Ian Johnson

You sent me multiple files.

He really sent you some horrifying.

No, they're very vulnerable.

Or not even just losing in a court of law, but losing his audience, which I think in a way is, you could argue that's more important to him. Oh, one million percent.

What's Cousin Tate's expertise?

Oh, sick.

Also, like, I don't know. Dying Grandma doesn't really equate to, you know, a million shirtless Andrew Tate images.

Allegedly.

But anyway, we don't approve them all.

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy.

I'm finally back up in my office. I can finally walk back up the stairs and half the plants up here did not survive the surgery. And I'm really, really, really pissed about it.

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression.

No, but really funny.

And they have so much money to pay for legal advice. And it's sad because most of that money comes from them manipulating 14-year-old boys.

It's like their allowance money is going to the Andrew and Tristan Tate Defense Fund.

God, that's so much fucking money.

It's interesting that you've explained it this way, because I remember when this happened and they showed up and I think it was Florida. Everybody was like, how the fuck is this allowed to happen? And, you know, it just seems like justice system not so good.

Famous, famous truth teller.

So many different right wing influencers were mentioned when we went to the RNC. Tate was not even whispered.

Yeah, I mean, that's one of his things that he does not like what Tate does.

He's a sex trafficker. Yeah, like, you know. Bare minimum, Ron.

That's really close to Trump, though, because Dana White is there.

That's getting close.

He was just arrested for domestic violence.

Just imagine what would happen if he like flew domestic. I just am so curious about how normal people noticed him. What would happen?

Absolutely not. So, you know, whatever, bro. Like, stop complaining about the money you have to spend. You're a fucking predator.

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression.

It's very confusing.

We're all good with domestic domestic violence.

So fuck.

But if you don't want to believe a thing, it's really easy not to.

Yeah.

A thousand percent, like she's going to be just ridiculed online by the worst of the worst.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He looks like a fucking insect.

It looks like a really shitty fucking machete.

It's to look cool to children.

Just on the bed.

A shitty fucking headboard and a shitty fucking bedding and a shitty fucking shirtless body and a shitty fucking machete. His primary audience. His shitty fucking sunglasses and his shitty fucking side table and his shitty fucking curtains and his shitty fucking lighting and his shitty fucking existence. Sorry. I got really triggered too.

Jesus fuck, Robert.

Yeah, I've seen this stupid video before. Let's watch it.

You've seen it before. Trust me.

His tongue is disgusting. I mean, everything about him just gives me the.

Anyway, Ian, you have anything you want to plug?

We'll be back. In the meantime, you know, touch grass.

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, youtube.com slash at Behind the Bastards.

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression.

You do kind of look like a poet today. You're giving poet energy.

Why are they bullish?

I guess, but these guys have gotten away with it for so long that I'm just like, I don't know, I don't have faith in the justice system.

Why are you so confident when you're clearly bad at your jobs?

Yeah, that's way too much.

I really don't like when you're mean to yourself.

Especially if they allegedly are holding a gun.

It's like, I'm just handing out treats to my dogs. It's like when somebody's mean to one of my dogs. I can't stomach it. It's not all right. Also, Ian's here. Hi, Ian. Hi, Ian.

What's happening on this website?

Yeah, Andrew Tate has not changed lives for the better. Come on.

Welcome to walking into us being weird.

A journalist? My question is, is this the same reporter Bashir that fucked with Princess Diana in the UK?

I was like, I was like, red flag, red flag. I don't know.

That's like the B sides. Yeah.

That's a good point.

You have to – I think I saw Jordan B. Peterson like video on Instagram the other day and I didn't know it was him. I was just scrolling and he was – but now that you say that, I'm pretty sure it was him because he was talking about how – Men should be dangerous. Like you should be dangerous, but it's like knowing when to use the threat of violence or not.

It's like, just because you're dangerous doesn't mean you're like a violent person, but you should have that capacity or some shit. That's what makes you a true man. It's like, what?

Crazy.

I can smell the ad dollars coming in right now.

And this is in the 90s still?

Yeah, it sounds like a great way to spend $75.

At the core of what he's saying, it's like most of that sounds like he's making some good points, valid points about, you know, how men have evolved in our society. So I'm just like, where's the twist?

one interesting thing just before you keep going is I think in that quote did he say like justifiably they tried to breed the brutality out of men or whatever so even there like on some level you know, you can kind of like, okay, like I kind of see what the point he's making, you know, men do perpetuate a lot of the bullshit that happens to women in our society.

thank you sophie i appreciate the love and yeah you know it's friday uh ready for the weekend let's talk some tape you know let's let's do it let's get into it friday but also almost saturday uh and ian is currently in his closet yeah and we we may start drinking in the in the near future it might need to happen

And it must be, we should be looking at how feminine rather than opens the door for the toxicity to flow right in.

That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. That's why they're all so bitter. Okay.

Um, I mean, I think that was a really great explainer on kind of laying the groundwork for where the ideas that eventually became Andrew Tate, you know, started and took a foothold. And, uh, yeah, after you broke it down, it makes sense. And I can see how we got there, you know, but it is interesting that, um,

You know, some of the initial original points, like you said, were valid and do kind of highlight some issues in our society that maybe we should be focusing more on or addressing. But also, as you said, it's not just a men's problem. It's a problem for everyone and everyone's being affected by it. And we should be finding solidarity in that. And how can we help everybody improve our lives?

Not just, oh, it's a problem that's only affecting men. So it must be women. You know, those are the real problem. Yeah.

Um, so my limited knowledge of him is he's a, I believe a former MMA fighter who I don't know how he made a lot of money, but it seems like he has a lot of money from what I've seen on the internet.

And he's into a lot of misogynistic men rights kind of stuff. And, uh, he got thoroughly destroyed online by, um, Greta. So I, I do remember that. Um, and I think he's in jail now.

But that actually didn't happen often. That just gives me, like, my dad can beat up your dad vibes. It sounds like something a kid would say.

Just angry grunts. Just shoving.

I didn't think we would get an accent this episode, but I'm glad we did. Oh, I'm from Luton!

Honestly, it's so bad that it's impressive. Thank you. I feel like that takes a lot of skill and control to be that bad.

So most of his fights were against nobodies or amateur guys who just fight on the weekends or something.

Oh, DeMar Hamlin, yeah.

Top ten most Googled person on the planet is – that's a lot of people.

That's disgusting.

That's so upsetting. That's so upsetting.

It's about that he had this... It's about power and control.

We're the bad boys of podcasting, obviously.

One of my really good friends, Jack, this was actually a few weeks ago, we were hanging out and he was like kind of joking, but also serious. He was like, yo, I'm like, it would be scary to be a 13 year old boy right now because of the inundation of this kind of stuff that you're seeing all day, every day. And he was like, I'm not going to lie.

If I was 13 or 14 and didn't know better, I could probably fall for a lot of this stuff. It's like, I couldn't imagine being that age right now and just being flooded with that.

Right.

It's eight grand a month or eight grand a year.

Thanks for having me back. Can't wait to hear more about the horrors.

Nope.

Nope. Robert, I've had 35 years of that. Please don't contribute.

Well, at least he's teaching them to be responsible with that kind of power, right?

The people who would ostensibly be like, hey, what are you doing? This is kind of fucking weird.

We're ready to go. Playoffs are about to start, Lakers in five. Lakers in five. So we're good to go.

Insane.

I feel like you can get pretty siloed into some weird shit. Yeah.

Right. He looks like an evil wizard. He's so bad.

There's so many parallels. I was thinking of this the entire time.

Yeah, I was going to ask, were there any success stories or people who actually did get rich from this? And it sounds like no.

So he's just like basically admitting that like none of this shit really works. But you just got to keep trying and keep giving me money and maybe you'll get lucky. Yeah.

It's like speaks to a larger issue. Like it's not about the money for them or like trying to get rich. It's like a deeper issue, like the control of women and manipulating people and everything.

And it's like they treat him like a god in Romania. It's like, why would I go anywhere else?

So it sounds like he's still a piece of shit.

Yeah. I guess.

I just want to plug the Los Angeles Lakers and my glorious king, LeBron James. Playoffs are about to start. Lakers in five. That's all I got to say. And listen to Hood Politics.

It's just beautiful is what it is.

That was just from one year?

The amount of grown men, like, standing in line trying to get this doll is just, it's, you can't make it up.

So he's giving these kids homework to just like make as many TikTok videos of him as possible. Yeah.

Yeah, either way. Before he went on the show, was he already kind of starting to become famous a little bit? Or was this kind of like a jumping off point for bigger fame?

Yeah, it sounds like a perfect encapsulation.

Yeah.

I have seen Hitch. It's a, I mean, you know, it's a fun little movie. Is he this, I don't think Hitch is that toxic.

Yeah, that's where he draws the line. It's like the supercars just really were too much.

Who can't do critical thinking or make, like, big decisions fully yet.

Thanks for explaining that, Andrew, because I had no idea before.

There's a lot of other options to actually get makeup.

There's nothing. Oh my God.

the most upsetting thing about all of this is like, you can see how like this people can fall for this or like the, how people can be susceptible to this. Cause obviously he's taking it to a sick, disgusting extreme, but like at the core of it, like that does make sense on some level.

If you have a bunch of, you know, old baseball cards or whatever, you can start selling them at school and make a little extra money. But like, he's taking it to such an extreme level of exploitation that, And illegality that it's like insane. But I could see how someone who is maybe not as savvy or is really gullible could be influenced or fall for this kind of stuff.

And that's what makes people like this so fucking dangerous.

It's so infuriating. Cause it's like kind of brilliant. Like the timing of it. Cause like 2020, 2021, a lot of people are out of work or have more free time at their ready to hustle, ready to hustle, make, make some extra cash on the side. And he's just like preying on that. Oh God. It's also like time and weight.

Okay. I would say just, you know, check out Internet Hate Machine. It's one of the other.

That's not what the show is about. No, it is not. That's another Cool Zone Media show that I work on. It's a great show with Bridget Todd. Really relevant and interesting topic about the hellscape that is social media right now. And I would also just say plug just being kind to others. You know, being a nice, respectful person in this world. Life is already hard enough.

It's free to not be an asshole. So I'd say that. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like... Did you see the names of the supplements? Oh, no, I didn't.

That's probably... That's probably useful.

It was, they were like those names from that like other video we watched in the last episode. It was like sheer, I don't even know those words, like sheer perdacity or whatever.

Perspicacity, those were like the names of the supplements.

God damn it. That's like kind of brilliant on two levels. And I hate him for it because a subscription model is just passive income coming in every month as long as you can maintain that subscriber base. And now he has other people doing the work for him. He has this other – he's like community of underlings doing the teachings. He doesn't even have to do anything.

Sounds like he's been watching a lot of Dragon Ball Z. Yeah, yeah. Like what the hell is he talking about?

So I was going to say it kind of sounds like he's dunking on exactly who he is targeting, but I think it's probably like a little reverse psychology thing.

Exactly. And it just speaks to, again, how exploitative the whole thing is because you're going after these people who are already very clearly vulnerable and at a low point. And you're just preying on that and taking advantage of it. And it's just disgusting.

So just to be clear, all this money is from the website that him and his brother are running, right?

Yeah. Screw everybody else. It's just about getting yourself. Yeah.

Oh, my God. They want you to come back. They want you to find a way to get the money to start paying again.

Holy shit. That's crazy. Yeah. And, yeah. And you know he's not paying taxes on anything.

Wow. Yeah. That's like... He's literally like verbatim like clone of – it's insane.

And even like he's doing kind of a weird like semi-British accent thing in there or something. I don't know. Maybe that kid is British. But like everything.

The hand gestures, like all of it.

I do think it's funny. It's like, but if people are looking at Dua Lipa, that means no one's listening to me.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, that feels bad, but okay. Let's keep going. Yeah, it's good stuff. That feels bad.

Oh, no. This whole thing is just giving me, like, Dan Blazarian vibes. I feel like he, like, saw a bunch of Dan Blazarian videos on the internet and was like, I want that. And then he just, like, started doing it. Are you familiar with Dan Blazarian?

That's just... Like I said before, I'm scared. Because there's hundreds of thousands of boys and young men who think like this. And they're not in jail. They're not going anywhere, you know? So this mindset and this ideology is going to continue to be proliferated. And it's pretty terrifying.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's the scary thing. Like somebody else who can can just like study this model, find the holes in it and patch it up. And then, you know, you got your next Andrew Tate, you know, 4.0 or whatever. And that's what's scary about it is as long as.

our current social media ecosystem exists and the way news is covered, you know, the, the, as long as that model exists, somebody is just going to keep finding ways to exploit this and, and do the same thing. And, uh, yeah, that's, that's scary.

Uh, Hmm. Uh, yeah, I would just say, um, I don't know. Yeah. Cool zone media. Great team. Great, great people. Great podcasts. And, um, Oh, tennis. Uh, I'll plug tennis. I'm really into, I'm just starting, um, to play and I'm excited to get out there and get better. Australian open is going on right now. So it's a good time.

I don't know. There might be something there, Robert.

Bye.