Andrew Tate Attacks Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, and Dave Portnoy

True story: A few weeks ago, I was in a coffee shop when I overheard an acquaintance talking about Andrew Tate. This woman falls squarely into the self-help white-lady liberal category — a touchy-feely, lovely person who listens to a lot of podcasts, probably talks about energies and chakras, and is spiritually a vegan but loves BBQ and cheese too much to commit. And yet, here she was, discussing Andrew Tate because her teenage son was deeply into him. That part was shocking. The next part? Not so much: She listens to Andrew Tate podcasts with her son to better understand his worldview. She wants to be able to talk to him on his level.

I get it. I respect the intent. But all I could think was, “This is why we should’ve never gotten rid of corporal punishment.” This poor woman has a son who is the antithesis of everything she believes, but because of what she believes, she’s doing her best to empathize and connect with him through the poisonous rhetoric of Andrew Tate.

That’s when it really hit me: The Andrew Tate phenomenon is real. My kids mock and belittle him, but they all know boys who listen to him and take him seriously. And never mind the deeply disturbing criminal allegations against him — Tate preaches to millions of young men, convincing them that women are inferior, that relationships are about dominance, and that aggression is the key to respect. He teaches boys that women secretly want to be controlled, that they respond favorably to tough-guy personas, and that their worth is determined by submission. It’s twisted. It’s misogynistic. And it’s terrifying how many alienated teenage boys have bought into it.

Andrew Tate is so noxious that even some of the worst people you know hate him: Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Dave Portnoy. When Tate — who was only able to return to the U.S. because the current administration lifted his Romanian travel restrictions (for, you know, sex trafficking minors) — got on a podcast, he immediately went after them. He called Ben Shapiro a “midget warmonger piece of sh*t,” said he would “happily destroy” Megyn Kelly, and claimed Dave Portnoy was “jealous” of him because he’s “big, tall, brown, sexy.” He also, just to cap it off, repeatedly insisted that women are bad drivers because he apparently lives in a bad Kevin James sitcom, too.

And while I don’t particularly care about the MAGA-on-MAGA violence, I do care about the threat Andrew Tate poses. I know a 13-year-old kid — a nice kid from a nice family — who has been radicalized by Tate and the “manosphere.” Tate and his brother are poisoning a generation of boys, teaching them that sexual predation is normal, that women exist to be used, that power is the only thing that matters. This is the work of the YouTube algorithm, funneling boys into a worldview that strips them of empathy and turns them into misogynistic zealots.

Not to sound like a surveillance parent, but this is why you keep tabs on your kids’ screen time. Because if you don’t — if you’re not watching, not offering healthy alternatives — one day you might wake up and realize that the only way you can connect with your son is by listening to a podcaster who believes women are property, who advocates for physically disciplining them, who preaches obedience like it’s gospel. By then, it might be too late.

via BPD Podcast