Andrew Tate and Bonnie Blue: monsters of online culture

You might be thinking, given the current geopolitical tensions, that the greatest threat to humanity is Israel, Iran and the US dropping bombs on one another. I regret to inform you that another humanity-destroying event occurred recently: the Bonnie Blue / Andrew Tate debate on the Disruptors podcast, which dropped on Friday. By Monday evening, it had racked up over two million views on YouTube. Okay, it won’t actually kill anyone to watch it, but it might just kill your faith in your fellow man.

I know the people who produced this abomination probably believed they were simply giving the world some controversial hot takes from two iconoclastic influencers. What Blue and Tate actually delivered was a showcase of their respective daddy issues. No one seems to have taught either of them basic manners, such as: don’t be a misogynistic whoremonger and don’t ‘build a brand’ around shagging 1,000 blokes in a day.

Blue and Tate are oddly alike. On the podcast, he bangs on about how women should be obedient virgins. She reveals she’s obsessed with taking boys’ virginity. ‘I want them to be young, innocent. I want to strip them of that’, she says, practically licking her lips while musing about deflowering barely legal lads. Because it’s ‘educational’, apparently.

It’s rare to encounter a woman who gives off sleazy predator vibes, but Blue manages it. She also claims she’s helping society by sleeping with all those men so they don’t go around raping nice girls. She’s basically a social worker!

Kids, it didn’t used to be like this. You used to be able to just go to your local disco or a mate’s house party, drink a bottle of Scrumpy Jack and snog a boy or girl you fancied – or not. Then maybe go out with them – or not. Nobody cared. Nobody dreamt of being a kept woman in Dubai. Nobody talked about the patriarchy or questioned whether women should have the vote. We all wore baggy jumpers and clunky shoes and rarely saw the inside of a hair salon. And it was fine.

Like Blue, Tate also thinks he’s helping young men. And in an age of screeching woketards, you can see how some of his critiques of progressive culture could have been mistaken for insight, at least when he first burst on to the scene. Then came the allegations of pimping and human trafficking. Then he was accused of sexual assault and physical violence against a former girlfriend. Call me old-fashioned, but I think men who allegedly profit from women’s hard-earned labour are pond scum. At least Bonnie keeps her own money!

Both Andrew Tate and Bonnie Blue scream ‘unresolved issues’. This manifests primarily through their carefully curated personas as outrage merchants. He says women shouldn’t have the vote. She proudly calls herself a whore. They are like teenagers screaming, ‘I HATE YOU, DAD’. They think the world hasn’t figured them out. But we have.

Weirdly, Tate looks to me like an angry 14-year-old, even with his bulging shoulders, despite pushing 40. And Blue, despite her glowing skin, looks like a twice-divorced estate agent pushing 50, even though she’s not yet 30. That’s the funny thing about a life of vice and grotesque exhibitionism: eventually, your face tells on you.

The whole debate / interview is a staggering two-and-a-half hours long. I lasted only 40 minutes. For which I would like to be nominated for the Victoria Cross of the Sex Wars. I might actually have PTSD as a result.

If you’re looking for a black pill on the state of youth and sexual politics, this is it. It’s one of those things that makes you wish you could turn off the internet. The most dangerous thing about these two is not that they simply exist, but that they’re thriving and getting rich.

On behalf of people aged 45 and over, I would like to apologise to the youth for this disaster of a society – one in which charmless charlatans like Bonnie Blue and Andrew Tate become famous not in spite of, but because of, their glaring, irredeemable flaws.

Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter. Visit her Substack here.