I’m not sure what your notion of a blog may be. Today, independent journalists often place their writing on sites like Substack, and they refer to these collections of essays as “blogs.” But Internet blogging has been around for quite a bit longer, and my blog is old-fashioned. [And I am not a journalist. Neither is Piers Morgan, by the way. He is an entertainer: specifically, a mediocre character actor.]
Blogging. When I began writing blogs about fifteen years ago, a blog (short for “Web log”) was a sort of semi-public diary. By 2010 or so, writing on a computer was, in practical terms, much easier than writing on paper or using a typewriter, and many of us who used computers on the job also used them at home. It was easier to make edits, re-sort ideas by moving bits of texts around, and it was easy to quickly share what you wrote with other people on a private or semi-private basis. People began writing blogs about their hobbies, their vacations, their thoughts about specific ideas or social issues. They even used them to communicate plans for a family reunion or distribute photos and information about a wedding.
WordPress. With this new platform, blogs began to include photos and embedded videos (videos that were not actually located at the blogger’s URL). But early blogging projects were not commercial enterprises, and they were not meant to compete as flashy “Web sites.” They were based in long-form writing, and they were meant to feature the writing, with photos and other items a secondary consideration.
The history of WordPress, which was absolutely free to use back then, is fascinating, but I am not going into it here. Just let me say that WordPress is now devoted to commercial Web sites and is very difficult to use. WordPress wants the user to employ one of their designers. For the entire time I have been trying to write this blog, every part of the WordPress platform has been in flux as a result of its focus changing from personal blogging to designer sites and making money. The first version of the platform was intended to allow everyone to write online; now the goal is getting users to pay for themes, designers, and payment-processing schemes.
When the Tates were arrested, I was very involved in writing this blog. I had spent many months watching video of Andrew Tate and had become obsessed with him. Remember, I’m an old woman. I had to research urban slang and other things in order to understand Andrew Tate. Much of what I wrote in the blog was for the benefit of elderly friends who could not make sense of Tate and were imbibing media narratives about him. I just wanted a way for these friends–and people I met online–to see what I saw.
“Action.” I was a schoolgirl during the early protests over the Vietnam War and a university student during the days when American youth organized protests and marches. These events actually changed America’s thinking about that war, about civil rights, and about many elected officials. Not all that occurred was good, but I point this out so you understand that when Andrew was arrested, I wanted to take ACTION. I could recognize that I was seeing a political prosecution, but few of the people I saw commenting online seemed to get it. And as a seventy-five-year-old semi-invalid, I wasn’t going to be able to march.
What I opted to do was to (1) pray for Andrew and his co-defendants at least twice everyday and (2) troll every YouTube comment section I could find to counteract what I saw that was unfair or superficial. I guess I spent about three to four hours a day in this activity. I sometimes got replies to my comments that read “not gonna read allat.” I know that in America, the younger the individual, the less likely it is that he CAN read what I write. The average American eighteen-year-old has the English vocabulary I had at age twelve. And the attention span of a gnat.
I eventually had some problems with my YT comments disappearing, but worse than that, I began to realize that many of the other comments were not being written by actual people, and some were from a few people dedicated to pasting the same remarks everywhere they could. So, I’ve given up on that project.
However, I am trying to get back to writing in my blog. Two of the people who were reading it died this year, but I realize that I need to write for myself more than anything. Writing is my means of organizing my thinking. People talk about “thinking aloud.” Writing is a variation on that, I guess.
My problem at present is typing. I’m left-handed, and I easily scribbled about fifty pages of notes on the Piers Morgan “interviews.” Now, my right hand and arm are not cooperating with my attempts to turn the material into blog posts. I am only able to type in very brief intervals that are spread throughout the day. If I don’t constrain the use of my right arm, the problem will progress until I can’t move it at all. (I’ve been in this shape before several times.)
However . . . The material below the line is something I wrote months ago for this blog. I thought people who treated Andrew and Tristan as equals were superficial thinkers. I did not put this post online when I wrote it because it was unfinished. I needed to search out the related videos and embed them. Before I got back to editing the piece, my attitude about Tristan began to change. (And now, of course, most of those videos are unavailable. But you may remember them.) Anyway, I wanted you to read the post because it explains my early dislike for Tristan.
While the brothers were imprisoned, I began to respond differently to Tristan. Believe me, I hate relying too much on my emotional responses to anything or anyone, but watching the brothers being perp walked in and out of DIICOT and the court, I could sense that Tristan was being a steadying influence for Andrew, who, particularly in the early days of confinement, looked lost or confused. Once the brothers moved to house arrest and began to speak, I could see and hear that Tristan was no lightweight, but rather an intellectual balance to Andrew, as well as a wit in his own right.
I still remain curious about why you–and numerous other young men I have encountered on the Internet–feel that Tristan is somehow “better” than Andrew, and I would love to know more specifics. Please stay in touch.
You said you are twenty-four. I understand that this blog may not be of interest to you, but I hope you will read at least some of it. You may enjoy seeing how the blog posts worked with a few that survived intact, such as Nicolai’s Clue on Tate or my rant about the Lover Boy Law. There are also lighter pieces, such as Hypothetical Matrix Activity, Tate as Storyteller, or Andrew: King of Siam? All the links that appear in the homepage header, which reflect the things as I saw them in the early days of the blog, are also functional.
___________________________________________________
NOTE: As you read this, you will probably think I am too harsh on Tristan. Remember, my view on him has changed. Also, a twenty-four-year-old Nigerian may never have heard of Hugh Hefner, so let me explain that he published Playboy Magazine, which featured nude photos of hot young women. Hefner liked to be seen toking on a pipe as he described his decadent lifestyle amidst a group of barely clad girls, all half his age, which he called “bunnies.”
The term “the Tate brothers” and what Tristan stands for. Once more let me say it. Tristan Tate has fashioned himself into the reincarnation of Hugh Hefner. He’s just sucking on a cigar instead of a pipe. He cannot refrain from exploiting his accidental daughter: he tells us all she came into being only because “[his] bed can’t be empty long,” and he describes in detail the empty and materialistic life he plans for her. And again and again, we have to hear the squalid details of his sex life.
Tristan Tate has nothing close to his brother’s intellect, knowledge, talents, achievements, or Internet following. He lacks Andrew’s nuance, charisma, and sex appeal. If it were only Tristan being tortured by imprisonment in Romania, few people would notice, and the charges would seem plausible to many observers.
Tristan Tate’s basic message: “I’ve got money, and I bang more females than you can count. I’m just fantastic.” “Let me tell you about the sex I had with some stupid bitch I only remember because she texted me recently. I took her virginity, you know.” And “By the way, I have a daughter whose mother I slept with for a couple weeks; you know I can’t have my bed empty.” “I am going to raise my daughter to be a mindless and materialistic piece of ass, and when I pass her on to another man, I will demand the return of everything I bought her because I’m done with her at that point and she is his burden.”
Although I find Tristan disgusting, I certainly do not want him treated unjustly or or harmed psychological or physically. But I cringe every time some teenaged boy says “the Tate brothers” helped him so much.
Giorgiana and Luana. These women are so undervalued by Tate followers, the guys who make the videos about Andrew Tate, that we don’t even know the correct spelling for their names.
Their Romanian captors will keep hoping they will turn on the Tate brothers, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter to the Prosecutor. In the end, he can just add them to his list of so-called victims, claiming they that they are women and they know Andrew Tate, so they must be victims of Andrew’s irresistible charm. And if either of them ever took a business trip with Tate outside Romania, they will be told they were trafficked. Women, according to the Romanian justice system, cannot think for themselves and take responsibility for their own decisions and actions.
Conundrum Andrew Tate 