Andrew Tate is blaming the Matrix again

0:00Matt, you're not here. You're wearing a very holiday style shirt. Are you in Seattle hunting for a raccoon called Jimothy? No, actually, I'm not in Seattle hunting for a raccoon called Jimothy. I'm in the Costa Brava on holiday. I very much doubt that any of Jimothy's family members are living on the Costa Brava. But if people haven't heard of Jimothy, Jimothy is this raccoon who is the latest viral animal sensation. Jimothy.

0:35Essentially, he is a raccoon who has a disability and there are loads of incredibly cute clips of him just out and about in Seattle, really, living in the wild. Clips of him from doorbell footage, a couple that were posted online by people who've spotted him. This is the raccoon with the spinal condition, right? Yeah, exactly. He's very nimble. He's, like, dashing about. There's some really cute videos of him back from when he was a baby climbing along a fence. He's just a real survivor, I would say, Jimothy. He's not quite in the category of pets and animals with genetic conditions on Instagram, like Marnie the dog, for example, where there's an element of cynicism in that someone, a content creator, has gone to a rescue shelter, picked an animal with a genetic condition, not necessarily out of the goodness of their heart, but because they know it'll get lots of views.

1:25Jimothy's a wild animal, right? So, you know, he's just living his life. But one thing I do always wonder with these animals that go viral for having spinal conditions and other genetic conditions is like, do we know what the kind of prognosis is? Like how is Jimothy going to be able to survive? I don't know. Kind of unclear. I mean, one of the reasons why people are loving him is because to have survived as long as he has out in the wild. I actually think his disability is sort of like his superpower. I hope this doesn't offend you because you have many like expertises. But I think I don't know if you are an expert on raccoon biology.

1:58so I whatever do you mean I love raccoons what concerns me is like everyone thinks this is so cute but then some raccoon expert is going to say uh with you know with the congenital spine deformity that he has he'll be lucky to survive another winter it's just a question it's a little thought in my mind is like is he going to be eaten by a hawk like because he can't have fast enough okay we're not actually just talking about animals with disabilities nor raccoons on this episode We're also going to be talking about some more serious topics, aren't we, Matt? Yeah, so first, obviously, the big news as far as social media is concerned, well, it's a big news period, is that the Tate brothers will potentially soon be extra added to the UK.

2:38And particularly, we're going to talk about how being associated with Andrew Tate, if you're kind of on the right or in the manosphere, can actually help your reputation rather than hurt it, despite the litany of allegations that they're now facing. And we're going to be discussing the paradox of when a kid goes viral on social media and their family becomes so reliant on their content and the income that comes with it and everything else that they kind of don't have a choice whether to take part or not.

3:11Matt, when it comes to Andrew Tate, you are without a doubt a leading expert on him and the world he inhabits online and offline. and you've obviously spent time with him as well. Yeah. Like, talk me through the news that's now come out about him. Yeah, I mean, like you said, I think some people listening to this may not know the sheer amount of time I've spent covering the Tates. I've done two documentaries. I've written a book about Andrew Tate called Clown World, Four Years Inside Andrew Tate's Manosphere. I've met with him. I've been punched in the face by him. He made meme coins about you or was that his fans?

3:45He made a meme coin. He's made a quote to documentary, unquote, about me. and I've also met a number of his alleged victims. This is the biggest development to happen in a long time but before we get into the rest of the story let's just remind ourselves of what exactly the Tate brothers are being accused of. The charges against him and his brother mostly relate to the webcam sex visits they operated first in the UK and then in Romania. He and his brother are accused of either trafficking, raping, grooming or abusing at least 48 alleged victims in total across all of their criminal cases. They deny all these charges.

4:21But the Crown Prosecution Service has cited new potential charges, further counts of rape, further counts of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Now they've also added around 19 additional charges for offenses related to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography. That relates to Andrew Tate. For Tristan Tate, there are additional charges of sexual assault and rape. And of course, they had these Romanian indictments. So they have a list of charges, including trafficking of a minor, sex with a minor, money laundering, witness tampering, forming organized crime group, human trafficking, et cetera, et cetera.

4:56They deny all those charges and they have not yet faced trial for any of this stuff. What was meant to happen is the agreement the UK government had with Romania was that the Romanian proceedings were complete and then they would go to jail if they're found guilty or not if they weren't. And then they would be extradited to the UK. The UK appears to have bypassed that. They've said now, look, we're not going to wait for the Romanian proceedings. We are going to extradite you straight to the UK. And what do we expect to actually happen? They're American citizens, so they can appeal and they are planning to appeal this.

5:30The executive branch with extraditions can intervene. So it would be Marco Rubio or someone in the Trump administration can stop an extradition if they deem it in the national interest. It's incredibly rare for the US to reject an extradition request from the UK. But what seems to be playing out now is a lot of what we have seen continually with the Tate brothers and their legal strategy, which is to, first of all, claim some kind of connection within the Trump administration. Now, we don't know how true that is, right? There are definitely figures within the Trump administration who support the Tates, who are pressuring the president to do more to stop their extradition.

6:11In fact, the very reason they are in the US in the first place is because the Trump administration reportedly pressured the Romanian government to release them from traditional control. So they weren't allowed to travel freely. They now are, thanks to it's been reported, the Trump administration. Yeah, I've spotted loads of stuff, Matt, coming from the Tate brothers themselves on social media, but also some of the other quite high profile blue tick accounts that support them on X, suggesting that this is the Tates versus the deep state, that this is lawfare, that this is, you know, it's got a very conspiratorial tinge to it, I'd say.

6:47Yes. And that word lawfare that you just used, like just to unpack that for a second, this is basically almost a conspiracy theory that the courts, that the justice system, that the idea of justice itself is like weaponized against people that the deep state or the powers that be find politically inconvenient. And that term is used by the Trump administration constantly to defend Donald Trump against criminal accusations that he's faced. And this was cited by people like the U.S. Special Envoy Richard Grinnell when they pressured the Romanian government reportedly to release the Tates from judicial control.

7:24So the idea that if we characterize the Tates as people who are also facing this lawfare conspiracy, it'll maybe look good for the Trumps, has found a lot of road on social media and amongst MAGA. Has Donald Trump himself actually ever said anything about the Tate brothers directly? I don't think Donald Trump ever has. Because that's what I was thinking, that he, like lots of these kind of allegations of connections to, for example, the government in the US are other characters, other figures, but not actually Donald Trump himself. Yeah, exactly. I think Donald Trump, there's certainly people around him who are pro-Tate.

8:00I mean, just to give you an example, like the other week, the Tate brothers were partying with Paolo Zampoli, you know, Donald Trump's special envoy for global partnerships and a longtime friend of his and Melania's, Paul Ingracia, one of the Tate lawyers, someone who fully bought into the Tate conspiracy theory, it appears from his comments, was at one point the White House liaison for the Department of Justice. So there's people around him. My sources told me that Pam Bondi was someone who previously was advising the president not to side with the Tates. She is now gone. But there are people who are like, look, this is the kind of stuff you don't want your image associated with.

8:41And there is a question of why this, even these peripheral associations between the Trump administration and the Tate brothers haven't caused the same political damage that like the Epstein files do. Yeah, and I think part of that does actually lie in the ability to seed this kind of narrative around we are being deliberately targeted because we represent a certain value system or a set of values which, you know, the deep state, quote unquote, don't agree with. And obviously, you know, these kinds of arguments, which have no evidence to support them at all, can be really tricky, I imagine, for the people who are making allegations against them.

9:16No, and honestly, you've completely hit the nail on the head. And look, the Tate brothers, we have to be very clear. None of this has gone to trial. They may be innocent. They argue they are innocent. But when I hear things like, for example, Joseph McBride, their lawyer, characterizing this extradition request as a political hit ordered by a dying empire that fears two free men with a microphone, the idea that governments have conjured up charges because they find the Tates to be politically inconvenient. I mean, I think we can say that that is an offensive conspiracy. You know, there are real women at the heart of this.

9:55The idea that this has been conjured up. There's blueprint as well. You know, the language that's being used, the narrative that is being spread on social media around the deep state, around, you know, you know how particularly men and men like the Tate brothers are you know deliberately targeted by nefarious powerful people who don't want them to speak their truth and so on and so forth I mean that's the blueprint of the sort of manosphere and Andrew Tate is the figurehead I mean we've seen this with various other influencers they often succeed in building a huge kind of like a protective bubble almost around themselves where no matter what is leveled against them what allegation is made, they can point out how they believe it's actually part of a string of kind of injustices that they are facing.

10:41And Andrew Tate has got the most kind of active set of accounts and people who will take his lead on this kind of stuff and run with and push and further those narratives, which is only beneficial to him, I presume. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, look, there's a not insignificant amount of hypocrisy when you see accounts that normally are trying to raise awareness of immigration and Islam in the UK leading to grooming gangs, then saying that when two brothers who are themselves accused of, which they deny, grooming women, that it's somehow like a political conspiracy and shows that the state just exists to silence people.

11:17Like how did their followers not see the hypocrisy between those two things? But yes, it characterizes this This is what Tate would call a matrix attack, an attack by the matrix on them. And I've spoken to so many women who allege that they were physically or sexually assaulted by the Tate brothers. And it's so traumatizing for them, according to them, to already have to go through this incredibly difficult legal process and then to see them discredited online. And of course, there's also a lot of abuse they get too. these women are facing hell on a daily basis to go through this. The way that social media, especially places like X, which are kind of ruled over by the Tate brothers in the atmosphere, have chewed over this case is crazy.

12:04I think that cognitive dissonance that you highlight is really important because I think it can be tricky if you're coming to this kind of social media world from the outside and you're looking at it and you're thinking, hang on a second, like why are you, for example, so outraged about the Epstein files and, you know real allegations of wrongdoing from powerful people but then when other allegations of wrongdoing by now very powerful people are made against someone you like you're actually kind of okay with that and i can help you we can help you to be associated with those people yeah yeah exactly and i think that so much of it comes down to what we always talk about the way that influencers can build this kind of cult-like devotion around themselves the ability to have a kind of fandom that will hang on your every word and whatever you say goes, that becomes such a kind of protective force to some degree.

12:53But actually, that won't ultimately protect you when you are possibly going to trial or going through a legal process. Obviously, that hasn't happened in this case yet, but it could happen. Whatever's posted on social media will not change what happens in a court of law where ultimately it's about the law, right? Yeah, that's true. It hasn't been tested in a court of law, but it absolutely all of this deeply affects people's perception of the case and of the justice system as a whole, and of all of the institutions that kind of exist in our society. This is the effect of the Tate Brothers that gets talked about less.

13:25It's not just its effect in spreading misogyny, it also spreads mistrust in all of the institutions that our society relies on. And that's where it becomes a kind of cult-like belief system and can be very damaging. There's been a load of speculation and discussion about whether the White House might actually get involved here, Matt. What do we know? Have they said anything? So it has just been reported that the White House will allow Andrew Tate and his brother to be extradited to Britain, despite pressure from figures inside the president's inner circle. But that said, of course, this case could take months because they will fight it.

14:03But a US official told The Telegraph that the White House has no involvement and no feelings on the issue. Yeah, and we should say representatives of the Trump administration say claims they leaned on Romanian authorities to facilitate the relaxing of travel restrictions for the Tate brothers are exaggerated. At the time, the special envoy for the US, Richard Grinnell, insisted he'd had, quote, no substantive conversation with officials there.

14:33Matt I've become kind of obsessed with Laminya Marles three-year-old brother we think we say his name Kane but possibly Keane and there's just so many cute videos and pictures of him at the World Cup like where he's licking the World Cup running about when he's like vamos in the stands he's got star potential? Well, he is basically a superstar. He's kind of like the superstar of the World Cup. Obviously, like the TV cameras have been picking him out in the crowd whenever Spain are playing. And Yamal has posted about him before, like really cute content of his brother, like dancing and them singing together.

15:08And there's this really cute thing where he's like going through all the Barcelona team and naming them and all this kinds of stuff. El Amalovski, Yamal, La Piña, Pemlin, Perdi. it's very pos vibes social media content but it did start to make me think about what it means when a kid who is under the age of four in this case like starts to go viral in such a way that even the family don't really have control over it right like he's become this kind of like viral internet sensation particularly over the course of the past like month or so and he probably has no idea what's going on essentially yeah and i think if you look into all the different viral child stars they probably range from the rizzler on one hand to like lil tay on the other hand like everything could be absolutely fine or there could be some issues potentially going on there yeah and there's a difference between obviously you know relatives of someone famous who go viral because they're attending a match or because they're you know connected to someone who already has a profile in the real world and on social media and then obviously people who build entire social media brands around their kids or kids and teenagers themselves who become influencers and become super viral and I think there's all sorts of quite interesting kind of ethical and moral questions around kids understanding virality and at what point they can understand the impact of either posting themselves or being posted online and what we can or can't do to protect them in those cases because I mean particularly when it comes I think to family vloggers right like there are so many people on social media who have built followings around talking about their kids and like their day-to-day lives and particularly like mum type content like mummy vlogging content where people will talk about like how they manage to keep their show on the road and do all this kind of different stuff and and their kids become really integral to that content and we've seen this in quite a few cases in the UK and the US where quite high profile influencers have built followings around their kids and then have decided right actually no I'm not going to show their face anymore or once they're no longer a kind of baby I don't feel comfortable with them being identifiable but it's kind of interesting it's like but you did build your entire following and reach and actually can therefore make money from the fact that you were posting your kids to begin with I mean, obviously, this is not new that kids become famous, right, if they are really good at acting or singing or anything.

17:38But I guess the difference here is that they don't really go through a sort of controlled process. It's just happening at random online. I mean, yeah, a child star in the typical model like Macaulay Culkin or Michael Jackson or whatever can hide behind the performance because they are famous for a performance, whether that's acting or music. the like conceit of social media is that that is the real child you're seeing and it's their actual life that's what makes it like a little bit weirder a little bit more uncomfortable there's a question over whether that child has informed consent that they're going to be viral for the rest of their life and i think when there's a child actor for example in a film yes they're going to be famous forever or like a disney child or whatever but we at least assume that because it's the film industry because it's unionized it's regulated whatever there are all these laws and and there are laws in place to protect them.

18:30We don't know who's behind that camera. We don't know what's going on with the person filming that child. How much control does the family have? What's going on in the bit of content that we aren't seeing posted? It makes you think of people like Lil Tay, who was one of the first child stars, where there were questions over custody, over whether she was consenting. Now she's on OnlyFans. There are serious questions about what are the laws and rules and ethics of a child social media star? Yeah, and I think that actually that discussion has evolved quite significantly because of the way that social media works now, say to how it worked like when I was a teenager, which is I think you had a generation of teenagers who were social media savvy and parents who were much less so.

19:16And so often it was the teenagers themselves posting content like posting on YouTube. There's one former sort of child star YouTuber I chatted to called Becky Flint, who, you know, spoke about how she essentially decided to start posting and like probably her parents, I mean, they knew she was posting, they didn't really understand the implications of her doing that. And while there were lots of positives, you know, she got loads of opportunities, she got to go to Japan, all this kinds of other stuff. She also found that there were negatives, right? Like from a privacy point of view, as she got older, kind of weird parasocial relationships, negative comments and all that kinds of stuff.

19:49And this is what she had to say. So I was receiving lots and lots of comments on what people thought of me, what people thought about what I looked like, particularly at very like formative ages, completely unsolicited. People just, you know, say what they think. Privacy is also another thing that's been a little bit tough, I suppose. So there's people who have still been like quite obsessive over me or like just taken like a really long running interest in me. Like I've got message requests that go back years and years when you think like the internet's kind of old now like it's 19 years since I posted my first video and there are people from that time who still like I'm taking up consciousness in their mind and they still message me or they have that kind of like interest in me and some of it is like an unhealthy interest so that's been kind of tough to deal with I suppose is like that idea that you know the internet never forgets but like that's different right to when now which is the case that parents can see that content with kids in it performs really well and so you've got parents actively choosing to post their kids.

20:50And it might be that they just film them doing like one funny thing one time. And then they realize that that content performs really well and they start doing it more and more and more. And then suddenly it goes from being a sort of, oh, that was a quirky video or picture or something that was quite cute into, oh, this is sort of like our kind of part-time job now. Like we're posting the funny content that this kid makes. And what may perhaps start in a kind of innocent way evolves into something where there are quite serious questions about like whether the kid is acting or working or Becky described it as a form of sort of digital labor, but without, as you say, Matt, without the infrastructure around it to necessarily support or protect that kid.

21:29So it's unclear like how many hours they're having to spend filming. Like it's kind of like living, Becky described it as like being in like the Truman Show. It's like you wake up in your own house and you're being filmed essentially. Yeah. And look, I mean, like some kids are just so inherently funny that like you as a parent are going to want to film them and be like the world needs to see this right but it's when it turns into like three videos a day doing all the tiktok trends and you can tell there's like the lighting starts getting good you know you can tell like this turn is turned into an operation and it's an operation run by parents who are relying on the free labor of their child so like that's where we at least need to ask questions and figure out how to regulate it.

22:11There's a really important thing to talk about here, which is the monetization of this kind of content, right? Because if you go viral one time, or maybe twice, you know, it might be an exciting experience, but you're not going to make crazy amounts of money from it. But if you're posting really regularly, repeatedly, then you can obviously support yourself with this content, you can make money from it, and you can build an entire kind of influencer profile or platform on this. And so you can get to a point where the kid is actually the kind of source of income for the family and then you're in a really difficult situation because hang on a second if you stop posting the kid and you stop posting that content are you actually possibly negatively impacting their well-being in the real world because you can't like afford to you know pay your mortgage or go on holiday or any of the nice things that that kid might be doing or even just like straightforward things like being able to eat and sustain your lifestyle in some way you get into a really sort of like black mirror-esque type situation and it's something that Becky Flint describes actually this quite problematic relationship where you know a kid could say to a parent I don't want to be in this content anymore and the parent's like well we kind of don't have a choice.

23:14It is very troubling when a child might become a breadwinner for the family through you know viral social media content because there's just a lot of room for exploitation. Social media content creation it is a form of work it's a form of labour kind of digital labour a child who is for example part of a vlogging family in some ways they actually might be at work 24-7 you never know when that camera is going to come out you know it creates so much pressure for the child they're not necessarily going to be able to stop when it's not fun for them anymore because you know they started off in one house and then the content did really well and then the family's moving into like a really big house but oh like you know if you stop posting if you don't want to do this anymore we're going to have to move into a smaller house and you know we won't be able to buy all these nice things anymore and um you know we're gonna have to sell our car and everything like the child becomes that brand winner and becomes you know the provider for the whole family.

24:06There's another issue too which is you know if you start filming a kid when they are say three four five six years old and then as they get older maybe they want to keep making this kind of content maybe they don't maybe they actually would rather the content not exist at all but ultimately it doesn't feel like they actually have control over that necessarily their entire identity and their name can be used to build a social media brand that they aren't really in charge of like the adult who is looking after them whether it's a parent or whoever else or whoever's creating that content ultimately they are in possession of like the content and the handles and all that kinds of stuff and it's just like quite complicated for kids now who will grow up inevitably in this kind of like digital world like what do they do about their online identity as they become like young adults or adults do they like take over the ownership of the account like how does how does that work yeah i've always wondered that like who owns the handle do you put the profits into a trust which is how it should be done and the child can take it out when they turn 18 the other thing is though like you're not setting them up for a career you're you're working like full days making content with this kid but they're not turning into an actor a musician so all these other child stars like zendaya or like selena gomez or whatever like at least they have a talent and they're now still famous like what's good what's the risler gonna do when he's an adult like what's his job gonna be but you could also argue like think of someone like molly may who is obviously a super big influencer and has also built all kinds of like brands companies etc around around her influencer career she posts her little girl bambi regularly on social media like in their vlogs bambi is absolutely hilarious like she talks about buying other kids she's just always coming out with some some sort of hilarious comment and you could say on the one hand hang on a second like does Bambi consent to being in that content and then on the other hand it's like is her mum actually helping to launch her influencer career like she will be a kid who grows up entirely on social media and probably is able to then build her own social media influencer empire a bit like her mum and also because social media is so reliant on authenticity now if you decide to like hide your kid or not show them like if she was like actually I don't really want to include my kid I think there would be people who would be really disappointed because they feel like they have some sort of right to your life like you've decided to show your life all the way up until now so I need to see your kid I need to understand your life and they love that kind of like voyeuristic element of the social media world and as an influencer if you decide not to share that you're possibly limiting your own brand and growth I do think Like just the fact, the word you just used, voyeuristic, like if the appeal of this stuff is inherently voyeurism, that feels like creepy and bad.

27:01Yeah, it feels icky, doesn't it? But just to be clear, in the case of Laminia Moll's little brother, I don't think that applies there. I don't think either of us are saying that. That is like a purely organic case of someone who's already famous. To be honest, actually showing like quite a good example of like what being a good brother is. And I think that that's exactly what like famous people should be doing is like a positive example of being an older role model and like having your younger brother in your life at that age. It's really nice. And like that kid's going to be like the little brother of Laminia Mall regardless.

27:34You know, he's going to be that's going to be following him around for the rest of his life, whatever happens. Have you seen him cruising about in his car? He has like one of those remote control cars. He honestly is like the coolest kid. But also, and I think this is really important to say as well. like you don't want that family to not get to enjoy what is like an incredible moment like your kid winning the world cup and when i was watching the final i was so excited to see like um his brother in the crowd and he had his little like paw patrol cap on and then he was like running on the pitch it's like all of that content is so happy and positive the idea that he's not allowed to like enjoy in his brother's like win and success because basically there's like bad people on the internet or because he could be exploited is really depressing and i think that that's not the lesson to take from this.

28:16I think that the line, what we've basically concluded here is that there is a very like blurred line in terms of where it feels okay when a kid goes viral and is posted on social media and where it doesn't. There are some countries where legislation exists to protect child influences and particularly the earnings that they make. So to ensure that they're not just being exploited to make money for their families. So places like France, they've kind of thought about this. And there are some states in the US where they've been reflecting on legislation. In the UK, we've got this new social media ban for under 16s that has passed.

28:49But I think that poses another really interesting question when it comes to this topic, which is kids could be being posted on social media by their parents repeatedly and essentially making content, but they're not even allowed to consume that content until they're like 17. At least now, if you're like 13 or 14, like if your parents are posting you, you can like see the content, like you're able to like go on your phone and see the content. It's quite weird, the idea that like a parent could build an entire brand around a kid because the legislation isn't that you can't post kids on social media the legislation is that kids can't use it it's like does that create an even weirder gap like suddenly you turn 17 and your parents are like here you go here's all your viral content and you're like oh this is odd i hate the problem with the reason we've had to make we've had to ban social media for young people is because there aren't enough kids like just doing innocent kid stuff on it no no no and also kids have been incentivized to some extent to like try and create influencer careers like it's seen as like a viable source of employment and like you'd rather be filming yourself perhaps doing like your makeup or your hair every day than like having to go and do some boring job that you don't fancy doing so you've you know we've seen a whole wave of like 10 11 12 13 year olds who have become skincare influencers essentially they will do like what they'll do like their whole regime like and they're like so little and they're doing like their creams.

30:08Sorry, can I just say like the reason your skin's good is because you're 12. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, you know, like putting on their little like, don't get wrinkly. But you can see why like kids have felt incentivized to do that. Like you can like monetize it, you can build a platform, you can become famous. And like, you know, there are a lot of people who would love to just kind of become famous overnight from posting in their bedrooms. Sometimes we'll do a whole segment of this podcast and I'll think, oh, this is quite a nuanced topic. I don't know, you know, where I land on this. And then you'll say something like, there are 12-year-old skincare influencers.

30:40And I'm like, burn social media to the ground. That's ridiculous.