The Errors of the “Red Pill”
If you have been on social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram at any point in the last couple of years, you have probably heard the name Andrew Tate. A professional kickboxer turned social media influencer, Tate has amassed a huge audience since becoming a viral sensation in 2022. He operates a webcam model business and offers online courses with the intended audience being young men. He became a household name online when followers of his started posting short clips of him on various social media platforms that usually involved him ‘dunking’ on feminism or ‘The Matrix,’ i.e. the systems that are being created by society that are deliberately designed to enslave, in Tate’s own words.
Andrew Tate has amassed over 9 million followers on X; and was the third-most "googled" person in 2023,
The “Red Pill” movement, which Tate is often seen as the figurehead of, is where this terminology stemming from the movie The Matrix comes back into play. For those who have seen the movie, you know that taking the “red pill” means waking up to the truth of the deception around you. The movement’s goal is to essentially wake up these young men who have been blinded by the deceptions of the modern world.
Tate attempts to capitalize on the young men of today who do not know their place in this world. For most of their lives, these men have been told that it is no longer necessary for them to be real men, in fact, they can be a woman if they so please. They don’t need to protect or provide, they’re told, instead they can play video games all day and just make sure they call people their preferred pronouns. Masculinity is often portrayed as the crux of all the issues in the social world. In this regard, Tate has a solid premise: Many modern trends do not benefit and are not healthy for young men (or women, for that matter).
Where Tate goes extremely wrong is in his conclusions drawn from that premise. Tate advocates for what he considers the masculine lifestyle: financial and sexual success. While the word misogynist can get thrown around these days for simply being pro-life or holding some other conservative social view, in Tate’s case, the word aptly befits him. He has called women the ultimate status symbol for men, minimizing women and their value to that of an object. He has also criticized monogamy, claiming that any man who is true to their biology cannot be monogamous. Regarding his webcam business, he’s said the following:
“My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together.” Tate is essentially a modern pimp.
Tate has a plethora of quotes to pull from when considering the low value he has of women, albeit most are not remotely ‘PG’ enough for this article; The few quotes I have referenced are pretty tame in light of this.
Tate is also not the only major influencer espousing ideas like these online. Hannah Pearl Davis, better known online as JustPearlyThings or Pearl, has recently risen to online fame for being a female voice of the “Red Pill” movement. Pearl is notorious for asserting that marriage is a disproportionately bad deal for men on account of high divorce rates and thus, possibly losing money or custody of their children.
The arguments put forward by influencers like Tate and Pearl are an attempt to swing the pendulum the other way. Men are justifiably feeling let down by the promises and trends of the new world and these influencers are taking advantage of their susceptibility. They offer promiscuity and debauchery as a means of fulfillment but there lies nothing down that road but emptiness. In response to their sentiment that men have a biological predisposition to not remain monogamous, I would assert, even if that is true (which it's not), a man who is a slave to his instincts is no man at all, but is still a child.
As a young man myself, I may not have all of the answers yet, but I am sure of the necessity and sanctity of marriage. Conservatives must do a better job in connecting with and showing young men the right path forward. This will almost certainly have to be done in the online sphere, engaging with these influencers and tackling their arguments head on. Thankfully, conservative Catholics commentators like Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire and Trent Horn of Catholic Answers have already had some success doing so, among others.
I’ll leave you with a quote from the author G.K. Chesterton:
“Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honor should decline.”