The Cobra is just a Serpent after all.
Andrew Tate's online critics struggle to understand how he still succeeds in getting the backing of new influencers, forgetting how social predators work.
Until several months ago I had been among those that believed the entire case of the Romanian government against the Tate Bros., Andrew and Tristan, was a big stitch-up that “The Matrix” had concocted as a way to silence their freedom of speech. Then I stumbled on an excellent piece of citizen journalism performed by two individuals, Nathan Livingstone of Australia and an American who goes by Murdered by Crayons on Twitter. They did an excellent breakdown of the case against them which is primarily based on statements they made in the past. Thanks to their dedicated work I accepted what should have been obvious which is that the Tates are using the cause of free speech to distract from their very real human trafficking business, illegal and abusive behaviour toward their female victims, and scams that they run on their fans and camgirl customers. If you want to get an in-depth, perhaps too detailed, rundown of their manipulations please watch Crayons’ video below.
What Livingstone and Crayons have been grappling with lately is the continuing willingness of numerous personalities to disregard the red flags that are poking out of every corner of the Tates’ case and give them sympathetic interviews that harp on the notion that their criminal case is about keeping them quiet. The most recent example is Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn who was responding to a post by veteran and activist Ivan Raiklin hailing the joining of an initiative with Andrew Tate and former MMA fighter Conor Macgregor.
Flynn joins a long list of who’s who on the political right attempting to harness the Tates’ notoriety for their own purposes: Tucker Carlson, Benny Johnson and attorney Alina Haba, Russell Brand, and Mario Nawfal just to name a few. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with interviewing an accused criminal, however in too many of these appearances Tate is basically being treated like a modern day Nelson Mandela.
In their frustation over this continuing influence, Livingstone and Crayons are forgetting who they are dealing with. The Tates’ entire behaviour profile is almost that of a textbook predator. Andrew Tate especially so, exuding a certain dark charisma whereas his brother seems to be the dense sidekick. At some point it dawned on me who he reminds me of: Charles Sobhraj, the notorious murderer who was the subject of the Netflix biographical series The Serpent.
Like Tate, Sobhraj was more than capable of physically harming others, but unlike him so far was even willing to kill them if he felt he had to. But what distinguishes them both from the common criminal is their ability to charm others into lowering their guard. Sobhraj was able to exploit the carefree spirit of 1970s Asian tourist hotspots like Bangkok and New Delhi in order to lure western backpackers into his apartment. There he would drug, poison, and then rob them. Some were lucky enough to get out alive, but more than 20 were not.
Likewise the Tates see every person as an exploitable asset. This goes especially for our new “alternative media”. In its push to prove that its legacy predecessors are failing, too many influencers are credulous of the Tates’ nonsense story about being victims of Romania’s crooked justice system. This willful ignorance can only last so long; the Tate’s are on trial in Romania and they have repeatedly falsely claimed their case has been dismissed. Andrew Tate has suckered several Muslim influencers into blessing his “conversion” to the faith only to stab them in the back more recently due to waves of migrant violence in Britain.
This should serve as a reminder that Elon Musk’s quote “we are the media” may be true, but not in a good way. If the alternative media sphere is still working to conceal the truth, then it is no alternateve at all, but rather yet another fig leaf to keep it hidden.