TikTok, Andrew Tate & the Right to Teach
Who should get to influence the younger generations?
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You may have heard or read recently that the UK government is spending a boatload of cash trying to combat Andrew Tate’s influence in public schools. Thanks to TikTok, Tate’s views frequently go viral amongst the teenage male age bracket and are apparently “radicalising” young men.
In another corner entirely, we have Mr Beast, the most subscribed to YouTuber in the world, who has a reach that dwarfs anything that the mainstream media has ever put out there. In fact, he likely has an even greater influence on the younger generation than every mainstream media platform in the world combined.
That’s a staggering thought.
And with that level of influence, there have also been questions raised by the mainstream media as to who should get to influence the younger generations. Should it be some random, twenty something year old YouTuber who isn’t held to any kind of standard, the Andrew Tates of the world, or the “trusted” mainstream media?
Hmmmm.
When you look at social media with a bird's eye view, you’ll notice we have a smorgasbord of young people giving advice they have no place to be giving considering their lack of experience, success or qualifications. I even wrote about one of them once:
These people are providing terrible dating and marriage advice, poor financial advice, career advice, you name it. And their channels become popular not because they’re filled with good advice, it’s usually because the person is attractive, charismatic and entertaining.
So their shitty advice is basically a Trojan horse into the minds of our kids.
It’s all out there and it’s terrifying, because some of this advice is so horrendously bad that your eyes bulge out of your head when you hear it. But you know what? None of the givers of this advice are to blame. Nope, we can lay that blame squarely at the feet of parents…
