Dating in Perth: Andrew Tate and Rollo Tomasi’s toxic influence on men

She says if she’d known he’d spit at her, she’d never have blown him a kiss. If he’d admitted he would spend their first date defending Andrew Tate, she would never have gone to meet him.

The spitter

Madigan Spooner watched as the sliding doors closed shut, and she moved quickly from the rooftop bar to the dark and deserted street. Madigan wasn’t looking behind her when her date followed her out. She saw her friend drive up and quickly jumped in the passenger seat before she heard shouting, and her date approached the car. The young blonde watched anxiously for the red light to turn green. The moment finally came, and her friend pushed down on the accelerator as her date spat at the car. Madigan watched the man in the rearview mirror as he stood in the middle of the street, staring after her.

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Madigan is a postgraduate journalism student at Curtin University, and because of her recent experiences, she has deleted Tinder and Hinge.

The 26-year-old went on a date with a man from an online dating site who seemed normal, but what was hidden underneath was much scarier.

“We matched on Tinder, we chatted a little bit, and he asked me out quite quickly,” Madigan says.

The pair went on a date to a popular rooftop bar in Perth and quickly realised they weren’t suited.

Madigan says her date only wanted to discuss what qualified Kamala Harris for president and why Andrew Tate isn’t “all bad”.

After the pair realised there wouldn’t be a second date, Madigan says the Tinder man decided to belittle her, criticising her looks, character, and attitude.

Madigan left, saying, “I’m actually not interested in being spoken to this way.”

She made her way down to the deserted street, not knowing she was about to be followed and spat at.

“It was awful,” she says.

“I felt a little bit unsafe because I was like what if my friend was a little bit late?

“What if she’d been stuck at some lights and was a couple of minutes away?”

Madigan is shocked by how many men, like her Tinder date, still follow and support Andrew Tate.

“I think the unfortunate part of Andrew Tate is that he represents a lot of what these young men want to be and not what they are,” she says.

The postgrad adds blaming women for preventing a man’s dream from coming true is “setting a dangerous precedent”.

Madigan is not alone. Women all over Perth have similar stories of dates that have gone wrong and men who have become aggressive.

The Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing chief executive Dr Alison Evans says men’s violence against women is at a crisis level across Australia.

She added sexual violence in WA was increasing, and the state has the second-highest rate of family and domestic violence in Australia.

There has been a 42 per cent increase in sexual offences since 2017, and police have recorded around 600 reports every month, according to Dr Evans.

“We know that a lack of services, shame and stigma mean that 91 per cent of victims never report,” she says.

The friendly soldier

Singithi Keyzer says she could handle the over-sexualisation, but the lack of safety is something she could never accept.

The optical dispenser sat on her bed with the comfort of her dog, Bear. It was her last straw. She’d had enough of Tinder and Hinge. Singithi took out her phone alone in her childhood bedroom and ended that chapter of her life. She held her finger down on the square apps, waited for them to do the classic Apple shake and hit delete.

“The reason I decided to delete everything is definitely because of the safety I didn’t feel, and it was extremely sexist,” Singithi says.

“I think it’s definitely getting worse.”

The 23-year-old says the messages she received from men on the dating apps were both “confronting” and “scary”.

Singithi says her breaking point was when she opened Hinge to a message that detailed everywhere a man would like to touch her.

On a previous occasion, Singithi was talking to a military man when she decided there was no spark and told him it was “probably not going to work”.

After rejection, the “friendly” soldier became aggressive, accusing her of being picky, claiming the rejection meant Singithi thought she was better than him.

“He kind of switched at that moment, turned quite like a person that I haven’t been talking to this entire time,” Singithi says.

According to a report completed by the Australian Institute of Criminology, 72.3 per cent of people who use online dating apps experience “online sexual harassment, aggression or violence by someone they had connected with”.

During her experience with online dating, Singithi says she was exposed to aggression and sexism, but these attitudes weren’t always obvious from the first messages.

Curtin University sexology lecturer Dr Simonetta Cavilli explained sexism is not always blatant.

“Benevolent sexism is when the woman is given [the] role of homemaker and mother, and she’s given a false identity or put on a false pedestal,” she says.

“Hence, it sort of seems like it’s a good idea because doors are opened and flowers are thrown on the floor and the man becomes very chivalrous.

“But what that actually is is benevolent sexism, which means that it looks and smells and tastes really nice, but in actual fact she’s still an object that isn’t able to make her own decisions.”

Dr Cavilli says once a person truly believes sexist and misogynistic views, like those spread by extremist influencers, it can lead to domestic violence.

Dr Ben Rich is an international relations lecturer who specialises in extremism, and he says the way the media portrays far-right influencers or incels often only focuses on extremely provocative comments, which aren’t what influence young men the most.

“In practice, oftentimes [influencers] have a much wider kind of marketing strategy,” he says.

The lecturer says influencers target men’s general anxieties in society to help grow their platforms and connect with a larger audience. These strategies are impacting intimate relationships.

“These guys come along, [and] they argue with a very authoritative, aggressive standpoint that often, I think young men are quite attuned to respond to,” Dr Rich says.

The university professor says influencers use this tactic to draw young men into the shallow waters of the manosphere communities before pushing more extreme views so the process is less jarring.

The safety net

“Boys will be boys,” Misticia Campbell says.

The 22-year-old would never excuse boys’ “gross” behaviour online, but it’s something she’s become used to. Misticia has used online dating apps for years and thinks they can be fun, but she reminds women to be vigilant about their safety. The young musician loves to travel, and she saw another side of online dating during her study abroad in London.

No matter where Misticia has lived in the world, sexualising comments have followed her.

“I did use Hinge in London and went on numerous dates,” she says.

“It’s actually a really great way to meet people, but they weren’t all great.

Misticia says she takes proactive steps to remove “gross” men from her dating profile.

“If someone sends me a really weird message, I just ‘X’ them.

“It doesn’t really bother me that much, and I’ve never put myself in a situation where it could get ugly.”

Although there wasn’t a huge difference in the type of men Misticia would see online she thought Australians put in less effort.

“I think the English boys make a bit more of an effort, they actually want to make conversation and go on dates,” Misticia says.

“Australian boys are a bit more like ‘I don’t care I’m just going to try and get a hookup out of this or nothing’.”

The budding musician used her support network in Australia and London as her safety net.

Misticia makes sure when she goes on dates, her friends know exactly where she is, who she’s on a date with, and when she’ll be home.

Tinder is working on increasing people’s safety online and has created the Consent Course and other safety features such as the ‘Are you sure and does this bother you’ function.

The course aims to educate dating app users about online and in-person consent.

Before creating the course, Tinder found 17 per cent of dating app users in Australia knew ‘little or nothing’ about consent.

Tinder’s Australian communications director Kirsty Dunn says the app recognises its responsibility to shape young people’s experience in dating.

“The findings from our study emphasise the importance of ongoing consent education, and through our collaboration with Chanel Contos and other key partners, we aim to continue to help lead the conversation and understanding on this vital topic, leading to safer and more respectful dating environments,” Ms Dunn says.

From her journalism and podcast experience, Dee Salmin has seen the dangers that occur when people don’t fully understand consent.

She hosts Triple J’s show The Hook Up, which focuses on all things sex and dating.

“I did a really huge story for Hack a couple of years ago, basically about young guys who’d realised that they sexually assaulted people and didn’t even realise that they had done it,” Ms Salmin says.

“They also just didn’t understand, like, consent and boundaries, and they had no education around it.”

To learn more about consent, Ms Salmin suggests looking at Consent Labs, sex education podcasts like The Hook Up, or Relationships Australia.

“There’s a lot of incredible sex education on Instagram as well,” she says.

“Like some really, really great, qualified sexologists and people working in this space.”

Ms Salmin recommends Chanel Contos’ Instagram page Teach Us Consent.

The “bucket list item”

Laura Rankine’s fiery spirit matched her bright red hair as she exclaimed she would never have messaged him back if she knew she was just his bucket list item.

The 21-year-old university student thinks men feel confident sending her outrageous messages because of “the figures they look up to online”.

Laura has used online dating apps since she was 18 and has had to grow thick skin.

The university student says Tinder can be abrupt while Hinge can be a “little nicer”.

A bucket list item is a checklist experience or achievement, and Laura says she’s constantly treated as one in online dating because of her flaming red locks.

“There have just been lots of out-of-pocket [comments],” she says.

Laura says people have messaged her:

1. “On the topic of head, can I have some?”
2. “Never smashed a redhead before.”
3. “You’re on my bucket list.”

The pilates instructor says she wasn’t surprised by the comments she received.

“I have become so desensitised to it,” Laura says.

“Growing up with social media… boys were already saying comments like that on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and just general chit-chat you would hear in the hallways.

“At the start, it used to piss me off, and I would get quite upset, but I feel like I’m at a point now where they are just going to say it anyway it’s become so normalised.

“Like what can you do.”

Laura is very concerned about what her 16-year-old sister will go through when she joins dating apps because of who young boys her age look up to on social media.

The spread of extreme ideas online is often linked to influencers like Andrew Tate.

According to Dr Rich, although these attitudes have always been around, they are gaining more traction in the general public.

“I think one of the things [influencers] are really effective in doing is pushing [extreme ideas] outside of the boundaries of the manosphere,” the Curtin lecture says.

Ms Salmin grew up in Perth, and as a woman in WA, she experienced a boatload of sexism and misogyny from men. At different points throughout her life, Ms Salmin says, people have spoken down to her, ignored her, and slut shamed her.

“I just feel like, unfortunately, my experience growing up in Perth is so universal to so many other women and gender diverse people’s experiences just because we live in Australia,” Ms Salmin says.

From her experience interviewing experts and the public for her podcast, Ms Salmin says gendered violence and misogynistic views are big issues for women.

“A lot of the experts are saying that it’s, so prevalent in schools at the moment, like young guys are always quoting Andrew Tate,” she says.

Ms Salmin thinks the biggest issue is how these influencers are shaping men’s view of women.

“It’s kind of got to a point where it’s really scary, because it’s so polarising at the moment,” she says.

A 2024 study done by the University of Kent found the TikTok algorithm favours extreme material, including misogynistic ideologies.

After only five days on TikTok, researchers found the algorithm started to push misogynistic content on the apps For You page.

The study says users are gradually exposed to more extreme ideologies through soft and humorous cultural memes and posts.

Headphones filled with hate

Jono would never have turned on the podcast if he’d known how easily it would shift his views on women. It all began when he started listening to what was supposed to be a fitness podcast. His headphones suddenly became filled with bizarre and toxic views. All women are the same. Women are for the streets. Control your woman. A woman’s education comes second to her man and family.

The 28-year-old says he was drawn into extreme views through podcasts like Fresh and Fit and red-pill authors like Rollo Tomassi.

(Rollo Tomassi defines the red pill as intersexual dynamics between men and women.)

“I think for me growing up and going through school, I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I subsequently didn’t have a lot of interest from girls,” Jono says.

“I played lots of video games, I had an overbearing father that made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to do a lot of things.”

He believes it was after his first girlfriend “dumped” him that he really fell into the manosphere’s web.

“She dumped me after a month, and my whole world like shattered,” Jono says.

“I was like, what the hell this is insane.”

The young man says he turned to the internet for help, and he was sucked in by pick-up artists, right-wing podcasts, and guys like Andrew Tate.

Dr Rich says pick-up artists judge their success in dating by the number of women they have slept with.

“I listened to Fresh and Fit, and they would say ‘women are for the streets’ and call them derogatory things, and you would laugh about it,” Jono says.

“You end up tarring all women with the same brush.”

It wasn’t until he decided this was not the right attitude that he could dig himself out of the manosphere hole.

Jono actively worked to change who he surrounded himself with and went to therapy.

“It’s been really eye-opening,” he says.

Ms Salmin says men often don’t understand how much influencers’ messages, media, and culture seep into their views of women.

“It’s like they don’t even realise they have that perspective until they are actually told,” she says.

Dr Rich says these influencers manipulate men’s insecurities by giving them an object to fear.

The specific fear that influencers have provided can be challenged and fought, unlike the original anxiety, he says.

Extreme influencers have used this tactic when they instilled fear about transgender issues and women in their followers’ minds.

According to Dr Rich, the spread of extremist thoughts and practices online directly impacts relationships.

“You have more and more people discussing how sexual relationships are becoming more and more violent,” he says.

“You see choking and stuff like that becoming more and more normalised.

“And I think that directly feeds out of elements of the manosphere.”

A study by the University of Melbourne in 2024 says 31 per cent of young people found sexual strangulation through social media.

Dr Evans has seen the negative impacts that come from the increased interest in choking during sex.

“New research has also worryingly found that strangulation during sex has become common for 57 per cent of young people, with many reporting it occurred without their consent,” she says.

Dr Cavilli says non-fatal strangulation is a red flag for domestic violence as well as domestic violence homicide.

The reality seems to be, in Australia, women’s safety is not guaranteed on dating apps or in person.

“Twenty-three per cent of Western Australian women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15,” Dr Evans says.

“I felt unsafe,” Madigan says.

“Boys will be boys,” Misticia says.

This article was adapted from a piece published in the Western Independent, a student journalism publication from Curtin University.