Misogynist Monster Fucks Around, Finds Out
December 29, 2022 5:58 PM Subscribe
After having his Twitter account reinstated, alt-right influencer and misogynist Andrew Tate decided to pick a fight with climate activist Greta Thunberg, and quickly found himself on the wrong side of her acerbic wit. His reaction to her snark wound up being much more serious for Tate, as he revealed he was currently in Romania - where he was facing charges of kidnapping, rape, and human trafficking. Needless to say, the Romanian police responded by arresting Tate and his brother Tristan.
[CW: specifics about rape]
Tate, who leveraged his fame in kickboxing into a career as an influencer and "life guru" for the alt-right, has been a notorious figure as he has pushed his brand of toxic masculinity to young men and teens, as well as much darker pursuits - the warrants in Romania were over a case where he and other associates are accused of holding women captive in Bucharest and raping them to use the footage on social media. Many platforms had banned Tate including Twitter, but he was reinstated as part of the recent replatforming of alt-right figures on the service.
[CW: specifics about rape]
Tate, who leveraged his fame in kickboxing into a career as an influencer and "life guru" for the alt-right, has been a notorious figure as he has pushed his brand of toxic masculinity to young men and teens, as well as much darker pursuits - the warrants in Romania were over a case where he and other associates are accused of holding women captive in Bucharest and raping them to use the footage on social media. Many platforms had banned Tate including Twitter, but he was reinstated as part of the recent replatforming of alt-right figures on the service.
I guess Twitter is still capable of sometimes facilitating good things.
posted by coffeecat at 6:03 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 6:03 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Good title for the FPP; the judges would also have accepted, “Enough rope.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:06 PM on December 29, 2022 [36 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:06 PM on December 29, 2022 [36 favorites]
I'm holding off any celebrations until the charges are official, but if this sticks, will it be the biggest self-own of 2022? It will definitely be the most satisfying.
posted by greenhornet at 6:08 PM on December 29, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by greenhornet at 6:08 PM on December 29, 2022 [14 favorites]
Having the dignity and grace to issue such an amazingly vicious takedown is pretty excellent by itself, especially when it's not your first language and you're constrained by space.
Having the self-restraint to slap someone across the face with both gloves via Tweet, and then immediately disengage so that that person's toxic cesspool of followers tears the flesh off his bones for you is... I mean, I don't like to abuse the term "awestruck", but that's the closest I can get here.
Watching the fallout of this high-profile, hyper-aggressive alt-right dude, as he gets dismantled so thoroughly in less than 160 characters that his own crew turns on him (causing him to flail violently enough that he drops op-sec and get his dumb ass arrested) has been the highlight of my week.
posted by Mayor West at 6:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [61 favorites]
Having the self-restraint to slap someone across the face with both gloves via Tweet, and then immediately disengage so that that person's toxic cesspool of followers tears the flesh off his bones for you is... I mean, I don't like to abuse the term "awestruck", but that's the closest I can get here.
Watching the fallout of this high-profile, hyper-aggressive alt-right dude, as he gets dismantled so thoroughly in less than 160 characters that his own crew turns on him (causing him to flail violently enough that he drops op-sec and get his dumb ass arrested) has been the highlight of my week.
posted by Mayor West at 6:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [61 favorites]
Ooh, this is delicious news.
posted by Kitteh at 6:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 6:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Is romanian pizza like something different? I'd take an order.
posted by lkc at 6:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by lkc at 6:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, cheering news.
I'm a little confused about the Romania element though! Did Romanian authorities really not know Tate was in Romania? It's hard for me to believe they could go from "not knowing what country he was in" to "launching a coordinated raid of five in-country locations" in just one day. Now maybe everything was set up except they needed to know he was in-country, but even then it seems odd if they need to resort to a tweet to find that out. Yes / no? Curious about how this could have worked.
posted by grobstein at 6:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm a little confused about the Romania element though! Did Romanian authorities really not know Tate was in Romania? It's hard for me to believe they could go from "not knowing what country he was in" to "launching a coordinated raid of five in-country locations" in just one day. Now maybe everything was set up except they needed to know he was in-country, but even then it seems odd if they need to resort to a tweet to find that out. Yes / no? Curious about how this could have worked.
posted by grobstein at 6:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:13 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 6:13 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Further proof that we exist in a simulation is that the European Council's anti human trafficking group is the preposterously acronym-ed GRETA.
for real where does that trailing "A" come from
posted by juv3nal at 6:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
for real where does that trailing "A" come from
posted by juv3nal at 6:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
@everywhereist@mastodon.social:
Conclusion: Greta Thunberg is a very powerful witch.
posted by Artw at 6:16 PM on December 29, 2022 [46 favorites]
Conclusion: Greta Thunberg is a very powerful witch.
posted by Artw at 6:16 PM on December 29, 2022 [46 favorites]
The first note I saw about the initial exchange went something like, “I had no idea who Andrew Tate was before he was murdered by Greta Thunberg today”.
posted by Glinn at 6:21 PM on December 29, 2022 [81 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 6:21 PM on December 29, 2022 [81 favorites]
I’m confused by the location thing too. Romania isn’t Schengen so shouldn’t they have noticed as soon as he landed?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:22 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:22 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
George Takei's advice: "do not come for Greta unless she sends for you."
posted by heatherlogan at 6:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [115 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 6:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [115 favorites]
Now maybe everything was set up except they needed to know he was in-country, but even then it seems odd if they need to resort to a tweet to find that out. Yes / no? Curious about how this could have worked.
It's basically "if you come at the king, you best not miss" - they needed to be sure that Tate was in country before going after him or he would go to ground. And any OPSEC failure would have given them the green light - it's just that reality is written by melodramatic hacks.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
It's basically "if you come at the king, you best not miss" - they needed to be sure that Tate was in country before going after him or he would go to ground. And any OPSEC failure would have given them the green light - it's just that reality is written by melodramatic hacks.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
His reply was "How dare you!". No joke.
Oh my this schadenfreude is quite good.
posted by ishmael at 6:24 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
Oh my this schadenfreude is quite good.
posted by ishmael at 6:24 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
George Takei's advice: "do not come for Greta unless she sends for you."
I was amused by his response on Twitter:
I was amused by his response on Twitter:
So...Elon Musk let Andrew Tate back on Twitter, and Tate promptly used it to reveal his whereabouts to authorities in Romania who then arrested him.posted by NoxAeternum at 6:26 PM on December 29, 2022 [79 favorites]
All because Greta Thunberg owned him so hard his little wee-wee fell off.
Do I have that right? Please say I have that right.
I’m confused by the location thing too. Romania isn’t Schengen so shouldn’t they have noticed as soon as he landed?
Apparently one of the Romanians arrested with the Tates was a cop.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:29 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
Apparently one of the Romanians arrested with the Tates was a cop.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:29 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
Wikipedia edit wars can be fun.
posted by charred husk at 6:38 PM on December 29, 2022 [57 favorites]
posted by charred husk at 6:38 PM on December 29, 2022 [57 favorites]
Honestly, I've been on twitter more since musk has taken over, and it's been glorious. I saw this episode unfold as it happened yesterday, and I can't think of a better way to cap the year.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:42 PM on December 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 6:42 PM on December 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
Greta Thunberg rocks. There was a 4% decline in Swedish domestic flights in 2019, which looks partially attributable to the "flight shame" movement which she helped promote. At 4% you'd think they'd cut back some routes.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:44 PM on December 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 6:44 PM on December 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
Did Romanian authorities really not know Tate was in Romania?
The speculation I have read (somewhat-informed, based on someone with rough knowledge of the legal system there) is that the police may have had a pretty good idea of where he was, but couldn't just bust in and grab him for legal reasons. His pizza selfie might have given them the documentation necessary to obtain a warrant, or allowed them to do some degree of parallel construction and avoid revealing how they actually knew where he was in court documents (important given organized crime in that area, supposedly).
All speculative, but the point is that there are certainly plausible reasons why the police might have been waiting for him to stick his head up before making their move.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:54 PM on December 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
The speculation I have read (somewhat-informed, based on someone with rough knowledge of the legal system there) is that the police may have had a pretty good idea of where he was, but couldn't just bust in and grab him for legal reasons. His pizza selfie might have given them the documentation necessary to obtain a warrant, or allowed them to do some degree of parallel construction and avoid revealing how they actually knew where he was in court documents (important given organized crime in that area, supposedly).
All speculative, but the point is that there are certainly plausible reasons why the police might have been waiting for him to stick his head up before making their move.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:54 PM on December 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
What's with Romania? Didn't some J6 people flee there to avoid arrest?
posted by dobbs at 6:55 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 6:55 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
as he gets dismantled so thoroughly in less than 160 characters that his own crew turns on him …
I haven’t followed this closely - how did they turn on him? what were they saying?
posted by Silvery Fish at 6:57 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
I haven’t followed this closely - how did they turn on him? what were they saying?
posted by Silvery Fish at 6:57 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
The article I read said something to the effect that they needed something more precise than "entered country" to get warrants to raid his residence. The pizza box from a local restuarant provided the reasonable cause.
posted by Mitheral at 6:57 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 6:57 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Heard elsewhere, something along the lines of "The pizzagaters finally have a solid connection between pizza and human trafficking".
posted by 445supermag at 6:58 PM on December 29, 2022 [101 favorites]
posted by 445supermag at 6:58 PM on December 29, 2022 [101 favorites]
Wikipedia edit wars can be fun.
That is soooo *chef’s kiss*
posted by Thorzdad at 7:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
That is soooo *chef’s kiss*
posted by Thorzdad at 7:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Is romanian pizza like something different?
Well, in certain regions it's made without garlic.
posted by MrBadExample at 7:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
Well, in certain regions it's made without garlic.
posted by MrBadExample at 7:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
So this is all fun and schadenfreude but spare a thought for Greta Thunberg. Imagine being such a bright and capable young woman and then having some monstrous sex trafficking misogynist man drop into your mentions taunting you. Demanding your attention. I give her credit for answering him so sharply and love the delicious irony of his nasty response video getting himself arrested. But she never should have been subject to that harassment in the first place.
Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter years ago for his rampant misogyny. He only was back on Twitter because Elon Musk let him back in as part of Musk's farcical free speech stance. And no, it seems unlikely he'd reformed given Romanian police raided Tate in April 2022 for sex trafficking evidence.
posted by Nelson at 7:11 PM on December 29, 2022 [106 favorites]
Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter years ago for his rampant misogyny. He only was back on Twitter because Elon Musk let him back in as part of Musk's farcical free speech stance. And no, it seems unlikely he'd reformed given Romanian police raided Tate in April 2022 for sex trafficking evidence.
posted by Nelson at 7:11 PM on December 29, 2022 [106 favorites]
PizzaTate
posted by straight at 7:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by straight at 7:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [34 favorites]
will it be the biggest self-own of 2022?
I mean, maybe, but 'Elon Musk signs a deal to buy Twitter for $44B, changes his mind, is forced by a court to complete the deal, and then runs the company into the fscking ground, lets his fascist friend back on the platform who then gets arrested by Roman police' is reeeeeal hard to compete with.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:15 PM on December 29, 2022 [69 favorites]
I mean, maybe, but 'Elon Musk signs a deal to buy Twitter for $44B, changes his mind, is forced by a court to complete the deal, and then runs the company into the fscking ground, lets his fascist friend back on the platform who then gets arrested by Roman police' is reeeeeal hard to compete with.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:15 PM on December 29, 2022 [69 favorites]
One of the replies to Tate’s attempted clapback was “Where’s this Paul Scheer character from?” and I could not even fathom a more devastating burn on a dude.
Then I saw the perp walk.
posted by Etrigan at 7:17 PM on December 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
Then I saw the perp walk.
posted by Etrigan at 7:17 PM on December 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
Wow. That Tate person is really, really stupid.
But this does leave a lot of questions about the Romanian police.
posted by mumimor at 7:20 PM on December 29, 2022
But this does leave a lot of questions about the Romanian police.
posted by mumimor at 7:20 PM on December 29, 2022
The Writers obviously just wanted to wrap up this subplot. That tell-tale pizza box was so prominent in the video it was practically the main character.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:30 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:30 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
I only just learned that this guy existed the other day. It took some search to make sure it was the same guy but he came in this comment in this thread about Financial Twitter "Fin Twit".
The video linked in the comment is worthwhile to get a good picture of what his persona is like. He refers to "his four wives". I'm incredulous that four separate human women would choose to marry such an obvious tool. Because I'm so wholesome I had thought surely they are paid to appear as his wives in public. Being human trafficked makes a lot more sense.
posted by VTX at 7:33 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
The video linked in the comment is worthwhile to get a good picture of what his persona is like. He refers to "his four wives". I'm incredulous that four separate human women would choose to marry such an obvious tool. Because I'm so wholesome I had thought surely they are paid to appear as his wives in public. Being human trafficked makes a lot more sense.
posted by VTX at 7:33 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
I’m confused by the location thing too. Romania isn’t Schengen so shouldn’t they have noticed as soon as he landed?
I suppose it's possible that the skillset involved in human trafficking includes getting people across borders without going through Immigration & Customs, but I'm just guessing.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:38 PM on December 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
I suppose it's possible that the skillset involved in human trafficking includes getting people across borders without going through Immigration & Customs, but I'm just guessing.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:38 PM on December 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
DINING FOR WEEKS
posted by clavdivs at 7:41 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 7:41 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Whatever else happens in the future, even if Tate bribes, misogynizes or strong-arms his way out of this, I am taking pleasure in the fact that right now as I type he is having a very unpleasant time. Furthermore, if he's absolutely unhinged by Greta Thunberg's tweet, which was funny but not nearly the crushingest thing I've seen on Twitter, he must be crumbling to powder from the shock to his masculinity that comes from someone daring to arrest him.
These types always assume that everyone else is as corrupt and cynical as they are, and they are proved right up until they're not. Someone somewhere didn't like him boasting on twitter that he was basically bribing the state by bribing the church, someone somewhere didn't like his "I can go to Romania and do whatever I want to the local girls with my big American dollars" attitude, someone somewhere was offended in their national pride and no amount of dollars was going to do a damn thing.
The alt-right always thinks that the church is completely cynical, too - this may be irrelevant to the story, but they make so much out of being "trad" and far-right and loving conservative religions and simultaneously expect that they can just openly lead these gross porn lifestyles. Conservative christians either disapprove of that stuff or accept it only if it's kept under wraps. The alt-right has a lumping problem; they can't understand that someone might sympathize with certain parts of their fascist agenda while despising and refusing others, or that people can dislike porn without being even remotely feminist.
~~
The past few years are really the proof that intelligence is overrated. These people are all so, so stupid; everything they do is trite and uninteresting and just baffles you that anyone would, given the choice, live like that. And yet there they go, hurting people and uglying up the atmosphere. Like, the biggest these guys can dream is being Hugh Hefner without the scope and class - that's the limit of their imaginations, that's how they make meaning, that's their purpose-driven lives. And again, there they go, making other people as stupid and mean as they are. Like something you need to nuke from orbit.
posted by Frowner at 7:45 PM on December 29, 2022 [85 favorites]
These types always assume that everyone else is as corrupt and cynical as they are, and they are proved right up until they're not. Someone somewhere didn't like him boasting on twitter that he was basically bribing the state by bribing the church, someone somewhere didn't like his "I can go to Romania and do whatever I want to the local girls with my big American dollars" attitude, someone somewhere was offended in their national pride and no amount of dollars was going to do a damn thing.
The alt-right always thinks that the church is completely cynical, too - this may be irrelevant to the story, but they make so much out of being "trad" and far-right and loving conservative religions and simultaneously expect that they can just openly lead these gross porn lifestyles. Conservative christians either disapprove of that stuff or accept it only if it's kept under wraps. The alt-right has a lumping problem; they can't understand that someone might sympathize with certain parts of their fascist agenda while despising and refusing others, or that people can dislike porn without being even remotely feminist.
~~
The past few years are really the proof that intelligence is overrated. These people are all so, so stupid; everything they do is trite and uninteresting and just baffles you that anyone would, given the choice, live like that. And yet there they go, hurting people and uglying up the atmosphere. Like, the biggest these guys can dream is being Hugh Hefner without the scope and class - that's the limit of their imaginations, that's how they make meaning, that's their purpose-driven lives. And again, there they go, making other people as stupid and mean as they are. Like something you need to nuke from orbit.
posted by Frowner at 7:45 PM on December 29, 2022 [85 favorites]
An article about how apparently, Romanian police DIDN'T use the pizza box to locate him
It's likely a misunderstanding in English-language twitter posts, all of which are referencing each other as sources.
As some in this thread already alleged - it's not really a believable story... That said, Mr Tate really was detained by police.
posted by Sedition at 7:52 PM on December 29, 2022 [30 favorites]
It's likely a misunderstanding in English-language twitter posts, all of which are referencing each other as sources.
As some in this thread already alleged - it's not really a believable story... That said, Mr Tate really was detained by police.
posted by Sedition at 7:52 PM on December 29, 2022 [30 favorites]
Imagine being such a bright and capable young woman and then having some monstrous sex trafficking misogynist man drop into your mentions taunting you. Demanding your attention.
Sadly, I suspect this is just another “day ending in y” thing for her. Perhaps a bit more public. Still, I can’t imagine she can go even a week without some sort of slime trying to get her attention. The thing that often concerns me more is how much she has probably had to reorganize her life in the name of safety and security. I really hate this timeline sometimes.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:57 PM on December 29, 2022 [46 favorites]
Sadly, I suspect this is just another “day ending in y” thing for her. Perhaps a bit more public. Still, I can’t imagine she can go even a week without some sort of slime trying to get her attention. The thing that often concerns me more is how much she has probably had to reorganize her life in the name of safety and security. I really hate this timeline sometimes.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:57 PM on December 29, 2022 [46 favorites]
Good, regardless.
Catching up:
Is romanian pizza like something different? I'd take an order.
DirtyOldTown needs to be here to share his reviews, is what I think.
He refers to "his four wives"
I haven't seen but I twigged the meaning: a while back he hooked up with the islamofascists/hoteps and proclaimed he's converted into my religion. That was my first major exposure of the guy. *vomits*
posted by cendawanita at 8:00 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
Catching up:
Is romanian pizza like something different? I'd take an order.
DirtyOldTown needs to be here to share his reviews, is what I think.
He refers to "his four wives"
I haven't seen but I twigged the meaning: a while back he hooked up with the islamofascists/hoteps and proclaimed he's converted into my religion. That was my first major exposure of the guy. *vomits*
posted by cendawanita at 8:00 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
The Writers obviously just wanted to wrap up this subplot. That tell-tale pizza box was so prominent in the video it was practically the main character.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker
And some things are just too unbelievable, like the organization "Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, GRETA" lobbying Romania to crack down on traffickers.
posted by 445supermag at 8:01 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker
And some things are just too unbelievable, like the organization "Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, GRETA" lobbying Romania to crack down on traffickers.
posted by 445supermag at 8:01 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Look, there's no way Greta planned this, but we should absolutely remember it as if she did.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:08 PM on December 29, 2022 [38 favorites]
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:08 PM on December 29, 2022 [38 favorites]
Minority opinion: "small dick energy" actually is a patriarchal insult based upon the idea that you're only a real man if you're well-endowed. And anyway I thought that the idea of using body-shaming as put-downs was a thing we weren't supposed to do anymore. But y'all continue with your "she plays 4-D chess" business, I guess.
posted by bixfrankonis at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by bixfrankonis at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
for real where does that trailing "A" come from
I'm guessing the Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings were uncomfortable with GREAT.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm guessing the Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings were uncomfortable with GREAT.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
What does everyone think of some of the complaints about her bodyshaming him? On one hand I get it but also can’t we have one day where we can be petty and not do the whole “when they go low, we go high” thing? Just once, for the holidays?
posted by girlmightlive at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [68 favorites]
posted by girlmightlive at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2022 [68 favorites]
Remember when she sailed from Sweden across the ocean to pick a fight?
Don't fuck with vikings.
posted by adept256 at 8:18 PM on December 29, 2022 [26 favorites]
Don't fuck with vikings.
posted by adept256 at 8:18 PM on December 29, 2022 [26 favorites]
I both appreciate the intensity of the burn and think we should retire "small dick" jokes for the reasons others stated.
There will never be a better deployment of the genre, so it's a perfect time to retire it imho.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [61 favorites]
There will never be a better deployment of the genre, so it's a perfect time to retire it imho.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [61 favorites]
The point of the "energy" bit is to separate it from anyone's actual biology. You can have "big/small dick energy" regardless of your penis size or presence! It was a whole viral thing a few years ago.
For example, Gretta Thunberg has major big dick energy.
posted by VTX at 8:30 PM on December 29, 2022 [91 favorites]
For example, Gretta Thunberg has major big dick energy.
posted by VTX at 8:30 PM on December 29, 2022 [91 favorites]
It's hard for me to believe they could go from "not knowing what country he was in" to "launching a coordinated raid of five in-country locations" in just one day
If all they knew is that he was located within the service area of this pizza vendor, that would explain why they needed to do a coordinated raid of five locations.
posted by ocschwar at 8:31 PM on December 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
If all they knew is that he was located within the service area of this pizza vendor, that would explain why they needed to do a coordinated raid of five locations.
posted by ocschwar at 8:31 PM on December 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Greta punched right on up into the dick
posted by supermedusa at 8:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 8:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
He abuses steroids, so there might be an element of truth in it.
posted by adept256 at 8:34 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 8:34 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
"small dick energy" actually is a patriarchal insult based upon the idea that you're only a real man if you're well-endowed.
I think that most if not nearly all of us get that. But I also think that we can rejoice at the downfall of a monster without straining at gnats in our tone-policing. There's a whole Wikipedia article on the possible monorchism of History's Greatest Monster, for example.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:34 PM on December 29, 2022 [39 favorites]
I think that most if not nearly all of us get that. But I also think that we can rejoice at the downfall of a monster without straining at gnats in our tone-policing. There's a whole Wikipedia article on the possible monorchism of History's Greatest Monster, for example.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:34 PM on December 29, 2022 [39 favorites]
she’s just meeting him where he is
posted by Bacon Bit at 8:35 PM on December 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by Bacon Bit at 8:35 PM on December 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
I very much look forward to what Ms. Thunberg has to say about the situation, but I'd imagine it will take her a couple of days to stop laughing.
posted by MrVisible at 8:35 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by MrVisible at 8:35 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Sedition's link above goes through the police logic in a pretty credible way with some support of native language sources, as opposed to the English-language social media which seem to be largely referencing (and congratulating) itself rather than primary sources.
There is more than one brother involved in the sex-work/sex-trafficking ring. Police wanted to be sure both were in a single location to avoid one fleeing.
posted by bonehead at 8:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
There is more than one brother involved in the sex-work/sex-trafficking ring. Police wanted to be sure both were in a single location to avoid one fleeing.
posted by bonehead at 8:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
The point of the "energy" bit is to separate it from anyone's actual biology.
It's supposed to, but it doesn't work. In general it wouldn't work- a hypothetical "fatass energy" dig isn't really better than "fatass" on its own.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
It's supposed to, but it doesn't work. In general it wouldn't work- a hypothetical "fatass energy" dig isn't really better than "fatass" on its own.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
Do you understand the frothing rage she inspires in the alt-right? They hate her because she's intelligent, forthright, correct, and above all they hate her because she's a woman that's talking back. They can't fucking stand it when a woman stands up to them.
I think this is a case where the victim of sexism has the right to return fire in kind.
posted by adept256 at 8:46 PM on December 29, 2022 [141 favorites]
I think this is a case where the victim of sexism has the right to return fire in kind.
posted by adept256 at 8:46 PM on December 29, 2022 [141 favorites]
I am once again promising to stop talking about small men's small dicks when they stop flinging gendered insults at us. I solemnly swear.
posted by phunniemee at 8:46 PM on December 29, 2022 [145 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 8:46 PM on December 29, 2022 [145 favorites]
and btw she judged correctly that this boy's pee pee is the center of his universe and he's deeply insecure about it, probably because of the roids.
posted by adept256 at 8:49 PM on December 29, 2022 [46 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 8:49 PM on December 29, 2022 [46 favorites]
But y'all continue with your "she plays 4-D chess" business, I guess.
Andrew Tate has a large following on social media. In particular a following among teen and preteen boys. Cutting him down to size with a dick size joke may be distasteful, but in this particular instance it is exactly what is called for. Getting this guy back under a rock where he belongs will reduce the amount of body shaming in the world.
posted by ocschwar at 8:56 PM on December 29, 2022 [55 favorites]
Andrew Tate has a large following on social media. In particular a following among teen and preteen boys. Cutting him down to size with a dick size joke may be distasteful, but in this particular instance it is exactly what is called for. Getting this guy back under a rock where he belongs will reduce the amount of body shaming in the world.
posted by ocschwar at 8:56 PM on December 29, 2022 [55 favorites]
I found the Thunberg response to be less "elite, crushing and very funny burn" and more "B+ effort from the kind of 8 year old who is sending a lot of experimental jokes into the universe every day", I have no clue why I am hearing about it everywhere I go on the internet. Perhaps she will next inquire if his refrigerator is running and I'll get to read about it above the fold in the New York Times.
posted by Kwine at 9:06 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Kwine at 9:06 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Apart from focusing on penis size as being ideally suited to provoke, the gear change from "please do enlighten me" is pretty good. And it's not even her first language.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:09 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
I have no clue why I am hearing about it everywhere I go on the internet
You're hearing about it everywhere because a 36 year old man made a completely unprovoked tweet AT a 19 year old climate activist bragging about his many gas guzzling cars, the 19 year old dismissively replied like a 19 year old, and the 36 year old man proceeded to have an absolute meltdown, engaging his many shitty followers into that meltdown with him, culminating in his arrest for literal sex trafficking.
I'm sorry the teenager's joke isn't funny enough for you, you're so enlightened.
posted by phunniemee at 9:13 PM on December 29, 2022 [241 favorites]
You're hearing about it everywhere because a 36 year old man made a completely unprovoked tweet AT a 19 year old climate activist bragging about his many gas guzzling cars, the 19 year old dismissively replied like a 19 year old, and the 36 year old man proceeded to have an absolute meltdown, engaging his many shitty followers into that meltdown with him, culminating in his arrest for literal sex trafficking.
I'm sorry the teenager's joke isn't funny enough for you, you're so enlightened.
posted by phunniemee at 9:13 PM on December 29, 2022 [241 favorites]
I found the Thunberg response to be less "elite, crushing and very funny burn" and more "B+ effort from the kind of 8 year old who is sending a lot of experimental jokes into the universe every day",
'kay.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:19 PM on December 29, 2022 [42 favorites]
'kay.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:19 PM on December 29, 2022 [42 favorites]
it's a well-executed insult aimed at someone who manifestly deserved it, and also the whole genre of insult kind of sucks
Getting this guy back under a rock where he belongs will reduce the amount of body shaming in the world.
I absolutely enjoyed Greta winning a dick-swinging contest as much as the next person but it just kind of always ends up emphasizing that dick size is very important, you know? an insecure teen who likes Tate might go off him after seeing this but if it's insecurity that drove him to Tate in the first place there'll just be a Tate-sized hole in his life until he finds another misogyny influencer.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:22 PM on December 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
Getting this guy back under a rock where he belongs will reduce the amount of body shaming in the world.
I absolutely enjoyed Greta winning a dick-swinging contest as much as the next person but it just kind of always ends up emphasizing that dick size is very important, you know? an insecure teen who likes Tate might go off him after seeing this but if it's insecurity that drove him to Tate in the first place there'll just be a Tate-sized hole in his life until he finds another misogyny influencer.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:22 PM on December 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
If she asked him did he have Prince Albert in a can, I would put Twitter back on my phone
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:23 PM on December 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
Ghost of Toyotathon Sales EventPast @PanasonicDX4500
(Detective Colombo:)posted by sebastienbailard at 9:26 PM on December 29, 2022 [29 favorites]
Jerry's Pizza! Now that's a quality pie. I haven't had it myself in years, of course. My wife, she's always telling me to eat healthier, you know how it is. Dames, am I right? But just one last question, Mr. Tate. Jerry's Pizza, that's a Romanian business, is it not?
6:11 PM · Dec 29, 2022
The right is pretty much entirely hate based. Insulting is their territory, sure. Fuck them if they don't like their own tactics
posted by Jacen at 9:26 PM on December 29, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 9:26 PM on December 29, 2022 [19 favorites]
Minority opinion: "small dick energy" actually is a patriarchal insult based upon the idea that you're only a real man if you're well-endowed. And anyway I thought that the idea of using body-shaming as put-downs was a thing we weren't supposed to do anymore. But y'all continue with your "she plays 4-D chess" business, I guess.
This nonsense is why the left is so utterly shitty at attacking these assholes. You have to speak in a way they understand. Greta seems to have figured it out, at least this one time. It's the least sophisticated 4-D chess move you could ever conjure, because her target wouldn't understand anything more nuanced. Also, the "she plays 4-D chess" angle is something nobody here has really made, other than you.
FWIW, some of Tate's defenders have been trying to use this exact angle to defend him and attack Thunberg. It's landing about as well as you might imagine.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:27 PM on December 29, 2022 [114 favorites]
Yes let's not forget that the actual subject of Tate's clap back response--the pizza video--was him spinning Greta's tweet to say that it was in fact her with the small dick, because it was her email address that she was sharing with him. That was it, that was the whole joke. Hope it was worth it.
posted by phunniemee at 9:31 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 9:31 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
And anyway I thought that the idea of using body-shaming as put-downs was a thing we weren't supposed to do anymore.
It is often said about this sort of thing that Donald Trump will never see your tweet about how he’s fat, but all of your fat friends will know what you really think of them. Except, in this case, Andrew Tate absolutely did see her smalldickenergy joke, and I think none of Greta Thunberg’s friends are worried about what she thinks of them.
posted by Etrigan at 9:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [69 favorites]
It is often said about this sort of thing that Donald Trump will never see your tweet about how he’s fat, but all of your fat friends will know what you really think of them. Except, in this case, Andrew Tate absolutely did see her smalldickenergy joke, and I think none of Greta Thunberg’s friends are worried about what she thinks of them.
posted by Etrigan at 9:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [69 favorites]
I absolutely enjoyed Greta winning a dick-swinging contest as much as the next person but it just kind of always ends up emphasizing that dick size is very important, you know?
Let's not Ship of Theseus what she actually said, which is that his bragging about his dozens of sports cars should be emailed to "smalldickenergy@getalife.com". There's no dick-swinging going on here, she doesn't one-up him, it's calling him pathetic in a way that will wound him, which a less crass insult probably wouldn't.
And it clearly did wound him, because his initial response was "how dare you", an absolute nothing of a comeback.
They hate her because she's intelligent, forthright, correct, and above all they hate her because she's a woman that's talking back.
Just to calibrate my own assumptions, I assumed they hate her because she's not trying to be pretty for their approval, or even particularly interested in their approval, as well as telling them (and others) they have to change, alongside being an intelligent young woman. They don't seem to mind women so long as they fall in line.
posted by Merus at 9:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [27 favorites]
Let's not Ship of Theseus what she actually said, which is that his bragging about his dozens of sports cars should be emailed to "smalldickenergy@getalife.com". There's no dick-swinging going on here, she doesn't one-up him, it's calling him pathetic in a way that will wound him, which a less crass insult probably wouldn't.
And it clearly did wound him, because his initial response was "how dare you", an absolute nothing of a comeback.
They hate her because she's intelligent, forthright, correct, and above all they hate her because she's a woman that's talking back.
Just to calibrate my own assumptions, I assumed they hate her because she's not trying to be pretty for their approval, or even particularly interested in their approval, as well as telling them (and others) they have to change, alongside being an intelligent young woman. They don't seem to mind women so long as they fall in line.
posted by Merus at 9:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [27 favorites]
Per Shiv Ramdas: So this whole incident gonna be named Pizzatate, yes?
posted by cendawanita at 9:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
....And anyway I thought that the idea of using body-shaming as put-downs was a thing we weren't supposed to do anymore.
Oh, c'mon! There is this whole long established thing called metaphor, you know.
posted by y2karl at 9:41 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
Oh, c'mon! There is this whole long established thing called metaphor, you know.
posted by y2karl at 9:41 PM on December 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
And it clearly did wound him, because his initial response was "how dare you", an absolute nothing of a comeback.
I took that as a lame sort of attempt to attack her by using her own words against her.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:45 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
I took that as a lame sort of attempt to attack her by using her own words against her.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:45 PM on December 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
heh, "long established thing"
posted by 7segment at 9:47 PM on December 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by 7segment at 9:47 PM on December 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
she doesn't one-up him, it's calling him pathetic in a way that will wound him, which a less crass insult probably wouldn't.
see that's what I'm saying, "it's pathetic to be insecure about your dick" is perhaps not ideal messaging to teenage boys if you want to drive a wedge between teenage boys and guys like Tate. (I was mostly responding to the "Greta has BDE" idea upthread- people do seem to see it that way)
I mean, it's fine, that would be a very high bar to hold a joke like this to. People are allowed to enjoy Greta Thunberg effortlessly ruining Tate's day even before he got arrested for his crimes- it's objectively very funny.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:50 PM on December 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
see that's what I'm saying, "it's pathetic to be insecure about your dick" is perhaps not ideal messaging to teenage boys if you want to drive a wedge between teenage boys and guys like Tate. (I was mostly responding to the "Greta has BDE" idea upthread- people do seem to see it that way)
I mean, it's fine, that would be a very high bar to hold a joke like this to. People are allowed to enjoy Greta Thunberg effortlessly ruining Tate's day even before he got arrested for his crimes- it's objectively very funny.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:50 PM on December 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
I found the Thunberg response to be less "elite, crushing and very funny burn" and more "B+ effort from the kind of 8 year old who is sending a lot of experimental jokes into the universe every day"
He tweeted at her. Any irritation you feel from hearing about it? Any blame you care to assign for this increase in the 21st century social media trash vibe? 100% Andrew Tate's fault. He could have just kept his mouth shut. Why couldn't he just... shut the fuck up?
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:53 PM on December 29, 2022 [76 favorites]
He tweeted at her. Any irritation you feel from hearing about it? Any blame you care to assign for this increase in the 21st century social media trash vibe? 100% Andrew Tate's fault. He could have just kept his mouth shut. Why couldn't he just... shut the fuck up?
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:53 PM on December 29, 2022 [76 favorites]
Further, ah, discourse on how the actual target population feels about this exchange.
posted by phunniemee at 9:55 PM on December 29, 2022 [36 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 9:55 PM on December 29, 2022 [36 favorites]
I’ve tried to exorcize the toxic, red state, cowboy, hick demon masculinity that was imprinted during childhood from my soul; yet it is there and when cornered by some jerk like Tate. The words come out without thinking.
posted by interogative mood at 10:00 PM on December 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 10:00 PM on December 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
It’s a bit ‘liberal tiring’ to have the concept of tone-policing get taken out for a trot here, as much as stuff like gaslighting, I’d hope everyone’s allowed their own threshold and grace when bumping up against these topics. I definitely value the reminder that patriarchy is systematically imbued in us! The ‘meet them where they are’ assessment link Bacon Bit shared was cool! It’s hard to have healthy discourse in text on the internet, news at 11.
This entered the news cycle at a relatively boring/quiet time so I guess over-coverage is an unavoidable result. If we’re proactively having empathy for those appearing to be ‘grief’-ed in all of this, spare a thought for people who had to learn about that kickboxing person and the Wikipedia maintainers with cleanup in aisle 3.
posted by allisterb at 10:01 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
This entered the news cycle at a relatively boring/quiet time so I guess over-coverage is an unavoidable result. If we’re proactively having empathy for those appearing to be ‘grief’-ed in all of this, spare a thought for people who had to learn about that kickboxing person and the Wikipedia maintainers with cleanup in aisle 3.
posted by allisterb at 10:01 PM on December 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Jesus, Glass Onion isn't wasting any time. First Musk, now Tate—Gwyneth Paltrow must be shaking in her (overpriced artisanal) boots.
posted by The Tensor at 10:02 PM on December 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
posted by The Tensor at 10:02 PM on December 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
I can't bring myself to care about the "small dick energy" discourse. I'm too distracted by the screenshot - that's what Andrew Tate looks like? That's what people are falling for?
He looks like he's wearing a toxic masculinity costume that he bought at a Spirit Halloween.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [122 favorites]
He looks like he's wearing a toxic masculinity costume that he bought at a Spirit Halloween.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:12 PM on December 29, 2022 [122 favorites]
He needs his targets to be stupid, like any other con-man. And in this case they are stupid teenage boys.
posted by mumimor at 10:17 PM on December 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 10:17 PM on December 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
I’m not entirely sure why he took off - violent pimp who has nice cars and says absurd shit is a stock character that they haven’t seen before? I remember when he said he was going to Romania specifically because he felt their rape laws were more lax. Was he wrong, or are they done with him?
posted by Selena777 at 10:30 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 10:30 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Did we not just have a thread on the danger of unquestioningly spreading thinly sourced just-so stories?
I'm not saying it's impossible that the pizza detail is true, but it sure seems to have sprung up fully formed from someone who has no particular reason to know the granular details of Romanian police procedures, and it is not getting picked up in any of the straight news articles (as opposed to aggregation) I've seen in English language press.
(I don't know if it's been edited since it was published, but even the Daily Beast article stops short of claiming any actual causation beyond "Police confirmed to Gândul that they relied on social media posts to figure out that the Tate brothers, who were constantly traveling out of the country, had returned to Romania. It’s unclear which social media posts...")
posted by eponym at 10:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm not saying it's impossible that the pizza detail is true, but it sure seems to have sprung up fully formed from someone who has no particular reason to know the granular details of Romanian police procedures, and it is not getting picked up in any of the straight news articles (as opposed to aggregation) I've seen in English language press.
(I don't know if it's been edited since it was published, but even the Daily Beast article stops short of claiming any actual causation beyond "Police confirmed to Gândul that they relied on social media posts to figure out that the Tate brothers, who were constantly traveling out of the country, had returned to Romania. It’s unclear which social media posts...")
posted by eponym at 10:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Look at us here on Metafilter dot com engaging with all the bullshit insulting misogynist gender garbage. Once again I point out this is Greta Thunberg we're talking about. She's an iconic leader in the youth fight against climate change. The roid rage sex trafficking monster is not the interesting part of this story. I mean sure, today he is the main character. And now he's going to rot in a Romanian jail for sexually abusing women. Long term I'm much more interested in what Greta accomplishes. I could care less if she wrote a mean tweet about the penis of some guy who enslaves women in the sex trade.
posted by Nelson at 10:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [58 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 10:32 PM on December 29, 2022 [58 favorites]
Tate it a joke and the pizza box story is a funnier punchline and I'm happy to leave it at that.
posted by Reyturner at 10:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 10:36 PM on December 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
I don’t care about their tiny dicks except as they aggregate and align like iron filings under the influence of a magnetic field, revealing forces that shape human affairs and would otherwise be difficult to perceive and understand.
But they do care, and apparently very much. Mass murderer Elliot Rodger says his radicalization began with viewing a pornographic video and realizing he didn’t measure up, and this is how he ultimately came to,feel about women:
posted by jamjam at 10:55 PM on December 29, 2022 [39 favorites]
But they do care, and apparently very much. Mass murderer Elliot Rodger says his radicalization began with viewing a pornographic video and realizing he didn’t measure up, and this is how he ultimately came to,feel about women:
The ultimate evil behind sexuality is the human female. They are the main instigators of sex. They control which men get it and which men don't. Women are flawed creatures, and my mistreatment at their hands has made me realize this sad truth. There is something very twisted and wrong with the way their brains are wired. They think like beasts and in truth they are beasts. Women are incapable of having morals or thinking rationally. They are completely controlled by their depraved emotions and vile sexual impulses. Because of this, the men who get to experience the pleasures of sex and the privilege of breeding are the men who women are sexually attracted to...the stupid, degenerate, obnoxious men. I have observed this all my life. The most beautiful women choose to mate with the most brutal men, instead of a magnificent gentlemen like myself.This is "tiny dick energy" and why it's necessary to talk about it.
Women should not have the right to choose who to mate and breed with. The decision should be made for them by rational men of intelligence. If women continue to have rights, they will only hinder the advancement of the human race by breeding with degenerate men and creating stupid degenerate, stupid offspring. This will cause humanity to become even more depraved with each generation.
posted by jamjam at 10:55 PM on December 29, 2022 [39 favorites]
I recall an interview I heard with a former 419 Nigerian scammer that said that he made more money the more obvious he was. He and his fellow scammers realized that anyone who had questions or who needed a more complicated pitch was going to just take up their time. Better to filter anyone with any sense out of the target pool early by going in with a pitch that was blatent, poorly written and full or errors. Any one dumb enough to reply to that is going to be an easy mark. I think that’s the strategy Trump and Tate used to build their fan bases. Repeated trolling on social media to make sure all the suckers see it and like/share/subscribe.
posted by interogative mood at 11:05 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 11:05 PM on December 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
I have to hand it to Andrew Tate, this is the first time I've seen someone be so outwitted by a teenager that they end up in jail without it involving a dog that solves fake ghost mysteries
posted by ominous_paws at 11:10 PM on December 29, 2022 [70 favorites]
posted by ominous_paws at 11:10 PM on December 29, 2022 [70 favorites]
The Beeb have an article with some background on Tate: Andrew Tate detained in Romania over human trafficking case.
posted by Wordshore at 11:13 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Wordshore at 11:13 PM on December 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
I've been watching this unfold for a couple of days and HOLY SHIT HE GOT ARRESTED!? IN FUCKING ROMANIA!?!? BECAUSE OF HIS STUPID TWEETS AND FRAGILE, REACTIVE BLABBERMOUTH!?!?!?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*wheezes, coughs violently, grabbing hold of the desk and taking deep breaths, knocking everything all over the place*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
And, yeah, fuck all the pushback about Small Dick Energy as an insult. The alt right has been publishing absolutely disgusting and violent rapist sexual fantasies about Greta since she was a child for like 4+ years , and you're asking me to be worried about someone insecure and fragile about the size of their dick or personal insecurities that are entirely the cause of the patriarchal nonsense that is the dominant party in any of this?
There's nothing wrong with having a small dick any more then there is anything wrong with a big clit or labia and these things and cultural bodily shaming are absolutely related.
Small Dick Energy isn't about size, endowment Rockwell Hardness or any of that nonsense. It isn't even about insecurity about one's body or shaming anyone for having insecurities about being a unique human being.
It's all about behavior and actions under the influence the patriarchy that causes these insecurities and how horrible, toxic people abuse others by willfully, intentionally and whole-heatedly perpetuating this patriarchal bullshit.
Yes, it is on us to open doors and acceptance about that. It is absolutely not on us to hold that door open for someone who refuses to step through it, and then actively and energetically closes doors for others.
Fuck Andrew Tate and his precious feelings. I presume he has some feelings about something, but there's no evidence that he even attempts to engage them, learn or grow from them, or express them outside of a fuel pump or his toxic and shitty social media presence.
He started all of this by taking a wild swing and a miss and he deserves every insult he gets until he grows the fuck up and learns to be a much less shitty human being.
posted by loquacious at 11:17 PM on December 29, 2022 [126 favorites]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*wheezes, coughs violently, grabbing hold of the desk and taking deep breaths, knocking everything all over the place*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
And, yeah, fuck all the pushback about Small Dick Energy as an insult. The alt right has been publishing absolutely disgusting and violent rapist sexual fantasies about Greta since she was a child for like 4+ years , and you're asking me to be worried about someone insecure and fragile about the size of their dick or personal insecurities that are entirely the cause of the patriarchal nonsense that is the dominant party in any of this?
There's nothing wrong with having a small dick any more then there is anything wrong with a big clit or labia and these things and cultural bodily shaming are absolutely related.
Small Dick Energy isn't about size, endowment Rockwell Hardness or any of that nonsense. It isn't even about insecurity about one's body or shaming anyone for having insecurities about being a unique human being.
It's all about behavior and actions under the influence the patriarchy that causes these insecurities and how horrible, toxic people abuse others by willfully, intentionally and whole-heatedly perpetuating this patriarchal bullshit.
Yes, it is on us to open doors and acceptance about that. It is absolutely not on us to hold that door open for someone who refuses to step through it, and then actively and energetically closes doors for others.
Fuck Andrew Tate and his precious feelings. I presume he has some feelings about something, but there's no evidence that he even attempts to engage them, learn or grow from them, or express them outside of a fuel pump or his toxic and shitty social media presence.
He started all of this by taking a wild swing and a miss and he deserves every insult he gets until he grows the fuck up and learns to be a much less shitty human being.
posted by loquacious at 11:17 PM on December 29, 2022 [126 favorites]
an insecure teen who likes Tate might go off him after seeing this but if it's insecurity that drove him to Tate in the first place there'll just be a Tate-sized hole in his life until he finds another misogyny influencer.Solving the problem of what to do with the teens attracted to the misogynist grifter du jour is not her responsibility. She's tackling climate change, and that means she's been receiving rape and death threats since she was a child. I think that's enough responsibility for a 19 year old.
My delight at the jokes about a man-baby getting owned is only outweighed by my relief that a Thiel-backed human trafficker has been arrested.
posted by harriet vane at 11:45 PM on December 29, 2022 [42 favorites]
If she asked him did he have Prince Albert in a can, I would put Twitter back on my phone
Or if he had a Prince Albert on his can...
posted by chavenet at 12:05 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Or if he had a Prince Albert on his can...
posted by chavenet at 12:05 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Small Dick Energy isn't about size, endowment Rockwell Hardness or any of that nonsense. It isn't even about insecurity about one's body or shaming anyone for having insecurities about being a unique human being.
Except it clearly is - the use of "big dick energy" to stand in for a bunch of good behaviours we approve of is drawing parallels between the idea of a big dick and the behaviours in question; it treats a big dick as being a stand-in or shorthand for 'good'. Like, if dick size isn't reflective of anything or doesn't matter, then why use "big dick [energy]" to mean good?
Much like 'gay' as an insult is problematic even if you're not thinking about it referring to queer men or people when you say it, there is no way of redeeming big/small dick energy. And no, throwing 'energy' on the end does not address that, much as saying someone has 'faggot energy' as an insult would still be homophobic.
I don't think it's a particularly big deal in this case, but the defenses of the term that want to erase any kind of problematic element to the phrase don't make sense.
posted by Dysk at 12:07 AM on December 30, 2022 [23 favorites]
Except it clearly is - the use of "big dick energy" to stand in for a bunch of good behaviours we approve of is drawing parallels between the idea of a big dick and the behaviours in question; it treats a big dick as being a stand-in or shorthand for 'good'. Like, if dick size isn't reflective of anything or doesn't matter, then why use "big dick [energy]" to mean good?
Much like 'gay' as an insult is problematic even if you're not thinking about it referring to queer men or people when you say it, there is no way of redeeming big/small dick energy. And no, throwing 'energy' on the end does not address that, much as saying someone has 'faggot energy' as an insult would still be homophobic.
I don't think it's a particularly big deal in this case, but the defenses of the term that want to erase any kind of problematic element to the phrase don't make sense.
posted by Dysk at 12:07 AM on December 30, 2022 [23 favorites]
my god there is a rapist pimp sex-trafficker RIGHT THERE but the debate is about how fair Greta's words are? The problem with the left.
posted by adept256 at 12:21 AM on December 30, 2022 [136 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 12:21 AM on December 30, 2022 [136 favorites]
The rapist sex trafficker who got arrested and its now facing justice? What is there to discuss? Bad man gets comeuppance; good. What use is a thread with that comment a hundred times?
posted by Dysk at 12:22 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:22 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I hereby invite anyone with a dick to stop now thinking about the dimensions of their own and whether it is big or small or whatever. That is boring. You are fine. It is good that a man who imprisoned/enslaved people got busted. Your dick is okay.
posted by lauranesson at 12:24 AM on December 30, 2022 [47 favorites]
posted by lauranesson at 12:24 AM on December 30, 2022 [47 favorites]
What use is a thread with that comment a hundred times?
Pretty much the same use as a dot in an obit thread. Ever put a dot down?
posted by aramaic at 12:24 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Pretty much the same use as a dot in an obit thread. Ever put a dot down?
posted by aramaic at 12:24 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
hereby invite anyone with a dick to stop now thinking about the dimensions of their own and whether it is big or small or whatever.
More than one of the people objecting don't have dicks.
Ever put a dot down?
Sure, but I didn't have a go at people saying other things or pointing out ways the deceased was problematic.
posted by Dysk at 12:26 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
More than one of the people objecting don't have dicks.
Ever put a dot down?
Sure, but I didn't have a go at people saying other things or pointing out ways the deceased was problematic.
posted by Dysk at 12:26 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
idk if it redeems the idea of BDE or not, but meeting them at their level seems appropriate only because even post-arrest but especially post -ratio, his followers and fashy misogynists (but i repeat myself) have been clogging up the mentions with . It's honestly gross and triggering. I bring this here because I don't want the thread to lose sight what a nothing response was her one-liner and she doesn't deserve getting her head pazted on yey on some of these heinous images.
posted by cendawanita at 12:31 AM on December 30, 2022 [12 favorites]
[a list of misogynist and rape culture takes directed at GT]
rape jokes, rape memes, photoshopped memes using gangbang porn elements, and how much he would just ruin her, if you know what i mean.posted by cendawanita at 12:31 AM on December 30, 2022 [12 favorites]
I think there should be a discussion about how this vile person is an internet celebrity that can afford a shed full of million dollar cars! That seems like a real problem. We got one, that's great, champagne for all. We didn't get all the fans though, they'll find someone else to worship, and they're all proto-versions of this asshole, it could be them.
There is a real problem with the manosphere and these misogynist cults, it doesn't end with this one person. But sure, let's talk about the victim's inappropriate reaction some more.
posted by adept256 at 12:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
There is a real problem with the manosphere and these misogynist cults, it doesn't end with this one person. But sure, let's talk about the victim's inappropriate reaction some more.
posted by adept256 at 12:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
(For the record, I fully agree with cendawanita on this, I just could not let obvious and somewhat self-serving nonsense about big dick energy being completely unproblematic go. I'll stop now.)
posted by Dysk at 12:34 AM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:34 AM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
this is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes
posted by LostInUbe at 12:34 AM on December 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by LostInUbe at 12:34 AM on December 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
Criminal Defense Attorney / YouTuber Bruce Rivers breaks down how screwed Andrew Tate is.
posted by interogative mood at 12:43 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 12:43 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I've spent the better part of the week in an AirBNB in Romania shaking off the novel coronavirus.
This is a strange place where statements like "The 24 hour store is closing at five today, because it's Saint John's Birthday" make total sense.
We tried to order a large pizza because a) it's one of the only foods that delivers and b) pepperoni pizza is my comfort food. But it turns out that most pizza places here only have one size and ingredients only come in certain combinations with no substitutions. And so, we kept running into things where I could order a pepperoni pizza, but only with either corn or pickles on it.
As far as for how Tate might have been here but not yet apprehended, I would only tell you that Romania is one of the most notoriously corrupt places in Europe. It's a place where people joke that a 19,999 lei note will enter production soon, since bribes of less than 20,000 are not a major crime.
Our cousin Artur has started a staffing business that brings in skilled masons from India which he hopes will be successful, but he won't know for at least another six months as his applications are at the bottom of the pile since he won't pay bribes.
We did end up getting pepperoni pizza finally. It came without tomato sauce, since that is how it is done here. Comrade Doll told me that I'm expected to out ketchup on it. I told her this is why Romania is still considered a backwards state.
I will say though that pepperoni pizza without sauce is even better cold.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:59 AM on December 30, 2022 [55 favorites]
This is a strange place where statements like "The 24 hour store is closing at five today, because it's Saint John's Birthday" make total sense.
We tried to order a large pizza because a) it's one of the only foods that delivers and b) pepperoni pizza is my comfort food. But it turns out that most pizza places here only have one size and ingredients only come in certain combinations with no substitutions. And so, we kept running into things where I could order a pepperoni pizza, but only with either corn or pickles on it.
As far as for how Tate might have been here but not yet apprehended, I would only tell you that Romania is one of the most notoriously corrupt places in Europe. It's a place where people joke that a 19,999 lei note will enter production soon, since bribes of less than 20,000 are not a major crime.
Our cousin Artur has started a staffing business that brings in skilled masons from India which he hopes will be successful, but he won't know for at least another six months as his applications are at the bottom of the pile since he won't pay bribes.
We did end up getting pepperoni pizza finally. It came without tomato sauce, since that is how it is done here. Comrade Doll told me that I'm expected to out ketchup on it. I told her this is why Romania is still considered a backwards state.
I will say though that pepperoni pizza without sauce is even better cold.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:59 AM on December 30, 2022 [55 favorites]
My guess is that Tate wasn't apprehended because of any pizza box related detective work. He has a home in Romania. It wasn't a mystery where to look for him.
More likely it was because making international headlines for being a dick increased the value of his arrest well beyond what bribes could paper over.
So yeah, you could still say the Thunberg interaction led to his apprehension.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:30 AM on December 30, 2022 [21 favorites]
More likely it was because making international headlines for being a dick increased the value of his arrest well beyond what bribes could paper over.
So yeah, you could still say the Thunberg interaction led to his apprehension.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:30 AM on December 30, 2022 [21 favorites]
Does this mean those cars are off the road now?
posted by UN at 1:42 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by UN at 1:42 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
> As far as for how Tate might have been here but not yet apprehended, I would only tell you that Romania is one of the most notoriously corrupt places in Europe.
Is he going to actually end up being convicted and serving time, or will he be able to grease the wheels and walk free?
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:10 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Is he going to actually end up being convicted and serving time, or will he be able to grease the wheels and walk free?
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:10 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Is he going to actually end up being convicted serving time, or will he be able to grease the wheels and walk free?
I am not Romanian, just someone with family here who visits and follows the new a little, so I am reaching the limits of my ability to speak with confidence. From what I can tell, it seems to depend entirely on which judge he gets. My understanding is that the judiciary is often more anti-corruption than other parts of the government, so here's hoping.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:19 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I am not Romanian, just someone with family here who visits and follows the new a little, so I am reaching the limits of my ability to speak with confidence. From what I can tell, it seems to depend entirely on which judge he gets. My understanding is that the judiciary is often more anti-corruption than other parts of the government, so here's hoping.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:19 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
This is arguably the funniest thing to ever happen online?? Which is a high bar, admittedly, but everything about it—down to Tate's "How dare you!"—is exceedingly funny.
Look, my fellow leftists, I know that we've spent the last 10 years trying to discovernuclear fusion a way of effectively insulting other people without offending literally any hypothetical niche group of people, but four years of "EXCUSE ME? MR. TRUMP, SIR? HAVE YOU NO DIGNITY, SIR? I BELIEVE, SIR, THAT YOU WILL FIND, TAX RETURNS? MUST BE REPORTED?? TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES, MR. TRUMP PLEASE SIR" doesn't seem to have made much headway on that front, and neither did "Cheeto," "Drumpf," or "Hair Force One," so maybe we need to conclude that, as Archimedes hypothesized, a well-placed smalldickenergy@getalife.com can, in fact, move the Earth.
(Also pretty amazing to see people in here sneer about how they can think of funnier jokes, Greta's palate is so unrefined, like bro she started a major climate movement and got Andrew Tate arrested, you have never done anything more significant or owned anybody online harder than she has, give it up already)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 2:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [127 favorites]
Look, my fellow leftists, I know that we've spent the last 10 years trying to discover
(Also pretty amazing to see people in here sneer about how they can think of funnier jokes, Greta's palate is so unrefined, like bro she started a major climate movement and got Andrew Tate arrested, you have never done anything more significant or owned anybody online harder than she has, give it up already)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 2:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [127 favorites]
DirtyOldTown, what are the Romanian press writing about the story?
posted by mumimor at 2:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 2:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Sorry, the "scolding Greta for her joke" thing is stuck in my craw. Because Andrew Tate's entire brand is saying things like this:
Greta Thunberg knows this, because Greta has been harassed by Andrew Tate's followers for years, because Andrew Tate is a huge deal with millions and millions of followers, all of whom buy into Andrew Tate's bullshit. Which is why, when Andrew Tate decided to up and attack her out of literally nowhere, likely driving tens of thousands of his followers to harass and verbally abuse her minimum, Greta knew that the right response to him was to call him "small dick energy."
The thing is, that whole "your whole value is your dick" thing is the kind of thing that only has purchase in the dark, dank world of Andrew Tate. That's part of the joke. There's an inflection of irony to "big dick energy:" it's explicitly a lampoon of a particular cartoonish vision of an "alpha male." Hell, it's camp. (I don't mean to be like "Judith Butler says" but Judith Butler literally says, in Gender Trouble, that the point of camp is to perform gender in such exaggerated ways that it becomes a farce of itself that nobody can take seriously. "Big Dick Energy" as a meme is a campy vision of what it means to be a man—and you know it's camp because it applies to women as much as to men.
Greta's joke isn't just precision-targeted to Tate. It's referencing a meme that is itself making fun of Tate's entire worldview. To understand the joke is to understand that everything Tate says is founded on the bullshittiest bullshit, and to parody it through exaggeration. So it's factually inaccurate to say that Greta was size-shaming men, on top of the fact that it's fucking disgusting to prattle on about how insensitive and hurtful what she said is when Andrew "your woman disagrees with you" Tate is literally right motherfucking there.
And I don't need to tell y'all that it's misogynist as hell to overlook exaggeratedly bad male behavior but nitpick every little thing a woman does. Because you already know that. Because you're really good at understanding things like "context." Sheesh.
Sorry to double down on this, but it makes me absolutely livid.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [281 favorites]
You are poor.He is literally the guy who trains men to feel humiliated and impotent. His entire brand is teaching men that they're only as valuable as the length of their penis, the digits in their bank account, the number of women they're willing to sexually assault. Like that's his whole thing. That toxic masculinity you're talking about? It's named Andrew Tate.
You are unimportant.
Men do not fear you.
Your woman disagrees with you.
Your lives are shit.
If I was forced to endure a year of your life it would be the worst level of depression imaginable.
Greta Thunberg knows this, because Greta has been harassed by Andrew Tate's followers for years, because Andrew Tate is a huge deal with millions and millions of followers, all of whom buy into Andrew Tate's bullshit. Which is why, when Andrew Tate decided to up and attack her out of literally nowhere, likely driving tens of thousands of his followers to harass and verbally abuse her minimum, Greta knew that the right response to him was to call him "small dick energy."
The thing is, that whole "your whole value is your dick" thing is the kind of thing that only has purchase in the dark, dank world of Andrew Tate. That's part of the joke. There's an inflection of irony to "big dick energy:" it's explicitly a lampoon of a particular cartoonish vision of an "alpha male." Hell, it's camp. (I don't mean to be like "Judith Butler says" but Judith Butler literally says, in Gender Trouble, that the point of camp is to perform gender in such exaggerated ways that it becomes a farce of itself that nobody can take seriously. "Big Dick Energy" as a meme is a campy vision of what it means to be a man—and you know it's camp because it applies to women as much as to men.
Greta's joke isn't just precision-targeted to Tate. It's referencing a meme that is itself making fun of Tate's entire worldview. To understand the joke is to understand that everything Tate says is founded on the bullshittiest bullshit, and to parody it through exaggeration. So it's factually inaccurate to say that Greta was size-shaming men, on top of the fact that it's fucking disgusting to prattle on about how insensitive and hurtful what she said is when Andrew "your woman disagrees with you" Tate is literally right motherfucking there.
And I don't need to tell y'all that it's misogynist as hell to overlook exaggeratedly bad male behavior but nitpick every little thing a woman does. Because you already know that. Because you're really good at understanding things like "context." Sheesh.
Sorry to double down on this, but it makes me absolutely livid.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [281 favorites]
I was confused about pizza boxes, having heard you shouldn't recycle them because the cheese and grease ruins the batch for making new cardboard, so was happy to see the Sierra Club says Yes, You Can Recycle Your Pizza Boxes:
73 percent of the US population has access to recycling programs that accept pizza boxes. And a recent survey of companies that belong to the American Forest & Paper Association found that pizza-box acceptance is now almost universal among companies that manufacture from recycled cardboard.
...cheese and grease "at typical levels" do not impact the quality of paper and cardboard manufactured at mills using recycled materials...Over the years, paper mills have become more adept at screening out chunks of cheese during the pulping process. Meanwhile, it turns out that it's the very rare mill that receives pizza boxes in a volume large enough to impact its end products. As a result, the AFPA just responded with new industry guidance: Pizza boxes are recyclable.
posted by mediareport at 3:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [16 favorites]
73 percent of the US population has access to recycling programs that accept pizza boxes. And a recent survey of companies that belong to the American Forest & Paper Association found that pizza-box acceptance is now almost universal among companies that manufacture from recycled cardboard.
...cheese and grease "at typical levels" do not impact the quality of paper and cardboard manufactured at mills using recycled materials...Over the years, paper mills have become more adept at screening out chunks of cheese during the pulping process. Meanwhile, it turns out that it's the very rare mill that receives pizza boxes in a volume large enough to impact its end products. As a result, the AFPA just responded with new industry guidance: Pizza boxes are recyclable.
posted by mediareport at 3:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [16 favorites]
I don't love the whole BDE/SDE thing personally, but Greta's insult was at its core that much more effective because it's for and about Andrew Tate and it specifically mirrors the whole alpha concept that is well within the wheelhouse and terminology of Tate and his core fans. She's speaking to them, dismissing them, by using the framework of their own toxic masculine philosophy.
She went low because they ARE low. I'm fine with it.
posted by mochapickle at 3:20 AM on December 30, 2022 [42 favorites]
She went low because they ARE low. I'm fine with it.
posted by mochapickle at 3:20 AM on December 30, 2022 [42 favorites]
And here's Jezebel from August on Tate's effect on teen boys' behavior toward women and girls in schools:
Teachers Warn That Misogynist Andrew Tate Has 'Radicalized' School-Age Boys
As kids head back to classrooms, educators are horrified to find that Tate is their male students’ biggest idol.
posted by mediareport at 3:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [16 favorites]
Teachers Warn That Misogynist Andrew Tate Has 'Radicalized' School-Age Boys
As kids head back to classrooms, educators are horrified to find that Tate is their male students’ biggest idol.
posted by mediareport at 3:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [16 favorites]
boy if I want to really be a buzzkill about this
just absolutely fucking no fun
I could point out that Andrew Tate was, according to Romanian-language reporting, already known to be in Romania (and had posted a video a few days before to that effect), and the authorities were waiting until his brother was in the same place to be arrested at the same time, and his getting clapped at by Greta Thunberg had nothing to do with his arrest
and then go on to point out that we really really need to believe that Greta Thunberg's clapback had something to do with Tate's arrest, because we really need to believe that shitposting on social media is "how we win" or even "at all effective" compared to the actual work that we're not doing
because the actual work benefits from being presented as a logical next step, as small changes that will make things better, and not Transforming The World and Really Sticking It To The Forces of Darkness Who Took Control Of The Country, and that's deeply unsatisfying and really not very fun, even though on average you get to throw more success parties
(it also doesn't involve chastising others for enjoying an insult because it might be regressive! one of the reasons people get sucked into far-right recruitment is because the 'correct' people come off as killjoys, like I'm doing)
but it's really satisfying seeing Andrew Tate get arrested so that's worth enjoying all on its own
posted by Merus at 3:41 AM on December 30, 2022 [29 favorites]
just absolutely fucking no fun
I could point out that Andrew Tate was, according to Romanian-language reporting, already known to be in Romania (and had posted a video a few days before to that effect), and the authorities were waiting until his brother was in the same place to be arrested at the same time, and his getting clapped at by Greta Thunberg had nothing to do with his arrest
and then go on to point out that we really really need to believe that Greta Thunberg's clapback had something to do with Tate's arrest, because we really need to believe that shitposting on social media is "how we win" or even "at all effective" compared to the actual work that we're not doing
because the actual work benefits from being presented as a logical next step, as small changes that will make things better, and not Transforming The World and Really Sticking It To The Forces of Darkness Who Took Control Of The Country, and that's deeply unsatisfying and really not very fun, even though on average you get to throw more success parties
(it also doesn't involve chastising others for enjoying an insult because it might be regressive! one of the reasons people get sucked into far-right recruitment is because the 'correct' people come off as killjoys, like I'm doing)
but it's really satisfying seeing Andrew Tate get arrested so that's worth enjoying all on its own
posted by Merus at 3:41 AM on December 30, 2022 [29 favorites]
could we do another thread for the BDE/SDE thing
please
posted by ominous_paws at 3:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
please
posted by ominous_paws at 3:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I won't comment on it anymore, ominous_paws.
posted by mochapickle at 3:47 AM on December 30, 2022
posted by mochapickle at 3:47 AM on December 30, 2022
Merus, that was covered above with Sedition's link to this Ben Dreyfuss article, Romanian Cops Did Not Find Andrew Tate Because Of His Greta Thunberg Video, which tracks the misinformation, criticizes the press for amplifying it, and links to the videos Tate posted from Romania a few days ago.
posted by mediareport at 3:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by mediareport at 3:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
This thread is why we can’t have any things
posted by awfurby at 4:41 AM on December 30, 2022 [24 favorites]
posted by awfurby at 4:41 AM on December 30, 2022 [24 favorites]
Alejandra Caraballo posted followup: I've gotten quite a bit of pushback about my pizza box tweet. I want to explain my thought process and acknowledge the fair criticism. I had no idea this would go this insanely viral.
Full thread behind why I tweeted this: 🧵
She also did the same work as Ben Dreyfuss, and she also double checked his socials. It is true the pizza box is her throwaway joke speculation but it is definitely the one post that affirmatively confirmed his present location.
posted by cendawanita at 4:57 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Full thread behind why I tweeted this: 🧵
She also did the same work as Ben Dreyfuss, and she also double checked his socials. It is true the pizza box is her throwaway joke speculation but it is definitely the one post that affirmatively confirmed his present location.
posted by cendawanita at 4:57 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Peak himpathy on display in this thread. Women are held hostage, violently beaten and raped for an online streaming platform, but the discussion is focused on whether we should be making fun of a man’s wee-wee. Guess all metafilter’s DEI work doesn’t extend to making women feel included on this site. Gross thread
posted by aiglet at 5:06 AM on December 30, 2022 [71 favorites]
posted by aiglet at 5:06 AM on December 30, 2022 [71 favorites]
I can just imagine Chief Wiggum seeing that picture of pizza and saying, "OK guys they have pizza, get in the squad car"
posted by Lanark at 5:17 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 5:17 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Peak himpathy on display in this thread.
Hardly peak. The thread is pretty overwhelmingly on Greta’s side in this. But, the thread definitely does show how badly a single drop of No True Progressive™ can sour the mix.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:18 AM on December 30, 2022 [52 favorites]
Hardly peak. The thread is pretty overwhelmingly on Greta’s side in this. But, the thread definitely does show how badly a single drop of No True Progressive™ can sour the mix.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:18 AM on December 30, 2022 [52 favorites]
Peak himpathy on display in this thread.
Huh? Man, there are more misplaced personal carry ons here than a Southwest baggage claim.
posted by y2karl at 5:19 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Huh? Man, there are more misplaced personal carry ons here than a Southwest baggage claim.
posted by y2karl at 5:19 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Google is your friend y2karl, im not here to educate you.
posted by aiglet at 5:24 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by aiglet at 5:24 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I joined Andrew Tate's cult and it was worse than I thought [13m, Coffeezilla]
posted by hippybear at 5:26 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 5:26 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Thunberg now has the sixth-most-liked tweet ever.
posted by Etrigan at 5:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 5:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [18 favorites]
my god there is a rapist pimp sex-trafficker RIGHT THERE but the debate is about how fair Greta's words are? The problem with the left.
Several years ago I just woke up and decided one day that I was never again in my life going to point at something bad a woman was doing if there was also a man in the room doing something bad. Point at the bad man until the bad man goes away, period, every time.
I don't care if it's fair.
I don't care if it's moral.
I don't care how anyone else feels about this.
I consider it reparations for thousands of years of power imbalance, sexual violence, and mistreatment at the hands of the patriarchy. I refuse to be a tool of the system and use my voice to further weaponize their misogyny.
You guys, I have felt so free.
posted by phunniemee at 5:43 AM on December 30, 2022 [175 favorites]
Several years ago I just woke up and decided one day that I was never again in my life going to point at something bad a woman was doing if there was also a man in the room doing something bad. Point at the bad man until the bad man goes away, period, every time.
I don't care if it's fair.
I don't care if it's moral.
I don't care how anyone else feels about this.
I consider it reparations for thousands of years of power imbalance, sexual violence, and mistreatment at the hands of the patriarchy. I refuse to be a tool of the system and use my voice to further weaponize their misogyny.
You guys, I have felt so free.
posted by phunniemee at 5:43 AM on December 30, 2022 [175 favorites]
I am almost certainly going to regret wading into this, and I want to be very clear that I don't think Greta Thunberg's joke was bad or morally wrong or anything, and it was effective and that's great. I'm also definitely not a "when they go low we go high" person; I think the fact that Andrew Tate is facing consequences, including social and psychological consequences, is very good! So please don't take what I'm saying as anti-Greta Thunberg or pro-Andrew Tate. I'm not defending him, I'm not condemning her, I'm just expressing my very personal, data-point-of-one feelings about this.
I'm a transgender man which puts me in kind of a weird place for all this but small dick jokes make me feel crummy, and the dogpiling I'm seeing, including on Twitter, whenever anyone says "maybe this isn't great" is also making me feel crummy. Again, I AM NOT BLAMING GRETA THUNBERG, I'm not saying it was like a terrible thing to say, but for myself I would be glad if we could at least leave some space for the possibility that this is going to make some people who are not Andrew Tate or fans of Andrew Tate feel bad about themselves and their bodies.
posted by an octopus IRL at 5:49 AM on December 30, 2022 [57 favorites]
I'm a transgender man which puts me in kind of a weird place for all this but small dick jokes make me feel crummy, and the dogpiling I'm seeing, including on Twitter, whenever anyone says "maybe this isn't great" is also making me feel crummy. Again, I AM NOT BLAMING GRETA THUNBERG, I'm not saying it was like a terrible thing to say, but for myself I would be glad if we could at least leave some space for the possibility that this is going to make some people who are not Andrew Tate or fans of Andrew Tate feel bad about themselves and their bodies.
posted by an octopus IRL at 5:49 AM on December 30, 2022 [57 favorites]
Metafilter: Big Beanplating Energy
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
I liked the part where she made fun of her bully’s peepee and he got superduper mad.
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
If schadenfreude is wrong, I don't want to be right.
posted by tommasz at 5:56 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 5:56 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
This is like a cake with excessive amounts of icing on top. Icing made of schadenfreude.
A schadenfreudetorte.
Thank you Greta Thunberg.
posted by UN at 6:02 AM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
A schadenfreudetorte.
Thank you Greta Thunberg.
posted by UN at 6:02 AM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
The rapist sex trafficker who got arrested and its now facing justice? What is there to discuss?
What are you doing in this thread? I'm here to have a laugh at a moral catastrophe getting his comeuppance. I won't weigh in on whether Thunberg's dick joke was problematic or not, but wading in here to suggest that there's nothing worthwhile to discuss, while you're participating in the discussion yourself, is fucking weird.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:30 AM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
What are you doing in this thread? I'm here to have a laugh at a moral catastrophe getting his comeuppance. I won't weigh in on whether Thunberg's dick joke was problematic or not, but wading in here to suggest that there's nothing worthwhile to discuss, while you're participating in the discussion yourself, is fucking weird.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:30 AM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
Good title for the FPP; the judges would also have accepted, “Enough rope.”
Or "Don't start none, won't be none."
posted by fuse theorem at 6:31 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Or "Don't start none, won't be none."
posted by fuse theorem at 6:31 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
but wading in here to suggest that there's nothing worthwhile to discuss, while you're participating in the discussion yourself
This was not my intention, I was merely trying to say that I did not have anything substantial to add on the obviously very good news of Tate being arrested, in the context of being accused of thinking Thunberg's reply was the most important thing about this. If it came across any other way, I apologise.
posted by Dysk at 6:36 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
This was not my intention, I was merely trying to say that I did not have anything substantial to add on the obviously very good news of Tate being arrested, in the context of being accused of thinking Thunberg's reply was the most important thing about this. If it came across any other way, I apologise.
posted by Dysk at 6:36 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I only just learned that this guy existed the other day. It took some search to make sure it was the same guy but he came in this comment in this thread about Financial Twitter "Fin Twit".
The video linked in the comment is worthwhile to get a good picture of what his persona is like. .
I think the video you mean is linked in this comment. I could only stand to watch snippets of it, but geez, what a nut. I can see why a certain kind of insecure teenager/young man would be attracted to his act, though.
The funniest part of that video to me is his overtly "alpha" posturing (which is really kind of campy) relative to the other dude. Tate is sitting up on a chair, while the other guy is sunk down into a squishy couch, placing him at direct eye level to Tate's nuts as Tate manspreads in his bathrobe. Then late in the video the other guy strips down for no obvious reason, too, still at eye level with Tate's junk.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:36 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
The video linked in the comment is worthwhile to get a good picture of what his persona is like. .
I think the video you mean is linked in this comment. I could only stand to watch snippets of it, but geez, what a nut. I can see why a certain kind of insecure teenager/young man would be attracted to his act, though.
The funniest part of that video to me is his overtly "alpha" posturing (which is really kind of campy) relative to the other dude. Tate is sitting up on a chair, while the other guy is sunk down into a squishy couch, placing him at direct eye level to Tate's nuts as Tate manspreads in his bathrobe. Then late in the video the other guy strips down for no obvious reason, too, still at eye level with Tate's junk.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:36 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks, cendawanita, for the link to Caraballo's follow-up explaining that she'd seen Tate's Romania videos but speculated the pizza was the precipitating event for the raid.
Ben Dreyfuss' criticisms of the way media outlets (first one I saw amplify her was Popbase, which I'd never heard of before, then Daily Beast, then everyone else) ran with that part of the story without verifying it still seem valid.
Also, what Ipsifendus said. I don't know how anyone can't see there's plenty to discuss here - how TikTok not only let Tate's violent misogyny stay on its site but actively and heavily promoted him to teen boys for most of the year before finally banning him at the end of August, the popularity of his clearly disgusting and scammy garbage and what it means for schools and media literacy and parenting, why neither of the two closest towns to me accept pizza boxes for recycling....these are all worth exploring in detail.
posted by mediareport at 6:42 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Ben Dreyfuss' criticisms of the way media outlets (first one I saw amplify her was Popbase, which I'd never heard of before, then Daily Beast, then everyone else) ran with that part of the story without verifying it still seem valid.
Also, what Ipsifendus said. I don't know how anyone can't see there's plenty to discuss here - how TikTok not only let Tate's violent misogyny stay on its site but actively and heavily promoted him to teen boys for most of the year before finally banning him at the end of August, the popularity of his clearly disgusting and scammy garbage and what it means for schools and media literacy and parenting, why neither of the two closest towns to me accept pizza boxes for recycling....these are all worth exploring in detail.
posted by mediareport at 6:42 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
I think the video you mean is linked in this comment. I could only stand to watch snippets of it, but geez, what a nut.
HhahahahahahhahahahahahahHahahahahhahHHAaAaa oh my god
posted by phunniemee at 6:46 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
HhahahahahahhahahahahahahHahahahahhahHHAaAaa oh my god
posted by phunniemee at 6:46 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Small dick energy" is a body-shaming insult that reinforces patriarchal tropes and Greta Thunberg should not have employed it. For this infraction, I deduct from her:
One point.
Now that that's settled, can we move on?
posted by AlSweigart at 6:56 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
One point.
Now that that's settled, can we move on?
posted by AlSweigart at 6:56 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Tate is going to stoked when he discovers that no one believes in his entire old school hard ass schtick more than the Romanian prison system. Romania's prisons have been cited on multiple occasions by the Council of Europe for violations ranging from extreme overcrowding (Romanian prisoners typically have just 1.5-2.5m2 of space each) to rampant bedbugs, extreme prisoner-on-prisoner violence, abuse and torture from guards, inadequate health care, and more. Tough guy shit all around.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:13 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:13 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Hmm... schadenfreudetorte. /Homer Simpson
posted by y2karl at 7:17 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 7:17 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
The thing is when you're dealing with these fascists, you have to use methods that will work, because when you use fail methods, you give them confidence and drip blood into the water. That's why, eg, people are willing to brawl with them to defend drag events. It's not because of a love of brawling (and I say this as someone who feels that there was a bit of a love of brawling when I was growing up in the nineties).
Greta Thunberg chose a method that she judged would work. The moral of her insult is "if it isn't about you, don't make it about you". Tate did not have to respond as he did, and if he had an ounce of brains he would have responded with a standard Tate-ish attack on her. By saying "yes, you really got under my skin, I am freaking out", he made himself look weak, and looking weak and ridiculous is the one thing guys like that can't afford. It's unfortunate but true - their whole routine relies on performing a cartoon masculinity that everyone takes very, very seriously. Especially everyone who counts to incel young men. That's why you or I look at his idiot costumes and his general trashiness and don't care and it makes little difference (except to us since we see through him) - we're not his audience.
The moral of the insult is basically if you flip out then it applies, you lose. If you don't flip out, it doesn't apply, you win. Tate isn't smart enough for that playground reasoning, so he lost.
If I were a Romanian judge and I'd been generally wanting to bring this guy in for months and I saw that he had the eye of the internet on him and was boasting and bragging, I might think it was a fabulous,, not to be missed moment to bring him in, because everyone would see it and that would give it momentum and make it harder to sweep his crimes under the rug. I mean, maybe it's all god on our side and coincidence, but it's really good that there is no way for these charges to be handled quietly now.
~~
In re small dick energy and body shaming, I see far, far more bullshit about bodies on twitter by non-famous people in the cause of clickbait every day, and I think that's a more productive place to talk about it. No one likes Tate except his little fascist buddies, but lots of people think that it's mean and ugly to shame some random guy for giggles. The insult works because of the strata of bad ideas underneath it; without tackling those, there's no traction for dealing with high profile instances.
I don't, personally, really super like it when the left does things that are not what you'd call prefigurative of the revolution, but we none the less do them all the time because people pick their battles.
posted by Frowner at 7:18 AM on December 30, 2022 [31 favorites]
Greta Thunberg chose a method that she judged would work. The moral of her insult is "if it isn't about you, don't make it about you". Tate did not have to respond as he did, and if he had an ounce of brains he would have responded with a standard Tate-ish attack on her. By saying "yes, you really got under my skin, I am freaking out", he made himself look weak, and looking weak and ridiculous is the one thing guys like that can't afford. It's unfortunate but true - their whole routine relies on performing a cartoon masculinity that everyone takes very, very seriously. Especially everyone who counts to incel young men. That's why you or I look at his idiot costumes and his general trashiness and don't care and it makes little difference (except to us since we see through him) - we're not his audience.
The moral of the insult is basically if you flip out then it applies, you lose. If you don't flip out, it doesn't apply, you win. Tate isn't smart enough for that playground reasoning, so he lost.
If I were a Romanian judge and I'd been generally wanting to bring this guy in for months and I saw that he had the eye of the internet on him and was boasting and bragging, I might think it was a fabulous,, not to be missed moment to bring him in, because everyone would see it and that would give it momentum and make it harder to sweep his crimes under the rug. I mean, maybe it's all god on our side and coincidence, but it's really good that there is no way for these charges to be handled quietly now.
~~
In re small dick energy and body shaming, I see far, far more bullshit about bodies on twitter by non-famous people in the cause of clickbait every day, and I think that's a more productive place to talk about it. No one likes Tate except his little fascist buddies, but lots of people think that it's mean and ugly to shame some random guy for giggles. The insult works because of the strata of bad ideas underneath it; without tackling those, there's no traction for dealing with high profile instances.
I don't, personally, really super like it when the left does things that are not what you'd call prefigurative of the revolution, but we none the less do them all the time because people pick their battles.
posted by Frowner at 7:18 AM on December 30, 2022 [31 favorites]
This is all a classic example of the diversionary practice of arguing the incidental that deploys instantly like a drag parachute after any women wins an overwhelming rhetorical victory.
posted by srboisvert at 7:27 AM on December 30, 2022 [127 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 7:27 AM on December 30, 2022 [127 favorites]
This is all a classic example of the diversionary practice of arguing the incidental that deploys instantly like a drag parachute after any women wins an overwhelming rhetorical victory.
Fuckin' A right.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [21 favorites]
Fuckin' A right.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [21 favorites]
if we really wanted to beanplate this we could also point out that "dicks" and "penises" of any size maybe shouldn't be equated to manhood
but also, like. i'm a little concerned we might be spending a lot more time on whether or not the dismissal was in good form instead of the fact that
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
- tate himself is happy to bodyshame
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
- tate is influential amongst young men
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
- tate is a misogynist monster
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
i'm having a hard time wanting to choose perfect S+ rank "woman/femme responded in a perfect, non-insulting way" that has yet to be discovered over the perfectly fine A rank "dismissed him, got him so het up that he made himself even more foolish before he got busted" method
yeah it isn't great we're still talking about dick size. yeah, it hits trans people and some perfectly fine men. i'm sorry thunberg did not have the platonic ideal insult with precision targeting more accurate than montgomery scott's transporter wizardry. i'm sorry that i'm sorry, and i can't tell if that's me being frustrated that it feels like femmes are being asked to apologize for the language somehow or if it's me just pulling from merkin muffley's line
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:39 AM on December 30, 2022 [38 favorites]
but also, like. i'm a little concerned we might be spending a lot more time on whether or not the dismissal was in good form instead of the fact that
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
- tate himself is happy to bodyshame
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
- tate is influential amongst young men
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
- tate is a misogynist monster
- tate is a rapist and sex trafficker
i'm having a hard time wanting to choose perfect S+ rank "woman/femme responded in a perfect, non-insulting way" that has yet to be discovered over the perfectly fine A rank "dismissed him, got him so het up that he made himself even more foolish before he got busted" method
yeah it isn't great we're still talking about dick size. yeah, it hits trans people and some perfectly fine men. i'm sorry thunberg did not have the platonic ideal insult with precision targeting more accurate than montgomery scott's transporter wizardry. i'm sorry that i'm sorry, and i can't tell if that's me being frustrated that it feels like femmes are being asked to apologize for the language somehow or if it's me just pulling from merkin muffley's line
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:39 AM on December 30, 2022 [38 favorites]
Andrew tate won't see your tweets celebrating his arrest. But your friends who are sex traffickers will
posted by zymil at 7:48 AM on December 30, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by zymil at 7:48 AM on December 30, 2022 [27 favorites]
From Reuters news Dec 30: "Romanian prosecutors asked a Bucharest court on Friday to extend the detention of Andrew Tate by 30 days"
posted by soundguy99 at 7:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by soundguy99 at 7:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Tate is going to stoked when he discovers that no one believes in his entire old school hard ass schtick more than the Romanian prison system. Romania's prisons have been cited on multiple occasions by the Council of Europe for violations ranging from extreme overcrowding (Romanian prisoners typically have just 1.5-2.5m2 of space each) to rampant bedbugs, extreme prisoner-on-prisoner violence, abuse and torture from guards, inadequate health care, and more. Tough guy shit all around.
He's probably going to get the "VIP prisoner the admin doesn't want to get knifed" treatment, at least during this initial lockup phase, but that still isn't going to be a nice situation -- just maybe a step better than getting tossed into the regular overcrowded holding cells. If he ended up getting convicted and doing hard time, that's going to be extra not-nice. He clearly has some money but I doubt he has the "buy yourself luxury conditions in prison" kind of money.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:01 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
He's probably going to get the "VIP prisoner the admin doesn't want to get knifed" treatment, at least during this initial lockup phase, but that still isn't going to be a nice situation -- just maybe a step better than getting tossed into the regular overcrowded holding cells. If he ended up getting convicted and doing hard time, that's going to be extra not-nice. He clearly has some money but I doubt he has the "buy yourself luxury conditions in prison" kind of money.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:01 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I hate when I get here and ya'll have already said the funniest super genius stuff. But I also love it. Carry on, and GO GRETA!!!!
posted by lextex at 8:05 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by lextex at 8:05 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Paul Scheer seems to be a perfectly nice fellow who has nothing to do with any of this btw
posted by bq at 8:12 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by bq at 8:12 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
So I guess total emission had been reduced by 33 cars for a time?
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
I wish we had a world where girls didn't have to learn how to cope with misogynist people like Tate. Women fear that men will kill them, men fear that women will laugh at them.
But it was glorious seeing Thunberg make him break down so enormously just by being a little snarky at him. She fulfilled his greatest fear by laughing at him.
posted by sotonohito at 8:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [37 favorites]
But it was glorious seeing Thunberg make him break down so enormously just by being a little snarky at him. She fulfilled his greatest fear by laughing at him.
posted by sotonohito at 8:14 AM on December 30, 2022 [37 favorites]
And for an aperitif, here is Andrew Tate getting owned by Hasanabi, Benoit Blanc-style.
Because Andrew Tate, in addition to being vile, is quite quite dumb. Very pushy, but dumb.
posted by ishmael at 8:15 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Because Andrew Tate, in addition to being vile, is quite quite dumb. Very pushy, but dumb.
posted by ishmael at 8:15 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Also, he has a very weird accent. Is Andrew Tate American?
posted by ishmael at 8:16 AM on December 30, 2022
posted by ishmael at 8:16 AM on December 30, 2022
To paraphrase Calvin Trillin, when Greta Thunberg insults a rapist, you can't evaluate what she said as if it weren't directed at a rapist. Him being a rapist is an important part of the equation.
posted by mark k at 8:26 AM on December 30, 2022 [45 favorites]
posted by mark k at 8:26 AM on December 30, 2022 [45 favorites]
If my link above is too much Andrew Tate, start at around 9:20.
posted by ishmael at 8:28 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ishmael at 8:28 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
1. To my reading, Tom Hanks C.N.B.T.' s comment above explicates the 'meaning' of Ms. Thunberg's jibe perfectly: as a form of camp.
2. It was a masterful jibe - like Samuel Clemens / Jane Austen / Moliere - level humor. (I saw some of the 'reply' video and... I am not sure I have this right, be he believes her email address in fact is... I'm not watching the video again to double check but... oof. )
3. And the follow up, damn! A true case of a "Battle of wits with an unarmed person."
posted by From Bklyn at 8:35 AM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
2. It was a masterful jibe - like Samuel Clemens / Jane Austen / Moliere - level humor. (I saw some of the 'reply' video and... I am not sure I have this right, be he believes her email address in fact is... I'm not watching the video again to double check but... oof. )
3. And the follow up, damn! A true case of a "Battle of wits with an unarmed person."
posted by From Bklyn at 8:35 AM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
More like unbrained.
posted by y2karl at 8:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 8:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
If you're complaining about Greta's use of "small dick energy", you're making the perfect the enemy of the good.
posted by kaymac at 8:47 AM on December 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by kaymac at 8:47 AM on December 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
Also, he has a very weird accent. Is Andrew Tate American?
British, but relocated to Romania because of its issues with corruption. Which is about to fuck him, because with this being so high profile now, it's going to make the authorities want to turn the Tates into object examples.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:49 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
British, but relocated to Romania because of its issues with corruption. Which is about to fuck him, because with this being so high profile now, it's going to make the authorities want to turn the Tates into object examples.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:49 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Also, he has a very weird accent. Is Andrew Tate American?
Dual citizenship, UK/US. British mother; his father was the American chess player Emory Tate.
posted by plep at 8:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Dual citizenship, UK/US. British mother; his father was the American chess player Emory Tate.
posted by plep at 8:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
British, but relocated to Romania because of its issues with corruption.
Not quite sure what you mean by that, but this Guardian article has more info:
Around the time UK police were investigating abuse allegations, Tate is understood to have left the UK for Romania. In one video explaining his reasons for the move he suggested it was because it would be easier to evade rape charges. This is “probably 40% of the reason” he moved there, he says in one video, adding: “I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free.”
posted by mediareport at 8:55 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Not quite sure what you mean by that, but this Guardian article has more info:
Around the time UK police were investigating abuse allegations, Tate is understood to have left the UK for Romania. In one video explaining his reasons for the move he suggested it was because it would be easier to evade rape charges. This is “probably 40% of the reason” he moved there, he says in one video, adding: “I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free.”
posted by mediareport at 8:55 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
No one likes Tate except his little fascist buddies
I think this is dangerously mistaken, and the cultural influence of this shithead and all the toxic men like him should not be underestimated. Please talk to any teachers and/or parents of younger kids you may know (if you are not one of those things): the boys are not alright, and very many are being affected and persuaded by these garbage men and what they say.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:56 AM on December 30, 2022 [28 favorites]
I think this is dangerously mistaken, and the cultural influence of this shithead and all the toxic men like him should not be underestimated. Please talk to any teachers and/or parents of younger kids you may know (if you are not one of those things): the boys are not alright, and very many are being affected and persuaded by these garbage men and what they say.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:56 AM on December 30, 2022 [28 favorites]
For this infraction, I deduct from her:
One point.
Now that that's settled, can we move on?
We can, but we won't. Greta Thunberg lives with all the scrutiny of being a European Royal, but none of the luxury, nor with a palace to retreat into. Any misstep on her part can and will be used for right wing propaganda, and she knows this.
To be quite honest, I love, absolutely love, the way she forced politicians to speak with somewhat more dignity and maturity to avoid making her the proverbial adult in the room, in 2019-2020. And so I don't particularly like it when she does something juvenile, even though she is entitled to, as a literal juvenile.
But somewhere out there is a 14 year old boy who won't assault a 14 year old girl, because Greta Thunberg mocked Andrew Tate's small dick energy. Princess Anne can get salty sometimes, and Lady Greta, Duchess of Nerdshire, can have her moments too.
posted by ocschwar at 9:05 AM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
One point.
Now that that's settled, can we move on?
We can, but we won't. Greta Thunberg lives with all the scrutiny of being a European Royal, but none of the luxury, nor with a palace to retreat into. Any misstep on her part can and will be used for right wing propaganda, and she knows this.
To be quite honest, I love, absolutely love, the way she forced politicians to speak with somewhat more dignity and maturity to avoid making her the proverbial adult in the room, in 2019-2020. And so I don't particularly like it when she does something juvenile, even though she is entitled to, as a literal juvenile.
But somewhere out there is a 14 year old boy who won't assault a 14 year old girl, because Greta Thunberg mocked Andrew Tate's small dick energy. Princess Anne can get salty sometimes, and Lady Greta, Duchess of Nerdshire, can have her moments too.
posted by ocschwar at 9:05 AM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
We can, but we won't. Greta Thunberg lives with all the scrutiny of being a European Royal
Princess Anne can get salty sometimes, and Lady Greta, Duchess of Nerdshire, can have her moments too.
And Prince Andrew rapes children.
There is zero equivalence.
posted by phunniemee at 9:07 AM on December 30, 2022 [12 favorites]
Princess Anne can get salty sometimes, and Lady Greta, Duchess of Nerdshire, can have her moments too.
And Prince Andrew rapes children.
There is zero equivalence.
posted by phunniemee at 9:07 AM on December 30, 2022 [12 favorites]
1. To my reading, Tom Hanks C.N.B.T.' s comment above explicates the 'meaning' of Ms. Thunberg's jibe perfectly: as a form of camp.
If you're complaining about Greta's use of "small dick energy", you're making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Oof, I might regret wading in, please don't take my stuff.
I agree that Greta's reply was perfectly crafted for the task at hand. Don't have a problem with it.
For the most part, I don't think anyone had a problem with her comment per se.
I don't want to speak for anyone else, but what I am interpreting is peoples' objection to the "dick" discourse, specifically in this thread, that they want to reject that culture wholesale.
Yes Tate is garbage, why ape his language?
It is a problem that any negative reaction to those comments function as tone-policing, but I'd like to remove any and all traces of Tate-style language from my mouth. It is the abhorrent dialect of ghouls.
posted by ishmael at 9:09 AM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
If you're complaining about Greta's use of "small dick energy", you're making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Oof, I might regret wading in, please don't take my stuff.
I agree that Greta's reply was perfectly crafted for the task at hand. Don't have a problem with it.
For the most part, I don't think anyone had a problem with her comment per se.
I don't want to speak for anyone else, but what I am interpreting is peoples' objection to the "dick" discourse, specifically in this thread, that they want to reject that culture wholesale.
Yes Tate is garbage, why ape his language?
It is a problem that any negative reaction to those comments function as tone-policing, but I'd like to remove any and all traces of Tate-style language from my mouth. It is the abhorrent dialect of ghouls.
posted by ishmael at 9:09 AM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
The completely predictable derail about whether Greta said a Bad Thing is so mindbogglingly stupid.
Are people here really having difficulty figuring this out?
You understand the use-mention distinction right? Like when Alice says "Joe called Bob a faggot", you don't need to kick off at Alice for repeating the word he used, because what matters is actually the meaning of the sentence, not whether or not it has a Bad Word in it. The person to direct your feelings at is Joe, because he's the one who brought the homophobia, not Alice because she said the F-word.
Well guess what, folks, this principle does in fact apply beyond surface level, and believe it or not you have to actually understand the meaning of the sentence before deciding whether someone said a Bad Thing.
This is not difficult. This is high school level reading comprehension, and when folks here act like they don't understand it, I'm increasingly driven to think that's a wilful choice rather than anything else.
As phunniemee already linked, the toxic dudes understand hidden meaning very clearly.
posted by automatronic at 9:16 AM on December 30, 2022 [81 favorites]
Are people here really having difficulty figuring this out?
You understand the use-mention distinction right? Like when Alice says "Joe called Bob a faggot", you don't need to kick off at Alice for repeating the word he used, because what matters is actually the meaning of the sentence, not whether or not it has a Bad Word in it. The person to direct your feelings at is Joe, because he's the one who brought the homophobia, not Alice because she said the F-word.
Well guess what, folks, this principle does in fact apply beyond surface level, and believe it or not you have to actually understand the meaning of the sentence before deciding whether someone said a Bad Thing.
- The meaning of Greta's tweet is not "my email address is literally smalldickenergy@getalife.com".
- The meaning of Greta's tweet is not "lol it sounds like you have a small penis".
- The meaning of Greta's tweet is: "this toxic masculinity shit is your entire schtick and you're not even good at it".
This is not difficult. This is high school level reading comprehension, and when folks here act like they don't understand it, I'm increasingly driven to think that's a wilful choice rather than anything else.
As phunniemee already linked, the toxic dudes understand hidden meaning very clearly.
posted by automatronic at 9:16 AM on December 30, 2022 [81 favorites]
Why does nobody understand this thing that everybody understands!?
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:21 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:21 AM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
The completely predictable derail about whether Greta said a Bad Thing is so mindbogglingly stupid.
No problem with what Greta said.
Just the continuation of those idioms in this specific thread. Burn it all with fire, that language should be completely laid to waste.
posted by ishmael at 9:23 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
No problem with what Greta said.
Just the continuation of those idioms in this specific thread. Burn it all with fire, that language should be completely laid to waste.
posted by ishmael at 9:23 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Reality more boring.
Speculation swirled overnight Thursday that Romanian authorities were able to locate Tate after he posted a video in response to Thunberg containing a pizza box from a local spot that gave away his location. Bolla denied that this played a role in the detention or its timing. “It was a hard job gathering all the evidence” in the months-long investigation, Bolla said.
I’m still going with “Greta is a powerful witch”.
posted by Artw at 9:29 AM on December 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
Speculation swirled overnight Thursday that Romanian authorities were able to locate Tate after he posted a video in response to Thunberg containing a pizza box from a local spot that gave away his location. Bolla denied that this played a role in the detention or its timing. “It was a hard job gathering all the evidence” in the months-long investigation, Bolla said.
I’m still going with “Greta is a powerful witch”.
posted by Artw at 9:29 AM on December 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
The insult is calculated and on point. People who talk with the most toxic masculinity often have the smallest weiners, as if they overcompensate for it. And alt.right spokespersons are obsessed with their own manhood and often pose with guns and whatnot as a substitute.
Frankly, my first reaction reading this was "Who THE EFF is Andrew Tate?"
posted by kschang at 9:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Frankly, my first reaction reading this was "Who THE EFF is Andrew Tate?"
posted by kschang at 9:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes Tate is garbage, why ape his language?
Because it's effective. We need things that work because language is a symbolic medium: words don't actually mean things in and of themselves, they're little sound-boxes that point to discrete meanings, to specific ideas. Applying a purity test to a medium is the surest way to lose the content. Andrew Tate and his ilk are actively causing harm in the world, and any tools that will actually beat back this violent, toxic influence are important and useful; better that those tools are words than fists or guns.
Effectively mocking them is the best way to get their nascent acolytes to reconsider their messiahs and this gospel of hate. It's less about Tate specifically than what he is synecdoche for.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:34 AM on December 30, 2022 [23 favorites]
Because it's effective. We need things that work because language is a symbolic medium: words don't actually mean things in and of themselves, they're little sound-boxes that point to discrete meanings, to specific ideas. Applying a purity test to a medium is the surest way to lose the content. Andrew Tate and his ilk are actively causing harm in the world, and any tools that will actually beat back this violent, toxic influence are important and useful; better that those tools are words than fists or guns.
Effectively mocking them is the best way to get their nascent acolytes to reconsider their messiahs and this gospel of hate. It's less about Tate specifically than what he is synecdoche for.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:34 AM on December 30, 2022 [23 favorites]
It's been a hard week, nothing to do with the subjects of this post. I'll just say this.
A force for evil tried taunting a well-known and very effective young climate activist, and failed miserably.
That same force for evil is now in a position where he can no longer push his particular brand of evil.
These things do not appear to be directly related, but no matter. This is good news. I was inspired to order pizza for lunch.
posted by pianoblack at 9:38 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
A force for evil tried taunting a well-known and very effective young climate activist, and failed miserably.
That same force for evil is now in a position where he can no longer push his particular brand of evil.
These things do not appear to be directly related, but no matter. This is good news. I was inspired to order pizza for lunch.
posted by pianoblack at 9:38 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Minority opinion: "small dick energy" actually is a patriarchal insult based upon the idea that you're only a real man if you're well-endowed. And anyway I thought that the idea of using body-shaming as put-downs was a thing we weren't supposed to do anymore. But y'all continue with your "she plays 4-D chess" business, I guess.
This response reminds me of when Nancy Pelosi said Trump suffered from Imposter Syndrome and the press ran headlines and the Right went on talk shows claiming she said he was an Imposter. No, that's not what she said.
Imposter Syndrome does not equal Imposter.
Small Dick Energy does not equal small dick.
posted by dobbs at 9:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [22 favorites]
This response reminds me of when Nancy Pelosi said Trump suffered from Imposter Syndrome and the press ran headlines and the Right went on talk shows claiming she said he was an Imposter. No, that's not what she said.
Imposter Syndrome does not equal Imposter.
Small Dick Energy does not equal small dick.
posted by dobbs at 9:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [22 favorites]
Greta is smarter than a lot of people who have never fought for their life and a few people who have because she knows to chose a weapon that will work. A deft thrust through the heart of a monster. Wipe the blade, walk away, and put it on the shelf. Maybe she never has to trigger a testosterone poisoned hothead again, and that weapon will stay on the shelf.
When you fight fascists you Do Not pull your punch.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:46 AM on December 30, 2022 [41 favorites]
When you fight fascists you Do Not pull your punch.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:46 AM on December 30, 2022 [41 favorites]
Because it's effective.
I'm a bit torn on this. Yes, it's effective, in certain instances.
And I agree the "Cheeto" stuff is ineffective.
It's just that it feels like we're putting on an alt-right costume to chastise alt-right behavior.
There should be a way to make that language undesirable, that it's the province of actual deviants who lose their empathy.
I am celebrating with everyone in this thread, take that scum down. Wish there was a way to completely remove all traces of that scum from our culture.
posted by ishmael at 9:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm a bit torn on this. Yes, it's effective, in certain instances.
And I agree the "Cheeto" stuff is ineffective.
It's just that it feels like we're putting on an alt-right costume to chastise alt-right behavior.
There should be a way to make that language undesirable, that it's the province of actual deviants who lose their empathy.
I am celebrating with everyone in this thread, take that scum down. Wish there was a way to completely remove all traces of that scum from our culture.
posted by ishmael at 9:50 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Culture is not amenable to control or modification by a population as small as the number of people participating in this thread.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Culture is not amenable to control or modification by a population as small as the number of people participating in this thread.
Yep yep, duly noted. *hands up, backs away from thread*
posted by ishmael at 10:19 AM on December 30, 2022
Yep yep, duly noted. *hands up, backs away from thread*
posted by ishmael at 10:19 AM on December 30, 2022
"small dick energy" actually is a patriarchal insult based upon the idea that you're only a real man if you're well-endowed.
Nope, small dick energy has nothing to do with actual dick size and everything to do with an inability to be at peace with yourself regardless of what other people think of you.
posted by Lanark at 10:29 AM on December 30, 2022 [26 favorites]
Nope, small dick energy has nothing to do with actual dick size and everything to do with an inability to be at peace with yourself regardless of what other people think of you.
posted by Lanark at 10:29 AM on December 30, 2022 [26 favorites]
C'mon, which is more likely in the long run to reduce the power of body shaming and set people free from shame about their bodies? Refusing to joke about dick size because dick size is A Very Important and Sensitive Topic or making fun of people who are obsessed with dick size? Everybody needs to just laugh at the whole idea that anybody cares how big your dick is.
posted by straight at 10:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by straight at 10:32 AM on December 30, 2022 [18 favorites]
This thread is stupidly hilarious...
posted by Pendragon at 10:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Pendragon at 10:45 AM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I've been thinking a lot about the worries in this thread, because I know from experience that my gut feeling (Greta Thunberg owned Tate and it was hilarious) could be wrong.
What I think is that in my perfect world, gender and sex are fluid. There is no ideal masculinity or femininity that one can perform for succes in life. There is no perfect male or female body. Listening to Ms. Thunberg, I think she may feel the same, for many reasons. But she took what she perceives as Tate's own misguided understanding of gender and weaponized it against him. Without being an expert in comedy, I feel this is literally classic comedy, as in: comedy going back to Aristophanes.
Lanark said it perfectly above: it is not about the size of Tate's or anyone else's dick, but about the idiocy of their "philosophy".
Tate is a vampire. He feeds on the insecurities of young men and young women. We can't deal with vampires using polite language, we need to bring out the stakes and garlic. And Tate is part of a movement to destroy democracy: he is friends with the pizzagate guy, and with Farage and many others who conspire to undermine the values of our society. These people have already clearly demonstrated that they are dangerous, and we need to fight them.
I am a pacifist. But I am not a Quaker. I acknowledge that the war in Ukraine needs to be fought with weapons and soldiers and I lament that this will lead to good people becoming more traumatized and dehumanized. But I know it needs to happen. The war on toxic masculinity is part of the same fight, and we need to find a balance between upholding our values and smacking down the vampires. I personally feel Ms. Thunberg did a good job.
posted by mumimor at 10:46 AM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
What I think is that in my perfect world, gender and sex are fluid. There is no ideal masculinity or femininity that one can perform for succes in life. There is no perfect male or female body. Listening to Ms. Thunberg, I think she may feel the same, for many reasons. But she took what she perceives as Tate's own misguided understanding of gender and weaponized it against him. Without being an expert in comedy, I feel this is literally classic comedy, as in: comedy going back to Aristophanes.
Lanark said it perfectly above: it is not about the size of Tate's or anyone else's dick, but about the idiocy of their "philosophy".
Tate is a vampire. He feeds on the insecurities of young men and young women. We can't deal with vampires using polite language, we need to bring out the stakes and garlic. And Tate is part of a movement to destroy democracy: he is friends with the pizzagate guy, and with Farage and many others who conspire to undermine the values of our society. These people have already clearly demonstrated that they are dangerous, and we need to fight them.
I am a pacifist. But I am not a Quaker. I acknowledge that the war in Ukraine needs to be fought with weapons and soldiers and I lament that this will lead to good people becoming more traumatized and dehumanized. But I know it needs to happen. The war on toxic masculinity is part of the same fight, and we need to find a balance between upholding our values and smacking down the vampires. I personally feel Ms. Thunberg did a good job.
posted by mumimor at 10:46 AM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
@9billiontigers: "small dick energy" is actually a reference to the Lacanian phallus and has nothing whatsoever to do with the body. but you'd know this if you read literature
posted by donatella at 10:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by donatella at 10:54 AM on December 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
Maybe someone who has 33 cars has a little distress over “down there”?
Also, go ‘head, Greta.
posted by aiq at 10:58 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also, go ‘head, Greta.
posted by aiq at 10:58 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
My perspective is Greta’s joke was precision calibrated to target his exact brand of rapist misogyny in an effective and defensible way. It’s the rare use of turning an -ism around ironically and it actually working and having a good reason for using that specific kind of joke.
Many of the people (in general, not specifically this thread) trying to joke in follow up are not joking in the smart, targeted, and important way that she did and are not as good at ironic -ism jokes as they think they are. Maybe we can leave the small dick energy jokes to Greta, as I doubt most of us are as politically savvy or in such an optimal position to employ them as she is.
posted by brook horse at 11:01 AM on December 30, 2022 [24 favorites]
Many of the people (in general, not specifically this thread) trying to joke in follow up are not joking in the smart, targeted, and important way that she did and are not as good at ironic -ism jokes as they think they are. Maybe we can leave the small dick energy jokes to Greta, as I doubt most of us are as politically savvy or in such an optimal position to employ them as she is.
posted by brook horse at 11:01 AM on December 30, 2022 [24 favorites]
Tate's initial tweet at Thunberg was aggressive assholery. It's the kind of machismo - trying to bully a young woman - that defines toxic masculinity.
Thunberg's response was warranted. I didn't find it particularly excellent or amusing, and did not think it was as wildly successful as many. I learned about a genuinely vile individual who has accumulated many adherents, whose misogyny is even worse than his joy in harming the environment.
Everything that has followed has delighted me. Tate being arrested for being a vicious abuser, and every tweet and meme with even the smallest grain of wit. He gleefully fucked around, and is finding out in good measure.
Can we go back to roasting Tate and sharing the many great memes? Dick Size Wars are not particularly entertaining. although there was a time on usenet when DSW didn't mean shoe store, and I admit I still snicker. This is a glorious event, watching a monster experience consequences, esp. tied in to Musk allowing him back on twitter. I will be toasting Thunberg with champagne tomorrow.
posted by theora55 at 11:15 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Thunberg's response was warranted. I didn't find it particularly excellent or amusing, and did not think it was as wildly successful as many. I learned about a genuinely vile individual who has accumulated many adherents, whose misogyny is even worse than his joy in harming the environment.
Everything that has followed has delighted me. Tate being arrested for being a vicious abuser, and every tweet and meme with even the smallest grain of wit. He gleefully fucked around, and is finding out in good measure.
Can we go back to roasting Tate and sharing the many great memes? Dick Size Wars are not particularly entertaining. although there was a time on usenet when DSW didn't mean shoe store, and I admit I still snicker. This is a glorious event, watching a monster experience consequences, esp. tied in to Musk allowing him back on twitter. I will be toasting Thunberg with champagne tomorrow.
posted by theora55 at 11:15 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
The "small-dick energy" insult discussion isn't actually unimportant, but it's a hugely disruptive thing to focus on given how awful a misogynist Tate is and how much toxic influence he's had on kids. I really question the priorities of the people on both sides of this particular debate for their decisions to fill up space with it.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:23 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:23 AM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
One side of the "debate" is saying stop talking about my penis.
The other side is saying stop talking about your penis.
posted by phunniemee at 11:25 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
The other side is saying stop talking about your penis.
posted by phunniemee at 11:25 AM on December 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
I think that one way to settle this might be through testimonials?
Get some people on camera saying 'I have had sex with Andrew Tate, and his dick is in fact ______'.
Partly because this would settle the facts of the question. Partly because I'm curious about the kind of person that has sex with Andrew Tates.
But if we're going to fall into patterns of language policing instead...
1) sigh
2) I suggest substituting for the unacceptably body-shaming 'small', the more neutral but still withering 'sad'.
"That guy gives off vibes that lead me to believe he's got a sad dick. Just, y'know, an unfortunate specimen. Sometimes you encounter a dick, and you gotta give the guy a sympathetically encouraging pat on the shoulder and say 'Aw gee, that's rough, buddy.'"
posted by bartleby at 11:29 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Get some people on camera saying 'I have had sex with Andrew Tate, and his dick is in fact ______'.
Partly because this would settle the facts of the question. Partly because I'm curious about the kind of person that has sex with Andrew Tates.
But if we're going to fall into patterns of language policing instead...
1) sigh
2) I suggest substituting for the unacceptably body-shaming 'small', the more neutral but still withering 'sad'.
"That guy gives off vibes that lead me to believe he's got a sad dick. Just, y'know, an unfortunate specimen. Sometimes you encounter a dick, and you gotta give the guy a sympathetically encouraging pat on the shoulder and say 'Aw gee, that's rough, buddy.'"
posted by bartleby at 11:29 AM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
> Get some people on camera saying 'I have had sex with Andrew Tate, and his dick is in fact...
Given that the allegations against Tate are (among other things) physical/sexual/psychological coercion and violence this doesn't sound like a particularly well-thought out plan for the women you want involved in this.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:52 AM on December 30, 2022 [17 favorites]
Given that the allegations against Tate are (among other things) physical/sexual/psychological coercion and violence this doesn't sound like a particularly well-thought out plan for the women you want involved in this.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:52 AM on December 30, 2022 [17 favorites]
On one hand I get it but also can’t we have one day where we can be petty and not do the whole “when they go low, we go high” thing? Just once, for the holidays?
This is definitely more a “when they go low, we get high” thing as far as I am concerned: Eat three bars of melt-in-your-mouth 4/20 milk chocolates and sit back and savor the -- as sung by Wayne Newton -- the Schadenfreude, my darling, schadenfreude...
posted by y2karl at 11:53 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is definitely more a “when they go low, we get high” thing as far as I am concerned: Eat three bars of melt-in-your-mouth 4/20 milk chocolates and sit back and savor the -- as sung by Wayne Newton -- the Schadenfreude, my darling, schadenfreude...
posted by y2karl at 11:53 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Partly because I'm curious about the kind of person that has sex with Andrew Tates.
Yeah, let's not, considering that the human trafficking Tate is accused of is the loverboy type, where the predator lures the victims in with the promise of a sexual and/or romantic relationship.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:03 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Yeah, let's not, considering that the human trafficking Tate is accused of is the loverboy type, where the predator lures the victims in with the promise of a sexual and/or romantic relationship.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:03 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
for reelz, just do a separate fpp on body shaming and modern language. please.
posted by j_curiouser at 12:07 PM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 12:07 PM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
Partly because I'm curious about the kind of person that has sex with Andrew Tates.
But if we're going to fall into patterns of language policing instead...
Andrews Tate, surely?
posted by boogieboy at 12:14 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
But if we're going to fall into patterns of language policing instead...
Andrews Tate, surely?
posted by boogieboy at 12:14 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
As others said, small dick energy doesn't mean your dick is small. It means you're overcompensating because you feel insecure about something. To a really insecure man, no dick can ever be big enough. Hence, his small dick energy.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:27 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:27 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
He is a POS and I'm glad he was arrested, but I don't think what Greta said was very witty.
posted by hollyanderbody at 12:31 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hollyanderbody at 12:31 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
he's got a sad dick
I think the term you're looking for is sad boner.
posted by straight at 12:32 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think the term you're looking for is sad boner.
posted by straight at 12:32 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Gonna be a super killjoy here. Whether you love or hate what she tweeted, the big winner is probably Elon Musk, whose whole struggling business model depends on keeping “smackdown culture” alive and well on social media.
I am linking to that Vox article about how all “chronically online” conversations are the same and how the only way to not contribute to it is to… not contribute to it (too late!).
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:37 PM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
I am linking to that Vox article about how all “chronically online” conversations are the same and how the only way to not contribute to it is to… not contribute to it (too late!).
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:37 PM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
On the bright side, maybe the rise in traffic will crash his datacenters. He's down to one and a fraction of another, which is total big brain energy.
posted by mochapickle at 12:49 PM on December 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 12:49 PM on December 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
Gonna be a super killjoy here. Whether you love or hate what she tweeted, the big winner is probably Elon Musk, whose whole struggling business model depends on keeping “smackdown culture” alive and well on social media.
Meh. Musk needs advertisers, not just people talking about the place. Or even raw page views. And advertisers aren't going to start feeling brand safety because it turns out that one guy Musk let back on site wasn't just a "controversial voice" but an actual rapist and human trafficker.
posted by mark k at 1:04 PM on December 30, 2022 [27 favorites]
Meh. Musk needs advertisers, not just people talking about the place. Or even raw page views. And advertisers aren't going to start feeling brand safety because it turns out that one guy Musk let back on site wasn't just a "controversial voice" but an actual rapist and human trafficker.
posted by mark k at 1:04 PM on December 30, 2022 [27 favorites]
I take your point, but I think he will eventually find advertisers happy to fund 24-hour online mud wrestling. Give him a few years.
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:18 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:18 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Also, happy to be proved wrong)
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:20 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:20 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
On the bright side, maybe the rise in traffic will crash his datacenters. He's down to one and a fraction of another, which is total big brain energy.
Apparently the Seattle Twitter offices are closed and/or getting evicted.
posted by loquacious at 1:25 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Apparently the Seattle Twitter offices are closed and/or getting evicted.
posted by loquacious at 1:25 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Tate's videos on TikTok had huge view counts and teachers, parents, and kids know that he's been peddling breathtaking, blatant misogyny to middle-school boys for years. He's an actual sex-trafficker that Elon Musk allowed back on Twitter. It's hard to overstate just how awful and repugnant this man is.
Also, some internet scolds didn't like the particular way that Thunberg insulted him and those people are really fucking annoying so let's talk about that instead.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:38 PM on December 30, 2022 [30 favorites]
Also, some internet scolds didn't like the particular way that Thunberg insulted him and those people are really fucking annoying so let's talk about that instead.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:38 PM on December 30, 2022 [30 favorites]
I really question the priorities of the people on both sides of this particular debate for their decisions to fill up space with it.
Personally I'm getting quite concerned about what will happen when the American right's desire to be World Cop hybridizes with the American left's desire to be World HR department.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:41 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Personally I'm getting quite concerned about what will happen when the American right's desire to be World Cop hybridizes with the American left's desire to be World HR department.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:41 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Just a quick note to say that Tate is also a massive crypto pusher on top of everything else. Almost goes without saying though doesn't it?
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 2:01 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 2:01 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Tate's videos on TikTok had huge view counts and teachers, parents, and kids know that he's been peddling breathtaking, blatant misogyny to middle-school boys for years. He's an actual sex-trafficker that Elon Musk allowed back on Twitter. It's hard to overstate just how awful and repugnant this man is.
Yeah, I feel a little guilty about contributing to dick-size discourse because it's clear that Andrew Tate is not a well-known entity 'round these parts, so people don't totally understand his cultural influence. And Tate is hands-down one of the most alarming recent presences in pop culture.
He's an insanely popular figure. That's not the alarming part. The alarming part is, he says the quiet parts out loud, and nobody minds. Like... he's not just pick-up artist levels of bad, even though pick-up artists suck. He's not even red-pill incel levels of bad—and incel red-pills are responsible for a hell of a lot of mass shootings. Tate flat-out espouses Might Makes Right: he encourages predatory and abusive behaviors, and calls them preferable to behaving in any other way. Incels had this conspiratorial layer to their woman-hating: women are scheming, or colluding with sexier and more confident men, to make you lonely. Tate, on the other hand, flat-out says that it's a bad thing to consider a woman's preferences or feelings over your own, and his vision of "powerful men" is "psychopath who doesn't consider women to be people." Women aren't out to get you, they just don't matter, and decency and monogamy are just lies that the weak tell themselves in order to justify "losing."
He pitches his sex trafficking literally out loud, in front of his audience; he describes it as "identifying high-quality girlfriends" and then making them do camgirl shit (and likely more—I don't look too closely) in order to make him money. His vision of a "relationship" is one in which a man pushes a stable of women to produce sex-based money for him, without any consideration of them beyond whether they can be easily pushed into those schemes. (And a major part of the "philosophy" he espouses is that a "high-quality woman" is both attractive and easy to manipulate into, again, literal sex trafficking schemes.)
This is targeted at underage teenage boys. He's targeting the sort of kid who'd have been into, I dunno, Hulk Hogan a few decades ago. Action-hero-type male iconography. And he's directly pitching this shit to them.
One of the big stories in the Twitch/TikTok/OnlyFans world this year was Amouranth, who's probably the single most famous streamer in that community, revealing on camera that she was married to a man who forced her to stream, pushed her into pornographic territory, and controlled her finances, along with all that run-of-the-mill abuse stuff. This is a bigger deal than you maybe realize, if you don't pay attention to how the Internet has evolved. "Influencer" has warped into something that's either borderline pornographic or flat-out porn, and the machine of abuse that existed around Britney Spears back in the day has evolved into something far more anonymous, with far fewer regulations. It abuses "sex positivity" to coerce barely-legal or underage girls into aspiring towards this as their version of a "hustle," and that opens the door to men who prey on and exploit those women in a manner that's identical to sex trafficking—because it is sex trafficking.
I run adjacent to a community that dips into OnlyFans territory, and in the handful of years that I've been a part, I've seen some unbelievably horrifying shit. Men using young women as lures to attract even younger girls in, making those women present themselves as friends and guides, because women will be trusted more. Men using those same women to build up walls of alibis and accusations against anyone who would speak out about them. It's no longer just the Harvey Weinsteins of the world: OnlyFans and Twitch are like Airbnb for sex traffickers. Think of how badly Airbnb rentiers have fucked up housing markets, and then imagine that extended en masse to an entire generation of online women.
And Andrew Tate is the equivalent of the guy writing "you can do it too!" guides for young men who want to "get into the business" of fucking women over. It's well beyond Tom-Cruise-in-Magnolia levels of "crush them and use them" territory: he's propagating an idea of masculine identity as systemically preying on women, not out of some perverse loneliness or insecurity, but out of a sense that women are just another kind of capital, and exist to be acquired and spent like real estate. He pitches this, again, not just to lonely dudes in basements but to teenage boys browsing TikTok looking for fun or interesting content.
I am both a jaded Internet user/American male and an indefatigable optimist, somehow, and Tate's the rare dude who still managed to set off massive and immediate alarm bells for me. The guy is worse than cancerous. I hope he goes down and stays there.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 2:30 PM on December 30, 2022 [129 favorites]
Yeah, I feel a little guilty about contributing to dick-size discourse because it's clear that Andrew Tate is not a well-known entity 'round these parts, so people don't totally understand his cultural influence. And Tate is hands-down one of the most alarming recent presences in pop culture.
He's an insanely popular figure. That's not the alarming part. The alarming part is, he says the quiet parts out loud, and nobody minds. Like... he's not just pick-up artist levels of bad, even though pick-up artists suck. He's not even red-pill incel levels of bad—and incel red-pills are responsible for a hell of a lot of mass shootings. Tate flat-out espouses Might Makes Right: he encourages predatory and abusive behaviors, and calls them preferable to behaving in any other way. Incels had this conspiratorial layer to their woman-hating: women are scheming, or colluding with sexier and more confident men, to make you lonely. Tate, on the other hand, flat-out says that it's a bad thing to consider a woman's preferences or feelings over your own, and his vision of "powerful men" is "psychopath who doesn't consider women to be people." Women aren't out to get you, they just don't matter, and decency and monogamy are just lies that the weak tell themselves in order to justify "losing."
He pitches his sex trafficking literally out loud, in front of his audience; he describes it as "identifying high-quality girlfriends" and then making them do camgirl shit (and likely more—I don't look too closely) in order to make him money. His vision of a "relationship" is one in which a man pushes a stable of women to produce sex-based money for him, without any consideration of them beyond whether they can be easily pushed into those schemes. (And a major part of the "philosophy" he espouses is that a "high-quality woman" is both attractive and easy to manipulate into, again, literal sex trafficking schemes.)
This is targeted at underage teenage boys. He's targeting the sort of kid who'd have been into, I dunno, Hulk Hogan a few decades ago. Action-hero-type male iconography. And he's directly pitching this shit to them.
One of the big stories in the Twitch/TikTok/OnlyFans world this year was Amouranth, who's probably the single most famous streamer in that community, revealing on camera that she was married to a man who forced her to stream, pushed her into pornographic territory, and controlled her finances, along with all that run-of-the-mill abuse stuff. This is a bigger deal than you maybe realize, if you don't pay attention to how the Internet has evolved. "Influencer" has warped into something that's either borderline pornographic or flat-out porn, and the machine of abuse that existed around Britney Spears back in the day has evolved into something far more anonymous, with far fewer regulations. It abuses "sex positivity" to coerce barely-legal or underage girls into aspiring towards this as their version of a "hustle," and that opens the door to men who prey on and exploit those women in a manner that's identical to sex trafficking—because it is sex trafficking.
I run adjacent to a community that dips into OnlyFans territory, and in the handful of years that I've been a part, I've seen some unbelievably horrifying shit. Men using young women as lures to attract even younger girls in, making those women present themselves as friends and guides, because women will be trusted more. Men using those same women to build up walls of alibis and accusations against anyone who would speak out about them. It's no longer just the Harvey Weinsteins of the world: OnlyFans and Twitch are like Airbnb for sex traffickers. Think of how badly Airbnb rentiers have fucked up housing markets, and then imagine that extended en masse to an entire generation of online women.
And Andrew Tate is the equivalent of the guy writing "you can do it too!" guides for young men who want to "get into the business" of fucking women over. It's well beyond Tom-Cruise-in-Magnolia levels of "crush them and use them" territory: he's propagating an idea of masculine identity as systemically preying on women, not out of some perverse loneliness or insecurity, but out of a sense that women are just another kind of capital, and exist to be acquired and spent like real estate. He pitches this, again, not just to lonely dudes in basements but to teenage boys browsing TikTok looking for fun or interesting content.
I am both a jaded Internet user/American male and an indefatigable optimist, somehow, and Tate's the rare dude who still managed to set off massive and immediate alarm bells for me. The guy is worse than cancerous. I hope he goes down and stays there.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 2:30 PM on December 30, 2022 [129 favorites]
We are now overthinking a plate of beans, the table the plate is on, the tablecloth, the diners, the entrees, the selection of condiments and whether or not the beans are reacting appropriately to being eaten. All while making uninformed speculations about dessert.
And by the way, all you rice-pudding people are talking out of your asses.
posted by PlusDistance at 2:38 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
And by the way, all you rice-pudding people are talking out of your asses.
posted by PlusDistance at 2:38 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Well shit, Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted. Thank you for lining it out.
posted by clew at 3:07 PM on December 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by clew at 3:07 PM on December 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
Is it wrong of me to now want a bobby fingers sculpture video of tate being perp-walked through a pile of pizza boxes?
posted by maxwelton at 3:09 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 3:09 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Tom Hanks, thank you, I admit I hadn’t heard of this creep was until yesterday. He clearly deserves everything that’s coming to him and more. This seems like rare instance when an online smackdown contributed to a measure of IRL justice, not just catharsis, and that is a surely a net win.
I wish the powers that be had a much greater appetite for protecting the public from predators like him. I realize that scorning social media bullshit doesn’t even come close.
posted by ducky l'orange at 3:10 PM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
I wish the powers that be had a much greater appetite for protecting the public from predators like him. I realize that scorning social media bullshit doesn’t even come close.
posted by ducky l'orange at 3:10 PM on December 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
I'm glad we have this cock size thread
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:16 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:16 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Right now, webmaster of getalife.com is looking through their server logs in complete bewilderment.
posted by dr_dank at 3:20 PM on December 30, 2022 [22 favorites]
posted by dr_dank at 3:20 PM on December 30, 2022 [22 favorites]
I take your point, but I think he will eventually find advertisers happy to fund 24-hour online mud wrestling. Give him a few years.
The problem for Musk is that he doesn't have a few years. Not to mention that the advertising rates for hate are really bad. Twitter didn't make money on controversy, despite what people like to think.
Tate flat-out espouses Might Makes Right: he encourages predatory and abusive behaviors, and calls them preferable to behaving in any other way. Incels had this conspiratorial layer to their woman-hating: women are scheming, or colluding with sexier and more confident men, to make you lonely. Tate, on the other hand, flat-out says that it's a bad thing to consider a woman's preferences or feelings over your own, and his vision of "powerful men" is "psychopath who doesn't consider women to be people." Women aren't out to get you, they just don't matter, and decency and monogamy are just lies that the weak tell themselves in order to justify "losing."
He pitches his sex trafficking literally out loud, in front of his audience; he describes it as "identifying high-quality girlfriends" and then making them do camgirl shit (and likely more—I don't look too closely) in order to make him money. His vision of a "relationship" is one in which a man pushes a stable of women to produce sex-based money for him, without any consideration of them beyond whether they can be easily pushed into those schemes. (And a major part of the "philosophy" he espouses is that a "high-quality woman" is both attractive and easy to manipulate into, again, literal sex trafficking schemes.)
The problem with your argument here is that it's ignoring Andrew Tate's current location - in a Romanian prison facing charges of kidnapping, human trafficking, and rape. Those videos you mentioned are now evidence against him, as the women have openly stated that they were forced into those acts. You note that people don't know about Tate, but the thing is that he needed that anonymity in order to operate - the only reason he got back into social media was because he was reinstated by an abuser, and he promptly used the rope he was given to hang himself. There's also the other reason that he had to fly under the radar - his whole presentation relied on control of his narrative - and that control is gone. We have video of him getting frogmarched out of his home by Romanian police - a reminder that if you proscribe to "might makes right", the state has bigger sticks than you ever hope to wield.
Now, that's not to say that what he was selling isn't dangerous - it very much is, and he was selling it to the vulnerable, which is utterly reprehensible. The point is that to sell it, Tate had to construct a house of cards - a house that has been flattened. Beyond that, he had to walk a tightrope with visibility (which was already fraying - the Romanians had been investigating him for years, and even with all the corruption there, the popular image of the country as a haven for sex trafficking is likely a sticking point for the authorities there), and the moment he tried to take a swing at someone with a higher profile, he got so beat down that we have video and legal documentation of how badly he fucked himself over. And that documentation will undercut him from now on.
OnlyFans and Twitch are like Airbnb for sex traffickers.
I'm sorry, but this is an analysis that gets the arrow of causation backwards. Because the problem isn't the services, but the cultural mores that abusers use to shield them. And the answer to that isn't to diminish women in the name of "protecting" them, but to actually fight back against those mores and abusers.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:37 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
The problem for Musk is that he doesn't have a few years. Not to mention that the advertising rates for hate are really bad. Twitter didn't make money on controversy, despite what people like to think.
Tate flat-out espouses Might Makes Right: he encourages predatory and abusive behaviors, and calls them preferable to behaving in any other way. Incels had this conspiratorial layer to their woman-hating: women are scheming, or colluding with sexier and more confident men, to make you lonely. Tate, on the other hand, flat-out says that it's a bad thing to consider a woman's preferences or feelings over your own, and his vision of "powerful men" is "psychopath who doesn't consider women to be people." Women aren't out to get you, they just don't matter, and decency and monogamy are just lies that the weak tell themselves in order to justify "losing."
He pitches his sex trafficking literally out loud, in front of his audience; he describes it as "identifying high-quality girlfriends" and then making them do camgirl shit (and likely more—I don't look too closely) in order to make him money. His vision of a "relationship" is one in which a man pushes a stable of women to produce sex-based money for him, without any consideration of them beyond whether they can be easily pushed into those schemes. (And a major part of the "philosophy" he espouses is that a "high-quality woman" is both attractive and easy to manipulate into, again, literal sex trafficking schemes.)
The problem with your argument here is that it's ignoring Andrew Tate's current location - in a Romanian prison facing charges of kidnapping, human trafficking, and rape. Those videos you mentioned are now evidence against him, as the women have openly stated that they were forced into those acts. You note that people don't know about Tate, but the thing is that he needed that anonymity in order to operate - the only reason he got back into social media was because he was reinstated by an abuser, and he promptly used the rope he was given to hang himself. There's also the other reason that he had to fly under the radar - his whole presentation relied on control of his narrative - and that control is gone. We have video of him getting frogmarched out of his home by Romanian police - a reminder that if you proscribe to "might makes right", the state has bigger sticks than you ever hope to wield.
Now, that's not to say that what he was selling isn't dangerous - it very much is, and he was selling it to the vulnerable, which is utterly reprehensible. The point is that to sell it, Tate had to construct a house of cards - a house that has been flattened. Beyond that, he had to walk a tightrope with visibility (which was already fraying - the Romanians had been investigating him for years, and even with all the corruption there, the popular image of the country as a haven for sex trafficking is likely a sticking point for the authorities there), and the moment he tried to take a swing at someone with a higher profile, he got so beat down that we have video and legal documentation of how badly he fucked himself over. And that documentation will undercut him from now on.
OnlyFans and Twitch are like Airbnb for sex traffickers.
I'm sorry, but this is an analysis that gets the arrow of causation backwards. Because the problem isn't the services, but the cultural mores that abusers use to shield them. And the answer to that isn't to diminish women in the name of "protecting" them, but to actually fight back against those mores and abusers.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:37 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Right now, webmaster of getalife.com is looking through their server logs in complete bewilderment.
smallpenis.energy almost certainly already a mastodon instance.
posted by Artw at 3:38 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
smallpenis.energy almost certainly already a mastodon instance.
posted by Artw at 3:38 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
NoxAeternum, I'm not really sure what you think "my argument" is, apart from "this guy sucks ass," but I pretty much agree with what you're saying? Like...
Because the problem isn't the services, but the cultural mores that abusers use to shield them. And the answer to that isn't to diminish women in the name of "protecting" them, but to actually fight back against those mores and abusers.
I'm not sure where you got "diminish women in the name of 'protecting' them" from what I wrote, but I generally think of myself as pretty anti-misogyny and anti-abuse and... again, I agree with you? I think? I was mostly just saying that I think the dude is awful and his influence on youth culture is horrific and it's neat that he got arrested. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:41 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
Because the problem isn't the services, but the cultural mores that abusers use to shield them. And the answer to that isn't to diminish women in the name of "protecting" them, but to actually fight back against those mores and abusers.
I'm not sure where you got "diminish women in the name of 'protecting' them" from what I wrote, but I generally think of myself as pretty anti-misogyny and anti-abuse and... again, I agree with you? I think? I was mostly just saying that I think the dude is awful and his influence on youth culture is horrific and it's neat that he got arrested. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:41 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I think he or she is talking about potential backlash against adult women who choose to do this of their own volition and any online venue associated with it, like what FOESTA did to Backpage.
posted by Selena777 at 3:49 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 3:49 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I had not heard of Tate at all until Stable Genius Elmo - in his vast wisdom - decided that Tate's contribution to the discourse was what Twitter was sorely lacking, and reinstated the guy.
I first took notice his existence when (was it just last week?) Tate Tweeted to the world that "reading books was for sissies."
THIS [alleged] sex trafficker is the sort of guy that Elmo thinks that we need to hear MORE from.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 4:08 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I first took notice his existence when (was it just last week?) Tate Tweeted to the world that "reading books was for sissies."
THIS [alleged] sex trafficker is the sort of guy that Elmo thinks that we need to hear MORE from.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 4:08 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Greta is like a non-goth Wednesday Adams - smart, snarky, driven and utterly capable of murder
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:11 PM on December 30, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:11 PM on December 30, 2022 [18 favorites]
I had not heard of Tate at all
This seems to be true of a lot of people, including UK MP Jess Phillips* "To date I avoided all knowledge of Andrew Tate, I mean I got the jist that he was an internet misogynist people talked about, but decided didn't have bandwidth for another one, so never looked. Glad I looked today. Perhaps he should have let a woman be in charge of his output."
Whether you love or hate what she tweeted, the big winner is probably Elon Musk
Musk currently has the second most liked tweet. There's a realistic chance that Greta is going to dethrone him; that's going to do him more psychic damage than even billions more in ad revenue can cure. It will also make it a nice twofer in the world's biggest man-child take down stakes.
* Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding!?
posted by Buntix at 4:30 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
This seems to be true of a lot of people, including UK MP Jess Phillips* "To date I avoided all knowledge of Andrew Tate, I mean I got the jist that he was an internet misogynist people talked about, but decided didn't have bandwidth for another one, so never looked. Glad I looked today. Perhaps he should have let a woman be in charge of his output."
Whether you love or hate what she tweeted, the big winner is probably Elon Musk
Musk currently has the second most liked tweet. There's a realistic chance that Greta is going to dethrone him; that's going to do him more psychic damage than even billions more in ad revenue can cure. It will also make it a nice twofer in the world's biggest man-child take down stakes.
* Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding!?
posted by Buntix at 4:30 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
On the bright side, maybe the rise in traffic will crash [Elon Musk's] datacenters. He's down to one and a fraction of another, which is total big brain energy.
Not to mention that he on purpose disconnected one of the server racks the other day, after Tweeting that the system was a "fractal of Rube Goldberg machines". And within a few hours there was a huge spike in Twitter outages.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:16 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Not to mention that he on purpose disconnected one of the server racks the other day, after Tweeting that the system was a "fractal of Rube Goldberg machines". And within a few hours there was a huge spike in Twitter outages.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:16 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Musk currently has the second most liked tweet. There's a realistic chance that Greta is going to dethrone him; that's going to do him more psychic damage than even billions more in ad revenue can cure. It will also make it a nice twofer in the world's biggest man-child take down stakes.
I'm genuinely surprised he hasn't deleted the tweet as "abusive", yet.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:22 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm genuinely surprised he hasn't deleted the tweet as "abusive", yet.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:22 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
I know a lot of people have not heard of Tate, but probably most online people have and the number of guys who've gone to the effort to assure everyone that they've "never heard of this person" has been... interesting.
posted by klanawa at 5:40 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by klanawa at 5:40 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Regarding Tate, my point is that we shouldn't mythologize the asshole into something worse than he is, because that's his whole game - his whole ediface is built on creating a very carefully curated image. This is in part why he flew under the radars of a lot of people - because he was avoiding attention, and he misread his reinstatement as validation and promptly got the attention he wanted to avoid. Again, that's not to say he's not selling some really toxic shit - because holy fuck is he ever - but we should also acknowledge how artificial his image was, and the effort he put into preserving it.
As for OnlyFans/Twitch, Selena777 hit the nail on the head, but it's worth pointing out that most of the people on OnlyFans and Twich are there purely of their own free will. The problem with what happened to Amouranth isn't her streaming, but that she was forced into it, and we shouldn't be going after activities that are completely fine as long as they are fully consentual in the name of "protecting women".
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:44 PM on December 30, 2022
As for OnlyFans/Twitch, Selena777 hit the nail on the head, but it's worth pointing out that most of the people on OnlyFans and Twich are there purely of their own free will. The problem with what happened to Amouranth isn't her streaming, but that she was forced into it, and we shouldn't be going after activities that are completely fine as long as they are fully consentual in the name of "protecting women".
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:44 PM on December 30, 2022
The pizza box tweet is also, as they say in the biz, "doing numbers" and moving up the most-liked charts. Elon might get lucky and Twitter will crash during New Year's Eve and preserve his position at number two.
Here is a thread about Tate's hearing. I'm not sure about the source but since they are getting slightly attacked by right-leaning trolls I assume they are telling the truth. I have no idea why the damn Krassenstein brothers are also tweeting about this.
Another internet "star" Glenn Greenwald is also getting tangled up in Tate-talk as he is getting upset that people are tying him and Peter Thiel to Rumble, which was possibly paying Tate to create content for them. Rumble, of course is the video sharing site created for people who had views too hot for youtube and facebook(i.e. got themselves banned).
If you haven't heard of any of these people before this week, I envy you.
posted by LostInUbe at 5:49 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Here is a thread about Tate's hearing. I'm not sure about the source but since they are getting slightly attacked by right-leaning trolls I assume they are telling the truth. I have no idea why the damn Krassenstein brothers are also tweeting about this.
Another internet "star" Glenn Greenwald is also getting tangled up in Tate-talk as he is getting upset that people are tying him and Peter Thiel to Rumble, which was possibly paying Tate to create content for them. Rumble, of course is the video sharing site created for people who had views too hot for youtube and facebook(i.e. got themselves banned).
If you haven't heard of any of these people before this week, I envy you.
posted by LostInUbe at 5:49 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Turns out Jonathan Blow (game designer of Braid fame and The Witness infamy) has terrible opinions. I guess this has been going on for a while?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:52 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:52 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Being out of touch/not particularly online has real advantages.
posted by ducky l'orange at 5:58 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 5:58 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I know a lot of people have not heard of Tate, but probably most online people have
This is VASTLY underestimating the number and diversity of people on Twitter (much less the internet). Any statement beginning "probably most online people" is unlikely to be true.
posted by straight at 6:23 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
This is VASTLY underestimating the number and diversity of people on Twitter (much less the internet). Any statement beginning "probably most online people" is unlikely to be true.
posted by straight at 6:23 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
I'd heard of him but really not much. I've learned much more about him in this thread. I didn't realize he was aiming his schtick at middle school age boys, which is horrible. Deprogramming that kind of poison after it's implanted is a lot more difficult than implanting it.
posted by hippybear at 6:32 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 6:32 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I teach high school. I hear about him a lot from teenage boys. Mostly positive, some disgusted. I hear a lot of "but he's not serious" and a lot of "he's free to say what he wants. "
Anyhow, I'm glad he's been arrested because this is going to make it a lot easier to convince them that this isn't a dude you want to look to as a role model.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:55 PM on December 30, 2022 [39 favorites]
Anyhow, I'm glad he's been arrested because this is going to make it a lot easier to convince them that this isn't a dude you want to look to as a role model.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:55 PM on December 30, 2022 [39 favorites]
I am deeply, chronically, uncomfortably online and was still only peripherally aware of Tate. I think the main folks aware of him have been (a) his shitty fans and fellow grifters, who can go fuck themselves to the moon, and (b) people actively tracking the shittiest elements of the misogysphere, to whom my condolences and appreciation for putting in the terrible hours.
posted by cortex at 7:00 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by cortex at 7:00 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
I follow enough people in group b on twitter which is why I express more automatic dismay than most when I see things like "Ye is hanging out with Nick Fuentes?" and "JFC Elon is listening to Ian Miles Cheong on how to run twitter?" And also joy at simply the idea of "Greta Thunberg just dunked on Andrew Tate so hard he's in prison now" even if that is not the true sequence of events.
I also have Rolling Stone's (Sub)Culture section on Feedly which is handy.
posted by LostInUbe at 7:14 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
I also have Rolling Stone's (Sub)Culture section on Feedly which is handy.
posted by LostInUbe at 7:14 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Don't get me wrong: I have a few friends who have a lot of fun posting on OnlyFans, and I generally like the idea of both normalizing sex work and treating sexuality in general like it's fun and playful and non-onerous.
But if we want to treat sex work like it's real work, then that includes discussing labor exploitation, marketplace coercion, and the ways in which capitalism reflects all the cultural biases and toxicity of the world around it. Capitalism is responsible for sweatshops, Amazon employees peeing in bottles, and... well... human trafficking. There's definitely a "girlboss gaslight gatekeep" version of "being pro-sex work means never questioning the conditions in which sex work arises and operates," which overlooks, among other things, that sex work is extraordinarily gendered, that it's affected by other economic opportunities (or lack thereof) for the people who get into it, and that it is yet another venue in which people with power and privilege can exploit people who have neither.
My comparison to Airbnb wasn't facetious, though Uber is also a meaningful comparison. Uber uses "market freedom" as an excuse to justify denying its workers benefits, job security, and fair wages, while also making it impossible for them to form any meaningful solidarity with their fellow laborers; there is a serious inequality in how much the top earners make over the median earners, and it encourages self-abuse and terrible hours without a guarantee of any benefits. The gig economy is generally terrible for the people working in it, and encourages antisocial behaviors even more than the traditional job market does.
My point is that OnlyFans effectively operates the same way: independent contractors, no real oversight, and a profit model involving OF skimming off the top of everyone's paycheck. As a result, it suffers from the same issues as Uber and Airbnb, with a bit of ponzi scheme thrown in for good measure. The fact that it is so insanely non-regulated makes it even more rife for exploitation than the porn industry already was, and man is that a low bar for OnlyFans to be limbo-ing under.
The reason I shared the Amouranth story is that, until she got in front of a webcam and admitted to what had been going on, few people knew that she was married, let alone that she was being abused and exploited. The literal most popular Twitch user was coerced and threatened and made to do what she did against her will. And there are people like Andrew Tate who literally farm these women—and Tate is by no means alone in that. (I've been actively involved in efforts to shut down two "organizations" that worked similarly to Tate in my own city alone, and one time had to do some Internet telephone to find people to shepherd a 20-year-old halfway across the country because she reached out to me to say that she'd been locked in some guy's basement.)
None of this changes the fact that some of my friends who use OnlyFans are just there to have a fun time. Some of them. Others are there because they're financially desperate, and think that OnlyFans is their only way to escape crippling debt. (Spoiler alert: it hasn't helped.) I really did not talk about Tate's racket in an attempt to go, hey, maybe sex work and/or sex positivity is bad. But if we're going to take sex work seriously, we need to be as critical of how it's handled as we are of any other kind of work—and we need to be extra-considerate of the fact that, due to the latent misogyny in our culture, the power dynamics and modes of exploitation in sex work are even more distorted than they are elsewhere.
I'm not an expert in that subject matter and I'd never pretend to be, but that's the milieu in which Tate and his racket have operated. I'm not trying to make him out to be an invulnerable boogeyman: he's a fucking moron who happens to be more prominent than most of the other rapist sex-traffickers out there. But if anything, that's scarier to me, because Tate just happens to be the guy doing this in such a loud and jackassy way that we all see it happening. There are thousands of people minimum who are out there doing the exact same thing, taking advantage of the exact same hyper-deregulated social-media environment that Tate did, and I know from firsthand experience that a lot of them are either good at evading notice or simply too tenuous to easily dislodge.
(I'm speaking here as someone who's gone out and collected testimonies from the victims of a local Tate-alike, in the hopes of putting together enough of a case to do something about it. In one of my two cases, it worked, but only for a few years; in the other, the fucker got away with it, and is still openly recruiting women into his "network" on a more-or-less monthly basis. It's sickening, but nobody's been able to do anything about it; it's even sent him to court at least one time, but he walked away scot-free.)
Pardon the long comment; I'll bow out after this. But I promise that my remarks aren't coming from an anti-sex-work place.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 7:25 PM on December 30, 2022 [55 favorites]
But if we want to treat sex work like it's real work, then that includes discussing labor exploitation, marketplace coercion, and the ways in which capitalism reflects all the cultural biases and toxicity of the world around it. Capitalism is responsible for sweatshops, Amazon employees peeing in bottles, and... well... human trafficking. There's definitely a "girlboss gaslight gatekeep" version of "being pro-sex work means never questioning the conditions in which sex work arises and operates," which overlooks, among other things, that sex work is extraordinarily gendered, that it's affected by other economic opportunities (or lack thereof) for the people who get into it, and that it is yet another venue in which people with power and privilege can exploit people who have neither.
My comparison to Airbnb wasn't facetious, though Uber is also a meaningful comparison. Uber uses "market freedom" as an excuse to justify denying its workers benefits, job security, and fair wages, while also making it impossible for them to form any meaningful solidarity with their fellow laborers; there is a serious inequality in how much the top earners make over the median earners, and it encourages self-abuse and terrible hours without a guarantee of any benefits. The gig economy is generally terrible for the people working in it, and encourages antisocial behaviors even more than the traditional job market does.
My point is that OnlyFans effectively operates the same way: independent contractors, no real oversight, and a profit model involving OF skimming off the top of everyone's paycheck. As a result, it suffers from the same issues as Uber and Airbnb, with a bit of ponzi scheme thrown in for good measure. The fact that it is so insanely non-regulated makes it even more rife for exploitation than the porn industry already was, and man is that a low bar for OnlyFans to be limbo-ing under.
The reason I shared the Amouranth story is that, until she got in front of a webcam and admitted to what had been going on, few people knew that she was married, let alone that she was being abused and exploited. The literal most popular Twitch user was coerced and threatened and made to do what she did against her will. And there are people like Andrew Tate who literally farm these women—and Tate is by no means alone in that. (I've been actively involved in efforts to shut down two "organizations" that worked similarly to Tate in my own city alone, and one time had to do some Internet telephone to find people to shepherd a 20-year-old halfway across the country because she reached out to me to say that she'd been locked in some guy's basement.)
None of this changes the fact that some of my friends who use OnlyFans are just there to have a fun time. Some of them. Others are there because they're financially desperate, and think that OnlyFans is their only way to escape crippling debt. (Spoiler alert: it hasn't helped.) I really did not talk about Tate's racket in an attempt to go, hey, maybe sex work and/or sex positivity is bad. But if we're going to take sex work seriously, we need to be as critical of how it's handled as we are of any other kind of work—and we need to be extra-considerate of the fact that, due to the latent misogyny in our culture, the power dynamics and modes of exploitation in sex work are even more distorted than they are elsewhere.
I'm not an expert in that subject matter and I'd never pretend to be, but that's the milieu in which Tate and his racket have operated. I'm not trying to make him out to be an invulnerable boogeyman: he's a fucking moron who happens to be more prominent than most of the other rapist sex-traffickers out there. But if anything, that's scarier to me, because Tate just happens to be the guy doing this in such a loud and jackassy way that we all see it happening. There are thousands of people minimum who are out there doing the exact same thing, taking advantage of the exact same hyper-deregulated social-media environment that Tate did, and I know from firsthand experience that a lot of them are either good at evading notice or simply too tenuous to easily dislodge.
(I'm speaking here as someone who's gone out and collected testimonies from the victims of a local Tate-alike, in the hopes of putting together enough of a case to do something about it. In one of my two cases, it worked, but only for a few years; in the other, the fucker got away with it, and is still openly recruiting women into his "network" on a more-or-less monthly basis. It's sickening, but nobody's been able to do anything about it; it's even sent him to court at least one time, but he walked away scot-free.)
Pardon the long comment; I'll bow out after this. But I promise that my remarks aren't coming from an anti-sex-work place.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 7:25 PM on December 30, 2022 [55 favorites]
I teach high school. I hear about him a lot from teenage boys.
Going from various twitter threads it seems fairly universally true that people who work with teen boys know who he is. Which is why the MP Jess Phillips tweet suggesting his main mistake was not having a Ghislaine Maxwell was fairly shocking as it's part of her actual job to know about how manosphere influencers are impacting society, and Tate seems to have been one of the most effective recruiters out there.
posted by Buntix at 7:26 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Going from various twitter threads it seems fairly universally true that people who work with teen boys know who he is. Which is why the MP Jess Phillips tweet suggesting his main mistake was not having a Ghislaine Maxwell was fairly shocking as it's part of her actual job to know about how manosphere influencers are impacting society, and Tate seems to have been one of the most effective recruiters out there.
posted by Buntix at 7:26 PM on December 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
Oh, I should add that the conspiracy side of the internet (which includes pretty much all of QAnon and the parts of the right that are very vocally trying to clap back at Greta and defend Tate) is saying that Tate was sending out secret signals via his dumb pizza video much like Elon was sending signals via his dumb Halloween costume that he is probably still wearing right now. Also Deep State and so on.
Because most of his stances and "values" align with theirs, the alt-right especially is bending over backwards to defend Tate.
posted by LostInUbe at 7:45 PM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Because most of his stances and "values" align with theirs, the alt-right especially is bending over backwards to defend Tate.
posted by LostInUbe at 7:45 PM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Turns out Jonathan Blow (game designer of Braid fame and The Witness infamy) has terrible opinions. I guess this has been going on for a while?
He’s had some weird ideas about software for a while, real “game devs are lazy energy” but directed at everybody else who writes software. And while it’s true that a lot of software sucks, he has a way of saying it that just reeks of critical incapacity of imagining himself being wrong or not the smartest programmer ever.
If he has a point to make about critical thinking and sourcing information correctly he’s going at it in a spectacularly bad way.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 7:51 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
He’s had some weird ideas about software for a while, real “game devs are lazy energy” but directed at everybody else who writes software. And while it’s true that a lot of software sucks, he has a way of saying it that just reeks of critical incapacity of imagining himself being wrong or not the smartest programmer ever.
If he has a point to make about critical thinking and sourcing information correctly he’s going at it in a spectacularly bad way.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 7:51 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
FWIW, 4 months ago I typed "Greta Thunberg" in the YouTube search bar to find some of the events where she launched her book, and found hundreds of short clips of Andrew Take mocking her. That's how I learned about this guy.
One of the links above shows that he had a Ponzi scheme going to get people to increase his exposure on the Interwebs, and this was what I ran into. So he'd been taking shots at her for at least 4 months.
posted by ocschwar at 8:54 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
One of the links above shows that he had a Ponzi scheme going to get people to increase his exposure on the Interwebs, and this was what I ran into. So he'd been taking shots at her for at least 4 months.
posted by ocschwar at 8:54 PM on December 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
Bummer about this thread.
MetaFilter gonna MetaFilter though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:29 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
MetaFilter gonna MetaFilter though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:29 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Tate has been getting coverage in lots of places, but until now it hasn’t cohered into the kind of big story that gets global attention. I’m a bit surprised how many people haven’t heard of him. There was a lot media discussion about him in Iceland last summer, so I assumed his infamy had broken through, but I was talking about him with my wife, who’s Finnish, and she hadn’t heard of him at all.
I think he’s been one of those unpleasant facts out there in the world that, once learned about is impossible to forget, but you have no desire to spread that knowledge to others.
Anyway, I hope he now recedes into oblivion.
posted by Kattullus at 11:34 PM on December 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
I think he’s been one of those unpleasant facts out there in the world that, once learned about is impossible to forget, but you have no desire to spread that knowledge to others.
Anyway, I hope he now recedes into oblivion.
posted by Kattullus at 11:34 PM on December 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
unsolicited dick pic energy...
Two days ago, I had no idea who Tate was. The whole point of the internet is that you can live in a bubble, and my bubble is full of food and puppies with a hint of politics. So this is an explainer for those who are me two days ago. Or don't want to click on Twitter links, for good reasons.
posted by mumimor at 3:16 AM on December 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
Two days ago, I had no idea who Tate was. The whole point of the internet is that you can live in a bubble, and my bubble is full of food and puppies with a hint of politics. So this is an explainer for those who are me two days ago. Or don't want to click on Twitter links, for good reasons.
posted by mumimor at 3:16 AM on December 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
Re: awareness of Tate -
I do have the strong suspicion that women have generally been more aware of Tate because he's basically a threat vector that they encounter IRL, that there's more to it than just how "online" someone is. I take an occasional browse through the TwoXChromosomes subreddit and there have been lots of posts over the past couple years about him. Usually either 1) "younger male student or relative has said something shockingly misogynist and on further investigation it turns out they watch a lot of his TikToks" or 2) "went on a date with a guy who said some mildly concerning things and said he watches Tate videos, is this a big red flag or just background-radiation-level patriarchy?"
posted by soundguy99 at 5:01 AM on December 31, 2022 [15 favorites]
I do have the strong suspicion that women have generally been more aware of Tate because he's basically a threat vector that they encounter IRL, that there's more to it than just how "online" someone is. I take an occasional browse through the TwoXChromosomes subreddit and there have been lots of posts over the past couple years about him. Usually either 1) "younger male student or relative has said something shockingly misogynist and on further investigation it turns out they watch a lot of his TikToks" or 2) "went on a date with a guy who said some mildly concerning things and said he watches Tate videos, is this a big red flag or just background-radiation-level patriarchy?"
posted by soundguy99 at 5:01 AM on December 31, 2022 [15 favorites]
lady alexis: "and as the year draws to a close it looks like elon musk has narrowly beaten liz truss to claim the title of most embarrassed person of 2022 at the last minu-BY GOD IT'S ANDREW TATE WITH A STEEL CHAIR"
posted by cendawanita at 5:58 AM on December 31, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 5:58 AM on December 31, 2022 [27 favorites]
I take an occasional browse through the TwoXChromosomes subreddit and there have been lots of posts over the past couple years about him
I'd go as far as to say that if you spend even an hour a week on reddit in the more feminist subreddits, you will have heard plenty about Andrew Tate. His violent misogyny coming up in text exchanges women experience in early dating, his violent misogyny coming up in shared tweets of some famous woman getting harassed, his violent misogyny coming up when a woman visits her family and her younger brother unloaded all this shit, his violent misogyny coming up in the comments themselves, because shitty men seek out women's safe spaces to intentionally spread their hate. Andrew Tate's brand of alpha male bullshit is deeply, deeply woven into male youth culture, and it doesn't matter if you follow the guy or not--if you're in a space where boys and young men are, you will be exposed to it.
Honestly as a Woman Online, these last couple days reading all of you saying you've never even heard of him before, it's got a similar energy to when white suburban boomers are shocked discover racism still exists. You're not. Paying. Attention.
posted by phunniemee at 6:28 AM on December 31, 2022 [29 favorites]
I'd go as far as to say that if you spend even an hour a week on reddit in the more feminist subreddits, you will have heard plenty about Andrew Tate. His violent misogyny coming up in text exchanges women experience in early dating, his violent misogyny coming up in shared tweets of some famous woman getting harassed, his violent misogyny coming up when a woman visits her family and her younger brother unloaded all this shit, his violent misogyny coming up in the comments themselves, because shitty men seek out women's safe spaces to intentionally spread their hate. Andrew Tate's brand of alpha male bullshit is deeply, deeply woven into male youth culture, and it doesn't matter if you follow the guy or not--if you're in a space where boys and young men are, you will be exposed to it.
Honestly as a Woman Online, these last couple days reading all of you saying you've never even heard of him before, it's got a similar energy to when white suburban boomers are shocked discover racism still exists. You're not. Paying. Attention.
posted by phunniemee at 6:28 AM on December 31, 2022 [29 favorites]
Top of r/scams today, this is what Andrew Tate has been doing. (Do read the top comments for further context.)
posted by phunniemee at 6:40 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 6:40 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
As a Gen X woman online, I don’t have enough attention for a fraction of the things that deserve my attention. I had never heard of him. I don’t believe this is a failing.
posted by Glinn at 7:09 AM on December 31, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 7:09 AM on December 31, 2022 [34 favorites]
Well you didn't come into the thread to tone police Greta Thunberg either, so you're fine.
I reserve my ire for people who have no idea who he is but couldn't stop falling over themselves to scold Greta for making a small dick energy joke. What's the line from Glengarry? Don't open your mouth if you don't know the score?
posted by phunniemee at 7:16 AM on December 31, 2022 [29 favorites]
I reserve my ire for people who have no idea who he is but couldn't stop falling over themselves to scold Greta for making a small dick energy joke. What's the line from Glengarry? Don't open your mouth if you don't know the score?
posted by phunniemee at 7:16 AM on December 31, 2022 [29 favorites]
Honestly as a Woman Online, these last couple days reading all of you saying you've never even heard of him before, it's got a similar energy to when white suburban boomers are shocked discover racism still exists. You're not. Paying. Attention.
Well, most of the stuff I've read during the last couple of days says he has become huge during the last year, not before that. I'm not dating and actually, the young men/boys I spend time with are admirable in their non-toxicity. My youngest's boyfriend, who lives with us, regularly wears a skirt. He is that confident of himself. We actually talked about it during the holidays, (before I had heard about Tate), because there is such an abundance of male role models who play with gender. Harry Styles is one example, but not at all the only one. And these guys are hot, as is my daughter's boyfriend. (Don't misunderstand me, I am not Mrs. Robinson, I am just observing how young women react to him when we are out together).
I often think of how relaxed most of my students are about gender -- at a tech university. They hug and cuddle each other, wear clothes that would have been seen as "gay" when I was their age and even make-up, and behave respectfully towards me, a fat old lady, in a way that just wouldn't have happened twenty years ago. If someone expresses homophobic or misogynic or racist views, eyes are rolled. I live in a bubble, like I said. But I have become curious about the effect of COVID on young men and boys, and wonder how that will effect my classes next year.
posted by mumimor at 7:19 AM on December 31, 2022 [16 favorites]
Well, most of the stuff I've read during the last couple of days says he has become huge during the last year, not before that. I'm not dating and actually, the young men/boys I spend time with are admirable in their non-toxicity. My youngest's boyfriend, who lives with us, regularly wears a skirt. He is that confident of himself. We actually talked about it during the holidays, (before I had heard about Tate), because there is such an abundance of male role models who play with gender. Harry Styles is one example, but not at all the only one. And these guys are hot, as is my daughter's boyfriend. (Don't misunderstand me, I am not Mrs. Robinson, I am just observing how young women react to him when we are out together).
I often think of how relaxed most of my students are about gender -- at a tech university. They hug and cuddle each other, wear clothes that would have been seen as "gay" when I was their age and even make-up, and behave respectfully towards me, a fat old lady, in a way that just wouldn't have happened twenty years ago. If someone expresses homophobic or misogynic or racist views, eyes are rolled. I live in a bubble, like I said. But I have become curious about the effect of COVID on young men and boys, and wonder how that will effect my classes next year.
posted by mumimor at 7:19 AM on December 31, 2022 [16 favorites]
This was linked in phunnimee's reddit link: The Misandry of the Manosphere, and I thought it was a good point.
posted by mumimor at 8:32 AM on December 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 8:32 AM on December 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
Top of r/scams today, this is what Andrew Tate has been doing. (Do read the top comments for further context.)
These are very useful. Over on the Fediverse, for very obvious reasons (and related to the ongoing fights over content warning and quote tweeting) there are people who would rather argue, on top of the pizza box link being overstated and other reporting from the Romanian authorities, this proves social media is a cancer etcetc for providing only heat but no fire (or however that saying goes) and this was coincidental to the hard work the police is doing.
Being from where I am, that doesn't pass the smell test to me, so admittedly I am biased on that end. I think the pizza post is overstated and not necessarily the smoking gun but the international attention does absolutely figure. Anyway, this comment from a Romanian supports my (jaundiced) view. What's interesting is not just international attention from him specifically but that he chose non-Romanian women and Romania is invested to present a good case for itself as they try to reapply into the Schengen zone again.
posted by cendawanita at 8:39 AM on December 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
These are very useful. Over on the Fediverse, for very obvious reasons (and related to the ongoing fights over content warning and quote tweeting) there are people who would rather argue, on top of the pizza box link being overstated and other reporting from the Romanian authorities, this proves social media is a cancer etcetc for providing only heat but no fire (or however that saying goes) and this was coincidental to the hard work the police is doing.
Being from where I am, that doesn't pass the smell test to me, so admittedly I am biased on that end. I think the pizza post is overstated and not necessarily the smoking gun but the international attention does absolutely figure. Anyway, this comment from a Romanian supports my (jaundiced) view. What's interesting is not just international attention from him specifically but that he chose non-Romanian women and Romania is invested to present a good case for itself as they try to reapply into the Schengen zone again.
posted by cendawanita at 8:39 AM on December 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ooo, that’s a good video (edit for specificity: second comment above this one)! It’s what many of us non-male feminists have been saying forever, but I’m sure the relevant audience will have an easier time connecting and listening to the idea coming from a guy.
posted by eviemath at 8:55 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 8:55 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
The alt-right always thinks that the church is completely cynical, too - this may be irrelevant to the story, but they make so much out of being "trad" and far-right and loving conservative religions and simultaneously expect that they can just openly lead these gross porn lifestyles.
My friend and I were talking about this the other day. Consider that they have been told that they are a miserable, evil sinner, but when you're a Xtian, you are forgiven. So they assume everyone is just as assholish as they are, which gives them cover.
posted by caryatid at 9:15 AM on December 31, 2022
My friend and I were talking about this the other day. Consider that they have been told that they are a miserable, evil sinner, but when you're a Xtian, you are forgiven. So they assume everyone is just as assholish as they are, which gives them cover.
posted by caryatid at 9:15 AM on December 31, 2022
Honestly as a Woman Online, these last couple days reading all of you saying you've never even heard of him before, it's got a similar energy to when white suburban boomers are shocked discover racism still exists. You're not. Paying. Attention.
Honestly, it’s possible to be aware that you and everyone around you is suffering from radiation poisoning and not know exactly which nuclear reactor has exploded most recently. That doesn’t make you some kind of radiation-poisoning-denier.
posted by corey flood at 9:47 AM on December 31, 2022 [32 favorites]
Honestly, it’s possible to be aware that you and everyone around you is suffering from radiation poisoning and not know exactly which nuclear reactor has exploded most recently. That doesn’t make you some kind of radiation-poisoning-denier.
posted by corey flood at 9:47 AM on December 31, 2022 [32 favorites]
One of the things I like about MetaFilter is when it tells me about things I didn't know already. I don't think it's particularly fair to be clapping back at people whose awareness of matters in the world isn't congruous with one's own. Isn't learning and expanding one's knowledge part of why we're all here to begin with?
posted by hippybear at 9:58 AM on December 31, 2022 [32 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 9:58 AM on December 31, 2022 [32 favorites]
Not being aware of every bad person in the world does not make me a bad person.
posted by achrise at 10:28 AM on December 31, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by achrise at 10:28 AM on December 31, 2022 [20 favorites]
→
It might be up there with the rumours that Taliban leaders are demanding Tate's release.
posted by scruss at 10:40 AM on December 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
The pizza box from a local restuarant provided the reasonable cause.
Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime (DIICOT) … refuted widespread claims in the media that an address brandished on a Romanian pizza box featured in a video posted by Andrew Tate on Twitter earlier this week led authorities to his arrest. She said the claims are "funny, but no."— Social media influencer Andrew Tate detained in Romania on human trafficking, rape charges | CBC News
It might be up there with the rumours that Taliban leaders are demanding Tate's release.
posted by scruss at 10:40 AM on December 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
I know a lot of people have not heard of Tate, but probably most online people have and the number of guys who've gone to the effort to assure everyone that they've "never heard of this person" has been... interesting.
That is grossly accusatory as well as a highly inaccurate accounting of “online people.”
posted by Thorzdad at 10:41 AM on December 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
That is grossly accusatory as well as a highly inaccurate accounting of “online people.”
posted by Thorzdad at 10:41 AM on December 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
"Online," The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to Online. Listen..." and so on.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:24 AM on December 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:24 AM on December 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
I'm not sure about the source but since they are getting slightly attacked by right-leaning trolls I assume they are telling the truth
I know this is probably meant at least somewhat facetiously but nevertheless, what a deeply depressing heuristic for evaluating the credibility of news sources prior to amplifying the information they provide!
Also, count me in as another very online woman who was at most only dimly aware of Tate's existence prior to the latest series of events.
posted by eponym at 11:52 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
I know this is probably meant at least somewhat facetiously but nevertheless, what a deeply depressing heuristic for evaluating the credibility of news sources prior to amplifying the information they provide!
Also, count me in as another very online woman who was at most only dimly aware of Tate's existence prior to the latest series of events.
posted by eponym at 11:52 AM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
For the record: I'm another online woman who hadn't heard of Andrew Tate either. But - that's largely because there are just too many other douchecanoes like him and, quite frankly, I don't want to be arsed to learn enough about any of them to tell them apart; I just think of them all as, "ugh, THOSE dudes". I'm pleased one of them got his comeuppance, but I'm also realistic enough to know that there are simply too many others also out there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:07 PM on December 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:07 PM on December 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
Mod note: Let us refocus on the story and not on who was or was not aware of this asshole before yesterday. Also, guys, HOLIDAY WEEKEND, try not to pick unnecessary fights.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 12:09 PM on December 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 12:09 PM on December 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
I'd actually heard of Tate about five years ago or so because of this bullshit; if you don't want to click the link (and I wouldn't blame you for wanting to avoid that), it's about a webcartoonist, Jon Rosenberg (Goats, Scenes From a Multiverse) who was doing an online fundraiser for a medical procedure that his son needed, and Tate popping in to brag about how rich he was and taunting Jon. But the only reason why I paid attention to that was that I'm a fan of Jon's work, not because I think that it's cool and fun to pay attention to the internet's biggest shitlords du jour. In fact, I try to avoid doing so to a great extent because it's not good for my physical and emotional health--I'm a bit hypertensive--and some of that is unavoidable in any sort of online life anyway, say, when a shitlord buys a social media platform that you're somewhat invested in.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:10 PM on December 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:10 PM on December 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
"funny, but no." is a great spokesperson response, isn’t it? Very briefly joins our wishful thinking, cuts it off, can’t misquote.
posted by clew at 1:02 PM on December 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by clew at 1:02 PM on December 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
Can we at least call the people still sticking up for this jackass Hardcore Taters?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:31 PM on December 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:31 PM on December 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
(small) Dick Taters
posted by porpoise at 1:32 PM on December 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by porpoise at 1:32 PM on December 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
I'd suggest Tater Tots, but I feel like that's an insult to the humble tot.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:38 PM on December 31, 2022
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:38 PM on December 31, 2022
EmpressCalipygos for the win with douchecanoes. Is that your own coinage? If so, double gold stars for you.
posted by y2karl at 2:09 PM on December 31, 2022
posted by y2karl at 2:09 PM on December 31, 2022
I just want to reassure folks that the way this thread went is not evidence of something uniquely wrong with MetaFilter--this has been exactly how conversations on the Tate/Thunberg incident have gone across all the online platforms in the circles I am part of. I have done my best to surf through tsunamis of debate over whether Thunberg's "small dick energy" snark was objectionable or if only someone who is buzzkill hall-monitor or bizarrely-literal shallow reader would claim that, along with constant calls for people to focus on critiquing evil Tate, not righteous Thunberg. It's been ubiquitous.
For me, as someone whose social media circles are filled with intersex and trans folks, it's been interesting in that it really revealed a division in groups who have actual skin in the game, as they say. These are groups often defined by having to survive sex-policing of presumed-atypical bits.
On the one side, you had people who saw the SDE taunt as getting its oomph from bias against intersex, trans, and cis-endosex men with small phalli, and thus as triggering. Not unexpected. On the other, you had people whose experience was that being trans, intersex, or both had liberated us from ridiculous insecurities that cis-endosex fans of patriarchy are obsessed with. There were trans women grinning about how they and their trans women friends adored their cute little penises, transmasculine folks saying they had a whole collection of dicks of every size to suit every preference, and intersex people talking about how they had emerged from doctor-imposed insecurities to embrace and love their unique genitals. This second camp did not feel at all triggered by Thunberg deploying the SDE barb, and were surprised that there were fellow-travelers who would find such a thing anything but laughable.
I'm firmly in Camp B, but always find it beneficial to get yet another reminder of how experiences vary, and we shouldn't project.
The weird thing about these social media discussions is that almost everyone in my social media circles agrees that the important thing is that Tate is an evil man, and is facing some consequences. Complaints that the dissecting of the usage of a small-dick-energy taunt were a distraction from what really mattered have been omnipresent across all the platforms and circles I am in. So why was this ubiquitous? All the conversations have involved complaints about the circular-firing-squad left (though I have to note the right has the same fractured dynamic). But why this particular focus of debate? Yes, misogyny surely plays a key role, prompting us to critique women and femmes endlessly.
But I suspect there's also an element of people wanting to actually have a conversation about sex-policing people's genitals, and how best to respond to that, in an era where this has actually become important to national politics, and so is more weighted than ever. This was just a poor context for that conversation to get hashed out.
posted by DrMew at 7:48 PM on December 31, 2022 [50 favorites]
For me, as someone whose social media circles are filled with intersex and trans folks, it's been interesting in that it really revealed a division in groups who have actual skin in the game, as they say. These are groups often defined by having to survive sex-policing of presumed-atypical bits.
On the one side, you had people who saw the SDE taunt as getting its oomph from bias against intersex, trans, and cis-endosex men with small phalli, and thus as triggering. Not unexpected. On the other, you had people whose experience was that being trans, intersex, or both had liberated us from ridiculous insecurities that cis-endosex fans of patriarchy are obsessed with. There were trans women grinning about how they and their trans women friends adored their cute little penises, transmasculine folks saying they had a whole collection of dicks of every size to suit every preference, and intersex people talking about how they had emerged from doctor-imposed insecurities to embrace and love their unique genitals. This second camp did not feel at all triggered by Thunberg deploying the SDE barb, and were surprised that there were fellow-travelers who would find such a thing anything but laughable.
I'm firmly in Camp B, but always find it beneficial to get yet another reminder of how experiences vary, and we shouldn't project.
The weird thing about these social media discussions is that almost everyone in my social media circles agrees that the important thing is that Tate is an evil man, and is facing some consequences. Complaints that the dissecting of the usage of a small-dick-energy taunt were a distraction from what really mattered have been omnipresent across all the platforms and circles I am in. So why was this ubiquitous? All the conversations have involved complaints about the circular-firing-squad left (though I have to note the right has the same fractured dynamic). But why this particular focus of debate? Yes, misogyny surely plays a key role, prompting us to critique women and femmes endlessly.
But I suspect there's also an element of people wanting to actually have a conversation about sex-policing people's genitals, and how best to respond to that, in an era where this has actually become important to national politics, and so is more weighted than ever. This was just a poor context for that conversation to get hashed out.
posted by DrMew at 7:48 PM on December 31, 2022 [50 favorites]
Bravo, and cheers for Camp B!
Penis size and one's relationship with one's is a veritable constellation given that trans isn't mono-dimensional.
I just felt exasperated at the commonly inferred spirit that the "use of SDE is 'harmful'" was first presented. But I am glad that it provoked discussion and presentation of more points of view.
As transfemme, I'm very conflicted with how to (physically) manage - and how to (psychologically) consider to myself - my congenitally large external accessory item.
On the one hand, I'm lesbian, but that brings it's own complications. On the other, it's a damn nuisance to find someplace comfortable to put it (out of sight) - in anything but loose flared dresses or a skirt on top of yoga pants/ leggings/ jeans.
posted by porpoise at 10:45 PM on December 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
Penis size and one's relationship with one's is a veritable constellation given that trans isn't mono-dimensional.
I just felt exasperated at the commonly inferred spirit that the "use of SDE is 'harmful'" was first presented. But I am glad that it provoked discussion and presentation of more points of view.
As transfemme, I'm very conflicted with how to (physically) manage - and how to (psychologically) consider to myself - my congenitally large external accessory item.
On the one hand, I'm lesbian, but that brings it's own complications. On the other, it's a damn nuisance to find someplace comfortable to put it (out of sight) - in anything but loose flared dresses or a skirt on top of yoga pants/ leggings/ jeans.
posted by porpoise at 10:45 PM on December 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
Let's just say this one more time, now that it's 2023:
This is all a classic example of the diversionary practice of arguing the incidental that deploys instantly like a drag parachute after any women wins an overwhelming rhetorical victory.
posted by chavenet at 5:52 AM on January 1, 2023 [33 favorites]
This is all a classic example of the diversionary practice of arguing the incidental that deploys instantly like a drag parachute after any women wins an overwhelming rhetorical victory.
posted by chavenet at 5:52 AM on January 1, 2023 [33 favorites]
But I suspect there's also an element of people wanting to actually have a conversation about sex-policing people's genitals, and how best to respond to that, in an era where this has actually become important to national politics, and so is more weighted than ever. This was just a poor context for that conversation to get hashed out.
sex-policing people's genitals is more in public conversation in part because of rampant transphobia led by the many of the same conservative men who are butthurt over the sde joke as any comments about the size of their penis questions their masculinity, and in part because of the rampant transphobia led by women who equate a penis with manhood
none of them seem to understand whether you're an innie or an outie has little bearing on how masculine or feminine you can be, can want to be, can present yourself to be, experience the world as, or really, who you are as a person at all
instead, for those men it's about how bde is good because a big dick means more man and being a man means being solitary, rich, nasty, brutish, and swole, and for those women it's about how any dick means man and man is solitary, dangerous, nasty, brutish, and bad
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:34 AM on January 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
sex-policing people's genitals is more in public conversation in part because of rampant transphobia led by the many of the same conservative men who are butthurt over the sde joke as any comments about the size of their penis questions their masculinity, and in part because of the rampant transphobia led by women who equate a penis with manhood
none of them seem to understand whether you're an innie or an outie has little bearing on how masculine or feminine you can be, can want to be, can present yourself to be, experience the world as, or really, who you are as a person at all
instead, for those men it's about how bde is good because a big dick means more man and being a man means being solitary, rich, nasty, brutish, and swole, and for those women it's about how any dick means man and man is solitary, dangerous, nasty, brutish, and bad
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:34 AM on January 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
I came across this TicTok post about the SDE controversy. I found it insightful
posted by interogative mood at 2:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 2:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Wow! In this short span of time her two tweets are now at nos. 4 and 7 most-liked of all-time. Strong leadership energy!
posted by riverlife at 9:32 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by riverlife at 9:32 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
chavenet, are you suggesting that anyone with an issue with the terminology used here is arguing in bad faith?
posted by Dysk at 12:00 AM on January 2, 2023
posted by Dysk at 12:00 AM on January 2, 2023
It might be up there with the rumours that Taliban leaders are demanding Tate's release.
@Otto_English:: "This actually happened."
There are two screenshots, the first a tweet from @SameeraKhan that reads
posted by Buntix at 12:38 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
@Otto_English:: "This actually happened."
There are two screenshots, the first a tweet from @SameeraKhan that reads
We are hosting a Twitter space wit6h the Afghan Taliban to discuss the detainment of Andrew Tate.The second shows some of the members of the Twitter space, several of whom it seems could indeed be (Paid blue star) Taliban.
They are worried about Andrew Tate and they are asking up if he's free yet.
They say westerners need Andrew Tate because we are oppressed by feminists.
posted by Buntix at 12:38 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Here are some posts from a Muslim woman (username Love Is All We Need) on We Hunted the Mammoth:
Tate has been living between Romania and Dubai for quite some time now. That’s a major sex trafficking route. Anybody here know what “Dubai port-a-potty” means? If not, don’t google it. There are some things you simply cannot erase from your psyche.
He “converted” to Islam in Dubai. This move pretty much divided the online Muslim world between people fanboying over it and others casting a suspicious side eye. Particularly Muslim women, some of whom said they would leave Islam over it, especially if brothers fanboyed over it, which they did. He continues to engage in HARAM behaviors but these fanboys refuse to call him out on it.
He’s made very disparaging remarks about Muslim women in older videos while also saying, “I’m gonna get myself an Islamic ass wife” and “four wives and 9 kids”. I don’t think Muslim women will be lining up for that. However it has recently been revealed that he has at least 1 wife and a few baby mamas and 4 kids. His fanboy Sneako is claiming all the women are his “wives”. I don’t think any of them are Muslim though since they had kids with him before his “conversion”. Unless they also recently converted.
The consensus is that since he got “cancelled” from platforms a few months back he had to find another “community” to grift and so he choose the Muslim community. Another theory is that he does “business” in Dubai and it’s easier to do business there if you are a Muslim and so he “converted” for that reason.
The only people in the Muslim sphere who are excited over his “conversion” and think it’s coming from a place of sincerity are Muslim men who were following and fanboying him for months and years before his conversion.
He’s haram.
-------------
I still don’t get why religious and/or sexually/socially “conservative” people are backing this guy. From Muslims to Christians to so called “traditional” women “influencers”, it boggles the mind. Tate openly brags about HARAM such as fornication, pimping the Only Fans industry. He uses the most foul language, displays extreme arrogance and rabid materialism, all things that religion is supposedly against. He’s doing all of this after his supposed conversion to Islam and yet if you peruse the Islamosphere, barely any men are calling him out on any of this. Some Muslim women are, but they get a lot of admonishment and accusations of “feminist” from both the men and women who support him. For every 100 male Muslim influencers praising him you might find 1 who’s holding him accountable. By and large they see it as a “win” for Islam and it’s global spread. Like seriously, it is not a good look that Tate chose Islam as his faith of preference. It does not reflect well and they may all end up regretting him attaching his name to the religion at all.
posted by LindsayIrene at 8:58 AM on January 2, 2023 [29 favorites]
Tate has been living between Romania and Dubai for quite some time now. That’s a major sex trafficking route. Anybody here know what “Dubai port-a-potty” means? If not, don’t google it. There are some things you simply cannot erase from your psyche.
He “converted” to Islam in Dubai. This move pretty much divided the online Muslim world between people fanboying over it and others casting a suspicious side eye. Particularly Muslim women, some of whom said they would leave Islam over it, especially if brothers fanboyed over it, which they did. He continues to engage in HARAM behaviors but these fanboys refuse to call him out on it.
He’s made very disparaging remarks about Muslim women in older videos while also saying, “I’m gonna get myself an Islamic ass wife” and “four wives and 9 kids”. I don’t think Muslim women will be lining up for that. However it has recently been revealed that he has at least 1 wife and a few baby mamas and 4 kids. His fanboy Sneako is claiming all the women are his “wives”. I don’t think any of them are Muslim though since they had kids with him before his “conversion”. Unless they also recently converted.
The consensus is that since he got “cancelled” from platforms a few months back he had to find another “community” to grift and so he choose the Muslim community. Another theory is that he does “business” in Dubai and it’s easier to do business there if you are a Muslim and so he “converted” for that reason.
The only people in the Muslim sphere who are excited over his “conversion” and think it’s coming from a place of sincerity are Muslim men who were following and fanboying him for months and years before his conversion.
He’s haram.
-------------
I still don’t get why religious and/or sexually/socially “conservative” people are backing this guy. From Muslims to Christians to so called “traditional” women “influencers”, it boggles the mind. Tate openly brags about HARAM such as fornication, pimping the Only Fans industry. He uses the most foul language, displays extreme arrogance and rabid materialism, all things that religion is supposedly against. He’s doing all of this after his supposed conversion to Islam and yet if you peruse the Islamosphere, barely any men are calling him out on any of this. Some Muslim women are, but they get a lot of admonishment and accusations of “feminist” from both the men and women who support him. For every 100 male Muslim influencers praising him you might find 1 who’s holding him accountable. By and large they see it as a “win” for Islam and it’s global spread. Like seriously, it is not a good look that Tate chose Islam as his faith of preference. It does not reflect well and they may all end up regretting him attaching his name to the religion at all.
posted by LindsayIrene at 8:58 AM on January 2, 2023 [29 favorites]
(Side note responding to a question a few comments above: it’s unclear when “douchecanoe” first came into existence, but it’s been around for over a decade, since not too long after “douche” as a derogatory term for a particular variety of jerk became more popular. The edit history for the Wiktionary page on the term shows it was created in 2013; and Urban Dictionary has an entry from 2006, an entry from 2007, and then more entries starting in 2008 (along with multiple purported origin stories for the portmanteau).)
posted by eviemath at 2:12 PM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 2:12 PM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
MetaFilter: it’s unclear when “douchecanoe” first came into existence, but it’s been around for over a decade
posted by hippybear at 2:32 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 2:32 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: it’s unclear when it first came into existence, but it’s been around for over a decade
posted by Merus at 4:33 AM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Merus at 4:33 AM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
chavenet, are you suggesting that anyone with an issue with the terminology used here is arguing in bad faith?
I won't speak for chavenet, but I think people who had an issue with the terminology, very-well justified though the issue might be, are choosing a spectacularly poor moment to try to discuss the issue.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:09 AM on January 3, 2023 [18 favorites]
I won't speak for chavenet, but I think people who had an issue with the terminology, very-well justified though the issue might be, are choosing a spectacularly poor moment to try to discuss the issue.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:09 AM on January 3, 2023 [18 favorites]
Criminal creep makes a public "give me your email and I’ll show you what I’ve got" veiled threat at a young woman.
She has the courage to respond with "fuck off".
Internet commentators demand an apology ...
... from the woman.
posted by UN at 6:32 AM on January 3, 2023 [35 favorites]
She has the courage to respond with "fuck off".
Internet commentators demand an apology ...
... from the woman.
posted by UN at 6:32 AM on January 3, 2023 [35 favorites]
Newsweek says Taliban 'Worried About Andrew Tate' as They Ask for His Freedom
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:34 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:34 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wonder what their carbon footprint is now?
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:33 AM on January 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:33 AM on January 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
Found it. (60s)
The Youtube short of Tate that was getting posted constantly by Tate's fanboys as part of his social media Ponzi scheme last summer.
This started making the rounds in August. TLDW: "shut up, Greta. You're unattractive, which is why nobody will listen to you about climate change."
He's been hurling insults at Thunberg since August. She spoke to him once. And spoke about him once. THat's beautiful in its own way.
posted by ocschwar at 7:42 PM on January 4, 2023 [17 favorites]
The Youtube short of Tate that was getting posted constantly by Tate's fanboys as part of his social media Ponzi scheme last summer.
This started making the rounds in August. TLDW: "shut up, Greta. You're unattractive, which is why nobody will listen to you about climate change."
He's been hurling insults at Thunberg since August. She spoke to him once. And spoke about him once. THat's beautiful in its own way.
posted by ocschwar at 7:42 PM on January 4, 2023 [17 favorites]
He's been hurling insults at Thunberg since August. She spoke to him once. And spoke about him once.
Real power.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:53 AM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Real power.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:53 AM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Canadian satire site The Beaverton sums it up: Small Dicked Man Still Manages To Fuck Himself.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:09 AM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:09 AM on January 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Next thing that needs to happen is when a reporter asks her about this, she should ask "so who is that guy, anyway?"
posted by ocschwar at 11:04 AM on January 5, 2023
posted by ocschwar at 11:04 AM on January 5, 2023
Twitter user Nezzzooo dug up an incredibly cringe rap by Tate which brought on another nuclear-force roast from an unexpected source.
posted by Kattullus at 9:19 AM on January 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 9:19 AM on January 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
Also, the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast had a really good profile of Andrew Tate yesterday, if you want a good overview of what a piece of work that guy is.
posted by Kattullus at 9:21 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 9:21 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ever were she that right-wing model of too much mascara and blond dye, they'd just call her "Climate Barbie" or something equally offensive and dismiss her anyway.
Gendered insults are inherently small-dick energied.
posted by bonehead at 9:31 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Gendered insults are inherently small-dick energied.
posted by bonehead at 9:31 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
For the record, I don't think Catherine McKenna dresses like a Fox News host either. Just to be clear.
posted by bonehead at 9:35 AM on January 6, 2023
posted by bonehead at 9:35 AM on January 6, 2023
Andrew Tate's account continues to post. Is he out of jail yet?
posted by ocschwar at 8:13 AM on January 7, 2023
posted by ocschwar at 8:13 AM on January 7, 2023
Every source I can find insists he is still detained, which means someone is tweeting for him. Tate is desperate to keep managing his public image, because otherwise his image will be managed by Greta Thunberg.
Such desperation is most unbecoming of an alpha. It warms the cockles of my shriveled heart.
posted by ocschwar at 11:10 AM on January 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
Such desperation is most unbecoming of an alpha. It warms the cockles of my shriveled heart.
posted by ocschwar at 11:10 AM on January 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
There are tapes...
https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/stenograme-din-dosarul-fratilor-tate-facute-publice-cei-doi-si-ar-fi-obligat-victimele-sa-isi-tatueze-numele-lor-2207105
And, for anyone wanting to get their heart rate up, a thread from [Paid Checkmark] @ShaykhSulaiman explaining:
posted by Buntix at 6:08 AM on January 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/stenograme-din-dosarul-fratilor-tate-facute-publice-cei-doi-si-ar-fi-obligat-victimele-sa-isi-tatueze-numele-lor-2207105
Prosecutors have obtained wiretaps in which Andrew Tate recounts how he broke the law and took advantage of women.Found via a thread by @steinkobbe
Andrew Tate : You're not stupid and you can probably guess how I make so much money. I have to hide what I'm really doing.
Victim : Web cam?
Andrew Tate : I've been doing this for a long time with a team of girls working on video chat. The company was fake, but this is how I laundered my dirty money. Some of the girls who worked for me (...) I used them to do other things. To move money or illegal things, documents, etc. I will never do that with you.
The humiliation of the victims did not stop there. Investigators have obtained shocking statements from women who were allegedly recruited by the Tate brothers. They told that they were forced to get tattoos with the message "owned by Tate", meaning Tate's property.
And, for anyone wanting to get their heart rate up, a thread from [Paid Checkmark] @ShaykhSulaiman explaining:
Greta, Tate and RacismOn the bright side it looks like Black Twitter is still alive and thriving, and a lot of it has turned up in the replies to tell him "this ain't it."
Greta represents the apex of liberalism. She is a white, blonde woman. She can do no wrong.
For liberals, racism by Greta, a white woman, to Tate a black man, should be cheered, shared and reported.
Let’s look at this deep rooted racism /1
#FreeTopG
...
A White girl making a penis joke about black guy is now acceptable?
posted by Buntix at 6:08 AM on January 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
[Forgot the citation link on that last bit.]
@UnknownMe82: "The Black community are perfectly capable of and consistent in calling out antiblackness thank you. This ain't it."
posted by Buntix at 6:30 AM on January 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
@UnknownMe82: "The Black community are perfectly capable of and consistent in calling out antiblackness thank you. This ain't it."
posted by Buntix at 6:30 AM on January 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
Oh yeah, the Muslim misogynist crew (worldwide) have been running active interference for this criminal 🤮🤮. My people are so embarrassing - welcome to the worst version of this thing that happens when we get so excited to have a new Muslim convert. When I was a kid, I remembered something similar happened with Mike Tyson.
posted by cendawanita at 6:32 AM on January 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:32 AM on January 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
cendawanita: My people are so embarrassing
I think all colonized peoples are prone to that. Iceland bestowed citizenship on Bobby Fischer late in his life to free him from a Japanese jail. On balance, it was the humanitarian thing to do, but many Icelanders went the extra step of excusing and minimizing his antisemitism and holocaust denial.
People who feel ignored tend to react with cringeworthy gratitude to people who not only pay attention to them, but choose to belong to their community.
posted by Kattullus at 8:52 AM on January 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
I think all colonized peoples are prone to that. Iceland bestowed citizenship on Bobby Fischer late in his life to free him from a Japanese jail. On balance, it was the humanitarian thing to do, but many Icelanders went the extra step of excusing and minimizing his antisemitism and holocaust denial.
People who feel ignored tend to react with cringeworthy gratitude to people who not only pay attention to them, but choose to belong to their community.
posted by Kattullus at 8:52 AM on January 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
How is Tate black? Sorry, I haven't gone deeply into his ancestry, because you know evil misogynist criminal...
posted by mumimor at 9:26 AM on January 8, 2023
posted by mumimor at 9:26 AM on January 8, 2023
How is Tate black? Sorry, I haven't gone deeply into his ancestry, because you know evil misogynist criminal...
Per Wikipedia, his father (Emory Tate) was black.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:49 AM on January 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Per Wikipedia, his father (Emory Tate) was black.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:49 AM on January 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'll put it this way: if someone like Andrew Tate sought my daughter's attention, I would do whatever the fuck it takes to make him regret it, and I really would not care how stereotypically patriarchal my behavior would appear to an outside observer, particularly a Mefite observer, because attention from Andrew Tate and his crowd is a risk to any woman's safety, and well, safety first.
Greta Thunberg has roughly half my body weight, and none of my experience with firearms or self defense. She is still traveling around Europe without an escort to pursue a political agenda that draws malicious interest from very bad people, and which stands to benefit humanity at large to an immense degree. She deserves way more leeway in doing whatever the fuck it takes to make Andrew Tate regret he mentioned her.
posted by ocschwar at 4:52 PM on January 9, 2023 [17 favorites]
Greta Thunberg has roughly half my body weight, and none of my experience with firearms or self defense. She is still traveling around Europe without an escort to pursue a political agenda that draws malicious interest from very bad people, and which stands to benefit humanity at large to an immense degree. She deserves way more leeway in doing whatever the fuck it takes to make Andrew Tate regret he mentioned her.
posted by ocschwar at 4:52 PM on January 9, 2023 [17 favorites]
BBC: Andrew Tate loses appeal
Controversial British-American online influencer Andrew Tate has lost a bid to end his detention in Romania.posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:08 PM on January 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
...
Police will continue to hold the group for their 30-day period, after a court rejected the appeal on Tuesday.
Touré on TheGrio: Andrew Tate is Black? Say it ain’t so!!
posted by Nelson at 9:27 AM on January 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 9:27 AM on January 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted , I think you should post your comments about Twitch and OnlyFans someone where more people can see them because I had no idea and more people should know. Maybe there could be a push for regulation (in a way that doesn't harm voluntary sex workers. Look, a girl can dream).
Really worried about all these middle school boys that listened to this poison. Who is deprogramming them? What happens when they hit their late teens and 20s?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:36 AM on January 15, 2023
Really worried about all these middle school boys that listened to this poison. Who is deprogramming them? What happens when they hit their late teens and 20s?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:36 AM on January 15, 2023
SPLC and the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) are committed to providing resources to the people building community resilience against extremism and for a more just and inclusive society. The following resources are intended to provide community- and victim-centered strategies to address the threat of extremism, through early prevention and non-carceral solutions. The primary resource, A Parents & Caregivers Guide to Online Youth Radicalization, lays a foundation for understanding the nature of extremism, dynamics of radicalization, and steps you can take to prevent them from taking root in your community. This page also provides supplemental material to expand the Guide for educators, counselors, coaches, and others who work alongside youth.
posted by eviemath at 9:54 AM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 9:54 AM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
« Older Soccer legend Pelé dies | The Pac-Man Dossier is Back Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Oyéah at 6:01 PM on December 29, 2022 [17 favorites]