Afternoon gents, it’s Max from The Young Gentleman’s Guide here! So today’s article is going to be tackling a bit of a difficult question to answer, mainly because I’m going to be discussing some controversial people and concepts, but I feel like this is an important conversation to have at the present time. So, those of you reading have likely heard about the massive controversies surrounding social media personality Andrew Tate, and with his recent arrest in Romania, conversations about Tate and the principles he espouses are being more hotly discussed than ever. However, it’s not just Andrew Tate at the forefront of these discussions. The controversies surrounding Tate have also led to a broader discussion about the “manosphere” in general. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the “manosphere” is defined as “Websites and internet discussion groups that are concerned with men’s interests and rights as opposed to women’s, often connected with opposition to feminism or dislike of women.” While Andrew Tate is often presented as the face and leader of the “manosphere”, this subculture also consists of other websites and publications that espouse very similar talking points. However, we will mainly be focusing on Tate himself in this article as a means of answering this question: is The Young Gentleman’s Guide a part of the so-called “manosphere” that Andrew Tate is such a prominent leader of? Hopefully by the end of this article, I will have answered that question clearly. So without any further delay, let’s get started.
It’s important to point out that I actually don’t disagree with a lot of the basic premises that are put out by Andrew Tate and other members of the manosphere. A lot of these men point out that there is something of a masculinity crisis in our culture today. Many young men today are becoming aimless and are longing for positive masculine role models in their lives on top of the fact that many of the issues facing men today are largely ignored. This aimlessness and sense of longing can lead to a multitude of problems for young men which can manifest in some very ugly and toxic ways. If this weren’t the case, I likely would not have even started this blog in the first place. While the cause of this supposed masculinity crisis can be due to a multitude of factors that we’ll discuss at a later time, many of the men in the “manosphere” subculture realize this and want to use their platforms as a way to teach young men how to be better men and reach maximum fulfillment in their lives. While this may seem like a noble and well-intentioned mission for these men, we all know that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Many of these men may have good intentions, but that does not mean that they have good works or good messages behind those intentions.
People like Andrew Tate have recognzed the problems that I have outlined above and try to take steps to fix them, but unfortunately, many of the values that these men espouse will only leave the young men in their audience feeling more lonely and more aimless than they already are. If you take a look at the values Andrew Tate truly espouses and what he believes what it means to be a true man, what does he believe in? He believes that a true man is someone who amasses loads of wealth, sleeps around with hordes of women, and parades around in fleets of sports cars. He has spoken constantly about “high-value women” and how a woman’s value is almost entirely determined by her youth and how low her “body count” is – that is, how many men she has previously been intimately involved with. He also believes that loyalty is something only valued by weak men and that men should not demand loyalty from women. If this weren’t enough, as a means of illustrating this idea, Tate has even gone so far as to elevate himself to the level of brutal war machines like Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. Clearly, Andrew Tate advocates for a marginally masculine lifestyle that involves frivolous flaunting of wealth, spreading one’s seed as much as possible, and overall only caring about one’s own self-improvement with no regard to those around him. This is not at all what we advocate for here at The Young Gentleman’s Guide. In short, while us and Andrew Tate may be right in recognizing the illness, Tate is distributing the incorrect remedy for said illness.
While we here at the Guide do believe in the general ideas of self-improvement, molding yourself into a better man, and getting the most fulfillment out of life as possible, sleeping around and parading yourself around as the pinnacle of manhood is not the way to go about that. Being a man does require discipline and sacrifice, of course, but there are a multitude of other things that go into it. The biggest thing that Andrew Tate misses is that being a man first and foremost requires humility. Yes, it’s important for a man to do things like keep himself physically fit, strive for his own self-improvement, and be somewhat choosy in regards to the women he dates, but it’s also important for a man to realize that there are powers greater than him and that there is always room for him to learn and grow. Also, how a man goes about learning and growing does not mean just indulging in a hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle like what Andrew Tate advocates for. Growing as a man requires him to invest in and provide for his family and community. Yes, a man should strive for success in his life, and if that means achieving monetary success, that’s perfectly acceptable. What we try to advocate for here is that such a level of success is a means to an end. Such success should allow a man to protect and provide for his family and community in the best way possible. What Andrew Tate tells his followers is that such a level of success should be and end unto itself, and that a man who simply has loads of cash, sleeps around with dozens of women, and owns a fleet of sports cars is the pinnacle of success and manhood.
So is The Young Gentleman’s Guide a part of the “manosphere” as described by the tenets outlined above? If we’re going by what Andrew Tate and others of his ilk are espousing, then no, we absolutely are not. While people like Andrew Tate are correct in recognizing that there is a lack of true masculinity in society today and that our society tends to ignore men’s issues, there is a massive difference in how Tate goes about fixing these problems and how we here at the Guide try to fix them. While we both believe that men should work hard, keep themselves physically fit, strive for success, and unplug themselves from many of the toxic habits and systems that our society today is propagating, we here at The Young Gentleman’s Guide want to communicate that in a completely different way. Men should live a life of virtue, purpose, and discipline as a means of bettering themselves as well as serving as a protector, provider, and role model for their families and communities. As far as women are concerned, we try to teach young gentlemen reading our blog to treat the women in their lives with respect and dignity by means of protecting them, providing for them however possible, and respecting their dignity as human beings. As opposed to Andrew Tate’s belief in sleeping around with multitudes of women as a means of displaying pure masculine power, we here at the Guide constantly reinforce that men should commit to just one woman with the ultimate goal of marrying and starting a family with her. So as a final, definitive answer to the question posited by the title, no, The Young Gentleman’s Guide is not a part of the manosphere, and we strongly encourage all of you reading to to avoid the trap of the manosphere.
Apologies if this seemed repetitive or rambling at times, there was a lot I wanted to tackle in this article, and answering this question requires quite a bit of nuance and tact than it may appear. Nonetheless, I hope that I made the answer to the initial question clear. If we’re going by the values and philosophy posited by Andrew Tate, then no, we here at The Young Gentleman’s Guide are not a part of the manosphere and want the furthest amount of separation from those types of people as we can get. In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading today’s article. Please be sure to share the article, follow the blog, and follow The Young Gentleman’s Guide on Facebook and Instagram. And on that note, this is Max from The Young Gentleman’s Guide, and I’ll see you next time!
Sources:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/manosphere
Andrew Tate’s Twitter (I do not endorse any of what is said below, I just want to let you see the words straight from the horse’s mouth).
The Young Gentleman's Guide 