Ooooh..."normal" is not a good word to use in describing human behaviour. My childhood spanned the '70s and 80's: landline telephones, compact cassettes and Encyclopedia Brittanica. I have two sons who will be teenagers in 2030s and I am really scared of the challenges and influences they will face: internet, mobile phones, tik tok, porn, gaming,....and I won't be able to keep track of it.

My strategy (I hope) will be to arm them with knowledge and and respect for others. I think what many adolescent boys are missing these days is emotional maturity and security. For parents, this is a tough minefield to negotiate.

__________________
So sayeth the 'Speed
* I do look like my avatar

He seems to have been fairly successful at kickboxing (other men) and was apparently also on Big Brother.

Here's why Andrew Tate was kicked off Big Brother

The problem (and the way he has managed to gain so many admirers) is that the misogyny isn't his entire platform - in his early years online, the misogyny wasn't as blatant as it is now. His platform was originally built on a 'grind & hustle' approach: talking about discipline, and how you have to work hard to get what you want, and that you should go out and get what you deserve, etc.

This is not a defense of him, I think he is a despicable human being. And obviously there are problematic undertones to the grind / hustle ethos too, but as others have said, this is the kind of attitude that makes young and impressionable minds feel that they have power, that they can do anything, if they could just be more like him, this alpha male. Combine this rhetoric with the rampant misogyny in a lot of today's media, and you have a powder-keg.

By the time Tate moved away from the pithy platitudes, the indoctrination was complete for a lot of them.

his popularity seems to be a response to the feminization of society and the lack of masculine male role models.

Sure, I guess that's how legitimised it, too.

Don't you think violence against them and rape is a bit of an over-reaction, though?

Had this discussion with my now (Swiss) 28 year old child, in a promising long-term relationship, just last week. She’s also concerned about how parenthood may look (if she makes that decision, but it’s on her wish list) as she doesn’t belong to the generation after her, and doesn’t understand them either.

I needed to look up who this is. So this guy is a professional troll, online pimp and asshole who according to Greta Thunberg has a small dick?

I have to agree with Tony. The internet is a sad place. And worse is that today adolescents consider "social media personality" a profession.

With that in total agreement.
It’s actually ‘old news’, but here a summary of how it was reported that Greta Thunberg led the Romanian police to this disgusting person by his pizza boxes in-front of his equally disgusting reply:

https://youtu.be/HnnblGsPzx0


Edit: Forgot to add that after his arrest she Twittered: “That’s why you should recycle your pizza boxes”

No idea where this comes from because mass media has a healthy content of masculine guys. Sports, movies, music...WTF?

Maybe the people that complain about the absence of masculine content in media spend the whole watching makeup and fashion videos in instagram and then cry about "where are the men???".

Hello?, the content you get is the content you look for.

So he has a long history of being a complete asshole and a very short one of being an actual sportsman....


Thank you for this post, itsjess, it made me understand this character a bit better.
I think he should have been arrested and prosecuted a few years earlier...

Sure it is, because we need macho neanderthals to show young lads what being male is all about.

It's almost impressive how you manage to be ever increasingly vile with every post you make.

Was this post made in sarcasm or in-line within modern day thinking / evolving as a homo sapien?

no, not that 'we' need it - but create a vaccum and it will be filled.

What was in the space before the vacuum - in your opinion?

Much of the comments on this thread still don't seem to get that Andrew Tate is not the problem, rather a symptom of a society that has lost itself.

Maybe not everyone shares your opinion?

"his popularity seems to be a response to the feminization of society and the lack of masculine male role models."

A very valid point - when you look at Britain there are far too many boys being brought up with no decent male role models and there are many single mothers who struggle to handle boys once they become teenagers; either that or they don't care what they get up to. A friend of mines has lived in London Borough of Southwark for 40 years, for a number of years now he's been telling me how terrifying it's become.
Feral young boys prowling the parks with weapons like knives is a huge problem. 10 years ago he was walking home from the West End one evening and had a feeling 2 teenage boys were following him along the South Bank, he was right and unfortunately he was punched stupid and robbed on the doorstep of his council flat. He doesn't see being able to move now as he's in his early 80s and I do worry about him.

I see it myself when I visit my own town centre, recently there have been 2 huge cannabis farm fires, one in an empty flat and another in a closed down shop, both involved 15 year old boys. Same with 2 fires that were started in a town centre nearby.

I do wonder what is going on in kids heads these days, we've also recently had 2 18 year olds from my home town jailed for serious sex offences and rape which is very scary. My sister is 70 this year and doesn't go out in the evenings.

Sarcasm.

By the likes of you. Well done.

Yeah. He's a symptom. When I'm ill I take medication to alleviate the symptoms.

He's a symptom of a problem. Unless you've got a cure, you deal with the symptoms.

Feminisation of society.

Oh, lordy lordy me. These terrible female things are wanting to chop my bolllcks off.

If feminsation means being nice and respectful of females, I'm totally in favour of it.