An Irish columnist has officially ended the tiresome "but why do young men like chin-hider Andrew Tate?" discourse, and conservatives aren't going to like the answer.
Writing in The Irish Examiner, Séamas O'Reilly demolishes the pearl-clutching narrative that mean old "woke culture" is driving poor defenseless lads into the arms of woman-hating grifters. Instead it might have something to do with conservatives gutting every support system young people actually need.
Here's the facts: 70% of UK schools have less funding than they did in 2010. Add to that the closure of two-thirds of youth centers, plus thousands of libraries, sports facilities, and community spaces.
But sure, tell us more about how pronouns made your nephew join the manosphere.
O'Reilly brilliantly compares Tate's spiel to gambling addiction: both target economically vulnerable young men with promises of easy money while preying on their insecurities.
It seems clear to me that a large part of the attraction of the manosphere fits a similar brief. They, too, pitch one of the oldest offers in the world — blame your problems on people who aren't like you — and utilise a vast ecosystem of wealth and influence to target young men in their millions, buttressed by the tacit support of broader right wing orthodoxy in mainstream news media and governments the world over.
The distinctions between the two are muddied further when one considers that the manosphere, itself, overwhelmingly offers 'money for nothing' too, since it's entirely in-hoc to advertising from gambling companies, and speculative investments like ForEx trading, dropshipping, and crypto which perform the same function: promising quick cash in the form of 'hustle' to impressionable young men. When their victims inevitably crash out from this casino economy, these grifters are on hand to tell them to keep going, while laundering any shame and anger about their failures into the very same 'blame everyone else' rubric that leads, invariably, to the racism and misogyny that is their calling card.
But, at least we saved some money closing those pesky libraries and youth centers! That definitely won't have any long-term consequences for society whatsoever.
Previously:
• Andrew Tate: men who have recreational sex with women are actually gay
• Toxic influencer Andrew Tate to stand trial on sex trafficking and rape charges
