Is Andrew Tate even popular?
Godless and money-is-happiness advice columns should be shunned by conservatives. What's his target audience?
The queer “gay and masculine” wardrobe. Maintaining bands on cigars past the adhesive’s sticking point. The Pitbull haircut. Sunglasses indoors and at night — he’s a new, old, less funny Tucker Max.
Last time I heard someone talk up Tucker’s antics was at in a high school cafeteria twenty years ago, involving the same demographic still watching Newgrounds and YTMND.
Today, Tucker Max is married with kids. His media strategist Ryan Holiday (Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, 2012) runs a book shop. Both live in Texas.
Andrew Tate, who is some kind of kickbox/punch box Dear Abbey man living in Romania, but is also American and British or something, is in the klink.
Now, details on Andrew Tate’s arrest comes from a single source Romanian paper, where he lives with his brother Tristan in some sort of villain villa. Here’s the NY Post’s version:
Police in tactical gear descended on a villa where Andrew Tate and brother Tristan were staying Thursday to detain the British brothers on kidnapping and rape charges, judicial sources told Romanian outlet Libertatea.
Breezing through the cost of living in Romania, I have to recite to myself over and over that I decided to live in an overpriced Toronto neighbourhood because it grants access to the best surgeons and specialists for my illness in the country.
How Romantic
So what’s a multi-zillionaire gender-conforming car collectrix doing in a former bloc country with narrow, crowded roads to which he has no familial connection? Let me guess — it’s because the women are hotter, not because the rent is cheaper, right? (Are the women cheaper too? What about defence lawyers?)
Eastern Europe is to Millennials and Gen X as the Philippines is to the Boomers. Both are heavily Christian. And it’s the godlessness of Andrew Tate that should be a wedge issue for religious conservatives. His Shahada into Islam has garnered criticism from Muslims. But it’s difficult to find expressions from Christians attacking the readily-available information on Tate’s Hustlers Casino University-promoting website.
Now, there’s not a thing wrong with using the Internet to make money. In my time as a writer, my income was dependent on small organizations relying on individual donors, especially after Facebook’s suppression of news destroyed my gigs with now-defunct sites like Right Wing News and Joe For America.
(Individual donors reading this can pitch in towards my rent at https://paypal.me/YesMargaret)
No, he can sell all he likes and spend it on all the Teslas his heart desires (conservatives are clamouring for EVs, right?). Lots of conservatives are supportive of free speech, as saying stupid shit shouldn’t be illegal.
You Must Remember This
The adulation of fellows like Andrew Tate and Elon Musk — I find their biggest unironic supporters are social media-addicted men who are likewise unattractive to women. Ask around. No woman is pinning up their photos. The best Elon Musk could do was Grimes. The best Andrew Tate can do is alleged trafficking and abuse. It’s classic pickup artist failure to thrive.
Picture this: It is 2005. A single text messages costs 15 cents. Hollister, American Eagle and Lacoste were leaders in the layered popped collar market. I was gifted a combination CRTV with DVD player before heading off to study philosophy.
And the whole world was gifted with Neil Strauss’ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, and PUAs became A Thing in the popular culture, which was starting to merge with the online world.
The fad continued and morphed. By 2007 the PUA experienced pangs of parody. As we passed into the era of guidos, the holotype began to dissipate into the rest of the furniture. Retvrn to tradition, indeed.
Strauss is divorced and writes fanfic for the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Cult-like Godless ‘Dear Leader’ Individualism
There are already five trillion appraisals of Andrew Tate on YouTube. Some have explored his cult-like offerings (Coffeezilla, Patrick CC:). Google returns reams of results for “Andrew Tate on God”, each answer likely blasphemy as the alleged woman ruiner is focused on himself as his own higher power. He, who believes in you, if you sign up for his programs and join the Discord.
“Margaret, look.”
Monday Night Football. Damar Hamlin tackled, stood up, seized up and fell on his back. CPR and oxygen was administered before he was stable enough to be loaded into the on field ambulance. The game is temporarily suspended.
Men are praying in the field.
Tate’s free-to-play 41 tenets are presented as a slideshow/juicing ad. Many start with Confucius say “I believe” and touch on Andrew’s theories of the sacred duties of men. You know, protecting women and eating high quality snacks. Sacred how? And which men? All men? Men as a whole? On average? How many couch potatoes can be redeemed by one bloatmaxx?
Tate believes in “endlessly improving his mental faculties” and “acquiring wealth” to improve his life. He maintains trust with his brothers “through reverent silence regarding [their] most sacred shared experiences” and living in a way that “[honours his] ancestors.”
Tate also reserves the “right to administer difficult rites of passage for our young men to allow them to earn the rank of manhood”, which is funny, and also sounds like one of fantasy contracts that gay cannibals force on their underage victims. Or a 1980s pitch to join the Boy Scouts. [See: reverent silence].
“Greater health, prosperity and happiness” are life goals. He has an imperative to spend his time working on what he determines is beneficial, uplifting and “empowering” to himself and others.
It’s not all beliefs — affirmations too. I do good! I want, I want!
I Hope They Serve Cigars in Romanian Prison
Young conservative men — Tate’s audience? — are embracing Christianity. State-enforced stay-at-home orders contributed to this. Attending work or class online makes it easier to attend Sunday services online and follow through in the week with prayers, feasts and fasts.
It’s cynical, but some conservative influencers have sincerely pivoted to adding more Christian religious content and teleological reasoning to their politics. The individual is no longer responsible for defining ethical principles or bestowing value on one another through a hush-hush Penn State bootcamp. The point of living isn’t getting money. Aristotle floated the idea that happiness is the end goal of life, but admitted you can’t be full tilt happy every hour of the day. He was pro-slavery too. Well, fuck Aristotle! Burn his books!
What’s Andrew Tate’s stance on slavery? Well, that’s for the courts to decide.
Damar Hamlin is in critical condition. Maybe prayer worked. Roger Goodall took a thousand years to officially suspend the game. People are showing support by donating to his community toy drive. I don’t think anyone is turning to Teaches of Peaches here for comfort or advice on how to react to a young man whose heart seems to have stopped in a routine tackle in a game viewed live by millions.
Thanks for reading. The first of two surgeries to remove my remaining large intestine due to a risk of developing cancer in that part of my gut and provide a quality of life increase was cancelled recently on discovery of unexplained ulcers teaming in my small intestine. Biopsy showed no cancer, but I still have some difficult surgical decisions to make and specialists to visit.
Unused notes from this essay:
He spells it both “ice cream” and “ice-cream” on his homepage.
How do you fuck up so badly that even Richard Spencer is scoring points on you?
Head too small for body.
Conservative relationship columnists should really be looking at this as a market.