By Luke Frantz, Feb. 21, 2023
Being a part of a generation that grew up with the internet and social media at our disposal , it was easy to get lost in it. We all grew up with our favorite internet personalities, whether they made gaming content or the simple vlog format that exploded in the 2010s. No matter how you spin it, we looked up to certain people we watched daily.
When I was younger, I liked to watch gaming creators, and I would have dreams of becoming a content creator like those I saw.
As I grew older, news started to break seemingly every other day about how those online personalities that I grew up watching were getting exposed as sexual predators or racists. As those online personalities began to fade, new individuals rose to popularity, and the current generation of young children began watching them.
Scrolling through any social media site nowadays, I find young men in comment sections spewing toxic, misogynistic views. For the longest time, I could not figure out why.
What I noticed as a trend in recent years is that today’s youth, specifically young men, are becoming radicalized with misogynistic beliefs by certain online personalities that they watch and look up to. .
Andrew Tate is a retired kickboxer turned millionaire entrepreneur who gained his wealth through his online course “Hustlers University” which many believe is a pyramid scheme, and he has an online business with “cam girls” who sell their images. Nevertheless, Tate went on to gain internet popularity by sharing his methods on how to become a “sigma male,” or the absolute peak that a man can be.
Tate has made several claims online about how women are beneath him and how he can give tips to get any woman in the world, and of course, young men tune in to try and learn.
The asinine thing about all of this is that Tate fans spend their time online harassing women and constantly talking bad about people who talk about Tate. Simply scrolling through comment sections on a post about Tate, people can find hundreds of comments praising him.
What makes the Andrew Tate praise even worse is that he is put on a pedestal by other famous online personalities, like Adin Ross.
Adin Ross found his fame by being loud and appealing to a younger audience that would tune in to watch whatever it was he would be doing any given day. Adin started having random livestreams with Andrew Tate where they would talk about being a “real man” and how to be successful.
The issue with these livestreams is that the young male audience that regularly viewed Adin Ross’ streams were now being shown Andrew Tate and his toxic masculinity mindset. This only led to more fans blindly believing that doing what Tate says will lead to success with having relationships with women.
On Dec. 29, 2022, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were detained and arrested in Romania on charges including organized crime and human trafficking. His fan base exploded with indignation, claiming that Tate is not guilty and he had been set up.
The situation remains ongoing, and nothing else aside from speculation has come out about the case.
Young men deserve to have better role models than people like Andrew Tate, Adin Ross and other streamers with similar mindsets. It is important for young men to have better role models because their minds can be very easily influenced by those that they watch online, and when watching people like Tate, they spread toxic masculinity to the masses.
There can always be the argument that young men choose who they look up to, but in modern times it seems that more online figures are behaving in a toxic and disrespectful way every day. I believe that we as a society need to give praise to those who will be good role models for young men.
The easiest solution is for parents to monitor what their children are watching online and try to encourage them to stay away from individuals like Ross and Tate. The best way to stop these streamers from gaining popularity, is to take away the hill they stand on and instead give the views to streamers who rightfully deserve them. Some social media sites like YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram have already banned Tate from their platforms in hopes to combat his dangerous ideologies.
Some online personalities who are worth looking up to for young men today are people like Markiplier and Valkyrae. Both have great life stories and work hard to get to where they are. Most importantly though, neither of them has outdated and hateful ideologies. Valkyrae is an especially important figure to look up for young men because she is a woman in the industry and gives a more open perspective from that alone. Stopping hate from spreading is a must in today’s online society.
Feature image by Jackson Gray