Thesis: The prominence of social media and digital platforms has given rise to online communities who are ushering in a new wave of anti-feminism.

 

“Over time, we see progress.” This is a statement you could consider as universal fact; no matter the topic, we can assume that as time goes on, things change. In the realm of social justice, we have largely seen that as time has gone on, things have gotten better, that is, society has become more progressive. Another fact is that our society is dominated by the popularity of social media and digital platforms. You would struggle to find a person who doesn’t follow at least one online influencer across multiple digital platforms. With these facts in consideration, it’s interesting to observe how prominent “toxic-masculinity” has become, despite the progress that the feminist movement has made over the decades. The concept of toxic masculinity is something that people who believe in the fundamentals of feminism, seem to shrug off. However, toxic masculinity is actually a new form of anti-feminism that is becoming a more serious problem than we realise. Because of the popularity that misogynist influencers have garnered on digital platforms like content creation and social media, online communities have been developed. These online communities contain an alarming number of individuals who have been influenced and foster ideas of anti-feminism; the increase in size of such communities has given people the confidence to bring their misogyny into the real world, in the form of “toxic masculinity”. It is because of the prominence of digital platforms and social media that we need to be wary of this new anti-feminist movement.

 

In order to address the thesis statement, it can be broken down into two parts; the first being that digital platforms have facilitated the content which contains messages of misogyny. Online influencers are responsible for the creation of content on platforms like YouTube. We look up to influencers in the same way we look up to movie stars and music artists. Influencers have the power to manipulate the opinions and behaviour of an enormous number of individuals (Jaramillo-Dent, et al., 2022). This ‘age of influencers’ has made way for a growing audience of young, impressionable men who are being sold ideas of misogyny in the form of content. A digital platform like YouTube, has strict guidelines and regulations that need to be followed in order to publish, and monetise video content. However, plenty of underlying messages are able to be encoded into content that does follow the YouTube guidelines. YouTube does not publish or promote anything considered to be “hate speech”, and anti-feminist propaganda would qualify as such. But consider FreshandFit, a channel on YouTube that boasts over 1.5 million subscribers. The channel owners: Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes host three weekly podcasts, where they provide advice to men on how to have success in business, dating, and physical fitness. The ‘Fresh and Fit Podcast’ is considered to be men’s self-improvement content, and this is true, there is nothing inherently wrong with self-improvement as a genre of content; and just because its relevant to heterosexual males doesn’t make it misogynist. However, the influencers behind the podcast are guilty of using their podcast as a vehicle for expressing their deeply rooted messages of misogyny (Belle, 2023). During an episode of the podcast, Gaines was quoted as saying,

“I think a woman having an Instagram is 100% cheating, especially if she has scantily clad photos of herself on the internet… Attention for women is like sex for men”.

What Gaines is saying here is that women in relationships should not be allowed to have social media, they should not be allowed to showcase their physical self, because that aspect of them “belongs” to the man in the relationship. How can you not derive misogyny form this statement? It’s important to remember as well that this influencer, who harbours many opinions similar to this, is packaging these messages of misogyny as advice for young men to take and adopt. We understand how much power influencers have over their audiences, so it’s unquestionable that statements like these truly do cause people to believe the same thing. On digital platforms, high popularity also equates to high credibility and so influencers are seen by their audience as trustworthy sources of information (Jaramillo-Dent, et al., 2022). Digital platforms that host content created by influencers, act as the output for messages of misogyny, and there are more examples than just YouTube. As previously mentioned, all digital platforms have guidelines in place to restrict certain content, but some are more lenient than others. In 2023, the ‘Fresh and Fit Podcast’ was permanently demonetised on YouTube as their misogyny became too obvious. As a result, Gaines and Weekes simply moved their content to another digital platform; Rumble, where they remain today and are able to profit off their content because Rumble does not have the same strict guidelines as YouTube. Furthermore, the podcast still exists on YouTube, they just don’t collect money from its traction, but the same harmful messages are still being broadcast to the 1.5 million fans. This is exactly how digital platforms have facilitated the content which is responsible for messages of misogyny being spread to millions of young men. In conjunction with digital platforms, social media’s prominence in society has then furthered the rise of anti-feminism through its capacity for online communities to develop.

 

Online communities on social media, that have formed around problematic influencers as ‘fandoms’, have fostered ideas of misogyny, which has led to a new wave of anti-feminist ideas in young men. At the core of every online community lies a commonality that individuals share, this can be a hobby, a fandom or even ideologies, people actively look for and join communities in the search for belonging. The prominence of social media has made it incredibly easy for individuals to connect with other through passive observation of content, or even direct contact in comment sections and discussion forums. Social media communication technologies coming the forefront of society has fundamentally changed the foundations of what defines a “community”, (Hampton, 2016). Social media has maximised the mobility of people in regard to how they form communities, so much so that we are no longer bound by space, time or social connections (Hampton, 2016). People, and especially young people, belong to a vast array of communities which traditionally have been formed by real-world, connections; examples such as sporting clubs are communities that are formed by people who play the same sport, and the members must occupy the same space and time in order for the community to exist. There would be no community of sportspeople if they didn’t all get together at a set time and play sport. However, with social media like Twitter and Reddit, communities can form by people navigating to a page, and they can connect with each through digital messaging, made possible by social media, transcending space and time. Simply put, social media has brought about countless communities into existence, and specifically fandoms which are communities comprised of people who develop their own sub-culture around a shared interest. Undoubtedly, the majority of young people are a part of at least one fandom. There are fandoms for influencers like Andrew Tate, an open misogynist and anti-feminist who has earned global notoriety. We’ve established just how influential, influencers are, and so we can gather that millions of young men have been exposed to Andrew Tate’s misogynist conspiracies. While it’s become common practice for many, to ignore conflicting opinions online; the growing power of social media has made it increasingly likely for impressionable audiences to be affected by what appears on their feed. Social media offers a constant stream of content that encourages users to passively consume it for as long as possible (Sayogie, et al., 2023). Users who are particularly impressionable, and don’t approach content depicting problematic ideologies, with caution, are at a risk of adopting such ideologies (Sayogie, et al., 2023). Such audiences are also highly likely to adopt problematic ideologies when they are presented with ideas that are not based on fact or evidence (Sayogie, et al., 2023). Andrew Tate has been particularly harmful because he has expressed his heavily misogynistic personal views on online platforms, which have then been condensed into short-form video content that have circulated social media. Tate found himself surrounded in controversy in 2016 when he was kicked off Big Brother UK for assaulting a woman on video, since then he has manipulated his influencer status on online platforms, to force his personal views onto an impressionable young, male audience. Despite Tate’s personal accounts being blocked on most online platforms due to violation of guidelines, the people who did accept his misogyny are then enabled by social media, to spread those same messages to other passive users. When users of social media further the spread of misogyny put forth by influencers, it tends to influence other passive users to adopt the same information, it creates a network where beliefs and values are shaped by the content seen on social media (Sayogie, et al., 2023). As such, we’ve seen social media being responsible for the spread of ideas that otherwise might not have made it to such a large audience. Affected young men, who now harbour ideas of misogyny, which they adopted either directly from an influencer, or passively through social media, seem to seek each other out on ‘X’ or ‘Reddit’. It’s on these social media platforms that communities form, the comments sections on a site like ‘X’, act as communities for victims of Andrew Tate to gather and spew deeply misogynist messages of hate. A site like ‘Reddit’, allows for structured online communities where people can discuss with each other the ideas of Andrew Tate, this is exactly how these people reinforce their problematic opinions. Within such online communities, young men are fostering their misogynistic views, and this has boiled over into the real world as ‘toxic masculinity’. Toxic masculinity is proof of the epidemic of misogyny that exists in online communities hosted by social media.

 

It’s impossible to argue with the fact that the invention of digital platforms and social media has brought about numerous positive effects on society. Digital platforms give many of us our daily entertainment, news, and for some, they are the enablers for careers as influencers. I personally like that influencers are as prominent as they are, however, more attention needs to be given to how much damage the wrong influencer can do to an impressionable audience. Just as influencers can inspire us to achieve great things, they can similarly brainwash us into believing ideas of misogyny that don’t have any basis in reality. Social media has provided humans with the ability to connect with each other on a scale never before seen, and such connections are an essential to happiness. So of course, social media has done so much good. But we shouldn’t simply praise these forms of communication technology, without acknowledging their dangers. We should do more than just acknowledge these dangers, we should take greater care to filter out harmful influencers, and we should restrict younger people from having the same access to social media as adults do. “Over time, we see progress”, and the popularity of digital platforms and social media is progressing faster than our own society, we are not adequately adjusting societal policies to align with the way the digital world functions. I believe that the right work will be done, and eventually, there will be much more positive talk to be had around digital platforms and social media. But for now, we can blame digital platforms and social media for the creation of online communities, which are introducing a new breed of misogynists into the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

Belle, J. (2023). The Rise and Fall of the “Fresh and Fit” Podcast. Hotnewhiphop.com. https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/705566-fresh-fit-podcast-demonetized

 

Hampton, K.N. (2016). Persistent and Pervasive Community: New Communication Technologies and the Future of Community. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(1), 101-124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215601714

 

Jaramillo-Dent, D., Contreras-Pulido, P., & Perez-Rodriguez, A. (2022). Immigrant Influencers on TikTok: Diverse Microcelebrity Profiles and Algorithmic (In)Visibility. Media and Communications, 10(1), 208-221. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i1.4743 

 

Peres-Neto, L. (2022). Journalist-Twitterers as Political Influencers in Brazil: Narratives and Disputes Towards a New Intermediary Model. Media and Communication, 10(3), 28-38. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i3.5363

 

Sayogie, F., Farkhan, M., Zubair, Julian, H.P., Al Hakim, H.S., F.Auza, & Wiralaksana, M.G. (2023). Patriarchal Ideology, Andrew Tate, and Rumble’s Podcasts. 3L, Language, Linguistics, Literature, 29(2), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2023-2902-01