Originally written for Aarhus University and Danish School of Media and Journalism by Callie Patteson and Wies van der Stroom
Andrew Tate once described himself as “absolutely sexist” and “absolutely a misogynist.”
Though he didn’t worry about the backlash he would face from making such a statement.
Instead, he said, “I have f*** you money and you can’t take that away.”
Within the past five years, social media platforms have seen a rise of influencers using online hate to generate reaction, views, engagements and ultimately: income.
Podcasters and TikTokers like Tate, Sneako, and Myron Gaines appear to have been making a living off of spreading hateful content – much of which is targeted against women.
Many of these influencers have faced certain restrictions on social media platforms such as account bans. However, their content still appears to thrive with fans sharing videos of their podcasts, using hashtags, connected to their brand, or simply following them on other platforms like YouTube and Rumble.
The question arises how these controversial influencers generate their income, and what the mechanism behind it is.
OUTRAGE ECONOMY
Research suggests that controversial content creators thrive on social media platforms due to the concept of outrage economy.
Outrage economy is rooted in the idea that the ability to generate income is connected to virality. Typically this is understood as moral and emotional language being used in a social media post to become viral.
A 2017 study done by New York University found evidence of this, detailing that the presence of moral or emotional language in a number of tweets, caused an increase of retweets by 20%. The same year, Yale Neuroscientist M.J. Crockett suggested that outrage is the driving force behind the virality and spreadability of certain messages online.
Based on this, it appears that social media posts using moral or emotional language are more likely to generate outrage. As that happens, outraged users are more likely to reshare the posts with their reaction, spreading the messages with more users and starting the cycle again and again.
This process of spreading content is nothing new to content creators today.
Example of shared video of the Fresh and Fit podcast on TikTok
“Being polarizing is beneficial to anyone on social media, because your haters at the end of the day, they’re writing comments and they’re getting you traction. Your haters are essentially most like fans,” fashion and beauty content creator Malvika Sheth said.
“That’s sort of how it works because you will get more traction, the more hate you get.”
Sheth has over 130,000 followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Fans and haters working together to generate income for controversial influencers is key to the idea of outrage culture, according to Alison Phipps, a Professor of Sociology in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University.
There is no doubt in Phipps’ mind that this stream of income is “very lucrative.”
“This economy also depends on having both fans and ‘haters’ because growth is achieved through controversy and conflict,” she said.
HOW LUCRATIVE IS IT?
Despite moderation practices, there is still a clear existence of content from creators like Tate and Gaines on social media platforms.
While their official accounts have been removed, other accounts — seemingly created by fans of the creators — continue to share their messaging. Often this is seen through uploading clips of separate podcasts and interviews.
With these posts gaining virality, the disconnected influencers also gain attention. They might not be profiting off the clicks and individual views of these videos themselves, but the virality puts a spotlight on other streams of income for these influencers.
In the end, these influencers seem to make big bucks.
Myron Gaines, co-host of the Fresh and Fit podcast, on Instagram
Gaines for example, has explained on his Instagram account that he left his government job as a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security to pursue his podcast career.
He wrote that he gave himself an ultimatum: “Keep my save GOV 120k a year job w/ benefits or risk it all on a podcast with less than 10k YouTube subscribers and face uncertainty…”.
In another video on the same account, Gaines explained that he is a real estate investor, owning nine properties which he invested in with, as he calls it, “influencer money”. He has also claimed that he doubled his previous yearly income in 2022.
Gaines and Walter Weekes, co-hosts of The Fresh and Fit Podcast which was seemingly removed from TikTok in August, declined to talk on the matter.
It seems that besides spreading their own ‘ideologically’ driven content, boasting about a high income and its benefits is another part of what these influencers place on their platforms.
They emphasize how being a masculine man also entails generating a lot of income; something that is often connected to not giving up, being a strong man, and focusing on yourself as aspects of being successful in life.
This is something that Sneako, another influencer known for his controversial content, affirms in posts on his Instagram account. One picture showing him on the roof of a seemingly expensive car is joined by the description: “10 years of work = Overnight success”.
Sneako’s post. It is not known whether or not this is actually his car.
Both Gaines and Sneako revealed what they believe their net worth to be during a February 23 episode of the The Ahmad Mahmood Show.
During the podcast, Gaines guessed that his net worth was between $2-3 million due to his real estate and business efforts. He also revealed that in 2022, he made just over $1 million from YouTube and his “other entrepreneurial ventures,” and only needed to pay $36,000 in taxes thanks to “business write-offs, depreciation, cost segregation [and] real estate.”
Sneako admitted that he wasn’t exactly sure what his current net worth is estimated at, but guessed it was around $1 million.
Sneako also failed to respond to requests for comment.
As for Andrew Tate, he explained during the Pomp Podcast with Anthony Pompliano in 2022 how he made his money, claiming that he made his first $1 million through his webcam business.
Tate and his brother Tristan are currently under investigation as they are suspected of creating an organized crime group exploiting women. It is not clear whether this webcam business had anything to do with that.
Tate explained that the webcam company came about because he had eight girlfriends and asked himself: “What can I do with these hot girls, it’s just an asset right.” While Tate said he wasn’t a millionaire at the time, he claimed girls “assume I’m this big boy, right”. This is in part thanks to social media, which Tate said played a part in girls thinking he was rich and was the reason for them to come and visit him.
In a documentary released by VICE in 2023, journalist Matt Shea went behind the scenes to film Tate in his villa in Romania, where the influencer talks about having 200,000 monthly subscribers for his ‘Hustler University’ in which people will learn “how to make money today.”
To join, subscribers shell out $49.99 every month. If the number of subscribers is accurate, this would mean Hustler University would bring in nearly $10 million monthly alone. It remains unclear how much of that Tate could take home after taxes and other business expenses.
Tate has previously claimed on social media that he has a net worth of approximately $700 million, however he later removed the Twitter post making that claim.
Tate failed to respond to multiple requests for comment regarding his income.
It is important to remember that Tate’s story is somewhat unique, as other misogynistic influencers are not known for generating income through webcam or sex businesses.
Still, by gaining traction online by posting regularly and controversially on various platforms these influencers often make money stemming from advertisements that are based on the amount of attention they get online.
This is something Tate also appears to use in his strategy, claiming that his followers should flood social media with his content to have maximum traction. According to The Guardian, this has made the influencer millions of pounds.
Many creators also use platforms like Rumble and YouTube, which will pay content creators directly for their content depending on how many views it gets.
How much money Gaines, Tate and Sneako actually make annually, remains difficult to say. As many of these content creators boast about their income, it is not entirely responsible to take their statements about their net worth as the truth without additional verification.
ARE SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES PROFITING?
As this cycle has become more prevalent with the rise of influencers like Tate and Gaines, there is some debate as to why it has been allowed to continue.
One could argue that the easiest way to prevent hateful messaging from spreading on platforms is to remove the source post through moderation practices.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has claimed that platforms, like TikTok, are refusing to take down controversial, outrage-inducing posts for their own financial gain.
“Algorithmic amplification, coupled with platforms’ refusal to take action against content that violates their own community standards, are the significant factors driving the epidemic of online hate, misinformation and other malignant behavior we see today,” the British non-profit said.
CCDH argued that social media companies have a “financial incentive” to under-invest in content moderation and removing content.
“Tech companies are in the business of driving engagement and maximizing profit, which is related to their failure to properly moderate their platforms,” CCDH said.
The non-profit specifically pointed to advertising, claiming that platforms amplify the most engaging content and avoid removing content that violates their policies to increase the amount of time users spend online.
“Social media platforms are designed to amplify the most engaging content,” CCDH continued.
“Put simply, this means that bad actors learn to ‘game’ the algorithm by producing content that is controversial, divisive, or that creates conflict.”
TikTok account that contains misogynistic content and promotes a way to make money
TikTok has aggressively come out against this accusation, saying “It is not in our interest for the platform to have content which is violative of our community guidelines.”
“No business wants to advertise on a platform that’s full of that content,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson insisted the platform has over 40,000 social safety professionals globally working towards keeping TikTok safe for users.
This is done through a number of factors including AI machine learning that prevents certain videos from being uploaded, human moderation, as well as reports from individual users.
Whether or not social media platforms are inherently keeping this content alive for their own gain, it is apparent that we won’t see it go away anytime soon, Phipps indicated.
She also noted that as long as western society remains in a “far-right revival,” with extreme groups attempting to roll back on women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, migrant rights and more, controversial social media influencers will continue to pursue harmful messaging for their own financial gain.
“These misogynistic influencers and other people who are using hate to build their platforms like to pretend they’re speaking truth to power, but in reality they’re speaking for power as these ideas are in the political ascendant.”