Speaker 1: People are being assured over and over again that women
Speaker 1: are the problem.
Speaker 2: There are no Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridgie Toad and this
Speaker 2: is there are No Girls on the Internet. Last week,
Speaker 2: Apple and Google Play both took down Andrew Tate's at
Speaker 2: the Real World formerly Hustler's University. Andrew Tate has been
Speaker 2: grifting a generation of young men and boys into making
Speaker 2: him rich by stoking their anxieties, anger, and fears. His
Speaker 2: content is dangerous. But it's not just Tate. An entire
Speaker 2: ecosystem of extremist content creators in what's commonly known as
Speaker 2: the manosphere are gamifying the Internet to line their pockets
Speaker 2: and putting all of us at risk in the process.
Speaker 1: So the manosphere is this umbrella term that a lot
Speaker 1: of different misogynists, activists, commentators kind of fall unders, whether
Speaker 1: that be someone like a men's rights activists, a pickup artist,
Speaker 1: a blogger, a podcaster, pretty much anyone whose main deal
Speaker 1: is misogyny that falls under the manosphere.
Speaker 2: Justin Horowitz has been researching viral extremist influencers with Media
Speaker 2: Matters since twenty twenty, so a lot of this content
Speaker 2: really seems to prey on the fears in vulnerabilities of
Speaker 2: young men, like you're not working out as hard as
Speaker 2: all the other men around you, or you're never going
Speaker 2: to get a date, or you spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time alone at home instead of being out. Why is that?
Speaker 1: I think that that is a great gateway to get
Speaker 1: to talk about misogyny and hate and to push extremism.
Speaker 1: So something like fitness content or something like whether that
Speaker 1: be gambling or even gaming some of these manosphere influencers
Speaker 1: are involved in. It is just a way to get
Speaker 1: people to log on to subscribe to their content so
Speaker 1: that they can push further extremism and further misogyny down
Speaker 1: the road. And kind of going off what you just said,
Speaker 1: a lot of these manosphere influencers do talk about sort
Speaker 1: of the real fears that men are experiencing, so things
Speaker 1: like financial instability or rejection dating advice. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of influencers that speak to these real fears of
Speaker 1: young men that are outside the manosphere. So I think
Speaker 1: that young men are particularly interested in these influencers because
Speaker 1: there's not that many to choose from, and when these
Speaker 1: are the ones that are available, that's who they'll that's
Speaker 1: who they'll spend their time listening to.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, that's such a bummer because there are men and
Speaker 2: women and all kinds of folks who make content about
Speaker 2: like for young people, right, But the content that we
Speaker 2: get that we see amplified on social media is never
Speaker 2: the person who's making a podcast digging into the doing
Speaker 2: a thoughtful dig int about like the nuances of dating
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three for young men, or the realities
Speaker 2: of economic stability like that would be content that people
Speaker 2: would be looking for. I think there's like a like
Speaker 2: a thirst for it, and there are people making thoughtful
Speaker 2: content about that, but they certainly do not enjoy the
Speaker 2: exposure or the reach, or the or the platforms like
Speaker 2: people making Manosphere content. Why is that?
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of the manosphere content oftentimes
Speaker 1: the first and like the first thing people are seeing
Speaker 1: are these very viral moments. So what they're seeing are
Speaker 1: these TikTok clips of someone saying something that is extremely misogynist.
Speaker 1: But maybe they'll have someone that is there to give
Speaker 1: a retort. But that's just one way to get people
Speaker 1: sort of involved or get their eyes on it. So
Speaker 1: these Manosphere these manosphere influencers, they just have a they're
Speaker 1: honestly very They're very good at the Internet. And it's
Speaker 1: the same way that Andrew Tape was able to, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure that everybody on the Internet knew who he was.
Speaker 1: You know, he was the most googled person last year.
Speaker 1: They're just very good at being able to play the
Speaker 1: Internet game, play the virality game.
Speaker 2: These creators are gamifying our Internet landscape by cranking out
Speaker 2: moments designed for social media virality and incentivizing their followers
Speaker 2: to share them online. As part of Andrew Tate's real
Speaker 2: world app, Tape promises that subscribers who pay fifty dollars
Speaker 2: a month for the app can make millions by reposting
Speaker 2: his clips on social media sites. That's why platforms like
Speaker 2: TikTok are flooded with his toxic, harmful messages. More and
Speaker 2: more of these creators, like the Fresh and Fit podcast
Speaker 2: and the Whatever podcast are doing similar things. It's like
Speaker 2: an ecosystem of toxicity.
Speaker 1: Honestly, it's really impressive and it's kind of scary as well.
Speaker 2: It is scary, especially with Andrew Tate. I mean, what
Speaker 2: like something that I see a lot with when it
Speaker 2: comes to these podcasts. I used in quotes because as
Speaker 2: a podcaster, I have some like issues with how they're
Speaker 2: pod Well, well that's either here nor there. But you know,
Speaker 2: it'll be these viral moments where they'll get you know,
Speaker 2: like Fresh and Fit does this a lot. Well, they'll
Speaker 2: where they'll they'll have a black woman on the show
Speaker 2: seemingly just to degrade and humiliate her. And maybe this
Speaker 2: woman will shrink and sit silently while they do this,
Speaker 2: maybe she will say something back, maybe she will storm out.
Speaker 2: But that clip on social media will get such big engagement.
Speaker 2: And even if you are someone who finds these views
Speaker 2: a borrent, you're still looking at them. They're still getting
Speaker 2: your eyeballs. Is that sort of what you mean by
Speaker 2: the way they're able to play social media algorithms to
Speaker 2: ensure that their content is always getting that high engagement,
Speaker 2: and thus we're going to see more and more of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is exactly what I mean. They are able
Speaker 1: to find that ten second clip of them degrading someone
Speaker 1: or making sure that they look a fool, just so
Speaker 1: that they can get people's eyes on them and then
Speaker 1: give them a follow, And then you go to their
Speaker 1: actual podcast and you see it's three hours long of
Speaker 1: horrible misogyny. Like I said, it is really just like
Speaker 1: a gateway. Some of these viral clips are just a
Speaker 1: gateway to get people more involved in the manosphere community.
Speaker 1: And I saw it, like you said, with Fresh and Fit.
Speaker 1: There are other podcasts like the whatever dating podcast huge
Speaker 1: on TikTok. My colleague Sophie and I recently did a
Speaker 1: piece on them as well. It's pretty much a Fresh
Speaker 1: and Fit knockoff. But you know, it's just they are
Speaker 1: on twist on it. But they really got our attention
Speaker 1: at Media Matters because of their viral moments that we
Speaker 1: were seeing on TikTok that was just popping up in
Speaker 1: our feeds.
Speaker 2: God, it's interesting that these are often like dating or
Speaker 2: lifestyle podcasts because I don't know how to put this,
Speaker 2: but I had so. I was home over the weekend
Speaker 2: and I was spending time with a family member who
Speaker 2: I was really surprised to learn enjoys Andrew take content
Speaker 2: and I was like, what is it that you like
Speaker 2: about him? He was like, well, I just see the
Speaker 2: clips on social media, like the clips on Instagram where
Speaker 2: he's driving a Bugatti and he's talking about how important
Speaker 2: it is to grind. And he was saying, how like
Speaker 2: nobody's really giving that message today that it's important to grind.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I don't know about that, but
Speaker 2: and then I was like, oh, so do you listen
Speaker 2: to his podcast tape speech and he was like no,
Speaker 2: I tried to. It's like three hours long of him
Speaker 2: rambling and like, none of that appeals to me. And
Speaker 2: I found it so interesting that this person in my life,
Speaker 2: who I think of as like a smart with it person,
Speaker 2: was taken by these short clips to the point where
Speaker 2: they would defend this person not having dived deeper into
Speaker 2: any of their longer form content or and had tried
Speaker 2: to but could not get through it, Like, is that
Speaker 2: by design?
Speaker 1: I do think it's by design. I think that parasocial
Speaker 1: relationships with these Manosphere influencers are created very easily. I
Speaker 1: don't think that it takes a lot of content for
Speaker 1: you to feel a connection with some of these influencers.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that is specific to the Manosphere.
Speaker 1: I think that can happen with any sort of TikToker
Speaker 1: or someone you're following online. But I think that what
Speaker 1: a lot of these manuscript fear influencers are trying to
Speaker 1: do is they want you to become who they are, right,
Speaker 1: so they say, I'm an alpha male. You want to
Speaker 1: be a high value man. And what you want to
Speaker 1: do is you want to become a high value man,
Speaker 1: you should be an alpha male. So what people are
Speaker 1: doing is they're looking up to these people. It becomes
Speaker 1: very very easy to defend someone when you want to
Speaker 1: be them.
Speaker 2: Creators like Andrew Tate are notorious for being really good
Speaker 2: at getting around bands On social media platforms, content that
Speaker 2: uses dog whistles or codes are not always detected, and
Speaker 2: even when individual creators are banned, their followers can still
Speaker 2: post their content. This is how take gets around being
Speaker 2: banned from pretty much every social media platform out there
Speaker 2: except Twitter. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he let
Speaker 2: Andrew Tate back on the platform, and the two sometimes
Speaker 2: publicly interact. And when Musk was touting payments for people
Speaker 2: who post on Twitter, Andrew Tate proudly bragged that he
Speaker 2: got twenty thousand dollars. What's also interesting to me is
Speaker 2: the role that you say social media plays in this.
Speaker 2: Some of these influencers like Andrew Tait, who was famously
Speaker 2: banned from like all platforms, like I don't even think
Speaker 2: I don't even think he's on Pinterest, like and then
Speaker 2: he was famously not just let back on when Elon
Speaker 2: Musk took over at Twitter, but as of last week
Speaker 2: being paid like twenty thousand dollars to stay on Twitter
Speaker 2: and make content. Other influencers that you've that you've written about,
Speaker 2: like sneak O. These are people who have technically been
Speaker 2: banned from platforms, yet I see their content all the time.
Speaker 2: What's going on there?
Speaker 1: Honestly, it's a lot of bannovation, I'll say that. So
Speaker 1: a lot of these tech platforms they are not good
Speaker 1: at knowing who is evading their bands, and you know,
Speaker 1: people at Media Matters we write about these kind of bannovations,
Speaker 1: but it's also about some of these influencers are going
Speaker 1: to these like all platforms we're talking about like Rumble
Speaker 1: of course, Parlor when that was a thing, Gab, all
Speaker 1: of the Twitter knockoffs, all Twitter, the of those. But
Speaker 1: people are bringing their audiences from these mainstream platforms. Let's
Speaker 1: say sneak O was brought back on Twitter, he can
Speaker 1: tell all of his Twitter followers to go follow him
Speaker 1: on Rumble, which is like a you know, knock off
Speaker 1: YouTube pretty much for the alright. And what they can
Speaker 1: do is they can build huge audiences on these platforms
Speaker 1: and then they can find other influencers that are on Rumble,
Speaker 1: and then it just kind of becomes this rabbit hole
Speaker 1: that people go down. Once you're on Rumble, you can
Speaker 1: find all these other Rumble influencers. So it's it's really
Speaker 1: about a way to get like all of your followers
Speaker 1: into one place. And like, these influencers are really good
Speaker 1: at that. They're really good at getting their followers to
Speaker 1: do what they want them to do.
Speaker 2: It's it's I mean, I hate to give them any credit,
Speaker 2: but it is a very effective strategy because I see
Speaker 2: them all the time and I'm always like, I thought
Speaker 2: they banned you, I thought they got rid of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, They're like a pesky little bug that you just
Speaker 1: cannot get rid of.
Speaker 2: It's not just Andrew Tate. More and more content creators
Speaker 2: are making similar content in Andrew Tate's image. Some of
Speaker 2: them like Sneako, who got to start making Call of
Speaker 2: Duty content on YouTube before jumping to the platform. Rumble,
Speaker 2: you might not have heard of. But even if you
Speaker 2: haven't heard of them. It's likely that your little brother
Speaker 2: or a little cousin probably has. We talk a lot
Speaker 2: about Tate, and rightly so, he's like the most googled person.
Speaker 2: But you've done a really great job of mapping out
Speaker 2: the entire ecosystem of the of men's rights influencers. Who
Speaker 2: are some of the major players that folks might not know.
Speaker 1: So we talked about sneak O. He's definitely He kind
Speaker 1: of started as like a man on the street interview
Speaker 1: type of TikToker, doing kind of YouTube videos when he
Speaker 1: was younger, and then made his way into the manosphere.
Speaker 1: Another person that I've been writing about recently who have
Speaker 1: actually noticed has gotten a lot of pick up recently
Speaker 1: was h Pearl Davis. She goes by just pearly things online.
Speaker 1: She's a men's rights influencer or I guess she would
Speaker 1: just call herself a manospear influencer of some sort, and
Speaker 1: she's been getting a lot of attention recently as the
Speaker 1: female Andrew Tate. Who else have I written about? Let's
Speaker 1: see Aiden Ross, who was one of the biggest Twitch streamers.
Speaker 1: He recently has moved over to kick which is kind
Speaker 1: of a twitch knockoff that's owned by Steak, which is
Speaker 1: a crypto gambling organization. And then there's the Whatever podcast,
Speaker 1: as I talked about before, which is kind of like
Speaker 1: fresh and fit Jonathan Hogwood, who's another men's rights activist. Honestly,
Speaker 1: there are so many Andrew Tait knockoffs that they are
Speaker 1: almost hard to map out. At this point, I feel
Speaker 1: like every time I jump online, I'm finding someone else
Speaker 1: that is saying the same thing to their followers, and
Speaker 1: it is just full blown misogyny. And you know, I'll
Speaker 1: check one week and they'll have a significant amount of followers,
Speaker 1: and then I'll check their follower count the next week
Speaker 1: and they've just blown up. These people are just gaining
Speaker 1: followers at like very rapid speeds.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, So I've known the same
Speaker 2: thing that a lot of these influencers. They'll start by
Speaker 2: doing funny pranks or man on the street or video
Speaker 2: game live streaming, and then kind of dovetail into misogyny
Speaker 2: and then some of them will like explode. How much
Speaker 2: of that do you think is just kind of playing
Speaker 2: to what works, like being like, oh, when I was
Speaker 2: just doing X, I wasn't really getting traction when I
Speaker 2: started dipping into misogyny, anti semitism, conspiracy theories, women and
Speaker 2: Jewish people are the root of your problems. Women don't
Speaker 2: deserve rights. I got a lot more traction. I'm going
Speaker 2: to keep working. What works? How much? If it? Do
Speaker 2: you think is just like a marketing tactic.
Speaker 1: I think you've hit the nail on the head. I
Speaker 1: really think that misogyny gets clicks. I think that hating
Speaker 1: women gets clicks. I think being an anti Semite unfortunately
Speaker 1: gets clicks as well. I think that these are definitely
Speaker 1: strategies that people can turn to when they've run out
Speaker 1: of options. You know, doing a prank video, being a TikToker,
Speaker 1: depending on your content will only get you so far.
Speaker 1: And this is definitely a road that people see. And
Speaker 1: not only that, but it's also profitable. So the manosphere
Speaker 1: in general, there's oftentimes a monetary aspect. So what are
Speaker 1: these people selling. They're always selling something, whether that's masculinity
Speaker 1: lessons or dating advice, advice on how to go viral,
Speaker 1: anything like that. You know, the people that are in it,
Speaker 1: they are in it for themselves. They are not really
Speaker 1: trying to help these men become high value men or
Speaker 1: whatever they say that they're trying to help them become
Speaker 1: They are trying to make money, get followers, and market themselves.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a grift, it's a scam like that.
Speaker 2: That's the thing that really it troubles me. Like this
Speaker 2: is when I was having this long, long as debate
Speaker 2: with my family member last week this past weekend about
Speaker 2: Andrew Tate, I was surprised that he was not able
Speaker 2: to see what a clear and obvious grift this person
Speaker 2: is running. This person is telling is stoking on the
Speaker 2: fears and vulnerabilities which may be very real of the
Speaker 2: community of young men who legitimately feel like forgotten, unseen.
Speaker 2: He is stoking those things to enrich himself personally. And
Speaker 2: I guess, like, how do people not see it for
Speaker 2: the grift that it is, Like, how does it? How
Speaker 2: is it so effective? But it's like, clearly he is
Speaker 2: trying to take your money. He doesn't actually care about
Speaker 2: you being a high value man or actually like seeing
Speaker 2: you and the vulnerabilities that you have. He's interested in
Speaker 2: fattening his pockets.
Speaker 1: I think then it goes back to what I was
Speaker 1: saying before, where there are really just so few influencers
Speaker 1: that are speaking to these fears of young men that
Speaker 1: it is like it is completely oh, like the the
Speaker 1: idea that people are doing it for the money, it's
Speaker 1: just overshadowed. I think people are people become extremely cutly,
Speaker 1: they become such committed followers to these influencers that you know,
Speaker 1: they look past the bad they look past the money
Speaker 1: that they're giving, they look past the horrible misogyny. And
Speaker 1: some people, when they are fans, they know that what
Speaker 1: these people are saying is wrong and dangerous and putting
Speaker 1: like the real lives of women in particular, like they're
Speaker 1: making a lot, they're making women's lives more dangerous because
Speaker 1: they think that they're helping them in some way. They're
Speaker 1: trying to like improve their lives and for people when
Speaker 1: if they haven't had someone to talk to, or they
Speaker 1: haven't had someone that felt like there was really like
Speaker 1: speaking to their soul, like they're willing to look past
Speaker 1: those things, and it really.
Speaker 2: Makes me sad because what they're selling them is so shitty.
Speaker 2: Like somebody who made good content about women and men
Speaker 2: and gender and sexuality and dating in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: someone who was actually meaningfully seeing these people and speaking
Speaker 2: to their concerns I think would be great. I think
Speaker 2: what makes me upset is that they flood the space
Speaker 2: with such garbage, so people who actually are making that
Speaker 2: content really can't get a foothold because who's going to
Speaker 2: listen to somebody who is making a nuanced point about
Speaker 2: gender and dating when you can watch this very exciting
Speaker 2: video of a black woman's being degraded and then storming
Speaker 2: off of a podcast set right, and you know, I
Speaker 2: think it really creates this false world where in heterosexual relationships,
Speaker 2: men and women are constantly at odds that like, people
Speaker 2: don't have relationships that are based on mutual respect, seeing
Speaker 2: each other, wanting to support each other. The only kind
Speaker 2: of relationship that exists between a man and a woman
Speaker 2: is one that is built on, you know, breaking the woman,
Speaker 2: her being submissive, you being dominant, when in reality, people
Speaker 2: who have healthy relationships are not obsessed with the particulars
Speaker 2: in this way, Like this is not like I don't
Speaker 2: know anybody who has a relationship like that, and that
Speaker 2: is certainly not a relationship to strive for. Yet they
Speaker 2: are presenting to a whole generation of young people, but
Speaker 2: this is the only kind of relationship that you can
Speaker 2: have and it's just not true.
Speaker 1: I mean traditional gender roles. I mean that that just
Speaker 1: kind of oftentimes will take out the whole part of
Speaker 1: like important communication. You know, if you if your job
Speaker 1: is to do this, my job is to do that,
Speaker 1: and like that's how it's gonna be. Oftentimes, it's just
Speaker 1: not gonna work that way. It'll just it's so outdated
Speaker 1: the gender roles that they're pushing that it just, like
Speaker 1: you said, it doesn't really make sense and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I'd wish that I could like point to more like
Speaker 1: influencers that are creating content about dating and that are
Speaker 1: kind of creating content that would be kind of the
Speaker 1: opposite of manosphere content. But like, off the top of
Speaker 1: my head, I can't think of any obviously because I
Speaker 1: work in this space. But it's it's it's it's just
Speaker 1: sad to see that. It feels like when men are
Speaker 1: looking for a role model or someone to look up to,
Speaker 1: it just feels like there's just one type of role
Speaker 1: model online that they can find.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break at our back. It's not
Speaker 2: just men. There are women creating misogynistic content on social
Speaker 2: media too. While Andrew Tate was in custody being investigated
Speaker 2: for running a trafficking ring in Romania. H Pearl Davis,
Speaker 2: or just Pearly Things filled the gap and spiked in popularity,
Speaker 2: sometimes called the female Andrew Tate. Business Insider reported that
Speaker 2: Pearl's YouTube audience grew fifty percent in the three months
Speaker 2: since Tate was detained, and that our subscriber base jumped
Speaker 2: from around eight hundred thousand to one point three million
Speaker 2: while Tate was in custody. On her merch store, Pearl
Speaker 2: sells shirts that say women shouldn't vote.
Speaker 1: I think you would actually be surprised. I think that
Speaker 1: there is a small sector within the manosphere where there
Speaker 1: are women viewing extreme misogyny against other women. I think
Speaker 1: that men in particular think that if a woman says it,
Speaker 1: they can repeat it. If a woman is talking bad
Speaker 1: about women and saying extreme misogyny, they can just say
Speaker 1: it more casually, almost.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been following Pearl for quite a while. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've been following her since she was just a
Speaker 1: TikToker and she was just constantly getting banned on TikTok,
Speaker 1: And now I'm seeing articles written about her within really
Speaker 1: the last week where people are saying she's the new
Speaker 1: female Andrew Tape, and I think that part of it.
Speaker 1: This is just my opinion. I think that the media
Speaker 1: is picking up on her because they like to see
Speaker 1: women attack each other. I think that is you know,
Speaker 1: when you have someone like just pearly things talking bad
Speaker 1: about women, they're like, oh, yeah, this is definitely something
Speaker 1: we should cover, but we're not talking about the actual
Speaker 1: reality of it. Like I said before, that you know,
Speaker 1: her dangerous misogyny is still putting the lives of women
Speaker 1: in danger. You know, it's just as bad as something
Speaker 1: that Andrew Tate was saying. You know, it's just out
Speaker 1: of someone else's mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've noticed that too. Like another kind of like
Speaker 2: right wing influencer type, Candice Owen, people love it when
Speaker 2: she says something bad about black people because she's a
Speaker 2: black woman, and so like, I do think there's something
Speaker 2: that like is even outside of these right wing media circles,
Speaker 2: in more traditional or legacy media, I think that there
Speaker 2: is something just irresistible about that framing of like, well,
Speaker 2: this woman doesn't think that women should have rights, and
Speaker 2: she's a woman and she's saying it. Like, I think
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right that there's something they've identified that is
Speaker 2: clicky or buzzy about that, and it'll always make headlines.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing about when you have like this
Speaker 1: group Gayze against groomers attacking the LGBT community. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, they're getting all of this media pickup
Speaker 1: just because they're queer people attacking other queer people. I
Speaker 1: feel like it kind of falls in kind of the
Speaker 1: same formula.
Speaker 2: There another hallmark of this kind of content the grind
Speaker 2: set mentality. The grindset is kind of a catch all
Speaker 2: for all of the trades and interests supposedly embodied by
Speaker 2: the high value alpha male. So when creators like Andrew
Speaker 2: Tate or Fresh and Fit all for their followers paid
Speaker 2: coaching to become these high value men. It runs the
Speaker 2: gamut from content about fitness or real estate, stocks and cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2: It might seem kind of all over the place to
Speaker 2: an outsider, but they're selling the shortcut to an entire lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Something that I've noticed about the content of folks like
Speaker 2: Fresh and Fit Andrew Tat especially, is it so much
Speaker 2: of the topics are all over the place, Like they
Speaker 2: talk a lot about crypto, which I always found so interesting.
Speaker 2: Is it just that crypto is sort of synonymous with
Speaker 2: young people who are very much online and they're just
Speaker 2: trying to give them what they want or there's something
Speaker 2: else going on there.
Speaker 1: You know. I think crypto trading is like part of
Speaker 1: the grind set, right, So it's like, what are we
Speaker 1: doing to make money? How can we make money fastest
Speaker 1: way possible? And how can we do it efficiently and
Speaker 1: be alpha males while doing it. So I just feel
Speaker 1: like cryptocurrency kind of falls into the world of the
Speaker 1: manosphere because it's all about doing something quickly and doing
Speaker 1: something big. I think those are just two aspects of
Speaker 1: the manosphere that are just like, you know, you can
Speaker 1: kind of apply that to like anything, making money, meeting girls, dating,
Speaker 1: and I think cryptocurrency, you know, I think it's just
Speaker 1: hot and trendy, and I think that's just kind of
Speaker 1: like where it's fallen recently.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love how you put that that
Speaker 2: it's just doing something. It's the grindset of doing something
Speaker 2: quick and big. I think that that's something that all
Speaker 2: of this content kind of has in common, this idea
Speaker 2: that there is a cheat code to life, that there's
Speaker 2: a cheat code that's going to get you rich. There's
Speaker 2: a cheat code that's going to get you fit, there's
Speaker 2: a cheat code that's going to get you beloved by women,
Speaker 2: sexual prowess, social like, social power. You can just gamify
Speaker 2: it and if you have that figured it out, you
Speaker 2: just don't have the right cheat code. Like, I think
Speaker 2: that it's all kind of wrapped up in that.
Speaker 1: I really like that term cheat code. That's not something
Speaker 1: I've used in this, but I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole idea of the red pill, so being like
Speaker 1: women are the root of all evil, you know, understanding
Speaker 1: that women are the reason I'm not financially stable, women
Speaker 1: are the reason I'm not dating the women are the
Speaker 1: reason of so and so and so and so for
Speaker 1: whatever you know, poor man's problems he has. I think
Speaker 1: that that is also sort of a mental cheat code
Speaker 1: to be like, these are the reasons I'm not happy,
Speaker 1: you know, it's because of women. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's just kind of another way to sort of understand
Speaker 1: the framing when it comes to just like the mentality
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I think back to when I
Speaker 2: was a young person going through my first breakup. I
Speaker 2: just like all most young people do. I had like
Speaker 2: one bad breakup that sort of defined part of my life,
Speaker 2: and what I turned to was like the Cure records
Speaker 2: and really bad poetry. What makes me sad now is
Speaker 2: that there is this entire, well oiled digital machine that
Speaker 2: will when they find a vulnerable young person who is
Speaker 2: in that moment of like, oh you're you're heartbroken, they
Speaker 2: will find that young person and be like, oh, the
Speaker 2: reason why you feel this way, think about how bad
Speaker 2: you feel, it's because of women, right like, And you
Speaker 2: can build an entire identity and ethos around the fact
Speaker 2: that women are the source for your pain, for why
Speaker 2: you're not feeling good, while you're not succeeding, while you
Speaker 2: don't have money, whatever whatever the thing is. And you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think I don't think this kind of content
Speaker 2: is new, But what I think is new is that
Speaker 2: young people all have a device in their hands that
Speaker 2: connect it to them so instantly, and that content is
Speaker 2: not just there, it's also amplified by social media platforms
Speaker 2: who are getting rich off of it. It's algorithmically, you know,
Speaker 2: surfaced for them, and it kind of makes me feel
Speaker 2: like they don't necessarily have a lot of tools when
Speaker 2: they're young to steer away from that content because it's
Speaker 2: such a pull. I bet yeah.
Speaker 1: I really think that Like if you're you know, giving
Speaker 1: the example that you gave your heartbroken, and you're a
Speaker 1: man and you just went through a devastating heartbreak, and
Speaker 1: you pops up on your TikTok feeds sneak, o refresh
Speaker 1: and fit talking about like why women break men's hearts,
Speaker 1: and it's like the next five tiktoks that are coming up,
Speaker 1: you're on the manosphere tag or whatever you're looking at.
Speaker 1: You know that is really going to draw people in.
Speaker 1: And I think that is constant stimulation, and people are
Speaker 1: being assured over and over again that women are the problem,
Speaker 1: I think is what it is. Especially if you're looking
Speaker 1: for that kind of content or like your algorithm has
Speaker 1: picked up that you're interested in that kind of content,
Speaker 1: You're just going to get the same talking points and
Speaker 1: the same misogyny over and over again, and it's just
Speaker 1: going to draw you further into it.
Speaker 2: And I just I mean, what responsibility do you think
Speaker 2: that social media platforms have to keep that from happening,
Speaker 2: especially to young people.
Speaker 1: I think they need to have more terms of service
Speaker 1: when it comes to extremistygny. Honestly, I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of times they are pretty lax. Places like TikTok
Speaker 1: or obviously Twitter or you know, any sort of social media.
Speaker 1: They just don't have the kind of specificity that they
Speaker 1: really need to have to keep women safe on the Internet.
Speaker 2: Do you feel it's getting worse.
Speaker 1: On some platforms, Yeah, I mean I feel like maybe,
Speaker 1: well maybe it's not getting worse, but the bad actors
Speaker 1: are getting better at it. I'll say that I feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes they're able to really talk around things. I
Speaker 1: think that some of the bad actors are able to
Speaker 1: you know, know what gets viral to sort of draw
Speaker 1: people in. And I think that the social media platforms,
Speaker 1: you know, they still want to make money and they
Speaker 1: don't want to see some of their biggest actors taken off.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's an unfortunate reality, is that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have someone that's bringing in a
Speaker 1: lot of attention to a lot of clicks, they don't
Speaker 1: want to ba them.
Speaker 2: And if you're Elon Musk, maybe you'll give them twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and thus incentivize the next misogynistic hate monger
Speaker 2: to get big on the platform and say hey, I
Speaker 2: could do that. I can say misogynistic things into a
Speaker 2: microphone money please exactly.
Speaker 1: If it's getting clips, then there you go.
Speaker 2: So you talked about how some of these bad actors
Speaker 2: are pretty good about like coding things so that they
Speaker 2: stay on the right side of these terms of service.
Speaker 2: I saw something in a social media feed. It was
Speaker 2: Nick flint Has on the Freshian Fit podcast and they
Speaker 2: were talking about JQ, and I was like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck is JAQ? Then I read your piece and I
Speaker 2: was like the Jewish question. Then I saw the host
Speaker 2: of Fresh and Fit saying he basically bragged, saying that
Speaker 2: you know, we're the biggest platform that's talking about the JQ.
Speaker 2: No one else will do it. What's going on here?
Speaker 2: Like what is that?
Speaker 1: This is straight up Nazi shit And I am being
Speaker 1: dead serious. When you bring Nick Quentis into it, you
Speaker 1: know he is a neo Nazi. He's a white supremacist
Speaker 1: and a Holocaust denier. They have been talking Nick Quentas
Speaker 1: and Freshman Fit four months about getting together and doing
Speaker 1: this collaboration. So this was kind of the precipice of
Speaker 1: them making of working together to make sure that they
Speaker 1: can do this like hours an hour's long stream. There
Speaker 1: was even a video that was going around of Nick
Speaker 1: doing a Nazi pile in the Fresh and Fitz studio
Speaker 1: and they're talking about the Jewish Question. This is, you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing that Adolf Hitler was talking about when
Speaker 1: he was like, what do we do about the Jews?
Speaker 1: And like you said, the hosts were saying, we're the
Speaker 1: only podcast that's talking about the Jewish Question. It's extremely
Speaker 1: extremely scary stuff to see and something that you know
Speaker 1: is extremely well codd You know, a clip like that
Speaker 1: where they're just talking about the JQ, something like that
Speaker 1: could probably go on to TikTok because their algorithms might
Speaker 1: not pick it up. Maybe they would pick up if
Speaker 1: someone did like a hashtag Nick quentas or something like that,
Speaker 1: but it'll just direct people. They'll direct people back to Rumble,
Speaker 1: which is where you can see these hour long streams.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you put it that way. Back when
Speaker 2: Kanye West and Nick Quintes went to visit Trump, I
Speaker 2: did an interview with Robert Evans, who makes the podcast
Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards, who's all about all of these shitheads,
Speaker 2: and that was the point that he made too, which
Speaker 2: is that Nick Fuentes is a Nazi. Like some of
Speaker 2: these other characters, they kind of dance around it. They
Speaker 2: you know, you could sort of be like, oh, they're
Speaker 2: trolling maybe, but he's not in that camp, and so
Speaker 2: that like when you are platforming him, you're doing a
Speaker 2: very different thing and you're sending a very different, clear
Speaker 2: signal about what you're about.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. I think that when you make the
Speaker 1: decision to platform Nick quentas you are drawing a line
Speaker 1: in the sand, you are saying, I am willing to
Speaker 1: put a Nazi onto my show, and I'm listening and
Speaker 1: I will hear him out. So someone like Pearl just
Speaker 1: pearly things. As we talked about a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: she had him on her show.
Speaker 2: Nick fuent has actually inspired Pearl so much that she
Speaker 2: made an entire anti semitic song about it. When Pierce
Speaker 2: Morgan confronted Pearl about it on his television show, here's
Speaker 2: how she responded.
Speaker 3: I mean, the point was more about cancel culture and
Speaker 3: people getting kicked off of social media. If you finished
Speaker 3: the song, it was more about like, you can't talk
Speaker 3: about this topic without being canceled by the left. And
Speaker 3: the right. I don't really have a strong opinion either way.
Speaker 1: And she obviously got a lot of backlash. She took
Speaker 1: the videos down, she put the videos back up, she
Speaker 1: defended him, she went back and forth, but she ended
Speaker 1: the place she ended up. She ended up being like,
Speaker 1: I believe in free speech, so I would host him
Speaker 1: again something like that. It's just ridiculous, and I think
Speaker 1: that it is so so dangerous the manosphere in general,
Speaker 1: but then to bring Nazism and neo Nazianism into it,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is just like two very scary, dangerous
Speaker 1: worlds colliding.
Speaker 2: What are some of the real world impacts of this,
Speaker 2: because I'm certainly sure somebody listening is like, it's just
Speaker 2: young people saying naughty words on the Internet. It doesn't
Speaker 2: really mean anything. What is the real world impact?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the manosphere in general does not live
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. SOS. Major misogyny and extreme misogyny has
Speaker 1: led to real world violence. People like Elliott Rodgers, who
Speaker 1: is an in cell mouth shooter. Obviously many attacks against women.
Speaker 1: Gamergate in twenty fifteen, when members when female members of
Speaker 1: the video game community were attacked, sent death threats and
Speaker 1: rape threats. These are all just examples of ways that
Speaker 1: the manosphere has, you know, come into the real world
Speaker 1: and has become a serious danger to people and has
Speaker 1: affected real people's lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, just this week, I was reading on
Speaker 2: Twitter about a man who had posted a picture of
Speaker 2: him and his wife and said, I think it was
Speaker 2: a tweet that was like, oh, I went Columbia and
Speaker 2: I married, I came back with a wife. And that
Speaker 2: person is now being accused of murdering his wife. And
Speaker 2: you go to his Twitter page and it's all Andrew
Speaker 2: Tait stuff. And I'm not saying that there's like there's
Speaker 2: a deep like a deep connection, because we don't know.
Speaker 2: It's still something that they're investigating. But I have to
Speaker 2: imagine that somebody who is absorbing content from an influencer
Speaker 2: who is saying all of these things about how women
Speaker 2: haven't deserve rights, how if a woman is raped she
Speaker 2: bears some responsibility, like all of this stuff, I can't
Speaker 2: imagine how that is not creating a less safe world
Speaker 2: for everybody, women especially, but also for the men who
Speaker 2: absorb this content.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think that it is making men think that,
Speaker 1: you know, violence is sometimes an answer when Nick was
Speaker 1: on Pearl's show, he downplayed domestic abuse. You know, so
Speaker 1: if you're someone who is easily influenced by like bad
Speaker 1: actors or figures or the kind of content you're taking in,
Speaker 1: you know, these are people who are quick to violence
Speaker 1: and quick to like you know, call up arms. You know,
Speaker 1: these are very scary people who are associated with people
Speaker 1: that have you know, been convicted of violent acts pretty much,
Speaker 1: people that are gropers that have followed Nick Fuentas. There
Speaker 1: have been like multiple instances of these people being charged
Speaker 1: for you know, dangerous and violent apps.
Speaker 2: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 2: Tate and people like him make contents specifically and explicitly
Speaker 2: targeting kids. Before it was deleted from the app stores,
Speaker 2: Tate's app The Real World said it was appropriate for
Speaker 2: ages for and up. He even boasts about having a
Speaker 2: six year old subscriber. Similarly, in avieral video of sneak
Speaker 2: O meeting a handful of his fans who are boys,
Speaker 2: maybe age eight or nine, one of them gleefully tell
Speaker 2: sneak O fuck all women, while another says all gay
Speaker 2: should die. What is content like this doing to a
Speaker 2: generation of young men? It's really scary, and I read
Speaker 2: about how Andrew Tate's content. I read a piece about
Speaker 2: how teachers in schools like people who work with young people,
Speaker 2: his content specifically is causes. It's leading to disruptions where
Speaker 2: you know, young men will who like Andrew Tate, will
Speaker 2: start bringing his content into the classroom, and it just
Speaker 2: creates a very unsafe, chaotic environment, especially for like the young,
Speaker 2: like like young kids, elementary school kids.
Speaker 1: So Insider had a report, it was a couple of
Speaker 1: months back now, and it said that there was an
Speaker 1: eleven year old who was repeating Andrew tait content and
Speaker 1: who was pretty much saying that he like idolized him.
Speaker 1: I do think that, you know, when people are looking
Speaker 1: up to these these like people like Andrew Tat or
Speaker 1: even Nick Quentas. I think you're going to see it
Speaker 1: in schools, You'll see it with young young people. And
Speaker 1: you know Nick Fuentas, I've watched plenty of his streams.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he speaks directly to the high schoolers that are
Speaker 1: listening to his show, so to kind of give you
Speaker 1: an idea of like how young this is going. These influencers,
Speaker 1: they and bad actors that they know who's listening and
Speaker 1: it's it's young kids, and it's very impressionable, susceptible young people.
Speaker 2: And I have I have this theory, and I would
Speaker 2: love to know your thoughts that, even if you are
Speaker 2: not somebody who likes Andrew Tate, would ever subscribe to
Speaker 2: a Fresh and Fit, wouldever be watching Nick Fuentez. The
Speaker 2: way that these clips have taken of these people speaking
Speaker 2: have taken over social media, whether or not you follow
Speaker 2: them like I see them and I obviously don't like
Speaker 2: these people. I think that that is trickling down into
Speaker 2: wider society. So even people who don't think of themselves
Speaker 2: as like men's rights types, they might be absorbing, casually
Speaker 2: absorbing some of these attitudes without even really realizing it,
Speaker 2: because they are so ubiquitous on our platforms. What do
Speaker 2: you think about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see I could definitely see that. I
Speaker 1: think that if it's showing up in your TikTok feed enough,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just getting into your subconscious I mean
Speaker 1: maybe that sounds a little conspiracy theory of me, but
Speaker 1: I do feel like it's it's coming into you know,
Speaker 1: the Overton window for what we think is like misogyny
Speaker 1: feels to be shifting a little bit. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just something that you feel in the air. Obviously it's
Speaker 1: not something that I can like point to exactly, but
Speaker 1: it's sometimes you just you just feel it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of what you were describing as well.
Speaker 1: It's just something that you know, you can just tell
Speaker 1: in the way that people talk. Yes, in the last
Speaker 1: like couple of years, and it's it's kind of what
Speaker 1: got me interested in the manosphere too. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just like it's something I felt in my own
Speaker 1: life and it's something that I was seeing online and
Speaker 1: I think as a gay man, I see it in
Speaker 1: my community a lot, a lot of misogyny, and it's like, honestly,
Speaker 1: within the last year or two, it's like it's what
Speaker 1: some gay in might think is funny, honeously honestly just
Speaker 1: ends up being like hurtful to women or like could
Speaker 1: end up just being dangerous. And I just think that's
Speaker 1: part of it as well.
Speaker 2: How did you get into caring about and researching and
Speaker 2: following this kind of content?
Speaker 1: So first I was just doing extremism, So I was
Speaker 1: really mostly just following obviously normal right wing media. I
Speaker 1: was following Steve Bannon, when I first started at Media Matters,
Speaker 1: and then I got particularly interested in a Quintus. And
Speaker 1: then I think that as my TikTok algorithm started to
Speaker 1: change and shift a little bit, I started to get
Speaker 1: Manosphere content, and I think I just kind of fell
Speaker 1: into it too. I was like, who are these people
Speaker 1: and how do they why do they keep showing up
Speaker 1: on my feed and why or do they have so
Speaker 1: many likes and follows? And I feel like that's kind
Speaker 1: of what first, like initially kind of threw me into it.
Speaker 1: And I also started to follow Aiden Ross as I
Speaker 1: was talking about the streamer and him and Andrew Tate
Speaker 1: have like this serious, very strange romance, and that's honestly
Speaker 1: what brought me over to kind of like the hate
Speaker 1: speech world of it all as well.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what is it like following this, because I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a separate TikTok account that I use for
Speaker 2: like following nonsense just so that my personal TikTok account
Speaker 2: will not be all nonsense when I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: watch TikTok's. What has it been like for you personally
Speaker 2: to have to like be mired in all this all
Speaker 2: the time?
Speaker 1: You know it can be really hard some days. I
Speaker 1: feel like for me, after working at Media Matters for
Speaker 1: nearly three years, I've like really found a good way
Speaker 1: to pace myself kind of taking in this content. I
Speaker 1: think that, honestly, as a gay Jewish man, seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of the anti Semitism and a lot of the
Speaker 1: homophobia and anti Pride month stuff has really been the
Speaker 1: hardest for me. I do think that it's really about
Speaker 1: pacing yourself when it comes to how I can kind
Speaker 1: of handle all of it. I also just think that
Speaker 1: the manosphere in particular, I feel like is very reactionary
Speaker 1: to the moment, which means it's just like very fast paced.
Speaker 1: There's always something new happening. The world of kind of
Speaker 1: extremism feels a little bit slower, So I feel like
Speaker 1: also just making sure that you know, I have people
Speaker 1: on my team that if I can't handle something or
Speaker 1: things are just happening too quickly, there are other colleagues
Speaker 1: of mine that I feel like I can really hand
Speaker 1: it off to and I can really trust them with
Speaker 1: the content and the research as well.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you feel like you have that support. I'm interested,
Speaker 2: do you see all of this stuff that's kind of connected,
Speaker 2: like the anti Pride stuff, is that sort of connected
Speaker 2: to the manosphere stuff, Like is this all linked in
Speaker 2: some way in your mind?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? I really think that, especially in this last year,
Speaker 1: the manosphere like they dove head first into the anti
Speaker 1: lgbt Q rhetoric and the anti trans rhetoric. There was
Speaker 1: a day in June where Andrew Tate thought it would
Speaker 1: be so hilarious to be like, I'm a trans woman
Speaker 1: and then just started tweeting constantly all day about being trans.
Speaker 1: It was really disgusting and something that I think you
Speaker 1: would really only find on Elon Musk's Twitter. And another
Speaker 1: horrible example Sneako, who we were talking about before, he
Speaker 1: wrote the words Pride month on a shooting target and
Speaker 1: then went outside with automatic rifles and they were shooting
Speaker 1: at it, him and a couple of his buddies. So
Speaker 1: it is just it is just really extreme, the anti
Speaker 1: LGBTQ rhetoric is it is honestly from the manosphere. Some
Speaker 1: of the some of the more scary stuf that I've seen.
Speaker 1: It is it is really hard to see.
Speaker 2: Shit is so fucked up, And you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know how you feel about this. The way that I have.
Speaker 2: What I've been sort of saying is that even for
Speaker 2: people who have a problem with trans people or queer people,
Speaker 2: most people aren't doing this like this, Like this is
Speaker 2: such a different thing. Taking the time out of your
Speaker 2: day to write Pride month on a target and then
Speaker 2: go film yourself shooting at it or filming yourself demolishing
Speaker 2: a target Pride section. That is not normal. And I
Speaker 2: think that the thing that worries me is that it's
Speaker 2: signaling to people that, oh, this is normal behavior like
Speaker 2: this is if you if you have a problem with
Speaker 2: queer people or trans people, this is an appropriate way
Speaker 2: to to deal with that. And I think that there
Speaker 2: are plenty of people who probably do have problems with
Speaker 2: trans people and queer people, but this is such a
Speaker 2: different thing, Like I feel like they're telling these people
Speaker 2: that this is an appropriate way to suppress whatever bigotries
Speaker 2: that you have, And that's what really scares me.
Speaker 1: I do think that people like Sneako, when they do
Speaker 1: like a stunt like that, it is to get clicks.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's normalizing it as well. I
Speaker 1: think it's exactly what you described. I think that they
Speaker 1: are thinking, like, oh, if this is funny, and Sneako
Speaker 1: can do it, then like it's cool if I do
Speaker 1: it as well, or if someone wants to, you know,
Speaker 1: pretend to be a trans person online just to mock
Speaker 1: them then and if your haid is getting a bunch
Speaker 1: of clicks, then like yeah, sure why I can do
Speaker 1: that as well. And also Perl just pearly things as well,
Speaker 1: has been she plays or semi professional volleyball. I think
Speaker 1: over in England that I think that's her full time
Speaker 1: job outside of being a commentator. And she's been like
Speaker 1: fighting with them about her anti trans rhetoric and it
Speaker 1: has really only made her anti LGBT rhetoric like so
Speaker 1: much worse. I think that people like her they are
Speaker 1: just like so so angry. She has so much anger,
Speaker 1: and people like Andrew t they are they have so
Speaker 1: much anger, and like you just wonder where it comes from.
Speaker 1: And like sometimes it's just so obvious that it's not
Speaker 1: actually towards the LGBT community, but that's where they're putting it,
Speaker 1: and it's it's ridiculous and it's dangerous and scary. As
Speaker 1: I've said a couple of times.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's I've noticed the same thing is
Speaker 2: like there are plenty of things that I don't like
Speaker 2: in society. I don't dedicate my time to like obsessing
Speaker 2: over the it in this way. And also like some
Speaker 2: of the Andrew Tate and Fresh and Fit, Like there's
Speaker 2: two clips that stick in my mind of them, like
Speaker 2: ranting like Andrew Tate ranting about how like he doesn't
Speaker 2: eat breakfast because he starts his day with caffeine and
Speaker 2: and nicotine and hate running through his veins, and like
Speaker 2: there's this clip of I think it's I'm blanking the
Speaker 2: host's name, but like screaming into the microphone about how
Speaker 2: when he was playing too many, too many video games,
Speaker 2: women didn't give him the time of day and how
Speaker 2: that was so horrible. It's like they have such deep,
Speaker 2: clear reservoirs of hate and anger. And also they're telling people,
Speaker 2: don't you want to be like me? Not really like
Speaker 2: I want to wake up and have a nice breakfast.
Speaker 2: I don't want to start my day with hate and
Speaker 2: pain and caffeine and nicotine. I actually would love to
Speaker 2: have a nice breakfast that actually sounds nice. Do I
Speaker 2: want to be foaming into a microphone viewing hate and
Speaker 2: anger about all the women who've done me wrong? Not
Speaker 2: really that actually doesn't seem appealing. And so it's very
Speaker 2: interesting how so much of their ethos, like you said,
Speaker 2: is based around be like me, but they don't actually
Speaker 2: seem very happy, and in fact quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: I'm like, aren't you guys exhausted? Like watching you guys?
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted like being that angry all the time, and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what it's getting for
Speaker 1: you guys, but like I just it shocks me, It
Speaker 1: really does.
Speaker 2: And I just think it it's shocking, and it presents
Speaker 2: like for young men, like they can have a different
Speaker 2: kind of life, They can have different kinds of relationships,
Speaker 2: they can have meaningful, fulfilling relationships based on communication, trust, honesty, openness,
Speaker 2: respects and all of that, Like that is possible for everybody,
Speaker 2: and I just think it presents such an empty worldview
Speaker 2: that in the end traps them as well. We talk
Speaker 2: a lot rightly about the ways that this kind of
Speaker 2: content is a danger for women, which it is, but
Speaker 2: it's also such a danger to these men who are
Speaker 2: being sold alive that this is all they can have,
Speaker 2: when in reality, they can have so much more. The
Speaker 2: world is so much more open and available to them
Speaker 2: having a different kind of experience. But this content and
Speaker 2: this dynamic just keeps them trapped, probably miserable and ultimately
Speaker 2: lacking an agency.
Speaker 1: And I just think poor, Yeah, it is draining their
Speaker 1: bank accounts as well. They think that they're getting so
Speaker 1: much out of it that they really just don't.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, if, like I wrote a piece for
Speaker 2: the Nation about fresh and fits like online school, if
Speaker 2: you're sending these grifters six hundred dollars a month, please
Speaker 2: do like that money would be so much better spent elsewhere.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. I mean, when when the example that
Speaker 1: you're trying to follow is Andrew Tate, who was like
Speaker 1: literally running in MLM, You know, you'd think that people
Speaker 1: would know better, but you know they don't.
Speaker 2: Why does so much of this content take off in
Speaker 2: the podcast space? Like why do all these people have podcasts?
Speaker 2: Even if their podcast is like them with six people
Speaker 2: in a room and they're just videotaping it and they're
Speaker 2: calling it a podcast. It's a a pet peeve of mind.
Speaker 2: What is it about the podcast space that draws these
Speaker 2: charlatans in.
Speaker 1: I think that if you can put a microphone in
Speaker 1: front of someone that means that they are allowed to
Speaker 1: speak their mind any which way that they want. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that's actually reality, but I think that
Speaker 1: with that setup, it lends itself to that kind of
Speaker 1: rhetoric and that kind of critique and that kind of
Speaker 1: discussion and discourse something like fresh and fit where there's
Speaker 1: like twelve microphones on the table, Like this really isn't
Speaker 1: how a podcast is working. Like I assume most people
Speaker 1: that are watching it are watching it for like the
Speaker 1: video form, So I just think that the podcast of
Speaker 1: it all, I'll say, the podcast format out of it
Speaker 1: all really just like it's lending itself to to, you know,
Speaker 1: a format which lends itself to a specific specific type
Speaker 1: of discourse.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I could talk all day. This is
Speaker 2: like such a such a thing with me. Where the
Speaker 2: look of a podcast, yeah, where there's like twelve microphones.
Speaker 2: First of all, that is too many fucking people to
Speaker 2: be on a podcast. It's so like already just to
Speaker 2: tell you something's going on. But the thing on TikTok
Speaker 2: that really gets a lot of traction is, yeah, headphones
Speaker 2: and microphone that might not even be plugged in, Like
Speaker 2: the aesthetic of I'm having serious discourse or like I'm
Speaker 2: going to tell you how I really think in an
Speaker 2: intimate way. I think that a lot of these influencers
Speaker 2: are able to rely on the aesthetic of podcasts and
Speaker 2: what that brings to push their horrible messages out in
Speaker 2: a way that kind of shields them from criticism, I believe,
Speaker 2: because if it was just somebody in their car making
Speaker 2: this video, you'd be like, who's this nobody next? But oh,
Speaker 2: he's got a microphone and headphones. Let's listen to what
Speaker 2: he's got to say.
Speaker 1: Right. If he has a microphone in front of him,
Speaker 1: then I should maybe be taking him seriously. I think
Speaker 1: is the thought that these people have, Like if I
Speaker 1: have a big, fancy yetni mic or whatever I have,
Speaker 1: and I got my big, expensive over the head earphones on,
Speaker 1: then like this person might mean something. This person has
Speaker 1: the ability to put a podcast out, and maybe that
Speaker 1: would also carries some weight to it. I feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes when I'm watching these smaller like right wing media
Speaker 1: figures that are doing podcasts for my job, I'm like,
Speaker 1: is there are they uploading this anywhere? Or they just
Speaker 1: like click start on photo booth and like sit in
Speaker 1: front of their microphone and just kind of like run
Speaker 1: with it. I actually don't know. I would love sometimes
Speaker 1: I would love to see people set up.
Speaker 2: No, I have definitely one hundred percent seen TikTok clips
Speaker 2: where it's like that I know that that mic is
Speaker 2: not on. I know it's not on. That is just
Speaker 2: a prop to make us, to make us feel some
Speaker 2: kind of way about what you're saying. Absolutely so, justin
Speaker 2: if let's say that somebody listening has somebody in their
Speaker 2: life kind of asking for selfish reasons, because I apparently
Speaker 2: do have somebody in my life who is watching this
Speaker 2: kind of content and you're worried about them. Do you
Speaker 2: have any tips for how we might approach that.
Speaker 1: I think the finding good content to replace the bad
Speaker 1: content is a great place to start when it comes
Speaker 1: like talking about masculinity. I also think that being able
Speaker 1: to show people the worst parts of these influencers is
Speaker 1: a really important aspect. So kind of like your family
Speaker 1: member where they're like, oh, well, I see I see
Speaker 1: the grindset of it all. I see him like smoking
Speaker 1: his cigars. It's like, okay, but do you do you
Speaker 1: see him talking about you know, hitting women or talking
Speaker 1: bad about the LGBTQ community. I think that what is
Speaker 1: important is kind of talking to the values of the
Speaker 1: people that are watching these influencers that maybe you can
Speaker 1: hit on in a different way. So if your family
Speaker 1: member cares about LGBTQ rights, if your family member cares about,
Speaker 1: you know, violence against women, it's you know, directing the
Speaker 1: attention towards different aspects of these influencers that maybe they
Speaker 1: don't see on TikTok or they don't see directly online,
Speaker 1: but are definitely there if you sit and listen and
Speaker 1: do a little bit of research.
Speaker 2: That's really good advice. And I think the point about
Speaker 2: like replacing the content that they're currently consuming with something
Speaker 2: else is such a good one. And I think it
Speaker 2: really speaks to have like that bad actor and their
Speaker 2: ability to seize gaps in information and content because you know,
Speaker 2: I'm probably like you, I'm part of like coalitions and
Speaker 2: panels about like how we speak to different groups. And
Speaker 2: one that comes up time and time again is like
Speaker 2: this entire generation of disaffected young people, a lot of
Speaker 2: whom are men that were just not speaking to right,
Speaker 2: Like nobody is actually in a meaningful way seeing them
Speaker 2: speaking to their issues. At least they don't feel that way,
Speaker 2: and the people who are getting their ears and eyes
Speaker 2: are these charlatans with a dangerous message. And so I
Speaker 2: do think part of it is being all of us
Speaker 2: who make content being a little bit better about making content.
Speaker 2: That helps so that these bad actors are not able
Speaker 2: to seize these massive gaps where there is no content
Speaker 2: filling that gap.
Speaker 1: I really like that idea. It really comes down to
Speaker 1: like the messaging, like who is the messaging for? And
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of that when it comes
Speaker 1: to like political messaging, is like we're really aiming towards
Speaker 1: this one demographic, whether that be young people or like
Speaker 1: older voters or someone like that. But I feel like
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, when we're creating content
Speaker 1: and we're being you know, influencers, these influencers, I don't
Speaker 1: think that there are a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: that their initial thought is I want to do I
Speaker 1: want to do good things for young men. I don't
Speaker 1: think that people really I don't think that's something that
Speaker 1: people really think of right off the bad and maybe
Speaker 1: that just needs to be you know, looked at from
Speaker 1: a different lens. I don't I'm not totally sure how
Speaker 1: to get people to how to get people there. I
Speaker 1: guess I don't know how to get the message across
Speaker 1: and get the message out. It feels it feels like
Speaker 1: an important fight and something we can talk about in
Speaker 1: circles and circles, but I'm not sure what the next
Speaker 1: step would always be to get people to create better
Speaker 1: content that can replace the bad content.
Speaker 2: When you think about the future of where we are
Speaker 2: with this kind of content and our discourse more generally online,
Speaker 2: are you hopeful? Are you where are you at?
Speaker 1: Not hopeful? I think that these bad actors are getting
Speaker 1: better and better at what they do, and I see,
Speaker 1: I see, I see people like you and me who
Speaker 1: are you know, doing the work to point it out
Speaker 1: and talk about it. But I think that there needs
Speaker 1: to be more people like us, especially men like me,
Speaker 1: who are willing to call it out. I think that
Speaker 1: I think it would be great if there were more,
Speaker 1: you know, people in the queer community, people that are
Speaker 1: men that are willing to you know, speak up. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not seeing it if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: and that that makes me sad.
Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech. I
Speaker 2: just want to say hi, you can we just said
Speaker 2: hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 2: with today's vote at tengoiti dot com. There Are No
Speaker 2: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
Speaker 2: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 2: sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
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