Summary
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”. Another said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine’”.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action… to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists.”
Every teacher I hear from (US) these days basically says the newest generation coming up is completely screwed. Unreal levels of behavioral issues that are not being addressed at home. Complete lack of engagement with the lesson plan, unfinished assignments all over. They need to curve grades left and right just to get the majority of the class to pass. The parents are more emboldened than ever to make the teachers’ lives hell over things they know nothing about and refuse to take responsibility for.
It’s easy to brush it off as the standard generational nose-thumbing…but this seems different. Something is really breaking down and I think social media is at the center of it.
It’s a shame teachers are pressured to “curve grade” rather than just flunk these people and hold them back a grade.
Schools now lose funding when kids don’t pass, so admins press teachers to move them along.
All Kids Left Behind
Murica’
Many if not all school districts in the States have their funding tied to their performance, so there is a negative incentive to make grades look good. My elementary school tried to place me in their Special Ed program because my grades would have brought the average up there.
Plus, holding back 60, 70, 80% of an entire class just isn’t logistically feasible in most cases.
Something is really breaking down and I think social media is at the center of it.
I feel like you could apply this to almost every societal crisis we’re facing. It’s like social media took every little crack in the foundation and turned it into a chasm.
Parents in Facebook echo chambers trying to discover who to blame for their child’s shitty behaviour then getting into arguments when they are told to perhaps get off their phone and speak to their child.
Children in Facebook echo chambers where they make their neurodivergence their entire personality while simultaneously excusing any and all behaviour due to it.
If both groups spoke to each other a lot could be changed.
It is different, because never in human history has it been easier to influence people. We are literally addicted, as in the brain is literally addicted, to our little disinformation device, the output of which is largely controlled by malicious powerful entities. Now add impressionable young brains to the mix.
It is a pretty terrible scenario with no obvious solution.
Those damn machines, impacting the youth!
Those damn newspapers, impacting the youth!
Those damn radios, impacting the youth!
Those damn TVs, impacting the youth!
Those damn internet connected computers, impacting the youth!
Those damn smartphones, impacting the youth!
Those damn AI models, impacting the youth!
Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants not servants of their household. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Thousands of years of this stuff.
I’m probably just another old idiot who can’t see things for what they really are, but social media does scare the hell out of me. It’s hard to imagine it being a good thing when personalities are shaped by algorithms that exist entirely to drive engagement so a company makes a buck.
It isn’t just rich chocolaty ovaltine. The kid isn’t being brainwashed to drink a sugary drink from time to time. The kid is a constant revenue stream.
We really have reached a whole new level of impression.
Probably going to get slated for this but surely at some point we need to accept our being all nice and friendly all the time just doesn’t work.
Like if kids are this bad send them off to military school for a month till they shape up. Happens again 6 months, then 12. Government mandated, parents don’t like it, they can look after their kids better.
People are absolute shits and don’t give a fuck about others or their future. No amount of “please pay attention or you won’t understand algebra and won’t get a good job” will do anything, you will just get “Why do i need to learn algebra! I’ll never use that. John just told me to shut up, what am I meant to do? Just let him disrespect me like that. You should be talking to John!”
Fuck them. Make them do press ups in the rain see if they learn to shut up then.
How many Gomer Pyles will that produce?
Maybe less than all the murderers we have now. Being straightened out by the military is a well known phenomenon. We can’t keep doing the same things when trends are showing they aren’t working, then expect them to work better. Something needs to be changed.
I’ll broaden it to not just social media, but the totality of endless scrolling social media, plus endless access to narcissist “influencers”, plus addicting video games (inspired by gambling patterns), plus must watch addicting TV shows and movies on demand. A lot of this is endless dopamine machine. Add in both parents working and only children with no siblings is less socialization.
Nooo, kids were like that form the ancient times /s.
lol, and here’s me thinking I’ll get to finally loosen these bootstraps one day. Wouldn’t be Millennial difficulty if something nice happened for once, so why should I expect reprieve in retirement age? Probably just be anxious af anyway because not being abused by another generation seems too good to be true.
Social media is definitely a big thing, even if it’s not the only thing.
I believe it has two parts. The technology can personalize content and optimize for engagement, so it’s more addicting than traditional media could ever be.
And the jackasses making content have no accountability or editorial standards whatsoever. They churn out whatever clicks and they’re willing to lie, incite, and gaslight their way through it.
Combine the low content standards with the high addiction factor and you have a ticking time bomb. Or maybe it already went off and we’re just looking around at the crater left behind.
In my opinion the huge difference between this generation and all previous ones is that content is no longer vetted by anyone. It used to be that to put something in front of kids it had to approved by some sane adult. If a TV station marketed to children something that most parents would not approve they would face protests or maybe even legal action. On social media any asshole can post literally anything and millions of kids will consume it without any supervision.
Have you ever had a creepy guy who hangs around the school desperately trying to impress little kids? Yeah he’s the online version.
He should meet a Luigi.
The problem isn’t that we need to get rid of Tate. They are like flies and there will always be more like him.
What we need to figure out is what made him so persuasive to young boys - that’s the real problem. We need to know why young boys are willing to listen to bullshit like his, and we must figure out what we can do to correct that.
No positive father figure in their lives. No sense of community. Stigma from male role models that want to step up but fear being branded a PDF.
I honestly don’t have a strong sense of how Tate can be so popular. But if I had to guess, I’d say the “no sense of community” is probably the biggest thing.
The internet has become a gathering place where communities and social bonds are formed. I can imagine a heap of people who are struggling socially in the real world seeing, and then seeing Tate and his community offer an ‘answer’ to that - supporting those who feel rejected, and putting the blame squarely on others. That’s what I see as the draw that brings people in. They feel safe and secure in their haven of hatred. Any opposition to them is from people that are weaker and less important. – Which then makes leaving the group almost impossible, because you’d have to degrade your own view of yourself - joining the people who you think are weaker and less important.
So this Tate thing is rot that has taken root because of a gap in more healthy support structures. (I don’t see an easy solution for it though!)
A big part of this is the shallow takes on feminism that are so pervasive.
And to be clear, it’s not feminism itself that is the problem. It’s the complete lack of nuance we have when discussing topics as a society. The idiots outnumber the thoughtful people, and when an idea becomes mainstream, the dumbest possible take is the loudest and the easiest to spread. So actual feminism got out-yelled by idiots taking the idea to the most illogical extreme.
And that leads to light misandry. And even if it is light, it’s so pervasive that young boys now feel like they’re being overlooked and ignored, demonized and generalized with the worst men have to offer.
And again, I have to stress, that this isn’t because of feminism, it’s because of the lack of nuance surrounding all discussion, but in this case, the discussion around men/feminist issues. It’s much easier to spread “all men are garbage” than it is to spread “women have historically faced complex issues that, together, are a societal stumbling block resulting in less favor in everyday life and a harder, more complicated existence.”
And when this is the case, men like these assholes step in to tell boys, “fuck women, you are a king and you deserve everything.” And what little boy isn’t going to be empowered by that? We need to have space for men in modern society that is supportive and open, because right now the only “support for young men” comes from assholes trying to capitalize on the complicated feelings of suddenly feeling like they’re being unfairly overlooked.
Now, that also has to take into account that if the boys are ever overlooked, it’s because there have been centuries of unequal treatment for women, and that has to start to be righted somewhere. And it’s only been in the last, like, 30-50 years. And in all that time, we haven’t taken the high road to equality, we’ve taken the easy road hyperbole and simplistic solutions, which doesn’t solve the existing problem, it just gives us new ones—like this exact problem we’re dealing with now.
Because all we hear about men from the left is that women would rather be with bears, and that men are useless. And that they are oppressing everyone with their privilege.
You tell some poor white kid he’s privileged, he’s not going to be your friend or sympathetic to your causes.
I don’t think messaging from the left has really done anything to win them over. It’s not necessarily that Andrew Tate is telling them anything amazing. He’s just a voice not blaming them for everything.
Maybe it’s because all we hear from your type is how immigrants are the root of all problems, “all lives matter” and junk like that.
What’s my type? You couldn’t have made my point for me any harder than you just did. You just irrationally lashed out at an ally.
What a great example of what they were talking about!
We only talk about the absolute worst men. We have raised them to think that the right is the party for them because otherwise they are being told over and over that they are dangerous predators and nothing more.
You can do both
“There are too many assholes in the world because people let them get away with it.” - Mr Inbetween
When I was 10, or 13 there were literally no issues like this at all. Well, I didn’t even think about girls that much at that age, let alone in overly sexual way, lol.
What the actual fuck is happening with society recently? Is everybody going insane because of social media?
I was a rotten kid growing up with distant parents and a hostile sister.
If I’d had access to porn and comics without leaving the house, I’d have become one of these people.
This is why the tech bros don’t want their kids growing up looking at screens.
I’m not a bro, but my 9 year old son isn’t allowed to watch YouTube unsupervised, because when I was 9 I found my way to 4chan.
That won’t keep him safe…
Yes lol
Is everybody going insane because of social media
Well I can tell you its broken the minds of most of the old people I know, especially fakebook. Old people are seemingly unable to tell fact from fiction online, I mean all people have trouble with that to an extent but its hitting the older people especially hard. Most of them seem to think everything they are seeing from pure political propaganda to obviously fake advertising is 100% real.
We are headed for a world where half the people believe nothing and the other half believe everything which will be a disaster.
Well from what I see it affects mostly old people and younger ones (at least if you trust media, I don’t have any contact with people younger than 20, except my brother which is 6, so it doesn’t really count). Millennials are probably the least affected ones.
Murica is doing typical murica things.
Well the solution to that one 10 year old is pretty clear. Actions have consequences, if he wants to be a little shit he can repeat the grade next year after hard failing this one.
When I worked in a middle school a couple years back, I heard the Tate shit there. Had a student who would name their Kahoot something like “[female students name] has a nice ass” and administration would refuse to allow me to impose consequences.
If you are around teen boys, please talk to them about Tate. He’s not someone who should be walking free, and he’s not someone children should be listening to.
I’ve already raised 3 wonderful & respectful children into mostly functional men, but if I had ever gotten a call like that, the child in question wouldn’t have had a phone or seen another webpage until after they moved out as an adult.
Andrew Tate should just put on the Taliban turban and be done with this charade. His entire schtick is Sharia for Americans.
He already converted to Islam
Tho he seemed to be mixing up Islam with just the Najdi culture.
Stories like this are what I think of every time the topic of regulating social media comes up.
We know it’s programmed to create rage machines. We do, and then people act surprised when social media works as designed.
Yall didn’t see this coming with the red pill derived slang that kids have been using? They’re obsessed with their value. It’s terrifying and capitalism loves it.
Fail em. It’ll be hilarious to the next group of kids who see someone his age in their class. And then the next
That’s not how it works in the UK. Everyone progresses through school regardless of how you perform.
Also known as kicking the can down the road.
If you don’t fail a kid in elementary school they’re gonna fail in high school. If you don’t fail them in high school they’re gonna fail in university or in life in general.
Life has consequences for making mistakes and not learning from them. If we try to shelter children from their mistakes and bad habits then we raise adults who are poorly equipped for handling the challenges of life.
When I was in first year of university I met so many nice, seemingly-well-adjusted people who hit a brick wall with their coursework. I believe around a third of my peers failed to graduate at all in their programs. Many dropped out or transferred to other departments or other universities.
But here’s the thing: my peers had already been subject to a rigorous selection process to get in (only about 10% of applicants were admitted). If you had put all applicants through the rigours of the coursework far more would have failed.
The really tragic part of this whole story is when you factor in the degrees of the consequences for failure. In elementary school the consequences for failure would be very low. Children who are older than their peers tend to outperform them anyway. In university, however, the consequences for failure are very high (thousands of dollars wasted on failed courses that need to be repeated).
The consequences for failure outside of school (real life as they call it) are even higher: unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, and even violence and death.
No one fails. You can’t drive yourself to elementary school.
That’s good, just fuck 'em without disregard. Great model to follow.
Parents need to raise their children and stop letting social media do it.
What if their parents are shitty and encouraging this type of behavior?
The Andrew tate type people tend to have kids because they want sex and that’s all they think about. They don’t think critically about contraception, or long term decision making. Then they either abandon the child/mother, or raise it to be an asshole.
You’re not wrong. Parents can be contributing just as much to the problem. I guess the only common source would be social media in general.
Except social media raised the current parents of the Day. It’s been 20 years dude. People don’t know any different.
Hm yea I guess so. I’m at the age where I grew up without it for a portion of time and then dealt with it in my teens. I never really used it that much though, and don’t use it all now, except for sites like these.
Ironically jokes about the internet raising children is very old. There was a comic strip in Mad Magazine from the late 90s that had a boy go ask his mom ‘mom, if God made everything, who made God?’ She replies to go ask his dad, and when he does his dad replies, ’ go ask the internet!’
It is still funny, but given the incredible amount of disinformation out there it just is a really bad idea.
For sure. It’s too much to keep up with, and now, it’s getting harder to tell what’s real or not.
Removed by mod
The problem is he’s a symptom of broader socialtal issues. Someone else will just rise to fill his place unless we work to address what caused him prominence.
There already are countless others, Tate is just one of the most prominent. Because of all his crimes.
Banning hard drugs doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but it makes them less widely available, which is a good thing. Ban him.
Does it? Or does it just make hard drugs more dangerous and drive up multiple related crimes (burglary, shop lifting, mugging, cocoing, county lines etc) and stigmatise people with addiction issues stopping them from being able to seek help?
I believe it does. It’s really hard for children to buy hard drugs.
It’s also really hard for children to buy booze. Having it legal and regulated stops kids getting it and stops the illegal activities surrounding it AND brings in tax revenue.
With illegal drings you end up with children and vulnerable people falling victim of county lines and cuckooing.
https://metro.co.uk/2025/04/19/cuckooing-devastating-crime-hiding-plain-sight-22926126/
https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/drug-trafficking/county-lines
Watch the series Adolescence (Netflix)
Next to the fact that every. Hour long. Episode. Is a one-take, it shows that this phenomenon is real. It is based on a true story and I won’t spoil anything, but it gets dark from the second it starts.
The series is addressed in the article
