During the latter half of 2022, former kickboxer Andrew Tate created a frenzy on the Internet due to his misogynist remarks and his bizarre comments regarding sexual assault. While several people disagreed heavily with his outrageous takes, he surprisingly garnered an immense fanbase influenced by his ideas of toxic masculinity. Tate became so prominent within the online hemisphere that people within NC talked about him. Now, as Tate currently remains imprisoned in Romania for human trafficking and rape charges, his presence still lingers on to a handful of popular influencers such as SNEAKO and Adin Ross.

Adin Ross started his prolific career on Twitch where he regularly streamed himself playing popular video games such as 2K20 and Fortnite. On a platform where around seven million streamers actively push out content, Ross managed to strike gold on the platform when he started to gain mainstream attention in early 2020. After befriending Bronny James, the son of Lebron James, through an NBA 2K group, Ross only knew how to grow in his popularity with an increasing fanbase. From collaborating with prominent artists such as Lil Tecca and Blueface to centering his content around immature rapping and jokes at the expense of gay people, Ross constructed a form of content that would earn him over seven million followers on Twitch.

Unfortunately, it would not take long for the leading streamer to face controversy. While several people felt contemplation regarding his sus raps on live streams, Twitch certainly emphasized their lack of tolerance for homophobia after banning the streamer for allegedly using a homophobic slur. While Ross and his friends adamantly denied the accusations, this temporary suspension would slowly fracture the partnership with Twitch and one of their wealthiest streamers. Between 2022 and 2023, Twitch banned the streamer on eight separate occasions, leaving Ross to eventually long for a new platform alongside new forms of live streaming and controversial beliefs.

Amidst the gradual divergence between platforms and content creators, Ross encountered the self-proclaimed Top G in the middle of 2022. After their first interaction, Tate coached the Twitch streamer into working out and drinking sparkling water, the duo became attached to each other and would collaborate in numerous live streams until social media platforms began to de-platform the controversial figure. As their friendship expanded, Tate’s influence on the 22-year-old streamer became undeniable as the pair seemingly grew a teacher-student dynamic—with the potential sexual abuser as the teacher and the overtly dumb follower as a student. They finally met up December 2022, where although Tate continuously critiqued Ross’ physique, the popular content creator remained unfazed by it and would only derail moving forward.

“I believe Andrew Tate has had an incredible influence on Adin Ross’ beliefs and you can see that reflected in his change in content. Before, he was known for doing big collabs with celebrities, and now he’s almost exclusively a red pill streamer and it’s gotten to the point where he shaved his head to emulate Andrew Tate’s appearance,” junior Umar Fatmi said.

Once the shocking arrests of Andrew and Tristin Tate became public knowledge, the actions of Ross progressively worsened. January 2023, Twitch banned the streamer from their platform for the seventh time for undisclosed reasons and Ross released a short video claiming that the streaming platform tried to silence him. As the famed content creator began looking for other platforms, Kick offered him a $150 million deal for him to exclusively stream on the platform. Ross immediately accepted their offer, as he asserted that the newly founded platform contains “no terms of service” and he would stream whatever he wanted.

From illegally broadcasting the Super Bowl to forcing people on Omegle to act black, to asking Trainwreck— the founder of Kick— if men can get raped, Ross will certainly continue to act as a spectacle of controversy and immaturity. Even though he started off as an innocent 2K20 video game player, he now submerges into the deep end of horrible content where he will belligerently defend Andrew Tate and as he tweets “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS” in an attempt to stir headlines. Time will tell if Ross will continue down a pathway of sinister content, but for now, he remains a perfect example of how Tate influences online content even behind bars. 

“It should be obvious that Adin is going to sink much deeper into a misogynist rabbit hole, especially now that he’s off Twitch and a part of Kick TV which seems to be an ‘anything goes’ type streaming platform. I think if more controversial figures were to join that platform, it would create a window of opportunity for them to collab with Adin Ross, causing him to sink even further,” Fatmi said.