Andrew Tate may be on house arrest in Romania, but the “manosphere” — the disparate collection of pro-masculinity, anti-feminist websites — over which he ruled is still going strong.
Tate, the British-American social media personality and former professional kickboxer who is one of the most Googled men on the planet, is facing charges of participating in organized crime and acts of human trafficking.
In the court of public opinion, the 36-year-old stands accused by many of pushing content that glorifies misogyny and radicalizes young men. In the first week of June, a British woman accused Tate of choking her until she lost consciousness while they were having sex, before subjecting her to threatening behavior, according to a BBC report.
Now, as the self-described “king of toxic masculinity” attempts to rehabilitate his image, other players within the manosphere are attempting to fill his overpriced shoes.
One who is quickly causing controversy — although his 249K Instagram follower tally is a far cry from Tate’s 4.6 million before Tate was banned — is Myron Gaines, co-host of the Fresh and Fit podcast which markets itself as the No. 1 men’s podcast in the world.
Gaines, aka Fit, offers men advice on everything from fitness to finance, sex to sobriety. He is also a vocal proponent of the Red Pill philosophy that encourages men to wake up to the realities of the current mating and dating scene.
“If you are in a serious relationship with a girl, she should not have an Instagram account — that’s cheating,” he has said, comparing it to a woman having a “‘for sale’ sign around her neck.”
Earlier this year, in an interview with Chian Reynolds, Gaines said that men should never fall in love because “you start to lose ground and you start to lose that rational thought.”
“Men,” he told Reynolds, “love women idealistically.” Women, on the other hand, love men from an “opportunistic standpoint.”
In another YouTube clip, Gaines said that women aren’t valued for accomplishments, “they are valued for their beauty … As you get older,” he told female listeners, “your value goes down.”
According to his LinkedIn bio, Gaines helps men “transform from simps into PIMPS” by providing “uncomfortable truths.”
In his book “Why Women Deserve Less,” published earlier this year, he writes: “The relationship between most men and women throughout all of history has been transactional. It has been prostitution. All men are Johns. All women are whores.”
On the podcast, Gaines and his co-host Walter Weekes (Fresh), regularly refer to women as “hoes” or 304s (304 on an upside-down calculator looks like the word “hoe”).
Gaines regularly tells his male followers to lie — or “exaggerate” things like the number of women they’ve had sex with — to their partners and “smash” (sleep with) as many women as possible. He also advocates for dating multiple women at one time.
Like Tate, who has appeared on the Fresh and Fit podcast many times, Gaines regularly warns men against getting romantically involved with single mothers.
“When a woman has a child,” he said on one podcast episode, “there is no upside for you as a man coming in and taking care of that child … The stepdaddy game is an L [loss] for most guys.”
Sadia Khan, a relationship expert and psychologist who debated Andrew Tate last year, said of Gaines: “The message he gives is designed for men who have faced severe rejection in life and, as a result, developed a distaste towards women as a way of protecting their own ego. We can’t be hurt if we reject the very thing we believe we are incapable of obtaining.
“Instead of teaching men how to be more attractive human beings, he teaches them how to remove their attraction towards women and replace it with games and tactics,” she added. “Though this may get you laid it will inevitably leave you only attracting broken women with severe issues.”
“In short,” concluded the Dubai-based psychologist, “if you are a virgin and want to remain one, follow his advice.”
A proud Muslim like Tate, Gaines believes in the Islamic tradition of making females cover their bodies “protect’s a woman’s modesty,” by shielding them “from the dark side of male sexuality.”
Gaines grew up in New Britain, Connecticut; he’s said his mother, from Sudan, was a stay-at-home parent, and his father “came to the United States poor and worked his way up. Prior to entering the manosphere, he went by the name Amrou Fudl and attended Northwestern University, where he studied criminal justice and represented the university’s rowing team.
After graduation, he served as a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in both Laredo, Texas and Miami, Florida (the F&F studio is based in Miami). He resigned from the job in 2020.
An avid Trump supporter — another thing Gaines has in common with Tate — Gaines has amassed a cult-like following on social media, with his short videos racking up hundreds of thousands of views.
He has 1.41 million subscribers on YouTube.
Destiny (real name Steve Bonnell) a gamer, political commentator and YouTube personality with 666,000 subscribers, has appeared on the Fresh and Fit podcast numerous times. He told The Post that he agrees with Gaines on many things — including the idea that “men are judged much more harshly on their accomplishments than women when it comes to dating value, in general.”
“Society,” added the influencer, “seems a bit more protective of women’s feelings.” Destiny calls Gaines an “acquaintance” but not a friend.
Alyssa Drummond, a cultural commentator intimately familiar with the work of Gaines, told The Post that “Myron is actually one of the good guys, believe it or not.”
“I’ve worked with many Red Pill/Manosphere content creators,” she said. “One of the problems with the Manosphere and its content creators involves how much the person on screen matches the individual in real life.”
With Gaines, she said, what you see is what you get. “I’ve never felt disrespected by him and have been treated well.”
When Drummond, who considers herself a tradwife — a woman who advocates for the recognition of traditional gender roles within a patriarchal marriage — first appeared on the Fresh and Fit podcast, Gaines comped her Lyft ride. He also took her out for sushi.
“Listening to a man like Myron Gaines on how to become attractive to women is like listening to Hitler on how to celebrate Hanukkah,” Khan said.
