Photo via the 2024 Netflix Limited Series, “Adolescence”
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The voter data of the 2024 presidential election shocked many, including myself. With Kamala Harris steering a heavily Generation Z catered campaign, crowning Charli XCX’s album “brat” the theme of her campaign, appearing on several social outlets such as Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy,” as well as a Saturday Night Live (SNL) special appearance, many people, despite her overall loss, expected a majority of Gen-Z to have voted for Harris. Being a generation that grew up with the idea of a “better tomorrow,” amidst the peak of online activism, one would assume that Harris won the 18-24-year-old vote in a landslide. Among young women, Harris performed as expected. However, there was a huge anomaly among young, predominantly white males.
In the 2024 election, young white men provided President Trump with the highest support of any youth race/gender group, overwhelmingly preferring him to Harris, with a 65% to 35% margin. In recent years, we, as a nation, have seen a steady rise in conservatism among the white youth. This is because of the digital sphere known as the “alt-right,” a cyberspace made up of predominantly white self-proclaimed neo-Nazis, who spread radically nationalistic and bigoted rhetoric on different social media spaces.
These spaces, collectively known as the “alt-right” pipeline, have been indoctrinating a growing number of unsuspecting teenage boys in recent years through the use of subtle propaganda. This propaganda is spread through various social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit, all apps frequented by young men, and by conservative “alpha” male influencers such as Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, and Joe Rogan. This grifting content often targets self-esteem, a challenge that many young boys face. Whether in video or picture form, this content often revolves around appearance—suggestions to make one look more Eurocentric or “attractive,” or skewed statistics on how girls prefer men of a certain stature (typically Eurocentric, tall, and strong). Through the consumption of gateway content, before they realize it, these young men are consuming content that promotes the ideas of the superior archetype of man, one that assumes power over women.
While to you and me the jump between the two types of content seems drastic, there is a subtle escalation to this content that goes unnoticed. These radical, conservative, misogynistic, and xenophobic views are spread on the false basis of “fact.” For instance, Andrew Tate, a popular conservative influencer and self-proclaimed “misogynist” and bigot, makes claims regarding the incompetence of women on the basis that he’s a “realist.” Tate, in an interview with podcaster James English, “When you’re a realist, you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.” Tate, along with other popular right-wing grifters, uses this fake basis of “common sense” and “realism” to perpetuate their baseless claims with no real facts. Under this basis of analysis, Tate has made claims that women are “intrinsically lazy,” and “belong” to men in marriage. This rhetoric has been seen to have catastrophic effects on the psyche of young men. During the launch of a report into violence against women and girls, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said officers stated that these influencers, primarily Andrew Tate, perpetuate “an element of influencing […] particular boys [that] is quite terrifying.” Tate claims to be a “force of good” acting under the “instruction of God.” When young boys see a seemingly wealthy, successful man making such claims on the basis of realism and God, they’re bound to ignore the lack of validity of these claims. Influencers such as Tate work to indoctrinate these young boys in hopes of spreading their political and personal ideologies into the mainstream. In a matter of mere weeks, a young boy, online looking for guidance and relatability, could be turned into a pawn within the red-pill movement.
There have been various think pieces written on the topic of the red-pill pipeline in recent years. Most notably, Netflix in 2024 created a limited series called “Adolescence.” The series is about a 14-year-old boy who, in 2021, fatally stabbed his classmate Ava White. This case disturbed director Stephen Graham and caused him, along with screenwriter Jack Throne, to create a show spreading awareness on why young boys are committing such extreme acts of violence against young women. The series effectively conveys the childish, innocent aspects of Jamie, the main character, while gradually showing how his consumption of red-pill content online has corrupted his perception of women.
With an estimated one in three women being subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, it is important that the existence of the red-pill pipeline, and its mental ramifications on the male youth, continue to be explored. In an age of technology where children can have total unrestricted internet access, it is important that we, as a society, educate young audiences on subtle racist or misogynistic dog whistles online, before they get the chance to reach the vulnerable minds of young men and indoctrinate them.
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This article was edited by Isabel Adkins and Emma Cate Martin.
John Virgil Aton 
Lara Ejzak 
Nadia Garriga