Séamas O'Reilly: We need to stop lying about what makes lost boys such easy marks for cons

Economically depressed young men are aggressively targeted with the oldest, most seductive pitch there is — money for nothing — by bad faith actors with enormous wealth

Andrew Tate arriving at court in Bucharest, Romania last year. Picture: AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, File

I’ve often been asked why Andrew Tate is so popular with young men. Those asking are usually less online than me, and presume (correctly) that I’ll have an answer because I’m an internet-addicted person who thinks and writes about these things a lot. 

Most will have read about Tate in mainstream reports of his ‘work’; his repulsive promotion of domestic violence and sexual exploitation of women; the Romanian sex-trafficking charges which have only recently been interrupted by his extradition to the US; and his position within a massive network termed the ‘manosphere’. They might know, vaguely, that this is a loose cohort of right-wing influencers, YouTubers, and podcasters, who come in several flavours; from gun-wielding rape apologists like Tate to jocular comedians, gruff UFC fighters, and insane cod-intellectual ramblers like Jordan Peterson. All, however, preach a hyper-conservative brand of masculinity, to which young men are supposedly turning to in droves.