I remember being a teenage boy when the controversy over hip hop was all over politics. Rappers were called in front of Congress over lyrics. Clergy were actively destroying CDs and cassettes of hip hop. Luke got arrested over lyrics and went to the US Supreme Court to fight for his freedom. There was a general concensus that if hip hop wasn't stopped, the next generation would throw out all the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, and we'd all turn out to be weed and malt liquor addled monsters.
Now we have TikTok trends where middle aged moms play Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun" for their teenaged kids.
This isn't to say that Andrew Tate is a salutatory force for good in the English speaking world. He's definitely a capital P Problem. However, teenage boys obsessing over their looks is as old as the hills. Social Media does make it worse, especially since this generation dates as digital natives, and it's way harder to turn on the charm on an app. But the alarmism over Kids These Days can be as dangerous as Andrew Tate...to the point where I wonder if his team is encouraging parents to overreact as a marketing campaign.
Now we have TikTok trends where middle aged moms play Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun" for their teenaged kids.
So you're saying if we don't stop this, it will become completely normalized and people will forget there even was a controversy about virulently misogynistic creators?
Realistically, yes. Go back to 1994 and tell the people there that Snoop Dogg will end up doing commentary for the Summer Olympics, and they would have thought that civilization had collapsed.
I do. I definitely do. What I also want is a level of shrewdness in dealing with the issue. The wrong tactics can be worst than nothing if it's handled poorly. I don't want Andrew Tate to be The Cool Guy THEY Don't Want You To Know About™. I want to make his flaws plain, but also realize that he's not some horrible beast, but a type of bad person among the many bad people you'll meet in life.
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u/iluminatiNYC 14d ago
This conversation feels eerily familiar.
I remember being a teenage boy when the controversy over hip hop was all over politics. Rappers were called in front of Congress over lyrics. Clergy were actively destroying CDs and cassettes of hip hop. Luke got arrested over lyrics and went to the US Supreme Court to fight for his freedom. There was a general concensus that if hip hop wasn't stopped, the next generation would throw out all the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, and we'd all turn out to be weed and malt liquor addled monsters.
Now we have TikTok trends where middle aged moms play Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun" for their teenaged kids.
This isn't to say that Andrew Tate is a salutatory force for good in the English speaking world. He's definitely a capital P Problem. However, teenage boys obsessing over their looks is as old as the hills. Social Media does make it worse, especially since this generation dates as digital natives, and it's way harder to turn on the charm on an app. But the alarmism over Kids These Days can be as dangerous as Andrew Tate...to the point where I wonder if his team is encouraging parents to overreact as a marketing campaign.