Andrew Tate (36) from Great Britain is the icon of the misogyny scene. On social media he spreads obscure opinions – women belong in the kitchen, are not allowed to drive and are owned by a man.
The sexist recently made headlines because he messed around with Swedish climate icon Greta Thunberg (19) on Twitter – and had to take a beating. As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough for a grown man to openly argue with a teenage girl and become a laughing stock, the macho influencer has now been arrested in Romania. The allegations: kidnapping and raping two girls.
Anyone who knows Tate and his “life’s work” will hardly be surprised. These allegations have haunted him for a long time. No wonder: He believes rape victims should “take responsibility” for their assaults and dates women aged 18 to 19 because he can “shape” them, as he explains in videos posted online. But who is this man trying to make violent misogyny socially acceptable?
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Wealth through hatred and false promises
Tate has 4.6 million followers on Instagram and posts photos of fancy sports cars, private jets and jet skis. How can he afford all this? Celebrity Net Worth, a website that calculates celebrity earnings, estimates Tate’s net worth at around $20 million. He claims to be a billionaire himself. “I’m filthy rich, but I earned it all myself,” he says in a video.
A major financial backer is Tate’s “Hustlers University 2.0” online course. A subscription costs $49 per month. lucrative for the British. Less so for the subscribers – according to “The Observer” it’s a scam. Because instead of learning to invest, the main advantage is Tate itself, according to the British newspaper.
In addition to his online businesses, Tate inherited money from his late father in 2015. His career as a kickboxer may also have added a few bucks to his bank account. According to Tate, he also earns money from a casino he runs in Romania.
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Tate epitomizes the “alpha male”
But above all, Andrew Tate is an identifier for men who feel threatened by women’s increasing equality and self-determination. Tate embodies “what a young man wants to be in this scene: a so-called ‘alpha’. So a man who gets the women, who radiates dominance, has money,’ explains social psychologist Rolf Pohl (71) to Blick. No wonder his videos get millions of clicks and insecure men love him.
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What is the “Manosphere”?
According to Pohl, the scene consists of various male communities on the internet. These would promise coherence and orientation – and secretly radicalize them.
In addition to countless fringe groups, the «Manosphere» is divided into four main groups: Incels (involuntary celibates) are men who cannot find a partner, but think they are entitled to one. In contrast, anti-feminists and men’s rights activists form a group described as a counter-reaction to feminism. ‘Seduction artists’ act as a kind of self-help group for insecure men, but mainly teach them how to upset and manipulate women. Finally, there are the closed groups of the ‘men go their own way’ group, which avoid women altogether.
Tate’s followers are loyal. They do not budge from this latest scandal either, but try to slander the young climate activist Thunberg with rape jokes on social media.
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Romania’s role
The Brit Tate moved to Romania with his brother Tristan Tate (34) – because the penalties for rape are more lax there than in the US or Great Britain, for example. This is “probably 40 percent of the reason” he moved there, Tate says in a video, adding: “I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do whatever I want. to be.” Now he has been arrested.
According to the Romanian public prosecutor’s office, there were four suspects in the investigation, according to Reuters news agency. They are accused of forming a criminal gang for the purpose of “recruiting, harboring and exploiting women by forcing them to produce pornographic content for use on relevant paid websites”. Six women have now been found who had been exploited by the suspects.
Since this summer, he has been under investigation for suspected human trafficking and rape, and now the handcuffs have clicked – thanks to the Twitter dispute with Thunberg.
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How could he be convicted?
Based on a tweet by an American women’s rights activist, the suspicion initially circulated on the internet and in the media that the furious misogynist himself should have provided the decisive information for his arrest. In response to Greta’s embarrassment, he released a two-minute anger video – with a pizza box in the foreground.
The box bears the supplier’s name: Jerry’s Pizza, a Romanian pizza chain. Tate, it is believed, revealed that he was in the country. For a short time later he and his brother were taken away. The Romanian villa of the two is currently being searched, Euro Weekly News reports Friday morning.
However, the prosecution’s spokeswoman clarified that Tate was actually convicted using a pizza box. “These are funny speculations,” she told the dpa news agency.
For this, another bizarre footnote of the story is correct. Tate’s arrest comes amid mounting pressure from the Council of Europe, Europe’s largest human rights organization, on Romania to combat rape. The name of the EU expert group? Group of experts for action against human trafficking. In short: GRETA.