Andrew Tate Algorithmic Surge

2022

Date: July-December 2022 · Place: TikTok, YouTube Shorts, then Romanian custody · Figures: Andrew Tate, former kickboxer and Big Brother UK contestant · Tristan Tate, brother · Hustlers University affiliate program · Tags: Manosphere, Algorithm, Arrest 01. The Affiliate Push Andrew Tate's Hustlers University runs an explicit affiliate program: members pay 49 dollars a month, then earn commissions by reuploading Tate clips to TikTok and YouTube Shorts. By July 2022 his name pulls 13 billion TikTok hashtag views. Teachers across Britain and the US start reporting that 13-year-old boys are quoting him in class. The clips weaponize the For You Page. The same fragment of him in a sports car explaining why women belong to men gets cut into thousands of variants, each optimized differently for watch time. 02. Pizza Box Tate is banned from TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in the first week of August 2022. On 29 December 2022 he is arrested in Romania on charges of human trafficking and forming an organized criminal group. The Greta Thunberg pizza-box rumor that he was traced through a Jerry's Pizza box in a video reply to her is false but durable, the meme that finally caps the year. "What color is your Bugatti?" — Andrew Tate, response template, 2022 Sources • The Guardian, 'How Andrew Tate became one of the most googled men in the world' (6 August 2022) • Reuters, 'Andrew Tate arrested in Romania on human trafficking charges' (30 December 2022) • Vice, 'Inside Andrew Tate's Hustlers University' (22 July 2022)