Post-Tate, post-truth, post-digital: researching and mitigating the misogyny influencers

Abstract

In this critical commentary, we map out some of the key priorities for researchers interested in mitigating the rise of ‘misogyny influencers’. We conceptualize this through the lens of three research paradigms–post-Tate, post-truth and post-digital. First, while Andrew Tate's celebrity might be waning–hence ‘post-Tate’–we highlight how his influence spawned and lives on, in an ever–expanding social media ecosystem of influencers who peddle misogyny and anti-LGBT sentiment for financial gain, which urgently needs further research. Second, we argue that these influencer economies operate through post-truth flows of disinformation, which are affectively sticky, meaning young people can be caught in echo chambers that deepen gendered polarisation, a dynamic which we need to better understand. Third, we document real-life impacts of digital misogyny in contexts like schooling environments and argue that we need to better understand how these dynamics are post-digital, in the way that these experiences become part of young people's lives, on and offline. To conclude, we make recommendations for better media literacy strategies to address digital misogyny's evolving trends.