Antonio, who agreed to speak about his experiences as a former consumer of content like Tate’s on the condition that I do not use the last name of he and his family, is a self-proclaimed progressive. He has always been vocal in his denunciation of Trumpism and even attended local protests against police brutality during the summer of 2020.

But, despite Antonio's support for Bernie Sanders and social justice, he found himself drawn to anti-feminist gender discussions within right-wing ideology. As part of his daily routine, Antonio would come home from high school and retreat to his dimly lit bedroom, where he would browse Reddit forums, indulging in his daily dose of provocative male pride.

He says that he would instigate fights with women offline and harass them online from multiple accounts. Antonio says that for a time he even argued for the abolition of the 19th Amendment so that the nation returned to a time when only landowning males had the right to vote. The implications of such beliefs are troubling to say the least. How does this happen?

Antonio has company. A recent survey from research psychologists at the University of Texas found that among self-reported incels, people who base their sense of self around a perceived inability to make sexual or romantic connections, 45% leaned left on the political spectrum.

Antonio hid his true political beliefs when he encountered women in person, because he knew they were problematic. "I knew what I was doing was wrong. I made a conscious effort to sort of mask my beliefs, even around women,” he says.

Standing at five-nine and 160 pounds, Antonio speaks with a halting, choppy rhythm. He grew up as a loner. Making friends, and in particular building connections with women, didn't come naturally to him. He suggests this has to do with being bullied throughout school and losing that initial sense of confidence.

Now, a 20-year-old college student in Phoenix, Arizona, Antonio says that he struggled to communicate with women all his life, trying to please them, but interpreting most things as rejection. He now recognizes that he was afraid women wouldn’t like or want him.

Antonio can recall one of his first experiences with a girl in 2015 when he was 13 years old. They became friends in eighth grade, but he concluded that the girl, who came from a broken home, was abusive toward him.

“She used me as a punching bag. She had taken her problems out on me,” he said. “I had emotional breakdowns. She would say things like 'kill yourself. No one likes you.'”

The more she would demean him, the more he would try to earn her approval, and when he couldn't, he began to lash out. Antonio’s anger led him to spread his negative feelings toward all women because he had come to assume they would mistreat him like she did.

Part of the problem, he believes now, is a lack of healthy male role models, which made him vulnerable to being taken advantage of by women.

Although Antonio now understands that Janice's behavior was mostly a result of her own chaotic home life, as a vulnerable teen, he perceived it as confirmation that women found him repulsive. As a result, he felt unable to discuss his relationship confusion with anyone and turned to the internet for support. He turned to the Manosphere, an informal online community focused on masculinity and its alleged crises, for support and quickly became obsessed with seeking answers that consoled and affirmed him.

The Manosphere is a loosely-connected web-based network of misogynistic movements including pick-up artists, men's rights activists, and self-help experts. Involuntary celibates, known as, incels have gained significant attention in recent years and are one of the most violent groupings in the Manosphere.

The incel movement originated as an off-shoot of the pick-up artist community, which aimed to teach men how to seduce women using various tactics. When these tactics failed for many men, they became bitter and resentful. Many incels believe that sex is a right for all men, and women who reject them are committing a terrible crime that deserves punishment.

Common meme in the incel space

Incels believe in biological determinism and the 20/80 rule, which states that only 20% of men are desired by 80% of women. Men who do not fit the description of a "Chad"– good looking, muscular, tall, and wealthy– are doomed to loneliness, as women will always choose dominant men for protection and validation. The Incel community blames Chads for monopolizing sexual relations with women, leaving other men without a partner.

Elliot Rodger's case is a tragic example of the extreme and violent end of this ideology. In 2014, he killed six people and injured 14 others in a mass shooting in California. He blamed women for his loneliness and wrote a manifesto where he described himself as the "perfect guy" who was overlooked for "obnoxious men."

In 2016, after several high-profile deadly acts of domestic terrorism, the incel subreddit, r/incel, was banned from Reddit where it had 40,000 members.

In April 2018, Alek Minassian intentionally drove a van into a business district in Toronto, targeting pedestrians, resulting in the death of 10 individuals and injury of 16 more. Prior to the attack, he posted a message on Facebook which included a reference to the "Incel Rebellion" and praised Elliot Rodger.

Despite organized efforts to track and combat the movement, incel ideologies continue to thrive, aided by algorithms that tend to amplify extreme messages and far-right figures who prey on and sometimes profit from vulnerable young men. In 2022, the most popular incel forum gained 4,000 new members alone.

For Antonio, the online incel community became an emotional crutch, providing him with a sense of belonging and a platform to vent his frustrations about women.

Antonio got hooked on the emotional highs and lows he felt in such forums. His interactions with the groups alternately elevated and undercut his confidence, like he was getting fed and then starved of his perceived own self worth.

At times, Antonio says he found comfort in online communities like r/MGTOW, r/redpill, and r/incel, where he felt justified in his anger and gained a newfound sense of ‘clarity’.

On the now banned Reddit forum r/MGTOW, where resentful men raged about their experiences with ex-wives they suggested are evil. He felt these ideas made him impervious to future abuse from women and thus smarter than men who didn’t ‘go their own way.’

Antonio found relief in r/redpill ideology, which claimed to reveal the secret truth about women that modern feminism tries to conceal. The ideology asserts that women are naturally hypergamous, climbers seeking relationships with wealthier men, and that promoting feminism and progressivism aims to make men weak and obedient.

But most of all Antonio identified with the banned subreddit r/incel, where young men discussed their lack of experience with women and some justified violence against sexually active women and men.

However, Antonio found comfort in the community, as he realized that there were others like him who were struggling with similar issues and weren't abnormal.

"A lot of these men were in situations like I was — shy, reclusive, complaining about their lack of luck with women. They would talk about how maybe it was their physique that stopped them, or it was, you know they weren't tall enough, they weren't muscular enough, they weren't this, they weren’t that. It was very self mutilating.”

Antonio's focus on dating and relationships with women may seem shallow, but it is a common concern. Insecurity and loneliness are not limited to one gender. The incel community has a female counterpart; the femcel community.

The r/trufemcels subreddit was banned from the site in June 2020. Members of this community were also having difficulty navigating the modern dating environment, which they saw to be shallow and commodified.

Common meme in the femcel space

In order to make sense of their complaints, they turned to the idea of taking a 'pink pill,' which allowed them to realize that society was intrinsically prejudiced against women and based on superficial looks. They were cruel, much like male incels. They suffered from 'not-like-the-other-girls' syndrome and made fun of lucky, gorgeous ladies they branded 'Stacys.'

Many people are concerned about their gender identity and how to be successful in love and sexual relationships. This competitiveness might cause people to be concerned about where they stand in respect to others. Although not everyone talks about it as candidly and self-deprecatingly like incels do, many people have these worries too.

In her essay "Does Anyone Have the Right to Sex?", philosopher Amia Srinivasan discusses the complicated issue of desire and how it relates to politics. She says that no one is obligated to desire someone else, but it's important to recognize that desire is not neutral. This means that what we are taught to desire, like being thin, muscular, or rich, can reflect and reinforce social inequalities and power structures. ‘-Cels’ face this issue as they feel pressure to conform to certain gender roles to the point it affects their sense of self.

This pressure on incels to conform to gender roles can be attributed to a society that traditionally prioritizes straight men in resources, jobs, sex, and family, says USC Professor Diana Blaine. But, changes in culture and the way our economy works has made this so this is not happening anymore leaving male identity in limbo.

“They're not always white males, but it's a phenomenon of whiteness in a lot of ways. That idea of entitlement, over women's bodies over resources have been promised to men. And for all kinds of reasons our society isn't necessarily producing the results that all young men are expecting,” says Blaine. “But instead of looking internally, as we all do when we're disappointed, there's a kind of a permission to externalize those grievances and project them onto females, and say, ‘Oh, you've been unfairly deprived of your birthright as males'” she concludes.

Anti-feminism is an effective recruiting narrative across cultures, it helps to bridge the personal with the political. Feminism is portrayed as an enemy by extremists, who can use individual encounters with girlfriends or bosses to support their claims.

“Once this idea of victimization is internalized, it's really easy to apply that same framing to other enemies, whether it's the West, or Liberals, or immigrants. And so misogyny is sort of like really unifying in a lot of the extremist threats that we see both on the far right as well as among jihadist groups.” says Rachael Fugardi, a research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Blaine says that while the internet has facilitated the formation of new identities, it has also led to the creation of identity-based groups, some of which promote hate and extreme ideologies. “That can have wonderful kind of progressive results; LGBTQ isolated individuals going to a middle school in Nebraska, in the olden times, wouldn't have had anybody to talk to or tell. And so now people can find like minded people on the internet. But it can also foment these kinds of identity based groups that then it creates the thing called the incel.”

Access to the internet and social media has made radicalization easier, with OFTEN charismatic figures promising solutions through various forms of extremism. And all of this can happen via closed chats, Facebook groups, Instagram feeds, Twitter timelines, TikTok For You Pages or Youtube videos.

In December 2019, at the height of his radical beliefs, Antonio routinely watched Nick Fuentes, the holocaust-denier too radical even for Donald Trump. At the time, Antonio says he was well-aware that Fuentes was a “disgusting individual,” but still found enjoyment in his content during his most radical phase. He clarified that he always disagreed with Fuentes on race-related issues, but was able to find common ground with the neo-Nazi on anti-feminist gender-related issues.

Antonio spoke of a blogger named Roosh V from the 2010s, who was the Andrew Tate of that decade, giving relationship advice through a male supremacist lens. Roosh V and the red pill community had similar advice to Andrew Tate's recent content. They, along with Nick Fuentes, have used the internet to groom insecure young boys into conservative and authoritarian ideologies. Their content is often characterized by juvenile humor and relatable societal observations. The internet has made it easy for them to find and connect with their audience. This is particularly true of YouTube, which is constantly under fire by users for seemingly promoting toxic content.

Fugardi points out that while the internet has played a significant role in the radicalization process, it is far from the only factor. The radicalization process is influenced by various factors such as individuals, institutions, and ideas.

According to Barbara Molas, from the International Centre of Counterterrorism in The Hague, the internet has empowered individuals to create their own agendas based on their “intersectional ideologies”, which she describes as a holistic ideology with an incoherent agenda but a defined enemy. Think: an individual who merges far-right and great replacement ideas to conclude that enemies of the state are the target.

This has led to a situation where terrorist activity is no longer solely organized by groups, and individuals can now act independently based on their beliefs.

Antonio's online hobby of indulging in alt-right ideologies left him feeling angry and anxious. His behavior became overly sensitive, excessively critical,and combative making it difficult for him to connect with others. He often started arguments with women and ignored their discomfort.

His mistreatment was usually directed towards women he was romantically interested in. “A lot of the people that I ended up hurting [were] people that I get closest to,” he says.

Antonio’s mother Ruth expressed a noticeable change in her son during this time. “His demeanor changed”, she says. He would often assert that “women should follow what the men say and do” and when before they “would discuss everything.”

In March 2020, Antonio attempted to reconnect with a former high school crush, the first girl he thought had feelings for him. After the partial pandemic lockdown was declared, they began to chat via Facebook messenger, but two school transfers later, the chemistry was gone and their dynamic was awkward.

In March 2020 he attempted to reconnect with a former high school crush, who we'll call Lisa, the first girl Antonio recalls feeling truly liked by. After the state of emergency was declared, they chatted casually back and forth via Facebook messenger, but the chemistry was gone and their dynamic was awkward.

“I was trying to reconnect with her because I knew she had liked me back in high school. But, I was just kind of forcing the conversation to carry on,” he recalls.

Until one day when Antonio checked his phone, and she had blocked him. Antonio felt blindsided and rejected. He said this led to tightening in his chest. “I would feel this sensation every moment that I was awake because of the emotions,” he said.

Antonio decided to seek revenge on the young woman by creating a burner account under an anonymous name, publicly accusing her of being two-faced. He also threatened to send private messages about her love life to Lisa's conservative family members, he said, despite the woman not disclosing the existence of her family members to him before. He’d hoped that she would become angry enough to fight with him, but instead of the argument he sought, her messages only expressed her fear.

“She was very candid about her feelings, how she was super scared and upset. She said, ‘I only blocked you because I was going through stuff in my own life. And the way you treated me was very, very unsettling. And I don't think I want to talk with you anymore,’” he said.

Feeling deep guilt about his actions Antonio contemplated confessing what he had done to someone he trusted. And he knew who he wanted to tell, but he was nervous about what she would think of him.

So he told his mother. Despite his involvement in the incel community, Antonio had continued to hold her in high regard. “She’s one of the good ones.” Antonio saw his mother and his sister as exceptions despite his toxic beliefs about women in general. He admired their hard work, intelligence, and their close bond. When he told Ruth, she was responsive to her son.

“That day I started prodding: 'What's going on? Do you need help?' Normally he would have gone to his room and raged. [But] that day he stayed outside in the living room, listened, and talked a little bit,” Ruth said.

She confronted him about his behavior, stating that it was unacceptable, and that he needed to take responsibility for his actions. He did, and he struggled to forgive himself and move forward, she said.

“I try to tell him to have more grace for himself, but it's hard for him. He gets one thing in his mind, and it's torturing him all the time,” she says.

Some believe society's changes make it harder for men to find purpose and place, leading to mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and loneliness, especially for those with past trauma or neurodivergence.

“I have a feeling that there's a lot of generational trauma and we haven't had the best ways to cope,” Ruth says.

Antonio grew up in a crowded multi-generational home raised by his mother, aunt, and maternal grandmother. Together, they lived in a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment where Antonio’s grandmother cooked and performed basic parenting functions while his mother worked long hours in the post office.

His father was largely absent from his life. He recalls, "My dad was just kind of on the periphery. He's outgoing, super social, and a ladies man. I'm the exact opposite — more reclusive, don't like talking to people, and don't trust them very much. So, you know, we're kind of worlds apart in that regard,” he concludes.

Antonio describes verbal abuse from his grandmother and aunt, with his grandmother being physically abusive to their entire household.

He recalls female relatives beating his cousins and how he “would hear and see everything. My cousins would fucking scream for their lives. The cops were called.” This helped convince him that making women angry can lead to trouble, which contributed to his intense fear of female disapproval.

A survey, conducted by social-psychologist Sophia Mosklenko of Georgia State University, of people who identify as incels found that they are far more likely to have mental health problems and to have been bullied than the general population.

These forums attract a disproportionate number of self-identifying autistic men, around 1 in 4, according to an October 2019 self-survey of 550 users on incels.co. People high on the autism spectrum can be susceptible to extreme views due to sometimes heightened response to perceived slights, a strong sense of social justice, and the increased likelihood of social isolation.

Molas says users who had felt that they had been disconnected from their social lives in the offline sphere could find that in the online sphere the more edgy they sounded, the more clicks that'd get, the more people they would be able to connect with.

“While these factors can indicate that someone may be more susceptible to being targeted by harmful users who exploit their vulnerabilities to lure them into online hate communities, it's important to remember that they're not the sole cause of this experience,” said Molas at the counter terrorism center in The Hague.

“This type of persona has been observed not only in users with neurodivergence”— differences in brains function—“but also in those who feel the need to build a sense of belonging and be recognized by groups.”

In tears, Ruth expressed her concern about her son, feeling deeply troubled about the impact of external influences on children. “Our kids are being hijacked.”

Antonio has since come to a realization that his past experiences and upbringing had an adverse impact on him. He recognizes that he adopted toxic traits from his past that transformed him into someone who is very different from the person he used to be. "I experienced grief," he reveals. “I mourned what I had to become. I had been warped by someone who I didn't think I was even capable of becoming.”

To Antonio, Andrew Tate is just another red pill influencer, but his widespread popularity sets him apart. With unlimited internet access and intrusive algorithms, the manosphere spread its reach even more during the pandemic. As the online incel movement adapts and platforms hosting such content are removed due to their promotion of hate and violence, its influence continues to grow.

But for Antonio he admits, "women are not interested in performative masculinity, and I can just be myself."