, for all his sins. They should turn on themselves, and on the bitterness and vulnerability that made them easy marks for Rolex-coated nihilistic charlatans. What is another word for an influencer? An advertiser. Pledge your loyalty to an advertiser and you can’t feel too disappointed when it turns out that they are just selling you a brand.
