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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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I mean Andrew Tate is actually popular FFS!

The rise of the classical manosphere (Roosh, ChateauHeartiste, etc.), Neoreaction (Dreaded Jim, etc.), and even barstool F-boy-ery (Tucker Max) are all at least 10 years old, and in some cases closer to 20. None of this is new.

Nowadays browsing through social media comment sections and talking to other young guys. The tensions are much higher. I see normies spouting black pill talking points all over Instagram and TikTok. And that seems to be the majority ideology.

Scott wrote "Untitled" in what, 2014? The "women only go for jerks!" meme is not new. There was just a gap between when the millennials discovered it, and when the Zoomers finally hit puberty and started to discover it.

The point being made was that Andrew Tate is mainstream popular. Everyone in my workplace knows who Andrew Tate is. None of them have heard of the other things you listed. The fact he isn't saying anything 'new' to you isn't the point.

Who are your coworkers, and where do you work? None of my co-workers have heard of Andrew Tate, but a few have heard of Tucker Max.

Looking just at any metrics from TikTok, YouTube or any mainstream news outlet Tate is giant in comparison. I live in Scandinavia and there was, for example, a recent segment in the radio about Tate and how 'dangerous' he is. I don't understand where you are coming from here. Tate is obviously much bigger.

The rise of the classical manosphere (Roosh, ChateauHeartiste, etc.), Neoreaction (Dreaded Jim, etc.), and even barstool F-boy-ery (Tucker Max) are all at least 10 years old, and in some cases closer to 20. None of this is new.

IMO none of these people were even close to as popular as Tate was at his peak.

Part of that might be differences in media - e.g. Youtube wasn't as big in the early days of the "manosphere" - but some of those guys (e.g. Rollo Tomasi) are on Youtube today and don't have his viewership.

Tate is also imo different from the ones who did get as prominent as him, like Tucker Max and Neill Strauss in that he's much more directly "red pill" (or misogynist tbh). Tucker Max was mainly selling funny party stories that were called misogynist but he was a fratbro, not a combatant.

Strauss wrote a book about PUA that ended with him abandoning the space after he saw its problems. It basically perfectly followed the three act structure of most crime/"pitiful nerd changes his life" movies: life sucks, discover this cool thing -> enjoy it for a bit then see the downsides -> extricate yourself while hopefully keeping some of the benefits of your journey (usually a girl - Straus ended the book on a serious relationship). As a story it's flattering to both sides of the audience: the pitiful nerds who want to change or vicariously live through the hero, and the people who think the PUA stuff is bullshit or bad. It's like watching Tony Soprano: everyone enjoys it so long as we know he's going to get his comeuppance at the end.

These guys had a bit of cover.

Tate will just straight up say that women are property and belong to men, or high value men should be allowed to cheat and will just go after his ideological enemies in a way that Tucker Max - who was mainly a hedonist at first - just didn't seem to give a shit about. His model seems to be melding financial guru + Tucker Carlson's "populism" (including anti-vax stuff) + red pill culture warrior.

It's a much more confrontational stance that plays way more into the gender war (which fits the topic of it getting worse). Very different proposition and it explains why he got banned.

The interesting thing is that he rose at all tbh