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Because young men have problems that aren't taken seriously. Then someone like Tate comes along and (quite literally) sells the "solution."
If a cult leader can swoop in and radicalise a whole lot of people, then there is an unaddressed or ignored problem going on. This is the kind of way someone like Hitler got so much support.
People who are educated, and live secure, fulfilling lives would be able to see Tate for the twat he is.
This is probably not the whole reason but in my opinion it is the primary one. Young men are indirectly being told their problems don't matter because when they are raised they get slapped down for trying to take attention away from women's issues, and that leaves a very sour taste in their mouths that makes it easy for charlatans like Tate to take advantage of. Especially low-status white men getting hit with the double whammy of being assumed to be just fine because everyone knows how easy it is to be a white man, right? Thanks, apex fallacy.
The times where men have tried to form positive social support structures like the MRA/MGTOW movement, they are derided as being misogynistic, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the outside attacks reinforce those assumptions. If you look at these groups today, they are absolutely infiltrated by misogynist and racist voices, but that's not how they started. Gamergate is another example of this phenomenon.
I'm not trying to invalidate the issues women face or trying to claim that men have it worse. It seems we collectively treat this as a zero sum game instead of getting folks the help they need for the specific problems they face, and it creates a situation where people who could otherwise be saved are radicalized by assholes who are all too willing to capitalize on that and radicalize them. Worse, the continuing polarization makes it very difficult for anyone left of center to walk back and try to address men's issues without immediately being beset upon by a mercilessly vocal minority of feminists who see any attempt to help men as a distraction from their own issues.
Remember that each person parroting Tate's rhetoric isn't some hyper-privileged fratboy who is looking for an excuse to do violence to women. Some of them certainly are, but I would bet that a majority of them are low-status men who don't see any other options.
Because society simply has mixed standards and very little empathy for men.
Our culture has (thankfully) shifted very far from the idea of the male role as sole protector and provider for the family. While that's great for women's independence, society hasn't changed the expectation that men should still primarily fill that role.
Young men are still expected to grow up to be financially successful, physically fit, willing to sacrifice their lives and happiness for their future families all while being completely emotionally invulnerable about all of it. Society is clear (and correct) that women can do any or all of that if they so choose, but it's totally also fine if they want to be a "traditional" woman.
We're at this halfway point where (compared to our traditional/conservative past) young women can choose any path they desire and it's acceptable and celebrated (which is a great thing). We just need to have that same expectation for young men, and make it clear.
When young men have problems, they very often are told to man-up or change themselves in some way (get a job, go to the gym, buy an expensive car)in order to fix it, when they need to be told it's okay to be upset, it's okay to share your feelings, it's okay to be vulnerable.
We can't send mixed signals that women are primarily attracted to rich, ripped, emotionally invulnerable soldiers. We've got to stop only celebrating men who are billionaires or professional athletes. Boys need to see their nerdy English teachers or average looking artists as role models.
I don't know how we can get there, but until we do our young men are going to continue this regression into toxic masculinity and far right ideologies.
This ended up way longer than intended, lol.
Honestly, I think because it's comfortable. Andrew Tate and the like say that there is nothing wrong with you and it's society/women's fault. It doesn't challenge anything, not even the harmful standards for men (ex: High value = certain look/body, status, income, etc.). Dating has gotten harder for men. Women have a lot more options and choices, and I don't just mean in which man to marry, but even if they will marry at all. That means men have to offer more than just being the provider, as many women also have to work. And I don't think we set men up to be good partners. Providers? Sure. But to be caring, empathetic, loving and loved members of society? I don't think so.
I think women need to be taken out of the equation all together when it comes to the male lonilness epidemic because that seems to cause the spiral. If it was focused on how men could foster good relationships, in general, I think it would be better. Focus on how to join/find/form social clubs, make it okay to talk to the boys about how you're feeling, make it okay for them to need help. A lot of articles seems to boil down to more men are single, but I think it should be more of why don't men have friends? If men are single, that means there are single women out there as well, but they don't inspire these posts because women are allowed to foster platonic, deep relationships and we kind of tell me you either get a spouse for that or you just have to deal with it.
The right wing has easy answers for complex problems, so it's easier for them to recruit frustrated, average people.
And the left is often paralyzed by the "complexity" of a solution and offers little no refuge for those in need. Sadly making those half baked ignorant simple solutions the only thing offered.
Lots of stuff. One has to do with modern feminism that has attempted to redefine the female gender role to become more independent and to adopt some traits that were traditionally masculine. This leaves some men clueless in their own identity, as traditional gender roles are a crutch for both women and men to kinda know their place in society. Now women refuse to fit their traditional role, so men have to redefine themselves too instead of relying on how it's been done in previous generations.
This cluelessness is frustrating and we've seen it pop up in different ways in the last decades. However with a more modern image of a woman manifesting, teens who have to figure out anyway who they are in society are affected more, especially young boys who are welcomed to society with no clear "default instructions" because the old gender role is demonized by a society that has largely accepted the new gender role for women, but is still clueless what men are.
Men may be the provider, but women now must be able to work too. Men could be more emotional and may take caregiver jobs, but women are considered better at them anyway and men are not trusted with kids or not taken seriously as caregivers. This is also not easy on women who now have children and need to care about a career. No wonder we have fewer children. And this also gets confusing for young men who go on dates, when they still need to pay for the bill at dates, their income still plays a role, even though women may make a lot of money (or even more than them) too now.
I hope this doesn't read as a rant, because I see feminism as a positive development even though I acknowledge the new challenges it provides.
Based on this background young, impressionable boys are sucked in by social media algorithms and confronted with the frustration and backlash of these men like Tate, that promote a return to the old gender roles. Many things he says could be something they said to your great granddad. Social media also leads to content and community bubbles, which are harder to penetrate for alternative ideas, so once you are "red pilled" you won't get off your track.
Additionally social media is not just content, it also publicizes and quantifies your social status and connections with followers and likes. Social status is hugely important for teens who are looking for their place in society. Even when you move, you don't have a chance to try again with a new group of mates: you still have your account and your status follows you everywhere. This increases the stakes and leads to more extreme behaviors.
I think that's all the reasons I can think off. Sorry it's so long.
I love this deconstruction, it captures quite a few of my own thoughts. Thank you!
Men and women basically make up 50% of the population each, more or less.
As long as we keep trying to blame society’s problem on one sex or the other, we’re never going to solve anything.
I personally think most problems in society, however, are more related to class than either gender or even race. If we can find a way to reduce income inequality (specifically between the rich and the poor) then I honestly think a lot of these issues would work themselves out naturally.
I feel like people have known this since like the 1800s. But dividing people over race and gender doesn't threaten the rich in the way wealth distribution does, so huge amounts of money and influence are poured into preventing society from advancing by exacerbating poverty and race/gender conflicts.
70 years ago a guy could graduate high school, get a job that allowed him to buy a car, buy a home and support a family, including college for his kids.
They were too busy living a decent life. Then Reagan and the Republicans came to power.
Now, thanks to the vast economic disparity, guys have a very bleak future that makes them easy targets for hate-blaming almost any group of people except the rich who are responsible for their miserable lives.
There is a darker secondary element to that time period, freedom of choice for women. 70 years ago if a young woman wanted to leave home and setup on her own she really needed the financial support of a husband or other male relative, even if to just cosign agreements. You were properly tied to having a husband, expected to as well. The pressure from all angles to marry meant women would settle for some pretty shitty men in much larger numbers, and for longer as it was much harder to divorce.
As time has gradually removed this pressure, women no longer need to marry to get independence in the same numbers, so shitty men no longer luck into marriage. The rise of no fault divorce as a valid choice, and even not having to be married to have kids or live together as a socially acceptable choice further squeezes them out.
The whole trad wives movement is founded on restoring the power back to men in relationships.
Life is hard and confusing. Many people are frustrated with the way that the social landscape has changed: relationships, jobs, and economic prospects have all shifted for the worse in developed countries. Young people are the most affected. Every time this happens, a con artist comes along and starts offering easy answers. Sometimes it's a politician, sometimes it's a religious leader. Nowadays, it's often an influencer.
Tate tells men, "it's not your fault that your life sucks," and he is right (to a point). After all, people who don't own houses can't be blamed for the state of the housing market, right? So who is to blame? According to Trump, it's brown people. According to RFK Jr., it's vaccines or food colouring or some shit. According to Tate, it's women. He tells young men that feminism is surely the reason they are unhappy: the Woke Left is trying to emasculate you! Be an alpha! Follow my simple formula for abusing women and accumulating money and your problems will go away.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. This is not a truth that all people can accept. We can fix some of the problems that we are facing, but it will take time, effort, and cooperation. In the meantime, many men are comforted by Tate's message: women are the reason you are unhappy, and everything can be fixed by returning them to bondage! If you are very young (or just a little stunted), this message is much more palatable than the admittedly challenging option of actually fixing things.
In the 1950s men ruled the home, earned the money, and were kings of their castles. Since then gender rules have been torn up and rewritten. Women have carved out new spaces for themselves with the support of allies. But there hasn't really been a new consensus of what a man's role is any more. The result being that lots of men see their domination being eroded by the new order of things.
Shitstains like Tate prey on this by offering stupid but simple answers or solutions. "It's not your fault that you're a failure, it's the [random mysogenistic term]'s fault. It's them, they've done this to you. They're cheating your out of your rights." It's the same rhetoric as Hitler blaming the Jews and Trump blaming immigrants and Musk blaming the 'woke mind virus'.
It gives young men an out. "This guy's winning at life and owning the [random mysogenistic term]! I should do what he does!"
The USA had expansion as an escape valve for most of its existence. Now that's gone. There's no future. Our politicians don't talk about anything great ahead anymore. The rest of our existence will be capitalism crushing people. Hence, despair and cynicism.
I think the answer is obvious: Tate tells them "you're awesome". No one else is doing that. People seek validation.
This is the short of it. Tate explains in no uncertain terms that society is to blame for the insecurities they feel, and provides an easy answer on how to fix it that kind of works, because it emulates self-confidence.
I mean it's right wing politics in a nutshell
Dupe fools with simple, comforting lies over complicated, uncomfortable truth. If people don't understand reality they can't change it.
From around 2022 until just recently YouTube Shorts was heavily pushing Tate on me (an almost 50 year old man).
No matter how many times I disliked and/or blocked the poster, the YouTube algorithm just kept throwing more Tate at me. I don't know what I did to make YouTube think I'd be interested in that clown.
On the plus side, it made me a lot more aware of what's going on, hence my efforts to get Google out of my life. I can spot someone trying to manipulate me, but I have young sons who might not.
My guess is hating others for being different is WAY easier than looking inside yourself and learning to forgive and love yourself for all the trauma you've been carrying around.
Young men have problems in their lives, like everyone else does, maybe less, maybe more than other groups in society but that does not matter because for them it's the most vivid problems. He talks to specifically them and their problems.
I don't know how the media in your country sounds*, but here every time there is an issue discussed it tends to be: women, minorites, whatever have a problem, men are the problem.
If the mainstream does not talk about young men's issues, you will hand over the attention of young men to someone who does.
*In a news article, or a political speech try switching the word man/woman black/white immigrant etc for their opposite. Some of them sound absolutely absurd when you do.
A lot of young men frustrated with the lack of community, the fleeting chance of making good money, buying a home, etc. are looking for something/someone to blame. Misogyny and xenophobia are easy escape hatches for difficult times.
Something I rarely see brought up is specifically the edgelord to right wing pipeline. When I was a kid, it was essentially standard for any boy online to try to be super edgy. Adolescents and teens just have a natural urge for rebellion.
The problem comes when kids think edgy and shock value humor is their favorite thing, but more mature online users reject that behavior and exclude these kids. These kids feel misunderstood and are drawn to figures and role models that accept what they like.
I’ve met a bunch of younger, “conservative”, incel types recently and they’ve all been edgelords who found their own little community instead of growing up. They largely have no ideology in the beginning but slowly absorb manosphere bullshit and over time they become less “ironic”.
The thing that got me to stop being edgy was joining the swim team and having my friend group go from edgelords to gay swimmers. I developed a ton of respect for them and they were my teammates; it completely changed my mind without me having to “conform” to the things I wanted to rebel against. I don’t really know how to get that across to some many kids that get sucked up into this madness though.
I call this Shadow the Hedgehog darkness. When something wants to look dark and mature from the outset, but it's really a form of childishness. Same appearance takes effect for a lot of "dark" anime, where people are routinely betraying and causing pain, and "At its heart most of humanity just wants chaos" blah blah.
I do think there's a lot of horrible stuff in the world, but it's usually far more banal than anything these edgelords envision. When put face to face, people usually want to be kind to each other. But we're not put face-to-face often enough.
On the playground kids would follow other kids who they felt were confident or charismatic, not who had the best ideas or were most concerned with fairness or equity. It's just childish, naive notions of importance that are leaking out into the broader society due to social media, culture of celebrity, etc.
Part of it is that women have achieved an educational level as a group that allows them to make better choices. They no longer have to choose which is the nicer wife beater in their town.
The incels seem to have a problem with this. The idea of having to compete based upon personality, likability and in general the ability to treat another person as a human being bothers them.
The Innuendo Studios series' on YouTube Alt-Right Playbook and Why Are You So Angry especially illustrate this well and I highly recommend watching. It's very similar to what happened during gamergate. A lot of men who are frustrated are misled by these reactionary campaigns. Just like everyone else, they face the struggles of patriarchy, toxic masculinity, capitalism, etc. But Andrew Tate tells them it's not their fault, and reassures their insecurities that they're good guys, and tells them that the problem is women.
Fyi, not just men, on tinder here i see a scary amount of women, looking for an Andrew Tate kind of guy. And i'm not saying they don't pivk the nice guy and shit, they literally quote Andrew Tate or will only date someone following tateism. I think a lot of it has to do that they don't want to pay for shit and not work, so they loon for that alpha male caregiver. Still weird shit.
The algorithm pushes them that direction.
On YouTube I'm constantly one video away from "owning the woke libs" content because I turned my view history off.
Yo the second I turned off personalized ads I got so many ads for erectile dysfunction medication. It felt like they were trying to embarrass me into turning personalized ads back on.
I feel like there is also a pathologization of being single. I was a teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s, so before most of social media. I'm also from a village where most people knew each other.
There were a couple of nerdy, shy guys who never had a girlfriend by the time of graduation. I only had one boyfriend at 16 for 2 month before his friend told me he was only dating me as a dare. I was "ugly" and "not a real girl" because I didn't wear makeup and mostly wore jeans and Tshirts. Stupid village kids.
Anyway, similar things happened to the nerdy guys. But no one started crying about all men/women being awful and no one became an incel. Several girls and boys in my class never dated by the time we graduated and that just wasn't a big deal. Nowadays everybody's being told there's something wrong with them if they've never had a partner by age 17.
I feel like there's always been a culture of boys and young men who didn't respect women, there's just never been podcasters actively promoting it.
The internet allows idiots to broadcast their message worldwide and social media promotes the most controversial stuff in order to drive engagement and, more recently, to promote a culture war that keeps the populus divided.
there’s just never been podcasters actively promoting it.
Before podcasts, we had a bunch of AM radio, grindhouse movies, pulp fiction, skin mags, and incel blogs. Joe Rogan is an archtype that echoes through the ages.
Lack of father figures mixed with a regressive world that is admittedly going to shit, whereas millennials and genx were raised thinking they'd be something, with teen angst and rebellion also in the mix. Don't forget a heaping-helping of Hollywood and mainstream media taking a focus entirely away from men in the last 20 years and replacing it with nothing. Fill in the voids with some toxic masculinity influencers and shake vigorously...
And there you have it, a misogynist that blames everyone else for their problems, with a good chunk of those problems actually being valid.
Kids are being exposed early to social media, the boys watch "stuff for men" and learn "how a man should be". With that and the help of algorithms, what other out come could someone expect?
It used to be that women couldn't open their own bank accounts. Depending on how far back you go, they couldn't even own property. In this context, women really needed to get married if they wanted to do anything. For this and many other reasons, the bar was lower, men could get married with less effort. Nowadays women can do anything and the only reason for them to want a man is if they want to, so you actually have to put in effort now.
Also, gender roles are changing and there's no clarity as to what being a man is supposed to mean in 2025. If it's not protecting and providing, if it's not dying in war, then the purpose of men is undefined as of now, and there's a tendency to want to return to the older gender roles.
And late capitalism is stressful, and men aren't going to college as much these days. There's lots of reasons but this is what i can remember in five minutes
I think its because, to an extent, masculinity has been villainized, and people who are masculine (in appearance, identity or desire to be traditionally masculine) naturally look for people that pretend to value them.
This combined with reduction or even removal of shop classes, reduced PE, recess and physical activities in school, female teachers now far outnumbering male teachers, and strict attitude towards typical male behavior can easily build a huge amount of resentment in young men. Most public schools now are heavily tailored towards female students.
Doing normal boy stuff, like roughing each other up and messing with your friends got me and other boys detention, and it felt extremely unfair.
That's what happen when identity politics mark a group as less important and the enemy.
It happens when right wing do identity politics an the marginalized minorities group together against it.
Left wing for some reason decided to use exactly the same strategy as the right wing and took identity politics as a way to do politics and they are having exactly the same result. The "marginalized" identity turned against them.
Surprised Pikachu face.
It's a combination of them being young and dumb, but also being brought up mind-fucked by social media from the beginning of their lives.
The algorithms in social media, media platforms, and search engines are all designed to keep users engaged so that ad revenue can be generated and user data can be harvested.
Adding to that, a lot of these misogynistic creators leverage predatory practices that manipulate marginalized people into sycophantcy.
When this and other factors come together, we wind up with mindless drones which are easily manipulated, constantly angry, and always searching for a way to "get back" at those that who marginalized them.
Were you not young before/after the start of the internet? Not trying to be snarky, it's more trying to understand perspective.
I could have been MAGA, no question. Here's my anecdote: (edit: too lazy to correct so please don't pay close attention to the tense of my words here, I was partially speaking from the perspective of being a kid again but I didn't stay consistent)
I grew up in a diverse area, so I've really never believed in racist stuff. Those kind of conspiracies I used to just handwave the racism stuff away cause it wasn't the important stuff to me that I did kind of believe in. I literally even used to watch some of Alex Jones conspiracy videos.
Really easy to get lost in this crap as a teenager alone at 4am.
Like I said I grew up in a diverse area, and in one of my first real relationships, I got a lot of pushback about certain things (I was kinda blue lives matter for a bit for example) and when that ended, one of the big things I took from it was I wanted to be a more accepting person, and I've been an increasingly-raging leftist ever since.
With the rising loneliness epidemic (which actually extends to both genders - EVERYONE is increasingly isolated) I can only imagine this sort of story is increasingly common. And not everyone comes to the same conclusions about wanting to be more accepting, etc.
I was very lucky to go through those experiences and learn what I did from it. There's probably another universe where I instead got increasingly angry & further into all those things - from the cruel & crass words to the conspiracies - and am wearing a red hat
🤮🤮 at the thought of that
Who else is talking to them?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I'd abstract it to "losers in a shameless culture".
Generally our society would have time to correct itself and face saving would be important enough to contain the losers in their own circles. However the current western culture is completely shameless and incredibly fast meaning that being a loser is kinda ok and easily justifiable. This leads to a bunch of losers getting together and cognitive dissonance themselves into some sort of dumb pointless ideology that's wouldn't be sustainable otherwise. Add money into the mix and you've got yourself real growth.
I lived in Japan for a while and still come back there every now and then and its such a good illustration of this concept. It's an extreme face saving culture. So you have this Tate-like world of Japanese incels hiding under internet anonymity but if you are not Japanese you will never see this because the losers are contained as they'd never dare to display themselves in public.
That being said, I'm quite optimistic and I think cancel culture and western face will come back from the current slump and restore some balance eventually.
