Former Big Brother contestant Andrew Tate has been garnering a lot of notoriety among TikTok users as of late. The now 35-year-old’s comments regarding women and minorities have been getting both hate and praise through people posting reaction videos on the app to his tweets and interviews. It’s near impossible that you haven’t heard his name, but it’s more likely than not for you to be unaware of what all the buzz is about.

Andrew Tate hasn’t been in the limelight much since 2016 when he played on the American reality show Big Brother. The show is a social strategy competition where 12-16 people (or “houseguests”) move into a house to play the game. They live in the house until they’re either voted out (evicted) or have won. Tate was initially introduced to the show as a kickboxer and martial artist and spent a short 6 days in the house before he was promptly kicked off by the producers when his old digital footprint began circulating. A video of him whipping a woman with a belt had resurfaced and spread quickly across the internet. It was interpreted as a violent act of assault by many and alarmed all who were fans of the show. Tate later came out and said that the acts in the video were consensual and not abusive, but were taken out of context. He made it clear that he is still friends with the woman involved, but it still unsettled many.

Some of Andrew Tate’s older tweets further concerned fans and were deemed racist and sexist. In one from 2012, he wrote “**** the running final if i wanted to see black people running id just threaten them with jobs”. This sparked controversy, as despite being born to a black father, he was more seen by the public eye for his white side. The response to Tate tweeting a stereotype about black people was mixed, but mostly negative due to its perceived malicious intentions. Another tweet by Tate from 2016 (around the time of his Big Brother season) read “Every single girl will sleep with you for money. They just have different prices.” This angered many, as Tate seemed to imply that women are inherently gold-diggers with ulterior motives, and are all willing to compromise their autonomy at some point. Despite this, some came to his defense, saying that it was the ugly truth no matter how much of a generalization. Countless other tweets of his have been considered bigoted in many aspects, such as him having made comments that offended gay people, and saying those he dislikes have disorders such as Down syndrome to insult them.

You may be confused as to why this information is relevant now, as all of Tate’s controversy from 2012-2016 has since died down. Despite keeping a lower profile from then until recently, Andrew Tate has been coming back into the spotlight since late July, most notably on TikTok. His interviews with podcasts and Twitch streamers have skyrocketed him back onto young people’s radar. What made him go viral was how bluntly he expressed his shocking and extreme opinions on women, gay people, black people, etc. These interviews of Tate were cropped into smaller clips which were then posted on TikTok by users in both support and disgust. Many teenagers with the app can relate to scrolling through the “For You Page” and seeing his name in various TikToks poking fun at him or expressing fear for how his beliefs could influence young men.

Some of his most shocking comments came from when he shared his thoughts on dating younger women on the Fresh&Fit Podcast: “The younger a girl is the less she’s been through, and the softer she is as a person…the less ******** she’s been through with men…The problem is when you get a girl who’s 30, how many ***** have been through her…It’s hard to get some genuine feminine softness out of a woman who’s 30 and single.” (August 8th, 2022). On the same podcast about a year previous, Tate stated his reasons for moving from England to Romania. He discussed how he couldn’t live in a country where the sexual assault laws were so uptight, and thought Romania would be a better fit (May 21, 2021). Although, he is currently under investigation for human trafficking by the Romanian authorities.

Another viral clip of Tate is from his own Youtube channel “Hustler’s University Student”, where he gives an online advice/coaching service primarily to men. In this particular video, Tate was discussing how to give CPR, and stated “…if you’re some dude I don’t know and you need CPR, and everyone’s looking at me, ‘Who knows CPR?’ Well, me. ‘Help him!’ No. ‘Why?’ Because I ain’t gay…If you’re a hot female I will administer CPR.”, and then went on to say how if he was to save a woman’s life this way, she would be in debt to him and should repay him with sexual favors (July 9th, 2022). All of these bold statements by Tate have generated a cult following of young men who voice their support for him on TikTok and other social media platforms. Tate’s remarks have also called activists such as feminists to speak on his words, preaching to their online audience how Andrew Tate is causing progress in gender equality to go backward.

With Andrew Tate having such a large following of young people, there is a lot of voiced concern surrounding his influence. Adults and young people alike are taking to TikTok and other platforms in an attempt to spread awareness about how his thinking could erase social progress. One article states “His extremely misogynistic rhetoric includes beliefs that women are ‘property’ to be owned by men and not allowed to leave the house, that women share the blame for being raped based on how they act and dress, and that men should date 18 and 19-year-old women who are less experienced to make an ‘imprint’ on them.” It goes into detail about how people’s main concern is how these ideas he spews will impact young men’s thinking. Teachers are even witnessing this influence happening firsthand in their classrooms. “..in addition to making extremely misogynistic claims, some of her students are outright refusing to engage in assignments involving female authors.” The point these concerned individuals are making is that Andrew Tate’s online presence is harmful to developing young minds and their social tolerance, and parents and teachers are witnessing this impact firsthand.

Due to the public outcry calling for Tate’s social media accounts to be taken down, platforms have complied and banned his profiles. These include several major services including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch banning Andrew Tate for reportedly violating their policies. Meta specifically (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) stated that Tate violated their guidelines on “dangerous organizations and individuals”. Similarly, YouTube banned Andrew Tate’s channels and cited violations of their hate-speech policy. Tate addressed the situation in an interview on Fox News with Tucker Carlson where he says his words are often taken out of context. “What happens is when I say these things, they ignore 95% of what I say,” he said. “They ignore me saying that you need to avoid low-quality men. And they take the bit where I say, ‘Avoid women who are dishonest.’ And then they put it on a reel — a very short three- or four-second clip — and then they say I’m a misogynistic person and I’m dangerous to women and I need to be banned.”

Some Green Level students have thoughts on Andrew Tate’s impact on our student body. Junior Jasmine Patil says “I think his demographic is people our age, unfortunately. So, I think it has impacted us because people–males in particular–in this school probably listened to Andrew Tate back when he had a platform. So the idea is that what he was spreading has probably been ingrained into a lot of our students.”

Another Green Level junior, Matthew Honaker, has a differing opinion: “He has made our student body more sigma. Meaning, they are more motivated to make something great of themselves.” These differing opinions show how controversial Andrew Tate truly is, even just within our school.

Due to the online discourse over Tate’s bold statements, students also have their own opinions on what he’s said. Jasmine says “As a woman, I think I would agree most with the one where he says that it’s a man’s responsibility to jump in front of a gun for a woman because as biased as it may be, I think if it’s one of those things where if I had to pick something he said that I agreed with the most…” Matthew somewhat agrees, saying, “I agree that I would not send my child into daycare with all dudes, and I also agree that I wouldn’t send my woman to fight a bear even if she was better equipped to fight the bear.”

Jasmine foresees Tate’s popularity bringing harm to young people, as she thinks “Putting ideas like this into people’s–or young men’s–heads is very damaging to society because it’s starting that whole epidemic of people being misogynistic again.” Matthew thinks, “I can see people taking him too seriously maybe not having a realistic view on chicks, but yeah it’s bad, but I could see people maybe being more motivated [by Tate] to be physically active.”

Jasmine and Matthew, while sharing some common ground, disagree on whether Andrew Tate being banned from social media was justified. Jasmine thinks it was mostly a good thing, “I feel like it was a bit excessive to ban him from Spotify, but platforms, where he has an influence, made a good call in helping his decline. He managed to create such a loyal fanbase of little boys, so it’s gonna be a little while before his actual downfall.” Matthew thinks it wasn’t quite justified. “Oh I disagree,” he says, “Because yeah, he was saying crazy stuff, but none of it was against guidelines. [Social media platforms] only did it because people wanted them to. The Lopez twins are still on TikTok after assaulting a 14-year-old, so you tell me which is worse.”

As Andrew Tate’s influence continues to be debated, his unprecedented popularity grows. Only time will make it clearer how his ideas will impact our school, young people in general, and the progression of our society.