Neoliberalism and the Red Pill: How Andrew Tate Used Populist Discourse to Spread Online Misogyny

Registration fee details
Non-student author
Author addressing title
Mr.
First Name
Vlad
Last Name
Bujdei-Tebeica
Academic title
Dr.
Address
Calea Giulesti, nr. 131, Bucharest, Romania
E-mail
vlad.bujdei.14@politice.ro
Phone
0722402469
Institution/University
Școala Națională de Studii Politice și Administrative (S.N.S.P.A.)
Paper/Abstract submission

Online misogyny has been snowballing ever since the economic crisis of 2008. Over the past 15 years it has crystalized the so-called Red Pill ideology, which claims that society is in fact women dominated. Despite it being popular in certain circles of the online social media space, this ideology didn’t get much attention from the mainstream public space. Andrew Tate, however, managed to capitalize on the discontents and disillusionment of men throughout the world and turn them into agents that would willingly contribute to his personal accumulation of capital. By using discourse analysis on Andrew Tate’s platform I will show how a rhetorically controversial mix of misogyny, populism and neoliberal individualism, has found fertile ground within the online “manosphere” and coagulated groups of men that were up until this point disparate. The two key components of Tate’s discourse are social and economic. The first component purports a Manichean view of society in which men are portrayed as powerless victims, and women are portrayed as manipulative and in control of the social institutions, while the second encourages men to view women as commodities and promises to teach men how to earn “financial freedom” by exploiting women. In effect, this fusion between neoliberal „hustle culture” and Red Pill misogyny normalizes human sex trafficking in the minds of the men that are persuaded by this discourse, a crime of which Andrew Tate is himself being currently investigated by the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism.