How Andrew Tate Rose to Fame Through Social Networks
Recently, Andrew Tate, a “self-help” influencer was banned from major social media platforms for his extreme misogynistic comments. The 35-year-old former kickboxer has talked about how men and women are not equal, that women are comparable to animals and property, and that rape victims are to blame for their attacks; just to name a few. He has always had issues with women, as Tate was kicked off a reality TV show in 2016 for beating a woman with a belt and threatening her if she texted him again. He then created his own online self-help program called “Hustlers University” to show men how to create wealth and be successful with women. Although the program has been out for over a year, it only started getting popular a few months ago with the help of social media circulation. Before being banned from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and Twitter, Tate amassed over 5 million followers/subscribers and over 14 billion views on TikTok alone. This begs the question, how was Andrew Tate able to shoot to fame so quickly and what will happen to his following now that he is banned?
As learned in class, graphs are a set of structures containing nodes and edges connecting certain pairs of nodes together. An example of a graph is a social network. Part of Tate’s rise to popularity is due to Hustlers University’s affiliate marketing campaign. This campaign allows current members to earn a 48% commission for each new person they get to subscribe to the program. As a result, this creates an ever-expanding network of Andrew Tate influencers. If one current member has two strong ties to people and refers them to the program, they are more likely to create a weak tie between them. This follows the strong triadic closure property and furthers why Tate had such a strong following before his ban from the major social media platforms. Despite his ban, it is not unreasonable to think that Tate’s ideas will continue to inhabit the internet. The idea of the social network is that information continues to spread throughout the connected component, and eventually one person will attempt to rise up like Tate did.
Sources:
https://www.cnet.com/culture/who-andrew-tate-is-and-why-hes-been-kicked-off-social-media/https://www.newstatesman.com/social-media/2022/08/andrew-tate-banned-from-social-media