Christopher J Sherry
In this new age of technology, social media has an impact on how we view the
world around us. A very well-known influencer named Andrew Tate has started to gain
recognition for his controversial views. I downloaded a TikTok to support my sister’s
photography account a few weeks ago. I was shown multiple videos of Andrew Tate.
The things in the videos I was shown actually had good advice. I thought maybe this
guy was being unfairly judged. I decided to do my own research. I found out pretty
quickly he was not a good guy which proposed the question of why he made sense in
the videos I saw. I then found out that the way these algorithms work is they show the
parts that everyone agrees with. So I only saw him talking about working hard and
taking responsibility for your actions. What then happens is people watch more of his
videos and are then introduced to his more radical ideas.
At this point, people then don’t want to believe someone they look up to isn’t as
great as they once thought. It wasn’t just Andrew Tate. Apps like YouTube do this too.
They suggest videos of “liberals getting owned” or right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro,
leading people down this rabbit hole until the next thing they know they are listening to
Alex Jones and other major conspiracy theorists and then going onto other websites
because the people they are listening to have been banned by the main forms of media.
https://harvardpolitics.com/alt-right-pipeline/Links to an external site. Then these people
realize many people don’t share the same unhealthy views and they search for others
who feel the same way. A lot of people will then join apps like Reddit or Discord. A
major Reddit group with almost 400 thousand followers is called men’s rights. What
happens is they post things that are hand-picked to make it seem like they are victims.
Then eventually these guys show their true character.
Someone on there might say men should be able to show emotion which most
people can agree with, then in their next post say all women are terrible. There was a
post on that sub where the guys were saying it’s impossible to get women in America.
They then were sharing lists of where they could find “real” women. Most of these guys
think they are nice guys and that alone makes them entitled to women. Not only is that a
form of objectifying women, but it is also very disappointing and offensive on the man’s
part. Basically what they are saying is since I was respectful to you (which should be the
bare minimum) you owe it to me to give me your affection, instead of showing women
why these men add value to the woman’s life.
I think a better mindset these people should have is how can I improve myself to
make myself more appealing to others. If they worked on themselves and treated
everyone with kindness they would have much more success in life.