Andrew Tate and the manosphere: a short guide

The spread of misogynistic and other toxic beliefs online has been put into the spotlight in Britain by the success of the Netflix drama "Adolescence", about a 13-year-old boy who kills a girl; but the issue is constantly in the news. This week, a survey by the NASUWT teaching union found that almost three in five British teachers said they believe social media use has had a negative effect on pupil behaviour, with female staff bearing the brunt. One teacher reported boys "barking at female staff and blocking doorways… as a direct result" of watching videos by the influencer Andrew Tate.

Who is Andrew Tate?

The child of a British catering assistant and a US Air Force official, Andrew Tate grew up in poverty, and lived with his mother on a Luton estate. He became a pro kick-boxer, and achieved wider fame on "Celebrity Big Brother" in 2016; he was expelled when videos emerged of him hitting a woman with a belt (he said it was consensual). Proudly describing himself as a "misogynist", who regards women as "property", he was banned from X/Twitter in 2022 for declaring that women should "bear responsibility" for being raped. Now reinstated, he has 10.7 million followers: his bio reads "2025 Worlds [sic] Sexiest Man".

He has made his wealth online, offering get-rich-quick advice at his Hustlers University, and self-help tips enshrined in his "41 Tenets for Men" (e.g. "each man has a sacred duty to mould his body into the strongest... version of itself possible"). He also has a webcam business. In 2022, he described his work as: "to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she's quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she'd do anything I say and then get her on webcam". In late 2022, Tate and his brother Tristan were detained at their home in Romania under charges of human trafficking and rape, which they deny. The investigation continues.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What exactly is the manosphere?

It's a term coined in 2009, which refers to a network of blogs, online forums, podcasts and social media channels promoting traditional masculinity and anti-feminist beliefs. The manosphere's roots are usually traced to the 1970s men's rights movement, and the "pickup artist" scene of the early 2000s, devoted to the seduction of women; but it has grown on the internet into a variety of subcultures.

At the mainstream end are "bro-casters" such as Joe Rogan, America and the UK's most popular podcaster, who caters to primarily male listeners, discussing subjects from martial arts and drugs to news and conspiracy theories; at a more intellectual frequency, there's the conservative psychologist and guru Jordan Peterson. Influencers such as Tate, Adin Ross and Myron Gaines mix up self-help, fitness and business advice with dating strategies.

At the extremes are groups such as Men Going Their Own Way, whose users espouse male separation from the rest of society, and the "incels" – involuntarily celibate men who, says one critic, have constructed a "violent political ideology" around the refusal of "young, beautiful women to have sex with them". All, though, are to some extent connected by the same underpinning ideology.

What kind of ideology is that?

Broadly, they share a sense that Western society is overly feminised, that men and boys are prevented from living out their authentic lives, and that they are often discriminated against. "Not all branches of the manosphere are overtly appalling," noted The Washington Post a decade ago. "Not all of them are even run by men. That said, their core philosophy basically boils down to this: (1) feminism has overrun/corrupted modern culture, in violation of nature/biology/inherent gender differences, and (2) men can best seduce women (slash, save society in general) by embracing a super-dominant, uber-masculine gender role." In the manosphere, there are recurring themes and beliefs, often articulated in distinctive jargon.

What sort of jargon?

As in far-right subcultures, people often say they have been "red-pilled", a reference to the sci-fi film "The Matrix", in which the protagonist swallows a red pill in order to see the disturbing truth: that the human race is kept in a simulation created by machines. The reality thus revealed is that of the "sexual marketplace": the hierarchies and injustices caused by giving women freedom of choice.

Men are divided up into alpha males, average betas and, at the bottom of the heap, no-hoper omegas (though bucking this trend are the sigmas, admired lone wolves who exist outside the popularity jungle). The "80:20" theory, popular among incels, posits that 80% of women (known, if attractive, as Stacys) are only attracted to alphas (or Chads), who make up 20% of men. The remaining 80% of men, the argument goes, will find it very difficult to find mates, unless they go on to become well-off, when women discarded by alphas will marry them to leech off their wealth. This dynamic is popularly referred to with the phrase: "alpha f***s, beta bucks".

There's a great deal of dehumanising slang. Women are often described as "femoids" or "foids" (female humanoids). "Roasties" are women whom incels deem to have had too much sex. The acronym "Awalt" – all women are like that – posits that women are vapid, promiscuous gold-diggers. "Cucks" (cuckolds) are betas who have been deceived by them. When attempting to seduce women, pickup artists discuss "cavemanning": using violence to overcome LMR (Last Minute Resistance) from women to force them into sex. One pickup artist boasted on a popular forum: "many times I have just thrown the girls over my shoulder".

Do we have to take this seriously?

To some extent, these are just new variants of age-old sexism, but they come in a persuasive and ubiquitous format. Research by the charity Hope Not Hate in 2023 found that 79% of boys aged 16 to 17 in the UK had consumed content by Tate; only 58% had heard of the then-prime minister, Rishi Sunak. Like populist political leaders – Donald Trump is popular in the manosphere – figures such as Tate and Peterson appeal to men and boys who feel ignored and emasculated by post-industrial society. Tate offers harsh truths – "nobody cares how you feel" – and claims to tell his followers how to avoid being a "wage-slave brokie" in a dead-end job: how to "escape the matrix". And in its most drastic forms, the manosphere can be very dangerous.

What dangers does it pose?

In May 2014, Elliot Rodger, a self-proclaimed "incel", shot or stabbed six people to death, and injured 14 more, in Santa Barbara, California. He targeted the Alpha Phi sorority house, where he deemed the "hottest" female students at his college resided. In a manifesto, Rodger boasted he was "punishing women and all of humanity for their depravity". Incels hail him as a "saint". In April 2018 in Toronto, Alek Minassian killed 11 people and injured a further 15. Before the attack, he posted on social media: "All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!"