Andrew Tate has made headlines again — and as usual, not in a good way. The former kickboxer turned social media celebrity has been charged with various disturbing allegations, including human trafficking and rape.

While many people only recently heard of Tate for the first time due to his arrest in Romania, he is extremely well known and popular online as a “self-help guru” who advises boys and young men on how to get rich and attract women. He had more than four million followers on Instagram, at least until his account was shut down. On TikTok, videos of Tate have been viewed more than 11 billion times.

Most of the controversy around Tate involves his views and behavior toward women. Dubbed “the king of toxic masculinity,” he has been widely denounced as misogynistic. In his videos, Tate has declared that women are men’s property and should “shut the f*** up, have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee.” He has claimed that women are partly responsible for being raped, and talked about using violence against women who defy him.

In 2015, Tate was arrested on allegations of sexual assault and physical abuse, but the charges were reportedly dropped due to lack of evidence. In 2016, Tate was kicked off the reality TV show “Big Brother” after a video circulated showing him hitting a woman with a belt.

Despite his statements and behavior, Tate has managed to acquire a huge following, mostly boys and young men. This has led parents, schools and organizations to worry that following Tate’s example will lead his fans to denigrate or harm women.

“Men and boys regularly watching and listening to negative presentations of masculinity may begin to adopt these attitudes and behaviours, believing that they are acting as the ‘ideal man’,” the charity White Ribbon, which works to end violence against women, told MailOnline. “Not only does this create a lot of pressure on men and boys, often affecting their mental health and self-image, it also creates dangerous cultures and environments for women and girls to exist in.”

Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope Not Hate in the U.K., said Tate “poses a genuine threat to young men, radicalising them towards extremism misogyny, racism and homophobia.” Even members of the British Parliament have spoken out against Tate’s influence on students, in response to the concerns of teachers who have heard pupils quoting Tate and behaving in ways that mimic him, such as mistreating their girlfriends.

Experts worry that when young men “deify” online influencers like Tate and adopt his views, it can lead to normalizing misogyny and domestic abuse — and that younger boys are especially at risk for buying into Tate’s toxic masculinity.

A 7th grade teacher in Hawaii told Education Week that young boys “don’t have the social-emotional skills — particularly following pandemic-related school shutdowns when they weren’t in physical classrooms — to recognize how problematic the videos are.”

Some schools have tried to address the issue directly, by teaching students about the negative aspects of influencers like Andrew Tate or providing specific training for staff and raising awareness among parents. Meanwhile, TikTok banned Tate’s account, explaining, “Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok.” He was also banned from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram for hate speech.  Of course, this does not stop boys and young men from seeking Tate out on other platforms, including The Real World, an online community where Tate charges fans to participate.

Since it is impossible to completely silence Tate’s message, anyone concerned about his negative influence must first try to understand what that message is and why so many boys and young men are drawn to it.

Tate projects an image of himself as a rich, successful “cigar-smoking playboy” with a glamorous lifestyle. He shows off fancy cars, private jets, flashy jewelry, mansions, guns and attractive women. GQ magazine called this “a vision of masculinity based on conspicuous consumption, in which both women and cars are commodities made valuable only by how much other people want them.”

This image of success is very appealing to teenagers, according to teacher Jake White.

“Tate has created an image of money and celebrity and I believe many of our young male students are drawn to that lifestyle in the same way they would be film stars, musicians, and footballers,” White writes in a Newsweek article about Tate’s influence on his students. “When you’re young you’re really impressionable. In my view, many young people nowadays prioritize being famous and having money … they want to be a YouTube star or a TV personality who has a brand deal with a fast fashion company.”

But while Tate is fixated on material success, his message goes far beyond that. Many see both Tate’s misogyny and his popularity as a response to how increasing acceptance of feminist ideas and changing gender norms have left some boys and young men feeling uncertain about who they are “supposed” to be. Some commentators have called this a “masculinity crisis.”

“The traditional protector-provider role of men is being replaced by a more equal and undefined gender dynamic,” gender critic Natalie Wynn argues in one YouTube video. “This loss of purpose has contributed to higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality and loneliness in men, which is not ameliorated by well-meaning liberals perpetually calling them “toxic.”

Sociologist Janja Lalich told Newsweek that young people are “looking for who to sort of follow, what to believe, who they want to be.” Another sociologist, Mairead Moloney of the University of Kentucky, told Education Week that students are “really in the process of figuring out who they are and their place in the world.”

Tate responds to this vulnerability by offering his fans a simple, clear vision of what it means to be a man: “Go to the gym, get strong, be respected, have a beautiful girl and a sports car.” Unfortunately, in the ideological bubble that GQ refers to as “the manosphere,” people like Tate and his followers believe that “what women really want is to be dominated” — and become angry when women do not respond positively to this approach. In this way, Tate’s fans seem to overlap with another subgroup that has been discussed a lot in the media: “incels.”

Who can counter this message, and how? The first thing to remember is: as aggressive and loud as Andrew Tate is about his beliefs, he did not invent any of the ideas he is spreading.

“It’s not about Andrew Tate; it’s about misogyny,” Michael Conroy of the anti-sexism, anti-violence organization Men at Work told The Guardian. “These issues have been there for ever … we try to support young people, staff and parents to understand the roots of gender inequality and gender-based violence and see Tate as one small part of that wider issue.”

Laura Tierney, founder and CEO of the Social Institute, which helps students navigate social media and technology, put it this way: “Educators have to find solutions to not keep playing whack-a-mole when it comes to this topic. There is always going to be some negative influencer in the news that students will be following and talking about.”

Just trying to silence Tate won’t accomplish anything in the long run, since ultimately no single person is to blame for the deeper issues that lead to view and behaviors like his. Instead, it’s the basic ideas and assumptions we all grow up with.

“We teach children from the youngest ages that there is a gender that is superior, and there is a gender that is inferior,” Moloney told Education Week. “Kids get the message.” Then, when someone like Tate catches their attention, they believe him.

Changing the underlying beliefs in society isn’t going to happen overnight, so it seems easier to scapegoat someone like Tate, even though in a way that is really just “killing the messenger.” In other words, we can point fingers at Tate, but we also have to look at ourselves and the institutions we have built.

Another factor is that extremism has become highly profitable. Tate himself may or may not even believe in the things he says — in fact, some of his allies have tried to excuse his more over-the-top statements and behaviors by claiming that Tate is playing an exaggerated “character” — but saying extreme things gets him attention, clicks, followers and money.

“Andrew Tate is part of a long legacy of shock jocks and people who make their money being offensive,” Pasha Dashtgard of American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab told Education Week. In that case, Tate has no reason to stop, and others who see his example will try to duplicate his success. However, social media companies and platforms can try to make it harder for people like Tate to turn hate speech into profit.

Whether Tate believes in his own message or not, he is offering boys and young men a narrative about how the world works, and their place in it. New York Magazine sums up Tate’s philosophy of human existence as “a battlefield with winners and losers, men and bitches, kings and ‘brokies.’” GQ puts it this way: “Why change the system to try and build a kinder or more humane world, when you could brutally game your way to the top of a stacked deck?”

If we don’t want young men to buy into that narrative, which encourages them to dominate others and view women as subservient trophies, then we need to offer them a better one — one that makes trying to “build a kinder or more humane world” appealing. The fact that it’s not automatically more appealing demonstrates how complex the situation is. It’s not just about what’s true or right. It’s about how ideas make people feel, about themselves and the world.

It’s also about who is sharing those ideas. Kids are not robots. They don’t automatically believe something is true just because a teacher or parent or other authority figure tells them so. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. Kids admire rebels, outlaws, people who seem to be challenging the status quo. This is why Tate constantly talks about breaking free from the “Matrix” that controls everybody and tries to keep real men down. He wants kids to see him as the ultimate outsider who will save them from being the same as everyone else.

I think this is why a friend of mine first sent me a link to a TikTok video of Andrew Tate. Tate comes across as someone with absolutely no “filter.” The way he expresses himself is completely unpolished — and to many people that makes him seem more real and genuine.

This is similar to how many people view Donald Trump, calling him someone who “tells it like it is.” In other words, people are more impressed by how he says things than by what he says. The same thing is likely true of many Tate fans, since while I was appalled at his lack of social awareness in the clip (“I will not administer CPR unless you are a hot female!”) I did initially find his “unfiltered” attitude appealing.

When I did a deep dive, though, I soon discovered an array of videos that were misogynistic, racist, and even violent. However, Tate’s messages were not all like that. Some of his clips included pretty compelling ideas about how to overcome adversity, see the world clearly, and maintain a sound work ethic in order to accomplish a set of goals. In one clip, Tate uses the analogy of placing two people in a supposedly “haunted” house; the one who believes in the supernatural will fear ghosts, while the one who does not will sleep soundly. This may not be rocket science, but it’s a helpful explanation of how our own mindset can determine how we experience and deal with the world and its challenges.

Part of the answer, therefore, may be teaching kids 21st century better media literacy that helps them differentiate between somebody who just sounds cool and somebody who is actually making sense—or even between different instances when the same person may be saying both reliable and nonsensical things. That way we can recognize both hurtful material and information that could possibly help us grow.

Another part is listening to kids, to find out why they are drawn to popular ideas and influencers, instead of just dismissing them as bad or wrong — and not patronizing kids with cliché advice about how to behave. Instead, kids need to feel like somebody is really paying attention to their problems, so they don’t feel alone or lost.

Tate's image and the empire he built on it may be crumbling. The New York Times recently reported that with Tate under house arrest in his Bucharest compound, "the high-end cars that once crowded the courtyard, including a Rolls-Royce, a Porsche, an Aston Martin and a BMW, are all gone, confiscated by Romanian authorities." However, there will always be an Andrew Tate out there, ready to take advantage of those lonely, lost feelings for their own benefit. We need to make sure kids have somebody real to turn to first, somebody they trust, so they don’t look for answers from people who will say anything to get their clicks and their money.