Nearly two decades after its conception, the internet brought the creation of YouTube and several other platforms that served as video creation sites. But it wasn’t until 2011 when Twitch and the live-streaming fad gripped the online culture. Twitch was a near instant success, providing a more intimate experience and connection with content creators. In addition, it provided opportunities for live engagement–and more dedicated fans. Fast forward to today, Twitch still remains the titan it quickly became in the 2010s, but with an increasing amount of scrutiny targeted at the company and their management of the platform. It could have been the handling of several accusations of sexual assault leveled against creators, or the conflict over allowing softcore-pornographic video streaming to remain live, but Twitch consistently receives backlash from both sides of the political isle, especially considering recent occurrences.

For context, during the early and mid 2010s a new type of harmful rhetoric arose in reaction to the uptick in social justice centered politics. “Gamergate” was a movement spearheaded by 4chan and Reddit trolls, spreading antifeminist and anti LGBTQ rhetoric in the form of hyper-masculine, traditional gender politics and using “gamers” as an umbrella term for right wing “oppressed groups”.

In the past year or so, there has been a rise in a new form of extreme rhetoric that targets the minds of young boys and men, with ages ranging from 12-24. This new strain revitalizes the old trends of the past, but with new flair. “Redpill” politics are a series of self serving rules for life that center around misogyny, stocks, cryptocurrency, entrepreneurship, and the idea of “the high value man.”

Though somewhat derivative of earlier forms of hyper capitalistic, masculine ideologies of the 90s and early 2000s, the idea of “the high value man” is a caricature. Acting as a shadow that prods and encourages insecure men to step into the role of “the provider.” Seek not education, but money and investment. Empirical data has no stock over a real man’s personal experience. Women and cars are trophies accrued through the “high value” lifestyle. As ridiculous and dangerous as these ideas seem, they have a chokehold on young men everywhere. And arguably Twitch, live-streaming, and social media advancements are to blame. 

The ultra-masculine hustler content promoted through figures like Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan got much of the core audience it has from the likes of Twitch streamers. 

In early 2022, Tate stayed ahead of the Twitch terms of service by never creating an account himself, but simply having one of his many business partners or friends create an account for the sole purpose of having him make appearances. Twitch since then has cracked down on the entire idea of redpill politics, but the banning of Andrew Tate and his many surrogate Twitch accounts was too little too late.

December 29th, 2022, police kicked down the doors of Andrew Tate’s Bucharest residence and arrested him and his brother, along with two other on suspicion of sex trafficking and rape. This would be what many thought was the end of the Tate brothers storyline, but at that point their cultural status had been permanently ingrained in the culture. The anti-empiric narrative pushed upon the youth seemed especially timely considering the arrest and banning of the Tate brothers.

Even from his prison cell, the buzz around Andrew Tate and his cohorts didn’t stop. Part of this was thanks to the millions of fan accounts, social media servers dedicated to marketing Tate’s multiple online courses dedicated to cryptocurrency, dropship investing, and his elusive masculinity course called “Hustler’s University” later changed to “The Real World.”

How does streaming impact all of this? The technological advancements themselves aren’t enough, but add some eccentric content creators into the mix, and the problem multiplies. 

Streamer and social media personality Aiden Ross gained fame off of his loud, aggressive, and sometimes offensive livestreams where he played games, talked with popular figures in Hip Hop culture, and embraced every flash of opportunity for popularity and clout. Before his Twitch Ban for streaming pornography through a live video feed, Ross averaged 47 thousand viewers per stream, with an additional 2 million views coming from recordings of his livestreams.

The problem: Ross’s audience is made up almost entirely of children. Ranging from 16 to as young as 7 years old according to Twitch demographics, Aiden Ross had garnered an audience that latched on to whatever opinion he delivered. Including his endorsement of Andrew Tate and some white nationalist figures like Nick Fuentes. It’s important to note that all of this behavior was conducted AFTER Aiden’s banning on the Twitch platform, which forced him to move to another live-streaming platform called “Kick” which is known for its lax views on general bigotry and misinformation. 

This situation is bad for everyone, but reflects especially poorly on other content creators who have a more nuanced perspective, and utilize streaming technology to offer a safe space for marginalized groups, healthy debate, etc. “I’ve got a pretty good idea about how what I do affects my audience,” says Kyle Mucha, a streamer, content creator, and video essayist. “Tate and a few others have a grip on young boys everywhere. It’s given them a vector, a conduit, and opinions to repeat when they feel pressured or intellectually challenged.” 

“Tate may have been banned, but it wasn’t until he got his foot in the door. Millions of people working for social media outlets had the opportunity to pull the plug earlier, and they just didn’t.” Mucha’s words hit close to home. Many children grew up idolizing internet personalities, but this is the first time the idolization has occurred surrounding people who are so flagrant, outward, and open with their damaging statements.

Tate and his team are masters of subverting a consensus, even one decided upon by empirical data. If the scientific method is a narrative in itself, you have plausible deniability for any counter argument that may arise.

So the next time you hear someone outside of a prison cell blame “the matrix,” remember the world they see is completely at odds with observable reality. And this is precisely the great danger of streaming technology and internet figures having unchecked influence on impressionable young people. Reality simply isn’t a factor when your only goal is to own as much of others’ attention as possible.